Trump: Illusion, Mist and Bought?

[Aianawa]

How exciting, this world is finally waking up, yawning n preparing bacon n eggs, pain n anger needs love n nurture, tis busy out there, how is your in here ?.

[Dreamtimer]

Looks like folks are mostly out there.

I'm looking forward to picking up my first round of produce from my CSA - Community Supported Agriculture - next week.

[Emil El Zapato]

The Iranian-American 'religious studies scholar,' Reza Aslan (b. 1972), has had a lot to say about Donald J. Trump.

Last year, Reza Aslan was fired from his influential job as a presenter on CNN, after he called Donald Trump, 'a piece of shit,' on Twitter, and then stated that:

he was 'underscoring the fact that the President of the United States is a racist, sexist, lying, lecherous, pathological liar, and narcissistic sociopath. That we are in an existential crisis; that our lives are in danger and that anyone who has a voice, needs to be screaming at the top of their lungs because all of history is watching us right now.'

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KS7pnPlQLcY


Recently, I was sent a link to the above video and asked whether I agree with what Reza Aslan says in it?

After watching the video, it seems that Reza Aslan is merely offering his own version of the unoriginal observation that:

At times of mass-alienation (following: wars, natural disasters, economic crises, etc.), history proves that would-be demagogues steadfastly pretending absolute moral and intellectual authority, whilst pursuing hidden criminal objectives, who (at other times) would have been universally-recognised as narcissistic charlatans, have found it much easier to become widely-accepted as authentic Messiahs.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqcPZa81Z8g

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNbpOfMBO6Y


Apart from its use in the sense of ‘a popular fashion especially followed by a specific section of society’ or ‘a person or thing popularised in this way,’ the traditional definition of the English noun, cult (Latin cultus worship), has been ‘a system of religious worship (Latin religiosus obligation, bondage) especially as expressed in ritual,’ or ‘devotion or homage to a person or thing.’ However, the word is now also used as shorthand for what is more-accurately described as a pernicious cult. This ongoing historic, and criminogenic, phenomenon can be briefly described as:

any self-perpetuating, non-rational/esoteric, ritual belief system established or perverted for the clandestine purpose of human exploitation.

Such groups are identified by the following characteristics:


1). Deception. Pernicious cults are presented externally as traditional associations. These can be arbitrarily defined by their instigators as almost any banal group (‘religious’, ‘cultural’, ‘political’, ‘commercial’, etc.). However, internally, they are always totalitarian (i.e. they are centrally-controlled and require of their core-adherents an absolute subservience to the group and its patriarchal, and/ or matriarchal, leadership above all other persons). By their very nature, pernicious cults never present themselves in their true colours. Consequently, no one ever becomes involved with one as a result of his/her fully-informed consent.

2). Self-appointed sovereign leadership. Pernicious cults are instigated and ruled by psychologically dominant individuals, and/or bodies of psychologically dominant individuals (often with impressive, made-up names, and/or ranks, and/or titles), who hold themselves accountable to no one. These individuals have severe and inflexible Narcissistic Personalities (i.e. they suffer from a chronic psychological disorder, especially when resulting in a grandiose sense of self-importance/ righteousness and the compulsion to take advantage of others and to control others’ views of, and behaviour towards, them).* They steadfastly pretend moral and intellectual authority whilst pursuing various, hidden, criminal objectives (fraudulent, and/or sexual, and/or violent, etc.). The admiration of their adherents only serves to confirm, and magnify, the leaders’ strong sense of self-entitlement and fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, ideal love, etc.
__________________________________________________ ________________________

* ‘Narcissistic Personality Disorder,’ is a psychological term first used in 1971 by Dr. Heinz Kohut (1913-1981). It was recognised as the name for a form of pathological narcissism in ‘The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 1980.’ Narcissistic traits (where a person talks highly of himself/herself to eliminate feelings of worthlessness) are common in, and considered ‘normal’ to, human psychological development. When these traits become accentuated by a failure of the social environment and persist into adulthood, they can intensify to the level of a severe mental disorder. Severe and inflexible NPD is thought to effect less than 1% of the general adult population. It occurs more frequently in men than women. In simple terms, NPD is reality-denying, total self-worship born of its sufferers’ unconscious belief that they are flawed in a way that makes them fundamentally unacceptable to others. In order to shield themselves from the intolerable rejection and isolation which they unconsciously believe would follow if others recognised their defective nature, NPD sufferers go to almost any lengths to control others’ view of, and behaviour towards, them. NPD sufferers often choose partners, and raise children, who exhibit ‘co-narcissism’ (a co-dependent personality disorder like co-alcoholism). Co-narcissists organise themselves around the needs of others (to whom they feel responsible), they accept blame easily, are eager to please, defer to others’ opinions and fear being seen as selfish if they act assertively. NPD was observed, and apparently well-understood, in ancient times. Self-evidently, the term, ‘narcissism,’ comes from the allegorical myth of Narcissus, the beautiful Greek youth who falls in love with his own reflection.

Currently, NPD has nine recognised diagnostic criteria (five of which are required for a diagnosis):
has a grandiose sense of self-importance.
is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, ideal love, etc.
believes that he/she is special and unique and can only be understood by other special people.
requires excessive admiration.
strong sense of self-entitlement.
takes advantage of others to achieve his/her own ends.
lacks empathy.
is often envious or believes that others are envious of him/her.
arrogant disposition.
__________________________________________________ ____________________

3). Manipulation. Pernicious cults employ co-ordinated, devious techniques of social and psychological persuasion (variously described as: ‘covert hypnosis’, ‘mental manipulation’, ‘coercive behaviour modification’, ‘group pressure’, ‘thought reform’, ‘ego destruction’, ‘mind control’, ‘brainwashing’, ‘neuro-linguistic programming’, ‘love bombing’, etc.). These techniques are designed to fulfil the hidden criminal objectives of the leaders by provoking in the adherents an infantile total dependence on the group to the detriment of themselves and of their existing family, and/or other, relationships. Pernicious cults manipulate their adherents’ existing beliefs and instinctual desires, creating the illusion that they are exercising free will. In this way, adherents can also be surreptitiously coerced into following potentially harmful, physical procedures (sleep deprivation, protein restriction, repetitive chanting/ moving, etc.) which are similarly designed to facilitate the shutting down of an individual’s critical and evaluative faculties without his/ her fully-informed consent.

4). Radical changes of personality and behaviour. Pernicious cults can be of any size, duration and level of criminality. They comprise groups, and/or sub-groups, of previously diverse individuals bonded by their unconscious acceptance of the self-gratifying, but wholly imaginary, scenario that they alone represent a positive or protective force of purity and absolute righteousness derived from their leadership’s exclusive access to a superior or superhuman knowledge, and that they alone oppose a negative or adversarial force of impurity and absolute evil.Whilst this two-dimensional, or dualistic, narrative remains the adherents’ model of reality, they are, in effect, constrained to modify their individual personalities and behaviour accordingly.

5). Pseudo-scientific mystification. The instigators of pernicious cults seek to overwhelm their adherents emotionally and intellectually by pretending that progressive initiation into their own superior or superhuman knowledge (coupled with total belief in its authenticity and unconditional deference to the authority of its higher initiates) will defeat a negative or adversarial force of impurity and absolute evil, and lead to future, exclusive redemption in some form of secure Utopian existence. By making total belief a prerequisite of redemption,adherents are drawn into a closed-logic trap (i.e. failure to achieve redemption is solely the fault of the individual who didn’t believe totally). Cultic pseudo-science is always essentially the same hypnotic hocus-pocus, but it can be peddled in an infinite variety of forms and combinations (‘spiritual’, ‘medical’, ‘philosophical’, ‘cosmological,’‘extraterrestrial’, ‘political’, ‘racial’, ‘mathematical’, ‘economic’, ‘New-Age’, 'magical', etc.), often with impressive, made-up, technical-sounding names. It is tailored to fit the spirit of the times and to attract a broad range of persons, but especially those open to an exclusive offer of salvation (i.e. the: sick, dissatisfied, bereaved, vanquished, disillusioned, oppressed, lonely, insecure, aimless, etc.). However, at a moment of vulnerability, anyone (no matter what their: age, sex, nationality, state of mental/ physical health, level of education, etc.) can need to believe in a non-rational, cultic pseudo-science. Typically, obedient adherents are granted ego-inflating names, and/or ranks, and/or titles, whilst non-initiates are referred to using derogatory, dehumanising terms. Although initiation can at first appear to be reasonable and benefits achievable, cultic pseudo-science gradually becomes evermore costly and mystifying. Ultimately, it is completely incomprehensible and its claimed benefits are never quantifiable. The self-righteous euphoria and relentless enthusiasm of cult proselytisers can be highly infectious and deeply misleading. They are invariably convinced that their own salvation also depends on saving others.

6). Monopoly of information. The leaders of pernicious cults seek to control all information entering not only their adherents’ minds, but also that entering the minds of casual observers. This is achieved by constantly denigrating all external sources of information whilst constantly repeating the group’s reality-inverting key words and images, and/or by the physical isolation of adherents. Cults leaders systematically categorise, condemn and exclude as unenlightened, negative, impure, absolutely evil, etc. all free-thinking individuals and any quantifiable evidence challenging the authenticity of their imaginary scenarios of control. In this way, the minds of cult adherents can become converted to accept only what their leadership arbitrarily sanctions as enlightened, positive, pure, absolutely righteous, etc. Consequently, adherents habitually communicate amongst themselves using their group’s thought-stopping ritual jargon, and they find it difficult, if not impossible, to communicate with negative persons outside of their group whom they falsely believe to be not only doomed, but also to be a suppressive threat to redemption.


7). False justification. In pernicious cults, a core-group of adherents can be gradually dissociated from external reality and reformed into deployable agents, and/or de facto slaves, and/or expendable combatants, etc., furthering the hidden criminal objectives of their leaders, completely dependent on a collective paranoid delusion of absolute moral and intellectual supremacy fundamental to the maintenance of their individual self-esteem/identity and related psychological function. It becomes impossible for such fanatics to see humour in their situation or to feel pity for, or to empathise with, non-adherents. Their minds are programmed to interpret the manipulation, and/or cheating, and/or dispossession, and/or destruction, of inferior outsiders (particularly, those who challenge their group’s controlling scenario) as perfectly justifiable.

8). Structural mystification. The instigators of pernicious cults can continue to organise the creation, and/or dissolution, and/or subversion, of further (apparently independent) corporate structures pursuing lawful, and/or unlawful, activities in order to prevent, and/or divert, investigation and isolate themselves from liability. In this way, some cults survive all low-level challenges and spread like cancers enslaving the minds, and destroying the lives, of countless individuals in the process. At the same time, their leaders acquire absolute control over capital sums which place them alongside the most notorious racketeers in history. They operate behind ever-expanding, and changing, fronts of ‘limited-liability, commercial companies,’ and/or ‘non-profit-making associations,’ etc. Other than ‘religious /philosophical’ and ‘political’ movements and ‘secret societies,’ typical reality-inverting disguises for cultic crime are:

‘charity/ philanthropy’; ‘fund-raising’; ‘lobbying’ on topical issues (‘freedom’, ‘ethics’, ‘environment’, ‘human rights’, ‘women’s rights’, ‘child protection’, ‘law enforcement’, ‘social justice’, 'peace,' etc.); ‘publishing and media’; ‘education’; ‘academia’; ‘celebrity’; ‘patriotism’; ‘information technology’; ‘public relations’; ‘advertising’; ‘medicine’; ‘alternative medicine’; ‘nutrition’; ‘rehabilitation’; ‘manufacturing’; ‘retailing’; ‘direct selling/ marketing’; ‘multilevel marketing’; ‘network marketing’; ‘regulation’; ‘personal development’; ‘self-betterment’; ‘positive thinking’; ‘self-motivation’; ‘leadership training’; ‘life coaching’; ‘research and development’; ‘investment’; ‘real estate’; ‘sponsorship’; ‘bereavement/trauma counselling’; ‘addiction counselling’; ‘legal counselling’; ‘cult exit-counselling’; ‘financial consulting’; ‘management consulting’; ‘clubs’; etc.

9). Chronic psychological deterioration symptoms. The long-term core-adherents of pernicious cults are psychotic (i.e. suffering from psychosis, a severe mental derangement, especially when resulting in delusions and loss of contact with external reality). Core-adherents who manage to break with their group and confront the ego-destroying reality that they’ve been systematically deceived and exploited, are invariably destitute and dissociated from all their previous social contacts. For many years afterwards, recovering former core-adherents can suffer from one, or more, of the following psychological problems (which are also generally indicative of the victims of abuse):

depression; overwhelming feelings (guilt, grief, shame, fear, anger, embarrassment, etc.); dependency/ inability to make decisions; retarded psychological/ intellectual development; suicidal thoughts; panic/ anxiety attacks; extreme identity confusion; Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; insomnia/ nightmares; eating disorders; psychosomatic illness ( asthma, skin disorders, headaches, fatigue, etc.); sexual problems/ fear of forming intimate relationships; inability to trust; etc.

10). Repression of all dissent. The leaders of the most-destructive cults are megalomaniacal psychopaths (i.e. suffering from a chronic mental disorder, especially when resulting in paranoid delusions of grandeur and self-righteousness, and the compulsion to pursue grandiose objectives). The unconditional deference of their deluded adherents only serves to confirm, and magnify, the leaders’ own paranoid delusions. This type of cult leader maintains an absolute monopoly of information whilst perpetrating, and/or directing, evermore heinous crimes. They sustain their activities by the imposition of arbitrary contracts and codes (secrecy, denunciation, confession, justice, punishment, etc.) within their groups, and by the use of humiliation, and/or intimidation, and/or calumny, and/or malicious prosecution (where they pose as victims), and/or sophism, and/or the infiltration of traditional culture, and/or corruption, and/or intelligence gathering and blackmail, and/or extortion, and/or physical isolation, and/or violence, and/or assassination, etc., to repress any internal or external dissent.

[Aianawa]

Oh so such interesting times

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurt...-scam-n2492614

So what are we supposed to be outraged about today? There’s always something, and it’s always the worst thing in the history of ever. And it’s almost always a scam designed to manipulate you into obeying the liberal elite.

That’s the real outrage.

My friend and fellow Townhall columnist Derek Hunter has a new book out designed to help you detect and defeat this shameless grift, Outrage, Inc.: How the Liberal Mob Ruined Science, Journalism, and Hollywood. It’s essential reading because the sooner we can get people woke to the con, the sooner people will stop falling for this nonsense.

What's the latest? Kids in cages, separated from their moms! Oh no! That only happens to every other criminal ever. Well, every American criminal ever. Illegal alien criminals, who drag their kids through scorching deserts to break the law because their own countries are The Term That May Not Be Spoken But Trump Spoke It (which itself created a mini outrage a while ago) are, I guess, supposed to be a special kind of criminal that doesn’t get separated from his/her/xer kids upon arrest. Wait, does that sound right? Why would they be treated differently…I don’t think…STOP!

Don’t think! Get outraged! Let your feelings run free, feelings generated by pictures of kids in cages (under Obama, but shhhhhh!), by super selective Bible readings on MSNBC, and by pious Fredocons whining about how we’re better than that and oh well I never!
CARTOONS | Mike Lester
View Cartoon

That’s the thing – when you’re caught in an outrage monsoon, you aren’t supposed to think. You are supposed to be infuriated, aroused, and activated, like a ravenous running zombie hungering for the virtue signaling lobe of the human brain. You are not supposed to ask questions that interrupt the narrative, like why would this particular subset of criminal get special privileges? Don’t we separate families every day when mommy (or daddy) commits a crime? Why don’t they just not come here?

Facts are the enemy when it comes to liberal policies, so they don’t want you messing with the message by bringing them up. Instead, they want you outraged, and your mind clouded with ginned-up anger, ready to do their bidding.

Someone, oh someone, please think of the children! But not about how their illegal alien parents put them in that position. Because if you start thinking too much, the truth starts to become clear. Liberals want illegal aliens in the country because they want to replace intransigent American citizens like you with pliable foreigners who won’t be so darn uppity. So, they don’t want illegal aliens to be treated like the criminals they are (because entering the country illegally is a crime) because they want to let them stay here – this is all about reinstating catch and release. So, they create a fake outrage about how these criminals are – oh no! – being treated like any other criminal so, they hope, you will demand we go back to catching and releasing them. Before the zero tolerance policy, we caught them and released them on their promise to show up at their hearing, which of course they never, ever did, thereby swelling the ranks of Replacement Americans, which liberals hope to someday amnesty (assisted by the GOP establishment saps) and turn into Democrat voters.

Talk about an outrage.

But kids in cages is only the most recent iteration of the recurring phenomenon. There are hundreds of others. Building up some sort of bogus outrage with the help of the liberal media is now standard operating procedure. Derek’s book chronicles how this obnoxious strategy came into being, tracing such Fauxtrage Classics as the climate change scam from its cheesy origins as global freezing to global warming and finally global everything.

The idea is to create a crisis, to which – surprise – the liberals hyping it have a solution. And it’s inevitably a solution that benefits the liberal elite.

How do you deal with this ploy? How do you resist the tugging of your heartstrings or the pulling at your patriotism (“Everybody hates Russians – let’s say Trump loves the Russians. And so does the NRA!”) that they employ to make you fall into line? You get woke to the scam.

Look for the indicators. Is it something that seems unreasonably horrible? Well, like something that sounds too good to be true probably is, something that sounds too bad to be true likewise is probably not true either. Does Trump ordering screaming babies to be wrenched from their innocent mommies’ arms and cast into dungeons sound pretty extreme? Yeah, because it is. And it’s a lie.

Is it something where the proposed solution benefits the liberal elite? For global warming, the answer they give to this threat THAT WE MUST ACT UPON RIGHT THIS MINUTE is to give liberals more power. Same with global cooling. And same with global staying the same.

Are you allowed to ask questions? If you start pointing out that maybe a good way to avoid being arrested for illegal entry and being separated from Junior is to not enter the U.S. illegally with a kid, is the response that you are a hating hater of hatred and probably a Nazi too? If they are trying to shout you down or browbeat you into silence, that’s an indicator that you’re in the midst of another Cat 5 outrage.

You can’t fool all of the people all of the time, and human beings tend to tire of constant crisis-mongering. Did you notice how most people kind of shrugged about the kids in cages thing? And did you notice how the Trump administration hasn’t stopped locking up illegals and recognizing Get Out of Jail Free Kids?

That’s how you deal with Outrage, Inc. You ignore it, and watch it sputter and fade away.

[Aragorn]

Oh so such interesting times

https://townhall.com/columnists/kurt...-scam-n2492614

[...]

What's the latest? Kids in cages, separated from their moms! Oh no! That only happens to every other criminal ever. Well, every American criminal ever. Illegal alien criminals, who drag their kids through scorching deserts to break the law because their own countries are The Term That May Not Be Spoken But Trump Spoke It (which itself created a mini outrage a while ago) are, I guess, supposed to be a special kind of criminal that doesn’t get separated from his/her/xer kids upon arrest. Wait, does that sound right? Why would they be treated differently…I don’t think…STOP!

[...]

That's where I stopped reading. It sounds like it was written by bsbray — or by one of his heroes anyway.

[Wind]

What little respect I had for Trump is near zero now... What a buffoon.

6 things to read, listen to, and watch to understand family separation

[Dreamtimer]

Liberal elite? Isn't that part of the hoax? That would be part of the two party system - liberal/conservative.

This point confuses me. The two party system is a hoax yet we should still be focused on the liberal elites and figures such as Clinton and Soros.

Which are bastions of said hoax.

Weird.

[Dreamtimer]

America has a rather sad and long history of removing children from families. We did it to the American Indians and we separated families during WWII.

To deny that this is real and part of history is to be in denial. Denial leads to delusion.


Do people really believe that all the church organizations, all the local reports, all the separate court filings which have been going on for years are somehow fake?

It's impossible for Soros or the Deep State or anyone to coordinate all of that.


We can't have it both ways: On the one hand, Trump is changing everything. On the other hand, same old same old hoax/false flag/crisis actor/staged event.

[Dreamtimer]

A little bird told us...

Trump tweets about the “witch hunt”

May 2017: 3 times
June 2017: 5 times
July 2017: 6 times
Oct 2017: 1 time
Dec 2017: 2 times
Jan 2018: 1 time
Feb 2018: 3 times
March 2018: 2 times
April 2018: 9 times
May 2018: 20 times
June 2018: 22 times

Pressure's building. As a result of evidence obtained from Manafort and Cohen, bricks are being expelled rapidly.

In the private world, when Trump turned his back on someone there was nothing they could do about it. They couldn't fight him and his lawyers and his organization.

In the public world, when Trump turns his back on someone loyal and very close to him, there is something they can do about it. Cohen doesn't have to take anyone to court. Court is bringing them all in.

The witch hunt rhetoric has to be stepped up as the piper is coming to be paid.

[Dreamtimer]

Charlie Kirk tweeted, “Why is Manafort in prison and Hillary isn’t?”

Because your party investigated Hillary for 6 years and found nothin', then Bob Mueller [same party by the way] investigated Manafort for a couple of months and found 30 million dollars of money launderin' and tax fraud.

Because Manafort has been charged with committing multiple felonies and violated the terms of his bail by committing several more felonies.

[Emil El Zapato]

It's no wonder Maxine Waters wants to confront Trump on trumpian terms...She is Trump...Upto and including 'her people' This is an example of a politician choosing a party to represent based on political expediency and harsh reality. Where else would a black female go to gain power? And let's not forget the conspiracies.

note the references to corruption, incivility, and early career associations. In my world, she is appropriately termed a 'pretender'

Early political career
In 1973, she went to work as chief deputy to City Councilman David S. Cunningham, Jr.. Waters entered the California State Assembly in 1976. While in the assembly she worked for the divestment of state pension funds from any businesses active in South Africa, a country then operating under the policy of apartheid, and helped pass legislation within the guidelines of the divestment campaign's Sullivan Principles. She ascended to the position of Democratic Caucus Chair for the Assembly.

U.S. House of Representatives

Upon the retirement of Augustus F. Hawkins in 1990, Waters was elected to the United States House of Representatives for California's 29th congressional district with over 79% of the popular vote. She has been reelected consistently from this district, renumbered as the 35th District in 1992 and as the 43rd in 2012, with at least 70 percent of the vote.

Waters has represented large parts of south-central Los Angeles and the Los Angeles coastal communities of Westchester and Playa Del Rey, as well as the cities of Torrance, Gardena, Hawthorne, Inglewood and Lawndale.

Tenure
On July 29, 1994, Waters came to public attention when she repeatedly interrupted a speech by Peter King (R-NY). The presiding officer, Carrie Meek (D-FL), classed her behaviour as "unruly and turbulent", and threatened to have the Sergeant at Arms present her with the Mace of the House of Representatives (the equivalent of a formal warning to desist). As of 2017, this is the most recent instance of the mace being employed in a disciplinary sense. Waters was eventually suspended from the house for the rest of the day. The conflict with King stemmed from the previous day, when they had both been present at a House Banking Committee hearing on the Whitewater controversy. Waters felt King's questioning of Maggie Williams (Hillary Clinton's chief of staff) was too harsh, and they subsequently exchanged hostile words.

Waters was chair of the Congressional Black Caucus from 1997 to 1998. During 2005, Waters testified at the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearings on "Enforcement of Federal Anti-Fraud Laws in For-Profit Education", highlighting the American College of Medical Technology as a "problem school" in her district. In 2006 she was involved in the debate over King Drew Medical Center. She criticized media coverage of the hospital and in 2006 Waters asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny a waiver of the cross ownership ban, and hence license renewal for KTLA-TV, a station the Los Angeles Times owned. She said that "The Los Angeles Times has had an inordinate effect on public opinion and has used it to harm the local community in specific instances." She requested that the FCC force the paper to either sell its station or risk losing that station's broadcast rights. According to Broadcasting & Cable, the challenges raised "the specter of costly legal battles to defend station holdings... At a minimum, defending against one would cost tens of thousands of dollars in lawyers' fees and probably delay license renewal about three months". Waters' petition was ultimately unsuccessful. As a Democratic representative in Congress, Waters was a superdelegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention. She endorsed Democratic U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton for the party's nomination in late January 2008, granting the New York Senator nationally recognized support that some suggested would "make big waves." Waters later switched her endorsement to U.S. Senator Barack Obama when his lead in the pledged delegate count became insurmountable on the final day of primary voting. Waters had a confrontation over an earmark in the United States House Committee on Appropriations with fellow Democratic congressman Dave Obey in 2009. The funding request was for a public school employment training center in Los Angeles that was named after her. In 2011, Waters voted against the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 as part of a controversial provision that allows the government and the military to indefinitely detain American citizens and others without trial.

With the retirement of Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts) in 2012, Waters became the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee. On July 24, 2013, Waters voted in favor of Amendment 100 included in H.R. 2397 Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2014. The amendment targeted domestic surveillance activities, specifically that of the National Security Agency, and if ultimately passed would have limited the flexibility of the NSA's interpretation of the law to collect sweeping data on U.S. citizens. Amendment 100 was rejected 217–205. On March 27, 2014, Waters introduced a discussion draft of the Housing Opportunities Move the Economy Forward Act of 2014 known as the HOME Forward Act of 2014. A key provision of the bill includes the collection of 10 basis points for "every dollar outstanding mortgages collateralizing covered securities" estimated to be approximately $5 billion a year. These funds would be directed to three funds that support affordable housing initiatives, with 75% going to the National Housing trust fund. The National Housing Trust Fund will then provide block grants to states to be used primarily to build, preserve, rehabilitate, and operate rental housing that is affordable to the lowest income households, and groups including seniors, disabled persons and low income workers. The National Housing Trust was enacted in 2008, but has yet to be funded. In 2009, Waters co-sponsored Rep. John Conyers' bill calling for reparations for slavery to be paid to black Americans.

Rodney King verdict and Los Angeles riots
When south-central Los Angeles erupted in riots—in which 58 were killed—after the Rodney King verdict in 1992, Waters gained national attention "when she helped deliver relief supplies in Watts and demanded the resumption of vital services". Waters described the riots as a rebellion, saying "If you call it a riot it sounds like it was just a bunch of crazy people who went out and did bad things for no reason. I maintain it was somewhat understandable, if not acceptable." In her view, the violence was "a spontaneous reaction to a lot of injustice." In regards to the looting of Korean-owned stores by local black residents, she said in an interview with KABC radio host Michael Jackson: "There were mothers who took this as an opportunity to take some milk, to take some bread, to take some shoes... They are not crooks."

CIA
Following a 1996 San Jose Mercury News article alleging the complicity of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Los Angeles crack epidemic of the 1980s, Waters called for an investigation. Waters questioned whether "U.S.-government paid or organized operatives smuggled, transported and sold it to American citizens." The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it had failed to find any evidence to support the original story. The Los Angeles Times also concluded after its own extensive investigation that the allegations were not supported by evidence. The author of the original story, Gary Webb, was eventually transferred to a different beat and removed from investigative reporting, before his death in 2004. Webb was found in his apartment with two bullet holes in his head. His death was declared a suicide. Following these post-publication investigations, Waters read into the Congressional Record a memorandum of understanding in which former President Ronald Reagan's CIA director rejected any duty by the CIA to report illegal narcotics trafficking to the Department of Justice.

Allegations of corruption
According to Chuck Neubauer and Ted Rohrlich writing in the Los Angeles Times in 2004, Maxine Waters' relatives had made more than $1 million during the preceding eight years by doing business with companies, candidates and causes that Waters had helped. They claimed she and her husband helped a company get government bond business, and her daughter Karen Waters and son Edward Waters have profited from her connections. Waters replied that "They do their business and I do mine." Liberal watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington named Waters to its list of corrupt members of Congress in its 2005, 2006, 2009 and 2011 reports. Citizens Against Government Waste named her the June 2009 Porker of the Month due to her intention to obtain an earmark for the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center.

Waters came under investigation for ethics violations and was accused by a House panel of at least one ethics violation related to her efforts to help OneUnited Bank receive federal aid. Waters' husband is a stockholder and former director of OneUnited Bank and the bank's executives were major contributors to her campaigns. In September 2008, Waters arranged meetings between U.S. Treasury Department officials and OneUnited Bank, so that the bank could plead for federal cash. It had been heavily invested in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and its capital was "all but wiped out" after the U.S. government took them over. The bank received $12 million in Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) money. The matter was investigated by the House Ethics Committee, which charged her with violations of the House's ethics rules in 2010. On September 21, 2012, the House Ethics Committee completed a report clearing Waters of all ethics charges after nearly three years of investigation.

"Reclaiming my time"
In July 2017, during a House Financial Services Committee meeting, Waters questioned United States Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin. At several points during the questioning, Waters used the phrase "reclaiming my time" when Mnuchin did not directly address the questions Waters had asked him. The video of the interaction between Waters and Mnuchin became viral on social media, and the phrase became attached to her criticisms of Trump.

Louis Farrakhan
In early 2018, Waters was among the congressmen who the Republican Jewish Coalition called to resign due to her connections with Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

[Emil El Zapato]

Apparently Trump's favorability is going up...

I see why America is so despised in the world...

All those beating the drum for Trump are tightening the noose around their necks...I can't bring myself to ask how stupid people can people be. If not stupid what? They have left me in a toxic dust cloud...'cause I got no clue. I would be suicidal if I didn't realize it's a last gasp for 'those' people. Just as the sun rises in the morning a new and better world is on the way.

[Dreamtimer]

There are many Americans who (used to) love talking about our Founding Fathers. Here are some words which apply to today:

[Dreamtimer]

People are pulling from some pretty old playbooks:

[Emil El Zapato]

There are many Americans who (used to) love talking about our Founding Fathers. Here are some words which apply to today:

what an amazing coincidence! that was written 250 years ago by his party chairman.