Rep. Maxine Waters to face ethics charges

WASHINGTON (AP) — A House investigative panel has decided to charge Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters of California with ethics violations, raising the possibility of a second high-profile trial with political implications for Democrats this fall.

People familiar with the investigation, who were not authorized to be quoted about unannounced charges, say the allegations could be announced next week. The House ethics committee declined Friday to make any public statement on the matter.

Waters has been under investigation for a possible conflict of interest involving a bank that was seeking federal aid. Her husband owned stock in the bank.

New York Democrat Rep. Charles Rangel also faces an ethics trial this fall on separate charges that included failure to disclose assets and income, nonpayment of taxes and doing legislative favors for donors to a college center named after him.

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Rep. Maxine Waters to face ethics charges

Ya know, this just isn’t looking good for the Dems but I’m fairly certain that if they did ANY serious digging at all, they would find grounds to place at least 75% of the House on trial for ethics violations.

To paraphrase from the Rangel post: “But Waters can’t be unethical, she’s an esteemed, long serving elected official. This is being done strictly because Maxine Waters is Black and the entire U.S. Congress is a bunch of racists.”Ethics Inquiry of Rangel Finds Evidence of Violations

Both Waters and Rangel are prominent members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Dual ethics trials would be a major political liability for Democrats, forcing them to defend their party’s ethical conduct while trying to hold on to their House majority.

Those people on the House ethics committee are obviously racists. How dare they bring charges against Rangel and Waters NOW? Surely they must ALL be members of the Congressional WHITE Caucus.

Wait… There is NO Congressional WHITE Caucus.

Waters came under scrutiny after former Treasury Department officials said she helped arrange a meeting between regulators and executives at Boston-based OneUnited Bank without mentioning her husband’s financial ties to the institution.

Well, you know, you need to give Maxine a break. It just slipped her mind, there was no criminal intent, these guys at Treasury are a bunch of TEA Party racists and are only picking on Waters because she’s BLACK!

The real Maxine Waters. WARNING: LANGUAGE ALERT!

That is an example of Maxine Waters and her supporters. I don’t know what it has to do with this particular charge of ethics violations, but I found it interesting, and thought my readers may too!

Ethics Inquiry of Rangel Finds Evidence of Violations

WASHINGTON — A House investigative panel has found “substantial reason to believe�? that Representative Charles B. Rangel violated a range of ethics rules, dealing a serious blow to Mr. Rangel, a Harlem Democrat, in the twilight of his political career.

The finding means that he must face a public trial before the House ethics committee, the first member of Congress to be forced to do so since 2002, when Representative James A. Traficant Jr. was expelled from Congress after a corruption conviction.

The investigative panel did not disclose any details about the nature of the violations.

But two Democrats with knowledge of the investigation said the committee found evidence to support accusations that Mr. Rangel, 80, wrongly accepted four rent-stabilized apartments in Manhattan and misused his office to preserve a tax loophole worth half a billion dollars for an oil executive who pledged a donation for an educational center being built in Mr. Rangel’s honor.

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Ethics Inquiry of Rangel Finds Evidence of Violations

But Rangel can’t be unethical, he’s an esteemed, long serving elected official. This is being done strictly because Charlie Rangel is Black and the entire U.S. Congress is a bunch of racists.

Anyone care to take bets that this isn’t how the story will play out on the evening news?

Is there anyone out there that doesn’t believe that the NAACP and The New Black Panthers will be all up in the air over this? Demanding that the *White Devils* apologize for wronging Brother Rangel? Oh, I almost forgot, and demanding some reparations in the process?

The committee also found evidence to support a charge that Mr. Rangel failed to report or pay taxes on rental income from his beachfront Dominican villa.

They are among the most serious of the assortment of charges against Mr. Rangel that the panel has been examining for nearly two years.

Charges have been filed. That’s a 1st step. Accusations are one thing, proving them is another matter entirely.

I don’t know if Charlie Rangel is guilty or not. All I know is what I read in the papers, just like most everyone else. What I do know is this; the accusations have been floating around for far too long, if they can be substantiated and proven in a court of law, run the guy out on a rail. If they can’t be proven, beyond a shadow of a doubt, leave him alone and let him go on about his business.

Mr. Rangel, who has dismissed the accusations since they were first made in 2008, continued to contest them on Thursday and said he looked forward to publicly rebutting them. “I am pleased that, at long last, sunshine will pierce the cloud of serious allegations that have been raised against me in the media,�? Mr. Rangel’s statement said.

Rangel may well be about to prove his accusers wrong, maybe not, we’ll all have to wait and see, but the fact of the matter is this, if he’s found guilty it will be because he’s Black and everyone else is a racist. If he’s found innocent, there will be rants that Rangel was only charged because he’s Black and because everyone else is a racist.

Any way it goes, it’s going to be about racism.

Mr. Rangel, who in March gave up his seat as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in response to a separate ethics issue, has spent nearly $2 million fighting to clear himself in the various investigations as he seeks a 21st term this fall.

A 21st term? Would it be out of line to point out, once again, the NEED for term limits?

His office said Thursday that there was no possibility he would withdraw from the race or resign. But his mounting problems have become a liability for Democrats nationally as they seek to retain their control of the House. Republicans have criticized Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, for not moving more swiftly and decisively to discipline Mr. Rangel.

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