McCain and Keating Economics
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| Mon, 10-06-2008 - 1:56pm |
It would do well for everyone to remember that this scandal did not happen too long ago. Watch and learn.
http://www.keatingeconomics.com/?source=sem-pm-google&gclid=CKTO8reVk5YCFQRfagodgWLRFA
The current economic crisis demands that we understand John McCain's attitudes about economic oversight and corporate influence in federal regulation. Nothing illustrates the danger of his approach more clearly than his central role in the savings and loan scandal of the late '80s and early '90s.
John McCain was accused of improperly aiding his political patron, Charles Keating, chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. The bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee launched investigations and formally reprimanded Senator McCain for his role in the scandal -- the first such Senator to receive a major party nomination for president.
At the heart of the scandal was Keating's Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which took advantage of deregulation in the 1980s to make risky investments with its depositors' money. McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating with federal regulators tasked with preventing banking fraud, and championed legislation to delay regulation of the savings and loan industry -- actions that allowed Keating to continue his fraud at an incredible cost to taxpayers.
When the savings and loan industry collapsed, Keating's failed company put taxpayers on the hook for $3.4 billion and more than 20,000 Americans lost their savings. John McCain was reprimanded by the bipartisan Senate Ethics Committee, but the ultimate cost of the crisis to American taxpayers reached more than $120 billion.
The Keating scandal is eerily similar to today's credit crisis, where a lack of regulation and cozy relationships between the financial industry and Congress has allowed banks to make risky loans and profit by bending the rules. And in both cases, John McCain's judgment and values have placed him on the wrong side of history.
Edited 10/6/2008 1:57 pm ET by sistah_w

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<<If what Ayers did was sooo bad, why isn't he in JAIL? How did he get to be a college professor? When he allegedly did these acts of terrorism Obama was 8 years old. sheesh, talk about trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill! >>
I have no idea how he got out of this charge.
You did read where McCain accepted donations from Keating, went on vacations to Keating's retreat, road on Keating's plane, Cindy invested with Keating, and McCain didn't own up to all of this until the authorities were getting tough.
I really think a big deal is being made about his so-called association with Ayres, especially the FACT he was 8 years old when Ayres did these acts. I think it is still trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill. sorry, I know you hate Obama, that's your prerogative. Me, I don't HATe McCain, I just don't want another Republican as President. At least not in my lifetime! After I'm gone they can nominate Mickey Mouse for all I care.
My DH knew and was HS friends with a guy who is in prison for rape, he raped patients while working as an orderly, so he couldn't run for president or have any of thos e jobs, FBI, etc?
Oh, hell yes, I do. Because, as far as I'm aware, none of those other men are currently running for President of the United States. McCain is.
McCain and Glenn were not "cleared," he was chastised for having exerciesed "poor judgment," as you say. But it's a bit more involved than that. Of the five, McCain was the most personally connected with Keating. He was the one who took Abramoff-style junkets to ski resorts and to Keating's estate at Grand Cay in the Cayman Islands (which he neither reported nor reimbursed Keating for until forced to do so by public disclosure of the impropriety and the scrutiny which accompanied it). He was the one whose wife invested heavily in another Keating venture (a shopping center).
But, far more damaging than any of that, were ripe plums of lines written in various letters to various regulators (and the people who held power over THEM, such as this choice one from a 1985 letter from McSame to then-White House Chief of Staff James Baker):
Keep in mind that these were John McCain's behind-the-scenes, unvarnished thoughts on behalf of a crooked banker, to one of the most powerful unelected men in the country. Says it all, pretty much, about John McCain's notions about regulation specifically affecting banks and mortgage outfits. Now why am I thinking that might have some relevance to today's situation.....and who should or should not lead the government through it? LOLOLOL.
Billmon over at dKos puts it best:
Exactly.
And it's not as if this was an isolated, "ancient-history" sort of frozen-in-time thing for John McCain, either. In 1999 - well after his supposed conversion into the wonderful "maverick" that he is today, McCain was acting on behalf of Vicki Iseman (the lobbyist who looks uncannily like a 20-year-younger Cindy McCain with whom McCain was rumored earlier this year to be having an affair) and her client, "Bud" Paxson, head of Paxson communications. McCain's campaign, back in February, even went so far as to deny that he'd ever spoken directly with Paxson about intervening on his behalf with the FCC. Unfortunately (for McCain), Paxson was out in the press - with no hostility, just setting the record straight - flatly contradicting the McCain campaign's account of events:
And the McCain campaign's response? "Old news, nothing to see here, folks....who cares? Move along!"
John McCain is wary of the resurfacing of the whole Keating Five incident, with good reason - he should be.
Why is that relevant?
Raines has nothing to do with the Presidential race we've been debating (mostly) here. It's a political topic, yes....but Raines has no involvement of any significance with either campaign.
LOL!
No, if you wanna go all "Ayers" on us, then the one you should be looking at for the converse with Johnny Mac would be G. Gordon Liddy, convicted, unrepentant felon, a man who's admitted "taking one for the team" instead of coming clean about what he knew regarding how deep the various Watergate-era scandals actually went, a man who's admitted to planning the murder of journalists, etc, etc......that'd be your "comparison" - if one can even be reached, since Obama's connection with Ayers is even more tenuous than that.
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