Murky Waters
You remember California Democrat US Congresswoman Maxine “Murky” Waters, don’t you?
The Maxine Waters who tried to blackmail Shell Oil by telling them if they didn’t lower gas prices she would fight to get them and other American oil companies taken over by the federal government and nationalized.
The Maxine Waters who made it onto to the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington’s list of the most corrupt lawmakers two recent years in a row.
The Maxine Waters who filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission to have the license pulled for Los Angeles television station KTLA and the Los Angeles Times newspaper after they ran a series of negative reports on her citing her corruption and nepotism, knowing that even if they were successful at defending themselves it would cost them tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees.
The same Maxine Waters who defended the black rioters as they looted and burned Asian and white store owners businesses in the 1992 Los Angeles riots claiming they were just some baby momma’s getting some shoes and formula and claimed their actions were understandable.
The Maxine Waters who restated her allegations that the CIA and other federal agencies are aiding and abetting drug dealers to sell crack cocaine and other drugs in the black community.
The same Maxine Waters who lambasted the CEOs from the first eight large banks to receive TARP funds and opened her comments by saying “To the captains of the universe sitting here before all of us, all of my political life I have been in disagreement with the banking industry.”
Well apparently she actually has not been in disagreement with ALL of the banking industry, only the ones owned by white people. It turns out Ms. Waters and her husband have in fact been fairly large supporters of the black owned OneUnited Bank.
At one time Ms. Waters and her betrothed had as much as $2 million invested in OneUnited Bank. Ms. Waters had used her legislative muscle to help in the formation of OneUnited out of a conglomerate of several smaller black owned banks in California. She also made sure that these black owned banks were not bought up by white owned banks prior to the OneUnited formation. Ms. Waters and her husband certainly put their money where their mouth was when they helped expand this new bank to other states including Massachusetts and Florida. Maxine’s husband even served as a director as Ms. Waters secured meetings between the bank and Treasury officials.
The conflicts of interest run even deeper as Ms. Waters helped this particular bank both as an individual lawmaker and from her seat on the House Financial Services Committee. Even her colleague and the chairman of the committee Barney Frank has asked Maxine to just “stay out of it” when it came to aid for OneUnited. But as always this Maxine Waters does not take kindly to being told what to do and boldly continued her efforts to the benefit of OneUnited and her own pocketbook.
Maxine has been quick to condemn bankers for their extravagant spending while receiving federal TARP funds. She has however been silent when it came to OneUnited, which also received TARP money, while still spending on things like a Porsche for one executive and the $6.4 million beachfront home for the chairman in Pacific Palisades, California just outside of Malibu.
As a matter of fact at a hearing Waters praised one of OneUnited’s senior execs as “typical of the young brilliant minds that have been amassed at OneUnited.”
What she didn’t mention was her personal financial stake in the bank or the fact that these young brilliant minds had invested almost all of their capital into Fannie May and Freddie Mac and now, without federal financial support, would be considered insolvent. When asked about OneUnited she simply referred to them as “just a small bank”.
Yep, just a small bank that happens to be making Ms. Waters a lot of money.
