Wednesday, October 8, 2008
How an Obama sweatshirt got one Columbus woman banned from UDF for life
No Shirt, No Shoes, NObama
How an Obama sweatshirt got one Columbus woman banned from UDF for life
By Kitty McConnell
Published: Thursday, October 2, 2008 12:13 PM EDT
Forget about politics for a moment.
Forget your feelings about Obama and McCain. Forget that Columbus voters are among the most polarized in the nation. Forget swing states, vice presidential debates and the quickly approaching day of decision. That all comes later.
Remember, instead, the night Hurricane Ike blew through Columbus, tearing trees out by the roots and plunging much of the city into darkness for days.
Like many, Renee Barker spent that humid Sunday night without power. When sleep without air-conditioning proved futile, Barker and her fiancé packed their dogs in the car and went in search of batteries and candles. The neighborhood Giant Eagle was black. The only place Barker could find still operating with power was the United Dairy Farmers store on West Fifth Avenue near Grandview.
Barker walked into the store while her fiancé and their dogs waited in the car. After being told the store had no batteries, the clerk behind the counter, Mark Medina, offered up a curious request: “Can I tell you about my candidate, John McCain?” he asked her.
The comment caught Barker off-guard momentarily. She noticed he was looking at her chest. Then it clicked—she was wearing her Obama sweatshirt. “He picked the wrong girl on the wrong night,” said Barker.
She fired back, “I probably know more about John McCain than you do,” and says she told him, “If you’re really for McCain, I’ll take you down to the local recruiter myself so you can be all that you can be.”
“In the (store surveillance) video, you could see me pointing at my sweatshirt saying ‘Are you kidding me? You’re going to give me a hard time because I wore the wrong thing into your store?’” said Barker, a petite 36-year-old Victorian Village resident.
Barker admits she’s passionate about her politics and other social issues. A former Whole Foods employee who’s recuperating from recent surgery that left six pins in her back, she rescues thoroughbred horses in her spare time. She’s preparing to leave for Uganda in the spring to teach English.
She says she’s donated money to the Obama campaign and concedes she’s not afraid to engage in any challenge to her political beliefs. On this night, though, wearing her political beliefs on her sleeve created a situation that turned quickly from the absurd to the surreal.
She says what she thought would become little more than a political debate turned confrontational when another employee—who Barker describes as “a little hip-hop girl in big clothes”—emerged from the back. Medina told his employee that Barker was a “stupid loud-mouthed liberal,” according to Barker. After a few more words, Barker says she turned to leave as the female employee stepped toward her shouting, “get out of the store.”
Barker insists there was no physical contact, no property damage and, toward the end, only minimal profanity. “I asked him valid questions, and he just put his head down and started sweeping,” said Barker, “and I’m like, ‘You brought it up—you don’t do that to the consumer.’”
Barker’s fiancé watched the encounter from their car, puzzled. “I thought, you know, it might be politics, it might be the weather,” he said. Barker’s fiancé, who asked to go unnamed, said he didn’t think too much of the incident until Medina came to the front of the store as Barker emerged, phone in hand, and began copying down the couple’s license plate number.
At that point, Barker’s fiancé, a recent MBA graduate, who Barker describes as normally easy-going and reserved, approached Medina himself, asked him what he was doing and, when told he was filing an assault charge with police, grabbed the paper with their license number from him, tossed the store’s phone on the ground, left the store and drove home.
Medina called 911—at the same time the police were receiving a higher –than-usual volume of calls due to city-wide power outages—and reported that the couple, whom he described as a white woman and a Mexican (Barker’s fiancé is of Pakistani descent), were intoxicated and had assaulted him and his female coworker. Medina filed a criminal trespass report against Barker and her fiancé, stating they “became verbally aggressive and refused to leave” the store. (Barker denies refusing to leave.)
“He’s calling in 911 like it’s life or death,” said Barker, who heard a transcript of the call, “‘Some Mexican and drunk woman are raising hell.’ That’s why an officer had to show up in the middle of the blackout and take case of that BS.”
Barker and her fiancé went home and, after talking through the incident, decided to call police on their own and find out if, indeed, the UDF employees had filed some police report. When told a report had been filed, and that both she and her fiancé were described as intoxicated, Barker invited police to her Victorian Village home to test them, worried that a phony police report could wind up on their record. Police declined, and have not filed charges against the couple. Barker says when she explained to police what had happened; they advised her to contact United Dairy Farmer’s to get things straightened out. But things only got worse.
Cincinnati-based United Dairy Farmers was founded and owned by the Lindner family, who are no less shy about their politics than Barker herself. Patriarch Carl Lindner Jr., a self-made billionaire and former CEO of the Cincinnati Reds, is a major financial backer of the Republican Party on local and national levels.
The family ranked 205th on this year’s Forbes’ “400 Richest Americans” list. In 2004, Lindner was named by the National Republican Committee as one of George Bush’s 62 “Super Rangers,” the highest fundraising designations for donating in excess of $300,000 to the GOP. In December, the Washington Post reported Lindner was the national co-chair of Mitt Romney’s run for the GOP presidential nomination, while his son, Carl Lindner III, backed Mike Huckabee.
When asked if they allowed political canvassing in any of their stores, consumer relations representatives in the Cincinnati corporate offices responded, “No, we do not,” before declining to give a name or further comment.
Numerous other calls to UDF store and corporate personnel were not returned or declined for comment.
Immediately following the Sunday night incident, which occurred around midnight, Barker called UDF’s corporate offices. Monday evening, she received a call from Medina’s supervisor, which registered as a blocked number on her phone records.
“She was sweet as sugar, told me she’d get back to me,” said Barker. Another day passed. “Once I realized they were doing nothing,” Barker said, she followed the advice of the police dispatcher and called the store for the contact information of a higher supervisor.
Though it was 4:21 Tuesday afternoon, Barker said Medina answered her call and refused to give the supervisor’s number. She called the corporate office again, and was connected, not with a supervisor, but with the senior security specialist for the Columbus UDF zone, Carl Rankin.
“They (were) doing nothing about it, they (were) basically like giving me the finger, especially the head of security was very threatening,” said Barker. “He never listened to my side. I told him I was just trying to reach a manager and he’s like, ‘look Miss Renee. . .’”
Barker hung up with Rankin unsatisfied. An hour after her call to the Fifth Avenue store, Barker’s phone records show she received a blocked call, which she says was a threat. She called police.
According to the Columbus Police report of the incident, Barker stated that the caller told her, “Watch your back, I’m watching you,” and “I know where you live,” then asked her how her pets were doing and that the caller had seen them at UDF the night of the blackout.
“It does not take a brain surgeon to figure out that my number popped up on the UDF phone,” Barker said. “I call to ask for a supervisor and an hour later I get a threatening phone call?” As of Wednesday, police had issued a second round of subpoenas for the identity of the blocked caller.
Later that evening, Barker called the corporate offices once again and reported the threat. “He told me it was not a UDF issue, but that he’d try to give me a call in a couple of days,” Barker said.
A few days later, on Sept. 22, Barker received a letter from Rankin, UDF’s district head of security. The letter cited a “situation” she was involved in at the Fifth Avenue store along with “harassing phone calls to Corporate offices” between September 14-16.
It stated further: “You are being advised that you may not enter any United Dairy Farmers store or property,” and that “several police reports have been made as a result of your actions.”
Neither the Columbus Police nor the city prosecutor’s office have record of the harassment reports Rankin referenced, nor has she received any official notification that charges and/or formal complaints have been filed against her.
“Just because you receive a threatening letter from the corporate office doesn’t mean (everything). They can come down here and attempt to pursue charges, but (even if they do) that doesn’t mean they automatically get them,” said assistant city prosecutor Bill Hedrick.
Barker’s phone records indicate she made 15 calls in all, to the Cincinnati corporate offices, the Lewis Center district offices and Grandview store between early in the morning September 15 through the evening of September 17. Phone records indicate that seven of those calls were spent in transfer or on hold between customer service representatives.
It should come as no surprise that things are so heated on the ground in Columbus this election year. CNN’s broadcast of the first presidential debate last week featured correspondent Soledad O’Brien’s live polling of a focus group in Columbus because it consistently polls as being split by a narrow margin in favor of the Democratic Party. Political analyst for CNN John King noted Franklin County’s prominence on the Ohio map as the only blue county in a sea of red.
“She’s in a central area and a persuadable area,” King said of his colleague in Columbus, “a swing area of a very critical state…in this election and in every election.”
It might be easy to dismiss the whole chain of incidents as personal politics boiling over on a stormy night in total darkness, smack in the middle of a city completely polarized in its electoral politics.
But Barker is no longer amused when that political passion becomes a police incident. “I’m not a patient person, I admit flat out, and I do not like being threatened,” Barker said. “There are a lot of uninformed shoppers who run into UDF stores across the country—a lot of Democrats—and this is where it all began. Now it’s a safety thing for me.”
She’s awaiting the results of the telephone subpoenas and intends to file criminal charges against the caller.
Barker says she’s also considering a civil action against UDF. “Civil litigation is not to be entered into lightly,” she said.
Copyright © 2008 - The Other Paper
How an Obama sweatshirt got one Columbus woman banned from UDF for life
By Kitty McConnell
Published: Thursday, October 2, 2008 12:13 PM EDT
Forget about politics for a moment.
Forget your feelings about Obama and McCain. Forget that Columbus voters are among the most polarized in the nation. Forget swing states, vice presidential debates and the quickly approaching day of decision. That all comes later.
Remember, instead, the night Hurricane Ike blew through Columbus, tearing trees out by the roots and plunging much of the city into darkness for days.
Like many, Renee Barker spent that humid Sunday night without power. When sleep without air-conditioning proved futile, Barker and her fiancé packed their dogs in the car and went in search of batteries and candles. The neighborhood Giant Eagle was black. The only place Barker could find still operating with power was the United Dairy Farmers store on West Fifth Avenue near Grandview.
Barker walked into the store while her fiancé and their dogs waited in the car. After being told the store had no batteries, the clerk behind the counter, Mark Medina, offered up a curious request: “Can I tell you about my candidate, John McCain?” he asked her.
The comment caught Barker off-guard momentarily. She noticed he was looking at her chest. Then it clicked—she was wearing her Obama sweatshirt. “He picked the wrong girl on the wrong night,” said Barker.
She fired back, “I probably know more about John McCain than you do,” and says she told him, “If you’re really for McCain, I’ll take you down to the local recruiter myself so you can be all that you can be.”
“In the (store surveillance) video, you could see me pointing at my sweatshirt saying ‘Are you kidding me? You’re going to give me a hard time because I wore the wrong thing into your store?’” said Barker, a petite 36-year-old Victorian Village resident.
Barker admits she’s passionate about her politics and other social issues. A former Whole Foods employee who’s recuperating from recent surgery that left six pins in her back, she rescues thoroughbred horses in her spare time. She’s preparing to leave for Uganda in the spring to teach English.
She says she’s donated money to the Obama campaign and concedes she’s not afraid to engage in any challenge to her political beliefs. On this night, though, wearing her political beliefs on her sleeve created a situation that turned quickly from the absurd to the surreal.
She says what she thought would become little more than a political debate turned confrontational when another employee—who Barker describes as “a little hip-hop girl in big clothes”—emerged from the back. Medina told his employee that Barker was a “stupid loud-mouthed liberal,” according to Barker. After a few more words, Barker says she turned to leave as the female employee stepped toward her shouting, “get out of the store.”
Barker insists there was no physical contact, no property damage and, toward the end, only minimal profanity. “I asked him valid questions, and he just put his head down and started sweeping,” said Barker, “and I’m like, ‘You brought it up—you don’t do that to the consumer.’”
Barker’s fiancé watched the encounter from their car, puzzled. “I thought, you know, it might be politics, it might be the weather,” he said. Barker’s fiancé, who asked to go unnamed, said he didn’t think too much of the incident until Medina came to the front of the store as Barker emerged, phone in hand, and began copying down the couple’s license plate number.
At that point, Barker’s fiancé, a recent MBA graduate, who Barker describes as normally easy-going and reserved, approached Medina himself, asked him what he was doing and, when told he was filing an assault charge with police, grabbed the paper with their license number from him, tossed the store’s phone on the ground, left the store and drove home.
Medina called 911—at the same time the police were receiving a higher –than-usual volume of calls due to city-wide power outages—and reported that the couple, whom he described as a white woman and a Mexican (Barker’s fiancé is of Pakistani descent), were intoxicated and had assaulted him and his female coworker. Medina filed a criminal trespass report against Barker and her fiancé, stating they “became verbally aggressive and refused to leave” the store. (Barker denies refusing to leave.)
“He’s calling in 911 like it’s life or death,” said Barker, who heard a transcript of the call, “‘Some Mexican and drunk woman are raising hell.’ That’s why an officer had to show up in the middle of the blackout and take case of that BS.”
Barker and her fiancé went home and, after talking through the incident, decided to call police on their own and find out if, indeed, the UDF employees had filed some police report. When told a report had been filed, and that both she and her fiancé were described as intoxicated, Barker invited police to her Victorian Village home to test them, worried that a phony police report could wind up on their record. Police declined, and have not filed charges against the couple. Barker says when she explained to police what had happened; they advised her to contact United Dairy Farmer’s to get things straightened out. But things only got worse.
Cincinnati-based United Dairy Farmers was founded and owned by the Lindner family, who are no less shy about their politics than Barker herself. Patriarch Carl Lindner Jr., a self-made billionaire and former CEO of the Cincinnati Reds, is a major financial backer of the Republican Party on local and national levels.
The family ranked 205th on this year’s Forbes’ “400 Richest Americans” list. In 2004, Lindner was named by the National Republican Committee as one of George Bush’s 62 “Super Rangers,” the highest fundraising designations for donating in excess of $300,000 to the GOP. In December, the Washington Post reported Lindner was the national co-chair of Mitt Romney’s run for the GOP presidential nomination, while his son, Carl Lindner III, backed Mike Huckabee.
When asked if they allowed political canvassing in any of their stores, consumer relations representatives in the Cincinnati corporate offices responded, “No, we do not,” before declining to give a name or further comment.
Numerous other calls to UDF store and corporate personnel were not returned or declined for comment.
Immediately following the Sunday night incident, which occurred around midnight, Barker called UDF’s corporate offices. Monday evening, she received a call from Medina’s supervisor, which registered as a blocked number on her phone records.
“She was sweet as sugar, told me she’d get back to me,” said Barker. Another day passed. “Once I realized they were doing nothing,” Barker said, she followed the advice of the police dispatcher and called the store for the contact information of a higher supervisor.
Though it was 4:21 Tuesday afternoon, Barker said Medina answered her call and refused to give the supervisor’s number. She called the corporate office again, and was connected, not with a supervisor, but with the senior security specialist for the Columbus UDF zone, Carl Rankin.
“They (were) doing nothing about it, they (were) basically like giving me the finger, especially the head of security was very threatening,” said Barker. “He never listened to my side. I told him I was just trying to reach a manager and he’s like, ‘look Miss Renee. . .’”
Barker hung up with Rankin unsatisfied. An hour after her call to the Fifth Avenue store, Barker’s phone records show she received a blocked call, which she says was a threat. She called police.
According to the Columbus Police report of the incident, Barker stated that the caller told her, “Watch your back, I’m watching you,” and “I know where you live,” then asked her how her pets were doing and that the caller had seen them at UDF the night of the blackout.
“It does not take a brain surgeon to figure out that my number popped up on the UDF phone,” Barker said. “I call to ask for a supervisor and an hour later I get a threatening phone call?” As of Wednesday, police had issued a second round of subpoenas for the identity of the blocked caller.
Later that evening, Barker called the corporate offices once again and reported the threat. “He told me it was not a UDF issue, but that he’d try to give me a call in a couple of days,” Barker said.
A few days later, on Sept. 22, Barker received a letter from Rankin, UDF’s district head of security. The letter cited a “situation” she was involved in at the Fifth Avenue store along with “harassing phone calls to Corporate offices” between September 14-16.
It stated further: “You are being advised that you may not enter any United Dairy Farmers store or property,” and that “several police reports have been made as a result of your actions.”
Neither the Columbus Police nor the city prosecutor’s office have record of the harassment reports Rankin referenced, nor has she received any official notification that charges and/or formal complaints have been filed against her.
“Just because you receive a threatening letter from the corporate office doesn’t mean (everything). They can come down here and attempt to pursue charges, but (even if they do) that doesn’t mean they automatically get them,” said assistant city prosecutor Bill Hedrick.
Barker’s phone records indicate she made 15 calls in all, to the Cincinnati corporate offices, the Lewis Center district offices and Grandview store between early in the morning September 15 through the evening of September 17. Phone records indicate that seven of those calls were spent in transfer or on hold between customer service representatives.
It should come as no surprise that things are so heated on the ground in Columbus this election year. CNN’s broadcast of the first presidential debate last week featured correspondent Soledad O’Brien’s live polling of a focus group in Columbus because it consistently polls as being split by a narrow margin in favor of the Democratic Party. Political analyst for CNN John King noted Franklin County’s prominence on the Ohio map as the only blue county in a sea of red.
“She’s in a central area and a persuadable area,” King said of his colleague in Columbus, “a swing area of a very critical state…in this election and in every election.”
It might be easy to dismiss the whole chain of incidents as personal politics boiling over on a stormy night in total darkness, smack in the middle of a city completely polarized in its electoral politics.
But Barker is no longer amused when that political passion becomes a police incident. “I’m not a patient person, I admit flat out, and I do not like being threatened,” Barker said. “There are a lot of uninformed shoppers who run into UDF stores across the country—a lot of Democrats—and this is where it all began. Now it’s a safety thing for me.”
She’s awaiting the results of the telephone subpoenas and intends to file criminal charges against the caller.
Barker says she’s also considering a civil action against UDF. “Civil litigation is not to be entered into lightly,” she said.
Copyright © 2008 - The Other Paper
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The Obama Campaign Just Launched a Nuke At the McCain Campaign
Posted by berni_mccoy in General Discussion: Presidential
Mon Oct 06th 2008, 07:59 AM
And it just arrived in my email.
Here it is folks: McCain and the Keating 5
Over the weekend, John McCain's top adviser announced their plan to stop engaging in a debate over the economy and "turn the page" to more direct, personal attacks on Barack Obama.
In the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, they want to change the subject from the central question of this election. Perhaps because the policies McCain supported these past eight years and wants to continue are pretty hard to defend.
But it's not just McCain's role in the current crisis that they're avoiding. The backward economic philosophy and culture of corruption that helped create the current crisis are looking more and more like the other major financial crisis of our time.
During the savings and loan crisis of the late '80s and early '90s, McCain's political favors and aggressive support for deregulation put him at the center of the fall of Lincoln Savings and Loan, one of the largest in the country. More than 23,000 investors lost their savings. Overall, the savings and loan crisis required the federal government to bail out the savings of hundreds of thousands of families and ultimately cost American taxpayers $124 billion.
Sound familiar?
In that crisis, John McCain and his political patron, Charles Keating, played central roles that ultimately landed Keating in jail for fraud and McCain in front of the Senate Ethics Committee. The McCain campaign has tried to avoid talking about the scandal, but with so many parallels to the current crisis, McCain's Keating history is relevant and voters deserve to know the facts -- and see for themselves the pattern of poor judgment by John McCain.
So at noon Eastern on Monday, October 6th, we're releasing a 13-minute documentary about the scandal called "Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis" -- it will be available at KeatingEconomics.com, along with background information that every voter should know.
Watch a preview right now and share it with your friends.
The point of the film and the web site is that John McCain still hasn't learned his lesson.
And this time, McCain's bankrupt economic philosophy has put our economy at the brink of collapse and put millions of Americans at risk of losing their homes.
Watch the video to see why John McCain's failed philosophy and poor judgment is a recipe for deepening the crisis:
http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
It's no wonder John McCain would rather spend the last month of this election smearing Barack's character instead of talking about the top priority issue for voters.
But if we work together, we can make sure the focus stays on the economy -- and how to fix it.
Please forward this email to everyone you know.
Thanks,
David
David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America
P.S. -- The documentary will be live at noon Eastern at www.KeatingEconomics.com.
Hey...not familiar enough with the background of the Keating Five scandal?
Dear readers...never say that I left you hanging:
CHAPTER VII: THE KEATING FIVE
As a war hero and U.S. senator, John McCain has been chronicled in pictures.
There are grainy mug shots of a young McCain, printed in U.S. newspapers after his jet was shot down over North Vietnam. There are black-and-white images of his return, grinning and waving.
In happier times, there is McCain holding his newborn daughter while his wife, Cindy, smiles from her hospital bed.
But it is an innocent vacation picture that carries the reminder of the scandal that threatened his political career.
In the picture, taken in the Bahamas, McCain is seated on a bandstand while wearing an outrageous straw party hat. Next to him on the dais sits Charles Keating III, son of developer Charles H Keating Jr.
McCain calls the Keating scandal "my asterisk." Over the years, his opponents have failed to turn it into a period.
It all started in March 1987. Charles H Keating Jr., the flamboyant developer and anti-porn crusader, needed help. The government was poised to seize Lincoln Savings and Loan, a freewheeling subsidiary of Keating's American Continental Corp.
As federal auditors examined Lincoln, Keating was not content to wait and hope for the best. He had spread a lot of money around Washington, and it was time to call in his chits.
One of his first stops was Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz.
The state's senior senator was one of Keating's most loyal friends in Congress, and for good reason. Keating had given thousands of dollars to DeConcini's campaigns. At one point, DeConcini even pushed Keating for ambassador to the Bahamas, where Keating owned a luxurious vacation home.
Now Keating had a job for DeConcini. He wanted him to organize a meeting with regulators to deliver a message: Get off Lincoln's back. Eventually, DeConcini would set up a meeting with five senators and the regulators. One of them was McCain.
McCain already knew Keating well. His ties to the home builder dated to 1981, when the two men met at a Navy League dinner where McCain spoke.
After the speech, Keating walked up to McCain and told him that he, too, was a Navy flier and that he greatly respected McCain's war record. He met McCain's wife and family. The two men became friends.
Charlie Keating always took care of his friends, especially those in politics. McCain was no exception.
In 1982, during McCain's first run for the House, Keating held a fund-raiser for him, collecting more than $11,000 from 40 employees of American Continental Corp. McCain would spend more than $550,000 to win the primary and the general election.
In 1983, as McCain contemplated his House re-election, Keating hosted a $1,000-a-plate dinner for him, even though McCain had no serious competition. When McCain pushed for the Senate in 1986, Keating was there with more than $50,000.
By 1987, McCain had received about $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and his associates.
McCain also had carried a little water for Keating in Washington. While in the House, McCain, along with a majority of representatives, co-sponsored a resolution to delay new regulations designed to curb risky investments by thrifts such as Lincoln.
Reluctant participant
Despite his history with Keating, McCain was hesitant about intervening. At that point, he had been in the Senate only three months. DeConcini wanted McCain to fly to San Francisco with him and talk to the regulators. McCain refused.
Keating would not be dissuaded.
On March 24 at 9:30 a.m., Keating went to DeConcini's office and asked him if the meeting with the regulators was on. DeConcini told Keating that McCain was nervous.
"McCain's a wimp," Keating replied, according to the book Trust Me, by Michael Binstein and Charles Bowden. "We'll go talk to him."
Keating had other business on Capitol Hill and did not reach McCain's office until 1:30. A DeConcini staffer already had told McCain about the "wimp" insult.
When he arrived, Keating presented McCain with a laundry list of demands for the regulators.
McCain told Keating that he would attend the meeting and find out whether Keating was getting treated fairly but that was all.
The first meeting, on April 2, 1987, in DeConcini's office, included Ed Gray, chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, as well as four senators: DeConcini, McCain, Alan Cranston, D-Calif., and John Glenn, D-Ohio.
(Years later, McCain recalled that DeConcini started the meeting with a reference to "our friend at Lincoln." McCain characterized it as "an unfortunate choice of words, which Gray would remember and repeat publicly many times.")
For Keating, the meeting was a bust. Gray told the senators that as head of the loan board, he worried about the big picture. He didn't have any specific information about Lincoln. Bank regulators in San Francisco would be versed in that, not him. Gray offered to set up a meeting between the senators and the San Francisco regulators.
The second meeting was April 9. The same four senators attended, along with Sen. Don Riegle, D-Mich. Also at the meeting were William Black, then deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp., James Cirona, president of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and Michael Patriarca, director of agency functions at the FSLIC.
In an interview with The Republic, Black said the meeting was a show of force by Keating, who wanted the senators to pressure the regulators into dropping their case against Lincoln. The thrift was in trouble for violating "direct investment" rules, which prohibited S&Ls from taking large ownership positions in various ventures.
"The Senate is a really small club, like the cliche goes," Black said. "And you really did have one-twentieth of the Senate in one room, called by one guy, who was the biggest crook in the S&L debacle."
Black said the senators could have accomplished their goal "if they had simply had us show up and see this incredible room and said, 'Hi. Charles Keating asked us to meet with you. 'Bye.'"
McCain previously had refused DeConcini's request to meet with the Lincoln auditors themselves. In Worth the Fighting For, McCain wrote that he remained "a little troubled" at the prospect, "but since the chairman of the bank board didn't seem to have a problem with the idea, maybe a discussion with the regulators wouldn't be as problematic as I had earlier thought."
McCain concedes that he failed to sense that Gray and the thrift examiners felt threatened by the senators' meddling.
'Always Hamlet'
The five senators, including McCain, seemed like a united front to Black.
"They presented themselves as a group," Black said, "and DeConcini is the dad, who's going to take the primary speaking role. Both meetings are in his office, and in both cases it's we want this, with no one going, 'What do you mean we, kemo sabe?'"
According to nearly verbatim notes taken by Black, McCain started the second meeting with a careful comment.
"One of our jobs as elected officials is to help constituents in a proper fashion," McCain said. "ACC (American Continental Corp.) is a big employer and important to the local economy. I wouldn't want any special favors for them. . . .
"I don't want any part of our conversation to be improper."
Black said the comment had the opposite effect for the regulators. It made them nervous about what might really be going on.
"McCain was the weirdest," Black said. "They were all different in their own way. McCain was always Hamlet . . . wringing his hands about what to do."
Glenn, a former astronaut and the first American to orbit the Earth, was not as tactful.
"To be blunt, you should charge them or get off their backs," he told the regulators. "If things are bad there, get to them. Their view is that they took a failing business and put it back on its feet. It's now viable and profitable. They took it off the endangered species list. Why has the exam dragged on and on and on?"
DeConcini added: "What's wrong with this if they're willing to clean up their act?"
Cirona, the banking official, told the senators that it was "very unusual" to hold a meeting to discuss a particular company.
DeConcini shot back: "It's very unusual for us to have a company that could be put out of business by its regulators."
The meeting went on. McCain was quiet. DeConcini carried the ball. The regulators told the senators that Lincoln was in trouble. The thrift, Cirona said, was a "ticking time bomb."
Then Patriarca made a stunning comment, according to transcripts released later.
"We're sending a criminal referral to the Department of Justice," he said. "Not maybe, we're sending one. This is an extraordinarily serious matter. It involves a whole range of imprudent actions. I can't tell you strongly enough how serious this is. This is not a profitable institution."
The statement made DeConcini back off a little.
"The criminality surprises me," he said. "We're not interested in discussing those issues. Our premise was that we had a viable institution concerned that it was being overregulated."
"What can we say to Lincoln?" Glenn asked.
"Nothing," Black responded, "with regard to the criminal referral. They haven't and won't be told by us that we're making one."
"You haven't told them?" Glenn asked.
"No," said Black. "Justice would skin us alive if we did. Those referrals are very confidential. We can't prosecute anyone ourselves. All we can do is refer it to Justice."
After the meeting, McCain was done with Keating.
"Again, I was troubled by the appearance of the meeting," McCain said later. "I stated I didn't want any special favors from them. I only wanted them (Lincoln Savings) to be fairly treated."
Black doesn't completely buy that argument. If McCain was concerned about Keating asking him to do things that were improper, why go to either meeting at all?
Black said McCain probably went because Keating was close to being the political godfather of Arizona and McCain still had plenty of ambition.
"Keating was incredibly powerful," Black said. "And incredibly useful."
McCain's reservations aside, Keating accomplished his goal. He had bought some time, though the price was very high.
Short-lived reprieve
A month later, the San Francisco regulators finished a yearlong audit and recommended that Lincoln be seized. But the report was virtually ignored because of politics on the bank board.
Gray was being replaced as chairman by Danny Wall, who was more sympathetic to Keating.
The audit, which described Lincoln as a thrift reeling out of control, sat on a shelf.
In September 1987, the investigation was taken away from the San Francisco office, away from Black and Patriarca. In May 1988, it was transferred to Washington, where Lincoln would get a new audit.
It was a win for Keating. A battle, not the war.
Back in San Francisco, Black was fuming.
"Clearly, we were shot in the back," he would say later.
Despite the reprieve, Keating's businesses continued to spiral downward, taking the five senators with him. Together, the five had accepted more than $300,000 in contributions from Keating, and their critics added a new term to the American lexicon: "The Keating Five."
The Keating Five became synonymous for the kind of political influence that money can buy. As the S&L failure deepened, the sheer magnitude of the losses hit the press. Billions of dollars had been squandered. The five senators were linked as the gang who shilled for an S&L bandit.
S&L "trading cards" came out. The Keating Five card showed Charles Keating holding up his hand, with a senator's head adorning each finger. McCain was on Keating's pinkie.
As the investigation dragged through 1988, McCain dodged the hardest blows. Most landed on DeConcini, who had arranged the meetings and had other close ties to Keating, including $50 million in loans from Keating to DeConcini's aides.
But McCain made a critical error.
He had adopted the blanket defense that Keating was a constituent and that he had every right to ask his senators for help. In attending the meetings, McCain said, he simply wanted to make sure that Keating was treated like any other constituent.
Keating was no ordinary constituent to McCain.
On Oct. 8, 1989, The Arizona Republic revealed that McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators.
The paper also reported that the McCains, sometimes accompanied by their daughter and baby-sitter, had made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay.
McCain also did not pay Keating for some of the trips until years after they were taken, after he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln. Total cost: $13,433.
When the story broke, McCain did nothing to help himself.
"You're a liar," McCain said when a Republic reporter asked him about the business relationship between his wife and Keating.
"That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot," McCain said later in the same conversation. "You do understand English, don't you?"
He also belittled reporters when they asked about his wife's ties to Keating.
"It's up to you to find that out, kids."
The paper ran the story.
In his 2002 book, McCain confesses to "ridiculously immature behavior" during that particular interview and adds that The Republic reporters' "persistence in questioning me about the matter provoked me to rage."
"I don't know how (The Republic journalists) would have reported the story had I been more civil and understanding or just more of a professional during the interview," McCain wrote.
At a news conference after the story ran, McCain was a changed man. He stood calmly for 90 minutes and answered every question.
On the shopping center, his defense was simple. The deal did not involve him. The shares in the shopping center had been bought by a partnership set up between McCain's wife and her father. (The couple also had a prenuptial agreement that separated Cindy McCain's finances and dealings from his.)
But McCain also had to explain his trips with Keating and why he didn't pay Keating back right away.
On that score, McCain admitted he had fouled up. He said he should have reimbursed Keating immediately, not waited several years. His staff said it was an oversight, but it looked bad, McCain jetting around with Keating, then going to bat for him with the federal regulators.
"I was in a hell of a mess," McCain later would write.
Meanwhile, Lincoln continued to founder.
In April 1989, two years after the Keating Five meetings, the government seized Lincoln, which declared bankruptcy. In September 1990, Keating was booked into Los Angeles County Jail, charged with 42 counts of fraud. His bond was set at $5 million.
During Keating's trial, the prosecution produced a parade of elderly investors who had lost their life's savings by investing in American Continental junk bonds.
Verdict: 'Poor judgment'
In November 1990, the Senate Ethics Committee convened to decide what punishment, if any, should be doled out to the Keating Five.
Robert Bennett, who would later represent President Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones case, was the special counsel for the committee. In his opening remarks, he slammed DeConcini but went lightly on McCain, the lone Republican ensnared with four Democrats.
"In the case of Senator McCain, there is very substantial evidence that he thought he had an understanding with Senator DeConcini's office that certain matters would not be gone into at the meeting with (bank board) Chairman (Ed) Gray," Bennett said.
"Moreover, there is substantial evidence that, as a result of Senator McCain's refusal to do certain things, he had a fallout with Mr. Keating."
Among the Keating Five, McCain took the most direct contributions from Keating. But the investigation found that he was the least culpable, along with Glenn. McCain attended the meetings but did nothing afterward to stop Lincoln's death spiral.
Lincoln was the most expensive failure in the national S&L scandal. Taxpayers lost more than $2 billion on the bailout. McCain also looked good in contrast to DeConcini, who continued to defend Keating until fall 1989, when federal regulators filed a $1.1 billion civil racketeering and fraud suit against Keating, accusing him of siphoning Lincoln's deposits to his family and into political campaigns.
In January 1993, a federal jury convicted him of 73 counts of wire and bankruptcy fraud in the collapse of American Continental and Lincoln. Keating was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison but served just 50 months before the conviction was overturned on a technicality. In 1999, at age 75, he pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud. He was sentenced to time served.
In the end, McCain received only a mild rebuke from the Ethics Committee for exercising "poor judgment" for intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of Keating. Still, he felt tarred by the affair.
"The appearance of it was wrong," McCain said. "It's a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do."
McCain noted that Bennett, the independent counsel, recommended that McCain and Glenn be dropped from the investigation.
"For the first time in history, the Ethics Committee overruled the recommendation of the independent counsel," McCain said. For his part, DeConcini is critical of McCain's role in the affair. The two senators never were particularly cozy, and the stress of the public scrutiny worsened their relations.
In his memoir Senator Dennis DeConcini: From the Center of the Aisle, he praises the decision to keep McCain on the hook.
"It became clear to me, and it was later confirmed by Ethics Committee members, that Bennett was attempting to dismiss the charges against McCain, and in order to appear nonpartisan, he included Glenn in this effort," DeConcini wrote with co-author Jack August. "Thanks to the three Democrats on the committee and perhaps with the help of Senator (Jesse) Helms (R-N.C.), however, the charges remained in place for all the senators under investigation. So all of us had to attend the 23-day public hearing, which was indeed a trial, before the six-member Senate Ethics Committee."
In the book, DeConcini reiterates his allegation that McCain leaked to the media "sensitive information" about certain closed proceedings in order to hurt DeConcini, Riegle and Cranston. It's a fairly serious charge. The Boston Globe revisited the Keating Five leaks in 2000. The story paraphrased a congressional investigator, Clark B. Hall, as personally concluding that "McCain was one of the principal leakers." The newspaper also reported that McCain, under oath, had denied involvement with the leaks.
McCain owns up to his mistake this way:
"I was judged eventually, after three years, of using, quote, poor judgment, and I agree with that assessment."
Mon Oct 06th 2008, 07:59 AM
And it just arrived in my email.
Here it is folks: McCain and the Keating 5
Over the weekend, John McCain's top adviser announced their plan to stop engaging in a debate over the economy and "turn the page" to more direct, personal attacks on Barack Obama.
In the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, they want to change the subject from the central question of this election. Perhaps because the policies McCain supported these past eight years and wants to continue are pretty hard to defend.
But it's not just McCain's role in the current crisis that they're avoiding. The backward economic philosophy and culture of corruption that helped create the current crisis are looking more and more like the other major financial crisis of our time.
During the savings and loan crisis of the late '80s and early '90s, McCain's political favors and aggressive support for deregulation put him at the center of the fall of Lincoln Savings and Loan, one of the largest in the country. More than 23,000 investors lost their savings. Overall, the savings and loan crisis required the federal government to bail out the savings of hundreds of thousands of families and ultimately cost American taxpayers $124 billion.
Sound familiar?
In that crisis, John McCain and his political patron, Charles Keating, played central roles that ultimately landed Keating in jail for fraud and McCain in front of the Senate Ethics Committee. The McCain campaign has tried to avoid talking about the scandal, but with so many parallels to the current crisis, McCain's Keating history is relevant and voters deserve to know the facts -- and see for themselves the pattern of poor judgment by John McCain.
So at noon Eastern on Monday, October 6th, we're releasing a 13-minute documentary about the scandal called "Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis" -- it will be available at KeatingEconomics.com, along with background information that every voter should know.
Watch a preview right now and share it with your friends.
The point of the film and the web site is that John McCain still hasn't learned his lesson.
And this time, McCain's bankrupt economic philosophy has put our economy at the brink of collapse and put millions of Americans at risk of losing their homes.
Watch the video to see why John McCain's failed philosophy and poor judgment is a recipe for deepening the crisis:
http://my.barackobama.com/keatingvideo
It's no wonder John McCain would rather spend the last month of this election smearing Barack's character instead of talking about the top priority issue for voters.
But if we work together, we can make sure the focus stays on the economy -- and how to fix it.
Please forward this email to everyone you know.
Thanks,
David
David Plouffe
Campaign Manager
Obama for America
P.S. -- The documentary will be live at noon Eastern at www.KeatingEconomics.com.
Hey...not familiar enough with the background of the Keating Five scandal?
Dear readers...never say that I left you hanging:
CHAPTER VII: THE KEATING FIVE
As a war hero and U.S. senator, John McCain has been chronicled in pictures.
There are grainy mug shots of a young McCain, printed in U.S. newspapers after his jet was shot down over North Vietnam. There are black-and-white images of his return, grinning and waving.
In happier times, there is McCain holding his newborn daughter while his wife, Cindy, smiles from her hospital bed.
But it is an innocent vacation picture that carries the reminder of the scandal that threatened his political career.
In the picture, taken in the Bahamas, McCain is seated on a bandstand while wearing an outrageous straw party hat. Next to him on the dais sits Charles Keating III, son of developer Charles H Keating Jr.
McCain calls the Keating scandal "my asterisk." Over the years, his opponents have failed to turn it into a period.
It all started in March 1987. Charles H Keating Jr., the flamboyant developer and anti-porn crusader, needed help. The government was poised to seize Lincoln Savings and Loan, a freewheeling subsidiary of Keating's American Continental Corp.
As federal auditors examined Lincoln, Keating was not content to wait and hope for the best. He had spread a lot of money around Washington, and it was time to call in his chits.
One of his first stops was Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz.
The state's senior senator was one of Keating's most loyal friends in Congress, and for good reason. Keating had given thousands of dollars to DeConcini's campaigns. At one point, DeConcini even pushed Keating for ambassador to the Bahamas, where Keating owned a luxurious vacation home.
Now Keating had a job for DeConcini. He wanted him to organize a meeting with regulators to deliver a message: Get off Lincoln's back. Eventually, DeConcini would set up a meeting with five senators and the regulators. One of them was McCain.
McCain already knew Keating well. His ties to the home builder dated to 1981, when the two men met at a Navy League dinner where McCain spoke.
After the speech, Keating walked up to McCain and told him that he, too, was a Navy flier and that he greatly respected McCain's war record. He met McCain's wife and family. The two men became friends.
Charlie Keating always took care of his friends, especially those in politics. McCain was no exception.
In 1982, during McCain's first run for the House, Keating held a fund-raiser for him, collecting more than $11,000 from 40 employees of American Continental Corp. McCain would spend more than $550,000 to win the primary and the general election.
In 1983, as McCain contemplated his House re-election, Keating hosted a $1,000-a-plate dinner for him, even though McCain had no serious competition. When McCain pushed for the Senate in 1986, Keating was there with more than $50,000.
By 1987, McCain had received about $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and his associates.
McCain also had carried a little water for Keating in Washington. While in the House, McCain, along with a majority of representatives, co-sponsored a resolution to delay new regulations designed to curb risky investments by thrifts such as Lincoln.
Reluctant participant
Despite his history with Keating, McCain was hesitant about intervening. At that point, he had been in the Senate only three months. DeConcini wanted McCain to fly to San Francisco with him and talk to the regulators. McCain refused.
Keating would not be dissuaded.
On March 24 at 9:30 a.m., Keating went to DeConcini's office and asked him if the meeting with the regulators was on. DeConcini told Keating that McCain was nervous.
"McCain's a wimp," Keating replied, according to the book Trust Me, by Michael Binstein and Charles Bowden. "We'll go talk to him."
Keating had other business on Capitol Hill and did not reach McCain's office until 1:30. A DeConcini staffer already had told McCain about the "wimp" insult.
When he arrived, Keating presented McCain with a laundry list of demands for the regulators.
McCain told Keating that he would attend the meeting and find out whether Keating was getting treated fairly but that was all.
The first meeting, on April 2, 1987, in DeConcini's office, included Ed Gray, chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, as well as four senators: DeConcini, McCain, Alan Cranston, D-Calif., and John Glenn, D-Ohio.
(Years later, McCain recalled that DeConcini started the meeting with a reference to "our friend at Lincoln." McCain characterized it as "an unfortunate choice of words, which Gray would remember and repeat publicly many times.")
For Keating, the meeting was a bust. Gray told the senators that as head of the loan board, he worried about the big picture. He didn't have any specific information about Lincoln. Bank regulators in San Francisco would be versed in that, not him. Gray offered to set up a meeting between the senators and the San Francisco regulators.
The second meeting was April 9. The same four senators attended, along with Sen. Don Riegle, D-Mich. Also at the meeting were William Black, then deputy director of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp., James Cirona, president of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and Michael Patriarca, director of agency functions at the FSLIC.
In an interview with The Republic, Black said the meeting was a show of force by Keating, who wanted the senators to pressure the regulators into dropping their case against Lincoln. The thrift was in trouble for violating "direct investment" rules, which prohibited S&Ls from taking large ownership positions in various ventures.
"The Senate is a really small club, like the cliche goes," Black said. "And you really did have one-twentieth of the Senate in one room, called by one guy, who was the biggest crook in the S&L debacle."
Black said the senators could have accomplished their goal "if they had simply had us show up and see this incredible room and said, 'Hi. Charles Keating asked us to meet with you. 'Bye.'"
McCain previously had refused DeConcini's request to meet with the Lincoln auditors themselves. In Worth the Fighting For, McCain wrote that he remained "a little troubled" at the prospect, "but since the chairman of the bank board didn't seem to have a problem with the idea, maybe a discussion with the regulators wouldn't be as problematic as I had earlier thought."
McCain concedes that he failed to sense that Gray and the thrift examiners felt threatened by the senators' meddling.
'Always Hamlet'
The five senators, including McCain, seemed like a united front to Black.
"They presented themselves as a group," Black said, "and DeConcini is the dad, who's going to take the primary speaking role. Both meetings are in his office, and in both cases it's we want this, with no one going, 'What do you mean we, kemo sabe?'"
According to nearly verbatim notes taken by Black, McCain started the second meeting with a careful comment.
"One of our jobs as elected officials is to help constituents in a proper fashion," McCain said. "ACC (American Continental Corp.) is a big employer and important to the local economy. I wouldn't want any special favors for them. . . .
"I don't want any part of our conversation to be improper."
Black said the comment had the opposite effect for the regulators. It made them nervous about what might really be going on.
"McCain was the weirdest," Black said. "They were all different in their own way. McCain was always Hamlet . . . wringing his hands about what to do."
Glenn, a former astronaut and the first American to orbit the Earth, was not as tactful.
"To be blunt, you should charge them or get off their backs," he told the regulators. "If things are bad there, get to them. Their view is that they took a failing business and put it back on its feet. It's now viable and profitable. They took it off the endangered species list. Why has the exam dragged on and on and on?"
DeConcini added: "What's wrong with this if they're willing to clean up their act?"
Cirona, the banking official, told the senators that it was "very unusual" to hold a meeting to discuss a particular company.
DeConcini shot back: "It's very unusual for us to have a company that could be put out of business by its regulators."
The meeting went on. McCain was quiet. DeConcini carried the ball. The regulators told the senators that Lincoln was in trouble. The thrift, Cirona said, was a "ticking time bomb."
Then Patriarca made a stunning comment, according to transcripts released later.
"We're sending a criminal referral to the Department of Justice," he said. "Not maybe, we're sending one. This is an extraordinarily serious matter. It involves a whole range of imprudent actions. I can't tell you strongly enough how serious this is. This is not a profitable institution."
The statement made DeConcini back off a little.
"The criminality surprises me," he said. "We're not interested in discussing those issues. Our premise was that we had a viable institution concerned that it was being overregulated."
"What can we say to Lincoln?" Glenn asked.
"Nothing," Black responded, "with regard to the criminal referral. They haven't and won't be told by us that we're making one."
"You haven't told them?" Glenn asked.
"No," said Black. "Justice would skin us alive if we did. Those referrals are very confidential. We can't prosecute anyone ourselves. All we can do is refer it to Justice."
After the meeting, McCain was done with Keating.
"Again, I was troubled by the appearance of the meeting," McCain said later. "I stated I didn't want any special favors from them. I only wanted them (Lincoln Savings) to be fairly treated."
Black doesn't completely buy that argument. If McCain was concerned about Keating asking him to do things that were improper, why go to either meeting at all?
Black said McCain probably went because Keating was close to being the political godfather of Arizona and McCain still had plenty of ambition.
"Keating was incredibly powerful," Black said. "And incredibly useful."
McCain's reservations aside, Keating accomplished his goal. He had bought some time, though the price was very high.
Short-lived reprieve
A month later, the San Francisco regulators finished a yearlong audit and recommended that Lincoln be seized. But the report was virtually ignored because of politics on the bank board.
Gray was being replaced as chairman by Danny Wall, who was more sympathetic to Keating.
The audit, which described Lincoln as a thrift reeling out of control, sat on a shelf.
In September 1987, the investigation was taken away from the San Francisco office, away from Black and Patriarca. In May 1988, it was transferred to Washington, where Lincoln would get a new audit.
It was a win for Keating. A battle, not the war.
Back in San Francisco, Black was fuming.
"Clearly, we were shot in the back," he would say later.
Despite the reprieve, Keating's businesses continued to spiral downward, taking the five senators with him. Together, the five had accepted more than $300,000 in contributions from Keating, and their critics added a new term to the American lexicon: "The Keating Five."
The Keating Five became synonymous for the kind of political influence that money can buy. As the S&L failure deepened, the sheer magnitude of the losses hit the press. Billions of dollars had been squandered. The five senators were linked as the gang who shilled for an S&L bandit.
S&L "trading cards" came out. The Keating Five card showed Charles Keating holding up his hand, with a senator's head adorning each finger. McCain was on Keating's pinkie.
As the investigation dragged through 1988, McCain dodged the hardest blows. Most landed on DeConcini, who had arranged the meetings and had other close ties to Keating, including $50 million in loans from Keating to DeConcini's aides.
But McCain made a critical error.
He had adopted the blanket defense that Keating was a constituent and that he had every right to ask his senators for help. In attending the meetings, McCain said, he simply wanted to make sure that Keating was treated like any other constituent.
Keating was no ordinary constituent to McCain.
On Oct. 8, 1989, The Arizona Republic revealed that McCain's wife and her father had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators.
The paper also reported that the McCains, sometimes accompanied by their daughter and baby-sitter, had made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard the American Continental jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay.
McCain also did not pay Keating for some of the trips until years after they were taken, after he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln. Total cost: $13,433.
When the story broke, McCain did nothing to help himself.
"You're a liar," McCain said when a Republic reporter asked him about the business relationship between his wife and Keating.
"That's the spouse's involvement, you idiot," McCain said later in the same conversation. "You do understand English, don't you?"
He also belittled reporters when they asked about his wife's ties to Keating.
"It's up to you to find that out, kids."
The paper ran the story.
In his 2002 book, McCain confesses to "ridiculously immature behavior" during that particular interview and adds that The Republic reporters' "persistence in questioning me about the matter provoked me to rage."
"I don't know how (The Republic journalists) would have reported the story had I been more civil and understanding or just more of a professional during the interview," McCain wrote.
At a news conference after the story ran, McCain was a changed man. He stood calmly for 90 minutes and answered every question.
On the shopping center, his defense was simple. The deal did not involve him. The shares in the shopping center had been bought by a partnership set up between McCain's wife and her father. (The couple also had a prenuptial agreement that separated Cindy McCain's finances and dealings from his.)
But McCain also had to explain his trips with Keating and why he didn't pay Keating back right away.
On that score, McCain admitted he had fouled up. He said he should have reimbursed Keating immediately, not waited several years. His staff said it was an oversight, but it looked bad, McCain jetting around with Keating, then going to bat for him with the federal regulators.
"I was in a hell of a mess," McCain later would write.
Meanwhile, Lincoln continued to founder.
In April 1989, two years after the Keating Five meetings, the government seized Lincoln, which declared bankruptcy. In September 1990, Keating was booked into Los Angeles County Jail, charged with 42 counts of fraud. His bond was set at $5 million.
During Keating's trial, the prosecution produced a parade of elderly investors who had lost their life's savings by investing in American Continental junk bonds.
Verdict: 'Poor judgment'
In November 1990, the Senate Ethics Committee convened to decide what punishment, if any, should be doled out to the Keating Five.
Robert Bennett, who would later represent President Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones case, was the special counsel for the committee. In his opening remarks, he slammed DeConcini but went lightly on McCain, the lone Republican ensnared with four Democrats.
"In the case of Senator McCain, there is very substantial evidence that he thought he had an understanding with Senator DeConcini's office that certain matters would not be gone into at the meeting with (bank board) Chairman (Ed) Gray," Bennett said.
"Moreover, there is substantial evidence that, as a result of Senator McCain's refusal to do certain things, he had a fallout with Mr. Keating."
Among the Keating Five, McCain took the most direct contributions from Keating. But the investigation found that he was the least culpable, along with Glenn. McCain attended the meetings but did nothing afterward to stop Lincoln's death spiral.
Lincoln was the most expensive failure in the national S&L scandal. Taxpayers lost more than $2 billion on the bailout. McCain also looked good in contrast to DeConcini, who continued to defend Keating until fall 1989, when federal regulators filed a $1.1 billion civil racketeering and fraud suit against Keating, accusing him of siphoning Lincoln's deposits to his family and into political campaigns.
In January 1993, a federal jury convicted him of 73 counts of wire and bankruptcy fraud in the collapse of American Continental and Lincoln. Keating was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison but served just 50 months before the conviction was overturned on a technicality. In 1999, at age 75, he pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud. He was sentenced to time served.
In the end, McCain received only a mild rebuke from the Ethics Committee for exercising "poor judgment" for intervening with the federal regulators on behalf of Keating. Still, he felt tarred by the affair.
"The appearance of it was wrong," McCain said. "It's a wrong appearance when a group of senators appear in a meeting with a group of regulators because it conveys the impression of undue and improper influence. And it was the wrong thing to do."
McCain noted that Bennett, the independent counsel, recommended that McCain and Glenn be dropped from the investigation.
"For the first time in history, the Ethics Committee overruled the recommendation of the independent counsel," McCain said. For his part, DeConcini is critical of McCain's role in the affair. The two senators never were particularly cozy, and the stress of the public scrutiny worsened their relations.
In his memoir Senator Dennis DeConcini: From the Center of the Aisle, he praises the decision to keep McCain on the hook.
"It became clear to me, and it was later confirmed by Ethics Committee members, that Bennett was attempting to dismiss the charges against McCain, and in order to appear nonpartisan, he included Glenn in this effort," DeConcini wrote with co-author Jack August. "Thanks to the three Democrats on the committee and perhaps with the help of Senator (Jesse) Helms (R-N.C.), however, the charges remained in place for all the senators under investigation. So all of us had to attend the 23-day public hearing, which was indeed a trial, before the six-member Senate Ethics Committee."
In the book, DeConcini reiterates his allegation that McCain leaked to the media "sensitive information" about certain closed proceedings in order to hurt DeConcini, Riegle and Cranston. It's a fairly serious charge. The Boston Globe revisited the Keating Five leaks in 2000. The story paraphrased a congressional investigator, Clark B. Hall, as personally concluding that "McCain was one of the principal leakers." The newspaper also reported that McCain, under oath, had denied involvement with the leaks.
McCain owns up to his mistake this way:
"I was judged eventually, after three years, of using, quote, poor judgment, and I agree with that assessment."
Matt Lauer Might Be Brain-Dead
Well, Matt just raised the bar on stupidity (or would it be considered lowering...) - I will now refer to idiots as Matt Lauers.
But seriously...people wake up in the morning, and they're expected to begin their days with this clueless tool?
He's lucky his head doesn't detach from his neck at night.
Sadly...he's not the first moron to do so.
Maybe he should interview Sarah "Flintstones" Palin...then we can all watch as the interview degenerates into Phil Gramm-style soft pornage. Here's a Mother Jones article on Phil "Whiners" Gramm.
R.F.K. Jr. - you should've said that, "My dad says Thane Eugene Cesar killed me, not the Manchurian Candidate Sirhan Bishara Sirhan".
Really...why, if the officers present were NOT involved in the cover-up of the assassination, would they concern themselves with restraining Jamie Scott Enyart, the PHOTOGRAPHER, rather than Sirhan, the "supposed" shooter, or Cesar, the individual who admitted to pulling his .38, the caliber of bullet which murdered the former senator and aspirant for the office of the President Of The United States?
It's pretty bloody clear to me.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Our Quisling Senators
Alabama Sessions (R) No; Shelby (R) No.
Alaska Murkowski (R) Yes; Stevens (R) Yes.
Arizona Kyl (R) Yes; McCain (R) Yes.
Arkansas Lincoln (D) Yes; Pryor (D) Yes.
California Boxer (D) Yes; Feinstein (D) Yes.
Colorado Allard (R) No; Salazar (D) Yes.
Connecticut Dodd (D) Yes; Lieberman (I) Yes.
Delaware Biden (D) Yes; Carper (D) Yes.
Florida Martinez (R) Yes; Nelson (D) No.
Georgia Chambliss (R) Yes; Isakson (R) Yes.
Hawaii Akaka (D) Yes; Inouye (D) Yes.
Idaho Craig (R) Yes; Crapo (R) No.
Illinois Durbin (D) Yes; Obama (D) Yes.
Indiana Bayh (D) Yes; Lugar (R) Yes.
Iowa Grassley (R) Yes; Harkin (D) Yes.
Kansas Brownback (R) No; Roberts (R) No.
Kentucky Bunning (R) No; McConnell (R) Yes.
Louisiana Landrieu (D) No; Vitter (R) No.
Maine Collins (R) Yes; Snowe (R) Yes.
Maryland Cardin (D) Yes; Mikulski (D) Yes.
Massachusetts Kennedy (D) Not Voting; Kerry (D) Yes.
Michigan Levin (D) Yes; Stabenow (D) No.
Minnesota Coleman (R) Yes; Klobuchar (D) Yes.
Mississippi Cochran (R) No; Wicker (R) No.
Missouri Bond (R) Yes; McCaskill (D) Yes.
Montana Baucus (D) Yes; Tester (D) No.
Nebraska Hagel (R) Yes; Nelson (D) Yes.
Nevada Ensign (R) Yes; Reid (D) Yes.
New Hampshire Gregg (R) Yes; Sununu (R) Yes.
New Jersey Lautenberg (D) Yes; Menendez (D) Yes.
New Mexico Bingaman (D) Yes; Domenici (R) Yes.
New York Clinton (D) Yes; Schumer (D) Yes.
North Carolina Burr (R) Yes; Dole (R) No.
North Dakota Conrad (D) Yes; Dorgan (D) No.
Ohio Brown (D) Yes; Voinovich (R) Yes.
Oklahoma Coburn (R) Yes; Inhofe (R) No.
Oregon Smith (R) Yes; Wyden (D) No.
Pennsylvania Casey (D) Yes; Specter (R) Yes.
Rhode Island Reed (D) Yes; Whitehouse (D) Yes.
South Carolina DeMint (R) No; Graham (R) Yes.
South Dakota Johnson (D) No; Thune (R) Yes.
Tennessee Alexander (R) Yes; Corker (R) Yes.
Texas Cornyn (R) Yes; Hutchison (R) Yes.
Utah Bennett (R) Yes; Hatch (R) Yes.
Vermont Leahy (D) Yes; Sanders (I) No.
Virginia Warner (R) Yes; Webb (D) Yes.
Washington Cantwell (D) No; Murray (D) Yes.
West Virginia Byrd (D) Yes; Rockefeller (D) Yes.
Wisconsin Feingold (D) No; Kohl (D) Yes.
Wyoming Barrasso (R) No; Enzi (R) No.
I guess we can look forward to seeing 74 new Senators come Election Day.
Alaska Murkowski (R) Yes; Stevens (R) Yes.
Arizona Kyl (R) Yes; McCain (R) Yes.
Arkansas Lincoln (D) Yes; Pryor (D) Yes.
California Boxer (D) Yes; Feinstein (D) Yes.
Colorado Allard (R) No; Salazar (D) Yes.
Connecticut Dodd (D) Yes; Lieberman (I) Yes.
Delaware Biden (D) Yes; Carper (D) Yes.
Florida Martinez (R) Yes; Nelson (D) No.
Georgia Chambliss (R) Yes; Isakson (R) Yes.
Hawaii Akaka (D) Yes; Inouye (D) Yes.
Idaho Craig (R) Yes; Crapo (R) No.
Illinois Durbin (D) Yes; Obama (D) Yes.
Indiana Bayh (D) Yes; Lugar (R) Yes.
Iowa Grassley (R) Yes; Harkin (D) Yes.
Kansas Brownback (R) No; Roberts (R) No.
Kentucky Bunning (R) No; McConnell (R) Yes.
Louisiana Landrieu (D) No; Vitter (R) No.
Maine Collins (R) Yes; Snowe (R) Yes.
Maryland Cardin (D) Yes; Mikulski (D) Yes.
Massachusetts Kennedy (D) Not Voting; Kerry (D) Yes.
Michigan Levin (D) Yes; Stabenow (D) No.
Minnesota Coleman (R) Yes; Klobuchar (D) Yes.
Mississippi Cochran (R) No; Wicker (R) No.
Missouri Bond (R) Yes; McCaskill (D) Yes.
Montana Baucus (D) Yes; Tester (D) No.
Nebraska Hagel (R) Yes; Nelson (D) Yes.
Nevada Ensign (R) Yes; Reid (D) Yes.
New Hampshire Gregg (R) Yes; Sununu (R) Yes.
New Jersey Lautenberg (D) Yes; Menendez (D) Yes.
New Mexico Bingaman (D) Yes; Domenici (R) Yes.
New York Clinton (D) Yes; Schumer (D) Yes.
North Carolina Burr (R) Yes; Dole (R) No.
North Dakota Conrad (D) Yes; Dorgan (D) No.
Ohio Brown (D) Yes; Voinovich (R) Yes.
Oklahoma Coburn (R) Yes; Inhofe (R) No.
Oregon Smith (R) Yes; Wyden (D) No.
Pennsylvania Casey (D) Yes; Specter (R) Yes.
Rhode Island Reed (D) Yes; Whitehouse (D) Yes.
South Carolina DeMint (R) No; Graham (R) Yes.
South Dakota Johnson (D) No; Thune (R) Yes.
Tennessee Alexander (R) Yes; Corker (R) Yes.
Texas Cornyn (R) Yes; Hutchison (R) Yes.
Utah Bennett (R) Yes; Hatch (R) Yes.
Vermont Leahy (D) Yes; Sanders (I) No.
Virginia Warner (R) Yes; Webb (D) Yes.
Washington Cantwell (D) No; Murray (D) Yes.
West Virginia Byrd (D) Yes; Rockefeller (D) Yes.
Wisconsin Feingold (D) No; Kohl (D) Yes.
Wyoming Barrasso (R) No; Enzi (R) No.
I guess we can look forward to seeing 74 new Senators come Election Day.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
911 Booger - Are There Really People This Stupid?
I'll admit to a failing of mine...I love exposing nitwits, tools and schmendricks. One such individual is the empty head behind 911 Booger.
He has a posting up titled "Pouty 9/11 Truthers Get Upset When Reminded to Increase Medications". More telling, though, are the comments to said posting.
I must take issue with the logic offered in this statement: "He refers to what most sane individuals have accepted as the truth as "a crazy conspiracy theory about a world-wide conspiracy of radical Arabs and incompetent pilots". he then proffers that a blogger called The Existentialist Cowboy should take pharmaceuticals, and all will be well.
So...sane people are the ones ingesting mind-bending pharmaceuticals, right?
Just walk around in a chemically-induced haze, and all will be right with the world, yes?
I am an advocate of RESPONSIBLE USAGE; if you can pay for it without having to resort to crime, and you can handle it, and you don't turn into a massive asshole, you should feel free. This is the United States of America, is it not? You know, that whole bit about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
I do wish to make this point - I hate bloody pharmaceutical drugs.
I actually had a panic attack going to the loo...is that something I should just get used to?
Bugger off with that bunch of nonsense...and as far as "conspiracy theories" go, the biggest one I've heard is that 19 stinky ragheads in a cave circumvented our air defenses, and were able to bring down three buildings, one amazingly without an airplane impact, and strike the nerve center of our defense with a commercial plane!
That's what I would term a drug-induced haze.
He has a posting up titled "Pouty 9/11 Truthers Get Upset When Reminded to Increase Medications". More telling, though, are the comments to said posting.
I must take issue with the logic offered in this statement: "He refers to what most sane individuals have accepted as the truth as "a crazy conspiracy theory about a world-wide conspiracy of radical Arabs and incompetent pilots". he then proffers that a blogger called The Existentialist Cowboy should take pharmaceuticals, and all will be well.
So...sane people are the ones ingesting mind-bending pharmaceuticals, right?
Just walk around in a chemically-induced haze, and all will be right with the world, yes?
I am an advocate of RESPONSIBLE USAGE; if you can pay for it without having to resort to crime, and you can handle it, and you don't turn into a massive asshole, you should feel free. This is the United States of America, is it not? You know, that whole bit about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
I do wish to make this point - I hate bloody pharmaceutical drugs.
I actually had a panic attack going to the loo...is that something I should just get used to?
Bugger off with that bunch of nonsense...and as far as "conspiracy theories" go, the biggest one I've heard is that 19 stinky ragheads in a cave circumvented our air defenses, and were able to bring down three buildings, one amazingly without an airplane impact, and strike the nerve center of our defense with a commercial plane!
That's what I would term a drug-induced haze.
I Was Going To Steal That Graphic...
...but I can't do the posting any more justice than has been done...so without further ado, I present to you, from Democratic Underground...The World According to Sarah "Flintstones" Palin!
And don't forget to peruse their prized weekly feature, The Top 10 Conservative Idiots - and please read the preceding offerings, as well - truly some gems in there!
In other news...the S. 1959: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 still presents a danger to WE THE PEOPLE - please keep yourselves apprised of the progress/non-progress of this advent into martial law.
The Senate is working feverishly to obfuscate the truth about the $700 billion dollar ripoff of the American public. Read one man's perspective on this.
Call your senator and tell them that a YES for this "bailout" will be a YES vote for their removal from public office. Call 1-800-828-0498 and make your voice heard.
And don't forget to peruse their prized weekly feature, The Top 10 Conservative Idiots - and please read the preceding offerings, as well - truly some gems in there!
In other news...the S. 1959: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 still presents a danger to WE THE PEOPLE - please keep yourselves apprised of the progress/non-progress of this advent into martial law.
The Senate is working feverishly to obfuscate the truth about the $700 billion dollar ripoff of the American public. Read one man's perspective on this.
Call your senator and tell them that a YES for this "bailout" will be a YES vote for their removal from public office. Call 1-800-828-0498 and make your voice heard.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
SEVENTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS HELP NEEDED - A CALL TO ARMS
16th Amendment - The Sixteenth Amendment Bill Benson Litigation
SEVENTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS HELP NEEDED
A CALL TO ARMS
In this historic 16th Amendment litigation, the Government has sued Bill Benson seeking an injunction prohibiting him from "falsely" telling people the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was not ratified and therefore people are not required to file an income tax return. The Government contends it is entitled to an injunction because Benson is promoting an abusive tax shelter, conduct made subject to a penalty per 26 U.S.C. Section 6700. All of the pleadings filed in the case can be found here (quotations around the word falsely added by hANOVER fIST; the only thing being "falsely mentioned" is that the tax burden weighs on WE THE PEOPLE - Bill Benson's research has verified that the fraudulent 16th Amendment was NOT ratified; conversely, the original 13th Amendment was ratified, but was removed in 1860 and replaced with an amendment that places WE THE PEOPLE as slaves to the elected offficials who are OUR representatives).
In 1894 Congress passed an income tax act very similar to the current income tax law. That law was challenged on the basis that a tax on income is a direct tax, the United States Constitution requires direct taxes to be apportioned, and the act passed by Congress was not apportioned. The United States Supreme Court agreed and held the income tax act was unconstitutional in Pollock v. Farmer's Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, aff. reh., 158 U.S. 601 (1895).
In 1909 President Taft called a special session of Congress. Taft asked Congress to propose a constitutional amendment to overcome the Supreme Court's Pollock decision. Congress proposed the Sixteenth Amendment, which was then sent to the states for ratification by Secretary of State Knox. Certificates of Ratification were sent back to Knox, but the language on the certificates differed from the 16th Amendment language passed by Congress. Knox sent the certificates to the Solicitor of the United States and asked for a legal opinion as to whether the states had ratified the proposed Sixteenth Amendment.
The Solicitor noted the differences between what Congress proposed and the states ratified, and presumed, that because states do not have the authority to alter a proposed Constitutional amendment, that none did. He concluded, therefore, that the differences in language were nothing more than minor clerical errors in the preparation of the Certificates of Ratification. Knox then declared the 16th Amendment had been ratified.
The legislative journals conclusively establish, that despite not having the power to do so, several states intentionally modified the language of the proposed amendment. The presumption relied upon by the Solicitor was wrong! Benson discovered other discrepancies too. He wrote and published a book on what he discovered, The Law That Never Was, available on his web site at www.TheLawThatNeverWas.com. Benson contends that less than thirty-six states actually ratified the proposed Sixteenth Amendment.
In the absence of the 16th Amendment, the current income tax is an unapportioned direct tax, and is just as unconstitutional today as it was in 1894. Since 1985 Benson tells everyone who will listen about what he found, and urges people to exercise their First Amendment rights to rectify the situation. Benson's message is gaining acceptance in the marketplace of ideas. The Government now seeks to silence him.
Many people ask why, if the 16th Amendment created no new taxing power, as stated by the Supreme Court in Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916), it is necessary to litigate whether the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified? The Supreme Court ruled in Pollock that the income tax enacted by Congress in 1894 was a direct tax, the act passed by congress wasn't apportioned, and therefore the tax was unconstitutional. The decision wasn't unanimous. The court was split five to four. Those in the minority believed a tax on income was not a direct tax, but an indirect, excise tax. One of the dissenters was associate justice White. Notwithstanding the decision was split five to four, the result was that the constitutional requirement that direct taxes be apportioned was upheld. To overcome the holding of Pollock, Congress proposed the 16th Amendment. It was allegedly ratified in 1913.
Subsequent to the alleged ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court does not agree on exactly what the 16th Amendment did:
* According to the Supreme Court in Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189 (1920), the Sixteenth Amendment removed the requirement of apportionment for the direct income tax. That is, direct taxes still had to be apportioned except the direct tax on income.
* According to Brushaber, written by Justice White who by that time had become the chief justice, the 16th Amendment prevented courts from doing what he claimed the Pollock court did--consider the source of the income to take the tax on that income out of the class of excises, to which he claimed it belonged, and placing it in the class of direct taxes. That is, a tax on income, regardless of the source, is an indirect tax; because the tax is not a direct tax, it does not have to be apportioned.
Whether you agree with Brushaber that the tax is an excise tax that doesn't have to be apportioned, or agree with Eisner that the tax is a direct tax that doesn't have to be apportioned, without the 16th Amendment, the law reverts back to Pollock. The serious student will find my book, Judicial Tyranny and Your Income Tax, an in depth study of the history of the income tax, with two chapters devoted to the issue of direct and indirect taxes, and an extensive analysis of the Pollock and Brushaber cases. If you would like a copy, click here.
The issues in Bill Benson's case, however, transcend whether or not the 16th Amendment was ratified. More important is the issue that the government believes it can take a position and punish someone who disagrees with that position, without affording the person any opportunity to prove the government's position is wrong. The government, unable to refute Bill Benson's facts conclusively establishing less than three-fourths of the states voted to ratify the proposed amendment, objected to the facts on the grounds they were irrelevant, immaterial and scandalous. The court agreed, and issued an order that Bill Benson is not to be allowed to defend based upon the truth. If this posture is allowed to stand, every semblance of justice in America will be trashed. It is inconceivable that the Star Chamber becomes again the type of court justice to be utilized to resolve disputes between the people and the government.
Equally disturbing is the position of the federal government that it has the unfettered right to obtain the names and addresses of any person who so much as ordered Benson's material, read it or possesses it. The pleadings, filed by the government, make it perfectly clear the government intends to obtain the names and investigate any person whose name they obtain.
The issue of taxation and the Sixteenth Amendment is a political question. We, as Americans, supposedly have an inalienable right to the free debate of these issues without government interference. We, as Americans, supposedly have the right to require the government to answer our questions. We, as Americans, supposedly have the right to require the government to prove its allegations against us in Court. We, as Americans, supposedly have the right, when charged with a crime, to present a defense.
To counter the government's efforts to destroy our First Amendment rights, three people have intervened in the Benson litigation. They intervened as John Doe I, John Doe II and Jane Roe to protect their names from the government. They are demanding a protective order preventing the government from obtaining their names, as well as, the names of anyone else involved in this important political debate on the Sixteenth Amendment.
If we don't take a stand, together, we lose. It's that simple. The Bill Benson litigation is, perhaps, the single most important litigation in the court today. The issues affect YOU, just as much as they affect Bill Benson.
I am representing Bill Benson and the three interveners for free. They do not have funds to prosecute and defend their rights in this 16th Amendment litigation. I am asking for your donations to keep me in housing and with food and supplies while this litigation is pending.
Whether you agree with Bill Benson or not, this litigation is not about one of us being right or wrong. This litigation is about preserving YOUR freedom. It is about your right to even have an opinion and express it without fear of government retaliation. Our country is in serious distress, as we now have East German like checkpoints at our airports, and wholesale government disrespect of, and contempt for, our Constitution.
Ben Franklin said during another time of intolerable governmental action: "We must all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." Please support this litigation and make a donation to support those who have taken a front line position to defend liberty for all of us. Click here to Make a Donation. Also, please pass along the link to this case to your family and friends.
http://jeffdickstein.com/
SEVENTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS HELP NEEDED
A CALL TO ARMS
The Bill Benson case is now before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Bill has filed his Opening Brief, the government has filed its Reply and Brief on Cross-Appeal seeking the names of those in association with Bill. Bill has filed his Response and Reply Brief to the Cross-Appeal. The government has filed its Response to Bill's Reply on the Cross-appeal.
The next step is for the Seventh Circuit to set the case for oral argument. Oral argument will be held at the Federal Courthouse, 219 S. Dearborn Street, Chicago, IL 60604. Oral argument will probably be scheduled three to six months from now.
● The critical issues are that the courts are covering up the fact that it has allowed the constitution to be amended by a presumption of the executive rather than actual ratification by the necessary number of states.
● The courts and the executive are attempting to stop the dissemination of public records showing governmental fraud, thereby thrashing the First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech.
● The courts are taking the position that one accused of making false statements regarding government misconduct cannot present evidence in court that his statements are absolutely true, thereby thrashing the Fifth Amendment right to Due Process and the people's right to defend themselves in court.
This conduct will shock the conscious of every American if only it is brought to their attention.
My Call to Arms is to work together to put as much political pressure on the 7th Cir as is humanly possible. To that end, I request your help to accomplish the following:
✓ Distribute Bill's Response and Reply Brief as widely as possible, sending it to everyone you know and publishing it on the Internet on web sites and blogs
✓ Produce and publish YouTube videos
✓ Disseminate the Response and Reply Brief to as many attorneys and CPA as possible
✓ Disseminate the Response and Reply Brief to as many defense bars and First Amendment Groups as possible
✓ Help organize, and attend, a huge protest outside of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals the day before and the day of the oral argument hearing
✓ Make the date of the hearing before the 7th Circuit known and present the issues to radio stations and newspapers and press releases
✓ Call the television stations and urge them to cover the protest
✓ Set up opinion polls where people text their opinion or call them in to a toll number so we can generate funds
✓ Set up on the Internet a service where for a fee, a letter will be faxed to a person's senators and congressman
✓ E-mail this Call to Arms and Bill's Response and Reply Brief to all of the Ron Paul groups
✓ Help finance a newspaper ad in USA Today a week before the oral argument before the 7th Circuit. Donations may be made on line here
This case represents the best shot we will ever have at ridding ourselves, once and for all, the dreaded federal income tax. It is time to take political action and make our voices heard if we are going to continue to have FREEDOM OF SPEECH and the RIGHT TO DEFEND OURSELVES IN COURTS.
PLEASE HELP.
Yours in Freedom,
JEFFREY A. DICKSTEIN
SEVENTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS HELP NEEDED
A CALL TO ARMS
In this historic 16th Amendment litigation, the Government has sued Bill Benson seeking an injunction prohibiting him from "falsely" telling people the Sixteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was not ratified and therefore people are not required to file an income tax return. The Government contends it is entitled to an injunction because Benson is promoting an abusive tax shelter, conduct made subject to a penalty per 26 U.S.C. Section 6700. All of the pleadings filed in the case can be found here (quotations around the word falsely added by hANOVER fIST; the only thing being "falsely mentioned" is that the tax burden weighs on WE THE PEOPLE - Bill Benson's research has verified that the fraudulent 16th Amendment was NOT ratified; conversely, the original 13th Amendment was ratified, but was removed in 1860 and replaced with an amendment that places WE THE PEOPLE as slaves to the elected offficials who are OUR representatives).
In 1894 Congress passed an income tax act very similar to the current income tax law. That law was challenged on the basis that a tax on income is a direct tax, the United States Constitution requires direct taxes to be apportioned, and the act passed by Congress was not apportioned. The United States Supreme Court agreed and held the income tax act was unconstitutional in Pollock v. Farmer's Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, aff. reh., 158 U.S. 601 (1895).
In 1909 President Taft called a special session of Congress. Taft asked Congress to propose a constitutional amendment to overcome the Supreme Court's Pollock decision. Congress proposed the Sixteenth Amendment, which was then sent to the states for ratification by Secretary of State Knox. Certificates of Ratification were sent back to Knox, but the language on the certificates differed from the 16th Amendment language passed by Congress. Knox sent the certificates to the Solicitor of the United States and asked for a legal opinion as to whether the states had ratified the proposed Sixteenth Amendment.
The Solicitor noted the differences between what Congress proposed and the states ratified, and presumed, that because states do not have the authority to alter a proposed Constitutional amendment, that none did. He concluded, therefore, that the differences in language were nothing more than minor clerical errors in the preparation of the Certificates of Ratification. Knox then declared the 16th Amendment had been ratified.
The legislative journals conclusively establish, that despite not having the power to do so, several states intentionally modified the language of the proposed amendment. The presumption relied upon by the Solicitor was wrong! Benson discovered other discrepancies too. He wrote and published a book on what he discovered, The Law That Never Was, available on his web site at www.TheLawThatNeverWas.com. Benson contends that less than thirty-six states actually ratified the proposed Sixteenth Amendment.
In the absence of the 16th Amendment, the current income tax is an unapportioned direct tax, and is just as unconstitutional today as it was in 1894. Since 1985 Benson tells everyone who will listen about what he found, and urges people to exercise their First Amendment rights to rectify the situation. Benson's message is gaining acceptance in the marketplace of ideas. The Government now seeks to silence him.
Many people ask why, if the 16th Amendment created no new taxing power, as stated by the Supreme Court in Brushaber v. Union Pacific Railroad Co., 240 U.S. 1 (1916), it is necessary to litigate whether the Sixteenth Amendment was ratified? The Supreme Court ruled in Pollock that the income tax enacted by Congress in 1894 was a direct tax, the act passed by congress wasn't apportioned, and therefore the tax was unconstitutional. The decision wasn't unanimous. The court was split five to four. Those in the minority believed a tax on income was not a direct tax, but an indirect, excise tax. One of the dissenters was associate justice White. Notwithstanding the decision was split five to four, the result was that the constitutional requirement that direct taxes be apportioned was upheld. To overcome the holding of Pollock, Congress proposed the 16th Amendment. It was allegedly ratified in 1913.
Subsequent to the alleged ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, the Supreme Court does not agree on exactly what the 16th Amendment did:
* According to the Supreme Court in Eisner v. Macomber, 252 U.S. 189 (1920), the Sixteenth Amendment removed the requirement of apportionment for the direct income tax. That is, direct taxes still had to be apportioned except the direct tax on income.
* According to Brushaber, written by Justice White who by that time had become the chief justice, the 16th Amendment prevented courts from doing what he claimed the Pollock court did--consider the source of the income to take the tax on that income out of the class of excises, to which he claimed it belonged, and placing it in the class of direct taxes. That is, a tax on income, regardless of the source, is an indirect tax; because the tax is not a direct tax, it does not have to be apportioned.
Whether you agree with Brushaber that the tax is an excise tax that doesn't have to be apportioned, or agree with Eisner that the tax is a direct tax that doesn't have to be apportioned, without the 16th Amendment, the law reverts back to Pollock. The serious student will find my book, Judicial Tyranny and Your Income Tax, an in depth study of the history of the income tax, with two chapters devoted to the issue of direct and indirect taxes, and an extensive analysis of the Pollock and Brushaber cases. If you would like a copy, click here.
The issues in Bill Benson's case, however, transcend whether or not the 16th Amendment was ratified. More important is the issue that the government believes it can take a position and punish someone who disagrees with that position, without affording the person any opportunity to prove the government's position is wrong. The government, unable to refute Bill Benson's facts conclusively establishing less than three-fourths of the states voted to ratify the proposed amendment, objected to the facts on the grounds they were irrelevant, immaterial and scandalous. The court agreed, and issued an order that Bill Benson is not to be allowed to defend based upon the truth. If this posture is allowed to stand, every semblance of justice in America will be trashed. It is inconceivable that the Star Chamber becomes again the type of court justice to be utilized to resolve disputes between the people and the government.
Equally disturbing is the position of the federal government that it has the unfettered right to obtain the names and addresses of any person who so much as ordered Benson's material, read it or possesses it. The pleadings, filed by the government, make it perfectly clear the government intends to obtain the names and investigate any person whose name they obtain.
The issue of taxation and the Sixteenth Amendment is a political question. We, as Americans, supposedly have an inalienable right to the free debate of these issues without government interference. We, as Americans, supposedly have the right to require the government to answer our questions. We, as Americans, supposedly have the right to require the government to prove its allegations against us in Court. We, as Americans, supposedly have the right, when charged with a crime, to present a defense.
To counter the government's efforts to destroy our First Amendment rights, three people have intervened in the Benson litigation. They intervened as John Doe I, John Doe II and Jane Roe to protect their names from the government. They are demanding a protective order preventing the government from obtaining their names, as well as, the names of anyone else involved in this important political debate on the Sixteenth Amendment.
If we don't take a stand, together, we lose. It's that simple. The Bill Benson litigation is, perhaps, the single most important litigation in the court today. The issues affect YOU, just as much as they affect Bill Benson.
I am representing Bill Benson and the three interveners for free. They do not have funds to prosecute and defend their rights in this 16th Amendment litigation. I am asking for your donations to keep me in housing and with food and supplies while this litigation is pending.
Whether you agree with Bill Benson or not, this litigation is not about one of us being right or wrong. This litigation is about preserving YOUR freedom. It is about your right to even have an opinion and express it without fear of government retaliation. Our country is in serious distress, as we now have East German like checkpoints at our airports, and wholesale government disrespect of, and contempt for, our Constitution.
Ben Franklin said during another time of intolerable governmental action: "We must all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." Please support this litigation and make a donation to support those who have taken a front line position to defend liberty for all of us. Click here to Make a Donation. Also, please pass along the link to this case to your family and friends.
http://jeffdickstein.com/
SEVENTH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS HELP NEEDED
A CALL TO ARMS
The Bill Benson case is now before the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Bill has filed his Opening Brief, the government has filed its Reply and Brief on Cross-Appeal seeking the names of those in association with Bill. Bill has filed his Response and Reply Brief to the Cross-Appeal. The government has filed its Response to Bill's Reply on the Cross-appeal.
The next step is for the Seventh Circuit to set the case for oral argument. Oral argument will be held at the Federal Courthouse, 219 S. Dearborn Street, Chicago, IL 60604. Oral argument will probably be scheduled three to six months from now.
● The critical issues are that the courts are covering up the fact that it has allowed the constitution to be amended by a presumption of the executive rather than actual ratification by the necessary number of states.
● The courts and the executive are attempting to stop the dissemination of public records showing governmental fraud, thereby thrashing the First Amendment right to Freedom of Speech.
● The courts are taking the position that one accused of making false statements regarding government misconduct cannot present evidence in court that his statements are absolutely true, thereby thrashing the Fifth Amendment right to Due Process and the people's right to defend themselves in court.
This conduct will shock the conscious of every American if only it is brought to their attention.
My Call to Arms is to work together to put as much political pressure on the 7th Cir as is humanly possible. To that end, I request your help to accomplish the following:
✓ Distribute Bill's Response and Reply Brief as widely as possible, sending it to everyone you know and publishing it on the Internet on web sites and blogs
✓ Produce and publish YouTube videos
✓ Disseminate the Response and Reply Brief to as many attorneys and CPA as possible
✓ Disseminate the Response and Reply Brief to as many defense bars and First Amendment Groups as possible
✓ Help organize, and attend, a huge protest outside of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals the day before and the day of the oral argument hearing
✓ Make the date of the hearing before the 7th Circuit known and present the issues to radio stations and newspapers and press releases
✓ Call the television stations and urge them to cover the protest
✓ Set up opinion polls where people text their opinion or call them in to a toll number so we can generate funds
✓ Set up on the Internet a service where for a fee, a letter will be faxed to a person's senators and congressman
✓ E-mail this Call to Arms and Bill's Response and Reply Brief to all of the Ron Paul groups
✓ Help finance a newspaper ad in USA Today a week before the oral argument before the 7th Circuit. Donations may be made on line here
This case represents the best shot we will ever have at ridding ourselves, once and for all, the dreaded federal income tax. It is time to take political action and make our voices heard if we are going to continue to have FREEDOM OF SPEECH and the RIGHT TO DEFEND OURSELVES IN COURTS.
PLEASE HELP.
Yours in Freedom,
JEFFREY A. DICKSTEIN
Let Risk-Taking Financial Institutions Fail (kudos to Travis Kelly)
Let Risk-Taking Financial Institutions Fail
The Administration and Congress have felt compelled to do something about the "financial meltdown," so an inefficient and inequitable "bailout plan" has been rushed through the legislature despite harsh criticism from the right and left. That's unfortunate. Both presidential candidates were stalling by qualifying the plan. Whichever candidate had had the courage to reject outright this proposal would have had the better claim to be President.
Do not be fooled. The $700 billion (ultimately $1 trillion or more) bailout is not predominantly for mortgages and homeowners. Instead, the bailout is for mortgage-backed securities. In fact, some versions of these instruments are imaginary derivatives. These claims overlap on the same types of mortgages. Many financial institutions wrote claims over the same mortgages, and these are the majority of claims that have "gone bad."
Follow the money. Average Joes and Janes are not the holders of the other side of complicated, over-the-counter derivatives contracts. Rather, hedge funds are the main holders. The bailout will involve a transfer of wealth — from the American people to financial institutions engaging in reckless speculation — that will be the greatest in history...
Rescuing financial institutions is not the best solution. Yes, banks are needed to provide capital to businesses. But it is not necessary to spend $1 trillion to maintain liquidity. If the government is to intervene, it should pick and choose which claims to purchase; claims that are directly tied to mortgages would be a good start.
Let financial institutions fail, merge or be bought out. The faltering institutions will see their shares devalued and will be likely to be taken over by stronger institutions — as has already started happening. This consolidation of the financial sector is both efficient and inevitable; government action can only delay the adjustment.
The government should not intervene. It should leave overleveraged financial institutions to default on their derivatives obligations and, if necessary, file for bankruptcy. Much of the crisis has arisen from miscalculating the risks involved in a large book of positions in these derivatives. It is only logical that these institutions pay for their poor management.
Rather than bailing out Wall Street, we propose that the government should buy up the actual mortgages in question and do nothing else. The government should not touch any derivatives; that is, claims that do not directly tie into the actual mortgages. If money becomes too tight, then the Fed can certainly increase its loans to financial institutions.
Let the poorly managed, overly risk-taking financial institutions fail! Always remember that Wall Street and the real economy are not the same thing.
— Ari J. Officer has completed his master of science degree in financial mathematics at Stanford University. Lawrence H. Officer is a professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
The Administration and Congress have felt compelled to do something about the "financial meltdown," so an inefficient and inequitable "bailout plan" has been rushed through the legislature despite harsh criticism from the right and left. That's unfortunate. Both presidential candidates were stalling by qualifying the plan. Whichever candidate had had the courage to reject outright this proposal would have had the better claim to be President.
Do not be fooled. The $700 billion (ultimately $1 trillion or more) bailout is not predominantly for mortgages and homeowners. Instead, the bailout is for mortgage-backed securities. In fact, some versions of these instruments are imaginary derivatives. These claims overlap on the same types of mortgages. Many financial institutions wrote claims over the same mortgages, and these are the majority of claims that have "gone bad."
Follow the money. Average Joes and Janes are not the holders of the other side of complicated, over-the-counter derivatives contracts. Rather, hedge funds are the main holders. The bailout will involve a transfer of wealth — from the American people to financial institutions engaging in reckless speculation — that will be the greatest in history...
Rescuing financial institutions is not the best solution. Yes, banks are needed to provide capital to businesses. But it is not necessary to spend $1 trillion to maintain liquidity. If the government is to intervene, it should pick and choose which claims to purchase; claims that are directly tied to mortgages would be a good start.
Let financial institutions fail, merge or be bought out. The faltering institutions will see their shares devalued and will be likely to be taken over by stronger institutions — as has already started happening. This consolidation of the financial sector is both efficient and inevitable; government action can only delay the adjustment.
The government should not intervene. It should leave overleveraged financial institutions to default on their derivatives obligations and, if necessary, file for bankruptcy. Much of the crisis has arisen from miscalculating the risks involved in a large book of positions in these derivatives. It is only logical that these institutions pay for their poor management.
Rather than bailing out Wall Street, we propose that the government should buy up the actual mortgages in question and do nothing else. The government should not touch any derivatives; that is, claims that do not directly tie into the actual mortgages. If money becomes too tight, then the Fed can certainly increase its loans to financial institutions.
Let the poorly managed, overly risk-taking financial institutions fail! Always remember that Wall Street and the real economy are not the same thing.
— Ari J. Officer has completed his master of science degree in financial mathematics at Stanford University. Lawrence H. Officer is a professor of economics at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
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