Background Check: John McCain

I had a few remarks on Twitter about how anti-Obama I’ve been recently, and a recent blogger labeled my blog “conservative/Republican.” NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH! Let me assure you, I do not support McCain nor Obama. I think they are both crooks. And I can prove it. Since I’ve been posting so much about Obama, I decided to remind voters of some of the skeleton’s in McCain’s closet:

Adultery
For a guy campaigning on family values, John McCain has broken up a lot of marriages. When he met his first wife (a swimsuit model), she was married to naval academy classmate of his. After he broke that marriage up, she stuck by him loyally as he went off to war and was a prisoner for five and a half years. When he returned to America, though, he found out that she had been in a car wreck and wasn’t as pretty. So he had a series of affairs, by his own admission, and dumped his wife and adopted family for a younger, very rich blond (now Cindy McCain). Cindy, the daughter of a wealthy Budweiser beer distributor, was addicted to prescription narcotics and even stole hard drugs from a medical charity that she ran. In February, 2008, the New York Times ran a big article about the unusually close relationship between John McCain and a young telecommunications lobbyist named Vicki Iseman (who looks uncannily like Cindy McCain did when SHE was 25). They became so close that his staff, convinced they were having an affair, confronted both McCain and Iseman, telling them to back off. Now, a lot of people have criticized the Times for hinting without actually saying that McCain had sexual relations with that woman. But really, it doesn’t matter. It’s a matter of record that he accepted money and favors from her, spent a lot of time for her, and did favors for her clients. Among other things, McCain wrote two letters — from a draft provided by Vicki Iseman — to the head of the Federal Communications Commission — which was way out of line, since McCain headed the Senate Commmerce Committee, which controls the FCC. McCain’s pressure was so outrageous that, even though McCain was in charge of funding his commission, the FCC commissioner wrote a letter back rebuking him for his interference, at the height of McCain’s “ethics in government” campaign.

So, was McCain sleeping with her, hoping to sleep with her, or being subconsciously manipulated by a cute young woman? It doesn’t really matter. He was being led by his groin into ethical violations. Let’s face it, he was 64 at the time and is 72 now. Whether he is still cheating or not, he seems to be led by his penis; witness the videos of McCain checking out Sarah Palin’s butt during the speech where he introduced her.

Founding Member of the Keating 5
Back in the old days, defendants in famous trials got numbers — the Chicago Eight, the Gang of Four, the Dave Clark Five, the Daytona 500. McCain was one of the “Keating Five,” congressmen investigated on ethics charges for strenuously helping convicted racketeer Charles Keating after he gave them large campaign contributions and vacation trips.

Charles Keating was convicted of racketeering and fraud in both state and federal court after his Lincoln Savings & Loan collapsed, costing the taxpayers $3.4 billion. His convictions were overturned on technicalities; for example, the federal conviction was overturned because jurors had heard about his state conviction, and his state charges because Judge Lance Ito (yes, that judge) screwed up jury instructions. Neither court cleared him, and he faces new trials in both courts.)

McCain intervened on behalf of Charles Keating after Keating gave McCain at least $112,000 in contributions. In the mid-1980s, McCain made at least 9 trips on Keating’s airplanes, and 3 of those were to Keating’s luxurious retreat in the Bahamas. McCain’s wife and father-in-law also were the largest investors (at $350,000) in a Keating shopping center; the Phoenix New Times called it a “sweetheart deal.”

McCain was not convicted of any crimes, though the Senate concluded that he exercised “poor judgment.” (Furthermore, he got off on some charges by a technicality — that he was still in the House when he took those vacation trips, and so the Senate couldn’t prosecute him. The House concluded that THEY couldn’t prosecute him because he had moved to the Senate.)

Junkie Wife
Cindy McCain, McCain’s frighteningly skinny second wife, is quite a presence in his campaign. She is out giving speeches and attacking Barack Obama on ethical grounds. But her only record is far from clean, not even counting the fact that she seduced McCain when he was a married father of four. Cindy and her father — who have hundreds of millions of dollar from her dad’s Budweiser distributorship — invested in one of convicted banker Charles Keatings projects, even as her husband was helping him fight off bank regulators in the days before Keatings savings and loan went bankrupt. Cindy has refused to release her tax returns, making it impossible to tell what other conflicts of interest she may be hiding.

But most dramatically, Cindy was a serious narcotics addict who created a charity for sick children (American Voluntary Medical Team or AVMT), then used it to get fraudulent prescriptions for Vicodin and Percocet. And a whistleblower from her staff says that John McCain and his senate staffers helped Cindy smuggle her ill-gotten narcotics through customs. I could go on about her but I won’t. . . .

Mafia Ties
Arizona (which borders Nevada) has long had a serious presence. In the 1970s, a reporter was assassinated for looking into them. In 1995, McCain sent birthday regards, and regrets for not attending, to Joseph “Joe Bananas” Bonano, the head of the New York Bonano crime family, who had retired to Arizona. Another politician to send regrets was Governor Fife Symington, who has since been kicked out of office and convicted of seven felonies relating to fraud and extortion.

OK, I’m going to stop here. But now no one can accuse me of being a McCain supporter! And now you know why. Don’t worry, plenty more dirt is surfacing on Obama too!

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