Charlie Rangel is allowed to say pretty much every terrible thing that pops into his head

The Democratic congressman who once referred to members of the Tea Party as “white crackers” accused members of the 21st century conservative grassroots movement of being responsible for the bombing and lynching of American minorities.

Rangel also reiterated his longstanding claim the Southern GOP doesn’t believe “slavery is over” and that it won the Civil War.

“Take a look and see, what are the symbols that the majority of slave-holding states, if they identify with the Tea Party, and if they do, where are the warriors of the Civil War, the Confederates?” he said. “They’re all over these states and even today are denying it!”

HuffPost Live host Marc Lamont Hill laughed off the claim.

Rangel offered an “apology” for using the term “white cracker,” laughably explaining that he thought it was a “term of endearment,” but maintained that the issue is silly, considering that his critics are the ones lynching and terrorizing minority voters.

“[I]t shows how ridiculous it is. A guy from Lennox Avenue who’s in the Congress calls mean-spirited people, that bomb and kill people, set dogs on them, lynch people, and still refuse to believe that we’re suffering the pain from this, and they can say, ‘That guy makes a lot of sense, but he had no business calling us a white cracker,’ ” the New York congressman said.

The HuffPost Live host laughed off Rangel’s characterization again.

Rangel spoke in the present tense, but he seemed to be referring to a period quite long ago. In addition to frequent lynchings that occurred mostly in the first half of the twentieth century, there was a particularly violent period of resistance to the Civil Rights struggle in the South during the 1960s, including bombings aimed at black Americans. Children who were just ten years old in 1963, and thus did not likely participate in such atrocities even then, are now 61 and nearing the age of Social Security eligibility.