Summer of Corruption: Maxine Waters/OneUnited Bank refresher course
On the heels of the Rangel House Ethics tangle, word came down this weekend that fellow Congressional Black Caucus member and racial grievance-mongering diva Rep. Maxine Waters will face her own House Ethics Committee trial.
The subject of the inquiry? Her government cronyism of color wheeling and dealing with minority-owned bank OneUnited Bank in Los Angeles. Regular readers of this blog know all about it. I reported on the mess in March 2009 and am reprinting my column/blog post on the subject in full below as a refresher course. Culture of corruption chickens coming home to roost:
***
My syndicated column today takes on racial demagogue and crony of color Maxine Waters, whose crooked ways I’ve covered since my first days at the L.A. Daily News. It’s about time the rest of the media put her under the microscope. Wait ’til she starts beating them over the head with the race card. It’s worked for decades. Now, she’ll just have to scream louder. I am looking forward to watching the Democrats try to ignore this most beastly example of the culture of corruption in their fold.
(Reminder: Go back and look at my liveblogging of the TARP debate. Note how aggressive Waters was in taking a lead role pushing congressional black caucus members to swallow the crap sandwich. No disclosure of her own self interest in the matter. She’s just a Champion of The People, speaking Truth to Power. And here’s another reminder of minority racketeers pushing for their bailout cut with Waters’ assistance. Business as usual, rainbow coalition shakedown-style.)
I think we should start referring to Waters as “Bank of OneUnited,” the same way she referred to bank execs by their company name.
***
Culture of corruption: Banking hypocrite Maxine Waters
Posted March 13, 2009
Maxine Waters: Banking on hypocrisy
by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2009
At a flail-and-wail House hearing last month, California Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters melted down in front of big banking CEOs. “Raise your hand! Raise your hand!” she shrieked as she harangued the executives on their business practices and management of federal bailout money. Sneering at the “captains of the universe” whom she refused to address by name (“You, Bank of America!”), Rep. Waters excoriated the corporate heads for their greed. ” All of my political life,” Waters bragged, “I have been in disagreement with the banking and mostly financial services community because of practices that I have believed to be not in the best interest always of the very people that they claim to serve.”
As you’ll soon see, however, the ethically conflicted Rep. Waters has her own special definition of what’s in “the best interest” of the people she claims to serve. While she crusades against crony pseudo-capitalism, she is one of its most hypocritical beneficiaries and advocates. Cronyism comes in all colors. Waters has once again earned her title as one of the “Most Corrupt” members of Congress from the left-leaning (yes, left-leaning) Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).
The bank CEOs sat meekly during Waters’ verbal flogging. But as she frothed at the mouth, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Franks covered up the microphone and chastised her briefly. To no avail. Waters’ motor mouth kept on running. Did the banks raise interest rates on credit card customers after they took Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money, she thundered? Thumping her fists on the table, she then railed about their loan modification policies (“How many require that you have to be behind by two months!?”). Blustering about underwriting fees they paid themselves on government-backed bond sales, she yelled: “You made money off the TARP money!” One of her fellow Democrats finally ended the diatribe: “I’m going to have to calm you down because when the Chairman gets back he’s going to have to penalize me.”
Fast-forward a month later. The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the high-and-mighty Waters had a personal and financial stake in Boston-based OneUnited, a minority bank that received $12 million in TARP money under smelly circumstances. The banks’ executives donated $12,500 to her congressional campaigns. Her husband, Sidney Williams, was an investor in one of the banks that merged into One United. They’ve profited handsomely from their relationship with the bank:
“Congressional financial-disclosure forms show Ms. Waters acquired OneUnited stock worth between $250,000 and $500,000 in March 2004, as did Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams joined the board of OneUnited that year. Each sold shares in September 2004 — including Ms. Waters’s entire stake — but Mr. Williams continued to hold varying amount of the company’s stock. In the lawmaker’s most recent financial-disclosure form, dated May 2008 and covering the prior year, Ms. Waters reported that her husband held between $250,000 and $500,000 worth of the bank’s stock. Mr. Williams also received interest payments from a separate holding at the bank, also worth between $250,000 and $500,000. The 2008 form doesn’t specify what that is. Mr. Williams stepped down from the bank’s board last spring. It couldn’t be learned whether he still owns stock in the bank. Mr. Williams didn’t return calls seeking comment.”
Waters (along with Rep. Frank) participated directly in pressuring the feds for OneUnited’s piece of the bailout pie. She personally contacted the Treasury Department last December requesting $50 million for the company– and failed to disclose her ties to the bank to them. The government ended up coughing up $12 million in TARP funding for OneUnited — despite another government agency rapping the bank in October 2008 for “operating without effective underwriting standards and practices,” “operating without an effective loan documentation program” and “engaging in speculative investment practices.”
Oh, and get this: The favored bank of Maxine Waters was also penalized for alleged excessive executive compensation. The FDIC ordered the bank to “sell all bank-owned automobiles,” require reimbursement for executives’ car purchases (according to the Boston Business Journal, OneUnited CEO Kevin Cohee was cruising around in a 2008 Porsche SUV), and cease payments on a $6 million Santa Monica beachfront home purchased by Cohee, his wife who served as bank president, and others.
Responding to scrutiny of the bank’s special treatment, Cohee is now accusing critics of — yep, you guessed it — racism.
Now, who is sick of Democrat shakedown artists sanctimoniously lecturing others about the culture of corruption? Raise your hand! Raise your hand!
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When/if the LSM begins to report on this, wanna bet they leave off the “D”?
Great job Michelle. Keep this fire lit. We need to be rid of this on both sides.
Just a little more revelation on the Sherrods, going back to Bill Clinton…
wonderful, saintly folk…
This will ruin her retirement plans. Wonder who’s next.
Keep on it, Michelle!!!
Of course, if the MSM only did their job …
Draining the swamp? We can only hope.
I have a feeling this old gal will get same thing rangel got! Zero! We have been here for years and we can darn well do as we please. You taxpayers pay and we get our wallets fattened. Dare challenge us, we will shout the r thing, (do not mean r’s) thing. It seems there are those who are above the rest of us. Come Nov. we will, hopefully see their slimy behinds are out.
L
Time for Maxine to also “retire with dignity”. Just retire.
We lived for 33 years in a home exactly 25 miles from downtown La La Land. After the gerrymander that took our residence out of David Drier’s district, we began to dread the next gerrymander. Second gerrymander took another good Repub. Then for gerrymander #3, the district epicenter was East L. A. and guess what we got? An Eastside version of Maxine. Seeing the first blurb on this site that Maxine was next on the block made my day. Thank you MM for your good reporting.
You know full well that the rallying cry is going to be “RACISM”!!!, because this is two black representatives in a row. It doesn’t matter how corrupt they are, race is all that counts.
Are these people corrupt before they’re elected, or is there something in the water in DC?
*There’s the
and then there’s the Corrupt Black Caucus, with 2 members thus far; Keep trolling the swamp Nancy, you’re sure to find more!
Yawn.
Maxine, Charlie….don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya.
There are certainly a few more who could follow you out the door with a little assistance from voters. Schumer, Weiner, Boxer, Pelosi, Reid….
MOST ETHICAL CONGRESS EVAHS!!!!
Oh, take BHo, his woman, Rahm, Gibbsy, and all the corrupt Secretaries and Czars back to IL where Blago needs to be vindicated!
MHO. But spot on!
Yes indeed they are corrupt before they get to DC. Its in DC their corruption is perfected.
It’s always worth remembering Maxine Waters’ role in this…
I think they should go after Sheila Jackson Lee next. I would think it is unethical for her to be out without adult supervision.
I think we should nationalize Maxine and Charlie.
WARNING:
Do not gaze at picture too long, you will turn to stone.
That’s essentially what they used to stop Republican attempts to address the Fannie/Freddie problem. Maxine Waters and others made it seem that white Republicans were being racist towards black Democrats and Franklin Delano Raines (FDR?!?)
And then there’s the time Maxine Waters slipped and admitted that she’s a Socialist:
You know you’re in trouble when you go to bed each night praying for a military coup.
I’ve been doing that for over two years now…just praying that their getting all their ducks in row for when the right time comes.
Both hands raised!
(But that doesn’t mean I surrender… think of the scene from Braveheart where he approaches on horseback with his hands up)
Well, the Dem’s did want to have an honest, calm, intelligent discussion about race. Oh, I’m sure we’ll hear all about race during Waters’ hearing, I’m just not so sure it’ll be honest, calm, or intelligent.
What are the odds the race card will be played within the first day? Democrats, regardless of caucus, are quick to use this distraction as a tactic.
“This liberal, is all about…uh…ummm….mmm… is all about… to be hoisted by my own petard”!! LOL!!!!
When measured up against the God-given liberties that this Great Nation has received for over 234 years? You have a point.
But a military coup certainly seemed to recently protect the liberties of the Honduran peoples against the Marxist, d-bag movement in this Hemisphere, especially since the Honduran supreme court and legislature agreed with such military coup.
That’s more than we can hope for right now. Do you think that our current crop of Legislative and/or Supreme Court representatives will agree with a military coup if and when Obama takes it too far?
If Obama doesn’t get his Marxist ass handed to him on a plate this November (in greater spades than Clinton ever did in 1994) then I don’t know what our Military will be waiting for.
This is just one man’s opinion.
“Seven days in May” with a different ending.
Michelle’s prior observation remains the best explanation for of all this.
“It’s all about the boodle.”
Nuff said.
Get local, work your tail off, get involved and just let Shock and Awe come hammering down on November 2.
We can reset the course of our country. We have the tools to do it.
Package her up and ship her to cuba…she seems to think it’s a great place to live…
But be careful you don’t fall in and someone find you. There’s no way these two crooks are the only ones. Someone said it before–drain the swamp.
I have a big question — wasn’t the CBC given 6 billion dollars or so and what became of that money? Where did it go?
I do believe many black folks don’t see what Maxine, Charlie, Wm.Jefferson etc..do as being ‘corrupt’. But seen as their reparations.
It’s no excuse for corruption but I’m just saying that this is a much bigger issue than corruption.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Term limits…NOW!!
Predictable a the sun rising in the East…
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-waters-20100801,0,6275435.story?om_rid=MR$hOk&om_mid=_BMVXdiB8Q6vQ$V&
This isn’t about her record of amazing criminality and political radicalism…
it’s alllllll about RAAAAACE….
This is going to be just like the OJ trial. Evidence won’t matter. Most blacks will believe that these two are innocent and everyone else will be upset that they got off with a reprimand (if not exonerated outright).
Another irrefutable argument for TERM LIMITS.
Well, Rags, I never believed in more term limits.
But now with amnesty looming in the very near future, and nObama determined to eliminate even presidential term limits, I’m with you.
Elections used to be determined by the voters.
Now.. elections will be determined by the vote COUNTERS!
Many, for certain. The rest fall under the spell of the Congressional Stockholm Syndrome.
Here’s to Maximum Watercloset getting flushed! (clink!) (hic!)
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” No truer words ever spoken about Maxine Waters. She doesn’t know what she is talking about, either, as she was shot down by the Citigroup CEO who explained her error (all at the table looked baffled at her babbling and blathering—their expressions are all the same).
Yes, Maxine, you have a #2 pencil you can wave around and can command “let the record reflect” that you are an incompetent ninny.
What is a “round table discussion” anyway? Do they sit at a round or a rectangular table and let her harangue and nag in her insufferable, gargly voice?
I hope karma takes one big bite out of her and deflates this bag of wind. Show her the door (the same door Rep. William Jefferson walked through).
As predicted.
In their world, “Champion of the Poor and People of Color” means living in a castle, getting big payouts from the government and driving a luxury SUV.
http://hindenblog1.blogspot.com/2010/08/crash-maxine-waters-is-piece-of.html
Like Rangel, a dead-bang argument for term limits.
The CBC and Ms. Waters are complaining that all the investigations are focused on black members of Congress. Maybe they should ask themselves why that might be? Racism? No. Rampant uncontrolled entitlement criminality? Definitely. Once again, the Democrats and entitlement whores are overplaying their hands and getting caught at it. This should not be surprising to anyone.
The Band once again: “Take what you need and leave the rest. But they should never have taken the very best.” They… jus’… can’t… hep… it.
Rangel and Waters will be acquited or let off with a wrist slap. Not becasue they didn’t do the crime but because blacks need to get back at all the white people that were acquited of crimes against blacks. See OJ trial for proof.
The people in their districts will re-elect them as heroes for beating the rap. Criminal success is applauded in their communities, especially when they frame it with the race card. Its all about sticking it to the man, getting away with it, and getting free stuff because of it.
Wow…. I was just wondering what Arsenio Hall was doing these days.
Unfortunately, with the Dems (i.e. William Jefferson, Alcee Hastings, Barney Frank, etc.) their consituents seem to say “Sure he’s/she’s a crook. But he’s/she’s OUR crook.”
Gak. That top photo makes her look like a carp with dentures. Bad ones too.
What a wonderful thing to be happening to this marvelous group of folks.