Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 05:28 pm Post subject: Keating-McCain economics http://www.keatingeconomics.com/
Senator McCain's campaign announced that for the next 30 days it will engage in an all out character attack on Senator Obama and the McCain campaign wil not run any other kind of ads. The McCain campaign explains that it will focus on "associations" that are alleged regarding Senator Obama and others.
That makes it fair game and necessary for the Obama campaign to be proactive with relevant facts about Senator McCain's past and ongoing relationships and his clouded judgment for future decisions should Senator McCain become President.
McCain/Palin want to take the gloves off. Two can play that game.
From the Obama site:
Quote:
In the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, John McCain wants to change the subject from the central question of this election.
Perhaps that's because the policies McCain supported these past eight years are pretty hard to defend.
The Obama campaign put together a documentary about why John McCain's failed philosophy and poor judgment are a recipe for deepening the crisis.
Watch the documentary now and share it with others:
At Keating’s Request, McCain Wrote 5 Letters, Supported Bill To Forestall Direct Investment Rule. Keating was unhappy with the direct investment rule and began actively lobbying against it. Senate Ethics Committee Special Counsel Robert Bennett explained during the 1990 Keating Five hearings that John McCain wrote at least five letters to regulators, Treasury and White House officials to argue against these proposed restrictions on risky investments by S&Ls. Bennett said that “In 1984 and ‘85, then Congressman McCain wrote several letters to Chairman [Edwin] Gray [of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board] and White House officials urging them to postpone promulgation of the direct investment rule… There is evidence that Senator McCain did so at the urging of Mr. Keating or other representatives of Lincoln.” McCain’s work for Keating also included signing onto a bill to delay the direct investment rule in 1984 [Senate Ethics Committee Keating Five Investigation, 1990; HCONRES 363, 98th Congress]
With New Regulations In Place, Officials Began Investigation That Found That Keating’s Lincoln S&L Had Operated As Massive Fraud. After the direct investment rule was enacted the Federal Home Loan Bank Board began a more vigorous investigation into Lincoln’s practices, beginning to uncover a vast web of fraud and accounting irregularities designed to embezzle money to Keating and his family and friends. Top regulator William Black later said that Lincoln “operated like a Ponzi scheme, or financial pyramid dependent on an ever-increasing churning of assets.” Black said, “Its parent, Keating's American Continental Corp., was no more than a shell that siphoned dividends from Lincoln and distributed them through inflated salaries to Keating, his family members and associates.” [Senate Ethics Committee Keating Five Investigation, 1990; Associated Press, 12/5/90]
Keating Asked McCain And Other Senators To Whom He Had Contributed To Intervene With Regulators. In the most well-known episode of the scandal, Charles Keating asked five U.S. Senators including McCain to intervene with regulators from the Federal Home Loan Bank Board on his behalf. The Senators attended two meetings with the regulators in 1987. Reports of the meetings and the fact that Keating had contributed heavily to those Senators led to an investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee in 1990 into what became known as Keating Five scandal. [Senate Ethics Committee Keating Five Investigation, 1990; Chicago Tribune, 6/14/90; Los Angeles Times, 5/30/89]
Keating Admitted He Was Trying To Buy Influence. Keating was asked if his contributions bought him influence with the Senators, to which Keating replied, “I want to say in the most forceful way I can, I certainly hope so.” [Los Angeles Times, 5/30/89]
Ethics Committee Special Counsel Said McCain Had Closest Relationship to Keating. Robert Bennett, the Special Counsel for the Senate Ethics Committee said during the 1990 hearings: “of the five senators here before you, Senator McCain had the closest personal friendship with Charles Keating. Their friendship predated Senator McCain's political career. Senator McCain also was the only one who received personal as well political benefits from Charles Keating.” [Senate Ethics Committee Hearing into the Keating Five]
* McCain Received $166,000 In Campaign Contributions from Charles Keating and his Associates. “Together with friends and associates, Keating contributed $56,000 to McCain's first House race, another $56,000 to the second and $54,000 to his 1986 Senate campaign,” contributions that were key to early success as a politician. [New York Times, 5/25/97]
* McCain Used Keating’s Private Planes on Nine Occasions. “From August 1984 to August 1986, Sen. John McCain and his family flew across the country and to the Bahamas on at least nine occasions at Charles H Keating Jr.'s expense,” often to stay at the Keatings’ exclusive Cat Cay getaway. [Arizona Republic, 10/8/89]
* McCain Had Direct Financial Ties To Keating. Keating brought in McCain’s wife and father-in-law as the largest investors in an Arizona shopping center investment. Fountain Square Shopping Center was a no-risk investment that virtually guaranteed a 25% return and a “significant tax write-off” through a tax shelter technique available to the wealthy that was soon outlawed. When reporters first questioned the deal, McCain said to reporters “It’s up to you to find that out, kids.” [Arizona Republic, 10/8/89]
* McCain Originally Denied Reports of Connection. “When the story broke, McCain did nothing to help himself. ‘You're a liar,’ McCain said” when asked about the investments. He challenged reporters saying, ‘It's up to you to find that out, kids.’” [Arizona Republic, 3/1/2007]
McCain Rebuked By Senate Ethics Committee For Exercising “Poor Judgment.” In 1990, the bipartisan (three members of each party) Senate Ethics Committee rebuked McCain “for exercising ‘poor judgment’ for intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of Keating.” [Arizona Republic, 3/1/2007]
Keating’s S&L Was Declared Insolvent; $3.4 Billion Bailout Most Expensive in Meltdown. Federal regulators declared Lincoln Savings and Loan insolvent. It ended up costing taxpayers $3.4 billion to clean up the mess and cover federally-insured deposits at Lincoln, making it the most expensive failure in the entire S&L meltdown. [Washington Post, 11/29/92; New York Times, 2/21/08]
Keating Also Bilked 23,000 Investors – Many Elderly – With Junk Bonds. As his deeds unraveled under the scrutiny of regulators and civil and criminal court cases, it became clear that he had sold worthless junk bonds to 23,000 investors, many of them elderly retirees who had thought their investments were insured and lost their lost savings to Keating’s crimes. [Associated Press, 2/23/08]
Keating Was Found Guilty of 73 Counts of Fraud, Lost Two Criminal And One Civil Case. “a federal jury convicted him of 73 counts of wire and bankruptcy fraud in the collapse of American Continental and Lincoln,” a keystone of the Savings & Loan scandal as Keating “looted” the bank. Keating was also found guilty in civil court and lost a massive class action suit by investors he bilked. [Arizona Republic, 3/1/2007; Associated Press, 4/7/99]
The sharp defense of McCain by Dowd was in contrast to McCain's previous contrition about his involvement in the matter. He told the New York Times in 1999 that going into the meetings with regulators was a mistake. "Going into that room gave a definite appearance of impropriety," he said.
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