I think that the facts are beginning to catch up with him, which is a pity, because he’s right on the issues:

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel, a New York Democrat, has been admonished by the chamber’s ethics panel for trips he made to the Caribbean.

The committee determined he violated House gift rules when he accepted the trips to conferences in 2007 and 2008 sponsored by the Carib News Foundation. The foundation received contributions from corporations specifically to fund the conferences, the panel said in a statement.

The committee said yesterday that while it didn’t find evidence Rangel was aware of the funding, members of his staff did and “Representative Rangel was responsible for the knowledge and actions of his staff in the performance of their official duties.”

We are going to be seeing more of this, and I do not expect Rangel to run for reelection in 2012, because by that point, the pile of sleaze will be too high.

I expect a new eruption every few months for the next 2 years or so.