Keating Five Ring a Bell?

[babsbunny]

http://www.truthout.org/article/keating-five-ring-a-bell

Thursday 25 September 2008


by: Rosa Brooks, The Los Angeles Times

photo
In this November 20, 1990 file photo, Senator John McCain, R-Arizona (left) sits with his attorney Plato Cacheris during a Senate Ethics Committee hearing on the Keating Five Savings and Loan Scandal. (Photo: John Duricka / AP)

McCain's past collides with the present Wall Street debacle.

Once upon a time, a politician took campaign contributions and favors from a friendly constituent who happened to run a savings and loan association. The contributions were generous: They came to about $200,000 in today's dollars, and on top of that there were several free vacations for the politician and his family, along with private jet trips and other perks. The politician voted repeatedly against congressional efforts to tighten regulation of S&Ls, and in 1987, when he learned that his constituent's S&L was the target of a federal investigation, he met with regulators in an effort to get them to back off.