Charles Keating’s Lawfirm Donates $50,000+ To McCain’s Campaign
While many Americans are scrambling trying to line up refinancing mortgage to stay in their homes, John McCain is busy taking campaign donations from the law firm of convicted felon Charles Keating, one of the masterminds of the Savings and Loan Scandal of the 1980’s that cost taxpayers $500 billion. Keating was convicted on over 70 felonies while running the Lincoln Savings and Loan. John McCain played a major part in the scandal, and 20 years later, he still doesn’t have the common sense to realize he did anything wrong and is still benefiting financially from his relationship with Keating.
OpenSecrets.org reports, “In amounts ranging from $200 to $2,300, about 30 partners and employees of the legal firm Keating, Muething and Klekamp, as well as their family members, have contributed $50,200 to McCain’s 2008 campaign.”
The country is in a recession, and McCain keeps taking donations from criminals who almost cost McCain his cushy job in the Senate 20 years ago.
The same Keating law firm got their start working with Carl Lindner, a Cincinnati businessman and one of the founders of National City Bank, who this week finally felt the effects of their questionable subprime lending on mortgages for bad credit. PNC Bank out of Pittsburgh bought up National City and is expected to close many branches and lay off employees. PNC was able to use up to $7.7 billion of taxpayer money to buy National City.
Keating was Lindner’s lawyer when they stole millions from Lindners Cincinatti bank in the 1970’s, which served as training for Keating to go do the same with his own bank in California a few years later.
So let’s get this straight. McCain and his friends run our financial institutions into the ground, force us, the taxpayers, to give billions to the rich Wall Street tycoons who then use that money to buy up failing banks from other fat cats.
And while all of this is going on, the people who have been involved in the Keating Five Scandal, Keating, Lindner, and McCain, are busy passing the hat back and forth amongst themselves.
(Further reading: Joe the Plumber is related to Charles Keating. Coincidence? No.)
I guess the upside for McCain is that if he needs to get second mortgages on his many homes, he knows who to turn to.
McCain’s Treatment of Fellow Veterans is Disgraceful
To be fair, it’s not all John McCain’s fault.
As a new article by the Phoenix New Times explains, veterans in Arizona don’t blame McCain for their diabetes. Or their dementia. Or post traumatic stress disorder, or any other affliction that plagues their health.
The do have a major issue with McCain failing to raise a finger to help them get off the streets and out of temporary shelters. And while the number of homeless veterans sleeping on floors and in parking lots in Arizona grow - and a large number of them are senior citizens, McCain continues to paint himself as a champion who fights for his fellow vets.
“I know the veterans and I know them well,” McCain said at the first presidential debate, his voice shaky with emotion. “And I know that they know that I’ll take care of them. And I’ve been proud of their support and of their recognition of my service to the veterans. And I love them, and I’ll take care of them. And they know that I’ll take care of them.”
McCain spoke with conviction that could fool anyone into believing he spends many a waking hour helping veterans. But he can’t fool the veterans themselves.
“I have a lot of respect for Senator McCain as a war hero,” Bobby Collins says, but “I would never vote for a veteran who lets veterans in his state be treated this way.” Collins, 59, received two Purple Hearts in Vietnam, but now finds himself homeless and unable to find work - or get the benefits he’s owed from the Veterans Administration. He’s been waiting eight months.
Brandon Freedman, a veteran who helps run a support group for veterans called Vote Vets, is more blunt. He calls McCain’s statements in support of vets “a slap in the face.” He says, “Coming from a guy who’s kept us stuck in Iraq at the expense of the fight against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan — and who opposed the new GI Bill — [such comments don't] carry much weight. Those are empty words. John McCain is all talk when it comes to supporting veterans, and his voting record shows it.”
Don Johnson, a Gulf War vet, summed up his feelings with a poem about McCain’s “care” for his fellow veterans:
An officer and a gentleman,
A liar,
A politician,
Standing on a soapbox,
Crying, I’m a POW and a Vet.
But you haven’t done anything for us yet.
You claim Stars and Stripes, freedom for all,
Unless you are homeless, have suffered a fall.
Why must you lie for political gain?
Do you have an answer, Mr. McCain
It’s a sad story, and it’s not just happening in Arizona. Vets all over the country are having their meager benefits slashed, and not receiving what we owe them. They can’t get even basic health care or a regular meal once a day. At the same time, defense contractors are rewarded billions of dollars in profits from two never ending wars John McCain voted for and continues to support. McCain says he knows how to lead us out of this mess, but the truth is, he’s help lead us into this disaster. He brushes his fellow vets aside like dirt under a rug.
We can begin to do our part by not just voting against McCain, but voting for Barack Obama, who has promised to make helping vets a top issue if he is elected. And unlike McCain’s record, Obama’s record, however short, shows a record of supporting our soldiers and veterans.
You can read the full article at the Phoenix New Times.
1989 Newspaper Nails McCain’s Keating Five Lies
A 1989 article from the Arizona Republic is one of the most damming pieces against John McCain’s role in the Keating Five Scandal yet.
Excerpts:
“(John McCain) Bitterly complained that disclosure of the business ties would be unfair and could destroy his political career. He said it would be ”irresponsible to write a story that has the appearance of impropriety without some evidence.”
”After the feeding frenzy that you all have been on, this will be incredibly damaging,” McCain said.
”If I had financial ties with him, I would think that you have a big story, but I don’t.”
The newspaper didn’t agree with McCain.
“The Arizona Republic has found that the senator’s wife, Cindy Hensley McCain, and her father, beer distributor James W. Hensley, invested $359,100 in April 1986 in a north Phoenix shopping-center project led by Keating.”
The shady investment wasn’t the only personal financial tie McCain had to Charles Keating that the newspaper found.
“In addition, The Republic has found that the McCains - sometimes with their daughter and baby sitter - made at least nine trips at Keating’s expense from August 1984 to August 1986 aboard either Keating’s American Continental Corp.’s jet or chartered planes and helicopters owned by Resorts International. Three of the trips were for vacations at Keating’s luxurious retreat in the Bahamas.”
The article contradicts McCain’s recent statement that he was not aware of his wife’s investment with Keating before he met with regulators.
“(McCain) Acknowledged that he was aware of his wife and father-in-law’s investment with Keating when he and the other senators attended two April 1987 meetings to grill federal regulators about their overseeing of Lincoln Savings. He said he did not disclose the relationship because in his view, it was not - and still is not - a conflict of interest.”
The article also discusses the plane trips and vacations McCain took courtesy of Keating.
“Documents supplied Friday by McCain’s office indicate that this year - as much as five years after most of the trips were taken - he reimbursed American Continental $13,433 for the travel, using personal funds.”
McCain didn’t disclose the trips or pay for them until after the Lincoln Savings and Loan was seized by federal regulators.
McCain was buddies with a thief who was stealing from his own depositors, and McCain was an accessory, benefitting from campaign donations, flights, and vacations. Let’s not forget that Keating wasn’t just mismanaging his business, he was stealing, “…federal regulators filed a $1.1 billion civil racketeering and fraud suit accusing him (Keating) of siphoning Lincoln’s federally insured deposits to his family and to political campaigns, among other things.”
Keating would eventually be convicted on 73 counts.
The article also reveals McCain tried to pass a law in 1985 that would have directly aided Keating and his business.
“McCain’s assistance to Keating included attending the two April 1987 meetings and supporting a House resolution in 1985, the year before he was elected to the Senate. The unsuccessful resolution, signed by 220 representatives, tried to delay a Federal Home Loan Bank Board regulation curbing risky investments by state-chartered savings and loan associations.”
“Lincoln Savings, which moved heavily into speculative investments after Keating’s firm purchased it, had a stake in such a regulation.”
McCain admitted he knew his wife had made a major investment with Keating one year before McCain tried to intimidate federal regulators to stop investigating Keating. McCain supported deregulation that would have allowed Keating to put both hands in the cookie jar.
McCain also told the Arizona Republic he was a big boy, that he was responsible for his own actions in defending Keating and bullying regulators. “No one came and put a gun to my head and marched me into that room. I went of my own free will.”
This is the point Voters need to remember: When a criminal was stealing money from a bank and got caught, McCain stood up and said, “My Friend, I’ll help you.” Not just once, but multiple times over a span of several years McCain went to bat for Keating. That’s not a momentary lapse or mistake, that’s being an accessory to a crime. And McCain admitted he knew what he was doing in 1989.
This week McCain changed his tune and now claims he was railroaded and implies that he isn’t sorry for what he did. It seems that 20 years of apologizing for aiding a felon was just an act. McCain’s own words from 1989 condemn him and need to be remembered: “No one came and put a gun to my head and marched me into that room. I went of my own free will.”
McCain’s Secret Letter to Charles Keating
The Washington Times have dug up a 1986 letter John McCain wrote to Charles Keating, and the damning reply Keating wrote to McCain.
For years McCain has claimed his relationship with Keating was only one of representative-constituent, despite Keating and his employees donating over $100,000 to McCain’s campaigns, and Keating lavishing McCain and his family with private jet rides and vacations in the Bahamas.
In the letter to Keating, McCain apologizes for his staff sending Keating a request to solicit donations. McCain had listed Keating as a member of McCain’s Senate finance committee. McCain ends the letter, which was written on official letterhead, with, “As you know, I am deeply appreciative of your friendship and support over the years, and I would not want to do anything which would offend you,” and, “I look forward to seeing you very soon.” Click on the letter to enlarge.
Keating’s hand written reply reads, “Don’t be silly, you can call me anything, write anything, or do anything, I’m yours till death do us part. Charlie.”
Despite McCain’s cries of innocence in his involvement in the Savings and Loan scandal that saw Keating convicted of 73 counts of fraud, McCain’s was criticized as “The Most Reprehensible of the Keating Five,” by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. A top McCain staffer spent so much time around the Keating family that he married Keating’s daughter.
Former Arizona Senator, Dennis DeConcini, a fellow member of the Keating Five, has said for 20 years that McCain had the largest role of any Keating Five Senator, a charge Deconcini repeated to the Politicker earlier this week:
“The question that should be raised,” DeConcini said, “is that McCain’s big issue here is that he shouldn’t have been at that meeting with the regulators that first time because he had a conflict. He took these three trips that he didn’t report and his wife invested $350,000 with Keating.”
“You can criticize the rest of us,” he said, “but none of us had traveled with or invested with [Keating].”
The Politicker adds: “To DeConcini, McCain was let off the hook too easily, due to the fact that McCain was a member of the U.S. House at the time of the meetings and the Senate concluded it didn’t have jurisdiction to look into his unreported trips with Keating.” That’s not entirely accurate. McCain was a Senator at the time of the meetings, but was in the House when he took the plane flights and vacations. The Senate and House both claimed they had no authority to reprimand McCain because his indiscretions took place while in the other branch.
The letter to Keating is dated March 5, 1986, one month before McCain’s wife and father-in-law made a controversial investment.
“The Arizona Republic has found that the senator’s wife, Cindy Hensley McCain, and her father, beer distributor James W. Hensley, invested $359,100 in April 1986 in a north Phoenix shopping-center project led by Keating.”
Cindy McCain later sold the $359,100 investment for $15,000,000.
The McCain letter to Keating came 13 months before McCain’s first of two meeting’s with federal bank regulators on Keating’s behalf to dissuade the regulators from continuning their investigation of Keating’s fraudulent actions at the Lincoln Savings and Loan.
Fox News Disputes Keating Five Facts
Political journalist David Sirota was on Fox News recently for a five minute segment from hell.
First the Fox News talking head makes an incredulous statement, “deregulation in an of itself is not a bad thing,” then she blamed all of the financial scandals on regulators who weren’t doing their jobs. Regulators can’t do their jobs if the laws they are directed to enforce are removed. That’s called de-regulation.
Then Sirota brings up the Keating Five and both the Fox host and the Republican guest dispute the Senate’s Keating Five investigation results. Sirota’s answer predictably lands of deaf ears, which is no wonder since it’s a television network that told another guest who mentioned the Keating Five, “This isn’t the History Channel,” right before they cut his mike.
I’m not one to normally make fun of how someone looks, but the Republican mouthpiece arguing with Sirota is almost comical. He is very pale and clammy, and looks like a classic vampire victim from a horror movie.
Watching this nonsense reminds me of a contest Topplebush.com had a few years ago to give Fox a new slogan. Some of the submissions were:
“Making the the world safe for stupidity”
“If you haven’t heard it before, it’s because we made it up”
“Excrement in Reporting”
“We distort, You decide”
“Propaganda the way you like it: Straight from the horse’s ass”
“Pravda for the People”
“It’s Un-Patriotic to Question Us!”
“Combining ‘T&A’ with Conservative Family Values”
CNN Declares Keating Economics Video “True”
CNN’s Truth Squad reviewed Obama’s Keating Economics video and declared it was factually correct. Just straight talk, no lies. The CNN Segment below is now also permanently on our Keating Five Videos page.
Obama’s Keating Five Video
As promised, the Obama camp has just posted the McCain Keating Five video. It’s just over 13 minutes and it should be a major blow to John McCain’s
UPDATE: The audio problems in the YouTube version have been fixed and it is playing fine now. There is also a Quicktime version of the video.
The 13 minute documentary is fantastic. William Black, one of the federal investigators McCain and the Keating Five tried to bully is the narrator. The piece features extensive footage from the Senate investigation and news reports.
Obama to Attack McCain’s Keating Five Ties on Monday!
This is such fantastic news. Politico is reporting that on Monday afternoon the Obama campaign will launch a “multimedia attack” on John McCain’s ties to the Keating Five Scandal! This is what we’ve been waiting for!
From Politico:
“The Obama campaign, including its surrogates appearing on radio and television, will argue that the deregulatory fervor that caused massive, cascading savings-and-loan collapses in the late ‘80s was pursued by McCain throughout his career, and helped cause the current credit crisis.”
“Obama-Biden communications director Dan Pfeiffer said: “While John McCain may want to turn the page on his erratic response to the current economic crisis, we think voters will find his involvement in a similar crisis to be particularly interesting. His involvement with Keating is a window into McCain’s economic past, present, and future.”"
Part of the attack will be a 13 minute video debuting at 12pm eastern time on a website called KeatingEconomics.com, which is being run by the Obama campaign. I will link to that video and post it here once it is available.
In the meantime, here is a very short teaser video the Obama camp has put out…
Keep up the good work of linking to this site, particularly our “What is the Keating Five?” article, and sending it to friends. We have to keep getting the word out. Now we will also be able to send everyone links to official Obama campaign material about the Keating Five.
Stay tuned, folks, this is going to be a fascinating week!
Fox News Cuts off Guest Who Brings Up Keating Five
On Thursday morning on the Fox News show, Fox & Friends, guest Mike Papantonio was told several times to stop mentioning the Keating Five scandal and John McCain’s role in it. When Papantonio continued, someone yelled, “cut his mike.” Then the host of the show said, “this is not the History Channel.”
The full video is below. We are also permanently adding the video to our Keating Five Videos page.
Rachel Maddow Tackles Keating Five Scandal
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow discussed the Keating Five Scandal last night. She had Matt Welch on for a six minute segment to talk about the Keating Five. It would be nice if this issue got larger coverage, merely mentioning what it was isn’t enough, but at least it’s starting to pick up some steam.
Welch is the Editor in Chief of Reason Magazine and has been highly critical of McCain for years. Welch also has written a great book, McCain: The Myth of a Maverick,
The video will also be permanently added to our Keating Five Videos page.
