maxine waters – Page 2

Maxine Waters will have what Charlie Rangel’s having.

Come, I will conceal nothing from you: I have long considered Maxine “Why is this woman on Financial Services?” Waters to be one of our dumber Members of Congress – which is impressive, given that we have people like Al Franken, Barbara Boxer, Arlen Specter, Shirley Jackson-Lee, and Russ Carnahan in it – but I may have to revise that. It is now being reported that Rep. Waters “has chosen to go through an ethics trial, like the one lined up for New York Rep. Charles Rangel, rather than accepting charges made by an ethics subcommittee.”

Given that Rangel has just been told that he won’t be subject to any kind of sanction other than a finger-wagging even when he is found guilty*, this actually makes perfect sense. Why accept the charges, and thus admit wrongdoing? Maybe the committee won’t prove anything – and even if they do, the Democrats on the committee will bail out their fellow party-members anyway, so there’s no downside. No harm, no foul, no problem, no need to accept responsibility – and no more of this nonsense about how the Democrats were going to drain the swamp.

DEMOCRATS DO NOT DRAIN SWAMPS. That’s because swamps are wetlands, and thus must be protected by the full power of the federal government.

Moe Lane

*I see no need to pretend. Heck, neither do the Democratic members of the House ethics committee, apparently.

Crossposted to RedState.

Your “NO! Really? Who would have thought it?” headline of the day.

Banks with political ties got bailouts, study shows

(Via Drudge) Oddly enough, Reuters completely forgot to mention any particularly egregious examples. This one in particular: you’d think that they would have wanted to do some actual reporting on skulduggery.

OneUnited Bank in Massachusetts got aid after Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) inserted language into the bailout bill that effectively directed Treasury to give the bank special consideration. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) also helped the bank, in which her husband held shares, by arranging a meeting between government officials and a group including OneUnited’s chief executive. The bank got $12.1 million last December, but it has made only a single dividend payment. It has now missed payments in three straight quarters, and it is not required to make up the missed payments.

You’d think.

Rep. Maxine Waters: many Congressman as bad as Charlie Rangel.

How very… interesting, Congresswoman.

Do tell.

“Many members” of Congress suffer from the same disclosure issues as Rep. Charles Rangel (D.N.Y.), one of his allies said Wednesday.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) downplayed the seriousness of allegations against Rangel that he failed to disclose sources of income and pay taxes on some properties, saying that many lawmakers suffer from innocent lapses in judgment when filing mandatory financial disclosure forms.

“I want to tell you, there are many members who, if you go back over all of their records, over all of the years, you’re going to find that there were disclosures that were not made,” Waters said during an appearance on MSNBC Wednesday morning.

No, really: do tell. Just give us a second to get a couple of witnesses, some recording equipment, and an officer of the court or two. We’ll be needing names, dates, time of day, and of course any and all accomplices to these… disclosures that were not made. It’ll be a thing, and I know just the person to run it, too.

Seriously, why is Rep. Waters left alone to wander through the halls of Congress without supervision? Have the Democrats lost all semblance of professional pride?

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D): Let’s primary Blue Dogs.

OK! Need a list?

This throwaway line in a Hill article (“Dem healthcare infighting intensifies”):

And on Tuesday it prompted Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) to hint that more liberal members of the party should consider challenging centrist Blue Dogs in next year’s primaries.

…eventually led me to this (via The Patriot Room: he also has a related video there) article about what has to be one of the more, ah, creative strategies floated out there this year: taking down ‘conservative’ Democrats in conservative districts by weakening them or replacing them with liberal Democrats.

Wait, what?

Asked if she would recruit more liberal candidates to run against Blue Dogs, Waters said, “That’s normally not done.”

But she added: “There may be people out there listening and observing all of this who may get motivated based on what they’re seeing and throw their hat into the ring.”

She also criticized White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel for recruiting many of the House’s more conservative members when he headed the House Democrats’ campaign arm. Now, she said, “The chickens are coming home to roost.”

Continue reading Rep. Maxine Waters (D): Let’s primary Blue Dogs.

I don’t know why Jonah Goldberg bothered…

…to write about the fairly predictable way that his comments about liberalism and the paranoid style were brushed off. Actually, I do know why. He wanted to write this last paragraph:

The point is that when liberals and leftists spout conspiracy theories and paranoid delusions — as they have for generations now — it’s written off by the liberal establishment as either an isolated incident, or an understandable exaggeration or, simply, the truth and therefore not a conspiracy theory. And: It Is Annoying.

Which It Is: and I recognize full well that it’s necessary and proper to keep pointing out that the major difference between their nuts and our nuts is that our nuts spout off their conspiracy theories on the Internet and local media outlets, not Congressional committees*. None the less, it’s a particularly thankless task, even if it is necessary. It’s not even the hostile responses that grate (those are, in fact, kind of fun to witness)…

Moe Lane

PS: At some point, I guess I should read Liberal Fascism: I hate depleting the personal budget for a partisan political book, but enough people pro-and-con have read and referenced it that at some point I’ll have to take the hit. I’d get it from the library, except that the local one lacks a copy…

*Yeah. Waters was probably talking about the Jews, there. Hey, don’t look at me: it’s not my fault. When my party chose its legislative leaders unwisely we just picked people who bellied up to the trough right next to the Democrats. Besides, at least we kept gas prices down and the Dow up.

Crossposted to RedState.

Elections have consequences: Megan McArdle edition.

How’s that Libertarians for Obama thing working out for people? I’ve already seen how it worked out for all those poor Republicans for Obama…

Before we go any further, let me just note that my sympathies for the people in the video below is currently somewhere between “nil” and “whatever.” This is a blue-on-blue fight, as far as I’m concerned: Wall Street actually has a habit of going against its class interests by funding and supporting Democrats, and God knows that they had their hand in the current banking crisis, so I can root for injuries with a light heart and a clear conscience.

But Megan’s right: Maxine Waters is nuts.

Continue reading Elections have consequences: Megan McArdle edition.