Maxine Waters (D-CA) on her plans for American oil companies:

A little background on Waters:

Waters was named in 2005^[2] and 2006^[3] as one of the “most corrupt” members of congress by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. They said, “Her ethics issues arise from her exercise of this power to financially benefit her daughter, husband and son.” They said that Waters’ daughter Karen charges other politicians to appear on mailers sent to constituents in Los Angeles showing her mother’s support for the politician. Karen has received $450,000 in fees from this endeavor and Waters’ son Edward has received $115,000. Waters’ husband Sidney benefited from his wife’s connections with his hiring as a political consultant by a firm, Siebert, Brandford, & Shank, seeking government investment. Sidney Williams earned $500,000 from this consulting, which consisted of introducing Siebert to politicians his wife had supported. Sidney and Edward Williams also benefitted when they won a contract to run a Los Angeles golf course, with the decision made by a county supervisor who had won a close race after Waters’ endorsement and from which they made financial gain of between $140,000 and $400,000.^[4] Citizens for Ethics says this violates House ethics rules for family members’ financial gains.

Waters seems to realize mid-sentence that her use of the term ’socializing’ might be controversial.

But why not use the correct term? The arbitrary government seizure of massive amounts private capital, purportedly for the common good, is Socialism. HRC espoused a very similar idea regarding corporate profits in February 2007.

Around the world left-wing political parties openly embrace the moniker of Socialism, and rightly so - that is what they stand for. Most developed countries have mainstream political parties that are members of The Socialist International (”Progressive Politics for a Fairer World“). Spain, Germany, Italy, Norway, even Iraq are presently ruled by SI member parties. And good for them - at least their voters know what they are getting.

For some reason the DNC is one of few left-wing parties in the world that avoided openly embracing the term. Perhaps it is because Americans aren’t stupid - we know that from National Socialists to International Socialists, political movements identifying with the term Socialism have too often ended up implicated in the deaths of tens or hundreds of millions of people through depravation, war, and extermination.

As an aside, check out Powerline’s coverage of the rest of the hearing.