McCain's history as a corrupt politico is well-established but seemingly flying below the radar
There is the Keating 5 scandal-To review a little history
The U.S. Savings and Loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s was the failure of 747 savings and loan associations (S&Ls) in the United States. The ultimate cost of the crisis is estimated to have totaled around $160.1 billion, about $124.6 billion of which was directly paid for by the U.S. taxpayer
Keating 5
"The core allegation of the Keating Five affair is that Keating had made contributions of about $1.3 million to various U.S. Senators, and he called on those Senators to help him resist regulators. The regulators backed off, to later disastrous consequences."
And lying John McCain was one of those corrupt politicos. See the Stranger's quick review here
Though McCain might try to downplay his involvement, his campaigns received $124,000 from Keating and his associates during the 1980s (AP, 3/2/91), and McCain was described as being personally closer to Keating than any of the other members of the Keating Five (Roll Call, 1/20/92). What's more, McCain accepted more than $15,000 in free trips from Keating, including vacations to Keating's resort in the Bahamas -- trips that McCain failed to disclose at the time (New York Times, 2/28/91; San Francisco Chronicle, 12/3/90).
Jonathon Singer at MyDD
The Arizona Republic has an archive containing a more complete history McCain's contemptible actions sucking from the teat of Charles KEating
CNN recently reviewed the scandal
As Jed describes the CNN piece "They get into it all: his financial ties (and his wife's) to Keating, his anger problems, and the scandal it caused. One thing to be aware of: McCain's stock answer excusing him from the scandal is that Bob Bennett said he did nothing wrong. True...but Bob Bennett is his lawyer!"
The Jed Report
John McCain's Bahamanian vacations paid for by convicted felon Charles Keating are more elitist than visiting your Grandma is Hawaii
And McCainscorruption goes well beyond the Keating 5--meet Donald Diamond McCain's wealthy and generous donor b who bought land from the Army — complete with special water rights — for a quarter of a million dollars, with McCain’s help and then sold two years later for $20 million. As the ever succient Mr. Amato says this is called "influence peddling."
Dengre has reviewed and taught us all about McCain's Abramoff related corruption
John McCain covered-up the crimes of his Republican Party in the Abramoff Scandal. He washed the narrative. He made it a simple story of a "bad apple" greedy lobbyist, gullible Indians and the straight talking maverick Senator who saved the day. It was all bullshit.
John McCain is a Corruptionist. For those without a dictionary, that means that he is a politician who has protected and upheld corrupt practices throughout his political career.
There is much more in Dengre's post and Obama has started using the Abramoff story
As Obama has noted he's been interrogated "about a whole host of issues and associations that are a lot more flimsy than John McCain’s relationship to Keating Five." Obama on Keating Five
McCain's lying about Charles Keating, says lots his weak character
"McCain adopted the blanket defense that Keating was a constituent and that he had every right to ask his senators for help."
The truth was
McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators.
The paper also reported that the McCains, sometimes accompanied by their daughter and baby-sitter, had made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental jet. Three of trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay.
McCain also did not pay Keating for the trips until years after they were taken, when he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln. Total cost: $13,433
john McCain-Liar
And Surprise Surprise Surprise--what did McCain play to try and protect himself
He also belittled the reporters when they asked about his wife's ties to Keating.
''It's up to you to find that out, kids.''
And then he played the POW card.
''Even the Vietnamese didn't question my ethics,'' McCain said.
Seems to me that his 7 or 8 or 9 houses say one thing about him. The Keating 5 scandal and his behavior says something else about him.
There is lots more
The Viacom protection racket
While McCain was chairman, of the Senate Commerce committee the media conglomerate, Viacom, through its political action committee, company executives, and their family members gave McCain’s 2004 reelection campaign fund nearly $68,000. Viacom love And Viacom refused to let McCain opponents use its Phoenix area Billboards.
And what was the old wrinkley white haired dude doing for Viacom
Meanwhile, under McCain’s chairmanship, the Commerce committee was permitting decades-old rules on corporate ownership of the media to be gutted.
Hanging with corrupt Russians
and more recently there is McCain's coziness with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, who had his visa revoked by the U.S.government because of his "suspected links to anti-democratic and organized-crime figures."
Linky
Its McCain's instinct to surround himself with these types of people
McCain's now campaign manager Rick Davis assisted in putting the two men together in 2006.
Trying to use his leverage to make big dollars for big Donors
Then his penchant for influence peddling shows up in the Paxson communications case as well.
In his 2000 presidential campaign, McCain received $20,000 in donations from Paxson-affiliated individuals and took four flights aboard Paxson’s corporate aircraft, including one flight on the day before he wrote a letter to (Federal Communications Commission chairman William E.) Kennard seeking action on the request to buy the television station.
Reprint link
McCain was engaged in a lobbying effort to try and help Paxson win approval to buy a TV station. Kennard's response was to write "a letter to McCain at the time saying that his request for the agency to take action was "highly unusual" and that he was concerned that McCain’s action would interfere with the agency’s "due process.""
Another commissioner, Gloria Tristani, wrote McCain in 1999 that she would not comply with his request to reveal whether she had acted on the request, "in order to preserve the integrity of our processes." Tristani said yesterday McCain’s request was "unusual."
McCain's corruption needs to be highlighted more and more and more.