U.S. Congresswoman Maxine Waters, a California Democrat, is still battling charges of ethics violations and financial self-dealing. She is alleged to have used her power as a Congresswoman to personally benefit by orchestrating a meeting between U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and a bank in which she and her husband had hundreds of thousands of dollars invested.
But Waters insists that there was nothing wrong, illegal, or unethical about her actions, and- like Congressman Charles Rangel of New York, who faces 13 corruption charges- Waters is fighting the allegations against her, instead of cutting a deal with House Republicans.
Furthermore, the Democratic Congresswoman from California is blaming racism for the ethics charges she and some of her black colleagues in elected office are facing:
"There's a lot being said about why so many black elected officials getting caught up with this new O.C.E. organization. I think about now, or recently, about eight members of the congressional black caucus are being investigated and I think more to come. So people are raising questions about that."
In a news comedy routine earlier this month, Jon Stewart quipped that the "race card's" account has been overdrawn- that this issue is clearly about corruption and ethics violations, not race.
In addition to attributing the investigations to racism, Waters has more recently blamed former President George W. Bush for her ethics charges, saying that she had to help out the minority-owned bank because Bush had not brokered a meeting between the bank and his top administration officials during his tenure as president:
"The question at this point should not be why I called Secretary Paulson, but why I had to. The question at this point should be why a trade association representing over 100 minority banks could not get a meeting at the height of the crisis."
Meanwhile, investigative journalist James O'Keefe- notorious for exposing malfeasance in ACORN leading to its defunding by Congress- has published a preview video to YouTube of his next upcoming piece.
After showing multiple clips of past stories, the caption "...WHO WILL BE NEXT?" appears, followed by footage of Congresswoman Waters talking about her bank and real estate.