What was the Keating 5 all about and what was McCain's involvement?

In a nutshell, Charles Keating, head of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan (perhaps the largest of the 747 institutions to fail), took advantage of Reagan’s early 80’s deregulation to invest in very risky securities (which no bank should be caught dead doing, yet we are seeing history repeat itself). He gave $1.3M in contributions to 5 senators, including John McCain, and asked them to help him resist the requests of regulators when things started to go south. In 1991, the Senate ethics committe found that 3 of the Senators had improperly interfered with the Federal Home Loan Bank Board’s investigation, and that the other 2 (John McCain and John Glenn) had “used poor judgement.”

So, you tell me…is it valid to question the ethics and judgement of a Presidential candidate who is running on a platform of cleaning up Washington and Wall Street in the midst of a banking crisis and scandal, if that same Presidential candidate once used poor judgement in the midst of a Washington scandle involving a banking crisis and scandal on Wall Street?

Wow, I haven’t watched tv or anything in about a week… is this just coming up now in the news? how big of a deal are they making? it seems rather significant, even if it was a long time ago.

He did say he doesn’t understand the economy

McCain thereafter also helped to create legislation attempting to prevent this from happening again…..He acknowledged the impropriety long ago.

McCain-Feingold Act

Feingold is my sentor. He kicks ass. I would have LOVED for him to be VP.

He and McCain worked really hard on that bill.

I have no idea how to answer your first question because not only have I not heard about it, but I really don’t care. As for it being “valid to bring up in the middle of an election”...

Of course it’s valid, this is Fluther, the liberal support group. We have at least one loaded “question” every single day of the week regarding John McCain or Sarah Palin’s possible improprieties while Barack Obama’s name remains completely left out of the discussion as if he were an angel sent directly from heaven to rid us of the antiquated politics we’re so begrudgingly saddled with. Why in the hell wouldn’t this particular question be valid?

I am truly grateful none of the handful of McCain supporters on this site propose similar “questions” on a daily basis because it’s annoying enough to listen to one group who so brazenly wear their political blinders… and I don’t even consider myself a McCain supporter.

Is this really going to remain a daily ritual here for the next two months?

Camera—thinks that history does not matter. “so we are doomed to repeat it”. I am attacking her ideas not her personally, FYI.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Keating
Charles Humphrey Keating Jr. (born December 4, 1923 in Cincinnati, Ohio) is a retired American lawyer, politician, and banker – best known for his criminal involvement at the center of the savings and loan scandal of the late 1980s. As a result of his actions he is a convicted felon having been found guilty of fraud, racketeering, and conspiracy. His manipulation of five US senators (McCain was one of them) (to whom he had made substantial financial contributions) to argue for preferential treatment from regulators led to those politicians being dubbed the Keating Five in reference to him.

Keating and McCain were investment partners on a failed shopping plaza in Scottsdale AZ. The tax payers paid billions of dollars to bail out Keating and Neil Bush and the other crooks that benifited for Reagan’s deregulation of Banking. Now we will pay Trillions more.

So Camera says, “Why in the hell wouldn’t this particular question be valid?”

Maybe she may descend from on high, and answer her own question? How is someone’s record (McCain) not be valid in an election?

Wait, gotta go, Jesus is whispering to me…....

dale;
So the reason it has not been brought up until now is because he redeemed himself with the McCain Feingold bill? I really am not passing judgement on this as some have suggested, I am truly ignorant of what went down, and reference to it has been hinted on the news so I wanted to be sure I understood what had happened.

McCain is now against the McCain Feingold bill, and has been sued for violating the law that bears his name.

http://community.comcast.net/comcastportal/board/message?board.id=cityhall&thread.id=581039&page=1

I’ve heard about it before in this election cycle, I don’t think it’s just hitting now, I think it’s just taking on more gravity considering that history is now repeating itself 20 years later.

The reason I believe it is relevant is that it speaks to a pattern that McCain has of associating with lobbyists, special interests, and influence peddlers. That pattern has not changed. Many of his key advisers for the campaign are lobbyists. That implies that they will play a significant role and have access in a McCain administration.

@cameraobscura Just because you claim, a claim that I don’t see any supporting facts for, that most users of this site are Obama supporters, does not mean that questions posed are necessarily biased. There was a question on the site this week about a past scandal of Joe Biden’s.

All candidates’ records are subject to scrutiny in the election. McCain supporters have been slinging mud at Obama’s childhood school for goodness’ sake. Certainly, any senator’s senate career is relevant.

Yes Marina, I saw the question about Biden. You cannot honestly tell me you don’t see a huge disparity in the number of anti-McCain/Palin “questions” versus those aimed at Obama/Biden. The problem as I see it, is that these are not so much “questions” as they are updates and advertisements on democratic talking points.

Not to single out Judi because she’s not the main culprit, but I just googled “Keating 5” (with the “I’m feeling lucky” button no less) and had all the information I could ever ask for regarding this event placed in my lap.

It’s no different than junk mail, or the people who work the kiosks in your local mall who yell out questions about what kind of cell phone plan you’re on or what kind of soap you use or what kind of cheap sunglasses you should be wearing. Don’t advertise to me if I didn’t ask for it or I’m not getting something out of it.

…all the moveon.org ads I see on this site? Fine. I’ve got no problem with them. I know why they’re there. That’s the price I pay for my membership on this website. But when the members are constantly posting DNC updates, it’s annoying because it’s just personalized leftist spam.

Camera—So when I am angry because the financial industry has imploded, my past clients are literally (true, more than 3) killing them selves as a result of financial ruin, and when there are 10 foreclosures on my street, and I can’t afford the 1000 per month cobra health care bill, and the CEO of my company walks away with $500 Million when my 401k goes to zero, and I’m not paid $20k in commissions owed, and then the government bails out the company with tax payer $, having in 1999 Phil GRahm with the support of my senator, John McCain, and I point that out, is it “personalized leftist spam”?

Allen, I have no idea as to the specifics of your personal finances but based on the information given, no, I would not call that spam. I also would not call that a typical statement from you on this website.

Given your inability to effectively communicate your positions here, perhaps it would be in your best interest to do a little self-examination rather than dumping it all on other people.

I’ve noticed you’ve become far less abrasive since you were almost kicked off on Monday. That’s good. In light of this I’ll reserve further comments as to your personal disposition.

Also, the link you posted up above has no substance as far as I can tell, other than speculation from a couple of people in the community section of comcast.com (?).

“inability to effectively communicate your positions”—-from the person that posts links with no comments,...hmmmm.
Can someone pass me a grain of salt?

Camera, Allen, et al. I look at Fluther daily and find questions about politics, of all persuasions, quite compelling. It would be even more helpful if people could express information—even if it is biased—without getting personal and nasty. Please don’t let the dignified Fluther scene look like the YouTube comment arena, which most people have learned to ignore. On that note, I would point out that the RNCs repetitious critique is that DNC critiques are repetitious. So, since we are interested in informing one another, do we really need to repeat ourselves.

Oh, one more thing! Obama did not descend from anywhere. He worked hard to get where he is. Columbia, President of the Harvard Law Review, taught constitutional law for 12 years, state senate for 8 years, senate for four years. McCain: bottom of his class at the war college, nearly set a U.S. ship on fire after crashing a plane into it, and did what every self-respecting, patriot would do by following the standard code of conduct while imprisoned. He was a good soldier, true. But, every hard working American is a hero in my book.

Can we be done with this now?