John McCain has repeatedly said that his life is an open book, but a close examination reveals that this is not the case. One of the most puzzling aspects of his long career is that he has repeatedly been the point man in an effort fo prevent the friends and families of Vietnam War MIAs to learn what happened to their loved ones. It makes no sense as McCain is the most famous of the Vietnam War POWs.
When the French were forced out of Indochina, the Communists Vietnamese required that they pay for the return of their prisoners. The North Vietnamese planned to do the same with the United States. They released John McCain and 590 others in January, 1973 and told the United States it would have to pay for the rest. General Tran Van Quang placed the number of the remaining prisoners at 1,205. On February 1, 1973, President Richard Nixon wrote to the North Vietnamese premier, promising $3.25 billion for “postwar reconstruction.” The United States never paid the ransom. Later, in 1981, the North Vietnamese, through a third party offered to return our personnel—now MIAs—for $4 billion. Richard Allen, Reagan’s national security advisor, told Congress about the offer. Treasury agent John Syphrit said he was present when the offer was discussed.
Two Secretaries of Defense, Mel Laird and Richard Schlesinger, have told Congress that American personnel are still in Vietnam. The evidence of this is based upon eyewitness sightings, radio messages, and the prisoners triggering motion sensors in a manner they had been taught to indicate their presence. The servicemen had been taught to enter into the sensors twenty different authentication numbers.
In 1992, Dolores Alford, sister of a missing airman, appeared before the Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs. She raised questions about her brother and the others and asked about the sensor evidence. The committee was chaired by Senator John Kerry, but John McCain was its dominant force due to his celebrity and background as a POW. With his face turned pink in rage, McCain took some time yelling and berating the woman and ranting about Ms. Alford “denigrating” his “patriotism.” He shouted and shook his fist at witnesses, reducing one to tears. The Committee put out a report that essentially covered up what weas going on, but buried deep in it the staff wrote that the people who analyze satellite and low altitude photographs had never been told about the various distress signals that had been received. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Sydney H. Schanberg thinks that most of the prisoners have died or have been executed but he believes that some remain in Vietnam.
McCain was also busy sabotaging legislation that would help people learn what had happened to their loved ones. In 1990 and 1991, he handicapped the Truth bill. Then he passed his own version had all sorts of Catch 22 mechanisms to get in the way or researchers. In 1995 and 1996 he attached crippling amendments to the Missing Service Personnel Act.
John McCain has constantly ridiculed the POW activists, referring to the “bizarre rantings of the MIA hobbyists,” and calling them “hoaxers” and “charlatans.” Then he demanded that the Justice Department investigate some of the people who opposed him on this issue. St. John Mc Cain told reporters:
The people who have done these things are not zealots in a good cause. They are the most craven, most cynical and most despicable human beings to ever run a scam.
The Justice Department did his bidding and probed two organizations, but did not find evidence of a scam. Mc Cain heaped scorn on H. Ross Perot, whose concern about the POW/MIAs was certainly sincere and well-informed. Navy Captain and fellow POW Eugene "Red" McDaniel was also attacked by the Arizonan as a fraud.
In 1996, a group of MIA advocates asked to speak with him outside a committee hearing room. He erupted in anger and shoved them aside including Jane Duke Gaylor.
She was in a woman in a wheelchair who was the mother of missing pilot the mother of a missing POW.
His conduct in respect to POW issues simply defies reason, and his angry outbursts suggest he lacks the temperament to be Commander in Chief.
His strange and irrational conduct in respect to the POW issue needs to be explained. Some of the former Swift Boaters are now actively involved in Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain. They have leveled all sorts of charges against the man, but the mainstream media refuses to acknowledge their presence or even look into what they have to say.
They are clearly correct on the POW/MIA issue. They claim that McCain cooperated with the enemy too much while a prisoner of war. It is suggested that his conduct in Hanoi is being held over his head to induce him to frustrate the POW/MIA advocates. No one has ever seen an nonredacted copy of McCain’s post-Hanoi debriefing and the Pentagon refuses to release copies of his confessions. It is an unpleasant subject, almost anyone would be disinclined to blame him for almost anything he said under torturous conditions.
A few of the things he has said about his captivity do not add up. John LeBoutillier is on solid ground when he notes that McCain’s story about the guard making the sign of the cross in the dirt was probably borrowed from Admiral Jeremiah Denton, another POW/Senator.
There is ample evidence that Soviet ( KGB &GRU) and Cuban psychiatrists interrogated POWs in Hanoi, yet McCain insists that it never happened. Some former prisoners spoke about interrogators from North Korea, whose programs for turning prisoners were very successful. It is documented that McCain was interviewed by Spanish psychiatrist Fernando Barral in 1970. North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin told a Senate committee in 1992 that Soviet officers interrogated prisoners on a daily basis. Why would McCain deny the presence of non-Vietnamese interrogators and also hug the Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin as though he were a long lost brother. Bui Tin, who had been a North Vietnamese interrogator. One cannot help wondering about the Stockholm Syndrome.
By his own 1973 US News and World Report account, he thought many of the prisoners had been drugged. Of course, the North Vietnamese could have done this, as drugging and interrogations have long gone hand and hand. McCain’s account includes the claim of being tortured daily, but his two senior officers have said they do not believe he was tortured. Some, including fellow prisoners, say his injuries were the result of the plane crash.
Oddly, he embraced the Vietnamese , Mai Van On, in 1997, who pulled him out of his plane and assisted him, but refused further contact after that meeting in Vietnam. By most accounts, he has become Vietnam’s best friend in the US Senate.
Some suggest that McCain could be blackmailed with information substantiating charges that he he was responsible for the terrible accident on the USS Forrestal in the Gulf of Tonkin on July 29, 1967, when 132 lives were lost. The incident is called the “Forrestfire.” Forrestal survivors angrily confronted him in South Carolina in 2000. It is said that Lt. Commander John McCain “wet started” his A-4E, which set off a chain reaction. Wet-starting was forbidden but considered sort of a joke prank among some pilots. It involved feeding fuel before starting the plane, resulting in more than 12 feet of flames coming out of his plane’s tail that day. The object was to alarm the pilot in the plane behind you. It is claimed that the flame triggered a 6 foot Zuni rocket from an F-4 ahead of Mc Cain to crash into the plane next to Mc Cain’s A-4 fuel tank. Fortunately, he had much practice getting out of planes in a hurry. Then one of his bombs “booked off” and blew a hole in the deck. This is the version of his critics, and many on the Forrestal believed it. That is why McCain was evacuated with the badly wounded.
Some flyers showed great valor and lost their lives fighting the fire. McCain went below but briefly helped sailors off load some bombs from an elevator. He went to the ready room to watch others fight the fire via closed-circuit TV. In his memoirs, he said he was down there worrying about his flying career. The next morning, McCain was evacuated along with the reporter who came aboard to report on the fire. He was the only uninjured Naval person to be evacuated. As his shipmates mourned the lost, he was went off to Saigon for R&R.
The official story simply does not mention McCain or his plane, number 416. Mc Cain , and this author has studied the tapes repeatedly and thinks that the critics are probably dealing the senator a bad rap. The trouble is that the official film footage was not focused on McCain plane when the accident began to happen.
It is puzzling why his shipmates disliked him so and blamed him. Some point out that few Naval aviators from his time have endorsed McCain’s quest for the presidency. That might be because he was more serious about partying than being a pilot and because command influence was used in his favor so often. He had been passed over for promotion twice before this incident. The main reason for withholding promotions is belief that the candidate lacks maturity. Of course, he was promoted as a matter of policy after he became a POW.
There are other aspects of McCain’s life that leave up partly in the dark. We know precious little about his mob ties—just enough to worry. The press dropped the Paxon Communications story like a hot potato, and it looks like all his ties with cable and communications people needs examination. Much more needs to be known about his gambling habits because this reflects judgment, and his personal ties to people in the gambling industry are important because they could bear on ethics. Even his health status is shrouded as only select reporters were permitted to peruse, and take no not4es, on select records for a limited period of time.
With all these questions in mind, all we really have is the image he has carefully constructed and the obvious fact that he seems given to rash decisions and frightening outburst of anger. Just the kind of person we need in the presidency!
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
John McCain and the Keating Five Scandal
John McCain and the “Keating Five: Scandal
By Sherman DeBrosse
It is an odd coincidence that Joe the Plumber, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio, bears the last name of the son-in-law of Charles Keating, who was the central figure in the famous but largely forgotten Keating Five Scandal. Another key player was John Mc Cain. The Obama campaign produced a video onm the scandal but has pretty much left it alone. When it was mentioned, the mainstream media did not follow up by providing even sketchy details.
Banker Charles Keating, originally an Ohioan, also got into the business of befriending Arizona politicians. He gave a $55,000 campaign contribution to Bob Corbin, a former Marley employee, who ran unopposed for attorney general. He would supervise state-chartered banks. Keating got his start as a lawyer for Carl Lindner, who made great profits from the Vietnam War. One of the nation’s wealthiest men, Lindner owned 7 S &L that were to fail. By owning United Brands, he was in a position to reap profits from the government’s secret programs to fund and supply the Nicaraguan contras through Hondouras.
Keating purchased property for his office in Phoenix from a mob-connected attorney in 1980. He had a mansion in the Bahamas, where the same attorney family had a casino.
Prudential Insurance loaned him $2 million in 1985. He had numerous dealings with BCCI, which turned out to be the bank of crooks and criminals.
Keating had invested 17.5 million in TrendInvest without notifying his American Continental board. Walter Bush, cousin to the current president, was involved with Continental, which later collapsed. There were many other baffling investments. Some think he was laundering CIA money involved in its Latin American operations.
Keating had a business relationship with Hensley. Keating was good at buying political influence, and he had a ten year close relationship with John McCain, donating about $112,000 to McCain campaigns. Nine times, he paid to transport McCain’s family and babysitter to his place in the Bahamas, often on a private plane. In addition, he permitted Cindy and her father to buy into a lucrative shopping center in California. In return McCain helped him convince Ronald Reagan to deregulate the Savings and Loan industry and place a Keating friend on the board that regulated it. Deregulation was a green light for Keating to build the Phoenician, a resort, in partnership with the rulers of Kuwait. The federal government seized it in February, 1989. His bellmen were permitted to remove 24 cartons of documents.
When the Feds started investigating Keating, McCain organized the “Keating Five” senators to put pressure on the Federal Home Loan Bank board to back off. At one point McCain even demanded that the chairman of that board not participate in the investigation of Keating.
When Keating began to get into trouble and marketed $230,000,000 in bad bonds, he came up with a scheme to cover them with profits from a water scheme. He and a partner bought up a lot of water rights and then had the legislature pass a law requiring Phoenix to first buy as much water as Keating could sell before going to other vendors. They planned to pump about a million acre feet of water in a year. De Concini would also profit because he had purchased some water rights. Such a scheme could only take place in a state where the press looked the other way and the politicians were largely corrupt. The Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette were owned by the family of Dan Quayle.
The Arizona House of Representatives breezed the bill through in two days, but Jerry Gilespie held up things in the Senate. He found a way to stop it dead in its tracks, but he lost his seat in the next election. No wire service reported the story but it was covered by Phoenix Magazine in 1989. This doomed Keating.
As late as May, 1988, Keating thought he had won his battle against the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. On the 20th, he threw a big party because Senators Mc Cain and De Concini, with three others, had succeeded in having the investigation of his Lincoln Savings from San Francisco to Washington. In excitement, he removed his shirt to reveal a tee shirt with a skull and bones superimposed over the letters FHLBB. He had spent a million dollars buying politicians. It looked like he had won, but he was done in when the water scheme petered out.
Keating was eventually fined 3.6 billion and sent to prison. He has been called the father of the S &L crisis. McCain was investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee and was only told he exercised “poor judgment.” Almost as soon as he saw that he had a problem, he played the role of the repentant sinner and began to create the false reputation that he was an opponent of lobbyists and the improprieties seem to flow from their involvement in public life. To convince voters that he was a different sort of politician, he started calling for campaign finance reform. Mrs. McCain retained her profitable partnership with Keating.
By Sherman DeBrosse
It is an odd coincidence that Joe the Plumber, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio, bears the last name of the son-in-law of Charles Keating, who was the central figure in the famous but largely forgotten Keating Five Scandal. Another key player was John Mc Cain. The Obama campaign produced a video onm the scandal but has pretty much left it alone. When it was mentioned, the mainstream media did not follow up by providing even sketchy details.
Banker Charles Keating, originally an Ohioan, also got into the business of befriending Arizona politicians. He gave a $55,000 campaign contribution to Bob Corbin, a former Marley employee, who ran unopposed for attorney general. He would supervise state-chartered banks. Keating got his start as a lawyer for Carl Lindner, who made great profits from the Vietnam War. One of the nation’s wealthiest men, Lindner owned 7 S &L that were to fail. By owning United Brands, he was in a position to reap profits from the government’s secret programs to fund and supply the Nicaraguan contras through Hondouras.
Keating purchased property for his office in Phoenix from a mob-connected attorney in 1980. He had a mansion in the Bahamas, where the same attorney family had a casino.
Prudential Insurance loaned him $2 million in 1985. He had numerous dealings with BCCI, which turned out to be the bank of crooks and criminals.
Keating had invested 17.5 million in TrendInvest without notifying his American Continental board. Walter Bush, cousin to the current president, was involved with Continental, which later collapsed. There were many other baffling investments. Some think he was laundering CIA money involved in its Latin American operations.
Keating had a business relationship with Hensley. Keating was good at buying political influence, and he had a ten year close relationship with John McCain, donating about $112,000 to McCain campaigns. Nine times, he paid to transport McCain’s family and babysitter to his place in the Bahamas, often on a private plane. In addition, he permitted Cindy and her father to buy into a lucrative shopping center in California. In return McCain helped him convince Ronald Reagan to deregulate the Savings and Loan industry and place a Keating friend on the board that regulated it. Deregulation was a green light for Keating to build the Phoenician, a resort, in partnership with the rulers of Kuwait. The federal government seized it in February, 1989. His bellmen were permitted to remove 24 cartons of documents.
When the Feds started investigating Keating, McCain organized the “Keating Five” senators to put pressure on the Federal Home Loan Bank board to back off. At one point McCain even demanded that the chairman of that board not participate in the investigation of Keating.
When Keating began to get into trouble and marketed $230,000,000 in bad bonds, he came up with a scheme to cover them with profits from a water scheme. He and a partner bought up a lot of water rights and then had the legislature pass a law requiring Phoenix to first buy as much water as Keating could sell before going to other vendors. They planned to pump about a million acre feet of water in a year. De Concini would also profit because he had purchased some water rights. Such a scheme could only take place in a state where the press looked the other way and the politicians were largely corrupt. The Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette were owned by the family of Dan Quayle.
The Arizona House of Representatives breezed the bill through in two days, but Jerry Gilespie held up things in the Senate. He found a way to stop it dead in its tracks, but he lost his seat in the next election. No wire service reported the story but it was covered by Phoenix Magazine in 1989. This doomed Keating.
As late as May, 1988, Keating thought he had won his battle against the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. On the 20th, he threw a big party because Senators Mc Cain and De Concini, with three others, had succeeded in having the investigation of his Lincoln Savings from San Francisco to Washington. In excitement, he removed his shirt to reveal a tee shirt with a skull and bones superimposed over the letters FHLBB. He had spent a million dollars buying politicians. It looked like he had won, but he was done in when the water scheme petered out.
Keating was eventually fined 3.6 billion and sent to prison. He has been called the father of the S &L crisis. McCain was investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee and was only told he exercised “poor judgment.” Almost as soon as he saw that he had a problem, he played the role of the repentant sinner and began to create the false reputation that he was an opponent of lobbyists and the improprieties seem to flow from their involvement in public life. To convince voters that he was a different sort of politician, he started calling for campaign finance reform. Mrs. McCain retained her profitable partnership with Keating.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Agenda for an Honest Media
When Barack Obama was campaigning in the Toledo area, he met the now famous “Joe the Plumber” of Holland, Ohio. Joe said that he was about the buy his boss’s business and that it earns more than $250,000 a year. Joe was unhappy because he thought Obama’s tax plan would hurt him and slow his quest for the American dream.
The electronic media presented Joe as an uncommitted voter. We do not know if Joe presented himself as such. Joe has said that Social Security is a “joke,” and that Obama is a socialist. He volunteered that he admires Mc Cain and the military. He admitted that he was not earning a great deal, which calls his story into question.
We know now that he was not a licensed plumber and that he said he practiced plumbing on his employer’s license. The problem is that this is not legal in Lucas County, where he works.
Some suspect that Joe ( Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher) was a plant because people with his last name in Ohio and Florida are big Republican contributors. Some even hypothesize that he is related to the son-in-law of Charles Keating, as in John Mc Cain and the Keating Five scandal. This is unlikely, and it would take the resources of a news organization with integrity to find out if he was a McCain shill and/or connected to his namesake in the scandal.
There are other matters that an honest press should be exploring.
2. Today Senator Ted Stevens testified in his own defense regarding extensive construction work done on one of his houses by an important Alaska firm. It allegedly came to about $250,000. Some suggest that Sarah Palin benefitted in the same way when her $500,000 + mansion was built. Todd, the “First Dude,” admitted that some buddies helped him. It is suggested that they were a contractors’ laborers who were also working on her sports complex in Wasilla. This one is hard to research because Mayor Palin saw to it that there was very little paperwork necessary to build in the city.
3. The press spent many weeks airing material about Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright and the white priest who was a guest homilist at Obama’s church. We hear nothing about Sarah’s pastors even though it is very likely that they oppose the separation of church and state and want to establish a theocracy. It is a matter or record that she thinks pastors should be able to endorse candidates without risking tax problems.
4. The press must raise questions about Mrs. Mc Cain’s tax returns. We know that she still profits from a deal with Keating. Is she profiting from a no-bid beer distribution contract in Iraq. Is her firm helping the campaign in any ways?
5. We could use an honest report on John McCain’s incestuous relationship with the communications industry, especially cable television.
The electronic media presented Joe as an uncommitted voter. We do not know if Joe presented himself as such. Joe has said that Social Security is a “joke,” and that Obama is a socialist. He volunteered that he admires Mc Cain and the military. He admitted that he was not earning a great deal, which calls his story into question.
We know now that he was not a licensed plumber and that he said he practiced plumbing on his employer’s license. The problem is that this is not legal in Lucas County, where he works.
Some suspect that Joe ( Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher) was a plant because people with his last name in Ohio and Florida are big Republican contributors. Some even hypothesize that he is related to the son-in-law of Charles Keating, as in John Mc Cain and the Keating Five scandal. This is unlikely, and it would take the resources of a news organization with integrity to find out if he was a McCain shill and/or connected to his namesake in the scandal.
There are other matters that an honest press should be exploring.
2. Today Senator Ted Stevens testified in his own defense regarding extensive construction work done on one of his houses by an important Alaska firm. It allegedly came to about $250,000. Some suggest that Sarah Palin benefitted in the same way when her $500,000 + mansion was built. Todd, the “First Dude,” admitted that some buddies helped him. It is suggested that they were a contractors’ laborers who were also working on her sports complex in Wasilla. This one is hard to research because Mayor Palin saw to it that there was very little paperwork necessary to build in the city.
3. The press spent many weeks airing material about Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright and the white priest who was a guest homilist at Obama’s church. We hear nothing about Sarah’s pastors even though it is very likely that they oppose the separation of church and state and want to establish a theocracy. It is a matter or record that she thinks pastors should be able to endorse candidates without risking tax problems.
4. The press must raise questions about Mrs. Mc Cain’s tax returns. We know that she still profits from a deal with Keating. Is she profiting from a no-bid beer distribution contract in Iraq. Is her firm helping the campaign in any ways?
5. We could use an honest report on John McCain’s incestuous relationship with the communications industry, especially cable television.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Mc Cain is Confused on Foreign Policy
McCain’s Confusions Must Be Addressed
The Osama campaign has gently pointed out that John McCain has been erratic on economic matters, lurching from one position to another ion no discernable pattersn. The latest lurch has been repudiating eight years of Bush economic policy, which he supported.
Equally bothersome is the fact that John McCain has made so many simple factual mistakes when discussion foreign policy, his claimed area of expertise.
John McCain was in Iraq, seemed confused, and Joseph Lieberman had to lean over and prompt him. Iraq is a complicated situation , so it was easy to misspeak, and we overlooked the matter. Now he is confused about what job General Petraeus has and is talking about the Iraq/Pakistan border. He has repeatedly said that Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq were trained in Iran; although, there is no evidence to prove this. Indeed, IaQaeda people are Sunni and would be uncomfortable in Shiite Iran. Moreover, McCain must not have known that Iran is still holding one of Osama’s eleven sons under house arrest.
The problem has become that Senator McCain misspeaks so often on this subject and
contradicts himself ( flip-flops ?) so frequently that it has become a troubling pattern. His pronouncements on the Iraq war are so frequently simplistic and uninformed that they call into serious questions his claims about foreign policy expertise.
Just before the invasion, he put on his military expert hat, and said, “I have no quams about our strategic plans.” It would be a quick victory and another glorious chapter in United States military history.
The”expert” Mc Cain now brags about criticizing and rejecting Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The fact is that it took McCain 18 months to reach that conclusion. All that time and beyond, he said George W. Bush was doing just fine. True, he did call for an increase in troop level all along.
He thought then and still believes that the Iraq War could be won if more troops on the ground increased the level of physical security. That seems to be his definition of “victory.” Even many with stars on their shoulders claim victory must be defined as a political settlement that brings peace and reconciliation between the different factions in Iraq. That has not come about, and McCain has never explained how he would accomplish this. Barack Obama has always defined victory in these terms; and he has set the standard for the defense of the surge in the same way. McCain does not seem to see any relationship between a good political settlement and victory. So maybe his criticisms of Barack Obama on the success of the surge are honest and not some cheap political slight of hand.
McCain also claims too much credit for the surge, itself—the introduction of more troops. Things have improved on the streets because David Petraeus started putting troops in the neighborhoods. He had long advocated this but had been restrained from doing so. In claiming too much for the surge, McCain slights Petraeus and indirectly claims too much credit for himself.
Maybe McSame reaches the conclusion that the Iraq insurgence and war will be imposed on the ground by military force because he sees this through the prism of a foreign policy fundamentalist—good v. evil. Simple as that—
For quite a while, he was warning that the Shiites could take over Iraq. He sang this odd song long after the Bush Administration had decided to ally with the pro-Iran Shiites. One wonders if he knew that Shiites and the Sunni Al Queda do not get along over significant period of time.
Of late, he sounds the alarm that Al Qaeda could take over. Al Qaeda was never more than a tiny presence there. We and some of the Sunni states in the region touted Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a powerful Al Qaeda leader, even though he did not get along with Osama bin Laden. Since the Jordanian intelligence killed Zarqawi, his small organization in Ramadi has collapsed and other wannabe Al Qaeda leaders cannot even be found there.
Still McCain droned on about Al Qaeda in Iraq and how Iraq is the center of the War on Terrorism. In an interview with Bill Bennett, he said of Al Qaeda, “These guys want to follow us home….It is not Iraq they are after, my friend. It is us.” His insistence that central role of Al Qaeda in Iraq suggests that he might still think that Iraq was somehow behind 9/11.
In February, he has again warned that the Al Qaeda could take over Iraq. Al Qaeda had only appealed to a tiny segment in the radical religious element among the Sunnis—
And now almost no one identifies himself as Al Qaeda. An aid, who must have understood a little more, tried to explain the claim by saying the Senator meant that Sunni extremists might create a small state there. Of course, the Shiites majority would destroy it and would even have the help of Jordan and the Kurds, neither of whom can brook Sunni religious extremists.
Lately, McCain has been claiming that the Surge made possible the Anbar Awakening—the decision of some sheiks to come over as US allies. The problem was that the Anbar Awakening occurred four months before the Surge began. McCain insisted to Katie Couric his position was an historical fact and CBS cut that segment rather than air footage that would embarrass McCain. That occurred the same day that his campaign distributed information that the media was overwhelmingly in support of Obama.
He has also bragged how the Surge has protected those sheiks even though their leader, Abddul Sattar Abu Riisha was murdered in September, 2007, during the Surge.
Months ago, 141 members of the Iraqi parliament voted that the US should establish a timeline for withdrawal. Now Prime Minister al-Maliki has all but endorsed Obama’s 16 month time frame, and the Bush administration might be moving closer to that position.
One wonders if Mc Cain can find a way to find a way to get in line with these new developments. Perhaps, not as he has been able to take positions that are completely inconsistent with the facts in Iraq. He may well get away with flip flopping, clinging to historical inaccuracies, and a policy that does not really define victory. Most people do not know much about Iraq and there is no evidence that the corporate media will call him on flip flopping or misinformation, There is widespread opposition to the war, but it is pretty thin. Current polling information suggests that McCain may not have to pay for Republican mistakes in Iraq so long as casualties there remain relatively low.
Barach Obama must to show that the Surge has only worked in a limited way and he must show that McCain’s many misstatements on Iraq are not mere gaffes. They show genuine confusion and—yes—almost profound ignorance. After all McCain’s trips to Iraq and attendance at Senate hearings, it seems to be a sad fact that he is either a prisoner of an outworn ideology, or worse, he has a very poor learning curve. We honor this hero for his service to this great republic, but it is too dangerous to reward him with the presidency.
The Osama campaign has gently pointed out that John McCain has been erratic on economic matters, lurching from one position to another ion no discernable pattersn. The latest lurch has been repudiating eight years of Bush economic policy, which he supported.
Equally bothersome is the fact that John McCain has made so many simple factual mistakes when discussion foreign policy, his claimed area of expertise.
John McCain was in Iraq, seemed confused, and Joseph Lieberman had to lean over and prompt him. Iraq is a complicated situation , so it was easy to misspeak, and we overlooked the matter. Now he is confused about what job General Petraeus has and is talking about the Iraq/Pakistan border. He has repeatedly said that Al Qaeda operatives in Iraq were trained in Iran; although, there is no evidence to prove this. Indeed, IaQaeda people are Sunni and would be uncomfortable in Shiite Iran. Moreover, McCain must not have known that Iran is still holding one of Osama’s eleven sons under house arrest.
The problem has become that Senator McCain misspeaks so often on this subject and
contradicts himself ( flip-flops ?) so frequently that it has become a troubling pattern. His pronouncements on the Iraq war are so frequently simplistic and uninformed that they call into serious questions his claims about foreign policy expertise.
Just before the invasion, he put on his military expert hat, and said, “I have no quams about our strategic plans.” It would be a quick victory and another glorious chapter in United States military history.
The”expert” Mc Cain now brags about criticizing and rejecting Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. The fact is that it took McCain 18 months to reach that conclusion. All that time and beyond, he said George W. Bush was doing just fine. True, he did call for an increase in troop level all along.
He thought then and still believes that the Iraq War could be won if more troops on the ground increased the level of physical security. That seems to be his definition of “victory.” Even many with stars on their shoulders claim victory must be defined as a political settlement that brings peace and reconciliation between the different factions in Iraq. That has not come about, and McCain has never explained how he would accomplish this. Barack Obama has always defined victory in these terms; and he has set the standard for the defense of the surge in the same way. McCain does not seem to see any relationship between a good political settlement and victory. So maybe his criticisms of Barack Obama on the success of the surge are honest and not some cheap political slight of hand.
McCain also claims too much credit for the surge, itself—the introduction of more troops. Things have improved on the streets because David Petraeus started putting troops in the neighborhoods. He had long advocated this but had been restrained from doing so. In claiming too much for the surge, McCain slights Petraeus and indirectly claims too much credit for himself.
Maybe McSame reaches the conclusion that the Iraq insurgence and war will be imposed on the ground by military force because he sees this through the prism of a foreign policy fundamentalist—good v. evil. Simple as that—
For quite a while, he was warning that the Shiites could take over Iraq. He sang this odd song long after the Bush Administration had decided to ally with the pro-Iran Shiites. One wonders if he knew that Shiites and the Sunni Al Queda do not get along over significant period of time.
Of late, he sounds the alarm that Al Qaeda could take over. Al Qaeda was never more than a tiny presence there. We and some of the Sunni states in the region touted Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as a powerful Al Qaeda leader, even though he did not get along with Osama bin Laden. Since the Jordanian intelligence killed Zarqawi, his small organization in Ramadi has collapsed and other wannabe Al Qaeda leaders cannot even be found there.
Still McCain droned on about Al Qaeda in Iraq and how Iraq is the center of the War on Terrorism. In an interview with Bill Bennett, he said of Al Qaeda, “These guys want to follow us home….It is not Iraq they are after, my friend. It is us.” His insistence that central role of Al Qaeda in Iraq suggests that he might still think that Iraq was somehow behind 9/11.
In February, he has again warned that the Al Qaeda could take over Iraq. Al Qaeda had only appealed to a tiny segment in the radical religious element among the Sunnis—
And now almost no one identifies himself as Al Qaeda. An aid, who must have understood a little more, tried to explain the claim by saying the Senator meant that Sunni extremists might create a small state there. Of course, the Shiites majority would destroy it and would even have the help of Jordan and the Kurds, neither of whom can brook Sunni religious extremists.
Lately, McCain has been claiming that the Surge made possible the Anbar Awakening—the decision of some sheiks to come over as US allies. The problem was that the Anbar Awakening occurred four months before the Surge began. McCain insisted to Katie Couric his position was an historical fact and CBS cut that segment rather than air footage that would embarrass McCain. That occurred the same day that his campaign distributed information that the media was overwhelmingly in support of Obama.
He has also bragged how the Surge has protected those sheiks even though their leader, Abddul Sattar Abu Riisha was murdered in September, 2007, during the Surge.
Months ago, 141 members of the Iraqi parliament voted that the US should establish a timeline for withdrawal. Now Prime Minister al-Maliki has all but endorsed Obama’s 16 month time frame, and the Bush administration might be moving closer to that position.
One wonders if Mc Cain can find a way to find a way to get in line with these new developments. Perhaps, not as he has been able to take positions that are completely inconsistent with the facts in Iraq. He may well get away with flip flopping, clinging to historical inaccuracies, and a policy that does not really define victory. Most people do not know much about Iraq and there is no evidence that the corporate media will call him on flip flopping or misinformation, There is widespread opposition to the war, but it is pretty thin. Current polling information suggests that McCain may not have to pay for Republican mistakes in Iraq so long as casualties there remain relatively low.
Barach Obama must to show that the Surge has only worked in a limited way and he must show that McCain’s many misstatements on Iraq are not mere gaffes. They show genuine confusion and—yes—almost profound ignorance. After all McCain’s trips to Iraq and attendance at Senate hearings, it seems to be a sad fact that he is either a prisoner of an outworn ideology, or worse, he has a very poor learning curve. We honor this hero for his service to this great republic, but it is too dangerous to reward him with the presidency.
Monday, October 13, 2008
Palin: A Likely Extremist Who Abuses Power
Sarah Palin has said that she would not let her religious views " bleed over into politics," but she has done just that. Many have seen the video of Governor Sarah Palin addressing a graduation class of young missionaries. She had every right to do that. The problem was she charged the trip, plane fare and per diem, to the state. That speech cost the taxpayers of Alaska $639.50.
So far, she and her family have spent about $13,000 in state funds attending religious events, including a meeting with Reverend Franklin Graham. Some of these events included other stops, so to be fair we can trim that figure to $3022, which applies entirely to religious events. Even the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty has raised questions.
When she was mayor, she used the prestige of her office to join a hospital board to see that abortions were not performed there. Lloyd Eggan, an Anchorage advocate of the separation of church and state, worries that her Alaska Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives had not done enough to see that its funds do not pay for ministry.
Palin has ties with three churches that are clearly part of the Dominionist New Apostolic Reformation. As Dominionists, these people are completely opposed to the separation of church and state. In 2006, Palin said that the tax code provision preventing ministers from endorsing candidates should be repealed.
Dominionists also look forward to the day when the United States will be a theocratic state. They also do not have a favorable view of other religions, particularly Roman Catholicism. Yet, the Palin administration did spend $20,000 of its $500,000 budget helping a Catholic charity.
Sarah Palin was never a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, but she had close ties to it, attending some of its conventions and winning its support in 2006.The Alaska Independence Party has close ties with neo-Confederate and white supremacy groups in the lower 48 states.
Her husband ,Todd, was a member from 1995 to 2002. As we know, he has great influence with her and played a major role in Troopergate. When Max Blumenthal and David Neiwart visited Wasilla, they wee told that "Sarah Palin is far more intimately associated with the extreme right-wing fringe of Alaska than the media has acknowledged or that she is willing to acknowledge." Palin used Alaska Independence Chairman Mark Chryson and John Birch Society actrivist Steve Stoll , whom locals "Black Helicopter" to launch her local and state political careers. She attempted to reward Stoll by appointing him to her old council seat, but another council member blocked the move, fearing that Stoll would be a "violent influence."
In her first campaign for mayor, these men steered an ugly campaign of character assasination against the incumbent. Sounds familiar?
This woman has extremist connections, and probably extremist beliefs. Combine those with a tendency to abuse power, and we have a recipe for disaster.
So far, she and her family have spent about $13,000 in state funds attending religious events, including a meeting with Reverend Franklin Graham. Some of these events included other stops, so to be fair we can trim that figure to $3022, which applies entirely to religious events. Even the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty has raised questions.
When she was mayor, she used the prestige of her office to join a hospital board to see that abortions were not performed there. Lloyd Eggan, an Anchorage advocate of the separation of church and state, worries that her Alaska Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives had not done enough to see that its funds do not pay for ministry.
Palin has ties with three churches that are clearly part of the Dominionist New Apostolic Reformation. As Dominionists, these people are completely opposed to the separation of church and state. In 2006, Palin said that the tax code provision preventing ministers from endorsing candidates should be repealed.
Dominionists also look forward to the day when the United States will be a theocratic state. They also do not have a favorable view of other religions, particularly Roman Catholicism. Yet, the Palin administration did spend $20,000 of its $500,000 budget helping a Catholic charity.
Sarah Palin was never a member of the secessionist Alaska Independence Party, but she had close ties to it, attending some of its conventions and winning its support in 2006.The Alaska Independence Party has close ties with neo-Confederate and white supremacy groups in the lower 48 states.
Her husband ,Todd, was a member from 1995 to 2002. As we know, he has great influence with her and played a major role in Troopergate. When Max Blumenthal and David Neiwart visited Wasilla, they wee told that "Sarah Palin is far more intimately associated with the extreme right-wing fringe of Alaska than the media has acknowledged or that she is willing to acknowledge." Palin used Alaska Independence Chairman Mark Chryson and John Birch Society actrivist Steve Stoll , whom locals "Black Helicopter" to launch her local and state political careers. She attempted to reward Stoll by appointing him to her old council seat, but another council member blocked the move, fearing that Stoll would be a "violent influence."
In her first campaign for mayor, these men steered an ugly campaign of character assasination against the incumbent. Sounds familiar?
This woman has extremist connections, and probably extremist beliefs. Combine those with a tendency to abuse power, and we have a recipe for disaster.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Washington Post censored me-- by william fosdick
I tried top praise Kathleenm Parkers's comumn on calling off pit bull pailyn. I somehow lost the exact message because I copied this web address over the content I had copied.
Essentially I gave the details of Paily's Clearwater appearance that resulted in "Kill him, kill him" chant and her arousing people to verbally abuse the press with one telling an African American soundman to yell Sit Down, Boy."
I thought her coded remarks were to put down Obama as a black and thqat she wanted something like a lynch mob atmpsphere. Then I connected all this to the code in her remarks about Dr. Jeremiah Wright and community organizers.
From there I diiscussed the relationship of right-wing populism to racism.
I praised the major media for puzzling ov er Palin's repeated lies about entitlements and the Bridge to Nowhere, and then suggested it look into other lies:
1. She wrongly said she did not use religion in the first race for mayor
2. She promised employees they could keep jobs then fired a number of them
3. She wanted to censor the library and then denied that was the case.
4. Her many shifts on Troopergate suggests she could be bending the truth
Then I suggested the press look into her cozy relationship with the Alaska Independence Party. She was not a member but there is a photo of her reading one of their documents and evidence of other ties are ample. These people are secessionists and tied to all sorts of unsavory elements in the lower 48.
She has brought up Rev. Wright. We need to know more about her religion. Three of her churches are clearly Domionist, being connected to the New Apostolic Reformation. They oppose the separation of church and state and work for a theocracy in America. They are also fiercely Anti-Catholic.
Would her belief in the nearness of End Times lead her to do anything to promote conflict in the Middle East?
So far the press has given her a pass on most of this. I fear she grew up in a very closed, cramped environment that encourages all sorts of prejudices and ignorance.
I keep thinking about the Keynan witchhunder praying over her. These people believe demons power individuals, states, and some churches. Would our religious liberty erode under her.
Bill
Essentially I gave the details of Paily's Clearwater appearance that resulted in "Kill him, kill him" chant and her arousing people to verbally abuse the press with one telling an African American soundman to yell Sit Down, Boy."
I thought her coded remarks were to put down Obama as a black and thqat she wanted something like a lynch mob atmpsphere. Then I connected all this to the code in her remarks about Dr. Jeremiah Wright and community organizers.
From there I diiscussed the relationship of right-wing populism to racism.
I praised the major media for puzzling ov er Palin's repeated lies about entitlements and the Bridge to Nowhere, and then suggested it look into other lies:
1. She wrongly said she did not use religion in the first race for mayor
2. She promised employees they could keep jobs then fired a number of them
3. She wanted to censor the library and then denied that was the case.
4. Her many shifts on Troopergate suggests she could be bending the truth
Then I suggested the press look into her cozy relationship with the Alaska Independence Party. She was not a member but there is a photo of her reading one of their documents and evidence of other ties are ample. These people are secessionists and tied to all sorts of unsavory elements in the lower 48.
She has brought up Rev. Wright. We need to know more about her religion. Three of her churches are clearly Domionist, being connected to the New Apostolic Reformation. They oppose the separation of church and state and work for a theocracy in America. They are also fiercely Anti-Catholic.
Would her belief in the nearness of End Times lead her to do anything to promote conflict in the Middle East?
So far the press has given her a pass on most of this. I fear she grew up in a very closed, cramped environment that encourages all sorts of prejudices and ignorance.
I keep thinking about the Keynan witchhunder praying over her. These people believe demons power individuals, states, and some churches. Would our religious liberty erode under her.
Bill
Mc Cain, "The Keating Five," and Lobbyists
John McCain's life is anything but the "open book" he claims it is. Central to his political life was his deep involvement in the "Keating Five Scandal."
The story begins with colorful information on the role of organized crime in Arizona and Mc Cain’s ties to it. Kemper Marley was the big man in Arizona at the time. He was the protégé of Sam Bronfman, a close friend of Al Capone and Meyer Lansky, who visited Arizona in his company. He was also very close to Gus Greenbaum, a Lansky aide and Phoenix gambler.
Greenbaum and his wife were slain in 1948, setting off a mob war that Marley won. Marley became the state’s only billionaire. In 1948, Marley escaped prison while 52 of his prisoners went were incarcerated including henchman Gene Hensley, who would become John McCain’s father-in-law. He was general manager of Marley’s United Liquor. Hensley’s brother was a bootlegger and was also convicted. The court said Hensley must never get into the liquor business again, but when he got out he received a big Budweiser distributorship. Hensley also made money in dog racing, but sold his track to the Jacobs family of Buffalo. They were also linked to the Bronfman booze empire of Canada and the Lansky interests.
Marley headed the Valley National Bank, which lent Meyer Lansky’s man, Bugsy Seagal, the money to build the Flamingo casino . Seagel was killed for stealing from his bosses, and his nationwide gambling wire was turned over to Marley.
Marley ( d. 1990) was very generous with the Republican party and also controlled the Arizona Democrats. Many in major office there owed their jobs to him. Marley’s men included Dennis De Concini, a Democrat, and John McCain
Arizona Republic investigative reporter Don Bolles was killed in a 1976 car bombing. He had investigated crooked land deals that were tied to many of the rich and powerful and had also looked into Marley’s service on state commissions. This led to a 36 member team of investigative reporters coming to Arizona. It produced investigative team coming to Arizona. It produced The Arizona Project: How a Team of Investigative Reporters Got Revenge on Deadline. They believed but could not prove that the Marley gang was behind the murder of Bolles. But they produced a great deal of information on the mob in Arizona.
Astonishingly Bolles lived for eleven days after the explosion and said: “They finally got me. The Mafia. Emprise. Find John (Harvey) Adamson." There was no effort to find out who hired the man who gave Adamson contract. Anderson he was convicted of the car bombing said the Marley gang also wanted Attorney General Bruce Babbitt killed because he wanted anti-trust action against them.
John McCain married mob heiress Cindy Hensley. From the time of his arrival in Phoenix in 1979, the Hensley family sponsored his political career. He received a $50,000 a year salary in 1982 to tour the state as a PR man for the family beer Budweiser distributor firm, but of course he was beginning a Congressional campaign. Anheuser-Bush lobbyist Richard Scheffel said that Hensley used McCain as a channel to move money to politicians.
McCain does not seem to have done anything for the mob, but he must know it was that money that fuelled his career. Must also have met some mob people In 1995, sent “Happy Birthday” wishes to Joseph Bonasno, the head of the New York Bonano mob who had retired in Arizona. From the time of his arrival in Phoenix in 1979, the Hensley family sponsored his political career. McCain recused himself on voting on alcohol matters, but as a committee chairman he used his power to their advantage by not scheduling hearings. In 1997, important hearings that were scheduled never occurred. In 1996, he pushed to normalize relations with Vietnam just as Budweiser was preparing to enter that market.
. Banker Charles Keating also got into the business of befriending Arizona politicians. He gave a $55,000 campaign contribution to Bob Corbin, a former Marley employee, who ran unopposed for attorney general. He would supervise state-chartered banks. Keating got his start as a lawyer for Carl Lindner, who made great profits from the Vietnam War. One of the nation’s wealthiest men, Lindner owned 7 S &L that were to fail. By owning United Brands, he was in a position to reap profits from the government’s secret programs to fund and supply the Nicaraguan contras through Hondouras.
Keating purchased property for his office in Phoenix from a mob-connected attorney in 1980. He had a mansion in the Bahamas, where the same attorney family had a casino.
Prudential Insurance loaned him $2 million in 1985. He had numerous dealings with BCCI, which turned out to be the bank of crooks and criminals.
Keating had invested 17.5 million in TrendInvest without notifying his American Conmtinental board. Walter Bush, cousin to the current president, was involved with Continental, which later collapsed. There were many other baffling investments. Some think he was laundering CIA money involved in its Latin American operations.
Keating had a business relationship with Hensley. Keating was good at buying political influence, and he had a ten year close relationship with John McCain, donating about $112,000 to McCain campaigns. Nine times, he paid to transport McCain’s family and babysitter to his place in the Bahamas, often on a private plane. In addition, he permitted Cindy and her father to buy into a lucrative shopping center in California. In return McCain helped him convince Ronald Reagan to deregulate the Savings and Loan industry and place a Keating friend on the board that regulated it. Deregulation was a green light for Keating to build the Phoenician, a resort, in partnership with the rulers of Kuwait. The federal government seized it in February, 1989. His bellmen were permitted to remove 24 cartons of documents.
When the Feds started investigating Keating, McCain organized the “Keating Five” senators to put pressure on the Federal Home Loan Bank board to back off. At one point McCain even demanded that the chairman of that board not participate in the investigation of Keating.
When Keating began to get into trouble and marketed $230,000,000 in bad bonds, he came up with a scheme to cover them with profits from a water scheme. He and a partner bought up a lot of water rights and then had the legislature pass a law requiring Phoenix to first buy as much water as Keating could sell before going to other vendors. They planned to pump about a million acre feet of water in a year. De Concini would also profit because he had purchased some water rights. Such a scheme could only take place in a state where the press looked the other way and the politicians were largely corrupt. The Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette were owned by the family of Dan Quayle.
The Arizona House of Representatives breezed the bill through in two days, but Jerry Gilespie held up things in the Senate. He found a way to stop it dead in its tracks, but he lost his seat in the next election. No wire service reported the story but it was covered by Phoenix Magazine in 1989. This doomed Keating.
As late as May, 1988, Keating thought he had won his battle against the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. On the 20th, he threw a big party because Senators Mc Cain and De Concini, with three others, had succeeded in having the investigation of his Lincoln Savings from San Francisco to Washington. In excitement, he removed his shirt to reveal a tee shirt with a skull and bones superimposed over the letters FHLBB. He had spent a million dollars buying politicians. It looked like he had won, but he was done in when the water scheme petered out.
Keating was eventually fined 3.6 billion and sent to prison. He has been called the father of the S &L crisis. McCain was investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee and was only told he exercised “poor judgment.” Almost as soon as he saw that he had a problem, he played the role of the repentant sinner and began to create the false reputation that he was an opponent of lobbyists and the improprieties seem to flow from their involvement in public life. To convince voters that he was a different sort of politician, he started calling for campaign finance reform.
McCain went on to gin up a reputation for integrity, but, in fact, he continued to run errands for contributors. Recently, McCain denied ever meeting Lowell “Bud” Paxson, even though there was a 2002 court deposition proving they had met. This is important because in 1999, MC Cain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, pressed the FCC hard to let Paxson Communications purchase a Pittsburgh television station. The FC claimed McCain’s request seemed like a threat and believed he had crossed the line separating propriety and impropriety. The firm had donated $20,000 to McCain. The firm had provided McCain transportation on a company jet on several occasions. Very briefly, the press raised questions about his relationship with a pretty young Paxson lobbyist who was often in his company in 2000. No solid evidence of a sexual relationship was found, so the press decided not to look into the rest of the story. The fact that McCain is clearly the darling of the press could have something to do with the drying up of the entire story.
When confronted with information about his conduct in the Paxson case, McCain said he was just prodding bureaucrats and then produced documents to show he had done the same thing in other cases involving large contributors. What chutzpah!
In 1999, McCain staff twice intervened to help wealthy contributor and close personal friend Donald Diamond obtain land from closed Army base Fort Ord in California. That deal allowed him to turn a $20 million profit, and another arrangement in 2005, again with McCain help, promises to be more profitable. This involves as many as 12,000 homes and benefits more than one McCain backer. Two former McCain staffers were hired as lobbyists in this complex deal to get him aboard. Twice in the 1990s, McCain introduced land legislation to help Diamond, and a third measure is now before the Senate.
In 2001, questions were raised about legislation he backed for the cruise industry and the large contributions it gave him. There are also questions about his close ties to the cable TV industry.
Recently, it was learned that John McCain had more lobbyists working for his 2008 campaign than any other presidential candidate. Even after 6 were forced to leave due to their ties to unsavory regimes, there are 59 who do nothing but raise money. One of them is Ralph Reed, who was shown to be taking advantage of Native American clients in hearings McCain chaired! Over time, 133 lobbyists have worked for the Straight talk Express.
Others do other things in the campaign. Rick Davis is campaign manager, and Charlie Black is senior political advisor. Among Black’s clients were AT%T, Rupert Murdock, and Blackwater. Twenty-one McCain people also represented AT&T. Black had also been paid to sheppard around Ahmed Chalabi, whose distortions helped get the US to invade Iraq. Could this be connected to McCain’s view that American troops must soldier on there, possibly indefinitely.
Two lobbyists were closely tied to the mortgage industry, which could explain why McCain has been so very friendly to the same industry. Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s foreign policy analyst, has represented the Republic of Georgia, and spoke on McCain’s behalf on this issue as recently as August 17. This could explain why McCain is so hawkish about the Russo-Georgian struggle. He speaks as though he is already president, keeping force and all other options on the table.
None of this information is to suggest Mc Cain is a crook. He is obviously very closely tied to the lobbyists and special interests that he frequently complains about. He cannot claim no links to the mob. There is no doubt that he has a history of going to bat for them—sometimes appearing to go to far. He has repeatedly promised to never doing anything that gives the appearance of impropriety, but his track record is just the opposite of this.
He probably is not a crook, and Mc Cain deserves great praise for his service in the Vietnam War. But he is only mortal and has a bad track record for consistency and truth telling, despite all his self-praise about honesty.
The story begins with colorful information on the role of organized crime in Arizona and Mc Cain’s ties to it. Kemper Marley was the big man in Arizona at the time. He was the protégé of Sam Bronfman, a close friend of Al Capone and Meyer Lansky, who visited Arizona in his company. He was also very close to Gus Greenbaum, a Lansky aide and Phoenix gambler.
Greenbaum and his wife were slain in 1948, setting off a mob war that Marley won. Marley became the state’s only billionaire. In 1948, Marley escaped prison while 52 of his prisoners went were incarcerated including henchman Gene Hensley, who would become John McCain’s father-in-law. He was general manager of Marley’s United Liquor. Hensley’s brother was a bootlegger and was also convicted. The court said Hensley must never get into the liquor business again, but when he got out he received a big Budweiser distributorship. Hensley also made money in dog racing, but sold his track to the Jacobs family of Buffalo. They were also linked to the Bronfman booze empire of Canada and the Lansky interests.
Marley headed the Valley National Bank, which lent Meyer Lansky’s man, Bugsy Seagal, the money to build the Flamingo casino . Seagel was killed for stealing from his bosses, and his nationwide gambling wire was turned over to Marley.
Marley ( d. 1990) was very generous with the Republican party and also controlled the Arizona Democrats. Many in major office there owed their jobs to him. Marley’s men included Dennis De Concini, a Democrat, and John McCain
Arizona Republic investigative reporter Don Bolles was killed in a 1976 car bombing. He had investigated crooked land deals that were tied to many of the rich and powerful and had also looked into Marley’s service on state commissions. This led to a 36 member team of investigative reporters coming to Arizona. It produced investigative team coming to Arizona. It produced The Arizona Project: How a Team of Investigative Reporters Got Revenge on Deadline. They believed but could not prove that the Marley gang was behind the murder of Bolles. But they produced a great deal of information on the mob in Arizona.
Astonishingly Bolles lived for eleven days after the explosion and said: “They finally got me. The Mafia. Emprise. Find John (Harvey) Adamson." There was no effort to find out who hired the man who gave Adamson contract. Anderson he was convicted of the car bombing said the Marley gang also wanted Attorney General Bruce Babbitt killed because he wanted anti-trust action against them.
John McCain married mob heiress Cindy Hensley. From the time of his arrival in Phoenix in 1979, the Hensley family sponsored his political career. He received a $50,000 a year salary in 1982 to tour the state as a PR man for the family beer Budweiser distributor firm, but of course he was beginning a Congressional campaign. Anheuser-Bush lobbyist Richard Scheffel said that Hensley used McCain as a channel to move money to politicians.
McCain does not seem to have done anything for the mob, but he must know it was that money that fuelled his career. Must also have met some mob people In 1995, sent “Happy Birthday” wishes to Joseph Bonasno, the head of the New York Bonano mob who had retired in Arizona. From the time of his arrival in Phoenix in 1979, the Hensley family sponsored his political career. McCain recused himself on voting on alcohol matters, but as a committee chairman he used his power to their advantage by not scheduling hearings. In 1997, important hearings that were scheduled never occurred. In 1996, he pushed to normalize relations with Vietnam just as Budweiser was preparing to enter that market.
. Banker Charles Keating also got into the business of befriending Arizona politicians. He gave a $55,000 campaign contribution to Bob Corbin, a former Marley employee, who ran unopposed for attorney general. He would supervise state-chartered banks. Keating got his start as a lawyer for Carl Lindner, who made great profits from the Vietnam War. One of the nation’s wealthiest men, Lindner owned 7 S &L that were to fail. By owning United Brands, he was in a position to reap profits from the government’s secret programs to fund and supply the Nicaraguan contras through Hondouras.
Keating purchased property for his office in Phoenix from a mob-connected attorney in 1980. He had a mansion in the Bahamas, where the same attorney family had a casino.
Prudential Insurance loaned him $2 million in 1985. He had numerous dealings with BCCI, which turned out to be the bank of crooks and criminals.
Keating had invested 17.5 million in TrendInvest without notifying his American Conmtinental board. Walter Bush, cousin to the current president, was involved with Continental, which later collapsed. There were many other baffling investments. Some think he was laundering CIA money involved in its Latin American operations.
Keating had a business relationship with Hensley. Keating was good at buying political influence, and he had a ten year close relationship with John McCain, donating about $112,000 to McCain campaigns. Nine times, he paid to transport McCain’s family and babysitter to his place in the Bahamas, often on a private plane. In addition, he permitted Cindy and her father to buy into a lucrative shopping center in California. In return McCain helped him convince Ronald Reagan to deregulate the Savings and Loan industry and place a Keating friend on the board that regulated it. Deregulation was a green light for Keating to build the Phoenician, a resort, in partnership with the rulers of Kuwait. The federal government seized it in February, 1989. His bellmen were permitted to remove 24 cartons of documents.
When the Feds started investigating Keating, McCain organized the “Keating Five” senators to put pressure on the Federal Home Loan Bank board to back off. At one point McCain even demanded that the chairman of that board not participate in the investigation of Keating.
When Keating began to get into trouble and marketed $230,000,000 in bad bonds, he came up with a scheme to cover them with profits from a water scheme. He and a partner bought up a lot of water rights and then had the legislature pass a law requiring Phoenix to first buy as much water as Keating could sell before going to other vendors. They planned to pump about a million acre feet of water in a year. De Concini would also profit because he had purchased some water rights. Such a scheme could only take place in a state where the press looked the other way and the politicians were largely corrupt. The Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette were owned by the family of Dan Quayle.
The Arizona House of Representatives breezed the bill through in two days, but Jerry Gilespie held up things in the Senate. He found a way to stop it dead in its tracks, but he lost his seat in the next election. No wire service reported the story but it was covered by Phoenix Magazine in 1989. This doomed Keating.
As late as May, 1988, Keating thought he had won his battle against the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. On the 20th, he threw a big party because Senators Mc Cain and De Concini, with three others, had succeeded in having the investigation of his Lincoln Savings from San Francisco to Washington. In excitement, he removed his shirt to reveal a tee shirt with a skull and bones superimposed over the letters FHLBB. He had spent a million dollars buying politicians. It looked like he had won, but he was done in when the water scheme petered out.
Keating was eventually fined 3.6 billion and sent to prison. He has been called the father of the S &L crisis. McCain was investigated by the Senate Ethics Committee and was only told he exercised “poor judgment.” Almost as soon as he saw that he had a problem, he played the role of the repentant sinner and began to create the false reputation that he was an opponent of lobbyists and the improprieties seem to flow from their involvement in public life. To convince voters that he was a different sort of politician, he started calling for campaign finance reform.
McCain went on to gin up a reputation for integrity, but, in fact, he continued to run errands for contributors. Recently, McCain denied ever meeting Lowell “Bud” Paxson, even though there was a 2002 court deposition proving they had met. This is important because in 1999, MC Cain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, pressed the FCC hard to let Paxson Communications purchase a Pittsburgh television station. The FC claimed McCain’s request seemed like a threat and believed he had crossed the line separating propriety and impropriety. The firm had donated $20,000 to McCain. The firm had provided McCain transportation on a company jet on several occasions. Very briefly, the press raised questions about his relationship with a pretty young Paxson lobbyist who was often in his company in 2000. No solid evidence of a sexual relationship was found, so the press decided not to look into the rest of the story. The fact that McCain is clearly the darling of the press could have something to do with the drying up of the entire story.
When confronted with information about his conduct in the Paxson case, McCain said he was just prodding bureaucrats and then produced documents to show he had done the same thing in other cases involving large contributors. What chutzpah!
In 1999, McCain staff twice intervened to help wealthy contributor and close personal friend Donald Diamond obtain land from closed Army base Fort Ord in California. That deal allowed him to turn a $20 million profit, and another arrangement in 2005, again with McCain help, promises to be more profitable. This involves as many as 12,000 homes and benefits more than one McCain backer. Two former McCain staffers were hired as lobbyists in this complex deal to get him aboard. Twice in the 1990s, McCain introduced land legislation to help Diamond, and a third measure is now before the Senate.
In 2001, questions were raised about legislation he backed for the cruise industry and the large contributions it gave him. There are also questions about his close ties to the cable TV industry.
Recently, it was learned that John McCain had more lobbyists working for his 2008 campaign than any other presidential candidate. Even after 6 were forced to leave due to their ties to unsavory regimes, there are 59 who do nothing but raise money. One of them is Ralph Reed, who was shown to be taking advantage of Native American clients in hearings McCain chaired! Over time, 133 lobbyists have worked for the Straight talk Express.
Others do other things in the campaign. Rick Davis is campaign manager, and Charlie Black is senior political advisor. Among Black’s clients were AT%T, Rupert Murdock, and Blackwater. Twenty-one McCain people also represented AT&T. Black had also been paid to sheppard around Ahmed Chalabi, whose distortions helped get the US to invade Iraq. Could this be connected to McCain’s view that American troops must soldier on there, possibly indefinitely.
Two lobbyists were closely tied to the mortgage industry, which could explain why McCain has been so very friendly to the same industry. Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s foreign policy analyst, has represented the Republic of Georgia, and spoke on McCain’s behalf on this issue as recently as August 17. This could explain why McCain is so hawkish about the Russo-Georgian struggle. He speaks as though he is already president, keeping force and all other options on the table.
None of this information is to suggest Mc Cain is a crook. He is obviously very closely tied to the lobbyists and special interests that he frequently complains about. He cannot claim no links to the mob. There is no doubt that he has a history of going to bat for them—sometimes appearing to go to far. He has repeatedly promised to never doing anything that gives the appearance of impropriety, but his track record is just the opposite of this.
He probably is not a crook, and Mc Cain deserves great praise for his service in the Vietnam War. But he is only mortal and has a bad track record for consistency and truth telling, despite all his self-praise about honesty.
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