Truth Detector

I found this article from Rosa Brooks of all people, in the Business section of LA Times. Say what??

Keating 5 ring a bell?
McCain's past collides with the present Wall Street debacle.
Rosa Brooks
September 25, 2008

Keating 5 ring a bell? - Los Angeles Times

Once upon a time, a politician took campaign contributions and favors from a friendly constituent who happened to run a savings and loan association. The contributions were generous: They came to about $200,000 in today's dollars, and on top of that there were several free vacations for the politician and his family, along with private jet trips and other perks. The politician voted repeatedly against congressional efforts to tighten regulation of S&Ls, and in 1987, when he learned that his constituent's S&L was the target of a federal investigation, he met with regulators in an effort to get them to back off.

That politician was John McCain, and his generous friend was Charles Keating, head of Lincoln Savings & Loan. While he was courting McCain and other senators and urging them to oppose tougher regulation of S&Ls, Keating was also investing his depositors' federally insured savings in risky ventures. When those lost money, Keating tried to hide the losses from regulators by inducing his customers to switch from insured accounts to uninsured (and worthless) bonds issued by Lincoln's near-bankrupt parent company. In 1989, it went belly up -- and more than 20,000 Lincoln customers saw their savings vanish.

Keating went to prison, and McCain's Senate career almost ended. Together with the rest of the so-called Keating Five -- Sens. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.), John Glenn (D-Ohio), Don Riegle (D-Mich.) and Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), all of whom had also accepted large donations from Keating and intervened on his behalf -- McCain was investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee and ultimately reprimanded for "poor judgment."

But the savings and loan crisis mushroomed. Eventually, the government spent about $125 billion in taxpayer dollars to bail out hundreds of failed S&Ls that, like Keating's, fell victim to a combination of private-sector greed and the "poor judgment" of politicians like McCain.

I guess Liberals like Rosa Brooks forgot to research the FACTS while spewing her ranting hatred in the Los Angeles Times, and the editor of the LA Times didn't think the FACTS were important.

FACT: Keating Five was a Democrat scandal during Democrat control of the Senate.

FACT: Keating Five was a scandal that found Three of the Four Democrats guilty of accepting bribes.

FACT: John McCain, the ONLY Republican, and John Glen were COMPLETELY exonerated for any wrong doing.

But hey, this is a Liberal Newspaper in the tank for Obama; why would they give a damn about the FACTS?

Yes folks, we still see Liberals on this forum desperately attempting to suggest that the mainstream media is unbiased, but those of us who do not willingly suspend disbelief know better.

Fact Check:
As federal auditors examined Lincoln, Keating was not content to wait and hope for the best. He had spread a lot of money around Washington, and it was time to call in his chits.

One of his first stops was Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz.

The state's senior senator was one of Keating's most loyal friends in Congress, and for good reason. Keating had given thousands of dollars to DeConcini's campaigns. At one point, DeConcini even pushed Keating for ambassador to the Bahamas, where Keating owned a luxurious vacation home.

McCain Profile: The Keating Five

On April 9, 1987, a two-hour meeting with three members of the FHLBB San Francisco branch was held, again in DeConcini's office, to discuss the government's investigation of Lincoln. Present were Cranston, DeConcini, Glenn, McCain, and additionally Riegle.

The Senate Ethics Committee's investigation began on November 17, 1989. It focused on all five senators and lasted 22 months, with 9 months of active investigation and 7 weeks of hearings. The committee was composed of three Democratic senators, Howell Heflin (chair), David Pryor, and Terry Sanford, and three Republican senators, Warren Rudman (vice chair), Trent Lott, and Jesse Helms. Washington attorney Robert S. Bennett was appointed as special outside counsel to the committee, tasked with conducting the investigation.

Initially the committee investigated in private. On September 10, 1990, Bennett submitted a confidential report, which soon leaked, that recommended that the committee continue its investigation of Cranston, DeConcini, and Riegle, but take no action against Glenn and McCain, as there was insufficient evidence to pursue the latter two. Bennett also recommended that public hearings be held.

The Senate Ethics Committee ruled that Cranston had acted improperly by interfering with the investigation by the FHLBB. He had received more than a million dollars from Keating, had done more arm-twisting than the other Senators on Keating's behalf, and was the only Senator officially rebuked by the Senate in this matter.

Cranston was given the harshest penalty of all five Senators. In November of 1991, the Senate Ethics Committee voted unanimously to reprimand Cranston, instead of the more severe measure that was under consideration: censure by the full Senate. Extenuating circumstances that helped to save Cranston from censure were the fact that he was suffering from cancer, and that he had decided to not seek reelection, according to chair Heflin. The Ethics Committee took the unusual step of delivering its reprimand to Cranston during a formal session of the full Senate, with almost all 100 Senators present.

The Senate Ethics Committee ruled that Riegle and DeConcini had acted improperly by interfering with the investigation by the FHLBB. Specifically, it said that even though neither of them violated any Senate rule, their conduct "gave the appearance of being improper." DeConcini was especially faulted for having taken the lead in the two meetings with the FHLBB.

The Senate Ethics Committee ruled that the involvement of Glenn in the scheme was minimal, and the charges against him were dropped. He was only criticized by the Committee for "poor judgment."

The Ethics Committee ruled that the involvement of McCain in the scheme was also minimal, and he too was cleared of all charges against him. McCain was criticized by the Committee for exercising "poor judgment" when he met with the federal regulators on Keating's behalf.

Keating Five - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

So what we had here was Democrats desperately trying to help a pal and attempting to corrupt the system, and getting away with it thanks to a Democrat controlled Senate.

__________________
Nothing can frighten a Socialist more than the TRUTH; and nothing can frighten Obama more than REALITY

niftydrifty

The issue isn't that McCain's actions were "unlawful." The issue is that he exercised poor judgement. Because he did. the current crisis underlines that fact and refocuses a spotlight on McCain's economic sense and priorities.

"The appearance of it was wrong. It's a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators, because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do." - John McCain, 1999

__________________
"I admit it. The liberal media were never that powerful, and the whole thing was often used as an excuse by conservatives for conservative failures." - Bill Kristol

Truth Detector

Apparently you either did not read Rosa Brooks comments, or willingly choose to ignore them to argue that it was a fair assessment.

You also ignore the reason for this article; it was not an attempt to explain McCains inability to deal with economic issues, it was an attempt to defend Obama's lack of judgment going to Reverend Wright's church and associating with former terrorists.

What is a Fair assessment about the current economic priorities was the FACT that republicans and McCain warned about the impending disaster with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. Those warnings fell on the deaf ears of despicable and moronic Democrats who desperately defended their former cronies and their program to provide mortgages on the backs of the taxpayer for their constituents who could not afford them and who now conveniently point to Republicans and claim they were in charge.

The notion that Obama has a clue about economics 101 is hysterical if not so dangerous. Please illustrate how Obamanomics will not create a bigger disaster in the future: (1) Universal healthcare; (2) raising taxes on corporations; (3) excess profits taxes on oil companies; and (4) protectionism.

niftydrifty

what about them wasn't fair?

your reasons are assumed.

who said it was?

funny, I don't recall any mention of Wright or Ayres.

"Republicans" aren't running for president, McCain is.

Appearing on CNN’s American Morning on Sept. 16, 2008, McCain sought to blame much of the crisis on Wall Street greed and inept or corrupt government regulators. “Ask any American citizen who has been the victim of a bureaucrat or a bureaucracy,” McCain said. “I said two years ago that the Fannie and Freddie thing was a very serious problem and we had to work on it. And I have always opposed greed of Wall Street and I know how we can fix this.”

...

We give McCain some credit for weighing in on problems surrounding Fannie Mae, even though he got involved after a comprehensive government report issued a loud alarm to anyone watching. However, his attempts to depict those efforts as some sort of early warning that could have lessened the current credit crisis just don't wash. All McCain was talking about then was the potential fallout of accounting troubles in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. He didn't say anything about a freewheeling climate among creditors that had major financial institutions becoming badly leveraged on bad loans.

PolitiFact | McCain's 'warning' on Fannie & Freddie

wow. I can't do anything with generalizations. name names. then pray that whom you're naming has anything to do with the topic: John McCain's involvement with Keating.

You might be right. But I still prefer him to McCain.

sazerac

There isn't a single good reason to vote for Senator Obama.

He has been chosen to be our president by the media.

TheNextEra

Sure there is, he isn't McCain or that crackpot Palin.

Objective Voice

Ignore this thread, people. Truth Detector and his anti-Obama partner, Reverand Hellbound, has been trying to talk down McCain's culpability in the S&L scandal in at least two other threads on this board since the Wall Street Bailout Bill was first proposed. Myself and others have called him on the issue and he continues to "thread jump" and avoid the truth concerning McCain's involvement at every turn, instead trying to blame the scandal on the Democrats who were involved and that deregulation was the doing of a Democratic Congress at the time.

I don't care how many Democrats were indicted in that scandal, and I don't care that Congress was majority Democratic at the time. The undeniable fact is that Sen. McCain, the Republican party nominee, was deeply involved in that mess then, and his push for deregulation is the reason for our current economic mess now! And no matter how hard he tries to twist or deflect the issue, i.e., bringing up Democratic punishments or Freddie/Fannie, he can't deny those two facts!!

EgoffTib

Of course he thread jumped. If you try to debate him, he uses circular logic or distorts facts. If you smack him in the face with a fact he can't twist, he'll never show his face in that thread again and pretend he hasn't seen your post.

__________________

Truth Detector

The notion that you have any credible comprehension of facts is quite amusing Ego. The following response to "Objective" is for all you emotional Liberals who wallow in denial and attack your opponents with lies, distortions, innuendo and hyperbole.

Truth Detector

Part ONE:

Once again your arguments are in a vacuum of the facts and illustrate willful ignorance and desperate denial. Here are the FACTS:

Please note the Republicans in these hearings are arguing for more oversight and responding to the REGULATORS concerns about corrpution and improper accounting procedures; the Democrats actually attack the regulator they placed in the oversight position, not Frank Raines, a Democrat who walked away with millions in bonuses and created the conditions leading to the Failure of Freddie Mac. Their own words:



Democrats Killed Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Fix In 2005
Comments (11) | Full Version | Back
Rob - 10:09am on 09/22/2008
We could have avoided the current financial mess we’re in, but certain key Democrats (including all-time Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac political contribution leaders Chris Dodd) killed it.

...in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie ``continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,’’ he said. ``We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.’’

What happened next was extraordinary. For the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets. . . .

Now that the collapse has occurred, the roadblock built by Senate Democrats in 2005 is unforgivable. Many who opposed the bill doubtlessly did so for honorable reasons. Fannie and Freddie provided mounds of materials defending their practices. Perhaps some found their propaganda convincing.

But we now know that many of the senators who protected Fannie and Freddie, including Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd, have received mind-boggling levels of financial support from them over the years.

Throughout his political career, Obama has gotten more than $125,000 in campaign contributions from employees and political action committees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, second only to Dodd, the Senate Banking Committee chairman, who received more than $165,000.

Clinton, the 12th-ranked recipient of Fannie and Freddie PAC and employee contributions, has received more than $75,000 from the two enterprises and their employees. The private profit found its way back to the senators who killed the fix.

There has been a lot of talk about who is to blame for this crisis. A look back at the story of 2005 makes the answer pretty clear.

The connections between Demcorats and the housing mess are significant, and being overlooked.

Former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines (who left the company after using accounting voodoo to line his pockets with undeserved bonuses) worked for the Clinton administration. He’s also advised the Obama campaign.

The majority of the political money Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have given to politicians has gone to Democrats, with Senators Chris Dodd, Barack Obama and John Kerry topping the list.

It has been liberals, and not conservatives, who have in the past demanded that mortgage lenders be forced to loan to subprime borrowers. Jimmy Carter signed the Community Redevelopment Act into law, and Bill Clinton amplified that legislation creating the market for subprime loans that is causing all of these problems now.

If government, at the behest of liberals, had kept their noses out of the mortgage industry from the start these companies that are suffering now would have long since failed due to poor businesses practices, and we wouldn’t be facing the problems we’re facing now.

Democrats Killed Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac Fix In 2005 - Say Anything Mobile