Maxine Waters: Banking on Hypocrisy
At a flail-and-wail House hearing last month, California Democratic 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!"), 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 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 Frank covered the microphone and briefly chastised her. 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 OneUnited. 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' 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 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, Teri Williams, 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 Democratic shakedown artists sanctimoniously lecturing others about the culture of corruption? Raise your hand! Raise your hand!
Michelle Malkin is author of "Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild." Her e-mail address is malkinblog@gmail.com.
COPYRIGHT 2009 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
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7 Comments | Post Comment
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Maxine Waters is Jesse Jackson in an ugly woman's body.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Juanito Verde
Fri Mar 13, 2009 6:39 AM
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It ought to be painfully obvious to any thinking person with a working memory that the only thing they do well in DC is hypocrisy! And I feel it safe to say that it most likely will end only in a very hard manner. Maybe that's why ammunition is in such short supply across America? I see many common, law abiding, citizens buying their first guns today and I fervently fear for what the future brings. While I recall the Bible tells us it is the meek who shall inherit the Earth, I'm also told there is a direct corelation to those who shall be its rulers and they are anything but meek!
Comment: #2
Posted by: bill s
Fri Mar 13, 2009 11:08 AM
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Once these crooks get in they are too powerful to get rid of. People fear Dodd, Frank, Rangel, Murtha, the Clintons, Lee, Emanuel, Kerry, Kennedy, Clynburn, Conyers, Biden, and the hoard of other liberals who rule Washington. Crazy Maxie is really the extreme. She is outright disraceful and disgusting. If a CEO of a major company is asked to testify, you address him with some respect. You don't say in a screaming voice, "...hey you, the Bank of America guy, look at me when i am speaking to you." People who have been voted by the people have to be respectful to all people who are there to testify. If they are found to be guilty of breaking the law it is up to the Judicial to apply the penalty. This loud mouth piece of turd should simply shut up. Why can't she simply tell the investigators if she/husband still have stock in the bank. If she is sitting in judgement as part of a Congreesional investigation of the bank's business then she has an obligation to tell of her relationship. It reminds me of Leona Helmsley who said, "Only poor people pay taxes." She can do anything she wishes because the law doesn't apply to her both ways, in Congress and she is black the new privleged color. She believes that she is above the law. I know i csn't say that i will be accused of being a racist.
Comment: #3
Posted by: James Balitsos
Fri Mar 13, 2009 11:30 AM
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Ma'am; For anyone in government to call some in business bad is like the pot calling the kettle out... We are only witnessing a falling out of pinps and protitutes on a grand scale...The pimps had the prostitutes convinced that they was supporting them, and now they demand everything the prostitute had put aside for later...Sure it is an ugly scene, as such scenes in fact always are...I used to know a man down in detroit who would fire a load of birdshot up through the trees everytime he saw a prostitute near his home...Some times when you are fighting for the very home you have worked for as long as you have lived in it, you cannot worry much about making friends....When the gun would go off and the leaves would come drifting down the girl would get the idea and get on down the road.... I will not suggest that we should do that with government. ...If we could call a cop and have them come it would be one thing; but that won't happen, and not as in Detroit, because killings, and robbings, and fights, and drug deals were taking all the cop's time.... If we could unload a gun over their heads they would make up with big business pretty fast, and find some reason to love each other; but you did not hear it from me....I will say this: If government thought it was a good idea to have people own their own homes so they were not plagued by parasite landlords, then they should have made a point of loaning them the money at cost...The fact is, that even while the rich very often loan money they got from the government, it is loaned an extreme interest which as home interest denies revenue to the government... The government has made it a mission to force profit on the rich no matter what the activity... If stuff is produced with slave labor in prison, some business man will say he could make a profit on that; and demand the job, but to do it will take training money and tax incentives, and when they are used up will go out of business... There are some jobs that will never be profitable to do even while they are necessary...That is the very thing the government should do at cost, which will still be far cheaper than convict labor...Loaning money to the poor should have been done with a view to giving them a leg up rather than feeding a bunch of parasite bankers....So what if the money was at risk??? So what if the interest was lost to the rich??? What if the poor benefits more than the general population??? What if it was only doing good??? Isn't doing good the general heading over all that government should do???Aristotle said so... But the huge burden of interest this society is forced to pay because we have too little income is obscene... Mrs. Waters was right to be angry... She and her whole constituency, and every voter in America has been pimped... WE have been used... That day should end, forever...Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #4
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Fri Mar 13, 2009 11:47 AM
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Re: bill s; sir,...Corruption may begin at the top, but it does not stay there long... We are all corrupt..None of us wonders who might be squeezed for interest because we are all squeezed, and some harder than others... The thing you talk about is true: the meek do not rule... But majority rule, especially when it is like ours where we are never allowed a chance to consent to, or refuse any act of congress, is not anything like democracy...You would not vote for the situation as it stands, and neither would I; and I resent the fact that you do not get your say as much as my own want of a say.... None of us would have voted for this situation, and we have this situation because we were denied a vote right down the line...Democacy is self government, and no sort of rule... Thanks.... And keep your powder dry... Sweeney
Comment: #5
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Fri Mar 13, 2009 11:57 AM
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Re: James Balitsos;...Gimme a break... You show way too much respect to a ceo who should be in prison when you let him out on the street..Let's see how much respect they get now that their greed has bled the economy dry....This problem may take some time sinking in, and all those who used to bow and scrap may start to howl for blood when they see them in public... Is disrespect too much respect??? Maybe your problem is that she is black and they are white... You forget how much interest has made us all slaves...It shouldd make us all brothers and sisters....Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #6
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Fri Mar 13, 2009 12:05 PM
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Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke, stated and I'm quoting ‘We really had no choice in bailout of
AIG!' Yes, Mr. Bernanke, you did have a choice! When AIG received first bailout, why
weren't strict guidelines imposed on them; such as, NO MORE BONUSES, cut ‘CEO fat cat'
salaries, freebies, and retirements to maximum $25,000.00 year. Older employees, offer
them an early retirement package! All other salaries to be cut by at least one-quarter, as a
slice of the pie is better than no slice at all! Mr. Bernanke this includes you and the rest of
politicians! The other option would have been to let AIG file bankruptcy so they could start
over, and maybe this time they would be more concerned and knowledgeable of what it
takes to run a company by tightening their pocketbooks! You see, Mr. Bernanke, bad
choices is what's put America into Bankruptcy and borrowing money from foreign
countries that we can't pay the interest on! Where's the common sense in these matters?
Taxpayers understand Bay of Thailand is buying AIG Retail Bank Company and deal is to
be completed April 2009. Since this is really Taxpayers money, will you and rest of
politicians make sure AIG pay off the trillions of dollars borrowed, without Taxpayers'
consent, to foreign countries?
That brings Taxpayers to the latest for AIG's bonuses and the statement “If we don't pay
them big bonues, they'll sue us!” How dumb you are? It's Taxpayers' money, not yours to
give! It's time for for AIG, Freddie, Fannie, Banks, Automakers and anyone else standing in
line taking Taxpayers money to immediately file Bankruptcy! Enough is Enough!
President Obama's top economic advisers vigorously defends his 3.6 trillion budget! News
flash for you -- “Taxpayers don't defend this nor any of the so-called put people back to
work programs, called infrastructures. I just left a meeting in which one of the ‘economic
advisers' from a bank stated he'd been in DC for a week!” I asked him why he thought
America needed infrastructures if we didn't bring textile and furniture manufacturing jobs
back to America? He stated ‘they' didn't discuss this, just infrastructures! Remember, these
large banks like Citicorp, Wachovia, etc. were bailed out! Taxpayers wonder why we're
bailing them out if politicians continue allowing the ‘economic' idiots to advise them. He
had no answers! Guess what, Mr. Economic Adviser was hoping the floor would open up
and I'd fall through it! You see, all the expert politicians and economists know as much
about ‘thrifty management' as a newborn and this, folks, is the reason for Change and not
Obama's change methods, either!
There seems to be a lot of ‘experts' in government and financial institutions with no
common sense. It's time to run America like a private business; meaning, President, Vice-
President, Secretary, and Treasurer. All these cabinet members collecting huge salaries
and benefits will have to come to an end. Taxpayers know it's time to cut salaries to
$12,000.00 yearly for all politicians. After all, these Public Servant jobs give less than 30
days of service and, in today's world of mismanagement, deceit and greed, so this is more
money than they deserve.
Why aren't we prosecuting the people handing out Taxpayers monies and the people
who's receiving it? The reasons being very clear-who's collecting and benefiting!
WAKE UP AMERICA!
Comment: #7
Posted by: Shirley deLong
Sun Mar 15, 2009 4:03 PM
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