Charles Rangel: “I came to this empty Chamber to discuss the issues of jobs and also the unemployment compensation extension, as well as…”

“I came to this empty Chamber to discuss the issues of jobs and also the unemployment compensation extension, as well as taxes. As I neared the well, I heard one of our esteemed Members condemning the President for persecuting religion in a very broad and general way and then later more specifically in talking about the Roman Catholic Church. It would seem to me in a place like the United States of America, which was actually formed on the basis of freedom of religion, that such a serious accusation against the President of these United States should not be to an empty Chamber. This is such a serious allegation that it would seem to me that it requires and demands a bipartisan view to see exactly what the churches' or religious leaders' complaints are because I have one, too; and that is, at a time when this country is facing a fiscal, as well as moral, obligation to the most vulnerable people among us, I see the battle between the haves and the have-nots, the 1 percent and the 99 percent.…”