Whad'Ya Know? Terrellita Maverick's Still Fighting for the Family's Good Name

Terrillata Maverick: A real Maverick still fights the good fight.
'Mother's interview was priceless! She was funny and quick on the uptake. She talked about the election, ancestral anecdotes, and backpacking around the world.'
By Fontaine Maverick / The Rag Blog / November 23, 2008

After weeks of a whirl of pre-election interviews surrounding my family's indignant "John McCain, You're No Maverick" campaign, a period of joy and relief ensued with the November 4 election of Barack Obama. We felt good about what we had accomplished, but I, for one, was glad that I could focus on the emotion that was the result of this marvelous, historical victory.

But there was one more; my 82 year old mother (Terrellita Maverick) told me that she was to be interviewed November 22 on "some NPR radio show" at Trinity University in San Antonio. Turns out, the show was Michael Feldman's "Whadda Ya Know", a very popular and venerable (they have been around for over 20 years) quiz show in the format of "Prairie Home Companion" with live audience interaction and musical guests. Those of you who live in parts of the country other than Austin may be familiar with it; we, unfortunately are not.

Anyway here's a little rundown of what was in store for me and my mom today:

I had a long day; up at dawn to get mother to the beautiful auditorium at Trinity U, got her backstage for her gig as interviewee on "Whadda Ya Know," and settle myself in the audience with an elderly friend of hers (a lovely woman named Jane). The show was beautifully produced -- very regional decor on the big stage -- fiesta taco booths and Big Rainbow Colored Papier Mache letters spelling out "NIOSA" (night in old San Antonio). A very fine jazz band opened the show.

Mother's interview (about 15 minutes long) was priceless! She was funny and quick on the uptake - best I have ever seen her. She talked about the election, ancestral anecdotes, and backpacking around the world in her late forties. You had to be there, but I was very proud of her. She was followed by Feldman's "quiz show" with an audience member, and a phone in guest, followed by a musical interlude with the Krayolas and Augie Myers, plus the West Side Horns. Then more audience interaction, and a great cooking demo with a local SA mexican chef (yes, you can do a cooking demo on the radio, you just have to talk about everything you are doing - and have fun).

Oh, and a 7 foot tall San Antonio Spur (I forget his name) was another guest. Cute guy!

Looks like you can get a podcast after Monday the 24th on the notmuch.com website -- check it out -- it's a hoot.

[The Texas Maverick clan -- a venerable pack of political progressives and iconoclasts who inspired the popular usage of the term "maverick" -- spoke out during the 2008 campaign about the theft of the family's good name by John McCain and his (not so) trusty sidekick Sarah.]

More from The Rag Blog on the Maverick family of Texas:

* Hey John : You're No Maverick. And We Can Prove it! / Brave New World Video / The Rag Blog / Oct. 29, 2008

* Austin's Fontaine Maverick Tells CNN Why McCain and Palin are no Mavericks / Video / The Rag Blog / Oct. 9, 2008

* McCain a Faux Maverick : Stealing a Texas Tradition by Paul in Austin / The Rag Blog / Sept. 13, 2008

* Fontaine Maverick : John McCain is no Maverick! by Fontaine Maverick / The Rag Blog / August 31, 2008

And * This Maverick The Real Deal by Joe Holley / The Rag Blog / March 1, 2008

Also see Public radio host did his S.A. homework by Amy Dorsett / San Antonio Express-News / Nov. 23, 2008

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Would John McCain Re-establish the Draft?

The Coming McCain Military Draft
By Juan Cole / November 3, 2008

There has been almost no discussion in the press about the broader implications of John McCain's military policies.

McCain wants to keep a large military contingent in Iraq for some years to come.

He agrees that more US troops should be sent to Afghanistan. (Obama wants more troops for Afghanistan but will draw down the ones in Iraq so that is a wash).

McCain has joked about bombing Iran, accuses Iran of sending insurgents into Iraq, and pledges to stop Iran's nuclear research program. McCain has said, "There is only one thing worse than a military solution, and that, my friends, is a nuclear-armed Iran."

McCain has all but pledged a war on Iran. (In contrast, Obama says he will conduct direct tough diplomacy with Tehran).

McCain is also a hawk on Georgia in the Caucasus and if he is to remain credible he'd have to increase US troop presence in the Greater Middle East.

Although US military re-enlistments in the ten combat divisions have not fallen in the way some observers had feared, that statistic only speaks to the ability of the US military to maintain the status quo. Even that ability is in long-term question, as African-American enlistments, traditionally a significant proportion, slip.

But McCain is not about the military status quo. He is ambitious for further conflicts. The current US military is too small to handle yet another front, and to maintain, as McCain insists they must, the current ones.

My friends, there is only one way for McCain to make good on his hawkish foreign policy and his virtual pledge of more wars.

McCain will need to institute a draft for young American men (and, given the times, maybe for women as well).

McCain has been frank about this issue (see youtube):



The argument that Congress would have to approve the draft does not reckon with the executive's power in modern practice to begin military conflicts that then dragoon the legislature into funding and supporting them (look at the Pelosi Congress, which wanted out of Iraq as of Jan. 2007 but was blocked by the Republican plurality in the Senate). Bush discussed with Blair getting up a phony provocation that looked like it was coming from Iraq, as a way of getting into a war. The executive, with its legion of black ops units, can always get up a Gulf of Tonkin incident and stampede the the legislature into emergency measures. It could even start with a "temporary" draft, analogous to the "temporary" Bush tax cuts for the billionaires, which McCain now insists must be permanent.

As for the argument that the USG can't afford a draft, uh, I've got news for the civilians who say this. They don't pay draftees anything to speak of, and they have plenty of cots and plenty of barracks and old blankets. If it happens, you'll see what a good deal it is for the USG, especially compared to the $200,000 a year they pay the mercs.

If you are in your late teens and early twenties, or if you are a parent of a person that age, and you have strong views on a renewed draft, it should come into your decision about whether to vote on Tuesday and for whom.

Source / Informed Comment

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The John McCain Mysteries : POW Questions and the Forrestal Affair

Sen. John McCain warmly greeted Vietnam Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet during a 1992 visit to Hanoi.
Flyboy McCain: Unanswered Questions
By Sherman De Brosse / The Rag Blog / November 2, 2008

This is the sixth and final installment in a series by Rag Blog contributor Sherman De Brosse, a retired history professor, on John McCain, his shady involvements, past and present, and his wrong-headed and ill-informed political positions.

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 to prevent the friends and families of Vietnam War MIAs from learning 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 Communist 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 was 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 that had all sorts of Catch 22 mechanisms to get in the way of 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. McCain 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. They included Jane Duke Gaylor, a woman in a wheelchair who was 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 a nonredacted copy of McCain’s post-Hanoi debriefing and the Pentagon refuses to release copies of his confessions. It is an unpleasant subject amd 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 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 went off to Saigon for R&R.

The official story simply does not mention McCain or his plane, number 416. 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’s 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 need 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 notes, 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!

Also see the following opinion piece on the Forrestal incident: Flyboy McCain : Hero or Fraud? by Thomas Cleaver / The Rag Blog / Reposted with extensive discussion on Sept. 5, 2008.

And see other Rag Blog articles by Sherman DeBrosse on John McCain and Sarah Palin.

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Hey John : You're No Maverick. And We Can Prove it!

Who's the Original Maverick?

With this video from Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films, the saga of rustler John McCain -- the faux maverick -- and his skulduggery continues as we reexamine the Texas family that forged the Maverick brand.

Featuring The Rag Blog's Fontaine Maverick, Maury Maverick, Terrellita Maverick and Sam Houston Clinton.

More from The Rag Blog on the Maverick family of Texas:

* Austin's Fontaine Maverick Tells CNN Why McCain and Palin are no Mavericks / Video / The Rag Blog / Oct. 9, 2008

* McCain a Faux Maverick : Stealing a Texas Tradition by Paul in Austin / The Rag Blog / Sept. 13, 2008

* Fontaine Maverick : John McCain is no Maverick! by Fontaine Maverick / The Rag Blog / August 31, 2008

And * This Maverick The Real Deal by Joe Holley / The Rag Blog / March 1, 2008

Thanks to Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog

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Lobbyists : The Boys on McCain's Bus

'A gang of lobbyist-insiders -- at odds with his supposed devotion to maverick change -- runs McCain’s Washington-based campaign.'
By Sherman De Brosse / The Rag Blog / October 28, 2008

This is the fifth in a series by Rag Blog contributor Sherman De Brosse, a retired history professor, on John McCain, his shady involvements, past and present, and his wrong-headed and ill-informed political positions.

Trying to rehabilitate his reputation after the “Keating Five” Scandal, John McCain assiduously projected an image of integrity and a myth of greatness. 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, McCain, then chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, pressed the FCC hard to let Paxson Communications purchase a Pittsburgh television station. The FCC 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, Vicki Iseman, who was often in his company in 2000. The head of the New York Times Washington bureau stood behind the story and said it was based on a lot of hard work and “multiple sources.” When the story about a possible fling came out, McCain acted strangely, avoiding reporters and some thought inadvertently playing the role of the guilty man. He and his campaign issued contradictory statements -- a few marked by his characteristic petulance, and the matter of using improper tactics to help a contributor was never cleared up. The press quickly backed off of the entire story when McCain denied there was a sexual relationship and Republicans used it as an example of media bias.

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!

John McCain had very close ties to Cablevision, which gave $200,000 to his Reform Institute. In 1999 he did not recuse himself when Cablevision business was before his committee. Later, Chairman McCain wrote to the Federal Communications Commission urging them to permit the firm to repackage their offerings . When information surfaced about his tight relationship with Cablevision, he resigned as president of the Reform Institute. Recently, Verizon went to great effort to locate a special cell reception tower at McCain’s ranch at no expense to him. Then A,T& T did likewise.

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.

On October 18, Howard Fineman of Newseek referred to the “gang of lobbyist-insiders, whose identity is glaringly -- almost comically -- at odds with his supposed devotion to maverick change, [that] runs McCain’s Washington-based campaign.”

Recently, it was learned that John McCain had more lobbyists working for his 2008 campaign than any other presidential candidate. It is absolutely infested with them, many from industries McCain was supposed to have regulated. A gang of lobbyist-insiders, whose identity is glaringly -- almost comically -- at odds with his supposed devotion to maverick change, runs McCain’s Washington-based campaign.

Even after six were forced to leave the campaign 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. This is understandable as McCain has accepted more money from lobbyists than any other candidate in the 2008 primaries and general election.

Others do other things in the campaign. Rick Davis is campaign manager, and Charlie Black is senior political advisor. Davis has played a big role representing Indian casinos before McCain’s committee. Among Black’s clients were AT &T, Rupert Murdoch, and Blackwater. Twenty-one McCain people also represented AT&T. Black had also been paid to assist 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. Lobbyist Bill Timmons, head of McCain’s presidential transition operation, had been Saddam Hussein’s chief lobbyist in the US after the first Gulf War.

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. 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 never to do anything that gives the appearance of impropriety, but his track record is just the opposite.

He probably is not a crook, and 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.

Any reasonable person would have problems with McCain’s claims to being a “maverick” after he made peace with “the agents of intolerance” and accepted their candidate for vice president. But if any doubts remain, surrounding himself with lobbyists should permanently erase the image of “maverick.” He was a tool of lobbyists in Charles Keating’s day, and remains one today.

See other Rag Blog articles by Sherman DeBrosse on John McCain and Sarah Palin.

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Vetting John McCain : The Keating Five Scandal

John McCain, with his lawyers, before he testified before the Senate Ethics Committee in 1991 about his involvement in the Keating Five scandal. Photo by Andrea Mohin / NYT.
John McCain, Charles Keating and the S&L Scandal
By Sherman De Brosse / The Rag Blog / October 25, 2008

This is the fourth in a series by Rag Blog contributor Sherman De Brosse, a retired history professor, on John McCain, his shady involvements, past and present, and his wrong-headed and ill-informed political positions.

Twice, John McCain’s involvement in the Keating Five Scandal has intruded in the current political campaign. When Sarah Palin and John Mc Cain started associating Barack Obama with William Ayers, the Obama campaign put up a video about it. The mainstream media did not follow up by explaining what it was all about.

The matter came up again with the "Joe the Plumber" phenomenon because Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher bears the same name as Charles Keating’s son-in-law and executive vice president. Some see a connection because that is a rare last name and some people with that name are big GOP contributors. It is probably purely coincidental, but McCain’s deep involvement in the scandal is important because it reflects on his character and long-time pattern of delivering for big contributors.

Banker Charles Keating also got into the Phoenix 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 seven S&L’s that were to fail. As owner of United Brands, he was in a position to reap profits from the government’s secret programs to fund and supply the Nicaraguan contras through Honduras.

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 million 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 moved 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 that 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.

See other Rag Blog articles by Sherman DeBrosse on John McCain and Sarah Palin.

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John McCain's Medical Records : The X Files

Why is McCain stonewalling?
By Larry Ray / October 18, 2008

There are only a couple of weeks before we vote for a new president. Americans deserve to see the current medical records of both candidates before making up their minds. Senator McCain still refuses to provide his current medical records. Senator Obama fully complied just a few months ago, undergoing a complete medical checkup. His publicly available records describe Obama as “in excellent health, lean and muscular with no excess body fat.” Senator Biden released a current update, Monday, Oct. 20th, and appears in good health for a guy his age. Sarah Palin, has released no medical information on herself whatsoever.

In McCain’s U.S. Navy aircraft carrier flying days, passing a flight medical exam was easy for him. But as we get older it can become harder to pass that annual flight physical. I am only a few years younger than Sen. McCain and am a private pilot, so I know all about having a "current medical." I am in decent health but am not "current." McCain is tough. But it is also tough to imagine being shot out of the air by an enemy missile, surviving a bail-out with broken bones, then enduring five and a half years of torture as a POW some 41 years ago and today being in a third remission from melanoma cancer. All that could certainly make getting a clean bill of health tougher, but not impossible. I have several pilot buddies McCain's age who are "current" and still having a dandy time flying. But none are running for president.

Remember why the pilot and co-pilot on commercial airliners eat different in-flight meals off the menu? If one meal is tainted, like bad tuna salad, both pilots don't become incapacitated, leaving one to fly and land the plane safely. But we are not talking about toxic tuna salad here. And we are not talking about United Airlines. We're talking about the United States, with John McCain as our possible president and his VP candidate, Sarah Palin, as our potential co-pilot. Showing us all he has a clean bill of health would clearly help the 72 year old McCain's faltering campaign right now. It's fair enough to ask why he doesn't. Ms. Palin's lungs do seem to be in tip top condition, but that's all we have been permitted to know about her state of physical health.

While McCain invokes his discredited folk hero, “Joe the Plumber” and Palin whips up “the base” with her nasal, hate-tinged talking points, the noise they are making still can not drown out that basic question in voters’ minds, “Is candidate McCain healthy enough to take over an America which has just lost power in its engines and is flying in a fog of uncertainty? And what about his co-pilot?”

Source / The iHandbill

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Gambling on McCain : The Stakes are Big

John McCain the High Roller
By Sherman De Brosse / The Rag Blog / October 13, 2008

This is the first of several articles by Sherman De Brosse on John McCain and his shady involvements, past and present.

Senator John Mc Cain is known for his love of gambling and frequently engages in gambling marathons in Vegas. He is probably an addict with a serious problem. It is no secret, that he is given to taking great risks at the tables. Sometimes a gambling stint for him will last 14 hours. He does not gamble every day but is prone to monthly binges.

By all accounts, he gambles a lot, and Obama recently criticized McCain for gambling in a Connecticut casino with a lobbyist representing the Mashantucket Pequot tribe. At that time, he chaired the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, which oversaw Native American casinos. The Arizona senator should have refrained from voting on matters that affected that tribe.

However, the Senator, who gambles a few thousand at a time, tried not to take loans or markers from the house. So he is not entirely reckless, yet, some wonder if a legislator should be gambling in the casinos he regulates is proper. Forty of his fundraisers are in the gambling industry. Lately, to avoid publicity he has taken to playing craps in a private room, a right he has as a high roller.

Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Government filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee on October 9, claiming McCain never reported on his taxes gambling losses or gains. Reporting losses should be a personal option. Yet it is bothersome that someone with so much influence in this area is not entirely open. Of course, the complaint will not be dealt with until long after the election.

Many of us have noticed over the years that gambling establishment seem to be more often linked with unsavory people than, say, dry cleaning establishments or donut shops. One might wonder what kinds of people Mc Cain meets in these dens for high rollers?

John and Cindy McCain are very rich people, so his gambling habit is not something that will take food off the family table. Some good psychologists claim it may not even be a major character disorder. However, a Swedish study suggests these gamblers are likely to be more impulsive than non gamblers and to be somewhat more dishonest. They are also inclined to extravagant behavior. Gamblers are somewhat less inclined than non-gamblers toward responsible behavior. We do not have enough iron-clad evidence to say McCain is a compulsive gambler. Decide for yourself if Mc Cain seems more impulsive and less responsible and truthful than most people.

Gamblers Anonymous says that compulsive gamblers have problems with emotional security, immaturity, and accepting reality. Think a little about McCain's explosive temper, and you might see a connection.

McCain is considered one of the founding fathers of the Native American casino industry and he has close ties with many gambling interests. In May, 2007, J. Terrence Lanni, a Vegas casino executive, raised $400,000 for his pal John MC Cain. In 2000, the Bush campaign complained about McCain's close ties to Native American casinos.

Though his committee, oversees gambling, he does not recuse himself when gambling comes up. He oversaw the investigation of Jack Abramoff's abuse of Native Americans, which resulted in helping Abramoff's rivals -- McCain's pals -- and also smited some folks in the GOP who had opposed McCain in 2000. He found that Abramoff and others took over $66 million from the Native Americans and promised to get to the bottom of the matter. But the investigation ended there and McCain let the "perps" walk because much of the money was funneled to his Republican Party. He did not even call Ralph Reed to testify, though the Christian Right was deeply involved in Abramoff's abuse of the Native Americans. In 2008, McCain used Reed in his campaign.

Its up to the reader to decide if the man who has a hand in regulating gambling should be so close to the industry and then fill his presidential campaign with gambling and communications lobbyists. He also has a big role in regulating communications. It does not seem prudent. There is more than a touch of arrogance here. He seems to be saying that everyone should know that John McCain has so much integrity that he need not avoid appearances of impropriety. It is absolutely true that McCain has had a masterful publicity campaign running over more than two decades burnishing his image as Mr. Integrity, but an examination of the facts reveals many chinks in his armor.

Sherman De Brosse, the peudonym for a retired history professor, is a contributor to The Rag Blog and also blogs at Sherm Says and on DailyKos.

Sources for this article.

Temperament and Character in Pathological Gambling / Journal of Gambling Studies

About the Problem of Compulsive Gambling / Gamblers Anonymous

John McCain's gambling addiction (and tax "issues" too") / Blog for Arizona

CREW files ethics complaint against Senator John McCain / Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington

John McCain's Gambling Problem -- and Ours? / By Greg Mitchell / July 7, 2008 / The Huffington Post

John McCain Criticized For Casino Game Playing / by Grant Nelson / Oct. 1, 2008 / 777 Gaming News

John McCain, Gambling Addict by Matthew Yglesias / Oct. 8, 2008, The Atlantic

John McCain's gambling habit / by Alex Spillius / Sept. 29, 2008 / i report

McCain forged close ties to Las Vegas, tribal casinos / by Jo Becker and Don van Natta Jr. / Sept. 28, 2008 / NY Times News Service / boston.com

Senatorial Courtesy: Will John McCain Let Republican Perps Walk? / By Louis Dubose / Aug. 26, 2008 / Texas Observer

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