Results tagged “representativecharlesrangel”

Representative Charles Rangel is a just a magnet for media investigation these days! The NY Times questioned his four rent-stabilized apartments and, more recently, a large donation to a school being named after him; the Post found out about his vacation villa and unreported income from it. Now it's Politico which does some digging about campaign websites Rangel's son created for his dad.

Inquiries are being made both internally and externally following yesterday's report of Charles Rangel's latest tax headache--this time surrounding questions of Rangel taking an "homestead" tax break on his D.C. home by claiming it was his primary residence--while primarily residing in Harlem at the time. The Post reports that watchdog group National Legal and Policy Center is filing a House Ethics Committee complaint against the congressman. And Rangel's own lawyer announced that his (in)famous accountant will review the situation, telling the Times, “The New York Post has raised a question about the tax treatment of a property the Rangels once owned. The property was sold more than eight years ago and we have asked Congressman Rangel’s accountant to retrieve the records about it.”

Just days after Representative Charles Rangel was allowed to keep his chairmanship of the House Ways and Means Committee, the NY Post reports on another possible headache for the Harlem Congressman.

It's the day after Representative Charles Rangel's press conference discussing his tax issues related to not reporting 20 years of rental income (totaling around $75,000) to the IRS, and the big headline is that no one seems to quite buy one of his excuses. From the NY Times:

At a Capitol Hill news conference, during which he was by turns remorseful and combative, the congressman said that he had not been aware of the income and unpaid taxes in part because he had trouble getting detailed financial statements from the resort’s managers in the Dominican Republic.

Continue reading "No Spanish Disposition: Rangel's Language Barrier Claim"

While Representative Charles Rangel has defended his multiple rent stabilized apartments--one of which he is giving up--as legal and aboveboard, today the NY Times details how his landlord has attempted to evict other longtime rent-stabilized tenants(ones without political juice), sometimes using aggressive tactics.

Once upon a time, former President Bill Clinton only meant good things for Hillary Clinton's presidential bid. But now, his poorly received remarks in the past few weeks (a "fairy tale" here, a Jesse Jackson reference there), Hillary Clinton is left claiming her husband is sleep deprived and just human: "Well, I think it's human nature. I think that the spouses of all three of us have, you know, been passionate and vigorous defenders of each of us and, you know, maybe got a little carried away."

After the national debate about race turned into the national debate about how race discussed in the Democratic presidential campaign, Senators and Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have declared a truce. The stir was caused by Clinton's remarks about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s efforts ("Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act...It took a president to get it done.") and when Obama criticized Clinton for belittling King's achievements...which then lead to Clinton accusing Obama of making mountains of molehills.

When Governor Spitzer announced he was dropping his controversial plan to offer driver's licenses to illegal immigrants yesterday, he was praised by his fellow Democrats. The NY Times notes that the decision won Spitzer "the kind of wide acclaim from elected officials that he could not win for the proposal itself." And that's gotta sting a little. Spitzer had first introduced a broad plan to allow illegal immigrants to get licenses, which caused outcry from...

Yesterday morning, Secretary of State Condolezza Rice visited Community School 154 in Harlem. Accompanied by Representative Charles Rangel, Rice, former Provost at Stanford, encouraged the students to dream big, “One thing that I want you to promise me is that you won't let anybody else tell you what it is you ought to be interested in. You'll find what you are interested in and you'll pursue it and you won't let anyone say 'Why would you want to be interested in that? You’re from Harlem.'"

You may have many opinions of Senator Charles Schumer. A man who gives weekly press conferences by way of making the rounds on Sunday morning news shows, someone who will "put a bullet betweens the president's eyes," the senior Senator of New York, orchestrator of the Senate's shift back to the Democrats, husband of a recent Department of Transportation commissioner, imaginer of middle class couple the Baileys, cereal hog. But defender of hedge funds' and private equity firms' desire to keep their low tax rate? Who knew?

Congratulations to everyone graduating this month! As NYU's commencement was today, with speaker jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, we decided to list the many NYC commencement speakers, with help from The Chronicle of Higher Education (if we've missed any or gotten it wrong, let us know in comments):

President Bush visited New York City yesterday to encourage Congress to reauthorize his No Child Left Behind program. Bush gave a speech at the Harlem Village Academy school and praised its founder, faculty and students and emphasized the importance of the NCLB Act. Bush made it a point to visit all eight classrooms and shake every student's hand, prompting one student to tell the Sun, "I think it was the best day of my life," and a teacher to ask Bush for more money to be added to NCLB.

Senator Hillary Clinton brought out a big gun in her fund-raising arsenal last night: President Bill Clinton, who introduced her last night, noting that they had met 36 years ago at Yale Law School. He said, "You will never find anybody who will do a better job of it than she will." It was their first major fund-raiser together, and tomorrow they'll be in DC for another event. About on million dollars was raised, with tickets ranging in price from $1,000 to $4,600 per person.

In a meeting with attendees like Senators Schumer and Clinton, State Senate majority leader Joseph Bruno and Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, Representative Charles Rangel criticized Governor Eliot Spitzer. He said that Spitzer's aggressive handling of Medicaid and health-care-industry issues is only making the problem worse and isn't helpful - and that the governor's proposed cuts are too deep.

Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, visited New York City yesterday. While the showiest part of their night may have been the presentation of a Global Environmental Citizen Award to the Prince from the Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment, we bet the most fun was had during the couple's visit the the Harlem Children's Zone. The Harlem Children's Zone, which includes the Promise Academy and other services and programs for the community, welcomed the royals with demonstration of an after-school investment program for kids, rehearsal of a scene from "A Midsummer's Night Dream" and a basketball scrimmage.

For politicians, Martin Luther King Jr. Day was busy as they made the rounds at a number of city events. Governor Spitzer, Lieutenant Governor Paterson, Mayor Bloomberg, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, and Representative Charles Rangel all appeared at the Reverend Al Sharpton's National Action Network's House Justice and also the Brooklyn Academy of Music's celebration.

Yesterday morning, Mayor Bloomberg met with the family of Sean Bell, who was fatally shot when the police fired 50 times at a car carrying him and two of his friends hours before his wedding over the weekend. The Mayor also met with black religious figures, community leaders and politicians before a press conference where he said:

It sounds to me like excessive force was used. I can tell you that it is to me unacceptable or inexplicable how you can have 50-odd shots fired...

Continue reading "Mayor Responds to Queens Shooting, Calling It "Unacceptable" and "Deeply Disturbing" "

If you were wondering how former mayor Rudy Giuliani feels after the thumpin' the Republicans took last week, wonder no more, because he's been facing it with the same, stubborn Rudy-vision that we all remember from his NYC mayoral years. The NY Times was on the scenefor a speech Giuliani made:

In his first public comments about last week’s Democratic sweep of Congress, Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former Republican mayor of New York City, who is a possible 2008 presidential candidate, said on Sunday that he did not view the election as a major rebuke to his party. But he said that Republicans “have to go back to your principles in figuring out how you react to something like this.”

Continue reading "Rudy, Denial is a River in Egypt"

One of the Health Department's big initiatives has been to help New Yorkers quit smoking, and it's been working, especially with the smoking ban and the cigarette tax. However, after looking at numbers that reflect a slight rise in smokers between 2004 and 2005, the Department of Health would like another cigarette tax to hit its goal of 250,000 more former smokers. Health Commissioner Tom Friedan said, "It is now more critical than ever that New York State grant New York City the authority to raise the city's tobacco tax." To the tune of 50 cents, smokies! But don't fret too soon - amNew York says that it's unlikely that Albany will allow the tax. amNY also recalls a quote from Representative Charles Rangel: "If a guy makes a million dollars and a guy makes $10,000 they pay the same taxes on cigarettes... It is regressive."

The chairman of General Motors headed up to Harlem to open the first car dealership there in 40 years on 127th Street, between Second and Third Avenues. Rick Wagoner was joined by Mayor Bloomberg, Representative Charles Rangel, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson for the opening of a Chevrolet-Saturn of Harlem dealership and the Potamkin Cadillac-HUMMER dealership, making them the only car dealerships above 57th Street. GM and the Department of Transportation will also be offering free child safety seat inspections to Harlem families. The city is especially proud of the dealership, as it was created in part by $17 million in Empowerment Zone bonds.

Columbia University excitedly announced that the Jerome L. Greene Foundation was donating $200 million for a brand new neuroscience center, The Jerome L. Greene Science Center, to study the mind, brain and behavior. This is the largest private gift ever to a university to create one facility. We say, hoorah for the alma mater, and while more research for the human mind is wonderful, we do wish more could be done to lower tuition. At any rate, Columbia President Lee Bollinger continues to love the life sciences. (On a Bollinger tangent, Gothamist doesn't think he'd ever open up his house to a thousand happy Columbia students after a big football win the way he did in Michigan because we doubt that many students even go to the games and the NYPD would probably have a heart attack.) And we're interested in knowing how the Greene Foundation is so loaded - sure, he was a real estate lawyer, but those must have been some sweet investments.

With fallen DC lobbyist Jack Abramoff's plea deal freaking out the Beltway, people would expect him to turn over Republican congressmen Tom DeLay and Bob Ney. But Gothamist wondered if any of our area politicians were involved. And, naturally, some were, which isn't surprising given money Abramoff had at his disposal (through Abramoff's organization, about $915,000 went to Republicans in Congress, while $770,000 or so went to Democrats; however, Abramoff's personal contributions seem to be limited to Republicans themselves - about $127,000 worth). Newsday reports that Representative Charles Rangel was the top New York receipient of Abramoff's largesse, getting $36,000; he was followed by "Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-Rochester) at $7,000 and Rep. Nita Lowey (D-Westchester) at $2,000":

Rangel, who has not been implicated in any wrongdoing, said he is unfairly in the spotlight because of Abramoff's actions. "Don't know him, never met him, never took a dime from him," said the senior member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

Continue reading "NY Politicians in Abramoff's Web"

Rosa Parks, the Alabama seamstress who refused to give up her seat on a segregated Montgomery bus and ignited the civil rights movement, has died at age 92 in Detroit. She had suffered from dementia since 2002, but Parks' legacy has reached far and wide for the past half century. After being tired of years of poor treatment on buses (she had had a run-in with the December 1, 1955 bus driver back in 1943), her decision to stay in her seat stirred the imaginations of many Americans, including Martin Luther King Jr. Her life and the events surrounding her arrest in 1955 are recounted with great detail in various obituaries from the New York Times, Washington Post, Detroit Free Press, and Birmingham News.

While federal officials finally selected a memorial design for the African Burial Ground, a Duane Street site where thousands of African-American skeletal remainds were found, many people were unhappy with the decision. Some heckled officials, complaining that the selected design by Rodney Leon of AARRIS Architects (rendering above) is too large and overwhelms the 5-acre plot. A preferred design is one by Cheryl McKissack of McKissack & McKissack, which leaves more of the ground in tact by having displays around the grounds. The opposition comes from the Committee of the Descendants of the Afrikan Ancestral Burial Ground, which claims that nothing was supposed to be built on the ground; supporters of the design, which include Representative Charles Rangel and Howard Dodson, told the Times "There's never been any question about whether or not a memorial should go on the site." There will probably be further discussions about which design is better, but given that it's been over a decade since the site has been found, it just goes to show that planning a memorial is a complex process, full of many opinions.

The surprising support of Reverend Al Sharpton for the Jets' West Side Stadium plan is making people wonder what this really means for the Mayor's preferred plan. Sharpton, along with a few other key black Democrats like Representative Charles Rangel, has argued that supporting the Jets' plan needs to come before party politics, because the Jets are making efforts to make sure that minorities will get some of the construction jobs. Sharpton also pointedly said that Cablevision's plan offers nothing, leaving Cablevision to say their minority construction initiative would equal or exceed whatever the Jets are proposing. What Gothamist is curious about is how the Mayor will capitalize on this kind of cross-the-party lines support - even though Sharpton has promised to endorse a Democrat in the mayoral primary - for his pet project; Bloomberg has already made sure to hire key black Democratic strategists to work on his re-election campaign. What we do think is funny is how other Democrats are trying to make a case for the stadium in Queens; though there may be merits, the thing is that the Jets just don't want to be in Queens, it just seems like only a talking point to us that's just not feasible given the various parties' interests.

Demonstrators hit the streets yesterday, to protest the second anniversary of the Iraqi war. One protest started in Harlem, followed by a rally in Central Park featured words from Representative Charles Rangel ("It's one thing to go to war; it's another thing to mislead the American people") and other politicans. Protestors also went to Mayor Bloomberg's Upper East Side townhouse. One protest organized by United for Peace and Justice stopped traffic in Times Square when they laid down next to coffins; police arrested 27 of the protesters there. Manhattan resident, David McReynolds, age 75, told WNBC 4, "This country was founded by acts of civil disobedience," as he marched with the UPJ group.

God, there's nothing like a Clinton-running-for-office rumor to make Democrats and Republicans wet, though for different reasons: Representative Charles Rangel is trying to stir things up by saying he is telling Bill Clinton to run for NYC mayor. Of course, the mayor is pretty vulnerable right now, public opinion wise, as Bloomberg officially has the lowest poll numbers - 24 percent approval rating - of any New York mayor. Ever. The Times says it's part of a pall of pessimism that has set upon New Yorkers about the way the city is going - high unemployment, no smoking, more sales tax, etc.