Emphasis on "a few".

“There’s growing concern at the piling up here of issues,” said one Democratic lawmaker who asked not to be identified talking about Rangel. “People are willing to give some time to the process, but not an infinite amount of time. There will come a time, if this goes unresolved, when the drip, drip, drip will become a torrent.”

Two Mississippi Democrats, Gene Taylor and Travis Childers, have already bailed on Rangel, voting against him on Wednesday.

Also on Wednesday night, Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., who is running for the Senate, chose not to sign a Black Caucus letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in support of Rangel.

Seriously, what does it take these days to be removed from the House? Charlie Rangel has now "found" like a million dollars over the past couple years that he failed to report to the IRS:

He has admitted that he failed to report to the IRS rental income from a Dominican vacation home. He’s been accused of improperly using official letterhead to solicit money for a City College of New York education center bearing his name and helping a big-dollar donor to the center keep a lucrative tax break. There are also allegations that he maintained multiple rent-stabilized apartments in violation of New York City rules.

All of those issues have been under examination by a four-man investigative subcommittee that has issued nearly 150 subpoenas, interviewed almost three dozen witnesses, reviewed 12,000 pages of documents and 2,100 pages of transcripts and held more than 30 meetings, according to the ethics committee’s statement.

Now, Rangel will have to combat allegations that cropped up when he amended several years of legally required personal financial disclosure reports in August, revealing that his 2007 disclosure had understated his assets by as much as half.

He initially reported a range of assets between roughly $500,000 and $1.3 million but later amended that to between roughly $1 million and $2.5 million.

Are you serious? Look at that laundry list. If a Republican had been involved with half of those shenanigans he would have been on his ear in a week without a hearing.

This dirtbag has to go. My faith in the integrity of Congress evaporated a long time ago. But every move they make in the right direction, starting with ousting such transparently corrupt assholes like Rangel, will go a long way in restoring that respect.

They got a lot of work to do.

Russ

Update on Friday, October 9, 2009 at 12:16PM by Russ

Swiftly becoming my favorite, moderately level-headed Liberal columnist, Eugene Robinson at WaPo takes the Dems to task for being something short of honest on Charlie Rangel. To be sure, he takes the obligatory swing at Tom DeLay for good measure, despite their 'violations' being not even remotely similar, but at least he's willing to acknowledge that Charlie Rangel is a tax-cheating slumlord who has indeed committed numerous ethics violations.

Good on ya Gene.