Yeah, I agree with you, if there are pigs at the trough, it's outrageous that black folks would try to get their share of the slop. Thank God the NYT is tracking the black folks trying to get the leftover scraps. The fact that the NYT has been doing hatchet pieces on Maxine Waters since I was a kid never entered your mind...did it?
Maxine, doesn't look like she did anything particularly wrong anyhow. If she was a good rightwing Democrat we would not have heard a peep from the "liberal" NYT, that supported the war. Oh yeah, that's right, Maxine was a vocal opponent, much more than Barak ever was...let's trash her.
Conservative editors just love to watch Dems take the bait and bash the few liberals in congress.
Posted by S Brennan at March 12, 2009 03:57 PMConservative editors just love to watch Dems take the bait and bash the few liberals in congress.
Exactly.
Posted by Twinky P* at March 12, 2009 05:31 PMHaving read the entire Times piece, I do not see a convincing case that Ms. Waters acted improperly. Her husband was a board member, but unpaid, and bought shares in the bank in question (the Times leaves hanging the question of whether Ms. Waters' husband paid for his shares at a discounted price).
Unless there is stronger evidence of impropriety, I would give the benefit of the doubt to Ms. Waters.
Posted by Dazir at March 12, 2009 10:45 PMFew politicians are all good or all bad. We must talk about shades of gray. Many Democrats went along with harmful Bush policies and embraced financial dysregulation, among them Senator Dodd.
Maxine Waters has much to be ashamed of in my opinion. She and Yvonne Burke made sure that the King Drew hospital was controlled by crony nurses, doctors and administrators. That hospital was pretty good in 1980 and called “Killer King” by the public by 2000. The LA Times published a series of articles about corruption at King-Drew which won and deserved awards. What did Waters do? She tried to prevent renewal of the broadcasting license for KTLA-TV, owned by the Times. Waters claimed that "The Los Angeles Times has had an inordinate effect on public opinion and has used it to harm the local community in specific instances," She asked the FCC to force the paper to either sell its station or risk losing that station's broadcast rights. She failed in this effort.
Waters backed Frank Raines, even after he resigned from Fannie Mae, and condemned government regulators for trying to warn Congress about problems with Fannie and Freddie. “…under the outstanding leadership of Mr. Frank Raines, everything in the 1992 Act has worked just fine. In fact the GSE’s have exceeded their housing goals. What we need to do today is to focus on the regulator... She denied receiving financial contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac executives although she definitely did. She worked to impede disclosure of financial problems, although she is no guiltier in that respect than are Barney Frank and Chris Dodd. At least she voted against the Iraq War.
There are more corrupt white politicians than black politicians. We have far too many of each group. Is Waters the most corrupt California representative? I’d say no- Jerry Lewis has that title. She was named by CREW to lists of the most corrupt people in Congress in 2005 and 2006, but not recently. Can ordinary corrupt pols lead us out of the complicated mess and starvation wages that threaten our country?
Perhaps you should factcheck before you spout off, but then since you're attacking an African-American woman, why would anyone expect you to do so?
…Waters' office has released to TPM two letters sent by the National Bankers Association (NBA), a trade group for minority-owned banks, to the Treasury Department, in reference to a September 2008 meeting Waters had helped set up between NBA and Treasury. The letters appear to back Waters' contention that the meeting, at which OneUnited's CEO reportedly asked explicitly for bailout money, was not set up exclusively to help OneUnited, but rather on behalf of minority-ownded banks more broadly.
That doesn't contradict anything the New York Times reported, it's worth noting. But it does appear to bolster Waters' claim, made in a statement she put out earlier today, that she wasn't looking out for OneUnited's interests above those of other minority-owned banks. Waters has long been an advocate in Congress for minority-owned banks.
Waters also released a 2007 document showing that she disclosed her ties to OneUnited -- her husband had previously served on the board, and owned stock -- before questioning witnesses at a House hearing on minority-owned banks….
Go Away Deacon Blues, we've seen enough of pseudo-lib conservatives like you.
Posted by Mike at March 13, 2009 04:42 PM