Rep. Maxine Waters Faces New Allegations

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters' family members earned more than $1 million over the last eight years by doing business with companies, candidates and causes that she helped, according to a newspaper report Sunday.

Waters' daughter and son pocketed fees from campaigns endorsed by the congresswoman's election mailers while her husband worked for a bond underwriting firm seeking government business from her political allies, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Waters, an influential lawmaker who has represented Inglewood, Hawthorne, Gardena and parts of Los Angeles since 1990, declined to answer detailed questions, insisting her family's fortunes were kept apart from her political activities.

"They do their business and I do mine," said Waters, 66. "We are not bad people."

The Waters' close financial ties are not expressly prohibited by state laws or congressional ethics rules.

According to the Times, Waters and her children are linked through a political organization that publishes an election mailer listing campaigns she endorsed. Some candidates are included free of charge, though others pay tens of thousands of dollars.

Of the $1.7 million L.A. Vote collected in the last eight years, nearly $450,000 went to Karen Waters and her consulting firm, public disclosure reports show. About $115,000 was paid to the congresswoman's son.

Karen Waters, 46, said she and her mother kept their business dealings separate. Her son, Edward Waters, 49, a high school basketball coach and political consultant, declined to comment.

Waters' children have also landed consulting work with the mailer's advertisers, including former 1998 gubernatorial candidate Al Checchi and Indian tribes.

Campaign consultants for the tribes, whose interests and ballot measures Waters has consistently backed, said Karen Waters was hired on her merits. "We didn't hire her because of her mom," said consultant Chuck Winner.

Waters' husband, Sidney Williams, has made nearly $500,000 as a consultant to a municipal bond company and lobbying politicians his wife supports, according to public records.

The 62-year-old former professional football linebacker and U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas said Waters complied with public disclosure laws, but declined further comment.

The Times reported that Williams helped the firm win a $40 million school bond sale approved by school board members that paid Waters' mailer operation to advertise her endorsement.

With his assistance, the company also secured a $424 million bond deal to build a prison in Delano after successfully pitching the office of state Treasurer Philip Angelides.

Angelides, who has been regularly listed in Waters' mailers, said in a statement that his decisions are based solely "on the advice of the professional staff."

Bond underwriter Siebert, Brandford & Shank hired Williams for his own connections and not those of his wife, according to Napoleon Brandford III, the firm's chairman and co-owner.

I think Maxine Waters is fine congresswoman and there are no skeletons in her closet __NOT!

Maxine Waters on Crime

Click here for 8 full quotes on Crime OR background on Crime .
Voted YES on funding for alternative sentencing instead of more prisons. (Jun 2000)
Voted NO on more prosecution and sentencing for juvenile crime. (Jun 1999)
Voted YES on maintaining right of habeus corpus in Death Penalty Appeals. (Mar 1996)
Voted NO on making federal death penalty appeals harder. (Feb 1995)
Voted YES on replacing death penalty with life imprisonment. (Apr 1994)
Rated 100% by CURE, indicating pro-rehabilitation crime votes. (Dec 2000)
Moratorium on death penalty; more DNA testing. (Mar 2001)
Require DNA testing for all federal executions. (Mar 2001)

Maxine Waters on Drugs

Click here for 3 full quotes on Drugs OR background on Drugs .
Voted NO on military border patrols to battle drugs & terrorism. (Sep 2001)
Voted NO on prohibiting needle exchange & medical marijuana in DC. (Oct 1999)
Legalize medical marijuana. (Jul 2001)

Source: On The Issues (http://www.issues2000.org/CA/Maxine_Waters.htm#Principles_+_Values)

But its all the CIA’s fault for the drug problems, the fall of the communist Sandinistas and FOR THAT should be destroyed... The following is a collection of quotes from Waters on a number of topics from her wide-ranging discussion at Cal-State Northridge, including comments made during a question-and-answer session that followed.

Can the CIA Be Trusted to Investigate Itself?

"Of course I'm skeptical of the CIA's own internal investigation, and no, I don't have a great deal of confidence that their inspector general will turn up the information we know is there, but this is just part of the whole process of forcing the truth to light."

"[Former CIA Director] John Deutch is gone. Hello. Goodbye. What was that all about? How committed is this agency to answering the questions we've presented before them?"

"We will never get George Bush's hands, clearly, where we think they were."

Isn't Secrecy Necessary to Protect National Security?

"A lot of people tell me that, when it comes to these obscure, clandestine federal agencies, that they are doing important work that relates to national security, and that I should not interfere with this important work. Well, I don't care what their work is all about.... Because it appears that the CIA not only is involved with drug dealers, but they're involved with the worst kinds of criminals in all manner of sordid affairs, just so they can say they're out there doing something."

Wasn't the CIA Only Marginally Connected to Drug Dealing?

"A lot of people get hung up on the [dollar] amount, saying that not that much money actually made it to the Contras from their cocaine sales. Well, as far as I'm concerned, one dollar from the sale of drugs funding the Contras should not be tolerated."

"Other people argue about the degree to which the CIA may have been involved.... It doesn't matter. The government and the CIA cannot say they had no knowledge that this was happening."

Has Crack Disproportionately Affected the Black Community?

"It's better to have a job at McDonald's than to sell drugs. There is no defense for drug dealing. And there's no way to be involved with dealing drugs without getting hurt, going to jail, or both."

"There is something wrong with our criminal justice system that is causing a disproportionate percentage of young black males to end up rotting away in federal prison on senseless drug charges."

"I drive through the streets of South Central and point out to my driver the undercover FBI agents who are standing on the street corners just waiting to arrest people for buying or selling a single rock of crack cocaine.... I'm not going to sit back and let them be thrown into federal prison for selling one rock of cocaine while the big-time drug dealers cuddle up close to government agencies and go free."

Are We Winning the War on Drugs?

"It's time to take a serious look at the so-called 'war on drugs' in this country. We have no more need for PR programs masquerading under cute slogans like 'just say no.' We should make every effort to redirect the $15 billion already spent on federal drug and law enforcement in this country and spend it on ways aimed at cutting off the supply of drugs.... We should not support with foreign aid or in any other way any country that supplies drugs to the U.S."

"When law enforcement is involved in drug dealing, they should get enhanced sentencing because they are the ones with the badges and the guns."

"All over America, drugs and the money associated with them are some of the most corrupt influences you've ever seen. What you need to do is find out about the drugs that are 'confiscated' by law enforcement and what happens to them."

How Will Your Investigation Help Expose Corruption?

"What we're trying to do with our own investigation is to create a climate of suspicion around the CIA and their activities so that it is not considered crazy to be asking these questions about their involvement in the sale of crack. It may take 10 years' worth of work, but that's the goal."

"We don't expect to be able to run our own 'sidebar' investigation and turn up any kind of 'smoking gun' evidence. We don't have the resources to tackle that kind of thing.... But I have gone to Managua... and we have met with shady people in the dead of night in horrible places, and will continue to do that in search of any information that can help us unravel all of this."

"I am here to hold their [the CIA's] feet to the fire. I'm doing it in an unofficial capacity, and my efforts are probably unwanted, but that's not going to stop me."

Source: http://www.parascope.com/articles/0297/maxine2.htm

The party of Maxine Waters
August 21, 2000

She is one of the most self-serving, hate-filled, race-obsessed politicians in America. The Democratic Party doesn't just embrace her. It kneels at her feet....After throwing a hissy fit in the press because she had not been personally consulted about Al Gore's veep picks ("I never had the opportunity to talk to anybody about it before he was decided on as the vice-presidential choice," she whined), Waters gave her benediction. The skilled publicity hound dissed and then kissed Lieberman for the cameras; a cheek-to-cheek photo of the couple appeared in newspapers across the country.

Waters is not a marginal figure in Democratic politics. She has been at the center of the action for two decades. She has served on the Democratic National Committee since 1980. She led the Congressional Black Caucus. She was a key leader in five presidential campaigns and seconded the nominations of Sen. Edward Kennedy (1980), Rev. Jesse Jackson (1984 and 1988), and President Bill Clinton (1992).

Yet, in contrast to the media's wide coverage of GOP presidential nominee George W. Bush's primary-season visit to Bob Jones University, hardly a word was seen or heard reminding Americans of Waters' ugly history of race-baiting rationalizations and rhetoric.

This is a woman who excused the 1992 Los Angeles riots as a "rebellion."

This is a woman who called the violence in L.A. "a spontaneous reaction to a lot of injustice and a lot of alienation and frustration."

This is a woman who, instead of coming to the aid of Korean grocers and other minority business owners in her district whose lives were destroyed by looters, made sympathetic statements such as this:

"There were mothers who took this as an opportunity to take some milk, to take some bread, to take some shoes. Maybe they shouldn't have done it, but the atmosphere was such that they did it. They are not crooks."

And this: "One lady said her children didn't have any shoes. She just saw those shoes there, a chance for all of her children to have new shoes. Goddamn it! It was such a tear-jerker. I might have gone in and taken them for her myself."

This is a woman who danced the electric slide with Crips and Bloods gang members, and then noted in her official biography that "Many young people, including those in the hip-hop music community, praise her for her fearless support and understanding of young people and their efforts at self-expression."

This is a woman who visited the home of Damian Williams, the infamous thug who "expressed himself" by hurling a chunk of concrete at white truck driver Reginald Denny and performing a victory dance over the innocent bystander.

This is a woman who rose to power by badmouthing the white "Establishment," and then shamelessly abused it to secure an ambassadorship to the Bahamas for her husband -- a former pro football player and car salesman whose main qualification was having traveled to the island for a vacation.

This is a woman who repeatedly excoriates "the white press" whenever negative stories about black politicians appear.

This is a woman whose main accomplishment in Congress after five terms has been to bully the House Veterans Committee into hiring two black members to its staff....[snip]
©2000 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.