I don't care what anyone says Charles Rangel did.

I really don't.

Back in the late 1980's I was working on my Masters in Social Welfare from SUNY Stony Brook I interned at the Central American Refugee Center. They were (and are) a legal aid organization. At the time they mainly provided legal aid to people from El Salvador who were applying for political asylum. It was a tough job because the government of El Salvador was being propped up by he CIA. So the people we were helping were fleeing the government that was our ally.

I observed a trial once. I got there early and sat in the observation area. There were two other men in the court room and they were both bemoaning the fact that their copy machine was broken. It turned out they were the judge and the US Attorney. The shared a copy machine. I was only a first year grad student but I knew that was fishy.

Then our client walked in. He was wearing a suit and was accompanied by a translator and his lawyer. He testified that in El Salvador he was a member of a law firm that represented members of the resistance. He said that his live was threatened, he family members and business partners were killed or "disappeared". He lifted up his shirt and showed the court his scars from where he was shot. He further testified that he believed with all his heart that if he returned to El Salvador he would be killed.

The government attorney asked him one question. "What are you doing in the United States to support yourself?" He replied that he was washing dishes. The judge immanently ruled that he was an economic refugee and should be deported.

The bullets that shot him and the paper for that broken copy machine were both paid for by the same organization; The George Herbert Walker Bush Regime. I figured that out too.

Anyway, my job at the Central American Refugee Center was to create a document that summarized what governmental benefits were available to people in various strati of "documentation". For example, if an "illegal alien" is injured while working "illegally" he is still entitled to Workman's Compensation, or if laid off can still get unemployment benefits. I present this information to groups that were providing support to the refugee population. (The yet to be born Tea Party jerks would have really loved me.)

So one Tuesday or Thursday when I came to the Hempstead office I noticed things were a little tidier. Instead of the usually hello, I was greeted with "Oh, we forgot you were coming today, put another chair around the conference table and join us for the meeting. So i sat at the end and still noticed that there were two empty seats. Then in walks Congressman Charles Rangel, and his aid.

Sitting next to Charles Rangel was not the big deal. The BIG DEAL was that the entire meeting happened in SPANISH and when Mr Rangel realized that I did not speak Spanish he kept me in the loop without disrupting the meeting. Yes, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee translated a two hour meeting for me, a lowly intern.

That is why he will get reelected even if he is in jail.