Charlie Rangel's War
It's a war against being treated like all the rest of us, like by being expected to pay his rent.

Rangel stiffed New York taxpayers out of at least $87K, reports the New York Post, when he stopped paying the rent for his Harlem district office.

Michael Gartland reports that Rangel blamed the sequester (after his staffers claimed something about not being able to find the signed lease):

Rangel paid $7,253 in monthly rent on the 125th Street office he has rented since 2000, expense reports from 2012 show. But the payments stopped for all of 2013.

Incredibly, instead of demanding payment of the back rent and late fees from its deadbeat legislative tenant, the state cut him a huge rent break.

The state says it allowed Rangel in March 2013 to enter into a new sweetheart deal in which he could postpone paying six months of rent. That "abatement" money has still not been paid, nor has the other six months of missed rent from 2013, a OGS official said.

The state comptroller approved a $101,000 lease between Rangel and OGS on Dec. 26, 2013, retroactively covering the period back to April 2013 and future months through December 2014, records show. The 21-month deal resulted in a deeply reduced rent of $4,809 a month.