Exclusive Interview with Congressional Black Caucus Chairperson Barbara Lee

The Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour

Exclusive Interview with Congressional Black Caucus Chairperson Barbara Lee on the Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour, Friday November 5, KTYM Radio, ktym.com

The Hutchinson Report:
Was there any silver lining for the Democrats in the GOP and Tea Party Congressional surge?
Barbara Lee:
The public did not reject the Democrats. This was a referendum in part for change and in part out of anger and frustration over the economy and the job situation. This is understandable. But there was also a cynical effort at work. Every effort the Congressional Black Caucus and House Democrats put forth to create jobs, maintain unemployment benefits, and shore up the economy the Republicans voted against it. The played on people’s anger and vulnerability to torpedo the efforts Democrats made while doing nothing the past two years to help turn things around. When we passed the economic recovery package under Bush that still wasn’t enough, but we were the ones not the Republicans that made the effort to stimulate the economy.

THR: That message did not come through loud enough during the election.
BL: But we should never forget that it was GOP policies that got us here in the first place. The next two years the public will see how the GOP is fighting for the wealthy, for tax cuts to benefit the rich. They’ve already made it clear that’s their agenda. But I believe that the public wants us to preserve, not privatize, Medicare, Social Security, and not make harmful spending cuts. These are the initiatives that the Tea Party wants to do.

THR:
What are the top priorities of the Congressional Black Caucus?
BL:
Jobs, jobs, jobs. This has been our priority for some time. Unemployment among blacks and Latinos is in some places double that of the national average. I worked to pass the youth employment program and most Democrats supported it. It passed twice with no GOP votes, and died in the Senate.
When you look at the poverty, inequality, and wealth gap in the country and how so many African-American families are losing what little wealth that they’ve built up over the years as a result of the jobs and home foreclosure crisis, we’ve got to make sure that our community that are suffering the most from the economic hard times gets its share of jobs, green industry job creation, and program funding support.

THR:
Did Congress do enough though to combat the crisis?
BL:
In some ways we didn’t move fast and far enough. The stimulus recovery package should have been $1 trillion but we couldn’t get the GOP even to agree to the $780 billion allocated. People must not be confused who their friends are and the record shows that every effort the president and the Democrats put forth to work with Republicans on job creation, to help small business, to expand tax credits, and infrastructure development the GOP voted against.

THR:
The major criticism is that the president and Democrats did not sell their message to voters on the positive accomplishments that the party made or tried to make.
BL:
It was very difficult selling our message. When you have the major news outlets and commentators promoting right-wing policies, and that dominate the airwaves, it’s even harder to get a positive message out. Then there was money. The Supreme Court ruling that corporations could spend unlimited amounts on elections without full disclosure was a shame and disgrace but it’s also tough to overcome.

THR:
But it still came down to getting or failure to get an effective message out, and how to do that.
BL:
We’re going to have to develop our own ways of communicating the truth to the America people that means grassroots organizing, townhalls, and using social media networks. We’re going to have be 21st Century communicators to turn it around and to hit each and every front simultaneously. Because the fact is that money now rules in campaigns and those with money can distort the facts, tell lies, and it’s hard to get a consistent platform to refute them.

THR:
The GOP majority with strong Tea Party influence is a fact of life in Congress. How will the CBC deal with them?
BL:
The CBC has been in the minority all of its life in Congress. We know what fighting is and we know what working together is. We would not have made the gains that we’ve made if we hadn’t worked in coalition with people of different faiths, beliefs, backgrounds, interests, perspectives and parties. We know when to compromise For instance, legislation I pushed through on Global HIV/AIDS programs, President Bush signed into law. I had to have Republican support for it. We were then in the minority on this issue. But this was a moment that Bush and I and the CBC could find common ground.
But when it came to privatizing Social Security we fought tooth and nail against it. The CBC knows work on initiatives for the common good. But they also know that when there’s a Tea Party or GOP effort to destroy the American Dream that the CBC will be very critical of it and will fight hard. There will be a time for battles and a time for negotiation to move our agenda forward.

THR: Is there a final message on the election?
BL: Yes, organize,organize,organize. The movement that brought in President Obama can’t fall asleep. It has to refocus and continue on.

The Hutchinson Political Report: Exclusive Interview with White House Senior Advi...

The Hutchinson Political Report:

Exclusive Interview with White House Senior Advi...: "Exclusive Interview with White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett on The Hutchinson Report with Earl Ofari Hutchinson October 30, 2010 ..."

Exclusive Interview with White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett
on The Hutchinson Report with Earl Ofari Hutchinson
October 30, 2010 Pacifica Radio Network


THR:
Many political pundits predict that the GOP will take over the House. How will the White House deal with that possibility?
VJ:
We don’t pay any attention to the pundits. If we listened to them the president would not have run for the presidency since he was considered by most as a long shot. But we had confidence that we could appeal to the American people with a positive program. In any case, the most important poll is the vote on Election Day. We have seen momentum growing the past couple weeks and everywhere the president goes people are reacting positively to him and his message. We’ve reminded everyone that even though he isn’t on the ballot it’s important that he have a Congress that he can work with.
THR
What if he doesn’t?
VJ:
Then we’re in jeopardy of going back to where we were when he took office and we had no protection from the excesses and the risks that led to the economic crisis. The Republicans have made it clear that they’d cut spending on education, gut the health care law, get rid of regulatory reform and the consumer protection agency. The Republicans want to and will try to stop everything positive and reverse the progress we’ve made in the last two years.
THR:
President has not done the best job in selling his message of progress and accomplishment and that’s been a huge problem.
VJ:
It’s always easier to scare people than inform them and the GOP has done a masterful job of that. They done it starting with the nonsense and falsehoods about death panels during the health care reform debate and they haven’t stopped appealing to people’s fears. When unemployment is high, people are frustrated and angry and don’t understand why we’re not in better shape. We have to remind people that we lost millions of jobs before the president took office and that people were suffering then. And even though we’ve had nine months of job growth it’s still hard to get that message across when you have people trying to constantly scare the public.
THR:
Many progressives are also frustrated and disenchanted with the President and criticize him for not moving fast enough on sweeping change.
VJ:
It’s true there is frustration there. The health care fight is a good example where we got 90 percent of what we fought for and people are frustrated about that. But again, we remind them that we got a law that provides coverage for 30 million uninsured, millions of children, eliminates preconditions for coverage and strengthens preventive health care measures. So we have to keep in mind how much we did get. The challenge is to start hearing from people that are reasoned, and pragmatic, rather than simply on the extremes. The president’s accomplishments should have great appeal to progressives as well as moderates considering the accomplishments he had of making college more affordable to stressing green jobs growth. We remind the left that we had to fight every step just to get these things.
THR:
The Tea Party has pounded President Obama relentlessly and if they have a significant impact on the election, the great concern is that this could push the president to the right?
VJ:
Our question to the Tea Party has always been we know what you’re against, but what are you for? What would you do differently? They don’t have an answer for that. Simply saying cutting government and spending is no answer. What do they say to and do for people whose jobs and unemployment benefits were saved by actions of this administration? What, that they shouldn’t have those benefits? Are they really willing to say let’s put the American people first?
THR:
What can we expect from the president in the final stretch days before the election?
VJ:
The president will be in Chicago, and Cleveland at rallies supporting candidates, and others in the administration will be out urging people to recognize that every single vote counts. Many of the races are extremely tight and even though the president’s name is not on the ballot, the races are going to depend on the turnout. This is a crucial election for us all.
THR:
Thank you and the White House for taking the time to discuss the issues with THR.
VJ:
Thank you for providing the kind of forum that you do. Everyone should be listening to your show. It is constructive, and designed to inform. I want to thank you on behalf of the president and the administration for providing this important vehicle for what’s going on.

Obama's Approval Ratings and the Angry White Voter (Again) - New America Media

Obama's Approval Ratings and the Angry White Voter (Again) - New America Media

White House Sr. Advisor Valerie Jarrett on The Hutchinson Report

The Hutchinson Report
October 29, 2010
for Immediate Release
Contact:

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

323-383-6145

Press Advisory:

Exclusive Interview


White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett Tells What the Mid-Term Election Means for the Obama Administration and Beyond

Special Two Hour Pre Mid-Term Election Special

In an exclusive interview with the Hutchinson Report Host Earl Ofari Hutchinson, White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett tells what’s at stake for the Obama Administration with the mid-term election and beyond the election. Ms. Jarrett discusses President Obama’s strategy for insuring Democratic election successes, how the White House is countering Republican and Tea Party tactics to retake congress, and the major policy issues and initiative that he will stress and push after the elections.

The exclusive interview will air on Saturday, October 30, Noon PST on KPFK-Radio 90.7FM Los Angeles and streamed nationally and globally on kpfk.org. It will be televised on hutchinsonreport.tv The interview with Ms. Jarrett is part of a special two hour Hutchinson Report mid-term election special on KPFK and the Pacifica Radio Network from 11:00 to 1:00 PM PST.

“White House Senior Advisor Valerie Jarrett will give an in-depth preview of how and what the White House is doing to retain congressional control and the crucial importance of that to the Obama administration’s agenda, “ says Hutchinson, “This is a rare opportunity to hear first hand what the election means for the Obama Administration and afterwards.

The House is duty-bound to Bring Articles of Impeachment against Clarence Thomas

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas can and should be impeached. The case and the grounds for impeachment proceedings against him are virtually iron-clad. The evidence is compelling that Thomas perjured himself in his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his court confirmation hearings in 1991. The evidence is equally compelling that this constituted lying under oath to Congress during the hearings.

The impeachment case against Thomas is not based on personal or political disagreement over his views, decisions, opinions and rulings on the bench, his penchant for pornographic material, or for sexual harassment. It is based on clear legal and constitutional grounds, precedents, and Congressional mandates. Article III, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution explicitly states that a Supreme Court Justice that “lacks good behavior” can be impeached. This is not an ambiguous, subjective term. It has been interpreted by the courts to equate to the same level of seriousness as the 'high crimes and misdemeanors" clause that unequivocally mandates that the House of Representatives initiate impeachment proceedings against any public official, or federal judge in violation of that provision.
The Constitutional precept is the first legal ground for impeachment proceedings against Thomas. The second is Title 18 of the U.S. Code. It states that any official of the executive, legislative, or judicial branch of the government of the United States who knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals, or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact, makes any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation; or makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry can be impeached. In other words lying to Congress is not only an impeachable offense. It’s also illegal.

It’s also clearly established that a public official whether the president, presidential appointees, or judges can be punished for giving false information and that’s any false information of any nature to the House or Senate.
The Nixon impeachment debates and Clinton impeachment hearings were ample proof that the constitutional phrase of “good behavior” embraces not only indictable crimes but “conduct ... grossly incompatible with the office held and subversive of that office and of our constitutional system of government.”

Thomas was asked directly by Utah senator Orin Hatch during his confirmation hearings about Anita Hill’s allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct and whether he used sexually suggestive language. Thomas answered: "I deny each and every single allegation against me today that suggested in any way that I had conversations of a sexual nature or about pornographic material with Anita Hill, that I ever attempted to date her, that I ever had any personal sexual interest in her, or that I in any way ever harassed her. “

Thomas was emphatic, "If I used that kind of grotesque language with one person, it would seem to me that there would be traces of it throughout the employees who worked closely with me, or the other individuals who heard bits and pieces of it or various levels of it." This was stated under oath to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Thomas’s sworn testimony was clearly contradicted even then in public statements by witnesses. The witnesses were not called to testify. The one witness that contradicted Thomas’s sworn testimony, Angela Wright, did testify. She worked with Thomas at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and was emphatic that Thomas sexually harassed her and used explicit and graphic sexual language. Her story was corroborated by a former EEOC speechwriter who told investigators about Thomas’ penchant for improper sexual talk. Letters to the committee from other women who worked with Thomas confirmed that he was a serial sexual harasser and had a penchant for sexually perverse talk. The Senate panel had other sources to corroborate the Hill-Wright charge that Thomas engaged in sexual harassment and obsessive interest in sexual smut. These sources were ignored too.

Two decades later Thomas’s apparent perjured testimony to Congress is now squarely back on the legal table. Lillian McEwen put it there. Her legal credentials are impressive. She is a former assistant U.S. attorney and Senate Judiciary Committee counsel. She also dated Thomas. In interviews, she again confirmed that Hill and the other women’s allegations that Thomas engaged in sexual harassment, was addicted to pornography, and talked incessantly and graphically about it and women were truthful.

Thomas’s personal warped sexual predilections and perversions are not the issue as personally reprehensible as some may find them. The issue is his apparent perjured testimony to a congressional body about his words and conduct. There is no statute of limitations on bringing impeachment proceedings against officials who lie to Congress. The U.S. Code and the Constitution clearly spell out that when there’s evidence a Supreme Court justice may have lied under oath the House must bring articles of impeachment to determine guilt or innocence.

The ball is now squarely in the court of House judiciary Committee Chair John Conyers Jr. He is legally bound to do his and the House’s legal and Constitutional duty and begin impeachment proceedings immediately against Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk shows on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

NPR Should Have Booted Williams for His Fraudulent Liberalism

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Former NPR analyst Juan Williams should been canned at NPR for his silly, bigoted crack about Muslims making him nervous. But NPR if it had the ounce of integrity and fairness that it incessantly brags about should have dumped Williams a long time ago for his equally great offense. And that’s his two decade con job as a liberal, civil rights expert and even supporter. Williams never missed a chance to boast about his two decades plus stint with the liberal Washington Post and tout his track record of authoring books on the civil rights movement. Williams sold himself as a man that backed even championed the civil rights struggles of the past and that his sworn mission was to accurately and instructively chronicle that struggle. Here are some of his titles that he used to sell his self-serving title as Mr. Civil Rights sold as Mr., civil rights expert, Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965.Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary, This Far by Faith: Stories from the African American Religious Experience, I'll Find a Way or Make One : A Tribute to Historically Black Colleges and Universities, My Soul Looks Back in Wonder: Voices of the Civil Rights Experience among others.

But Williams was a fraud. That was more than apparent in the clashes that I had with him on Fox when he instantly assumed the requisite attack dog role and jumped all over any criticism made of some of the dumbest inanities from black conservatives. That was a consistent pattern with Williams. Front himself off as a Dr. Jekyll moderate, thoughtful, and balanced commentator that strived for fair and accurate analysis of issues on NPR. And then quickly transform himself into a raving take-no-prisoner right leaning Mr. Hyde on Fox bashing Obama, civil rights leaders, and shilling the GOP line on race.

But Williams couldn’t have gotten away with this con job without the wink and nod complicity of NPR, maybe the better word is disingenuousness. NPR officials certainly were not clueless about Williams two faced con. There he was for all to see shaking and nodding his head in agreement with every conservative flack that paraded across the stage on the O’Reilley show and other conservative gab fests on Fox. His confrontational hit style on Fox fit in neatly with the tone, temper and rabid right echo chamber sound box of the network.

No, NPR knew exactly what Williams represented and stood for, and it was not balance, moderation, and certainly not liberalism. Williams, though, served a purpose for NPR. The networks has sweated for years and at times have been scared stiff by the conservative hit pack that’s had the network squarely in its sights keeping a hawk like watch for any hint of a “liberal bias.” Williams was there answer, and in some ways there protective cover. After all, how could a guy who routinely flashes across Fox be accused of spouting liberal biased views on NPR?

NPR needed Williams far more than he needed them. He was their perfect cover. That is until he became a liability. The hard truth though is that Williams’ phony liberal front was and should have been a liability from the start. The pity is it took an outrageous, bigoted crack by him for NPR to do what it should have done a long time ago. And that’s give him the boot.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Obama Plays the Race Card, And There’s Nothing Wrong with That

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

President Obama will play the race card when he needs to play it. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. He shouted to a crowd at Bowie State University in Maryland not to make him look bad. The pitch to black voters is to get out in November and vote like your life depends on it. That means voting to save a slew of endangered Congressional Democrats. The stakes are well-known. A GOP grab of the House, even without the Senate, will almost certainly mean endless committee investigations of Obama administration actions, funding and appropriation stalls and sabotage, and a relentless no to every Obama initiative from energy to immigration reform. The escalation of congressional wars would be distracting, debilitating, and pose deep danger to Obama’s reelection bid in 2012.

Appealing directly to black voters for help is not a desperation move. It’s a smart and necessary political move. Black voters are more than just the underpin of the Democratic Party. They also make up a significant percent of the voters in districts in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Alabama, Indiana, and Florida where endangered Democrats are battling insurgent GOP candidates to keep their seats. The strategic placement of black voters made the difference in Ohio, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania in 2008 in his White House win. In these states McCain gapped Obama with white blue collar, rural, and older white voters. Black voters filled in the gap. November is no different. Polls show that there is a high interest among black voters in the mid-term election. Apathy and indifference is not as endemic as assumed.

But it will take soul stirring and direct appeals to insure that they get to the polls. Obama is the only Democrat that can do it. He’s still wildly popular among blacks. And their anger and fear that his presidency is in danger heightens the sense of urgency to vote.

This isn’t the first time Obama has made a racial pitch. During the campaign his candidacy was on the line in the first Democratic presidential primary in January 2008 in South Carolina. Then Democratic rival Hillary Clinton was the front runner. She appeared to have a lock on the black vote in the state where blacks made up nearly half the Democratic voting numbers. A win there and she would have had the wind blowing gale force at her back as she rolled into the other primaries in the South where black voters made up a substantial percent of the Democratic primary voters. Obama quickly dialed up the one African-American with the name recognition, cachet and appeal to stir a racial course correction away from Hillary. That was Oprah. She held two giant campaign rallies complete with the gay bashing, but immensely popular Gospel singer Donnie McClurkin. Oprah virtually commanded blacks to do their racial duty and back Obama. It worked and the rest is history.
There’s another compelling reason to justify Obama’s politically practical and savvy necessity to use race. The GOP has done it for four decades and is doing it openly and quietly this time around.

The shouts, taunts, spitting, catcalls, joker posters, N word slurs, Confederate and Texas Lone Star flag waving by tea party activists at their early rallies, the billboards that crop up along highways and back roads that depict Obama as a communist, terrorist, and racially mocking caricatures, and the recycled racially leaden code words, slogans, and digs have been an indispensable political necessity for the GOP.

The GOP could not have been competitive during campaign 2008 without the bail out from white conservative voters. Elections are usually won by candidates with a solid and impassioned core of bloc voters. The GOP’s conservative, white base, vote consistently and faithfully. And in elections going back three decades have voted in a far greater percentage than Hispanics and blacks in midterm elections. Polls have repeatedly shown that they are just as enthusiastic about this election partly stirred by rage at Obama, the Democrats, and government. The usual undertow of race is a driving force.

The GOP leaders have long known that their constituents can be easily aroused to vote and shout loudly on the emotional wedge issues; abortion, family values, anti-gay marriage and tax cuts. For fourteen months, they whipped up their hysteria and borderline racism against health care reform. These are the very voters that GOP presidents and aspiring presidents, Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr. and W. Bush, and McCain and legions of GOP governors, senators and congresspersons banked for victory and to seize and maintain regional and national political dominance.

Obama did the right thing when faced with the prospect of defeat in a key presidential primary by Hillary. He played directly to the black vote. In November his presidency doesn’t hinge on a massive black voter turnout. His prestige, legislative agenda, and orderly White House governance do. If it takes playing the race card to get results then there’s nothing wrong with that.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Condi’s Moving Civil Rights Story Can’t Trump Her Role in Bush’s despicable Iraq folly

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

An only slightly repentant former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a well-heeled, prestigious conference crowd on the Future of Asia at the Chinese University of Hong Kong last March that she had doubts and misgivings over the way things ultimately turned out in Iraq. If she had it to do all over again she’d press her boss, President Bush, to make a better effort to get the Iraqis more involved in the grunt work of actually rebuilding the war ravaged country.
Rice, of course, tactfully left out to two important omissions to the conference crowd. One it was her and the circle of hardnosed war hawks that hectored, badgered, and hammered Bush to launch the war that ravaged the country. A war that is now virtually universally regarded as a failed, flawed, wasteful, and grotesquely unnecessary war.

Rice’s second even more damning omission is that to sell the war as indispensable to the war on terrorism she and the hawks distorted, exaggerated facts and events, and flat out lied. But seven years later, with Bush safely gone from the White House, and more than a few fingers happily but wrongly pointing at the Obama administration for Bush’s Iraq misadventure, and Rice safely ensconced back at Stanford University, she can gloss over Iraq, and instead concentrate on painting a compelling and sympathetic picture of herself as a black woman who suffered the sting of racial persecution, bigotry and even the threat of violence to rise to a pivotal political figure.
At first glance, the story she tells in her memoir, “Extraordinary, Ordinary People” is extraordinary. She recounts the segregated schools, swimming pools, libraries, and housing, the voting exclusion, and the always ever pervasive threat of physical violence, that was part of the tapestry of 1950s Jim Crow, Bull Conner terrorized Birmingham, Alabama she grew up in. She talks about the strength, perseverance and determination of her parents and their constant push to instill in their sons and daughters the value of education. Education they knew was a surefire ticket out of a self-imposed America’s self-imposed racial trap for blacks.

Rice took the message to heart and her personal success story is well-known. She obtained her bachelor's degree in political science, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Denver in 1974 where she enrolled at the age of 15; her master's degree from the University of Notre Dame in 1975. And she got her Ph.D. from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver in 1981. Her years as an influential and much sought after international affairs expert and planner which culminated in her pick as Bush’s first National security Advisor and then Secretary of State are just as well-known.

These are truly breakthroughs, even pioneering, glass ceiling shattering breakthroughs for a woman of color and can inspire other young women to attain the heights. In any other time, place, and especially with any other administration other than Bush’s, Rice would be hailed and lauded as the political affairs Rosa Parks. She would deservedly be held up as a worthy model of what a black woman with grit and tenacity can do to smash her way out of the suffocating racial and gender boxes.

That’s not the case with Rice, though. Mention the name Condoleezza Rice even now and the reaction among Bush bashers and most blacks is still pretty much the same as what it was when singer-activist Harry Belafonte in 2006 blasted her and Colin Powell as “house Negroes.” Belafonte’s blast drew near universal applause from blacks. It almost certainly would still get the same reaction today from most blacks.

It would be the rarest of sights to find Rice’s picture on the walls and in the showcases of inner city schools that festoon them with the faces and names of prominent black figures. The hostility to and dismissal of Rice hinges on that as part of the reviled Bush administration she was a racial traitor. It’s grossly unfair to lay that tag on her. Her accomplishments are undeniable, and they shouldn’t be cavalierly sloughed off. There’s even some evidence that she spoke up at a critical point when Bush was gung ho to scrap the affirmative action program at the University of Michigan in 2003. Rice softened the Bush position by publicly protesting that race could be used as a factor in school admissions. The court agreed.
This didn’t change the loathe of Rice by many blacks and Bush loathers then. And her admirable fight to overcome racial adversity won’t change or soften their opinion of her now. Condi’s remarkable personal triumphant over the racial odds were praiseworthy then and they still are. Unfortunately, her moving civil rights story can’t trump the role she played in Bush’s despicable Iraq folly.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Eddie Long Can Repent By Apologizing for Gay Bashing

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Embattled mega church preacher Bishop Eddie Long came as close to confessing his sexual debauchery as any debaucher could come without actually confessing. He cryptically told his singing, shouting, handclapping flock that he wasn’t a perfect man, and that he would face some painful situations. This was a good step forward for Long. He didn’t do the usual soft shoe, duck and dodge around the issue. Or worse, defiantly claim that he was being persecuted for being a pure and righteous man of God. Or even worse still, break out in a teary eyed plea to family and flock for forgiveness.
These are the stock ploys that a bevy of celeb preachers, politicians and a Pope snatch at when caught with their sexual hypocrisy exposed. Long didn’t go there. He simply spun his hypocrisy as that of a man engaged in a thoughtful and reflective soul search. Long now should take one more step in his soul search and apologize for his greatest sin. That’s his near decade long, relentless, gay bash. Long didn’t just do what many conservative fundamentalist black preachers do and quietly twist scripture and verse to make the case that God condemns gays to eternal hell and damnation. He actively led crusades against gay marriage, and by extension gays, railed against them on his websites, in fiery sermons, loudly backed George W. Bush's federal amendment banning gay marriage, and led a slanderous march to Martin Luther King, Jr.’s gravesite to denounce gay marriage. Each new accusation that Long used his youth training academy as a cover to procure kid sex, may ultimately prove him to be not just a hypocrite, but a full blown sexual predator.

Long then should issue a statement, better still do what he does best, and deliver a sermon on tolerance. That’s tolerance toward all those who have a different sexual preference. He should invite the leaders of the nation’s top gay rights organizations to take a front row seat at his church and look them square in the eye, as he preaches his sermon on tolerance. He should then make it plain to his mostly black congregation that he does not want them to mindlessly and blindly shout “Jesus Jesus” and “it’s time to praise him,” and sang hymns such as “white as snow” as they did when he made his kind of sort of admission of guilt from the pulpit. This reinforces the despicable notion that blacks are narrow, bigoted, and brain dead zombies who will give a pass to even the most blatant and outrageous criminal and sexual behavior and exploitation as long as it’s done in the name of Jesus and the offender is black.
Afterwards, Long should announce in tandem with gay organization leaders that New Birth Missionary Baptist Church will set up a new academy dedicated to the principle and practice of tolerance. He took a light step in that direction some time back when at the prodding of Soulforce, a gay Christian advocacy group, he played at having a dialogue on his attitudes toward gays. That didn’t go very far. This time it should.
Long set the standard of bigotry and bias for a new generation of conservative fundamentalist mega black churchmen on gay rights. An apology and outreach won’t undo that. It can though be a step toward his personal repentance. God, I’m sure, would approve.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Bishop Eddie Long: Victim, Hypocrite or Both in Sex Scandal?

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

There mega-church black minister Bishop Eddie Long was in January 2004 with the Rev. Bernice King, the daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in tow, leading a spirited march of thousands to the Atlanta gravesite of Dr. King. Long and the demonstrators marched to denounce gay marriage. The choice of King’s site to make the hell fire and damnation point that gay marriage was sinful, degenerate, and against every Biblical precept was painful and insulting to see. The not so subtle implication was that King might well have stood with her and them in their gay bashing protest. Given King’s relentless and uncompromising battle against discrimination during his life, this was beyond pure poppycock; it was well, insulting and painful to see.

But even though Long sullied King's name and legacy to torpedo gay rights, the Bishop seemingly was not a hypocrite when it came to denouncing gays. He was one of the biggest, best known, and virulent black evangelical attackers of gay marriage. Long had prominently touted then President George W. Bush's federal amendment banning gay marriage on his church Web site. Long’s anti-gay phobia was so virulent that then NAACP president Julian Bond publicly declared he would not attend the funeral service of Coretta Scott King at Long’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church. Why, because as Bond flatly said "I knew her attitude toward gay and lesbian rights. And I just couldn't imagine that she'd want to be in that church with a minister who was a raving homophobe. He obviously couldn’t see himself there either.

For a brief moment, Long seemed to relent some from his sledgehammer bible quoting attacks on gays when he agreed to meet with Soulforce, a gay Christian lobby organization, at his church in 2008. Long’s epiphany went no further than the one meeting and a pithy statement from him that there were “things about homosexuality that he needs to learn”

The question then is the accusations from the lengthening list of teen and young male adults who claim that Long bought and paid for their sexual favors true? They may well be phony as a nine dollar bill, a shakedown, or a dirty put up job to smear a prominent black minister that many blacks regard as a leader and advocate. But even if that turns out to be the case, there’s another more compelling question. Did Long’s long, open and relentless crusade against homosexuals tag he and many other anti-gay prominent black church leaders as narrow, bigoted, and hypocritical in championing the very discrimination that King and the civil rights movement waged a titanic battle against?

A big warning sign that the gay rights issue would inflame, polarize, and even energize blacks within and without the black pulpit came in 1997 when the Green Bay Packers perennial all-pro defensive end Reggie White, an ordained minister, touched off a firestorm of protest from gay groups with a rambling, hour- long talk to the Wisconsin legislature in which he took a huge swipe at gay rights and gay marriage. He later barnstormed through several Mid-Western cities pushing the anti-gay gospel at pro-family rallies.

Before his untimely death in 2005, White apologized for his anti-gay remarks, but he was unrepentant in his view about homosexuality. He was a conservative black minister and homosexuality, as with Long, still violated his biblical conception of the proper roles for men and women. In defying the canons of political correctness, White became the first celebrity black evangelical to say publicly what many black religious leaders said and believed privately. Few blacks joined in the loud chorus that condemned his remarks.

The same year the conservative Virginia based Alliance for Marriage corralled a handful of top black preachers to plop their name on the Alliance’s letterhead and tout the Alliance’s anti-gay rights agenda. The year before White’s outburst, and the Alliance's rope in of black ministers like Long, a Pew Poll measured black attitudes toward gay marriage and found that blacks by an overwhelming margin opposed it. A CNN poll eight years later showed that anti-gay attitudes among blacks had not changed much since then. The substantial backing black voters gave California’s anti-gay marriage measure, Proposition 8 and anti-gay marriage initiatives in other states, was ample proof of that

Gay rights, and especially gay marriage, advocates have had a big uphill battle to convince blacks that tolerance didn’t begin and end with race alone. The Democrats and civil rights groups had no real defense against the anti-gay phobia among black Christian groups and blacks that weren’t of the faith but still loathed gay marriage.

For years Long was a leader of the anti-gay pack. When confronted with the charge of sex pandering, he loudly declares he did nothing wrong, and is willing to confront his accusers to show them to be the liars and con artists they are. Long may just be right. The fact that the charges were leveled at him, a man of the pulpit who turned gay bashing into a growth industry in the pulpit, doesn’t make him a hypocrite. But it doesn’t make him a victim either.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Rethinking Palin

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

It's time to rethink Sarah Palin. From the moment that Republican presidential candidate John McCain plopped her on his ticket, the supreme article of political faith from all pundits, much of the press, most Democrats, and the GOP establishment has been that Sarah Palin is a laughingstock, a sideshow diversion, an ignoramus on the issues, a gossip and celebrity starved media creation, and, of course, a closet race tinged crowd baiter. The Palin allure is built squarely on elements of these features. But what's now painfully obvious, is the allure has turned Palin into a political force, threat, and danger.

The millions of Palin loathers gag at the thought of this. But her string of victories by candidates she endorsed in the primaries, and a flip-flop in some polls that now show more people than not say that she should run, and a more than a few say that she should win, have radically changed the game.
The tough to swallow truth is that she has greater national political name recognition than any other Republican and that includes her former ticket head, McCain. She energizes and rallies conservatives, and polls say more Americans self-identify themselves as conservatives than liberals, let alone progressives. Palin's motherly, family-values, fundamentalist pitch fascinates even those who personally detest her message. This includes much of the Palin obsessed media. Her political ineptness, naiveté smacks of a bumbling political innocence that far from being a liability endears her to throngs. This makes her the hot ticket item she is on the media and lecture circuit. It also now has more GOP candidates and some incumbents begging her and her Tea Party pals to troop through their neck of the woods and say a word of praise on their behalf.

GOP regulars and political pundits still shrug her off as a possible GOP presidential candidate in 2012. And she's still a favored running joke of late night comics. But this has endeared her to many as a scorned mother non-politician. That serves to keep her public stock and appeal high. The Christine O'Donnell and Joe Miller GOP senate primary victories in Delaware and Alaska sent her stock through the ceiling.

Palin exploits another feeling that GOP mainstream politicians have been inept, clumsy, or gun shy about exploiting. And that's race and Obama. During the campaign McCain wisely declared that off-limits. But Palin didn't. She quickly trotted out the GOP's old reliable playbook of racially tinged code words, phrases, and digs at Obama, "paling around with terrorists," and "This is not a man who sees America as you see America and as I see America." Far from turning voter's heads in disgust and revulsion at the word play, they got rousing cheers whenever she spewed them out on the campaign stump.

That sent the signal that there were millions of voters who would never accept an Obama presidency, no matter what he said, or did, and no matter how well he said or did it. They just simply could not stomach the idea of a black man in the White House, and they would go to any lengths to get him out of there. But to make the counter assault on Obama work, it would take a media savvy and manipulative, galvanizing figurehead to rev up the crowds, and a vehicle to organize them once they were revved up. Palin and the Tea Party were the manna from above to try and accomplish that. Even while the much of the press and the pundits continued to bash her harder than any GOP candidate since Hoover Herbert during the presidential campaign, the crowds that wildly cheered her didn't slack up one bit. And neither did the endless refrain from the Palin cheerleaders that she was one of us. And since winning elections is still as much about which candidate can win the hearts not the heads of the voters, Palin was clearly the one who could tug at the voter's heart strings.

The final vote result proved it. Despite the colossal baggage McCain and the GOP carried, and colossal advantages Obama and the Democrats had, the majority of white moderate and conservative voters, and a large segment of young whites and independents still voted for McCain. In the nearly two years since Obama's election, Palin has been the GOP stalking horse to stampede the herd of moderates and conservative independents even further away from Obama.

The Palin success in grabbing headlines, firing up anti-Obama mania, and snapping the heads of the GOP establishment to attention hasn't been lost on Palin. She's adroitly moved her game plan to the next level, and has extended the Olive Branch to the GOP mainstream with saccharine public appeals for the party to make peace and target Democrats for the boot in November. Her party unit pitch is aimed at doing one thing, and that's to bring her in from the fringe cold and establish her as a worthy, even credible, presidential candidate in 2012. So far she's done everything else right, and there's no reason to think that she won't make some headway on this either. This horrific possibility is more than enough cause to rethink Palin.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Farrakhan Endorsement Makes Ground Zero Mosque Backers Squirm

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is the latest to weigh in on the great Ground Zero mosque debate. Predictably, Farrakhan gave fulsome backing to building the mosque at the controversial spot. But Farrakhan took it a step further and just as predictably gave it a racial spin. He said that there are a lot of blacks who are Muslims, and some of them were killed in the 9/11 terror attack. Farrakhan, race, and controversy; the three go hand in hand. That’s always enough to make folk squirm.
In the days building up to the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the question is how just much will Farrakhan’s public tout of the mosque, make some of the mosque’s fervent backers squirm? Probably not a lot since the battle lines on the mosque are pretty firmly drawn. You’re either for it on religious freedom, tolerance, or constitutional grounds. Or you’re against it on desecration of hallowed soil, insensitivity, or it’s a deliberate provocation grounds.
Polls show that the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose it for one or all of the reasons cited. The mosque is a religious and political minefield. It was inevitable that Farrakhan would plunge into it. He has that right.
But Farrakhan is instant controversy, and even more instant racial polarization. That was never more evident than during the 2008 presidential campaign. Days after then Democratic presidential contender Obama announced his candidacy, Farrakhan praised and virtually endorsed him in a speech at the Nation of Islam’s annual Savior's Day confab in Chicago. A horrified Team Obama promptly issued this statement: Senator Obama has been clear in his objections to Minister Farrakhan's past pronouncements and has not solicited the minister's support." That didn’t satisfy his primary foe Hillary Clinton. She publicly demanded that he forcefully reject Farrakhan's endorsement. Obama did but even then he carefully avoided mentioning Farrakhan by name. It was just too hot. Obama recognized one compelling fact about Farrakhan. He may be a controversial and much vilified figure but he is not a fringe figure within black communities. He is still cheered and admired by thousands of blacks. They are also voters too and most embraced Obama with almost messianic zeal.
Mosque supporters can now count Farrakhan among their ranks. In this mid-term political season that shapes up to be the most hard fought one in decades, the mosque issue is an issue that’s one of the most inflammatory. It pricks, inflames, and punches just about every person’s hot button. It’s almost certain that one or more shrill rightwing websites, bloggers, or radio talk show hacks that froth at building the mosque at the WTC site will throw up Farrakhan’s name as see-I-told-you proof that the mosque is a closet Jihadist conspiracy against the US. That’s enough to make some squirm.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Farrakhan Endorsement Makes Ground Zero Mosque Backers Squirm

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan is the latest to weigh in on the great Ground Zero mosque debate. Predictably, Farrakhan gave fulsome backing to building the mosque at the controversial spot. But Farrakhan took it a step further and just as predictably gave it a racial spin. He said that there are a lot of blacks who are Muslims, and some of them were killed in the 9/11 terror attack. Farrakhan, race, and controversy; the three go hand in hand. That’s always enough to make folk squirm.
In the days building up to the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the question is how just much will Farrakhan’s public tout of the mosque, make some of the mosque’s fervent backers squirm? Probably not a lot since the battle lines on the mosque are pretty firmly drawn. You’re either for it on religious freedom, tolerance, or constitutional grounds. Or you’re against it on desecration of hallowed soil, insensitivity, or it’s a deliberate provocation grounds.
Polls show that the overwhelming majority of Americans oppose it for one or all of the reasons cited. The mosque is a religious and political minefield. It was inevitable that Farrakhan would plunge into it. He has that right.
But Farrakhan is instant controversy, and even more instant racial polarization. That was never more evident than during the 2008 presidential campaign. Days after then Democratic presidential contender Obama announced his candidacy, Farrakhan praised and virtually endorsed him in a speech at the Nation of Islam’s annual Savior's Day confab in Chicago. A horrified Team Obama promptly issued this statement: Senator Obama has been clear in his objections to Minister Farrakhan's past pronouncements and has not solicited the minister's support." That didn’t satisfy his primary foe Hillary Clinton. She publicly demanded that he forcefully reject Farrakhan's endorsement. Obama did but even then he carefully avoided mentioning Farrakhan by name. It was just too hot. Obama recognized one compelling fact about Farrakhan. He may be a controversial and much vilified figure but he is not a fringe figure within black communities. He is still cheered and admired by thousands of blacks. They are also voters too and most embraced Obama with almost messianic zeal.
Mosque supporters can now count Farrakhan among their ranks. In this mid-term political season that shapes up to be the most hard fought one in decades, the mosque issue is an issue that’s one of the most inflammatory. It pricks, inflames, and punches just about every person’s hot button. It’s almost certain that one or more shrill rightwing websites, bloggers, or radio talk show hacks that froth at building the mosque at the WTC site will throw up Farrakhan’s name as see-I-told-you proof that the mosque is a closet Jihadist conspiracy against the US. That’s enough to make some squirm.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

The Hutchinson Political Report: Defecting Black Vote Spells Big Trouble for Democr...

The Hutchinson Political Report: Defecting Black Vote Spells Big Trouble for Democr...: "Defecting Black Vote Spells Big Trouble for Democrats - New America Media"

Defecting Black Vote Spells Big Trouble for Democrats - New America Media

Defecting Black Vote Spells Big Trouble for Democrats - New America Media

"Obama Hates America"

Earl Ofari Hutchinson
The Obama Hates America theme is not hyperbole. It has been relentlessly played for all it’s worth from the second that then Democratic presidential candidate Obama announced in February 2007 that he would seek the White House. It almost certainly will be played hard again in the days leading up to the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks.
Obama’s one little step that could feed the wacky line is not telling yet where and how he’ll commemorate the day. This in itself supposedly is enough to show that the president disrespects, minimizes, or is cavalier about the hallowed day. It’s none of those things. But it’s just another in the pile of supposed anti-American sins that Obama is guilty of. The nutty knock of Obama as America hater is driven in part by ignorance, in part by politics, and in bigger part by race. The ignorance behind the attack line is easy to understand, and predictable. His name, the birth certificate flap, his frequent statement’s touting religious respect and tolerance for Muslims, and his refusal to flaunt and wave around his very private and personal expression of his Christian faith fuel the stupidity and suspicion about who and what he really is.
The politics behind the attack line is just as comprehensible. The line was set by presidential rival John McCain and run hard with by Sarah Palin VP pick during the campaign. McCain dropped veiled hints that Obama was a far out left liberal who was soft on terrorism, the Iraq war, and the Patriot act enforcement. The implication was that once in the White House he’d give away the company store to America’s sworn enemies.
Palin skipped the hints. She practically roared that Obama pals around with terrorists, left dictators, and commies. And that an Obama win would mean a leftwing takeover of the country. McCain’s hint was shrugged off, and Palin’s hit was outright mocked, ridiculed, and laughed at by much of the media. But millions didn’t laugh. They actually believed that Obama fit easily somewhere between Osama and Castro. Polls continued to show that those that said that Obama was an alien and a closet subversive hovered in the low double digit figure. In the past month, the same polls show that the number who say that about him has doubled, and they all aren’t’ Palin clones and cheerleaders. A lot of Independents and Democrats say the same thing.
Then there’s the unstated; and that’s race. There’s always been a deep feeling among many whites that African-Americans are inherent rebels against America’s institutions and values. During the late 1960’s that feeling took off. The mass civil rights demonstrations, protests, the black power surge, and the urban uprisings turned the myth of permanent black rebellion into the myth of black radicalism. This is and always has been nonsense. Yet, when facts crash hard against ingrained beliefs, and especially beliefs fueled by racial loathing, it’s no contest which will win out.
So it won’t make much difference whether Obama picks the World Trade Center site, the Pentagon, Arlington Cemetery, or the moon, to commemorate 9/11. His name, his religious tolerance, his race, and the relentless GOP smear machine have created the perfect storm to tag Obama as the president that hates America. The tweets from Palin, rightwing bloggers, and talk show gabbers snidely implying that Obama’s is that are probably already typed out and ready to go on 9/11 and beyond.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

No Surprise so Many Think Obama’s a Muslim

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

It’s no surprise that so many Americans think that Obama is a Muslim. The Pew Research Center poll found a big increase in the number of Republicans that think that. Certainly that was no surprise. And only slight less surprising the poll found that lots of Democrats and Independents also think that he’s a Muslim. No president has ever had more pejorative labels slapped on him. He’s been branded a Bolshevik, socialist, Nazi (go figure that one), an anarchist, leftist, an alien, and of course, un-American.

But the Obama is a Muslim tag carries a special taint. No religious group in America has been more distorted, reviled, and demonized than Muslims. Simply utter the word, and this instantly conjures up for many dark images of bombings, terrorist attacks, war, chaos, destruction, and fanaticism. Muslims have stirred the nativist, xenophobia, and religious intolerance pulse in many Americans that has always lurked just beneath the surface in American life. Politicians have at times played to that impulse and it in turn translated it into a massive religious social revolt, and reaped big gains at the ballot box. The rumor and fear mongering images of Islam and Muslims escalated with the emotion throbbing September 11 terror attacks. The attack stirred tremors among Muslims that they would routinely be targeted, subject to search and surveillance, and profiled at airports.

The profiling alarm bells went off again after a soldier with a Muslim name shot up the military base at Ft. Hood back in November. The Council on American-Islamic Relations wasted no time and issued a loud and vigorous denunciation of the mass killing. The Council didn't know at that moment whether Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter, was a Muslim by birth, a converted Muslim, or even a Muslim at all. The name and the horrific murder spree was enough to drive the group to quickly distance itself from the rampage. Other Muslim organizations instantly followed suit and issued their own equally strong disavowal of Hasan.

This didn't stop the pack of Fox Network commentators, conservative radio talk show hosts, writers, and some officials from again openly shouting for even tighter scrutiny of Muslim groups. Airline bombing suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab raised the decibel level on their call for transportation officials to openly profile Muslims at airports, train stations, and even on the open highways.

But this was a mere dress rehearsal for the Muslim scare that’s dogged President Obama. His speeches in Cairo last year to a Muslim and international audience, his repeated preaching of tolerance and outreach to the Muslim world, his occasional tough line on Israeli settlement expansion, and the topper, his White House Ramadan dinner, and a his favorable statement supporting the right to build a mosque at ground zero. This for many was smoking gun proof that Obama is not a closet but an avowed Muslim. Though some GOP political strategists have urged caution about making the ground zero mosque and Obama a campaign issue, the GOP will do it anyway. Fox News, the pack of right wing talk show hosts, and bloggers have had a field day doing everything possible to fan the fire of anti-Muslim sentiment. They have even dumped on the table an outrageously distorted, misstated, and misunderstood discussion of Sharia Law, and declared that any Muslim who believes in it and practices it does not believe in the Constitution and by extension can’t be a loyal American. The implication being that since Obama is a Muslim than he must also believe in the strict tenets of Sharia Law and therefore….. The dots have never been more wrongly and badly connected.

Since his initial statements on the ground zero mosque, Obama has kept silence on the controversy. There’s absolutely no need for him to say anything more about it. The issue will be fiercely debated by politicians and much of the public in the coming weeks. The danger though is that the issue will incite more rage in the days immediately before the ninth anniversary of the September 11 attack. Expect the Obama foes, and that’s nearly any GOP candidate or incumbent who can figure out a way to sneak a line or two about the attack, the ground zero mosque controversy and a sly hint that Obama backed the right to build the mosque into their speeches, to take a dig at Obama. Even some top Democrats facing tough reelection battles have backpedalled fast from Obama’s position on the Mosque. Democratic Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid was one. Expect more Democrats to follow him in the weeks to come.
The ignorance of so many Americans about Obama’s religious beliefs if nothing else refutes the old adage that religion and politics don’t mix. They do, and Obama’s foes have done everything they can to make sure that that’s the case with him.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

Congresswoman Maxine Waters Speaks Out on Ethics Charges and Much More

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

California Congresswoman Maxine Waters took a virtually unprecedented step. She challenged the House Ethics Committee to fully release the entire report on her alleged ethics violation. The charge is that Waters used her influence to get the Treasury to funnel $12 million to One United Bank that her husband once sat on the board of directors of and had stock in. The bank is a member of the National Bankers Association, the minority banking assn. Waters asked the Treasury for a meeting with the NBA in September 2008. This violated the House code of conduct rule that states: Members ''may not permit compensation to accrue to the beneficial interest of such individual from any source, the receipt of which would occur by virtue of influence improperly exerted from the position of such individual in Congress.''

The ethics committee wraps its investigations in a thick cloud of secrecy. It literally takes an act of Congress to get the committee to publicly reveal the details of the case it makes against one of its own. That's the case again with Waters. The committee completed its investigation, and published its eyes only report on Waters in August 2009.

In this exclusive interview with NAM's Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Waters’ discusses the ethics charges against her, the targeting of Congressional Black Caucus members for ethics violations, the effect on the Democratic Party, her constituents, and the relation to the fall elections.





Interview with Maxine Waters



EOH: The House’s Office of Congressional Ethics charges against you were initially made more than one year ago. Why are they just being made public now?

MW: We have asked the ethics committee the same question. Why has it taken so long to bring the charges? The OCE report was made public just as the House was going into a six week summer break. That hurt, because there’s no real opportunity to contest the charges and that’s not fair. So that’s why we have publicly demanded that the committee release the full report that contains the specific charges.



EOH Many wonder because of the long time gap before release, were there any new charges?

MW. There are none. There’s nothing new.



EOH: Do you feel that you and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus are being targeted?

MW: I have no idea whether that is the case. True, there’s much speculation about that. I can say that in my case, we challenge the committee that if you have a real case, lay it out, and let’s see what happens.



EOH: Has the House Democratic Leadership, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the OCE responded to your challenge to disclose?

MW: There’s been no response. We’ll be back in special session the second week of August to vote on a Senate passed aid bill for the states. We intend then to raise the question again about releasing the report.

MW: You’ve asked for a trial. What does that entail?

MW: It’s not really a trial. It’s more an adjudication hearing. The ethics committee members present the information they have. They call witnesses and hear testimony. Our side does the same. Then they weigh everything and make a determination to sustain or dismiss. But it’s the House members sitting in judgment.

EOH: In the report that was released, a representative from Treasury was very specific that at the time you asked for a meeting with the National Bankers Association, Treasury was getting 70 to 80 calls a day from all financial parties about the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bailout and your call was simply one among the many. Why then is considered now a major offense?

MW: I believe this started with a Treasury employee who was a mentee of Karl Rove (a top GOP operative). He remembered that I had disclosed that my husband sat on the board of directors of One United Bank at one time. He took this public information to the OCE to make it look as if there was a conflict of interest. The committee looked at it and said “aha” maybe there is a conflict here. And because their investigation is so limited, they came up with the idea that I received some benefit from the meeting that I requested.

EOH: There’s nothing in the 80 page report that shows that you or your husband received any financial benefit from this meeting.

MW: That’s because there was no benefit, and I know that there’s nothing in the report that shows it. One United Bank did not get any immediate help from the Treasury. The Bank then went to the private market and got $20 million in loans to help them stabilize their lending. The bank’s investors did not lose anything. The way I see it the committee took bits from conversation and information between staff members about the economic crisis and the Treasury’s role in it and then pieced them together to try to make something out of it. And it’s not fair.

EOH: House Financial Services Committee chair Barney Frank is quoted as telling you “to stay out of it”

MW: That’s not true. When I learned that One United Bank was seeking help, I said to Frank that One United is one of your constituents (the bank is headquartered in Frank’s state Massachusetts) so you should take a look at this. He said “you’re right, they are my constituents, stay out of it, I’ll take a look at what One United is requesting.” That was said before the TARP bailout even came into existence.

EOH: The media and the committee made Frank’s words to you appear that he was concerned about a potential conflict of interest on your part.

MW: That conversation took place after the September meeting and before TARP came into existence, and it was only in relation to that.

EOH: The charges against you come on the eve of the crucial fall elections. What effect could it have on them?

MW: The Democrats don’t benefit from this this close to the election. It puts them on the defensive. Even if you argue that it seems that the ethics investigation process is working, the Democrats having to defend the process at this time doesn’t help the party. It’s hurtful because it gives the Republicans a chance to say, “See the Democrats have all those problems over there.” I don’t know if they’ll do that because they’re a lot of Republicans that have been investigated. But there’s nothing positive in this for the Democrats.

EOH: President Obama weighed in on Harlem Congressman Charles Rangel who also faces ethics charges) and said he should retire with dignity. Has he communicated with you on your ethics charge?

MW: Not at all.



EOH: Has the widespread reporting of the charges hurt or tainted you with your constituents?

MW: We’ve received many calls of support. My constituents know that I’m a strong advocate for small and minority business, and for those who don’t have access. Bank of America, Chase, Citibank, and the Wall Street financial houses, all have access to the Treasury. They can pick up the telephone on a first name basis and walk into their offices as they please. The day the meeting with the NBA occurred Treasury officials met with the Big Boys from the banks. My responsibility is to make sure that minority businesses have that same access. My constituents know that I’m always going to be under fire whether from challenging the CIA on drugs, police brutality or minority businesses and they understand that.

EOH: Will you take a deal if offered?

MW: No deals! I’m not going to the backroom. Bring it out.

No Smoking Gun in House Ethics Committee Report against Waters

Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Embattled California Congresswoman Maxine Waters took a bold and virtually unprecedented step. She challenged the House Ethics Committee to fully release the entire report on her alleged ethics violation. The charge is that Waters used her influence to get the Treasury to funnel $12 million to a bank that her husband once sat on the board of directors of and had stock in. This violated the House code of conduct rule that states: Members ‘‘may not permit compensation to accrue to the beneficial interest of such individual from any source, the receipt of which would occur by virtue of influence improperly exerted from the position of such individual in Congress.’’

Waters’ challenge is unprecedented for two troubling reasons. The Ethics committee wraps its investigations in a thick cloud of secrecy. It literally takes an act of Congress to get the committee to publicly reveal the details of the case it makes against one of its own. That’s the case again with Waters. The committee completed its investigation, and published its eyes only report in August 2009.
The second reason Waters made the demand for full disclosure is more troubling. There is no smoking gun proof that she did anything wrong. This writer received a copy of the eighty page report. The report contains a summary of the allegation, a jurisdictional statement, procedural history, and a summary of investigative activity. There are eighteen exhibits of memos, affidavits, testimony and interviews with Waters and the other principals involved.

The committee interviewed Waters in June, 2009. She admitted that she called then Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson and asked for a meeting with the National Bankers Assn. The Association is the trade association for the nation’s 103 minority and women-owned banks. Waters requested that Robert Cooper, NBA President-Elect supply her with “talking points” to explain the purpose of the meeting. The meeting focused solely on the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the severe financial impact the takeover had on the minority banks. She did not say who should attend, or the meeting agenda. No member of her staff attended.

The report makes clear that the only financial interest Waters had in One United Bank was investment income deposited five years ago. She disclosed that in her financial disclosure statement. Waters was asked why she did not attend the meeting with Treasury, she stated “Why should , I don’t think members normally do that The NBA are their own best advocates, let them tell their own story, that’s how I see it.” Waters chairs the House Financial Services Subcommittee. The ethics committee acknowledged that in that capacity she talked with Paulson frequently on issues involving the bank bailout, minority investment banks, money managers, and toxic assets.

Treasury officials routinely testify before her subcommittee. The committee noted that Water’s husband had resigned his position on the board of One United five months before the meeting between Paulson and the NBA in September 2008. The subsequent letters, memos and correspondence between Waters office and the NBA essentially confirm that a meeting was requested, the NBA officials did attend, and that her office was informed of the meeting.

The committee interviewed Paulson in April, 2009. He detailed the circumstances that led to the takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the financial impact and confusion it caused. Paulson said that he received 70 and 80 calls a day from banks, and financial industry groups about the takeover. Waters’ call was one of them. Paulson was adamant that Waters did not “mention a particular bank” when she requested the meeting. Paulson quickly added that “even if she had mentioned that she had a personal financial interest in One United Bank that he would still have granted the meeting. He considered the request reasonable and non-partisan.
The same month the committee interviewed Congressman Barney Frank. Frank flatly said that he had frequent dealings with the NBA, and that One United Bank “was never a major presence.” When he thought of NBA “he thought of southern banks and not One United.” In December One United got $12 million in TARP funds, but Frank, who chairs the House financial-services committee, said it had nothing to do with Waters intervention. Franks wrote a provision in the federal bailout legislation that was specifically designed to aid One United. Frank has said he inserted it because One United was the only African-American owned bank in his home state, Masschusetts. In an earlier interview, he made it clear that Waters’ interest "had zero impact on the outcome because I would have done it anyway."

The actual committee report reveals in full detail that Waters did not profit from or influence decisions the Treasury made to help One United Bank, or any other minority bank. But the damage has been done. Waters is now firmly imprinted in the media and public mind as the poster politician for congressional corruption. She’s black, high profile, a ranking Democrat, and outspoken. That instantly made her an inviting target to dump on the political hot seat. The release of the full report should, but won’t change that.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He hosts a nationally broadcast political affairs radio talk show on Pacifica and KTYM Radio Los Angeles.
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