America Faces No Greater Threat Than Joe Biden and the Democrat Party. Their Assault to Our Borders Is As Great As Their Assault to Free Speech and Free Elections
Tuesday, March 14, 2023
BIDENOMICS AND THE BANKSTER ECONOMY - Kevin McCarthy: Biden’s ‘Failed’ Fiscal Policies, Rising Interest Rates Led to Silicon Valley Bank Crisis
USA BANKS $1 Trillion Uninsured Deposits Raises Risk of Failures & 6 USA Banks Marked as Higher Risk
Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) attended a fundraiser Monday night in California with a partner from Silicon Valley Bank’s legal firm, just days after the tech-sector-focused bank collapsed.
Michael Danaher is listed as one of the hosts for Tester’s fundraiser in Palo Alto on Monday,where invited donors were asked to pay between $250 and $6,600 to attend with the senator. Danaher is also a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati, representing many venture capital clients, including Silicon Valley Bank.
Douglas Clark, a managing partner at Wilson, Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati, lists SVB as a client. The firm also provided a guidance sheet for its wealthy list of international clients that may have been affected by SVB’s failure.
Wilson, Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati has worked on behalf of many investment banks and venture capital firms in the Silicon Valley region since its founding in 1961. Founder Larry Sonsini previously served on SVB’s board of directors in the mid-200s.
The law firm and SVB have partnered for severalinvestor events in recent years. The two also agreed last month to sponsor a fellowship “to address systemic racial, gender, and other underrepresentation in talent across the life sciences and biotech industry.”
The list of hosts for the event also included executives from many other venture-backed tech companies, such as Jon Foster, a board member of the driverless electric vehicle company Udelv; Jesse Dorogusker, a Bitcoin hardware lead at Block; and Greg Avis, the co-founder of the venture firm Summit Partners.
This also comes after the Silicon Valley Bank collapsed last week when panicked customers suddenly withdrew tens-of-billions of dollars after the bank announced a loss of approximately $1.8 billion from selling its investments in U.S. treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. Ultimately, regulators shut Silicon Valley Bank down, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) took control of the bank and said they would protect insured deposits.
On Sunday, the U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve, and the FDIC announced that they would be taking “decisive actions to protect the U.S. economy by strengthening public confidence in [the U.S.] banking system” by effectively making deposits above the FDIC’s $250,000 limit available Monday. Over the weekend, the Silicon Valley Bank failed to be auctioned off after none of the largest U.S. banks bid. However, the FDIC reportedly plans to attempt a second auction for the bank.
Tester is up for reelection in 2024 and is considered a vulnerable member in the Democrat’s slim 51-seat majority in the Senate. In 2024, 23 of the 33 Senate seats up for reelection are currently held by Democrats or left-leaning independents. Former President Donald Trump won six of these states by double digits in at least one of his presidential elections. Tester is considered to be one of the top vulnerable Democrats.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) welcomed the federal government’s intervention Sunday to protect depositors at the failed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) — but failed to mention that he has been its client.
The White House “acted swiftly and decisively to protect the American economy and strengthen public confidence in our banking system,” Newsom said in a statement. What Newsom didn’t mention is that it also protected his own companies if they held over $250,000 in deposits.
CADE, Odette, and PlumpJack, three wineries owned by Newsom, are listed as clients of SVB on the bank’s website. Newsom also maintained personal accounts at SVB for years, according to a longtime former employee of Newsom’s who handled his finances, and who requested anonymity to avoid professional reprisal.
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Newsom also didn’t mention his wife Jennifer Siebel’s professional ties to the bank. In 2021, Silicon Valley Bank gave $100,000 to the charity founded by Siebel, the California Partners Project, at the request of Newsom. John China, president of SVB Capital and responsible for SVB’s funds management, is himself a founding member of the California Partners Project’s board of directors.
Silicon Valley Bank was chartered in California, but its problems somehow eluded aggressive state regulators.
As Breitbart News reported Monday, the collapse of the bank is the latest failure on Newsom’s watch — in addition to electricity shortages, wildfires, and a blizzard (during which he left the state). The conservative California Globe also noted that an SVB executive served on the board of Newsom’s wife’s organization.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
Moody’s Cuts Outlook for U.S. Banking System to Negative
Moody’s Investors Service cut its outlook for the U.S. banking system to negative from stable and placed six U.S. banks on review for potential credit rating downgrades.
“We have changed to negative from stable our outlook on the US banking system to reflect the rapid deterioration in the operating environment following deposit runs at Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Silvergate Bank, and Signature Bank (SNY) and the failures of SVB and SNY,” Moody’s said in a report released Monday.
The ratings agency warned that there was still a risk of bank runs at U.S. banks with substantial unrealized losses.
“Banks with substantial unrealized securities losses and with non-retail and uninsured US depositors may still be more sensitive to depositor competition or ultimate flight, with adverse effects on funding, liquidity, earnings and capital,” Moody’s said.
Even banks that do not experience runs are likely to face rising funding costs, cutting into profitability, Moody’s said.
“We expect pressures to persist and be exacerbated by ongoing monetary policy tightening, with interest rates likely to remain higher for longer until inflation returns to within the Fed’s target range,” the report said. “US banks also now are facing sharply rising deposit costs after years of low funding costs, which will reduce earnings at banks, particularly those with a greater proportion of fixed-rate assets.”
Moody’s also warned it was reviewing the rates of First Republic Bank, Zions, Western Alliance, Comerica, UMB Financial, and Intrust Financial. It said it had cut the rating on Signature Bank, which was seized by bank regulators over the weekend, to junk.
Despite the downgrade of the sector, Moody’s said the U.S. banking system is well-capitalized, has amble liquidity, and generally is prepared to withstand an economic downturn. The company expects the economy to fall into a recession later this year.
Kevin McCarthy: Biden’s ‘Failed’ Fiscal Policies, Rising Interest Rates Led to Silicon Valley Bank Crisis
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said during a House Republican Conference call on Monday night that President Joe Biden’s “failed” fiscal policies and rising interest rates led to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, according to a report.
The House Republican Conference held a private call with McCarthy, House Financial Services Committee chairman Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC), and Rep. French Hill (R-AR).
McHenry said that Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse was the result of “current social media meets the bank rush scene in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.'”
Punchbowl News continued:
McHenry also argued that bank management’s pushed for SVB to grow too quickly, and the assets it held were a poor fit for a rising interest rate environment.
Hill, chair of the House Financial Services subcommittee on digital assets, blamed SVB’s failure on a lack of oversight from the San Francisco Fed office. That complaint was echoed by Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky), chair of the financial institutions and monetary policy subcommittee on Financial Services.
In an interview late Monday night, McHenry said there was not an immediate need for legislation to resolve the banking crisis.
“They currently have the tools, and they‘ve used them appropriately to resolve two banks,” McHenry said in an interview with Punchbowl News. “They acted swiftly and boldly, and I’ve told them more than once that bold action I will absolutely support if it is in the interest of the financial system and in the interest of the American people.”
Breitbart News Economics Editor John Carney pointed out in the Breitbart Business Digest that a research paper from the New York Fed found that increased demand accounts for two-thirds of inflation and that fiscal stimulus was responsible for half or more of the increase in demand.
“The Fed accommodated the Biden administration’s reckless fiscal policy by holding interest rates near zero even after the economy had begun to recover from the pandemic and lockdowns. Massive quantitative easing held down bond yields not just for Treasuries but for mortgage-backed securities as well,” Carney noted.
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
In every crisis, the two main classes of society align themselves and more and more directly on their fundamental material interests. The program of the ruling class will develop accordingly: rescue operations for the financial oligarchy combined with war and social counterrevolution.
Silicon Valley Bank Bailout is Socialism for the Rich
Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is getting a bailout. That’s the latest news from the United States Treasury Department, which announced it will make depositors in the failed bank whole.
Many of those depositors were tech start-ups, and until Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s announcement on Sunday afternoon, they didn’t know if they would make payroll on the 15th of the month. Their investors, famous for their risk-taking, feared massive losses in their portfolios.
The bank’s clients were in a bind because federal insurance only covers deposits up to $250,000. That’s more money than almost anybody would keep in a bank account—but not a start-up! According to the Economist, almost 93 percent of SVB’s deposits were not insured.
These entrepreneurs either knew, or should have known, the risks they were taking, and the government should not be in the business of rewarding this arrogance and stupidity. A government bailout is nothing more than a backdoor that will leave taxpayers on the hook for the foolish decisions of so-called capitalists who are unwilling to pay the costs of risks gone awry.
The Fed claims none of the costs of this bailout will be borne by the taxpayer. Don’t be fooled by these word games. SVB’s safety net may be paid with insurance premiums that banks pay to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. That in turn means that banks will charge their customers—the taxpayers—more.
Meanwhile, the tech industry has already benefited tremendously from government policy. From 2020 through the end of 2021, SVB’s assets grew 83 percent—and kept growing into 2022. For at least three years, government policy has underwritten tech speculation and fantastic valuations. Venture capitalists and founders became fantastically rich.
In fact, they became so flush that they poured cash into their portfolio companies until it overflowed into deposit accounts at SVB, which in turn bought government bonds and mortgage-backed securities.
When interest rates rose thanks to Bidenflation, those bonds and securities lost value. A government bailout, given this chain of events, is nothing more than socialism for the rich.
It is not irrelevant that upwards of 90 percent of Silicon Valley’s political donations flow to Democrats, and that the tech bros shelled out far more for President Joe Biden than for Hillary Clinton. This of course as some of Silicon Valley’s major players have cozied up to America’s enemies and eagerly done the bidding of the Democratic Party in its attempts to ostracize and silence dissenting views.
It’s hard to stomach a bailout for these people. It will be even harder for the Democrats to explain it to American taxpayers.
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB)—the second largest bank failure in nominal terms in US history—and the ongoing turbulence in the banking system, raising the prospect of more failures, is another expression of the historic crisis of US and global capitalism.
This deepening rot and decay constitute the underlying driving force of two interconnected developments in US and world politics: the rapid escalation towards a third world war and the ongoing and intensifying assault on the working class in the US and internationally as the ruling classes seek to make it pay for the existential crisis of their outmoded and reactionary private profit system.
A pedestrian passes a Silicon Valley Bank Private branch in San Francisco, Monday, March 13, 2023.. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu) [AP Photo]
The commitment by the Biden administration to do “whatever is needed” to protect the money and wealth of financial investors, speculators and the wealthy has again laid bare the real nature of capitalist governments as the executive committee for managing the affairs of the ruling financial oligarchy.
There is no money for the vital health, education and other social needs of the working class now being battered by the worst inflation in more than four decades, but billions, trillions, can be found overnight to defend the wealth of the financial oligarchy.
At the same time, no expense is being spared in the development of the means necessary for the prosecution of war—the US-NATO war in Ukraine, the goal of which is the breakup and dismemberment of Russia and the war drive against China, which the US regards as its chief global rival.
There is a deep-seated and organic connection between the SVB debacle and the possibility of an implosion of the financial system and the war drive.
The continuous eruption of financial crises, despite all the claims of the regulators and financial authorities that lessons have been learned and safety measures put in place, is an expression of the historic decline of the economic power of US imperialism which it seeks to resolve through military means.
The prescient analysis of Leon Trotsky made in 1928 springs to mind. He noted that the aggressive character of US imperialism would emerge more openly, more nakedly vicious under conditions of its historic decline than in the conditions of its rise, bloody and violent as that was.
The demise of SVB and the shock waves it is sending through the financial system, the full consequences of which have yet to be seen, is another expression of the essential dynamic, one could say a law of motion, of US capitalism now in operation.
Tracing out the developments of the past 50 years, this dynamic comes clearly into view: Measures taken by the ruling class and its state to try to stave off or alleviate a crisis at one point only create the conditions for its eruption, in even more violent form, at another.
In August 1971, in response to the decline of the position of American capitalism vis-à-vis its rivals, US president Nixon withdrew the gold backing from the US dollar, ending the postwar monetary system.
One of the consequences of this decision, taken to shore up the position of the US, was to fuel the growth of financial speculation which increasingly characterised the modus operandi of US capitalism throughout the 1980s as whole swaths of industry that had formed the foundation of the postwar boom were laid to waste.
In October 1987, the developing crisis these measures produced erupted in the form of a Wall Street crash, still the largest single one-day fall in history at more than 22 percent.
The guarantee by the US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan in response to this crisis—what became known as the Greenspan put—that the Fed would prop up the financial markets led to an expanding orgy of speculation over the next two decades, leading to the eruption of the US and global financial crisis of 2008.
The Fed and the US government then organized a bailout for the banks running into hundreds of billions of dollars as the unemployment rate rose to double digits, working class families lost their homes and workplace conditions worsened, not least through the spread of two-tier wage systems organised by the Obama administration with the collaboration of the trade unions.
In the wake of the crisis, the Fed began its program of quantitative easing, the pumping of trillions of dollars into the financial system via the purchase of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities. Instead of ending the rampant speculation that precipitated the 2008 crash, the central bank, the chief financial arm of the capitalist state, further fuelled it.
This meant that when the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, the Trump administration, supported by the Democrats, refused to institute the necessary public health measures, fearing they would collapse the speculative bubble.
Instead, the Fed pumped in still more money after the financial freeze of March 2020 when, for a number of days, there was no market for US government debt, supposedly the safest financial asset in the world, thus fuelling even more speculation and financial parasitism.
But this operation had consequences in the real economy. The refusal to eliminate COVID, the injection of $4 trillion into the financial system, rampant speculation and profit gouging by major commodity traders and giant food corporations, together with the military offensive against Russia in Ukraine, combined to set off the highest rate of inflation in four decades.
Fearing the consequences of a wages upsurge by the working class—the nemesis of the financial system—the Fed then changed course and started the steepest rate hikes since the early 1980s to try to crush it.
Now these measures have created the conditions for a new financial crisis, as can be seen in the collapse of SVB. Like so many other banks and financial corporations, SVB, which has been closely involved with the high-tech sector in California, gorged on the cheap money provided by the Fed in 2020 and 2021.
It had so much cash on hand that it had to place large portions of it in Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities, supposedly ultra-safe assets.
With the turn by the Fed to a higher interest rate regime, supposedly to fight inflation, but in reality aimed at suppressing the working class if necessary through recession, the situation turned sharply.
The market value of the bonds held by SVB fell as interest rates rose such that it has been estimated that its bonds lost $1 billion for every 25-basis point (0.25 percentage points) rise in the Federal funds rate which has now been lifted by around 450 basis points.
This collapse in its asset base led to the $42 billion run on the bank, resulting in its collapse.
The circumstances of SVB are not replicated everywhere. But all areas of the financial system, the dominant force in the capitalist economy, have become so dependent on the inflow of cheap money that they are now being heavily impacted by interest rate hikes, the effects of which have only started to make themselves felt.
What are the consequences? They flow from the very nature of finance capital itself.
At first sight it appears to be able to conjure up ever greater amounts of money out of money itself.
But this appearance-form masks a deeper reality. Finance capital does not create additional or new value. In the final analysis, it is a claim on the surplus value extracted from the working class in the process of capitalist production.
Thus, while it continually seeks to escape to a realm where money begets more money, finance capital always strives to intensify the exploitation of the working class, above all in time of crisis, as the experience of 2008 so graphically demonstrated.
At the same time, driven by the deepening economic and social crisis, at home the government and the capitalist state must make the working class pay for war by massive cuts in social spending.
In every crisis, the two main classes of society align themselves and more and more directly on their fundamental material interests. The program of the ruling class will develop accordingly: rescue operations for the financial oligarchy combined with war and social counterrevolution.
The working class is likewise driven onto a collision course with the entire apparatus of the capitalist system. However, for that struggle to be successful, no matter how deep the crisis of the ruling class and its system, the working class must be politically armed with a clear program and perspective: the conquest of political power and the construction of a socialist economy.
And above all, it must have at its head a revolutionary party. The collapse of SVB and the deepening crisis of capitalism it expresses is therefore a clarion call for the construction of the International Committee and its sections in the US and internationally.
Biden Announcing Bank Bailout: ‘Our Banking System is Safe’
(CNSNews.com) - President Joe Biden gave a short speech on Monday morning to address the collapse of two major U.S. banks—the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank—and stated: “Our banking system is safe. Your deposits are safe.”
The California-based Silicon Valley Bank was taken over by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation on Friday and, on Sunday, the FDIC took control of the New York-based Signature Bank after it was closed by state regulators.
On Sunday, Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome H. Powell, and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg released a statement that, in part, said the following:
“After receiving a recommendation from the boards of the FDIC and the Federal Reserve, and consulting with the President, Secretary Yellen approved actions enabling the FDIC to complete its resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California, in a manner that fully protects all depositors. Depositors will have access to all of their money starting Monday, March 13. No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer.
“We are also announcing a similar systemic risk exception for Signature Bank, New York, New York, which was closed today by its state chartering authority. All depositors of this institution will be made whole. As with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, no losses will be borne by the taxpayer.”
While the resolution announced by Yellen, Powell and Gruenberg said that their solution “fully protects all depositors” and that depositors “will have access to all of their money,” the FDIC only guarantees deposits up to $250,000—not over that level.
“Deposit insurance guarantees repayments of deposits at a bank up to the insured limit, $250,000,” says a report by the Congressional Research Service.
“It is intended to prevent bank runs and reduce the risk of systemic failure of the banking system,” says CRS. “Banks pay deposit insurance premiums to the FDIC, which maintains the DIF [Deposit Insurance Fund] to meet its obligations of insuring deposits and resolving failed banks.”
In his address on Monday morning, Biden indicated that all of the money for bailing out these two failed banks will come from the DIF. “No losses will be borne by the taxpayers,” he said.
Here is a full transcript of Biden’s address on the bailout of the failed banks:
President Joe Biden: “Good morning, everyone. Before I leave for California, I want to briefly speak about what’s happening to Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
“Today, thanks to the quick action of my administration over the past few days, Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe. Your deposits will be there when you need them.
“Small businesses across the country that had deposit accounts at these banks can breathe easier knowing they’ll be able to pay their workers and pay their bills. And their hardworking employees can breathe easier as well.
“Last week, when we learned of the problems of the banks and the impact they could have on jobs, some small businesses, and the banking system overall, I instructed my team to act quickly to protect these interests. They have done that. They have done that.
“On Friday, the government regulator in charge, the FDIC, took control of Silicon Valley Bank’s assets. And over the weekend, it took control of Signature Bank’s assets.
“Treasury Secretary Yellen and a team of banking regulators have taken action — immediate action. And here are the highlights:
“First, all customers who had deposits in these banks can rest assured — I want to — rest assured they’ll be protected and they’ll have access to their money as of today. That includes small businesses across the country that banked there and need to make payroll, pay their bills, and stay open for business.
“No losses will be — and I want — this is an important point — no losses will be borne by the taxpayers. Let me repeat that: No losses will be borne by the taxpayers. Instead, the money will come from the fees that banks pay into the Deposit Insurance Fund.
“Because of the actions of that — because of the actions that our regulators have already taken, every American should feel confident that their deposits will be there if and when they need them.
“Second, the management of these banks will be fired. If the bank is taken over by FDIC, the people running the bank should not work there anymore.
“Third, investors in the banks will not be protected. They knowingly took a risk and when the risk didn’t pay off, investors lose their money. That’s how capitalism works.
“And fourth, there are important questions of how these banks got into these circumstances in the first place. We must get the full accounting of what happened and why those responsible can be held accountable. In my administration, no one, in my view — no one is above the law.
“And finally, we must reduce the risks of this happening again. During the Obama-Biden administration, we put in place tough requirements on banks like Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, including the Dodd-Frank Law, to make sure the crisis we saw in 2008 would not happen again.
“Unfortunately, the last administration rolled back some of these requirements. I’m going to ask Congress and the banking regulators to strengthen the rules for banks to make it less likely that this kind of bank failure will happen again and to protect American jobs and small businesses.
“Look, the bottom line is this: Americans can rest assured that our banking system is safe. Your deposits are safe.
“Let me also assure you: We will not stop at this. We’ll do whatever is needed on top of all this.
“Let’s also take a look — a moment to put the situation in a broader context. We have made strong economic progress in the past two years. We’ve created more than 12 million new jobs — more jobs in two years than any President has ever created in a single four-year term. Unemployment is below 4 percent for 14 straight months. Take-home pay for workers is going up, especially for lower- and middle-income workers. And we’ve seen record numbers of people apply to start new businesses — more than 10 million of them — more than 10 million applications over the last two years starting businesses.
“Now we need to keep the program — this progress going. That’s what swift action that my administration, over the past few years, is all about: protecting depositors, protecting the banking system, protecting the economic gains we have made together for the American people.
“Thank you. God bless you. And may God protect our troops. See you in California.”
TRY SEPARATING THE DEMOCRAT POLS FROM THEIR BANKSTERS!
Waters: Banks Could Pass Cost of Backstopping SVB Depositors to Taxpayers
On Monday’s broadcast of CBS’ “Red & Blue,” House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) acknowledged that banks could pass the cost of backstopping the depositors of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) on to consumers, but there isn’t evidence they have yet.
Host Caitlin Huey-Burns asked, “The biggest question I think a lot of people have is that the government says that this won’t cost anything for taxpayers. But how is that possible? Couldn’t banks just pass this on to their consumers, who are also taxpayers, in some way?”
Waters answered, “Well, actually, we’re very fortunate that we have a federal insurance program that protects depositors up to [$250,000], but that is premiums that are paid in by the banks. And it is well-funded. And so, that’s where that money is coming from.”
Huey-Burns then asked, “But is there a way that these banks could somehow pass that on to the consumer?”
Waters responded, “Well, you know, you could think that way. When you think about businesses and you think about how they earn money, you could think that they could raise prices, etc. But we see no signs of that at this point, at all. The money was there. It’s in the insurance fund, it’s been paid for already, and we don’t see any way that that’s going to increase taxpayers at this time in any way.”
Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) has now dished out more than
$1 million in campaign payments to her daughter following
the 2020 elections.
Judicial Watch investigated the scandal and obtained documents from the U.S. Treasury related to the controversial bailout. The famously remiss House Ethics Committee, which is charged with investigating and punishing corrupt lawmakers like Waters, found that she committed no wrongdoing. The panel bought Waters’ absurd story that she allocated the money as part of her longtime work to promote opportunity for minority-owned businesses and lending in underserved communities even though her husband’s bank was located thousands of miles away from the south Los Angeles neighborhoods she represents in Congress.
Everybody wins when Maxine sells her
endorsement, Maxine's family with cash, and
others with cash turned into newfound power.
The only losers are the voters, who get these
misleading junk mail flyers in their mail and
vote on arguably false premises.
Maxine Waters Unfit to Chair House Financial Services Committee Considering her record and documented history of poor ethical and moral fitness, it’s outrageous that Maxine Waters is up for chair of the ultra-powerful House Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over the country’s banking system, economy, housing, and insurance. With Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives, come January the 14-term California congresswoman is expected to head the committee, which also has jurisdiction over monetary policy, international finance, and efforts to combat terrorist financing. Throughout her storied political career, Watershas been embroiled in numerous controversies, including abusing her power to enrich family members, getting a communist dictator to harbor a cop-murdering Black Panther fugitive still wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and accusing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of selling crack cocaine in black neighborhoods. A few months ago, the 80-year-old Democrat from Los Angeles encouraged violence against Trump administration cabinet members. “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they are not welcome anymore, anywhere,” Waters said at a summer rally in Los Angeles. Judicial Watch filed a House ethics complaint against Waters for encouraging violence against Trump Cabinet members. Among her most corrupt acts as a federal legislator is steering millions of federal bailout dollars to her husband’s failing bank, OneUnited. Waters allocated $12 million to the Massachusetts bank in which she and her board member husband held shares. OneUnited subsequently got shut down by the government and American taxpayers got stiffed for the millions. Judicial Watch investigated the scandal and obtained documents from the U.S. Treasury related to the controversial bailout. The famously remiss House Ethics Committee, which is charged with investigating and punishing corrupt lawmakers like Waters, found that she committed no wrongdoing. The panel bought Waters’ absurd story that she allocated the money as part of her longtime work to promote opportunity for minority-owned businesses and lending in underserved communities even though her husband’s bank was located thousands of miles away from the south Los Angeles neighborhoods she represents in Congress. The reality is that without intervention by Waters OneUnited was an extremely unlikely candidate for a government bailout through the disastrous Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The Treasury Department warned that it would only provide bailout funds to healthy banks to jump-start lending and OneUnited clearly didn’t meet that criteria. Documents uncovered by Judicial Watch detail the deplorable financial condition of OneUnited at the time of the government cash infusion. The records also show that, prior to the bailout, the bank received a “less than satisfactory rating.” Incredibly, after that scandal Waters was chosen by her colleagues to hold a ranking position on the House Financial Services Committee she will soon chair. The only consequence for blowing $12 million on her husband’s failing bank was a slap on the hand to Waters’ chief of staff (her grandson) for violating House standards of conduct to help OneUnited. Waters, who represents some of Los Angeles’ poorest inner-city neighborhoods, has also helped family members make more than $1 million through business ventures with companies and causes that she has helped, according to her hometown newspaper. While she and her relatives get richer (she lives in a $4.5 million Los Angeles mansion), her constituents get poorer. The congresswoman was also embroiled in a fundraising scandal for skirting federal election rules with a shady gimmick that allows unlimited donations from certain contributors. Instead of raising most of her campaign funds from individuals or political action committees, Waters sells her endorsement to other politicians and political causes for as much as $45,000 a pop. It wouldn’t be right to part without also noting some of Waters’ international accolades. She has made worldwide headlines for her frequent trips to communist Cuba to visit her convicted cop-assassin friend, Joanne Chesimard, who appears on the FBI’s most wanted list and is also known by her Black Panther name of Assata Shakur. Chesimard was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted by a jury of the 1979 murder of a New Jersey State Trooper. With the help of fellow cult members, she escaped from jail and fled to Cuba. Outraged U.S. lawmakers insisted she be extradited but Waters always stood by her side, likening the cop-assassin to civil rights leader Martin Luther King. In fact, Waters wrote Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro a letter to assure him that she was not part of the group of U.S. legislators who voted for a resolution to extradite the cop murderer. Waters told Castro that she opposed extradition because Chesimard was “politically persecuted” in the U.S. and simply seeking political asylum in Havana, where she still lives. In the 1980s Waters accused the CIA of selling crack cocaine to blacks in her south-central Los Angeles district to raise millions of dollars to support clandestine operations in Latin America, including a guerrilla army. During the infamous 1992 Los Angeles riots the congresswoman repeatedly excused the violent behavior that ironically destroyed the areas she represents in the House. She dismissed the severe beating of a white truck driver by saying the anger in her district was righteous. She also excused looters who stole from stores by saying they were simply mothers capitalizing on an opportunity to take some milk, bread, and shoes. Should this ethically and morally challenged individual, who has repeatedly displayed behavior unbecoming of a federal lawmaker, be at the helm of an influential congressional committee that oversees the financial sector?
Until a few months ago, Rep. Maxine Waters, (D-CA) was the chair of the House Financial Services Committee, and currently is the ranking member of the minority. She represents a district in the very state that contains Silicon Valley.
One would think that any sentient consumer of information – both from media and from Congressional sources – would understand the difference between silicon and silicone. Silicon is an element (Si is its symbol), prominently found on the periodic table of elements.
Silicone, in contrast, is a manmade (oops, person-made) polymer, useful in many applications, including caulk and boob-enhancement, but is useless for manufacturing semiconductors.
Why Ms. Waters habitually says “silicone” when “silicon” (which is what is used in semiconductor fabrication) is the correct term is a question that I don’t care to speculate on. But somehow, I don't see her recaulking the bathrooms in her multi-million dollar Hancock Park mansion that's not even in her congresional district.
Even as late as yesterday on MSNBC with (who else?) Joy Reid, Waters idiotically repeated her habit of calling Silicon Valley Bank “Silicone Valley Bank.”
Just remember that Democrats consider themselves the party of the well-educated and smart people.
Democrat mega-donor Sam Bankman-Fried, whose cryptocurrency platform FTX just collapsed in a hail of fraud allegations, pretty well walks around free to do what he pleases, out in the palmy Bahamas.
That raises questions as to what is going on here, why that guy isn't, like Bernie Madoff or the assorted Enron characters, in jail for his misappropriation of customer funds from his cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, through a secret "back-door," to his Alameda Research hedge fund, run by his kinky-weird ex-girlfriend, Caroline Ellison.
FTX did, after all, insist to its cryptocurrency platform customers that it would never use their deposits for speculative trading purposes.
...FTX and other crypto exchanges are not banks. They do not (or should not) do bank-style lending, so even a very acute surge of withdrawals should not create a liquidity strain. FTX had specifically promised customers it would never lend out or otherwise use the crypto they entrusted to the exchange.
Well, it did.
The kinds of crimes now alleged about the now-bankrupt firm include secretly spiriting customer funds to Alameda for trading purposes, use of FTX assets as collateral so that Alameda could borrow and risk even more on its own behalf, immense personal loans to FTX executives which likely signaled criminal intent-- with Coindesk calling this one a biggie:
The FTX situation has more smoking guns than a shooting range in Texas, but you might call this one the smoking bazooka – a glaringly obvious sign of criminal intent. It’s still unclear how the bulk of those personal loans were used, but clawing the expenditures back will likely be a major task for liquidators.
...bailing out other troubled cryptocurrency exchanges with FTX exchange money, drawing praise as a sort of J.P. Morgan protector of the crypto industry, and the purchase of a tiny U.S. bank in Washington state, which Coindesk compared to the activities of the beyond-filthy Pakistani Bank of Credit & Commerce International's activities, which also attempted to buy itself a U.S. bank, in its case for money-laundering purposes.
All this, while claiming he had no idea what was going on at his company, and drawing lots of fawning press as a result of his help to his leftist charities and Democrats. Coindesk lays out some of the grosser ones:
It is now clear that what happened at the FTX crypto exchange and the hedge fund Alameda Research involved a variety of conscious and intentional fraud intended to steal money from both users and investors. That’s why a recent New York Times interview was widely derided for seeming to frame FTX’s collapse as the result of mismanagement rather than malfeasance. A Wall Street Journal article bemoaned the loss of charitable donations from FTX, arguably propping up Bankman-Fried’s strategic philanthropic pose. Vox co-founder Matthew Yglesias, court chronicler of the neoliberal status quo, seemed to whitewash his own entanglements by crediting Bankman-Fried’s money with helping Democrats in the 2020 elections – sidestepping the likelihood that the money was effectively embezzled.
The guy keeps getting good press despite his misuse of customer funds, which he ending up losing $10 billion of, spoonfeeding to the still-fawning media that he "made mistakes." Notice that Vox is happy to excuse him because he donated to Democrats, and the WSJ seems to be more concerned about these leftist charities, which promoted hideous ideas like "ranked choice voting," than they are about the people who lost their life savings. Some of the leftist press itelf, including vox, was funded by Bankman-Fried, and now is out of its promised grants from him and not happy about it.
That may be some kind of means of warding prosecutors off, the oodles of good press, which makes prosecutors look like bad guys if they go after him.
Prosecutors actually have bigger problems, though, in that in previous cases, such as that of Madoff, the bad guys admitted their culpability and provided their receipts. Bankman-Fried isn't doing that even as everything he says sets off bee-ess meters, as Jim Geraghty notes in his piece in National Review. Ankush Khardori, a former federal prosecutor, wrote a good, knowledgeable piece about the problems they are having on just legal issues in putting this guy away.
What does an investigation of an international financial fraud like this look like? To simplify matters greatly, the government is going to be looking for three things — documents, witnesses, and data — to determine whether SBF or those around him committed fraud. Let’s take these in turn.
He then goes into the problems with all of those matters, in documentations, witnesses, and data, plus the fact that the FTX entity and Alameda Research, are both based in the Bahamas, meaning, outside the U.S. regulatory framework, though they can still bring prosecutions based on U.S. customer losses. Emails may be on foreign servers, Google and other U.S. big tech companies may not be involved in those emails, the emails may have been deleted, the ledgers themselves may be inaccurate, and a lot of people inside the company didn't know what was going on, which will make the investigation take a lot of time.
Other thorny investigations, such as that of Elizabeth Holmes, took years, and this one could, too.
But letting this guy walk around free is problematic, too, because he is busy getting himself good press to turn that bad narrative about himself around so that the prosecutor don't dare act against him and the length of the investigation gives him time to do it.
What we may see is him donating even harder to Democrats than he already has (to the tune of $40 million) perhaps now through shell corporations to keep the lawmen at bay while the fawning press will continue to serve as his apologists. The press, as one commentator noted, devotes more time to 'exposing' Elon Musk, who spends his own money, than it does to SBF, who spends other people's money and loses it. We saw a lot of that going on with the Jeffrey Epstein case -- the knowledge that he had stuff on many prominent Democrats and others seems to have bought some kind of political protection and kept prosecutors at bay, for a time at least, with the Caribbean ensconcement another useful layer.
It goes to show the toxic influence of these donations to Democrats, and some Republicans, too, although those seem to have been done through an ignorant, unwitting, lieutenant. Bankman-Fried was the Democrats' second-largest donor, and all that he did seems to have been done on stolen money. The Democrats who took this money should be forced to make whole the defrauded investors since misappropriated money hardly becomes the property of the person who takes it.
But that might be too much at this stage. What's important now is that Bankman-Fried not be allowed to prop up any more Democrats or their odious wokester causes.
Bankrupt cryptocurrency firm FTX, whose former CEO Sam Bankman Fried spent nearly $40 million to help Democrats in this year's midterm elections, now owes its creditors at least $3 billion.
Judicial Watch investigated the scandal and obtained documents from the U.S. Treasury related to the controversial bailout. The famously remiss House Ethics Committee, which is charged with investigating and punishing corrupt lawmakers like Waters, found that she committed no wrongdoing. The panel bought Waters’ absurd story that she allocated the money as part of her longtime work to promote opportunity for minority-owned businesses and lending in underserved communities even though her husband’s bank was located thousands of miles away from the south Los Angeles neighborhoods she represents in Congress.
CRYPTO - Was FTX Simply a Fraudulent Criminal Scam? $10BN Customer Funds & $2BN Investor Money Lost
The 30-year-old entrepreneur donated $5 million to a super PAC that supported President Joe Biden in 2020 and $40 million this cycle, largely to Democrats. He contributed $6 million to the House Majority PAC, $1 million to the Senate Majority PAC, and nearly $900,000 to the Democratic National Committee.
Everybody wins when Maxine sells her endorsement, Maxine's
family with cash, and others with cash turned into newfound
power. The only losers are the voters, who get these
misleading junk mail flyers in their mail and vote on arguably
false premises.
What a racket this is for people like Waters. Still no sign of any
legislation to stop this practice. MONICA SHOWALTER
BELOW IS THE IMAGE OF BANKSTERS' RENT GIRL MAXINE. HARDLY SUPRISING HER HUSBAND IS A BANKSTER!
Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX Cronies Gave $300k to House Committee Members Investigating Him
House Financial Services Committee chair Maxine Waters has dodged questions about crypto titan's donations
Sam Bankman-Fried a
Sam Bankman-Fried Aimed to Outpace George Soros as Largest Democrat Donor
Disgraced former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried tried to build a political empire to rival Democrat megadonor George Soros.
Puck News reporter Theodore Schleifer wrote that Bankman-Fried personally bought a Democrat startup, Deck, spending roughly $4 to $5 million to buy out the existing investors to the Democrat analytics firm. Bankman-Fried reportedly heard about the startup from Mind the Gap, a Democrat donor network founded by his mother, Barbara Bankman-Fried.
The purchase of Deck served as Bankman-Fried’s political scheme to be the “biggest donor in the Democratic Party,” even outshining Democrat megadonor.
Democrat megadonor George Soros on January 23, 2020 in Davos, eastern Switzerland. (FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)
Bankman-Fried and Ryan Salame, co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets, served as two of the largest donors to Republicans and Democrats last cycle. Bankman-Fried fell just below Soros as the largest Democrat donor.
Ryan Salame, co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets. (Twitter)
In all, Bankman-Fried donated roughly $40 million to Democrat politicians and PACs, while Salame gave about $23 million to Republicans and PACs supporting the GOP.
Puck News wrote that the former FTX CEO sought advisers and conducted data experiments to help Democrats in the 2024 election cycle:
I have previously reported that S.B.F.’s team was actively looking for future advisors to join them in drafting “plays” for the 2024 cycle, and that one of those ideas was to fund some more progressive organizations, for instance. Some of those plans were already underway. I have learned in recent days that S.B.F. was already quietly funding some experiments across the Democratic ecosystem, such as randomized-controlled trials that might have yielded data that could help Democrats in 2024, according to two people familiar with the work, by assessing the impact of things like community newsletters, Facebook ads, and so-called “relational organizing.”
In all, the report suggested that Bankman-Fried might have spent roughly $100 million, but according to Schleifer, “That could be an undercount.”
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
Crypto Firm Led by Democratic Megadonor Owes Creditors $3 Billion
Bankrupt cryptocurrency firm FTX, whose former CEO Sam Bankman Fried spent nearly $40 million to help Democrats in this year's midterm elections, now owes its creditors at least $3 billion.
The firm, which was once valued at $32 billion, filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11, leaving a total of $3.1 billion owed to its top 50 creditors, the Washington Post reports:
The revelations, which came ina filing to U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware late Saturday,offer a striking portrait of the sheer number of entities that had considerably invested in, lent money to, or otherwise engaged with a three-year-old company that had done little to demonstrate it could properly safeguard the assets entrusted to it. Its top 50 creditors are owed a total of $3.1 billion, the filing showed, with the largest due $226 million.
The names of the creditors were redacted. […]
In a separate filing Saturday, new FTX chief executive John J. Ray said the company will seek sales and other forms of capitalization to ensure that as many creditors as possible get their money. He noted that some of the subsidiaries of FTX "have solvent balance sheets, responsible management, and valuable franchises," which could facilitate that process. Some 130 FTX sister companies are part of the bankruptcy filing.
Cofounder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who resigned when FTX filed for bankruptcy, and other FTX executives gave a total of $300,351 to nine members of the House Financial Services Committee. The largest donations went to Democrats working on regulating the crypto industry, the Washington Free Beacon found. Earlier this year, Bankman-Fried pledged $1 billion to Democratic campaigns in the 2022 midterm election. Now the crypto scion has lost all of his $16 billion net worth.
In the court filing, FTX listed one million potential creditors. Ray said the company is seeking sales and other forms of capitalization to ensure that its creditors get their money, but the process may prove difficult as Ray found serious inadequacies in FTX's record-keeping.
"The main companies in the Alameda Silo and the Ventures Silo did not keep complete books and records of their investments and activities," Ray wrote in the filing, referring to some of Bankman-Fried's entities. He added, "One of the most pervasive failures of the FTX.com business in particular is the absence of lasting records of decision-making."
Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and his cofounders donated over $300,000 to nine lawmakers who are now investigating the company for wrongdoing.
Bankman-Fried and his cofounders donated $300,351 to nine members of the House Financial Services Committee; the largest donations were to members of the Digital Assets Working Group, which is working on cryptocurrency regulation.
The House Financial Services Committee announced earlier this week that the committee would investigate any wrongdoing by Bankman-Fried and FTX.
Only Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-IL) said he would return a $2,900 donation from Bankman-Fried.
Although Bankman-Fried has donated to Republicans, 95 percent of the donations went to Democrats and Democrat campaign committees.
Bankman-Fried’s PAC, Protect Our Future PAC, spent $199,851 backing Garcia. The disgraced CEO and his brother, Gabriel, gave $40,300 to Rep. Ritchie Torres’s (D-NY) campaign and two of his political committees, the Torres Victory Fund and La Bamba PAC. Bankman-Fried and his head of the regulatory division gave $16,600 to Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ). Other Bankman-Fried employees gave $500 to Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), and $9,100 to Rep. Sean Caster (D-IL).
Torres, Gottheimer, Himes, and Casten were all members of the Digital Assets Working Group.
Bankman-Fried also gave $11,600 to Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA) and $5,000 to the super PAC for Rep. Cindy Axne (D-IA).
Bankman-Fried also generously donated to Sens. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and John Boozman (R-AR), who have pushed a cryptocurrency regulation bill, the Digital Commodities Consumer Protection Act, a bill that Bankman-Fried backs.
His intensive lobbying campaign appeared to pay off before his company’s demise. He supported legislation proposed by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) and Sen. John Boozman (R., Ark.) that would have subjected the crypto industry to regulation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, not the larger and aggressive Securities and Exchange Commission.
Bankman-Fried donated $5,800 to Stabenow’s campaign in February and $20,800 to her joint fundraising committee in January. Bankman-Fried gave $5,800 to Boozman in January and $5,800 to committee member Sen. John Hoeven (R., N.D.) in June. He gave a combined $31,000 to campaigns and joint fundraising committees tied to Sens. Cory Booker (D., N.J.), Tina Smith (D., Minn.), Dick Durbin (D., Ill.), and Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.), who serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee.
The 30-year-old entrepreneur donated $5 million to a super PAC that supported President Joe Biden in 2020 and $40 million this cycle, largely to Democrats. He contributed $6 million to the House Majority PAC, $1 million to the Senate Majority PAC, and nearly $900,000 to the Democratic National Committee.
House Financial Services Committee Chair Maxine Waters (D-CA) has dodged questions on whether Democrats should return donations from Bankman-Fried and his associates.
Sean Moran is a congressional reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
Waters Has Shoveled Over $1 Million in Campaign Cash to Daughter
Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.) has now dished out more than $1 million in campaign payments to her daughter following the 2020 elections.
Karen Waters has pocketed $1.13 million for providing an array of services for her mother's campaign since 2003. The majority of the cash is for her role in running a controversial slate-mailer operation, in which California politicians gave money to Waters's campaign in exchange for mailers bearing her endorsement.
The mailers have become increasingly lucrative for the younger Waters over the years. During the 2020 cycle, her payments hit a high of $240,000. That's significantly more than the $90,000 her firm, Progressive Connections, took in during the 2006 election cycle. The Federal Election Commission gave Waters the green light for the mailer operation in 2004.
While slate mailers are commonplace in states like California and Oregon, the practice is extremely rare at the federal level. In fact, Waters appears to be the only federal politician to use a slate-mailer operation. As such, the arrangement between her and her daughter has led to complaints from watchdog groups asking the FEC to audit the campaign.
Many prominent California politicians have paid to be featured on the mailers. Vice President Kamala Harris twice shelled out tens of thousands from her campaigns for a spot on the mailers. California governor Gavin Newsom (D.) and former senator Barbara Boxer (D.) have likewise dished out cash for Waters's support.
The practice has received criticism from local media."While some of these mailers reflect the earnest political values of the organizations that put them together, many are pay-to-play money-makers that blur the line between endorsement, paid advertisement and extortion," CalMatters wrote last year.
Waters's campaign did not return a request for comment.
Maxine Waters Pays Daughter Hundreds of Thousands in Campaign Funds
Rep. Maxine Waters's (D., Calif.) campaign paid her daughter hundreds of thousands in campaign funds during the 2020 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Karen Waters received $240,000 from her mother’s campaign for a variety of campaign activities, including soliciting campaign contributions from other candidates in exchange for the congresswoman's endorsement on campaign mailers, Fox News reported.
This is not the first time Maxine Waters has used the controversial practice to raise funds for her campaign, and her campaign has paid her daughter for years to help manage the scheme.
From 2006 through 2020, Waters’s campaign shelled out more than $1 million to her daughter—either directly or through Progressive Connections, Karen Waters’s public relations firm—for producing what are known as slate mailers featuring her mother's endorsement of California candidates. Karen Waters raked in more than $200,000 from her mother’s campaign during the 2018 election cycle, the Washington Free Beacon first reported.
Watchdog groups have filed complaints asking the FEC to audit Waters's campaign for using the mailers. The campaign has faced criticism for the mailers since 2010, when one watchdog group first reported that the congresswoman had been paying her daughter to run the operation.
California Democrats including Governor Gavin Newsom, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Waters’s campaign for the endorsement mailers.
Though the FEC caps individual campaign contributions at $2,800, payments for the slate mailers are considered "reimbursements" for Waters’s endorsement. The commission issued an advisory opinion in 2004 allowing Waters permission to run the operation through her campaign.
Waters was first elected to Congress in 1990 and serves California's 43rd Congressional District.
Maxine Waters Unfit to Chair House Financial Services Committee Considering her record and documented history of poor ethical and moral fitness, it’s outrageous that Maxine Waters is up for chair of the ultra-powerful House Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over the country’s banking system, economy, housing, and insurance. With Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives, come January the 14-term California congresswoman is expected to head the committee, which also has jurisdiction over monetary policy, international finance, and efforts to combat terrorist financing. Throughout her storied political career, Waters has
been embroiled in numerous controversies,
including abusing her power to enrich family
members, getting a communist dictator to harbor a
cop-murdering Black Panther fugitive still wanted
by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and
accusing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
of selling crack cocaine in black neighborhoods. A few months ago, the 80-year-old Democrat from Los Angeles encouraged violence against Trump administration cabinet members. “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them and you tell them they are not welcome anymore, anywhere,” Waters said at a summer rally in Los Angeles. Judicial Watch filed a House ethics complaint against Waters for encouraging violence against Trump Cabinet members. Among her most corrupt acts as a federal legislator is steering millions of federal bailout dollars to her husband’s failing bank, OneUnited. Waters allocated $12 million to the Massachusetts bank in which she and her board member husband held shares. OneUnited subsequently got shut down by the government and American taxpayers got stiffed for the millions. Judicial Watch investigated the scandal and obtained documents from the U.S. Treasury related to the controversial bailout. The famously remiss House Ethics Committee, which is charged with investigating and punishing corrupt lawmakers like Waters, found that she committed no wrongdoing. The panel bought Waters’ absurd story that she allocated the money as part of her longtime work to promote opportunity for minority-owned businesses and lending in underserved communities even though her husband’s bank was located thousands of miles away from the south Los Angeles neighborhoods she represents in Congress. The reality is that without intervention by Waters OneUnited was an extremely unlikely candidate for a government bailout through the disastrous Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The Treasury Department warned that it would only provide bailout funds to healthy banks to jump-start lending and OneUnited clearly didn’t meet that criteria. Documents uncovered by Judicial Watch detail the deplorable financial condition of OneUnited at the time of the government cash infusion. The records also show that, prior to the bailout, the bank received a “less than satisfactory rating.” Incredibly, after that scandal Waters was chosen by her colleagues to hold a ranking position on the House Financial Services Committee she will soon chair. The only consequence for blowing $12 million on her husband’s failing bank was a slap on the hand to Waters’ chief of staff (her grandson) for violating House standards of conduct to help OneUnited. Waters, who represents some of Los Angeles’ poorest inner-city neighborhoods, has also helped family members make more than $1 million through business ventures with companies and causes that she has helped, according to her hometown newspaper. While she and her relatives get richer (she lives in a $4.5 million Los Angeles mansion), her constituents get poorer. The congresswoman was also embroiled in a fundraising scandal for skirting federal election rules with a shady gimmick that allows unlimited donations from certain contributors. Instead of raising most of her campaign funds from individuals or political action committees, Waters sells her endorsement to other politicians and political causes for as much as $45,000 a pop. It wouldn’t be right to part without also noting some of Waters’ international accolades. She has made worldwide headlines for her frequent trips to communist Cuba to visit her convicted cop-assassin friend, Joanne Chesimard, who appears on the FBI’s most wanted list and is also known by her Black Panther name of Assata Shakur. Chesimard was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted by a jury of the 1979 murder of a New Jersey State Trooper. With the help of fellow cult members, she escaped from jail and fled to Cuba. Outraged U.S. lawmakers insisted she be extradited but Waters always stood by her side, likening the cop-assassin to civil rights leader Martin Luther King. In fact, Waters wrote Cuban Dictator Fidel Castro a letter to assure him that she was not part of the group of U.S. legislators who voted for a resolution to extradite the cop murderer. Waters told Castro that she opposed extradition because Chesimard was “politically persecuted” in the U.S. and simply seeking political asylum in Havana, where she still lives. In the 1980s Waters accused the CIA of selling crack cocaine to blacks in her south-central Los Angeles district to raise millions of dollars to support clandestine operations in Latin America, including a guerrilla army. During the infamous 1992 Los Angeles riots the congresswoman repeatedly excused the violent behavior that ironically destroyed the areas she represents in the House. She dismissed the severe beating of a white truck driver by saying the anger in her district was righteous. She also excused looters who stole from stores by saying they were simply mothers capitalizing on an opportunity to take some milk, bread, and shoes. Should this ethically and morally challenged individual, who has repeatedly displayed behavior unbecoming of a federal lawmaker, be at the helm of an influential congressional committee that oversees the financial sector?
CLEARLY WE KNOW HOW MUCH BILLARY, HILLARY AND THE OBOMB MADE SERVICING CRIMINAL BANKSTERS. ALL PAID VIA 'SPEECH' FEES AT ABOUT $500k EACH. OBAMA PRIDED HIMSELF IN MAKING SURE NO CRIMINAL BANKSTER EVER WENT TO PRISON. MOST OF HIS BANKSTERS CONTINUE TO THIS DAY TO PLUNDER WITH IMPUNITY!
KAMALA HARRIS WAS WAITING ON THE SIDELINES IN CA AS A.G. SUCKING OFF WELLS FARGO AND 'KING OF FORECLOSURES' STEVEN MNUCHIN.
THE OLD WHORE FEINSTEIN FOUGHT AGAINST ENDING 'CONSULTANT FEES TO FAMILY MEMBERS' BRIBES AS HER PIMP HUSBAND, RICHARD BLUM WAS DOLING OUT BIG MONEY TO BOXER SO SHE WOULD VOTE FOR ANYTHING THAT BENEFITED THE CRIME DUAL OF FEINSTEIN-BLUM.
FEINSTEIN IS A WHORE FOR RED CHINA, HAS SERVED THEM LONG FOR 'DEALS' THAT HER PIMP MADE. FEINSTEIN HAS LONG VOTED IN THE SENATE FOR ANYTHING THAT WOULD BENEFIT RED CHINA.
FEINSTEIN IS ALSO THE BIGGEST WAR PROFITEER IN U.S. HISTORY. SHE'S SO FUCKING CORRUPT SHE QUICKLY ENDORSED JOE BIDEN FOR THE PRESIDENCY, AFTER ALL, HE'S A FEINSTEIN CLONE.
When we last visited Rep. Maxine Waters's hightly questionable 'slate-mailer' money-making racket in 2019, where candidates and causes get Waters's endorsement in exchange for cash, her daughter Karen who runs the thing had just pocketed $50,000.
The reelection of U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters to another term in Congress last month proved to be something of a financial windfall for Karen Waters, the California Democrat's daughter, federal election data suggest.
Karen Waters received a total of about $240,000 from her 82-year-old mother’s campaign during the election cycle, Federal Election Commission records show.
The dollar figure appears to mirror what Karen Waters received during her mother’s previous campaign in 2018, when the daughter was paid “more than $200,000,” according to a November 2018 report by the Washington Free Beacon.
Which is nice work if you can get it. Seriously, this person makes $240,000 which is nearly equal to what the mayor of Los Angeles makes, or the average U.S. Senator makes, or Maxine herself makes as a House member at $174,000 a year. It's more than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi makes ($223,500). It's certainly more than California's Gov. Gavin Newsom ($210,000) makes.
All for the little task of assembling a mailer to fill the voters' junk mail takings and then the recycle bins in one part of one county, and collecting cash on the content. Running the country's largest state with the world's seventh largest economy, by contrast, is less important stuff. Karen Waters must be brilliant.
Which raises questions as to why Waters, a far left demogogue, is selling her endorsements for cash, and what the payers of these endorsements, are really getting for their money. We know the Waters machine is strong, but so strong as to merit inflated fees and salaries for Waters and her family? This is known as getting rich while in public office. Waters is the only one who's doing this sleazy machine-politics practice on a national scale, but don't imagine other Democrats aren't also looking to cash in.
Everybody wins when Maxine sells her
endorsement, Maxine's family with cash, and
others with cash turned into newfound power.
The only losers are the voters, who get these
misleading junk mail flyers in their mail and
vote on arguably false premises.
What a racket this is for people like Waters. Still no sign of any legislation to stop this practice.
Sam Bankman-Fried a
Lam Yik/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Sam Bankman-Fried / Getty ImagesWashington Free Beacon Staff • November 21, 2022 1:32 pm
Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty; David Dee Delgado/Getty
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