Posts with the tag keating

McRobin Hood - The Anti-Social Socialist

Amunaor — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:09:27 EDT

Thanks to the artifice of 'Fractional Reserve Banking' debt has become money, hence a commodity, which value is then speculated upon as it is bundled, bought and sold by wall-street casinos. The bankers wealth, is the borrowers debt; whose burden is multiplied by usury. Cycles of inflation-deflation (adding/subtracting value; saturation-de-saturation of fiat paper) exponentially exacerbates that burden upon the borrower, until the borrower's entire material being is that as a harness, for he has become as a mule in that harness and a debt-slave to the magicians of wealth creation.

On a globalised, electronic scale, in which "money" (value added digits) is traded as a commodity is a very different story in which the conglomerates as well as the individual are harnessed by a system of perpetual debt money to the private banking sector; in other words, one half of the community lives off the toil of the other half simply for the privilege of creating, supplying and handling its "money".

When McCain utilizes the term 'Spread the Wealth Around' in conjunction with the term 'Socialist', its intent is that of a psychological barb; tipped with a dark-poison coloration, stigmatized of a bygone era in which McCain, obviously, still lives. The hope is of rousing sentiment within like minds of a gullible flock. McCain's rhetoric is only a psychological projection of his own crime onto the victim; whose cronies, having gutted the life savings and retirement accounts of the worker bees, certainly do not wish to share the proceeds of their loot. In other words, when McCain accuses Barack of spreading the wealth around, McThief is only deflecting attention away from the reality of his own egregious crime, who has already divvied up the looted booty at the top, while deceptively 'Spreading the Debt Around' at the bottom, with the added blessing from the Grand Plunderer, 'you're on your own', trust me, 'it's the American Way'.

Through exotic, algorithmic, scamming mechanisms such as Enron - Keating S&L - Wall Street Casino Bailout; McRobin-Hood has consistently looted the public trust and is not about to dethrone His Friends in DC - the good old boy network - which he just can't wait to introduce, Plain-Clothes, Palin to.

I guess this would qualify McCain/Palin as Socialist Financial Criminals with psychotic Anti-Social tendencies.

If you continue to beat your head against a brick wall; it's bleeding, and it starts to hurt; don't you think that its time to stop beating your head against the wall!? (Barack Obama)

Peace, Best Wishes and Hope

When is a Surge not a Surge? When an Invasion/Occupation is NOT a War!

Maverick: Right Term, Wrong Definition.

Karma1 — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 07:33:49 EDT

The common definition of maverick in the U.S. and Canada is “an unbranded range animal, especially a calf that has become separated from its mother, traditionally considered the property of the first person who brands it.” If indeed this definition is what Senator McCain and Governor Palin refer to in their use of the term, then we should most absolutely fear McCain. Although he astonishingly asserts the untrue notion that Senator Obama got his political start in the living room of a terrorist, we can say that McCain was branded early in his own career by none other than the American financial terrorist, Charles Keating. Unfortunately, I believe his inability to focus on current problems with our economy and the world economy as a whole is substantially due to two points: McCain has little to no conceptualization of economic forecasting or implementation, and I sadly guess that somewhere on his hide is branded CK, not meaning Calvin Klein.

Robo-calls: John McCain, have you no decency?

Jeanine — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 09:01:50 EDT

Robo-calls paid for by the McCain campaign and his supporters claim Barack Obama is a close associate of Bill Ayers, a domestic terrorist who killed Americans. People in Chicago, including Republicans, confirm Ayers and Obama only 'crossed paths' while working on an Annenberg project and as neighbors in Hyde Park. Obama did not know Ayers in the 60s.

Obama does not look to Ayers for advice. His advisors and supporters include Nobel Prize winners (62 scientists in a recent public letter); investors and business people, such as Warren Buffett; former SEC chairs; two-thirds of professional economists recently polled; admirals; generals; and the overwhelming majority of soldiers in Iraq who have made political donations.

McCain is indifferent to the impropriety of having paid lobbyists on his campaign staff, including his campaign manager, who received money from a company hired by Fannie Mae until a few weeks ago. McCain has been silent on the decision by the Alaskan legislature that Sarah Palin abused her power. During the last debate, McCain repudiated the “fringe” calling Obama a terrorist. But he allows robo-calls to carry this same message. These charges against McCain are true and important. Voters, pay attention to what matters.

Say it ain't so, Joe (the Plumber)

Llysse Smith Wylle — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:38:13 EDT

Joe the Plumber: we loved you once.

When we found out you weren't registered to vote, we were a bit disappointed.

When we further discovered that "rich" as you claimed to be, you hadn't paid your taxes, we were a bit MORE disappointed in you... but, okay. You're not a tax expert. You're a plumber.

It was a little tough for me to take that someone making $250,000 a year in profit wouldn't be willing to pay $900 extra on his taxes so I and 95% of your neighbors could have a break, pay for gas, keep a little more of our income when we need it so much. My family struggles for groceries... but okay. What are we to you, after all? (Some of us are you five or ten years ago, but forget that... and especially forget that some of us could be you a few years in the future.)

Then we found out you weren't even a plumber. Wait, what?

Lastly, we discover that you, Joe the Plumber, are possibly even related to Charles Keating, one of McCain's cronies from the Keating Five scandal. No wonder you're calling Senator Obama a socialist and suggesting he's "tap dancing like Sammy Davis, Jr." Hm. We suspect in others, as the saying goes.

At least you won't be voting for McCain, seeing as how you didn't bother to register. All my Ohio friends are voting Obama, by the way.

McCain-Palin Guilt by Association

Nia "Hussein" J. — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 01:14:58 EDT

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-lux/guilt-by-associations_b_133758.html

As the 2008 campaign enters the final sprint toward the November 4th finish line, both campaigns are framing their final arguments to voters. As McCain's poll numbers in key states across the country continue to erode, we've seen his campaign tactics change. They have gone into 100 percent negative attack mode - literally 100 percent as far as I can tell - as that is currently the percentage of their ads that are negative. They are aimed at tearing down Obama personally and betting on the fact that they can raise doubts in enough swing voters minds' in key states like Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Colorado that they can tip the electorate over the next couple weeks. They are doing this through "guilt by association" politics. They don't want this final phase of the campaign to be about the economy or the other issues, that much is clear from their own strategists quotes in the press. They want it to be about Obama's relationships with people like William Ayers and Jeremiah Wright.

First, let me say that this is nothing new in politics. For as long as Presidential campaigns have been waged, both sides of always tried to accused their opponents of "sleeping with the enemy" or having connections to people who are not upstanding folks. As I'm sure many of you remember, we spent a lot of time defending Clinton against these types of attacks during the 1992 race. However, John McCain and Sarah Palin are going far further, and far nastier, with this tactic than any campaign in memory.

Our side should not let the McCain campaign drive this debate without pointing out their hypocrisy, and we should hold the traditional media accountable when they cover McCain's wild accusations without exploring any of the associations in McCain and Palin's careers. So I decided to put together a list of people with frightening beliefs and/or criminal backgrounds that McCain and Palin are tied to. My criterion is that I looked for people that are or were in fact closer to McCain or Palin than Ayers. I think we should all push to make the traditional media really dig into these relationships.

12. Pastor John Hagee. You all remember when the Pastor Hagee scandal broke a couple months ago. Since then, McCain has distanced himself from the Pastor, but it's still important to remember this relationship and to note that while Obama has also distanced himself from Rev. Wright, the McCain campaign, along with GOP operatives continue to tie the two to each other and it's expected that Wright's name will make a return to the debate during next week's debate in New York.

In February of 2008, Hagee endorsed McCain's candidacy, calling him a, "man of principle, [who] does not stand boldly on both sides of any issue." For his part, McCain said that he was "very honored by Pastor John Hagee's endorsement." Unfortunately, Hagee has a litany of statements in the public record that are not only troubling, they are downright offensive and radical. ThinkProgress has more on Hagee's past comments. For starters, Hagee once referred to Catholicism as "The Great Whore," and in talking about U.S. foreign policy he said, "The United States must join Israel in a pre-emptive military strike against Iran to fulfill God's plan for both Israel and the West... a biblically prophesied end-time confrontation with Iran, which will lead to the Rapture, Tribulation, and Second Coming of Christ."

McCain has denounced some of these more radical statements, but the mere fact that he actively sought Hagee's endorsement for a year means that he should be held to account for Hagee's radical views - if Wright remains on the political table, Hagee should be there right next to him.

11. Thomas Muthee. Sarah and Todd Palin have another Pastor problem. His name is Thomas Muthee and he is an evangelist and witchdoctor, who Sarah Palin has credited with helping her to win her governorship in 2006. Hannah Strange from the Times Online has more on the Muthee-Palin relationship.

At a speech at the Wasilla Assembly of God on June 8 this year, Mrs Palin described how Thomas Muthee had laid his hands on her when he visited the church as a guest preacher in late 2005, prior to her successful gubernatorial bid.
In video footage of the speech, she is seen saying: "As I was mayor and Pastor Muthee was here and he was praying over me, and you know how he speaks and he's so bold. And he was praying "Lord make a way, Lord make a way."
"And I'm thinking, this guy's really bold, he doesn't even know what I'm going to do, he doesn't know what my plans are. And he's praying not "oh Lord if it be your will may she become governor," no, he just prayed for it. He said "Lord make a way and let her do this next step. And that's exactly what happened."

Just like the Wright sermons, there are tons of YouTube clips that highlight this guy's sermons. The Palins' association with this guy really brings into question some serious issues - for example -does she believe that Muthee's spiritual hand helped seal her election in Alaska? Had this guy preached in front of Obama or his congregation, can you imagine what the outrage from the Right would be? Moreover, Muthee has made anti Catholic statements. He was once quoted as saying, "Brazil is occupied by Catholics... but people are being saved anyway!"

10. Mustafa Abu Naba'a. A while back, McCain also had another fundraising scandal involving one of his big bundlers from Florida, who also has close ties to Gov. Charlie Crist. This man is Mustafa Abu Naba'a, who is a dual citizen of Jordan and the Dominican Republic. He was tasked with collecting checks for McCain bundler Harry Sargeant III. His contribution to McCain was returned because the donations were solicited by a foreign national and may have been collected in violation of federal election laws. Matthew Mosk of the Washington Post has more on this fundraising scandal and it's implications - needless to say, this bundler wasn't doing things above-board and the fallout should be scrutinized - this is not the kind of person a presidential campaign or a potential President of the United States wants to have hanging around.

9. Ali Jawad. As the McCain campaign and RNC research team comb through the Obama campaigns donation history looking for ties to foreign donors and those presumably with Arab sounding names trying to draw some connection, it's important to remember that John McCain has had some issues in the recent past receiving donations from shady people that he later had to return.

One of those people was Ali Jawad, a member of McCain's Michigan Finance Committee. Jawad is president of Armada Oil & Gas Company and founder of the Lebanese American Heritage Club. According to Jake Tapper at ABC News:

In this 2002 story, Jawad is quoted saying he "rejects talk that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization that should be shunned by the United States and other governments. 'Killing innocent people -- we reject that,' he said. 'Hezbollah does not fit this category. It has protected its people."

The article goes on to say:

In 1997 he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor insurance fraud. Prosecutors accused him of submitting names of non-employees to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan to receive health insurance benefits and claims. He received two years of probation and he paid approximately $6,000 in fines and restitution.

8. Oliver North, John Singlaub and U.S. Council for World Freedom. A couple days ago, the Associated Press detailed the relationship between John McCain and The U.S. Council for World Freedom. AP:

The U.S. Council for World Freedom aided rebels trying to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua. That landed the group in the middle of the Iran-Contra affair and in legal trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, which revoked the charitable organization's tax exemption.
The council created by retired Army Maj. Gen. John Singlaub was the U.S. chapter of the World Anti-Communist League, an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. After setting up the U.S. council, Singlaub served as the international league's chairman.

What's more?

In two interviews with The Associated Press in August and September, Singlaub said McCain became associated with the organization in the early 1980s as McCain launched his political career. McCain was elected to the U.S. House in 1982.

Launched his political career? Sound familiar?

The Council was notorious for its affiliation with white supremacists, etc. Also, remember that Oliver North played a large role during the Iran-Contra and was convicted in 1989 of shredding documents, accepting an illegal gratuity, and aiding and abetting in the obstruction of Congress. On February 12, 2008, the McCain campaign circulated a column that North wrote in the Washington Times touting, "extolling the senator's virtues, under the heading "In Case You Missed It: Oliver North on John McCain."

Sam Stein at the Huffington Post has a great piece about McCain's connections with the U.S. Council for World Freedom. You can read it here.

7. Charles Keating. For many younger voters, the name Charles Keating might not have meant anything until early this week. However, for those of us who have been around for a while and have been deeply involved in politics, the Keating Five Scandal is still very much in our memories. This week, the Obama campaign hit McCain hard on the Keating issue - producing a 13-minute documentary on the scandal and tying McCain's actions back then to the crisis we face today in our economy. They hit him on judgment and they want to re-introduce Charles Keating to the American people, and rightly so. Keating was a close friend of the McCain's. McCain and his family vacationed with Keating, on Keating's buck and the favors that McCain helped to curry for Keating during the 1980's helped to bring about the fall of the Savings and Loan industry, one of the largest economic calamities of the 20th century. Just this past week, ThinkProgress dug up a letter correspondence between McCain and Keating - which punctuates their friendship and loyalty.

The Washington Times reports that in 1986, John McCain wrote a note on House stationery to Charles Keating, chairman of a failed savings and loan association who went to prison in the late 1980s. In the letter, McCain apologized for listing Keating as part of his Senate campaign finance committee. Keating wrote in response: "You can call me anything, write anything or do anything. I'm yours till death do us part."

If public service is about watching who you keep as company, then Charles Keating is still very much on the table. For years since the scandal, McCain has written and talked about how the Keating Five Scandal changed his life and how he would be forever transformed by the incident. However, in a conference call with reporters last week, John Dowd, the lawyer who represented McCain during the Senate Ethics Committee investigation spoke of the investigation as a "classic political smear job" and professed that "John had not done anything wrong." This alone re-opens the entire incident and the press should now be asking John McCain if he too believes the investigation was a "smear job" and that he had "done nothing wrong." Keating is a classic example of the company you keep coming back to haunt you.

6. G. Gordon Liddy. Liddy has been a name in national politics for many years. However, many piece of his biography have been forgotten. If a candidate for President of the United States is presumed guilty for the company that he keeps, then McCain's relationship, both financial and personal, with G. Gordon Liddy is very troublesome. Oliver Willis has more in a recent Media Matters report that lays out this relationship:

As Media Matters for America has noted, Liddy served four and a half years in prison in connection with his conviction for his role in the Watergate break-in and the break-in at the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, the military analyst who leaked the Pentagon Papers. Liddy has acknowledged preparing to kill someone during the Ellsberg break-in "if necessary"; plotting to murder journalist Jack Anderson; plotting with a "gangland figure" to murder Howard Hunt to stop him from cooperating with investigators; plotting to firebomb the Brookings Institution; and plotting to kidnap "leftist guerillas" at the 1972 Republican National Convention -- a plan he outlined to the Nixon administration using terminology borrowed from the Nazis. (The murder, firebombing, and kidnapping plots were never carried out; the break-ins were.) During the 1990s, Liddy reportedly instructed his radio audience on multiple occasions on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents and also reportedly said he had named his shooting targets after Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Liddy has donated $5,000 to McCain's campaigns since 1998, including $1,000 in February 2008. In addition, McCain has appeared on Liddy's radio show during the presidential campaign, including as recently as May. An online video labeled "John McCain On The G. Gordon Liddy Show 11/8/07? includes a discussion between Liddy and McCain, whom Liddy described as an "old friend." During the segment, McCain praised Liddy's "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great," said he was "proud" of Liddy, and said that "it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program."

5. Kemper Marley. Kemper Marley was a wealthy liquor distributor and Arizona rancher who had close ties to the Hensley family, namely Cindy McCain's father. He was long suspected of being involved in the bombing and murder of Don Bolles, an investigative reporter for The Arizona Republic who specialized in crime reporting. According to Marley's 1990 obituary in the New York Times, "John Harvey Adamson, the only person whose conviction in the slaying has been upheld, said in court documents that he had been hired by Max Dunlap, a wealthy contractor who had been reared by Mr. Marley, to kill Mr. Bolles for writing articles damaging to Mr. Marley."

A Phoenix-area newspaper did a story during McCain's 2000 Presidential bid about the Hensley family history and their associations with shady characters. According to the Phoenix News Times, "The Hensley saga, meanwhile, swirls with bygone accounts of illicit booze, gambling, horse racing, deceit and crime. James Hensley embarked on his road to riches as a bootlegger."

Kemper's money, along with the Hensley family, helped John McCain get where he is today. It's important that questions are asked about McCain's knowledge of Kemper Marley and what involvement and impact he had on McCain's early political career.

4. Don Diamond. Then, there is Don Diamond. In April, 2008, the New York Times did a detailed story on Diamond's relationship with McCain and the favors that McCain curried for Diamond, who wanted to develop land in California on the site of a closed Army base.. In their lede, they write, "For Mr. McCain, the Arizona Republican who has staked two presidential campaigns on pledges to avoid even the appearance of dispensing an official favor for a donor, Mr. Diamond is the kind of friend who can pose a test."

Here's more from the Times:

Donald R. Diamond, a wealthy Arizona real estate developer, was racing to snap up a stretch of virgin California coast freed by the closing of an Army base a decade ago when he turned to an old friend, Senator John McCain.
When Mr. Diamond wanted to buy land at the base, Fort Ord, Mr. McCain assigned an aide who set up a meeting at the Pentagon and later stepped in again to help speed up the sale, according to people involved and a deposition Mr. Diamond gave for a related lawsuit. When he appealed to a nearby city for the right to develop other property at the former base, Mr. Diamond submitted Mr. McCain's endorsement as "a close personal friend."
Writing to officials in the city, Seaside, Calif., the senator said, "You will find him as honorable and committed as I have."
Courting local officials and potential partners, Mr. Diamond's team promised that he could "help get through some of the red tape in dealing with the Department of the Army" because Mr. Diamond "has been very active with Senator McCain," a partner said in a deposition.
A longtime political patron, Mr. Diamond is one of the elite fund-raisers Mr. McCain's current presidential campaign calls Innovators, having raised more than $250,000 so far. At home, Mr. Diamond is sometimes referred to as "The Donald," Arizona's answer to Donald Trump -- an outsized personality who invites public officials aboard his flotilla of yachts (the Ace, King, Jack and Queen of Diamonds), specializes in deals with the government, and unabashedly solicits support for his business interests from the recipients of his campaign contributions.

3. Marylin Shannon. Over the past couple days you've heard the line about Obama "palling around with terrorists" come out of Sarah Palin's mouth on numerous occasions and with relative ease. Well, it's important to note that John McCain's friend, Marilyn Shannon, a Republican official from Oregon, once praised a woman who was convicted of attempted murder in the shooting of an abortion clinic doctor. According to Raw Story:

McCain and Shannon appeared together at a fundraiser for the Oregon Citizens Alliance in 1993, a gathering of Christian right extremists that even fellow Republicans advised McCain not to attend because the group was so far outside the mainstream.
Speaking before McCain, Shannon offered some kind words for Shelley Shannon, who was accused and later convicted of shooting an abortion doctor: "I'm not related to Shelly Shannon, but I think she's a fine lady," the vice chairwoman of the state Republican Party said. McCain apparently said nothing to contradict that judgment, and less than three months later he voted against a bill that would make abortion clinic bombings a federal crime.
Author and journalist Frederick Clarkson has written extensively about the Army of God, the radical Christian organization that trained Shelley Shannon and others like her to bomb abortion clinics and attack abortion providers. He provides some more details on Shannon. She was eventually convicted of the attempted murder of a Wichita, Kan., doctor and of committing a spree of abortion clinic arsons across the west.

Keep in mind that Shannon was a delegate for McCain to this year's Republican National Convention in Saint Paul. The McCain campaign showed no oversight in allowing her to attend. Moreover, as ThinkProgress points out - when asked by the CBS Early Show to respond to an article where accusations were made that McCain had palled around with someone who held these radical and dangerous views, McCain-Palin campaign spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer said, "The article also concluded is that if Senator McCain had hung out with somebody who had bombed abortion clinics, no one would consider [raising the issue] illegitimate.

So, what Pfotenhauer is saying is that this issue is legitimate and that McCain should have to respond. Let's see if he does.

2. Alaska Independence Party - Joe Vogler, Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll. As the GOP continues to parse and amplify the words of Jeremiah Wright, mind you, not his words on peace and spiritual matters, but rather the passages where he was critical of America on racial and foreign policy issues, it's important that we make sure Americans know about Joe Vogler, the founder of AIP. In some cases, his words are nearly identical to Rev. Wright's, and in many cases they are worse. Vogler has been quoted as saying, "the fires of hell are frozen glaciers compared to my hatred for the American government" and "I won't be buried under their damn flag..."I'll be buried in Dawson. And when Alaska is an independent nation they can bring my bones home." Vogler even went so far as to renounce his allegiance to the United States, which is far more extreme than anything that came out of Rev. Wright's mouth. In the course of denouncing Federal regulation over land, he said, "And then you get mad. And you say, the hell with them. And you renounce allegiance, and you pledge your efforts, your effects, your honor, your life to Alaska." TPM has a great piece with all of these quotes, along with audio of Vogler's interview.

There's also Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll, both AIP members and close political associates of Sarah Palin. Here's Salon's write-up on these two and their association with Palin's run for Mayor of Wasilla.

Though Chryson belongs to a fringe political party, one that advocates the secession of Alaska from the Union, and that organizes with other like-minded secessionist movements from Canada to the Deep South, he is not without peculiar influence in state politics, especially the rise of Sarah Palin. An obscure figure outside of Alaska, Chryson has been a political fixture in the hometown of the Republican vice-presidential nominee for over a decade. During the 1990s, when Chryson directed the AIP, he and another radical right-winger, Steve Stoll, played a quiet but pivotal role in electing Palin as mayor of Wasilla and shaping her political agenda afterward. Both Stoll and Chryson not only contributed to Palin's campaign financially, they played major behind-the-scenes roles in the Palin camp before, during and after her victory. Palin backed Chryson as he successfully advanced a host of anti-tax, pro-gun initiatives, including one that altered the state Constitution's language to better facilitate the formation of anti-government militias. She joined in their vendetta against several local officials they disliked, and listened to their advice about hiring.

The Salon piece that I quote from above has some really ripe, detailed information on the AIP, as well as its more shady members. Palin has not renounced these men or to the best of my knowledge, even addressed their associations with them.

1. Todd Palin. The "first dude" has gotten pretty much a free ride from the traditional press over the past six weeks. He's done a couple softball interviews on FOX News and has pretty much sat in the background as his wife has been introduced on the national stage. Not much attention has been paid to the fact that Todd Palin was a member, for eight years, of the Alaska Independence Party, a radical group that advocates for Alaskan secession from the United States of America and is linked with radical secessionist groups, militias, and white supremacists groups from all over the country. We don't know the full extent of Todd Palin's beliefs when it comes to AIP and their radical views, but the problem is - no one is really asking. As Ambinder puts it in a post he did on October 4:

Todd Palin, a former member of the Alaska Independence Party, might well have seen America unlike his wife did -- that is, an America that one can secede from. He was comfortable belonging to and being associated with a political party whose founder seemed to delight in denouncing the principles that hold our union together.

If there is even a remote chance that this guy is going to be living in the Vice President's house or White House for the next 4 or 8 years, we deserve to know the truth about his radical views of America, especially given how much Gov. Palin has clearly relied on him for policy-making help while Governor of Alaska.

Over John McCain's long political career, he has made many "friends." It's evident in the short time that the country has known Sarah and Todd Palin that they also had a bunch of friends - all who should be causing trouble for them in the closing weeks of this campaign. If the McCain-Palin ticket wants to constantly remind voters about Obama's "friends," it's imperative that we do the same.

I offer this list to reporters, bloggers and muckrakers of all kinds. To be fair in this campaign, if we're going to be hearing a lot about Bill Ayers and Jeremiah Wright, we should be hearing about all of these people as well. In fact, all of them are far closer to McCain or Palin than Ayers ever was to Obama. And while Obama has denounced the actions of Ayers and the words or Wright, most of the people on this list have never been denounced by John McCain or Sarah Palin. As McCain and company go more and more negative and trumpet Obama's past associations, it's important that we push these stories and make sure the American people know that this "guilt by associations" politics cuts both ways.

Cross-posted at OpenLeft.com As the 2008 campaign enters the final sprint toward the November 4th finish line, both campaigns are framing their final arguments to voters. As McCain's poll numbers in... Cross-posted at OpenLeft.com As the 2008 campaign enters the final sprint toward the November 4th finish line, both campaigns are framing their final arguments to voters. As McCain's poll numbers in...

For the McCains. the Keating scandal was a family affair

Martin Edwin "Mick" from Churchton, MD — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:43:40 EDT

Keating Connection: The Sequel

Cindy McCain Makes a Deal

By John Dougherty 10/10/08 12:39 PM

PHOENIX—Sen. John McCain’s wife and father-in-law continued a lucrative business partnership with disgraced financier Charles H. Keating Jr. for 11 years after the GOP presidential nominee said he ended his close friendship with Keating in March 1987.

Cindy McCain’s business partnership with Keating in a real-estate development between 1986 and 1998 netted her a tidy profit, in addition to years of significant tax benefits. Her father, who died in 2000, earned similar returns. ...

http://washingtonindependent.com/11806/cindy

When you have nothing to say

Jeanine — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 23:13:41 EDT

An ad from the McCain campaign suggests that Barack Obama is a pal of Bill Ayers, and therefore is a bomb-throwing radical. Sarah Palin points out that she read this in the New York Times, perhaps to refute the perception that she doesn't read newspapers. However, she did not read the article carefully, since it demonstrates that Akers and Obama only 'crossed paths' while working to bring money to Chicago schools and as neighbors in Hyde Park. Barack Obama does not look to Bill Ayers for advice. His advisors and supporters include Nobel Prize winners (62 scientists in a recent public letter), investors and business people such as Warren Buffett, former SEC chairs, two-thirds of professional economists recently polled, admirals, generals and the over-whelming majority of soldiers in Iraq who have made political donations. About 4 million Americans have contributed financially to his presidential campaign.

The McCain/Palin campaign wants to 'turn the page' away from the issues that matter to people's lives. The guilt by association charge on Obama is without merit. Let's consider the associations of John McCain that are relevant to banking, character, and honor. John McCain was reprimanded by the Senate for poor judgment in asking government regulators to withdraw from examination of his friend and supporter Charles Keating, who went to jail for fraud in the savings and loan crisis that also cost the taxpayer billions. John McCain said that Phil Gramm is the person he looks to on the economy, Phil Gramm who calls Americans whiners and wrote the deregulation laws that put the country on the path to the present crisis. John McCain is indifferent to the propriety of having paid lobbyists on his campaign staff, including his campaign manager, who received money from a company hired by Fannie Mae until the government took it over a few weeks ago. This charge of guilt by association is true and important. Voters: pay attention to what matters.

Here they go again - your help is needed to call and email the media!

Michele — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:33:05 EDT

Sen. Obama's television surrogates need to strike back harder and on point. I just spent 2 hours flipping thorugh the FOX, CNN and MSNBC shows. Everybody is talking about Sen. Obama's past associates. It is getting wide disucssion. NOT ONCE, not one, did anybody bring up Charles Keating.

We need to counter hard about Mr. Keating, a financial terrorist who bilked BILLIONS from innocent taxpayers. He wasn't just McCain's associate either. John McCain and his wife Cindy went on exotic vacations with the Keatings, traveled on their yacht. Cocktails and fine dining over and over and over. THey were best buds. This "my friends" is no comparison to serving on a board and also being in a room for a fundraiser once.

BILKED BILLIONS. If we are to be judged by the company we keep - this needs to be called into talk shows, TV shows, email FOX,CNN and MSNBC. Bombard about the BILIONAIRE BILKER, Criminal and financial terrorists. Don't just circulate a 13 minute video ( which was terrific) - call and email the media outlets to be fair.

You know, Sen. Obama was 8 years old when Mr. Ayres was up to his antics. His association was tangential and shared that association with other respectable people.

John McCain admitted poor judgement in his MANY, years long association with Charles Keating. He apologized for it and for the most part, we accepted his explanation. So now, McCain expects the electorate to move on where the Keating Five are concerned. Okay...

But wait, you don't want to give Sen. OBama the same benefit of the doubt that you got Sen. McCain? We should MOVE ON with your past associates, like Rev Hagee and felon G.GOrdon Liddy, but we are NOT SUPPOSED TO MOVE ON for any thin associations Sen. OBama had? C'MON!!!!!

Folks, the Sean Hannity driven outrage over Mr. Ayres will have a negative backlash I think - but it is also now dominating all the mainstream media outlets. We aren't getting people speaking up loudly enough for Sen. Obama's behalf. I just watched Paul Begalia mention McCain ought not to go there...but he never gave any examples. The viewers need to be reminded of the significant counter-balance arguement.

You Take the High Road...

Bodie P — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:40:45 EDT

I became an Obama supporter during the primaries. It wasn't that he had extensive experience--though I was impressed by the people from whom he had sought advice--or that he had a crackerjack plan to offer. It was that he ran a clean, dignified campaign in spite of the provocation to do otherwise.

He focused on his vision, what he wanted to accomplish, and if he was light on details, at least the details he offered weren't designed to discredit his opponents through side issues. And while it won him my admiration, it cost him. The pundits said that he needed to "get tougher," that he could not win without resorting to dirty tricks.

I hoped they were wrong.

Less than 29 Days left!!

Marie — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 15:13:11 EDT

Learn more about the amendments included on our 2008 Election Ballot:

Item one: To encourage the preservation of Georgia's forests through conservation use property tax reduction program.

Item Two: To authorize local school districts to use tax funds for community redevelopment purposes.

Item Three: To authorize the creation of special Infrastructure Development Districts providing infrastructure to underserved areas.

Note: Don’t let the wording fool you, especially on Item three. Very clever wording to take A lot of money from Home buyers.

Item Two seems foolish after telling the teachers that we can not give them the pledged 3 percent raises.

Source: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=146x5856

or_

References:
http://www.times-herald.com/Local/Proposed-amendment-wo...

http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Georgia_2008_ball...

http://news.mywebpal.com/partners/680/public/news915307

**************************************************************************************************************************************************

GA news ~

ON September 30, 2008

Chambliss leads Martin only 37% to 34% in DSCC pollGeorgia Democratic Senate candidate Jim Martin is within three points of Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss and holds Chambliss to just 37% of the vote, according to a new poll taken for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Chambliss leads Martin 37% to 34% in the poll, which also found that only 27% of Georgia likely voters say that Chambliss is doing an excellent or good job as Senator – a ten point drop from a poll taken for the DSCC in early August.“Georgians continue to show that they are unhappy with the job Saxby Chambliss has done in Washington and are ready for a change,” DSCC spokesman Matthew Miller said. “With thirty-five days to go until the election, Jim Martin is in a strong position against an unpopular incumbent.”The poll of 600 likely voters was taken September 24 to 28 by the Mellman Group and has a 4% margin of error.

Now! Jim Says:

From 3 to 2 to 1: New Independent Poll Shows Us Within 1 Point of Chambliss!Today brings the third in a series of new polls that pegs our race at a dead heat! Last week, we told you about a new Mellman Group poll that had us within 3 points of Saxby Chambliss - and then a new SurveyUSA poll that had us down by only 2.And now, this morning, a new Research 2000 poll shows that we are trailing Chambliss by only 1 point, 45% to 44%!There can be no doubt that we have the momentum on our side. Over the weekend, while I was meeting with folks in LaGrange, Columbus, and Fayetteville, the papers were full of doom-and-gloom stories for Saxby Chambliss, calling him "beatable in conservative Georgia." The Washington Post described Chambliss as "suddenly teetering." Another outlet lauded us for running a "smart, aggressive operation" in going after Chambliss.

Source: http://www.martinforsenate.com/blog/

Please contribute online today by clicking on this link - a contribution of $250, $100, $50, $35, or whatever you can give, will make a real difference.

Reason for the big jump in the polls is directly related to our hard work registering new voters. Great Job Folks!!!

**********************************************************************************************************************

WARNING!

Do not watch on C-span the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee hearings about the $700Billion Rescue unless you have a strong stomache. The Greed of LB & AIG executives are unbelievable.

******************************************************************************************************************************

McCain revisiting Keating 5 banking scandal again after his campaign goes Nasty! It's about time, I think.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081007/ap_on_el_pr/mccain_keating

If we learned nothing from the swiftboating in 2000 & 2004, defend yourself and fast. It's sad but true.

Oh about that Bear DNA POrk Spending McCain Mocked about - He voted for it! Did you Vet your Candidates Sir?

Guess what The Palins were associated with a " Domestic Terrorist" THe Leader wanted to Alaska to Succeed from the US.

UPDATE for McCain: Was Sarah Palin Really a Member of the Alaska Independent Party?

Revealed: $Arah Palin Cut $1.1 Million in Funding for Teen Moms

Did He not hear of these issues associated with her?

Vote Early!!!! Obama '08

Guilt by Association

Henry M — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:34:00 EDT

Wright was wrong, and now we have the Ayers (who was a terrorist when Obama was eight years old!) non-issue.

On the other hand, McCain's history of association with unsavory individuals and organizations has often been, at best, ill-chosen.

Sometimes guilt by association is valid, i.e. McCain’s economic, legal, political, and moral disgrace as one of the Keating Five

And sometimes it isn’t, i.e. McCain’s membership on the “US Council for World Freedom”

If you liked this message, then please have a look at the rest of my blog, http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/henrymu and please consider donating to the campaign: http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/PListe4Obama

Henry M

The travesty of the Keating affair

Martin Edwin "Mick" from Churchton, MD — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 00:52:57 EDT

I worked for Alan Cranston as his senior foreign policy and defense advisor for the last three years he served as Senate Majority Whip.

He was the best boss I ever had and one of the most ethical people I have ever met in Washington. I loved the man.

(BTW, my own ethical standing was proved--I think--when I was the pioneer whistleblower against what the Department of Justice Inspector General called "egregious misconduct," "willful disregard for national security" and corruption on the part of senior aides to Attorney General Janet Reno several years later. But that is a different story.)

Cranston did receive the largest amount of money from Keating, but what the story (below) doesn't say is that he used it for voter registration in California. He didn't take a dime for himself.

As the story correctly points out, "McCain, had family vacations at Keating's home in the Bahamas in 1984, 1985 and 1986 when he was in the House, which the Senate committee said was beyond its jurisdiction."

Alan was old and sick with cancer and Washington needed a whipping boy.

How Republican Robert Bennett, as committee counsel, could savage Cranston and get away with it, while protecting McCain speaks volumes about how the ol' boys worked in the nation's capital.

McCain, who profited personally from his relationship with Keating, spent his time whining about how innocent he was.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-keating-2,0,3810427.story

chicagotribune.comFROM THE TRIBUNE ARCHIVESSenate ethics panel cites Cranston in Keating Five case

Chicago Tribune

Originally published Feb. 28, 1991

WASHINGTON

There is "substantial credible evidence" that Sen. Alan Cranston violated Senate rules by intervening with federal savings and loan regulators for campaign contributor Charles Keating, the Senate ethics committee decided Wednesday.

In the largest group disciplinary action ever taken in the Senate, the committee also publicly scolded four other senators, who along with Cranston have become known as the Keating Five.

The case of Cranston (D-Calif.) will proceed into a final stage that probably will conclude with full Senate action, which could mean expulsion but will more likely be censure or reprimand. No further action will be taken against the four others.

The ruling could have an impact on the conduct of U.S. senators for years to come as they evaluate whether their service on behalf of constituents and campaign contributors oversteps Senate rules. The ethics committee said it hoped the rulings would lead to campaign finance reform.

The four who escaped full Senate review of their cases -- Sens. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), Donald Riegle (D-Mich.), John McCain (R-Ariz.) and John Glenn (D- Ohio) -- nevertheless "exercised poor judgment" in intervening on behalf of Keating, a savings and loan owner, the committee said. The committee was particularly critical of Riegle and DeConcini, saying their conduct "gave the appearance of being improper," though they violated no rule.

In a unanimous opinion, the six-member bipartisan committee said there is "substantial credible evidence" that "Cranston engaged in an impermissible pattern of conduct in which fundraising and official activities were substantially linked."

Cranston, who got $900,000 of the $1.3 million Keating contributed to the senators and their causes, has a right to respond to the allegation and ask for an investigative hearing before the committee recommends his punishment.

He declined to disclose his plans but issued a terse statement. "It's clear that I have been unfairly singled out despite the evidence in all five cases," he said.

The Keating cases have consumed the Senate for nearly 1 1/2 years, including three months of preliminary hearings that ran until Jan. 16.

The committee's vice chairman, Sen. Warren Rudman (R-N.H.), said the proceedings already have forced senators to impose new behavior standards on themselves.

The committee, chaired by Sen. Howell Heflin (D-Ala.), called on the Senate leadership to write formal standards on how senators can intervene with federal agencies and also to propose campaign finance reforms.

Cranston, 76, who resigned as the Senate majority whip while under treatment for prostate cancer, has announced he will not run for re-election in 1992.

The critical language used to rebuke the other senators provides powerful ammunition to potential opponents in any re-election bids.

Nevertheless, in a news conference, the two senators who received the lightest treatment, McCain and Glenn, acted as if the committee had found they did nothing wrong. McCain expressed relief that he had been "exonerated," and Glenn claimed he had been "vindicated."

DeConcini said he was "relieved" and said he would continue to be "aggressive" in dealing with federal regulators on behalf of his constituents.

Such claims led Fred Wertheimer, chairman of Common Cause, the self-styled citizens lobby that brought the cases to the ethics committee on Oct. 13, 1989, to call for further action by the full Senate on at least some of the cases besides Cranston's.

"Today's action by the Senate ethics committee is a cop-out and a damning indictment of the committee," Wertheimer said. "It represents a triumph for the club at the expense of the Senate and its integrity." Riegle, the only member who sounded contrite, said, "I certainly regret and accept responsibility" for actions that he conceded "did lend themselves to an appearance of a conflict of interest."

If the full Senate decides that Cranston should be censured, he would be the eighth senator in the 20th Century to be so condemned. The last was Sen. Dave Durenberger (D-Minn.), whom the Senate denounced last year for improper financial dealings.

The Ethics Committee spent days deliberating over the disposition of the cases and the wording of the statements.

The committee members also were said to be concerned about their own reputations, and some did not want to let the senators off lightly. However, they were constrained by Senate rules, which do not specifically outlaw the actions taken by four of the five.

The ruling by the committee essentially backed up committee counsel Robert Bennett's assertion that Cranston was the most culpable.

Cranston's defense essentially was that all senators collect money from contributors and go to bat for them with federal regulators. Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan is based in Irvine, Calif., where he faces state fraud charges.

Lincoln's parent corporation, American Continential Corp., is based in Arizona, which provided the first links between Keating and DeConcini, 53, and McCain, 54.

DeConcini's primary role was to take the lead at two meetings in April 1989 urging banking regulators to rethink their position that Lincoln was a bad thrift and required remedial action.

By the end of that month the federal government had seized Lincoln, and in September 1989 the government sued Keating and American Continental, alleging that some of Lincoln's money had been siphoned into campaign contributions. DeConcini then returned $48,100 raised by Keating for his 1988 campaign.

DeConcini's Arizona colleague, McCain, had family vacations at Keating's home in the Bahamas in 1984, 1985 and 1986 when he was in the House, which the Senate committee said was beyond its jurisdiction.

Keating 5 Video

ModerateMan — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 22:00:38 EDT

http://my.barackobama.com/page/invite/keatingvideo

From Albuquerque today: ABC POLITICAL NEWS: Ayers, Keating...Kitchen Sink McCain/Palin Step Up Attacks Obama leads in OH--[Respond on editorial pages!]

Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor New Mexico Sun News — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 19:30:55 EDT

From Albuquerque today: ABC POLITICAL NEWS: Ayers, Keating...Kitchen Sink McCain/Palin Step Up Attacks Obama leads in OH--[Respond on editorial pages!]

By KAREN TRAVERS and RIGEL ANDERSON, October 6, 2008

[NEW MEXICO and battleground states & Obama Supporters: Time to fight back on the editorial pages of America to tear apart McCain's Albuquerque diatribe, item by item!----many political battles and whole wars can actually be fought and won on the Editorial page! Letters, 200 words; OpEds, 600: send it out to many editors, the same folks who are about to write the endorsements!-from Stephen Fox, Contributing Editor, New Mexico Sun News]

Today in Albuquerque, NM, John McCain unleashed perhaps his strongest attack of the entire campaign on Barack Obama. The Republican nominee called his opponent out on his fundraising, his (in)action on the financial crisis and even questioned his honesty and openness.

Stepping up his rhetoric against the Democratic nominee, McCain accused him of not being forthright about his record.

"Who is the real Barack Obama?" McCain asked, per ABC News' Bret Hovell. "Even at this late hour in the campaign there are things we don't know about Senator Obama or the record that he brings to this campaign."

Couple this with running mate Sarah Palin in Florida hammering Obama on his "associating" with Bill Ayers and bringing up the fear card for the first time.

"I am just so fearful that this is not a man who sees America the way that you and I see America -- as the greatest source for good in this world," Palin said of Obama to 2,000 supporters at a rally in Clearwater, Florida this morning, per ABC News' Imtiyaz Delawala. "I'm afraid this someone who sees America as imperfect enough to work with a former domestic terrorist who had targeted his own country."

"This, ladies and gentlemen, has nothing to do with the kind of change that anyone can believe in, not my kids, not for your kids," Palin added.

The Obama campaign fired back with its own "association" attack, releasing a 13-minute documentary about McCain's connection to the Keating Five scandal.

The two-front attack comes the day before the second of three presidential debates and as another battleground state poll shows McCain/Palin trailing Obama/Biden in a key state that President Bush won in 2004.

Obama leads McCain 51-45 among likely voters in an ABC News/Washington Post poll released tonight. The economy is far and away the most important issue to Ohio voters and Obama is "riding economic discontent to an advantage" there, per ABC News Polling Director Gary Langer. Obama is "bolstered in part by financially stressed voters in the state's hard-hit industrial belt and following it up with a more extensive ground campaign in this key contest."

Digging deeper into the numbers finds some interesting statistics that will have the folks on Michigan Avenue smiling tonight. Not surprisingly, Obama leads by a wide margin (71-26) in Cuyahoga County, the heavily Democratic Cleveland area. But Obama also has a 17-point lead in the northeastern region, which includes the Rust Belt industrial cities of Akron, Canton and Youngstown. John Kerry eked out a 52-47 win in that region in 2004 over President Bush. In the center and southeastern corner of the state, a region that is more rural and more solidly Republican, Obama has a 51-45 lead. Bush won this same region by 8 points in 2004.

Since wrapping up the Democratic nomination in June, Obama has had 23 events in Ohio, per an analysis of ABC News' records more than any other battleground state. McCain has had 30 events in Ohio since wrapping up his nomination in early March, second only to Florida where he has had 34 events.

Obama hits the ground with a two-day bus tour on Oct 9-10 through southern and central Ohio with stops in Dayton, Cincinnati, Portsmouth and other TBA cities. This is Obama's first visit to the Buckeye State since Sept 9. McCain was last there on Sept. 29.

Tuesday's town hall style debate gives Obama a chance to keep the focus on issues and gives McCain the opportunity to regain lost ground in a format where he is most comfortable.

Comparison = Ayers and Keating...

Mickiboop (P.O.B.) Be the Change — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:10:03 EDT

This blogger's post by Doug Renton, WA is copied from CNN's story on Barack - "Not the First Punch But the Last"

Ayers and Keating are not comparable.

Ayers is a casual acquaintance of Obama. Keating was a close personal friend of McCain who vacationed in the Bahamas together many times.

Ayers helped Obama get started in state politics by hosting a small fundraiser at his house. Keating made contributions to McCain’s senate campaign in excess of $100,000.

Ayers has never used his relationship with Obama to gain political favor. Keating managed to fend off federal banking regulators and auditors thanks in part due to his relationship with senator McCain (one of the Keating Five).

When Ayers was active in the Weathermen, Obama was 8 years old. When Keating’s S&L failed, McCain had already been in the senate for several years, and they were well acquainted.

Ayers was on the same Board of Directors as Obama, for a non-profit agency advocating education issues. Keating was a business partner in a for-profit real estate venture with Cindy McCain and her father.

The charges against Ayers were dropped. Keating was convicted of felony fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy, and he did jail time.

We need more people to blog and write letters against what McSame and Palin are doing to smear Barack. Obama - Biden '08

KeatingEconomics.com: Obama Unveils New Website and Video on McCain/Keating Links and the Current Financial Crisis

Mark C. Eades — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:11:59 EDT

The Barack Obama campaign has unveiled a new website, KeatingEconomics.com, including a new 13-minute documentary video on John McCain's role in the Keating savings & loan scandal of the 1980s and its links to the current financial crisis. As a desperate McCain/Palin campaign resorts to increasingly negative attacks on Obama, relying heavily on fear-mongering and flimsy personal associations, the Obama campaign is hitting back with the undeniable facts of McCain's own corrupt actions and their consequences for the US economy.

McCain and four other Senators - known collectively as the "Keating Five" - were accused in 1989 of improperly aiding Arizona banker Charles Keating in efforts to hamper regulatory intrusions on the industry's risky investment practices. McCain, who had received over $100,000 in campaign contributions from Keating, was officially rebuked only for "poor judgment," though his true culpability in the matter may run much deeper than the official charge suggests. At the very least, McCain's history in this matter casts doubt on his claims to be a "maverick reformer," though it is a card that Democrats including Barack Obama have thus far been shy about bringing into play.

The Obama campaign broke its silence on the matter late last month in response to whining from the McCain campaign that the news media has been biased in favor of Obama. Obama spokesman Bill Burton invoked the Keating affair while hitting back at the McCain campaign for suggesting that Obama had received a pass from the press, saying that McCain had seen little scrutiny of his association to Keating despite being "centrally involved" in America's "last major financial regulatory crisis, resulting in a huge bailout." Senior Obama strategist Robert Gibbs, meanwhile, had the following to say to reporters asking if the Obama campaign planned to make Keating an issue: "If we're going to talk about what's fair game in terms of people in a relationship, I don't see how... that wouldn't be important" (Huffington Post, Politico).

Back in May, Obama himself said that the Keating scandal was not off limits, but has since said little or nothing directly about it. Speaking recently on the sad state of the US economy, Obama briefly referred to the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, but without directly referring to McCain or Keating. These more direct comments from the Obama campaign followed statements from Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio strongly suggesting that the Keating affair is indeed on the table:

"It is not so much [McCain's] economic proposals but his economic record.... His main adviser is Phil Gramm -- he was his mentor in the Senate -- and you just tie it all together. Of course John McCain supported the oil industry, he has oil lobbyists working for him. Of course John McCain supported these trade agreements, he has got Wall Street people working for him... It is all wrapped up together. John McCain is a creature of these interest groups in Washington. He is no maverick and, from the Keating Five on, his ethics have been questionable. He's not a maverick and Barack has got to just keep hammering on that."

In a clip from their recent documentary video, THIRD TERM, media group Progressive Accountability also ties John McCain's actions in the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s to his current response to the US financial crisis. More from THIRD TERM can be seen at the Progressive Accountability website.

Spread it around. McCain deserves it.

Mark C. Eades
http://www.mceades.com

Gloves Off!! Fight Truth to Power!!

Nia "Hussein" J. — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 02:55:33 EDT

I've gathered some information that should help us fight back the smears and the lies. I agree that Obama needs to stay above the fray and keep the message on the economy. It's surrogates and supporters like us who have to fight back. We have come to far and worked to hard canvassing, phone calling, registering voters, convincing and informing undecideds, etc. for it to all go the way side like Kerry in 2004. We cannot afford another 4 years of the last eight. time is drawing close and we need this win. Fight back with truth. mccain and palin have allot of political skeletons that need to be forced out of the MSM closet. I've gathered some info, if you have more please share.

CNN truth report On Obama and Ayers:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMRON2GPXUA

Obama gives the go ahead to surrogates, to bring up Keating five and other associations:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/5/19317/4480/333/621072

The Obama campaign already has an ad related to it - make it viral

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHW-RO1_WN0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsI_0bV2CZo

Also bring Up Mccains lobbyist:http://www.mccainslobbyist.com

Donald Diamond:

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/04/23/it-goes-well-beyond-the-keating-five/

Richard Quinn:

http://politicalconsultantmisconduct.blogspot.com/2008/01/richard-quinn-associates-employee-of.html

George Gordon Liddy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6F3biK1Mb0&feature=related

Mccain Voted to protect Domestic Terrorist

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/06/mccain-abotion-bombers/

Lets also include the GOP's newest talent, Palin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmt0rLtgmK0

We Need a Keating Five website! www.Keating5.com

GOPCrashers — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 22:07:20 EDT

Hi everyone-

It is pretty obvious that the McCain campaign wants to get down and dirty this last month of the election after the "terrorist" namecalling and "elitist" smears. I think the Keating Five scandal needs to be dragged out front and center again, especially in light of the financial crisis that has been brought about by a lack of ethical banking practices.

I own the domain, www.Keating5.com, I bought it last winter when I was volunteering for Ron Paul. Right now I don't have anything up on it. I'll be honest, I am not very talented in terms of getting a website up and running. However if anyone wants to collaborate on a site outlining the Keating Five scandal and/or get the attention of the official Obama campaign to run with it I'd be happy to get some anti-McCain material up.

Send me a message if you are interested!

Keating FIve and Fox News Sunday

Michele — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 19:16:02 EDT

So, the pundits were on Fox News sunday debating McCain's new strategy to go negative on Obama. Should McCain bring up Ayres, Wright and Rezko they all asked. In doing so rhetorically, they bring up the issue and remind viewers about those big 3 names. Not once, did any surrogate or anyone on the panel say, well Chris, if McCain did that, they open themselves up to McCain's past associations with the Keating Five. After Americans had to painfully swallow a trillion dollar bailout, I don't think they want to be reminded that not so terribly long ago, McCain's associates bilked investors in the Keating Five Savings and Loan scandal. McCain was one of those five. Now, he didn't get exonorated, nor was he as guilty as the other four, but noone can dare say he wasn't fully associated with that mess.

So in all this punditry and surrogacy, listeners get to be reminded of the big 3 for Obama while no mention is made of McCain's less than pure past.

Let's be fair and balanced here...even in analysis. IF we point out the pros, we must also point out the cons and remind people there are always two sides.

McCain - Keating Five Redux

Nia "Hussein" J. — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 04:32:56 EDT

McCain Repeats Keating Era Mistakes...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/01/mccain-repeating-keating_n_130612.html#postComment

Seath Colter Walls

As the stock market recovers from its biggest single-day drop since the crash of 1987, a former federal regulator who had a front-row view of John McCain's role in the Savings and Loan scandal says he is repeating some of the same mistakes.

William Black -- a deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation during the "Keating Five" scandal that nearly ended McCain's political career -- says the Arizona Republican's chief errors at the time were underestimating the importance of regulation and relying too heavily on slanted advice from captains of industry.

"In the S&L crisis, he took his advice from the worst [kind of] criminal. Charles Keating is the person he went to for his policy advice," Black said. "Now, he certainly is getting advice from Phil Gramm, Carly Fiorina, Rick Davis -- the whole group of economic and top political advisers are lobbyist types. He just doesn't seem to get it, ever, that the advice is going to favor their clients. Even if they just stop being lobbyists, you can't just turn that off instantly. It's their mind state that develops. ... The biggest lesson is that, when you deregulate and de-supervise, you create an environment where control fraud emerges. You hyper-inflate bubbles; you get criminalization."

Though McCain's latest TV ads tout the senator's sporadic calls for more government regulation, Black notes with interest that McCain bragged recently that he was "fundamentally a deregulator." Black, who is now an associate professor of law and economics at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, also said that the deregulation that McCain was until recently proud to have championed effectively took corporate cops off the beat. "Nobody calls the Houston police department and says 'I think there a problem at Enron,'" he remarked.

Black, who has long been critical of McCain's role in the Keating affair, also viewed McCain's Tuesday announcement of his support for increased FDIC insurance rates as something of a sham, calling it "just one of his many contradictions" on economic matters.

In 1991, McCain railed against raising the FDIC insurance limit from $40,000 to its current $100,000 level. "The perversity of Federal deposit insurance is exemplified by the taxpayer bailout of the savings and loan industry," McCain said, while omitting his own role in the scandal that actually precipitated the S&L crisis.

"I think it is generally acknowledged that the failure of the savings and loan industry, to a large degree, can be directly attributed to the unwarranted expansion of deposit insurance," McCain continued. "Basic coverage was increased from $40,000 to $100,000. No longer was deposit insurance for the small depositor. It became the safety blanket for large, sophisticated depositors and freewheeling bankers."

Now, as McCain echoes Barack Obama's call to raise the FDIC insurance level from $100,000 to $250,000, Black believes the idea that FDIC insurance rates ever caused the S&L crisis can finally be put to rest as being "complete bunk."

Yet, despite being a withering McCain critic, Black isn't completely sold on Obama, either. While he notes with some satisfaction that the Illinois Democrat "did at least try to do some stuff on the regulation of subprime [mortgages] a couple of years ago, he wasn't on key committees." Overall, on financial regulatory matters, Black says Obama is "really somewhat untested. I'm not sure exactly what he would do." But Black notes that the "experienced" candidate is the one most likely to be tagged with responsibility for the current mess. "McCain purports to be on the committee that dealt with everything. [Meanwhile], he did nothing on subprime mortgages for years."

GOP Motto: 'County' Club First - People Last

Amunaor — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:37:04 EDT

                   McThief-McLawless-McKeating-McEnron-McBush/Cheney
                                       Mc$ame As It Ever Was

GOP (Grand Oil Party)                 Motto: 'County' Club First - People Last
Peace, Best Wishes and Hope

Let's Clear the Mist in Your Eyes!

Marie — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:57:19 EDT

The GOP has sunk to a real low! They are punting to save the play to use a ballgame analysis. Let's Review the Facts.

McCain attack on Obama and "corrupt Chicago machine" triggers Mayor Daley "Keating 5" response

By Lynn Sweet

on September 23, 2008 2:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (31)

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2008/09/mccain_attack_on_obama_and_cor.html

Update!

ACSA study reveals that after assembling a team of "pro-Peabody Western Coal" Indians and obtaining a false "Hopi-Navajo" Tribal Counsel designation by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for these paid Tribal representatives, in the period 1974-1996, Senator McCain was able to get large bands of the Dineh-Navajo relocated off their lands, so that Peabody Western could mine the coal under their farms at nominal expense. Common Cause has suggested McCain was indirectly compensated by street name cash contributions to his Federal Election Fund during three Presidential runs, and through family business with Las Vegas Casinos who benefited from the coal driven power he supplied.

In addition, Freddie Mac Paid McCain Campaign Manager's Firm Through last Month

Two reports tonight, one from the New York Times, and the other from Newsweek, contradict John McCain's statement this week that his campaign manager Rick Davis had no involvement with mortgage giant Freddie Mac for the last several years.

The Times reports: One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain's campaign manager from the end of 2005 through last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement. The disclosure contradicts a statement Sunday night by Mr. McCain that the campaign manager, Rick Davis, had no involvement with the company for the last several years. Mr. Davis's firm received the payments from the company, Freddie Mac, until it was taken over by the government this month along with Fannie Mae, the other big mortgage lender whose deteriorating finances helped precipitate the cascading problems on Wall Street, the people said...
...On Sunday, in an interview with CNBC and The New York Times, Mr. McCain responded to a question about Mr. Davis's role in the advocacy group through 2005 by saying that his campaign manager "has had nothing to do with it since, and I'll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it."

Then Newsweek confirms the story! Folks this is a fact vetted by the PRESS. Rick Davis was getting paid every month since 2006 until last Month! No one knows what services Davis or his firm provided to these institutions during this period. As an Auditor, I would like to see the receipt for that billing.

What followed that is more revealing:

McCain's campaign has been attacking Obama over his own (rather tenuous) ties to the two former lending giants. GOP officials argued that despite whatever connections Davis or others had to the mortgage giants, McCain was a leading advocate for reforming them. However, the Times' reporting punches some holes in that claim:

In an interview with conservative talk-radio host Neal Boortz, Mr. McCain said, "I remember warning at that time that Fannie and Freddie were out of control and that they needed to be reined in. And, frankly, I warned that this kind of thing could lead to serious problems. Now, in full disclosure, I didn't foresee something this huge, but certainly I saw the fundamentals there for serious problems when you have a quasi government agency acting the way they did."
When Mr. Boortz noted approvingly, Mr. McCain had co-sponsored a Senate bill to mandate new regulations. Sen. McCain said, "I remember it very well."

But a Freddie Mac official said Mr. McCain "never took on the role that some other Republicans did" to try to limit the companies. He named instead Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina, all of whom were on the banking committee during recent years. "I remember working against a number of amendments and they were always introduced by Hagel and Sununu. John McCain was never anywhere to be found."A check of the records for the legislation that Mr. Boortz mentioned shows that Senator Hagel was the original sponsor on Jan. 26, 2005, and Senators Sununu and Dole were co-sponsors then. Mr. McCain did not sign on as a co-sponsor for more than a year, on May 25, 2006.

McCain believes all these items will disappear while he puts his campaign on PAUSE. The GOP is helping him stifle these facts and squash stories that ring so TRUE that his LIES are the butt end of a joke. What is so unclear is, why would the GOP use a crisis to cover these unfit actions? Does McCain really believe putting his campaign on hold will make these facts disappear?

McCain does not have any power to add to the debate on the $700 Billion Bailout. As Sen. Dodd stated yesterday he was surprised McCain was even interested in the outcome of the bailout since he never heard from him. However, Sen. Dodd added he has had numerous calls from Obama but none from McCain. Sen. Dodd is the chairman of the hearing being held on this issue. What I believe we are seeing McCain’s true skills: how he adapts, evolves, and what kind of political hog he really is. He has attempted to adopt every line Obama has used during his campaign from “change” to Obama’s positions on energy and economics. On the facts denoted above, there is no Obama playbook to copy but panic then run for cover. This gives rise to the real questions: Is This a Leader? This is how he handles a real crisis? Is this putting “Country First?”

Creating a new role for McCain is not enough for this world stage. It is clear his life experiences are beginning to show how they have taken their toll on him: The POW horror, the military service to country as a jet jockey, the shot from the hip at anyone who disagrees with him, and the roaming nature of McCain's life due to a nomadic childhood. I have to wonder like a CSPAN caller did who asked, “Has McCain ever sort psychological counseling?”

September Song: Lipstick on a Lying Dog Nipping the Hands that Feed It

Henry M — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 10:59:45 EDT

In an hour it will be fall (my favortie season; go Obama!) on the East coast.

Obama's truths are obviously insufficient to beat McPaling. McCain blames the McBush economy on his Wall Street corporate sponsors! McPalin lies and surrounds itself with a POW and female human shield. We need to expose those lies and their other wrong-doings:

Truthiness Stages a Comeback

By FRANK RICHPublished: September 20, 2008

...

Network news, with its dwindling handful of investigative reporters, has barely mentioned, let alone advanced, major new print revelations about Cindy McCain’s drug-addiction history (in The Washington Post) and the rampant cronyism and secrecy in Palin’s governance of Alaska (in last Sunday’s New York Times). At least the networks repeatedly fact-check the low-hanging fruit among the countless Palin lies, but John McCain’s past usually remains off limits.

That’s strange since the indisputable historical antecedent for our current crisis is the Lincoln Savings and Loan scandal of the go-go 1980s. When Charles Keating’s bank went belly up because of risky, unregulated investments, it wiped out its depositors’ savings and cost taxpayers more than $3 billion. More than 1,000 other S.&L. institutions capsized nationwide.

It was ugly for the McCains. He had received more than $100,000 in Keating campaign contributions, and both McCains had repeatedly hopped on Keating’s corporate jet. Cindy McCain and her beer-magnate father had invested nearly $360,000 in a Keating shopping center a year before her husband joined four senators in inappropriate meetings with regulators charged with S.&L. oversight.

After Congressional hearings, McCain was reprimanded for “poor judgment.” He had committed no crime and had not intervened to protect Keating from ruin. Yet he, like many deregulators in his party, was guilty of bankrupt policy-making before disaster struck. He was among the sponsors of a House resolution calling for the delay of regulations intended to deter risky investments just like those that brought down Lincoln and its ilk.

Ever since, McCain has publicly thrashed himself for his mistakes back then — and boasted of the lessons he learned. He embraced campaign finance reform to rebrand himself as a “maverick.” But whatever lessons he learned are now forgotten.

For all his fiery calls last week for a Wall Street crackdown, McCain opposed the very regulations that might have helped avert the current catastrophe. In 1999, he supported a law co-authored by Gramm (and ultimately signed by Bill Clinton) that revoked the New Deal reforms intended to prevent commercial banks, insurance companies and investment banks from mingling their businesses. Equally laughable is the McCain-Palin ticket’s born-again outrage over the greed of Wall Street C.E.O.’s. When McCain’s chief financial surrogate, Fiorina, was fired as Hewlett-Packard’s chief executive after a 50 percent drop in shareholders’ value and 20,000 pink slips, she took home a package worth $42 million.

...

The twin-pronged strategy of truculence and propaganda that sold Bush and his war could yet work for McCain. Even now his campaign has kept the “filter” from learning the very basics about his fitness to serve as president — his finances and his health. The McCain multihousehold’s multimillion-dollar mother lode is buried in Cindy McCain’s still-unreleased complete tax returns. John McCain’s full medical records, our sole index to the odds of an imminent Palin presidency, also remain locked away. The McCain campaign instead invited 20 chosen reporters to speed-read through 1,173 pages of medical history for a mere three hours on the Friday before Memorial Day weekend. No photocopying was permitted.

This is the same tactic of selective document release that the Bush White House used to bamboozle Congress and the press about Saddam’s nonexistent W.M.D. As truthiness repeats itself, so may history, and not as farce.

And

The Push to ‘Otherize’ Obama

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOFPublished: September 20, 2008

...

What is happening, I think, is this: religious prejudice is becoming a proxy for racial prejudice. In public at least, it’s not acceptable to express reservations about a candidate’s skin color, so discomfort about race is sublimated into concerns about whether Mr. Obama is sufficiently Christian.

The result is this campaign to “otherize” Mr. Obama. Nobody needs to point out that he is black, but there’s a persistent effort to exaggerate other differences, to de-Americanize him.

Raising doubts about a candidate based on the religion of his grandfather is toxic and profoundly un-American, cracking the melting pot we emerged from. Someday people will look back at the innuendoes about Mr. Obama with the same disgust with which we regard the smears of Al Smith as a Catholic candidate in 1928.

I’m writing in part out of a sense of personal responsibility. Those who suggest that Mr. Obama is a Muslim — as if that in itself were wrong — regularly cite my own columns, especially an interview last year in which I asked him about Islam and his boyhood in Indonesia. In that interview, Mr. Obama praised the Arabic call to prayer as “one of the prettiest sounds on earth at sunset,” and he repeated the opening of it.

This should surprise no one: the call to prayer blasts from mosque loudspeakers five times a day, and Mr. Obama would have had to have been deaf not to learn the words as a child. But critics, like Jerome Corsi, whose book denouncing Mr. Obama, “The Obama Nation,” is No. 2 on the New York Times best-seller list, quote from that column to argue that Mr. Obama has mysterious ties to Islam. I feel a particular obligation not to let my own writing be twisted so as to inflame bigotry and xenophobia.

Journalists need to do more than call the play-by-play this election cycle. We also need to blow the whistle on such egregious fouls calculated to undermine the political process and magnify the ugliest prejudices that our nation has done so much to overcome.

Henry M

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/PListe4Obama

New Video Ties McCain Role in Keating Scandal to Current US Financial Crisis

Mark C. Eades — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:56:27 EDT

In a clip from their new documentary video, THIRD TERM, media group Progressive Accountability ties John McCain's actions in the savings and loan scandal of the 1980s to his current response to the US financial crisis. In his biggest scandal to date, McCain and four other Senators - known collectively as the "Keating Five" - were accused in 1989 of improperly aiding Arizona banker Charles Keating in efforts to hamper regulatory intrusions on the industry's risky investment practices. McCain, who had received over $100,000 in campaign contributions from Keating, was officially rebuked only for "poor judgment," though his true culpability in the matter may run much deeper than the official charge suggests. At the very least, McCain's history in this matter casts doubt on his claims to be a "maverick reformer," though it is a card that Democrats including Barack Obama have thus far been shy about bringing into play. More from THIRD TERM can be seen at the Progressive Accountability website. Spread it around. McCain deserves it.

Mark C. Eades
http://www.mceades.com

CROOKS STEAL BANK MONEY.....AGAIN

Madera Strong - Team Co-ordinator For City of Madera — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 18:41:58 EDT

Well, history repeats itself. It's another version of the Keating Bank scandal. Both Cindy and John McCain were involved in the fleecing of America during the Keating scandal of the Lincoln Bank. Cindy claimed she did not know where the billions went...and used her huge finances to keep the government off her back and threaten the government for investigating. John was complicit and no one knows just how much he knew and gained financially outside of Cindy's gains.

Now, the McCains say they want access to all banking information and they, the former crooks, will save us from future crooks and banking failures. HEEEEEELP!

Please all crooks, just leave the buildings and let us get America and Americans back on their feet. If the McCains win - we can all just give up and sign up for the Poor House.

Thank You, Sherrod Brown: Senate Democrat Puts Keating Scandal on the Table against McCain

Mark C. Eades — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:32:50 EDT

For months I've been waiting for some leading Democrat to bring up John McCain's biggest scandal to date: his role in the Keating savings and loan scandal of the 1980s. McCain and four other Senators - known collectively as the "Keating Five" - were accused in 1989 of improperly aiding Arizona banker Charles Keating in efforts to hamper regulatory intrusions on the industry's risky investment practices. McCain, who had received over $100,000 in campaign contributions from Keating, was officially rebuked only for "poor judgment," though his true culpability in the matter may run much deeper than the official charge suggests. At the very least, McCain's history in this matter casts doubt on his claims to be a "maverick reformer," though it is a card that Democrats including Barack Obama have thus far been shy about bringing into play. Yesterday, however, Democratic silence on the Keating scandal was broken by Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio:

"It is not so much [McCain's] economic proposals but his economic record.... His main adviser is Phil Gramm -- he was his mentor in the Senate -- and you just tie it all together. Of course John McCain supported the oil industry, he has oil lobbyists working for him. Of course John McCain supported these trade agreements, he has got Wall Street people working for him... It is all wrapped up together. John McCain is a creature of these interest groups in Washington. He is no maverick and, from the Keating Five on, his ethics have been questionable. He's not a maverick and Barack has got to just keep hammering on that."

Back in May, Obama himself said that the Keating scandal was indeed not off limits, but has since said little or nothing directly about it. Speaking yesterday on the sad state of the US economy, Obama did refer to the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s, but without directly referring to McCain or Keating. I hope Sherrod Brown's comments will serve to loosen lips a little and bring the topic into fuller and more open conversation. McCain deserves it.

Mark C. Eades
http://www.mceades.com

I Have Been Asked To Stop Writing About Keating Theft and Cindy's Charity Abuse

Madera Strong - Team Co-ordinator For City of Madera — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 20:34:06 EDT

I have been asked by the Obama campaign to stop being mean to the McCains by writing about the McCain's dishonesty related to the Keating / Lincoln Bank scandal and Cindy's stealing drugs from her "charity" and blaming the poor minority workers.

I personally do not believe in "secrets". Many do not know the true characters of the McCains, and since their lies and thefts involved public and charitable funds, in large amounts (especially in the 1980s) I feel that these character issues must be publicized before the election. If McCain wins, character does not change, and all Americans would have to be extra alert. The time to inform is BEFORE the election. These are not private family matters, like a family tift. These recurring problems are huge RED FLAGS about the McCains. You and I paid thousands each to bail out the bank.

I will continue to tell "truths," as best I can decipher them, on maderaca.blogspot.com or mercedca.blogspot.com

I again do not believe in secrecy. I, as an elected official, try to live a transparent life. I understand the McCains may not enjoy my revelations, but they did the deeds. I just report them.

Visit me for "The Other Side" at maderaca.blogspot.com and mercedca.blogspot.com. I will keep my comments on this site to just "issues."

Experience? POW!

Henry M — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:32:11 EDT

Here's a non-partisan (it isn't kind to Kerry) video on McCain's POW credentials: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXjWguoFbpI&feature=related. Show it to your friends who are buying into the McCampaign's ads that imply that McCain's veteran/POW status is a qualification for presidency. And if they need any more convincing, show them these: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KjsEs46C70 and http://tinyurl.com/mccainnotahero .

Yes, this election is about experience and values, and Obama and Biden win on both counts! Other than being a former congressional (Keating Five) "maverick," McCain's only "experience" is his bottom of his West Point class/POW military experience! Since his military experience that ended 27 years ago when he divorced his crippled wife and married wealth, younger Cindy, whose money he used to finance his political ambitions. Palin's only experience has been as a mother of five (still is! does she have time to be both mother and VP? values?), mayor of a town that's smaller than most people's high school graduating class, and then as a governor ready to turn over her sparsely populated state's natural resources to the large oil companies.

With experience like those, they're going to have a hard time justifying their attacks on Obama's experience. Senator Obama was a constitutional scholar and professor, and worked in Chicago, the largest city by population in the state of Illinois and the American Midwest, a dominant center of finance, industry and culture in the region, and the third-most populous city in the United States. Unlike McCain, Neither Biden or Obama have ever been credibly associated with any scandalous behavior, public or private. It's that simple!

Personality is also a factor; it's amazing that the McCampaign has their followers believing that Obama's likeability is a bad thing and excusing and even applauding McCain's crotchety-old-man volatilty and weak memory!

Get the word out, and please contribute and get out the vote for Obama. Help America help itself before it's too late: four more years of McSame would irreperably damage our country!

Henry M

http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/PListe4Obama

BARACK OBAMA'S HISTORIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION OVERWHELMS MEDIA

Madera Strong - Team Co-ordinator For City of Madera — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:16:11 EDT

Barack Obama and the DNC took over the media with suspense and historic appreciation. Barack Obama was wise enough to speak on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" speech. King was assasinated at the Lorraine Motel. The DNC had an excellent tribute to Martin Luther King. Dr. King is responsible for women and minorities having a voice in the workplace and in government today. King was a visionary and gave his life to better American freedom. We are all going to eat at the "Table of Brotherhood" when we grab the "Audacity of Hope."

Republicans don't want to sit at the "Table of Brotherhood" and refuse to judge Senator Obama on the content of his character, but confinue to instill fear regarding the color of his skin. It was not Obama who stole trillions of dollars from the Keating Bank Scandal....it was the McCains.

This is a DEFINING MOMENT FOR ALL AMERICANS!!!! ASIANS, HISPANICS, BLACKS, WHITES, RICH, POOR - all children of the "dream" - VOTE FOR OBAMA

FREEDOM RINGS - SHOW UP AND BE COUNTED.

Vote for BARACK OBAMA

Republicans Hide Cindy McCain's History of Theft and Drugs

Madera Strong - Team Co-ordinator For City of Madera — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:47:04 EDT

Cindy McCain used to be Cindy Keating. She was secretary when trillions of dollars were stolen from American banks. when the authorities asked her what hppened, she said she did not know. She then hired expensive attorneys and shielded herself from the law. The trillion dollars was never tracked down and she was never taken before a grand jury.

Can you imagine Cindy stealing trillions more shielded by the White House???????

Yes, Cindy McCain is extremely rich - but that is mostly YOUR MONEY.........

Cindy McCain started a charitable organization to help disadvantaged kids. BUT, Cindy was no Oprah!!!!!!

Cindy stole the money from the disadvantaged kids and used it to buy herself narcotics. When the law came to confront her corruption and theft, SHE BLAMED THE MINORITIES. Cindy said the minorities were stealing the money and using the drugs. Of course, the poor could not afford a good defense team. Cindy finally paid a fine...and that was the end of the case.

Cindy is wierd...and her being with McCain is weird.

DON'T PUT CINDY IN THE WHITE HOUSE AS FIRST LADY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THE McCAINS ARE WEIRD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

.......................

Campaign Advice

Andre from Moraga, CA — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 16:35:34 EDT

Every four years we go through the same song and dance...this year we'll bring truth and honest debate into the Presidential Campaign. Every four years we Democrats get our clocks cleaned because the Republican campaign machine has not bought into the idea of taking this higher less traveled road.

So here we are in 2008 with a terrific candidate in Barrack Obama. Barrack gives thoughtful cerebral nuanced answers to difficult issues. Meanwhile Senator McCain and his campaign accuse Barrack of being unqualified for the office, a person who would rather lose a war if it means he can win the campaign and a fluff-ball on the same level as Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. Enough!

Here is what Obama should not do:

1. Ask for an apology from Republicans who question his patriotism. It makes him look like a groveling wimp.

2. Pay any more tribute to McCain's honorable service to this country. It's been said hundreds of times already; it's deserved; it's been heard. It does not need to be at the begining and end of every comment by Barrack about McCain because it drowns out the fact that a McCain Presidency is actually very bad for America.

American's like short soundbytes that encapsulate the issues. Here is what Obama should do:

1. Paint McCain as the quick triggered, explosive hot tempered person who will keep America in a state of perpetual war. If you liked the war in Iraq, you'll love McCain because he will drag you into a war in Iran and in Georgia. McCain will handout Nato Alliances like cotton candy. You know what that means don't you: Making Georgia a Nato member means you're willing to sacrifice your sons and daughters for the sake of a border dispute about Ossetia. When McCain quips "Bomb bomb Iran..." he means it. When he demands confrontation with Russia, he means he wants a return to the Cold War with Nuclear missiles aimed at Americans. Is that what you want.

2. McCain Never met a war he didn't want to fight.

3. McCain will destroy Social Security. He is not committed to ensuring the preservation of Social Security for ALL generations.

4. McCain admits he knows nothing about the Economy. So he turned to Senator Graham as his lead economic advisor. Graham is in the pocket of the people who brought you the subprime mortgage mess; the people foreclosing on your home and your neighbors homes; the people who charge over 30 percent interest. McCain has a history of backing those who ruined banks and other financial institutions and left it for Americans to pay for the mess. In the 1990s he tried to protect Charles Keating who's actions resulted in criminal convictions and cost the taxpayers over $3 billion. McCain was censured by the Senate for his misconduct. Now, he's hired the subprime mortgage industry's lead lobbyist as his lead economic advisor. Can we afford to have McCain in charge of our economy.

It's time to campaign without both hands tied behind our backs. Campaign against McCain as aggressively as the Republicans campaign against Democrats.

McCains KEATING Scandal & Drug Forgery

Robin from Leander, TX — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 16:03:56 EDT

***Mr. Mark R. Levin, President of the Landmark Legal Foundation in 2001 and contributing editor of NationalreviewONLINE wrote the following......>>>>>>>>>>>>>

...In John McCain's America, any politician who accepts a large contributionor gift from a donor, and then takes steps consistent with the donor's interists -- even though there is no legal quid pro quo --- is corrupt. Well, then, by his own standard, McCain is corrupt.

McCain was one of the so-called "Keating Five" senators. He was investigated by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics in 1991 regarding the acceptance of favors from Lincoln Savings & Lona Association (Lincoln) and its owner, Charles H. Keating, Jr. Simply put, the sissue was whether McCain and the other senators used their official positions to attempt to pressure Federal Home Loan Bank Board officials to go easy on the troubled institution. Eventually Lincoln went bust, costing depositiors and taxpayers milllions.

In its final report,(November 20, 1991), here is what the Senate Select Committee on Ethics concluded about McCain's onduct:

"Mr. Keating, his associates, and his friends contributed $56,000 for Senator McCain's two House races 1982 and 1984, and $54,000 fro his 1986 Senate race. Mr. Keating also provided his corporate plane and/ or arranged for payment for the use of commerical or private aircraft on several occasions for travel by senator McCain and his family, for which Senator McCain ultimately provided reimbursement WHEN called upon to do so. Mr. Keating also 'allowed' Senator McCain and his family to vacation with Mr. Keating and his family, at a home provided by Mr. Keating in the Bahamas, in EACH of the calender years 1983 THROUGH 1986.

...from 1984 to 1987, Senator McCain took actions on Mr. Keating's behalf or AT HIS REQUEST.

...the committee finds that Senator McCain took no further action after the April 9, 1987 meeting WHEN he learned of a criminal refferal.

...McCain was the ONLY Republican implicated in the Keating Five scandal, yet today he lectures his party and his president about "the corrupting influence" of money in politics. He rails against the so-called "wealthy special interests" and their ability to buy access to elected officials, yet this isprcisely what the Keating five scandal was all about. And, of course, under McCain's current standdard, a politician who takes a principled position that may benefit a donor is crrupt, even if no law has been violated...

The John McCain of old should be thankful that this political fate wasn't determined by John McCaint he refomer.

******as written by Mark R. Levin of NRO --National Review Online...

>>>>>AMY SILVERMAN contributed the following about the woman (Cindy McCain) who wishes to be the female representation of the United States of America>>>

GOP presidential cndidate John McCain's wife Cindy took to the airwaves last week, recounting for Jane Paulley (on "Dateline" and Diane Sawyer (on "Good Morning America") the tale of ther onetime addiction to Percocet and Vicodin, and the fact that she stole the drugs from her OWN NON-PROFIT MEDICAL RELIEF ORGANIZATION...

I dejavu watching Cindy McCain on television, perky in a purple suit with tinted pearls to match. It was so reminiscent of the summer day in 1994 when suddenly, years after she'd claimed to have kicked her habit, McCain decided to come clean to the world about her addiction to perscription painkillers.

I believe she wore red that day. she granted semi-exclusive interviews to tone TV station and three daily newpaper reporters in Arizona, and tearfully recalling her addicion, which came about after painful back and knee problems and was exacerbated by the stress of the Keating Five banking scandal that had ensnared her husband. To make matters worse, McCain admitted, she had STOLEN THE DRUGS FROMT HE AMERICAN VOLUNTARY MEDICAL TEAM, HER OWN CHARITY, AND HAD BEENINVESTIGATED BY THE DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION.

The local press cooed over her hard-luck story. One of the four journalists spoon-fed the story -- Doug McEachern, then a reporter for Tribune Newspapers, now a columnist with the Arizona Republic (and, it must be addd, normally much more acerbic) -- wrote this rather typical lead:

"She was blonde and beautiful. A rich man's daughter who became a politically powerful man's wife. She had it all, including an insicious addiciton to drugs that sapped the beauty from her life like a spider on a butterfly."

What McEachern and the others didn't know was that, far from being a simple, honest admisssion designed to clear her conscience and help other addicts, Cindy McCain's storytelling had been orchestrated by Jay Smith, than John McCain's Washington campaign media advisor. And it was intended to ivert attention from a different story, a story that was getting quite messy.

Iknow because I had been working on the story for months at Phoenix New Times. I had finally tracked down the public records that confirmed Cindy McCain's addiciton and much more, and the McCains knew I was about to get them. Cindy's tale was released on the day the records were made public.

...John Dowd --- John McCain's heavy-hitting lawyer --- was trying to get back at the man on Cindy McCain's staff, Tom Gosinski, who had blown the whistle on her drug pilfering tot he DEA. When the manuver backfired (Cindy was caught), the McCain media machine went into overdrive to spin the story.

But both of Cindy McCin's staged, teary drug-addicition confessions have been vintge John McCain. His MO is this: Get the story out -- even if it's a negative story. Git out first,with the spin you want, with the details you want and without the details you don't want.

McCain did it with Keating Five, and with the the story of the failure of his first marriage. So what you recall after the humble, honest interview, is not that McCain did favors for savings and loan failure Charlie Keating, or that he cheated on his wife, but instead what an upfront, righteous guy he is.

...here are more facts on the story that backfired on the McCains>>>>

From Tom Gosiniski, the director of (Cindy McCains charity) "American Voluntary Medical Team, which did relief and medical volunteer work in third world countries."

"...I have always wondered why John McCain has done nothing to fix the problem. The welfare of (his) children; John's political career, the integrity of Hensly & Company (Cindy's parents' business), (the third world charity itself) and even Cindy McCains welfare.

...during my short tenure at AVMT (McCain fired Gosinski) I have been srrounded by what on the surface appears to be the ultimate all-American family. In reality, I am working for a very sad, lonely woman whose marriage of convienience to a U.S. Senator has (led her to make these life choices and lie to the United States citizens and beyond while using her own charity...) replaced lonely moments with self-indulgences..."

>>>....Among the questions asked: did Cindy McCain get preferential treatment by the feds? True, Cindy was a 'first-time offender (first time caught), which partially explains the fact that she did no prison time; instead, she entered a diversion program. But at the time, defense lawyers told New Times that if Cindy McCain had been a poor inority and not married to a U.S. Senator, she likely would have been locked up.

Only a handful of people remember the details of Cindy McCain's 1994 "outing" for drug addiction (YEARS AFTER she claimed to have kicked her 'habit') and drug pilfering, and the work of the McCain machine to (cover for) protect her.

~Oct. 18, 1999 Amy Silverman

The Keating Five Legacy

Nia "Hussein" J. — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:27:21 EDT

I often call McCain "McKeatingFive" Here is the story behind it that was emailed to me today:

The Keating Five Legacy
http://www.ourfuture.org/progressive-opinion/keating-five-legacy

William K. Black is Associate Professor of Law and Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He was counsel to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board during the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and was a whistleblower in the Keating Five scandal. His book on the crisis is "The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One."

Twenty-one years ago today five U.S. senators met with federal savings and loan regulators at the request of Charles Keating, who controlled Lincoln Savings and Loan. They became known as the "Keating Five"�€"Alan Cranston, D-Calif., Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz., John Glenn, D-Ohio, John McCain, R-Ariz., and Donald Riegle, D-Mich. The Keating Five meeting was the event that transformed the S&L debacle from a story buried in the business section to one of the worst financial and political scandals in U.S. history (though the current financial crises have proven even worse).
The Keating Five, including McCain, were perfectly situated to take action to protect their constituents. They could have held oversight hearings. They could have warned the widows. "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing," an anonymous commenter one said (in a statement generally, but inaccurately, attributed to Edmund Burke). These men did nothing.
Lincoln was (and remains) the most expensive S&L failure of an insured U.S. depository, costing the taxpayers $3.4 billion. Keating recruited the senators because the regulators were about to remove his control over Lincoln. The regulators had discovered that Lincoln had large losses and was engaged in widespread fraud and forgeries designed to hide its violation of the "direct investment" rule. That violation was the largest in history �€" over $600 million. S&Ls that had large amounts of direct investment always failed. Direct investments were fatal not because of their intrinsic risk, but because they were superb aids to accounting fraud, the "weapon of choice" of financial firms.
When Keating launched a jihad against the proposed direct investment rule in 1984, he used politicians as his most important ally. He began in the House of Representatives. Within a few weeks, he was able to get a majority of members to co-sponsor a resolution intended to kill the direct investment rule. The supporters included John McCain (then a congressman), Jim Wright, D-Texas, (soon to be the Speaker of the House), and Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., (soon to be Wright's nemesis and a strong critic of his aid to fraudulent S&L owners). McCain was, and remains, a strident opponent of financial regulation. Federal Home Loan Bank Board chairman Edwin Gray, convinced that direct investments posed a critical threat to the taxpayers, went ahead with the regulation.
Second, Keating tried to get President Reagan to fire Gray. Keating's lobbyist, "Mickey" Gardner, reported that they found significant support within the administration for this effort�€"particularly in the office of Vice President Bush (who chaired the administration's financial deregulation task force). The (Republican!) lobbyist reported in disgust that he couldn't get Gray fired because "like so many before him in this Administration, [Gray] would have to be criminally liable or worse before they would be removed."
Third, Keating followed Gardner's advice to stage a hostile takeover of the regulator in 1986. He had already used large political contributions and the lobbying of Alan Greenspan to recruit the "Keating Five." He now used several of the congressmen, principally McCain (the only Republican among the Keating Five), to help convince the Reagan administration to appoint two of his cronies to the Bank Board (which would have given Keating majority control of the agency).
Keating needed the senators' help to overcome rival candidates and internal opposition to the nominations. Phil Gramm, a more senior Republican senator on the banking committee, pushed the nomination of Durward Curlee, a Texas lobbyist representing the most notorious S&L frauds in Texas and, after Keating, the strongest opponent of S&L regulation. Keating was a major contributor to President Reagan, but he had never held elected office. His ability to convince the Reagan administration to reject Gramm's proposed nominee and agree to appoint both of Keating's proposed nominees was an astonishing demonstration of political power.
Keating also had to overcome serious internal opposition within the Reagan administration. The administration attempt to nominate Keating as U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas in the early 1980s had to be abandoned in embarrassment when it was revealed that Keating had signed a Securities and Exchange Commission consent decree to settle allegations that he had defrauded a financial institution. The White House personnel director, Robert Tuttle, was in charge of vetting Keating's proposed nominees. He called Republican contacts in Arizona (where Keating lived) and learned that Keating's had a reputation "for buying politicians." Tuttle recommended against the Keating appointments.
Keating's flaws were immediately obvious. In addition to his SEC problems, he was arrogant, domineering, rude, nasty, and a virulent bigot. Senator Garn (R. UT) refused to meet with him again after their first meeting. Treasury Undersecretary George Gould, instructed the Treasury guards to bar Keating from entry after their first meeting. Nevertheless, President Reagan rejected Tuttle's recommendation and tried to appoint both of Keating's choices. Had he succeeded, the cost of the debacle would have grown tenfold and the political scandal would have dwarfed Teapot Dome. Fortunately, Senator Dole blocked the nomination of one of Keating's choices.
President Reagan did make Lee Henkel a recess appointment in 1986. Henkel became Keating's "mole" on the Bank Board. His first substantive act was to propose an amendment to the direct investment rule (secretly drafted by Keating's lawyers) that would have immunized Lincoln's massive violation of the rule. (The amendment was cleverly drafted in a manner that did not mention Lincoln, but fit it like a glove.) Unfortunately for Keating and Henkel, I spotted the effort and blew the whistle. Henkel was severely criticized by the media and resigned in a deal with a Justice Department (in return, they dropped their investigation). (Years later, the Bank Board's successor agency "removed and prohibited" Henkel from the industry for his misconduct.) The Keating Five knew that Henkel had sought to amend the rule to immunize Lincoln, and they knew that he had resigned in disgrace. Appropriately, the resignation became public on April Fools' Day �€" the day before four of the senators ( Riegle was a surprise no show) met with Bank Board Chairman Gray at Keating's request to urge Gray not to take any action against Lincoln's violation of the rule.
The Keating Five waged Keating's fourth political campaign against the direct investment rule. The context of the campaign was the Bank Board's effort to "recapitalize" the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation ("FSLIC Recap) in order to secure funds to further its top priority �€" closing the fraudulent S&Ls like Lincoln. The FSLIC Recap bill had a second vital element �€" it would restore the Bank Board's lapsed powers to close many state chartered S&Ls like Lincoln. This meant that Keating had a vital need to block passage of the bill.
Senator Cranston, at Keating's request, blocked passage of the bill in the Senate by placing a secret "hold" on the bill. House Majority Leader Jim Wright, D-Texas, and Representative Pryor openly blocked the bill in the House. Wright extorted Gray, demanding favorable treatment for Texas frauds Pryor, demanded that fewer Arkansas S&Ls be closed and sanctioned. (He would later serve on the Senate ethics committee investigating the Keating Five �€" so they truly had a jury of their peers!) FSLIC Recap was the Bank Board's ultimate priority. The FSLIC fund was down to $500 million �€" to insure an industry of over $1 trillion in liabilities that was insolvent by perhaps $100 billion in 1986. The S&L frauds' political allies had total leverage over Gray and he repeatedly made concessions demanded by Majority Leader (and Speaker of the House in January 1987), Jim Wright. The CEOs of each of the S&Ls that Wright sought favors for were looting "their" S&Ls �€" inclu ding Vernon Savings (after Lincoln, the worst S&L fraud).
Keating knew that adding the Keating Five's political clout in the Senate to Speaker Wright's domination of the House would doom the FSLIC Recap bill (which was reintroduced in 1987) and put irresistible pressure on Gray to back off from taking enforcement action against Lincoln. He made the threat explicit by telling Undersecretary Gould that he could induce five senators to either be a great help or strong opponents of the FSLIC Recap bill. (This is the conversation that caused Gould to bar Keating from the Treasury building.) By April 2, 1987, Speaker Wright's House allies had made a travesty of the FSLIC Recap bill �€" reducing the funding from $15 billion to $5 billion and mandating "forbearance" provisions designed to gut the Bank Board's ability to close failed S&Ls. Our only hope was that the Senate would pass a better version of the bill and that the conference committee would favor the Senate version. Keating had arranged for the Keating Five to pressure Gray at exactly the time they had maximum leverage over him.

Keating Prepares the Senators for the April 2, 1987 Meeting

Keating prepared the Senators carefully for the April 2 meeting. He sent them detailed explanations of how severely a Bank Board enforcement action would limit his ability to control Lincoln. He explained how passage of the FSLIC Recap bill would allow the Bank Board to end that control. He called Gray a "Mad Dog" and a "Nazi." He asked the Senators to convince Gray not to take any enforcement action against Lincoln in return for his promise that Lincoln would begin to make home loans.
Senator DeConcini hosted the April 2 meeting. He carefully set up the meeting for deniability. His staff instructed Gray not to bring any staffers. Each of the Senators came to the meeting without any staff. The chances of that happening without prior agreement were non-existent. The meeting was designed to make sure that if things went badly it would be the word of five senators against that of Gray. The senators thought there was safety in numbers. They were disturbed that Senator Riegle did not attend the April 2 meeting.

McCain's Attendance at the April 2 Meeting

Senator McCain has said that upon reviewing Keating's written materials about what he wanted the Senators to do in their meeting with Gray he decided that Keating's requests were improper because they called for the Senators to negotiate an agreement to escape enforcement action on Keating's behalf. McCain informed Keating that he would not attend the meeting. Keating met with Senator Riegle and told him of McCain's decision �€" and said that McCain was "a wimp." Riegle's aide told McCain what Keating had said. McCain, enraged, summoned Keating to his office. Keating, who dominated virtually every conversation, could not get a word in during McCain's tirade. Keating's insult, of course, was absurd. McCain is the last person in the world that anyone would believe was a "wimp." Keating, however, apparently knew how successful his taunt would be with a man who still felt (against all reason) that he had not always sufficiently resisted his North Vietnamese torturers. McCain, des pite believing that what Keating wanted the Senators to do was improper, decided to join his colleagues at the April 2 meeting.

The April 2 Meeting

Senator DeConcini began the meeting by stating that "we" wanted Gray not to take enforcement action against Lincoln and that in return "our friend" Charles Keating would ensure that Lincoln would begin to make home loans. He was speaking on behalf of the group �€" and no Senator expressed any disagreement or difference with the position he articulated. The Senators also complained that the agency was harassing Lincoln and demanded Gray's explanation for the abuse. Gray told them there were 3000 S&Ls and he did not know the details of Lincoln's regulation, but that he had total confidence in the Bank Board's regulators for Lincoln at the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco (FHLBSF). He said that if the Senators needed the details they would have to talk to the FHLBSF supervisors. Gray informed several of us at the Bank Board of what had happened at the meeting immediately after the meeting.

The April 9 Meeting

All five of the Senators attended the April 9 meeting with James Cirona (FHLBSF President), Michael Patriarca (chief supervisor), Richard Sanchez (Lincoln's supervisory agent), and me. I took the only notes of the meeting. They are extraordinarily detailed. I circulated them to the other FHLBSF participants to ensure their accuracy and Gray sent Riegle a copy. Each of the Keating Five testified that the notes were accurate and complete. The Senators again excluded their aides from the meeting. Senator DeConcini began the meeting by again using the word "we" and proposing Keating's "quid pro quo" of dropping any enforcement action against Lincoln's violation of the direct investment rule in return for Lincoln making some home loans. No Senator disagreed or distinguished his position.
Senator Cranston accentuated the group nature of the Keating Five.. He was the floor manager for a bill that was very important to him and was coming to a critical vote that night, yet he left the floor and came briefly to Senator DeConcini's office to state that he supported his colleagues' position. Each of the Senators was aware of the group position supporting Keating's efforts to immunize the massive violation of the direct investment rule.
At the meeting, because it was the only way to treat to get the Senators to back off their pressure, we revealed to them that we had decided to make criminal referrals against Lincoln's leaders because of widespread fraud. Mike Patriarca guaranteed that Lincoln would fail if it continued its investment practices.

The Keating Five Prove Lucky in their (Initial) Regulatory "Opponents"

The paradox is that the Keating Five proved so unlucky in their choice of Keating as their ally and so lucky in their initial regulatory "opponents." We were not the Keating Five's opponents, but that is how they perceived us. We were their public servants trying to warn them that they were being manipulated by a fraud that was causing enormous harm to their constituents and exposing the Senators to scandal. Had Gray caved, Lincoln would have been untouchable. Lincoln would have been able to resume its extraordinary growth and expand its direct investments. No line supervisory would have dared to take on Keating. Lincoln's losses would have grown at an even faster rate than its asset growth. By the time it collapsed losses would likely have exceeded $10 billion. The Keating Five's decisive role in producing these catastrophic results would have been undeniable. Gray, however, refused to be intimidated. Keating's timing, which had seemed so perfect, proved too late. Gray had d ecided that Speaker Wright simply increased his demands when Gray gave in to his extortion, and that he could not in good conscience continue to give in to Wright's pressure. The Bank Board moved to close Vernon Savings (the second worst S&L fraud) and publicly criticized Wright's efforts to secure regulatory favors for Vernon.
The Senators also proved lucky in that, while Gray did not cave in to their pressure, he also could not afford to criticize them publicly given the tenuous fate of the FSLIC Recap bill. Gray's term ended on June 30, 1987. (Wright and Treasury Secretary Baker had agreed at a secret meeting that Gray would not be reappointed.) Gray's successor, Danny Wall, was acceptable to Wright. Wall, while a Senate staffer, had encouraged Gray to give in to Wright's extortion. Among his first acts was to issue a gag order forbidding me to speak to the press.

The Keating Five Prove Unlucky in Allying with Keating

Keating proved to be the worst of the S&L looters, and Lincoln the most expensive failure at $3.4 billion. Deposit insurance meant that there were no identifiable individual victims when S&Ls failed. Lincoln's parent company, however, sold uninsured, worthless junk bonds out of Lincoln's branches. Worse, it targeted widows. This created individual victims who lost their life's savings �€" and the face of the victim was your grandmother. Keating then compounded the Senators' problems. The Associated Press recently reported the story as follows:

The banker's attitude was summed up the day a reporter asked whether his political donations to the senators encouraged their intervention..
"I want to say in the most forceful way I can, I certainly hope so," Keating replied.

The AP quotation is correct, and it is obviously the worst possible thing Keating could have said from Senators' perspective. The first sentence of the AP story, however, is wrong, and it shows that the reporter did not grasp the trait that made Keating the worst of the looters �€" audacity. Keating called a press conference, but he did not allow the reporters to ask any questions. He read written answers to questions he had prepared. This was a planned statement, not off the cuff.

Keating adds Speaker Wright's Pressure to that of the Keating Five

Wall, the self-described "child of the Senate", came into office determined to avoid conflicts with powerful politicians. He promptly ordered the FHLB examination and the enforcement investigation of Lincoln halted. Both actions were unprecedented. They followed a meeting between Bank Board staff and Lincoln's leadership. The FHLBSF was not informed that the meeting would occur. It was consulted prior to the order to stop the examination.. Wall then ordered that the agency re-examine the FHLBSF's findings. This was unprecedented. The review disappointed Wall because it supported the FHLBSF's findings and found no basis for Keating's complaints against the FHLBSF. Despite these facts, the Bank Board refused to consider the FHLBSF's recommendations to place Lincoln in conservatorship or take stringent enforcement actions based on the violation of the direct investment rule and fraudulent acts. (FSLIC Recap passed in August 1987, and restored the Bank Board's lapse conservatorshi p powers.)
The Wall Bank Board also refused to be briefed by the FHLBSF on its recommendations. Both refusals were unprecedented. Wall then sought to induce the Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle (FHLBS) to permit Lincoln to transfer to its jurisdiction. The FHLBS declined, stating that it agreed with the FHLBSF's concerns and that they were disturbed by Keating's response to their question of why he was neither an officer nor board member of Lincoln: "I don't want to go to jail." This action was unprecedented. While the Bank Board Chairman Wall and Board Member Martin declined to be briefed by the FHLBSF, they met several times with Keating. This was unprecedented.
When Bank Board and FHLBSF staff members were to meet with Keating in early 1988, Keating demanded that I be excluded from the meeting, and the Bank Board acceded to his demand. At another meeting with Lincoln's leaders the FHLBSF was allowed to have only one representative present �€" and only on the condition that he would not be permitted to speak. All of these actions were unprecedented.
Remember that by this juncture the Bank Board had confirmed that Lincoln had committed the largest violation of a rule in history, was engaged in widespread forgeries and other forms of deception that had led the agency to file an extensive criminal referral, was investing primarily in assets (direct investments) in quantities that had proved fatal in every S&L, and was growing rapidly. By any logical standard it should have been the agency's top enforcement priority. Instead it got unprecedented favors that destroyed the agency's integrity and exposed the taxpayers to enormous losses. Fear of Keating's political power was the only possible explanation for these actions. James Boland, Wall's chief of staff, emphasized this fear in discussions with the FHLBSF's top supervisor, Michael Patriarca. He said that Keating was so powerful that: "he can get you in ways you'll never know you've been got."
Keating's and Wall's mutual problem, however, was that the FHLBSF refused to back down. Keating's top priority became another unprecedented demand �€" Wall must remove the FHLBSF's jurisdiction over Lincoln. Keating now used the Keating Five to recruit Speaker Wright as an ally and to make Wall aware of that alliance. He used Senator Cranston to set up a late afternoon meeting with Wall for January 28, 1988. He used Senator Glenn to set up a luncheon with Speaker Wright on the same day. At the luncheon meeting Keating experienced the second occasion in which a prominent politician dominated the conversation. Speaker Wright dominated it, denouncing Gray and me. The Speaker then invited Keating to come to his chambers and work with his staff. Wright urged Keating to get me fired and to sue Gray and me. (He soon sued both of us for $400 million �€" suits eventually dismissed by the courts.) When Keating met with Wall he first made clear that he had just come from a meeting with Speaker and Senator Glenn. Keating next told Wall:

That is one man in Congress you would get along with much, much better if you took care of the problem in San Francisco. There is a red-bearded lawyer that's a real problem. If you took care of that problem, you would get along much better with Speaker Wright.

Keating was referring to me. Unfortunately, for Keating (and Wall), Wall could only fire me "for cause" and he had no cause. The only way to take care of the problem was to remove the FHLBSF's jurisdiction over Lincoln Savings. Wall promptly ordered his staff to reach an "amicable resolution" with Keating. The only way to do that was to remove our jurisdiction. In addition to that unprecedented act (which sent shock waves throughout federal regulators), Wall agreed that the FHLBSF's examination findings (which the Bank Board had confirmed to be accurate) could not be used. This too was unprecedented.
The result of Wall's surrender to political intimidation was devastating. Lincoln remains the most expensive insured depository failure in U.S. history. Lincoln's parent defrauded over ten thousand widows. The Bank Board's reputation was destroyed (the 1989 legislation terminated it). Wall, of course, denies that he capitulated to Keating's political power. To admit that he did so would have destroyed Wall's efforts to remain head of new S&L regulatory agency. The facts, however, falsify Wall's denial.. Note that the Wall Bank Board never took any enforcement action against Lincoln's massive violation of the direct investment rule even though it agreed that it was the largest regulatory violation in the agency's history. This immunity is precisely what Keating sought to achieve through his mole's (Lee Henkel's) proposed amendment to the direct investment rule and the Keating Five's effort to induce the Bank Board not to take an enforcement action in return for Lincoln begi nning to make home loans.

McCain's Relationship with Keating

Senator McCain is the only member of the Keating Five still in office. He was unique among the group on several dimensions. He was the only Republican. He had the longest, closest relationship with Keating. The relationship was social �€" Lincoln's airplanes flew Senator and Mrs. McCain, their children, and a nanny to stay at Keating's vacation home in the Bahamas. Senator McCain blames his failure to reimburse the expenses (which he was required to do by law), on his staff. He reimbursed only years later after the scandal broke. No other Senator had a close social relationship with Keating or similar airplane use issues. Keating was a bully and a nasty bigot, whom many politicians refused to deal with once they knew him, but Senator McCain viewed him as a personal friend (and major contributor) for a decade.
Only Senator McCain (and Lee Henkel) had a financial conflict of interest involving the direct investment rule. Senator McCain's wife and father-in-law were engaged in a direct investment with Lincoln. Had the Bank Board taken enforcement action against Lincoln's violation of the direct investment rule Senator McCain's wife and father-in-law's investment would have been placed in substantial risk of loss.
Only Senator McCain was in the House at the time Keating enlisted a majority of the House to co-sponsor his resolution designed to kill the direct investment rule. He was the only member of the Keating Five, therefore who was a co-sponsor. More generally, Senator McCain was the Senator most opposed to financial regulation in general and Gray's "reregulation" of S&Ls in particular. As his March 25, 2008 speech on the ongoing mortgage crisis makes clear, he continues to call for greater deregulation of the kind that is causing our financial crises to become more severe and more common.
Senator McCain's efforts to convince the Reagan administration to give Keating de facto control over the Bank Board by appointing two nominees chosen by Keating to run the agency were not unique among the Keating Five, but he was the most important support for Keating's effort because he was a Republican.
Senator McCain was not unique in not giving direct aid to Keating after the April 9 meeting. It is important to consider how Keating shaped Wall's perspective of the Keating Five's support. He used both Senator Cranston and Senator Glenn's active, continuing support (in February 1988, almost a year after the April 2 and April 9, 1987 meetings) to show Wall that he retained the Keating Five's loyalty and he used Senator Glenn to help recruit Speaker Wright as an ally �€" knowing that Wall had advised Gray to give in to Wright's political pressure. Wall had no way of knowing that Senator McCain and Senator Riegle were no longer taking affirmative actions to help Keating get the Bank Board not to bring an enforcement action against Lincoln.

Omission and Commission

None of the Keating Five members helped protect their constituents by supporting regulatory efforts to end Keating's looting of Lincoln. We told them in fair detail at the April 9, 1987 meeting that it was a fraudulent institution and that it was guaranteed to fail if it continued its policies. The Keating Five were well aware of their political power and Keating's political power. They were aware that the Wall Bank Board was taking unprecedented actions in favor of Keating. We could not act. We were gagged. We were forbidden to examine Lincoln. We were excluded from meetings or ordered to remain silent. The new examiners were forbidden by Wall to speak to us about Lincoln.
I noted that the senators structured the April 2, 1987 meeting to ensure deniability by designing it to be the word of five Senators against one "bureaucrat" should things go wrong. They knew that the meeting was dangerous because they knew agencies are supposed to take stringent enforcement actions against massive, intentional violations of rules �€" particularly when the nature of the violation causes failures. They also knew that Keating's mole, Lee Henkel, had just resigned in disgrace after we had blown the whistle on his attempt to immunize Lincoln's violation of the direct investment rule. This is why they excluded all staff from the April 2 meeting. When the meeting became public, along with Gray's criticism of their effort to pressure him to agree to Keating's quid pro quo deal, each of the Senators lied about the meeting. They lied by claiming that Gray had lied about their support for Keating's deal. (Eventually, it emerged that Senator DeConcini was reading from a staffer's memorandum that expressly stated the quid pro quo.)
The Senate ethics committee ignored the Senator's false statements about the meetings. (It also failed to investigate the impact of the Senator's actions in Keating's behalf.) I believe that structuring a meeting to set up a lie, lying, and defaming another person you know has told the truth (i..e., claiming that Gray's statement about the quid pro quo proposal was false), demonstrate severe character flaws and should be considered unethical in the context of the U.S. Senate.

Big Convention Event for McCain

Bud — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:13:19 EDT

Barack Obama has announced that he will give his acceptance speech at the 76,000-capacity Invesco Field in Denver. Observers have asked, "How can John McCain compete with that?"

Perhaps John McCain could generate excitement at the Republican convention by reassembling his old cronies and staging a reunion of the Keating Five!

Any Wonder People are Misinformed?

Henry M — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 15:24:54 EDT

Couldn't post the following in response to the news piece (really an editorial) on Fox "News," the "news service" that more people turn to than any other because of it's (one-sided) sensationalism. Let me know if you have any success posting to this page: http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/07/01/clark-seeks-to-clarify-critical-remarks-of-mccains-military-service/#respond

Nobody representing anyone has ever suggested that is a war criminal. Before he started running for President, McCain seemed to be an honorable enough man who was sometimes even described as a "mavierick," and 27 years ago he was a War Hero. Uh, that's 27 years ago! The world in general, and war in particular, has changed a lot since then.

Since then, McCain has been a Congressman, and then a Senator. If people started to not consider his experience as a shot-down and tortured vet as a qualification for the Presidency, then McCain's only qualifications are as a Keating-6 tainted Washington insider. And yet, somehow the Teflon-UnderArmour party via their Fox News conduit has managed to turn these questions against Clark and Obama!

Hmmm. "If they get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers." Don't let them!

Henry M