A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

Not while the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee is engaged in shenanigans like the ones described here:

Harlem Rep. Charles Rangel took a "homestead" tax break on a Washington, DC, house for years while simultaneously occupying multiple rent-stabilized apartments in New York City, possibly violating laws and regulations in both cases.

The situation raises a number of potential problems for the congressman, including:

• New York City law requires that tenants use rent-stabilized apartments as their primary residence.

• DC's real Property Homestead Deduction Act also requires that a property receiving the benefit be a primary residence.

• Tax lawyers told The Post that a property owner cannot have two primary residences - or take advantages provided to primary residences at two different addresses simultaneously.

• DC's law also requires that the owner of a property benefiting from the tax break be a personal-income taxpayer in DC. District law exempts members of Congress from paying personal DC income tax, but they must pay property tax.

Is Nancy Pelosi going to do anything about this? And if not, can we call her a failed Speaker yet?