March 12, 2009

Roiling Waters - Another Eruption of the Democratic Culture of Corruption

There are two huge shockers in this New York Times article on Democratic political corruption at the highest levels of the House of Representatives; it's titled, "Congresswoman, Tied to Bank, Helped Seek Funds":

• That the Times ran the article at all, considering that it's critical of (a) a Democratic representative, (b) a female Democratic representative, and (c) a black female Democratic representative;
• That they mentioned the party affilliation of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA, 100%) prominently in the second paragraph.

Perhaps the elite media is finally starting to feel the ethical (and now monetary) pinch from being perceived as being nothing but the media arm of the Democratic National Committee. (Though I do enjoy the mental image of Maxine Waters being tied to a bank.)

First the facts:

Top banking regulators were taken aback late last year when a California congresswoman helped set up a meeting in which the chief executive of a bank with financial ties to her family asked them for up to $50 million in special bailout funds, Treasury officials said.

Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, requested the September meeting on behalf of executives at OneUnited, one of the nation’s largest black-owned banks. Ms. Water’s husband, Sidney Williams, had served on the bank’s board of directors until early last year and has owned at least $250,000 in stock in the institution [and possibly as much as $500,000, as the Times notes later]. Treasury officials said the session with nearly a dozen senior banking regulators had been intended to allow minority-owned banks and their trade association to discuss the losses they had incurred from the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But Kevin Cohee, OneUnited’s chief executive, instead seized the opportunity to plead for special assistance for his bank, federal officials said.

Waters did not bother disclosing to Treasury officials her personal family connection to the OneUnited bank -- that she stood personally to gain if the bank's stock rose (remember that California, where she resides, is a community-property state; her husband's gain is her gain as well). But it's worse than simple corruption; as with everything that Maxine Waters says or does, from corruptly trying to extort money from the federal government to egging on the looters and shooters during the Los Angeles riots of 1992, she hides like a minotaur in a labyrinth of the "absolute moral authority" conferred by race and its implied victimhood status.

Waters conceals her corruption behind race-baiting language that equates any dissent with anti-black prejudice. Every issue becomes a race issue; every argument is an argument between the Congressional Black Caucus and hood-wearing racists; every setback occurs because she's black in an oppressive, white culture; and her attempt to elevate one race above all others is a moral crusade, for which the entire country should be grateful:

[Waters' and Cohee's] interests first intersected in 2002, when Mr. Cohee was involved in a bidding war for Family Savings, a small, black-owned bank in Ms. Waters’ South Los Angeles District.

As a white-owned Illinois bank initially emerged as the winner, Ms. Waters made clear through the local news media that she opposed any deal in which Family would fall out of African-American hands. She was credited when the bank abruptly changed course and gave Mr. Cohee another chance to submit a winning bid.

It was irrelevant to Maxine Waters whether OneUnited was actually the most economically appropriate bank to take over Family Savings, whether investments in her own district would be safe, or even whether Cohee was essentially looting his bank through his grotesque compensation package. Only one thing mattered... that Family Savings stay in "African-American hands."

Evidently, it was unacceptable that Family Savings be bought by someone who wasn't black -- even if the buyer was himself a minority (Hispanic or Korean, say), even if the buyer was a lifelong resident of Waters' own district. (The purchaser Waters supported, OneUnited, is actually based in Boston.)

Like radical Moslems, who believe that any patch of land that was ever Moslem must always remain Moslem -- once in the ummah, forever in the ummah -- Waters and her ilk believe that any seat once occupied by an "African American" must forever be occupied by an African American, whether it's a seat on a board of directors, in the House or Senate, or on the bench; it becomes a "black seat," as in the black Supreme Court seat (Thurgood Marshall had to be succeeded by another black justice), the black Senate seat (Barack H. Obama had to be succeeded by another black senator). Goodness only knows what racial demands Maxine and the CBC will make on future occupants of the White House, now that we have a black president.

So in addition to looting the Treasury, the corruption of Maxine Waters concomitantly poisons the American discourse, segregates us by race, and turns Americans against each other with the potential to ignite a civil war -- as it surely did in Los Angeles in 1992. This isn't simply theft, it's Apartheid.

Waters' "ilk" includes Reps. Diane Watson, D-CA, 100%; Charles Rangel, D-NY, 100%; John Conyers, D-MI, 100%; Barbara Lee, D-CA, 100%; Sheila Jackson Lee, D-TX, 100%; Bobby Rush, D-IL, 33% -- Rush was a charter member of the Illinois chapter of the Black Panthers -- Keith Ellison, D-MN, 100% -- Hamas' man in Washington -- and the other 35 members of the Congressional Black Caucus, every single member of which is both black and also a Democrat. Regarding the former qualification, if it seems self evident that only blacks should be admitted into the Congressional Black Caucus, is it also self-evident that only Jews should be allowed to join the United Jewish Appeal, only American citizens can join the American Conservative Union, or that only people of Russian descent can join the Russian Orthodox Church?

But when ultra-liberal white Democrats, even those who represent majority-minority districts, tried to join the CBC, they were summarily rejected -- in language that would be jaw-dropping if said about whiteness rather than blackness. Rep. Stephen Cohen (D-TN, 100%), who is white but whose constituency is 60% black, tried to join the CBC in 2007; he was privately informed by members that he was not welcome. In particular, Rep. William Lacy Clay, jr., son of one of the founders of the caucus, had this to say:

"Mr. Cohen asked for admission, and he got his answer. ... It's time to move on," the younger Clay said. "It's an unwritten rule. It's understood. It's clear."

An unwritten rule; where have we heard that circumlocution before? Perhaps something related to country clubs and business associations?

Les Kinsolving, writing for a website that some call "World Nut Daily," fills in the elipsis in that quotation; he claims that the complete quotation is, "Mr. Cohen asked for admission, and he got his answer. He's white and the Caucus is black. It's time to move on. We have racial policies to pursue and we are pursuing them, as Mr. Cohen has learned. It's an unwritten rule. It's understood." Make of that what you will.

Kinsolving also quotes what he says is an "official statement" from Clay's office:

Quite simply, Rep. Cohen will have to accept what the rest of the country will have to accept – there has been an unofficial Congressional White Caucus for over 200 years, and now it's our turn to say who can join the 'the club.' He does not, and cannot, meet the membership criteria, unless he can change his skin color. Primarily, we are concerned with the needs and concerns of the black population, and we will not allow white America to infringe on those objectives.

I have hunted all over the web, but I cannot find a better source than wnd.com; make of it what you will, but I'm not prepared to endorse these quotations as accurate and honest until and unless I find a better source. But even the action of restricting the CBC to blacks only makes clear that to those of the Maxine Waters mindset, only blacks can "represent" blacks. (I wonder if they would agree that only whites can represent whites? I certainly would not accept that suggestion for a minute.)

In any event, this longish diversion is simply to note that Maxine Waters, a decades-long member and former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, is a racial discriminator for whom it's always "Afroamerikaner über alles." Like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, Waters and all of her friends, clients, toadies, and assorted cohorts and co-conspirators use the accusation of racism to shield themselves from scrutiny or condemnation for their corrupt looting of taxpayer money.

Neither Waters' unsuccessful attempt to inveigle $50 million out of the Treasury Department in late 2008 to benefit her own, personal economy -- nor her successful effort a month later to squeeze a paltry $12 million for OneUnited in TARP money -- has anything whatsoever to do with race; both are corrupt, but they are the same sorts of things white crooks attempt as well. But when questions arose, OneUnited CEO Kevin Cohee had this to say in the Times article:

Mr. Cohee and Treasury officials said the TARP money had nothing to do with the intervention by Ms. Waters. Mr. Cohee also suggested that criticism of his operations by federal banking regulators was racially motivated.

“This is where the race issue comes in,” he said.

Evidently, we are to believe that had the owners of OneUnited (and Maxine Waters) been white, nobody would have minded that a member of Congress was using his elective office to enrich himself. I'm sure convicted felon, former senator, and continuing Causasian Ted Stevens would agree.

Note that the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) listed Waters as one of the thirteen most corrupt members of Congress in 2005 and one of the 20 most corrupt in 2006. Perhaps that's due to race as well, despite the fact that the majority of rogues on each list is white.

How many more such "anomalous" acts of corruption by Democrats must there be before the Republicans will finally go after them hammer and tooth... perhaps even floating the phrase, the Democratic culture of corruption? Or are we still quagmired in the genteel phase of our philosophical war with the Left?

Until the GOP can muster the huevos to counter the charge of "it's because I'm black, isn't it?", they will never be able to stand up to the Maxine Waters and William Jeffersons of the DNC... and for the duration, we'll have to labor under the handicap that what is corruption in a Republican is simply "community advocacy" in a Democrat.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, March 12, 2009, at the time of 5:43 PM

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