Are Democrats and Republicans Trying to Ruin Black Politicians?

The current climate in Washington is tense. Not only are the upcoming midterm elections expected to change the future political landscape, but so too will the recent rash of ethical complaints leveled at prominent Democrats.

Two longtime members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters are being investigated for alleged ethics violations.

Both of the aforementioned have declined plea offers and have accepted to fight the charges publicly prior to the November elections.

Since the establishment of the Office of Congressional Ethics by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in 2009, all eight individuals cited for alleged ethics violations have been members of the Congressional Black Caucus, meaning all are African American. As such, many are starting to question if these investigations are racially or politically motivated.

The recent allegations against Congressman Rangel, who faces 13 ethics charges, including improper fundraising and tax evasion, and Congresswoman Maxine Waters, whom the House ethics subcommittee has alleged broke ethics rules by lobbying Treasury officials for a $25 million bailout of OneUnited Bank in Boston, have given Congress a witch hunt environment. Waters’ husband, former NFL player Sidney Williams, has a financial stake in OneUnited.

In addition, the GOP has incessantly promoted an all-out ground assault against President Obama. Ironically all of this is happening while Republicans are trying to make the upcoming elections a referendum against the Democrat-controlled Congress and White House.

If the trials of Rangel and Waters do manifest, they may serve the interests of the GOP by driving a wedge between the Democratic Party, mainly the Obama White House, and his large corpus of African American supporters, and white Democrats.

The strange thing is that what Rangel and Waters are charged with is historically no different than activities conducted by former President George W. Bush.

Although to the dismay of many Democrats, Obama refused to charge the Bush administration with any criminal acts regarding his war against Iraq and his involvement with Enron.

During the first nine months of his administration, Bush used his presidential powers to assist his personal friend, Enron CEO Kenneth Lay, in covering up criminal activity. Bush fought vehemently against imposing caps on the price of electricity in California when Enron drove up prices artificially by manipulating and controlling supply. In addition, under the Bush administration, Lay was able to influence the administration's energy policies. In fact, the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was replaced in 2001 after he started an investigation into the now-illegal complex derivative-financing schemes practiced by Enron.

However, the Republicans are willing to take the opposite road if they are able to win back the U.S. House of Representatives in November. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., has stated that he will launch several investigations of the Obama administration if he becomes chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Of specific importance to Issa is the Obama administration’s alleged interference in U.S. Senate races in Pennsylvania and Colorado. Issa has attacked the administration with ethical wrongdoing charges consistently since Obama took office.

The double standard with respect to how Republicans and Democrats are being treated in regards to ethics violations sends mixed messages to the African American community. First it looks as if the white Democratic leadership, in concert with the GOP, is targeting blacks singularly. Second, it lets the world see America’s hypocrisy in regards to how Republicans are treated compared to black political officials, especially if one happens to be the first African American president of the United States of America.

the midas touch

Extra extra, read all about it, these mutha fuckas want to pass a 150$ billion economic emergency rescue bill with the quickness. At least, this is what I have been able to ascertain thus far based on what Mr. President, Mrs. Speaker of the House and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (yes Virginia, the Treasury Secretary has a name) have stated on the record.

This loot is supposed to serve as an economic stimulus to jump started the already stagnant economy (which I wrote about a few weeks ago) with roughly 66% allocated for tax breaks for individuals ($880 for individuals and $1600 for families) and a significant proportion of the remanding one-third to businesses given it also includes some additional but narrow support for unemployment benefits and food stamps for the poor.

I just wonder why they could not see all this shit approaching? A perspicacious person would have seen the possibility of such. Ronald Reagan started all this mess some 30 years ago. The California cowboy Actor as President Jones put in place policies that reduced the Feds typical role of providing government safe guards for the general public. Namely, protective acts that dealt wit such public concerns like water and food quality/safety and the safety of pharmaceutical drugs.

But it wasn’t all on him. Let us not overlook former (getting some head) President Bill Clinton made what Regan did even worse. It was Clinton who repealed the Glass-Steagall Act (which historically kept banking and Investment houses separate). By this act alone, he made the financial industry like Wal-Mart – one stop shopping. The act was put into lace after the Crash of 1929 (Black Tuesday) and the great depression since both were mostly caused by "improper banking activity or what was considered overzealous commercial bank involvement in stock market investment."

Under his watch, Congress passed the Private Security Litigation Reform Act (H.R. 1058). This is why it is difficult to prosecute, prove and to convict K-Street supporting crooks of security Fraud anymore. It also led to a new dawn in American business by creating an environment ripe for the Tyco’s, Enron’s, and Ken Lay’s to doctor books, profits and stuff their pockets while companies folded, went bankrupt and millions of investors taking all of the losses. I could continue and link this with the present environment of sub prime mortgage lending but such is self-explanatory.

I do not know what they are trying to do. To me what is being proposed and implemented inclusive of the Federal Reserve Bank dropping the over night lending rate to 3.5% don’t do anything. Sure in the short term, it’s like holding pressure on an open ax wound. But like an ax wound, the bleeding may stop, but the person still requires major surgery and may even still get gangrene.

For the general public, the 3.5% cut means that the prime rate will drop to an equal amount to 6.5%. So one may see this if they have credit cards since most folks have variable interest rate credit cards.

So again, this is nothing new. We have set ourselves up for this with Lame leadership including the Bush’s, Bill Clinton and Reagan. I mean am I stupid? Why would going into debt an additional $150 billion help the economy while we are approaching spending 500 billion on Iraq alone? Then we really don’t know the true impact of the sub prime mortgage hustle because there is no way to determine what banks portfolio’s are really worth, or how much lot they have really lost – at least the way I figure. Add to that this past week, interest rates of short-term treasury bonds (6-month) dropped to their lowest rate since 2004 and companies like Delta and United (although the are airlines) reported last quarter losses of 50 and 53 million dollars accordingly. So please tell me if I am wrong, before I transfer 12-15% of my portfolio into gold ingots.