Free Republic

<p>COCOA BEACH, Fla. — Legendary space industry engineer Thomas J. O'Malley, 94, died Friday evening, shortly after a phone call from Mercury astronaut and former U.S. Sen. John Glenn, whom O'Malley launched into space in 1962 by pushing a button.</p>

A senior bank regulator was removed from his job after being accused of helping mortgage lender IndyMac Bancorp alter its records so it appeared to be in better shape -- weeks before it was seized by the government. The Office of Thrift Supervision has reassigned its top West Coast official, Darrel Dochow, who was also a controversial figure in the regulatory lapses surrounding the savings-and-loan crisis of the late 1980s. In a letter sent Monday to Sen. Charles Grassley, the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, the Treasury Department's inspector general wrote that the federal OTS allowed the bank...

I googled "Keating Five" and it gives me a list of articles from news media. On the top, however, is a sponsored link to Keating 5 and John McCain: McCain.KeatingEconomics.com . See How John McCain Contributed to Another Financial Crisis.

"After reviewing my report, the committee voted on October 23, 1990, to hold a public adjudicatory fact-finding hearing in the matter as to all five senators. This was perhaps the first time the recommendation of a special counsel not to charge a senator was rejected. This was pure politics as the Democrats on the committee did not want to cut McCain loose so that only Democrats would remain in the proceedings. If Senator McCain was not going to be cut loose, in retaliation the Republicans were going to keep Senator Glenn in the proceedings. McCain was the victim of politics,...

There was one Republican in the Keating Five, John McCain. Alan Cranston-Democrat, Dennis DeConcini-Democrat, Don Riegle-Democrat, John Glenn-Democrat and John McCain.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Monday will launch a multimedia campaign to draw attention to the involvement of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) in the “Keating Five” savings-and-loan scandal of 1989-91, which blemished McCain’s public image and set him on his course as a self-styled reformer. Pushing back against what it calls “guilt-by-association” tactics by McCain, the Obama campaign is e-mailing millions of supporters a link to a website, KeatingEconomics.com, that will have a 13-minute documentary on the scandal beginning at noon Eastern time on Monday. The overnight e-mails urge recipients to pass the link on to friends. The Obama campaign,...

Massie Ritsch at OpenSecrets.org writes that: - John McCain "personally intervened with government regulators to allow his [Keating's] S&L to make risky investments that ultimately defrauded thousands of investors and cost taxpayers $3.4 billion" - "The Senate ethics committee investigated the Keating scandal and reprimanded McCain, the only Republican among the five senators, for his poor judgment." Massie Ritsch didn't write that: - John McCain did NOT intervene with government regulators. - The Senate Ethics Committee cleared McCain of ALL charges against him. - The Senate Ethics Committee report stated unequivocally that McCain's actions were NOT improper or negligent. -...

ABC News' Mary Bruce reports: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., blamed Wall Street this weekend for the failing economy. "I think that Wall Street is the villain in the things that happened in the subprime lending crisis and other areas where investigations and possible prosecution is going on," McCain said in an exclusive "This Week" interview with George Stephanopoulos. McCain also placed responsibility on a "gridlocked" Congress. "I also think that Congress is at fault. We didn’t restrain spending. Spending got completely out of control," he said. When asked about Congress' progress in passing the housing bill, McCain said he would...

Barely mentioning Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, Obama said he was open to campaigning with McCain in "town hall" events. But he also warned that controversial issues such as McCain's ties to the Keating Five savings and loan scandal are fair game, and he called McCain's proposal for a temporary halt in the federal gasoline tax a pander and a gimmick... Obama was asked Saturday if the fall campaign might touch on the 1987 Keating Five scandal, in which the Senate Ethics Committee said McCain used "poor judgment" for allegedly pressing regulators to go easy on the owner of a...

McCain Almost Left the GOP -- Twice March 24, 2008 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT Senator McCain has not wrapped up the Chuck Hagel endorsement yet, and I wanted to mention this to you. Hagel was on This Week with Stephanopoulos on Sunday, and Stephanopoulos said to him, "Senator McCain is a good friend of yours. Why haven't you endorsed him?" HAGEL: When I work for someone or commit to someone, I want to be behind that person in every way I can. I've obviously got some differences with John on the Iraq war. That's no secret. I want to understand a...

WASHINGTON - Sen. John McCain's ethics entanglement with a wealthy banker ultimately convicted of swindling investors was such a disturbing, formative experience in his political career that he compares the scandal in some ways to the five years he was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. "I faced in Vietnam, at times, very real threats to life and limb," McCain told The Associated Press. "But while my sense of honor was tested in prison, it was not questioned. During the Keating inquiry, it was, and I regretted that very much." In his early days as a freshman senator,...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Washington Mutual Inc's board of directors approved a plan which helps protect its management's bonus targets from the impact of the subprime loan fallout, according to a filing with U.S. regulators. The board's human resources committee on February 26 approved bonus targets, some of which will be calculated to exclude expenses related to business re-sizing or restructuring, foreclosed real estate assets and loan loss provisions other than related to its credit card business. The filing, made with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, refers to targets for WaMu chief executive Kerry Killinger, chief financial officer...

... If there's a single thread that runs through the e-mails I receive from peevish Republicans, it's that none of the current candidates possesses the conservative purity of Ronald Reagan. One could almost get the idea that Dutch was betrayed by Pontius Pilate and crucified on Calvary. But that wasn't exactly the case. The fact of the matter is that Gov. Reagan gave Gov. Jerry Brown a run for his money – or should I say our money? – when it came to raising taxes here in California. But, in spite of the additional revenue, he was responsible in large...

Ted Nugent: McCain has two battles he must win Sunday, February 17, 2008 Now that Mitt Romney has thrown in the towel and endorsed him, the Republican nominee for president will almost certainly be Sen. John McCain. Attempting residency at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. is surely tough enough without turning your friends into enemies. There are plenty of enemies on the other side who wear different political stripes altogether. McCain faces a distrustful, dissatisfied, frustrated, and in some cases, downright angry conservative base. Conservatives are not happy with McCain. He has not always carried the conservative torch on immigration, taxes, First...

McCain a 'True Conservative,' Bush Says Feb 10 09:36 AM US/Eastern WASHINGTON (AP) - John McCain is a "true conservative," President Bush says, although the presumptive Republican presidential nominee may have to work harder to convince other conservatives that he is one of their own. McCain "is very strong on national defense," Bush said in an interview taped for airing on "Fox News Sunday." "He is tough fiscally. He believes the tax cuts ought to be permanent. He is pro-life. His principles are sound and solid as far as I'm concerned." But when asked about criticism of McCain by conservative...

<p>For the second time in as many days, Sen. John McCain was forced to rebuke members of his own party for over-the-top attacks on Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama.</p>

Few Americans have heard of credit default swaps, arcane financial instruments invented by Wall Street about a decade ago. But if the economy keeps slowing, credit default swaps, like subprime mortgages, may become a household term. Credit default swaps form a large but obscure market that will be put to its first big test as a looming economic downturn strains companies’ finances. Like a homeowner’s policy that insures against a flood or fire, these instruments are intended to cover losses to banks and bondholders when companies fail to pay their debts. The market for these securities is enormous. Since 2000,...

Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York will pick up an endorsement Tuesday from a national hero and Ohio icon — John Glenn. The former Ohio senator will endorse Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination during a press conference Tuesday afternoon at the Westin Hotel Downtown. Glenn will be joined by Gov. Ted Strickland, who already has endorsed Clinton. Glenn will join Strickland, Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher, and U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Cleveland as the most prominent supporters of Clinton.

The controversial George W. Bush-sponsored poll in South Carolina mentioned John McCain's role in the so-called Keating Five scandal, and McCain says his involvement in the scandal "will probably be on my tombstone." What exactly did McCain do? In early 1987, at the beginning of his first Senate term, McCain attended two meetings with federal banking regulators to discuss an investigation into Lincoln Savings and Loan, an Irvine, Calif., thrift owned by Arizona developer Charles Keating. Federal auditors were investigating Keating's banking practices, and Keating, fearful that the government would seize his S&L, sought intervention from a number of U.S....

Dozens of U.S. banks will fail by 2010: analyst Fri Feb 1, 2008 3:39pm EST By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) - Dozens of U.S. banks will fail in the next two years as losses from soured loans mount and regulators crack down on lenders that take too much risk, especially in real estate and construction, an analyst said. The surge would follow a placid 3-1/2 year period in which just four banks collapsed, all in the last year, RBC Capital Markets analyst Gerard Cassidy said in a Friday interview. Between 50 and 150 U.S. banks -- as many as...

The Rising Risk of a Systemic Financial Meltdown: The Twelve Steps to Financial Disaster Why did the Fed ease the Fed Funds rate by a whopping 125bps in eight days this past January? It is true that most macro indicators are heading south and suggesting a deep and severe recession that has already started. But the flow of bad macro news in mid-January did not justify, by itself, such a radical inter-meeting emergency Fed action followed by another cut at the formal FOMC meeting. To understand the Fed actions one has to realize that there is now a rising...

Diagnosing the Causes of the Crisis ...It is against this background that one may wish to review the US central bank's series of rate cuts, the latest being a big 75-basis-points rate slash on January 22, 2008, which brought the official Fed Funds Target Rate to 3.5%.[1] While the Fed's moves were mostly hailed in public as appropriate measures to help the economy avoid recession, Austrian economists hold a completely different view. According to the Austrian Monetary Theory of the Trade Cycle it is the government-run money-supply monopoly that has not only caused the crisis; the theory also diagnoses that...

<p>Senator John McCain's Reform Institute has suffered some bad press recently due to its involvement in an influence-peddling scandal with Cablevision. As usual, however, mainstream media have failed to go to the root of the matter.</p> <p>Founded on June 26, 2001, McCain's Reform Institute for Campaign and Election Issues has long served as a nerve center for the so-called "campaign finance reform"movement - a movement which has done nothing to clean up campaign finance, but has done a great deal to empower federal judges and government bureaucrats to regulate political speech, in defiance of the Bill of Rights.</p>

Reports are rolling into talk radio stations in San Diego about massive Republican vote suppression. Thousands of Republican voters in San Diego and as far north as Los Angeles showed up to vote on Tuesday only to be told that they were registered "Non-Partisan". This meant that they could not vote for the Republican Primary candidates. Non-Partisan (independent) voters in California can vote for Candidates in any other party, including the Democrat party, but are prohibited from voting in the Republican Primary unless they are registered as a Republican. Rick Roberts [http://www.760kfmb.com] is currently reporting on this and has had...

...From the current hand-wringing, you'd think that the banks came up with the idea of looser underwriting standards on their own, with regulators just asleep on the job. In fact, it was the regulators who relaxed these standards- at the behest of community groups and "progressive" political forces. In the 1980s, groups such as the activists at ACORN began pushing charges of "redlining"- claims that banks discriminated against minorities in mortgage lending. In 1989, sympathetic members of Congress got the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act amended to force banks to collect racial data on mortgage applicants.... In fact, minority mortgage applications...

Just to get the ball rolling, may I suggest: Mr. McCain says he was a foot soldier during the Reagan Revolution. Given his record to date I've got to ask... "ON WHOSE SIDE?!" Yes, John McCain was a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution...and all he got was a lousy t-shirt! Senator McCain was indeed a foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution...That would be FRED Reagan...his taxidermist. Mr. McCain is a very intense kinda guy. I can just see him debating Hillary. He could just stare at her until she cries! Mr. McCain continues to insist that I was for...

In response to Jason’s post of an anti-McCain YouTube video, I offer this video of Romney, made by the same exact organization that produced the McCain video. Also, I take issue with the statement “This Youtube is making it’s way into activists inboxes all across the nation as we speak.” The anti-McCain video has… brace yourself… 139 views, while this anti-Romney video has 4,796 views. Enjoy. http://race42008.com/2008/02/02/conservatives-fighting-romney/

Who says bipartisanship is dead? From President Bush to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, to Mitt Romney and John McCain, virtually everyone in Washington agrees: The government must Do Something to stop home foreclosures across the country. These leaders agree on the total presumption of homeowner innocence. The borrower-as-victim and lender-as-predator storylines are etched in stone. Can't let reality get in the way of election-year pander-monium.

Valley foreclosures soar 435 percent Nearly 3,000 families lost homes in 2007 By Gregory J. Wilcox, Staff Writer Article Last Updated: 01/29/2008 08:22:28 PM PST NORTHRIDGE - Foreclosures soared 435.5 percent in the San Fernando Valley last year as nearly 3,000 homeowners surrendered to higher monthly house payments brought on by rising adjustable rate loans, a research center said Tuesday. A whopping 2,988 families lost their homes in 2007, up from just 558 in 2006, said the San Fernando Valley Economic Research Center at California State University, Northridge. And some say the worst is yet to come. "My guess is...

All Things Considered, January 30, 2008 · The booming city of Fontana, Calif., is a thick sprawl of closely packed subdivisions. People who couldn't afford a home in Los Angeles or San Diego could buy one here — in San Bernardino County, about 50 miles east of Los Angeles. But as housing values tumbled — and subprime mortgages ballooned — Fontana became one of the many epicenters of foreclosures in Southern California. In San Bernardino County last year, more than 7,700 homeowners lost their homes to foreclosure — a 719 percent increase in just one year. Janice Rutherford is a...

John McCain won over few if any conservatives tonight, and his display of bad temper and his rambling filibuster of his wrongful "timetables" attack on Romney from last weekend may even have lost him some moderates. In the spin room heads were shaking. McCain was at his worst in the second half of the debate, and those who watched had to ask themselves how this sort of performance would play against a youthful, upbeat Obama with a MSM ready not to protect McCain but tear into him as aging and confused --even obviously deceptive-- about his facts. The first half...

<p>What could be worse than getting behind on mortgage payments? Owing your lender more than your home is worth.</p> <p>That's what's happening to homeowners across the country, many of whom just a couple of years ago opted for interest-only or adjustable-rate mortgages. For them, just as their loans reset and interest rates rose, home values began to plummet, leaving them with negative equity; this is where their mortgage is greater than the value of their home.</p>

UBS hit by further $4bn write-down By Haig Simonian in Zurich Published: January 30 2008 07:21 | Last updated: January 30 2008 07:21 UBS, one of the biggest casualties of the US subprime crisis, on Wednesday revealed a further $4bn in write downs on its portfolio of troubled mortgage-related securities. The surprise announcement, coming ahead of the Swiss bank’s annual results on February 14, means UBS will report a net group loss of about SFr4.4bn ($4bn) for 2007. UBS said the full-year loss, which it had signalled when disclosing initial fourth-quarter subprime writedowns of $10bn last month, stemmed from additional...

Real estate markets are slowing. Interest rates are ticking up. And the phones are ringing at ByDesign, a Los Angeles-based credit counselor, as homeowners start to panic about not being able to make their mortgage payments. "The number of people asking for appointments to talk about foreclosure is definitely up," said Susan Ulaga, the nonprofit service's senior vice president of counseling. Rising rates "are really putting a crunch" on homeowners with adjustable-rate loans. -snip- The timeline 30 days: Your troubles actually start as soon as you miss a single payment. Lenders may not contact you until you've skipped a second...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The shadow of an FBI investigation spread across the subprime mortgage crisis on Tuesday, while the U.S. Congress moved closer to emergency relief for millions of distressed homeowners. ADVERTISEMENT With the Federal Reserve kicking off a two-day meeting where it might cut interest rates further, the stock market rebounded after whipsawing investors for days on fears that the subprime slump could lead to a recession. But while the market's bears pulled in their claws for the time being, a new potential danger emerged for bankers and brokers involved in the housing price bubble that burst months ago,...

It is often said that the best way to find out how a candidate would act in office if elected, is to see who he/she surrounds himself with. Money is another factor, what people and industries are backing the candidate. These answers should be an indicator of what to expect. Who is behind the man should gauge what kind of man he is. The great Richard Viguerie tells the story of how he and other conservatives had a “seat at the table” of the presidential campaigns of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan for. His thinking was if Conservatives aren’t at...

<p>LADY LAKE, FLA. — Is John McCain, maverick flyboy of the Republican Party, becoming the candidate of the GOP establishment?</p> <p>McCain, who has delighted in sticking his thumb in the eye of mainstream Republicans throughout his political career, is now accumulating a base of support among party regulars who see him as the strongest general election candidate in the remaining Republican field.</p>

Countrywide CEO to give up $37.5 million in payments 2 hours, 12 minutes ago Countrywide Financial Corp (CFC.N) CEO Angelo Mozilo said on Monday that he would give up $37.5 million in severance pay and other fees he stood to gain from the mortgage lender's sale to Bank of America Corp (BAC.N), amid criticism over his role in the U.S. mortgage meltdown. Countrywide has been convulsed by mounting losses and defaults, a loss of access to credit markets and a slew of lawsuits. Democrats, including U.S. presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton, have questioned Mozilo's pay. Clinton recently said his pay...

For all McCain people: Be sure and Google Keating Five before you vote.

One of our college interns—and a fellow Arizonan—believes that the attacks and charges leveled at Senator McCain in recent weeks are unfair. He has written an editorial on the subject, and we've decided to allow him this forum to express his views. Whether he convinces you or not, just remember....whoever your first choice is now may not win the primary. McCain is not my first choice, but I'll support him tooth and nail against HRC or BHO in the general election. –Christopher Cook In Defense of John McCainBy Michael McKitterick McCain, I feel, has gotten a bad rap these last...

LIE #1: John McCain isn’t a loyal Republican. TRUTH: McCain has been a stalwart Reagan Republican since he first entered politics in 1981. Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., right, speaks with former New York Sen. Alfonse D'Amato at his side after D'Amato endorsed McCain during an appearance in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2008.(AP Photo/Kathy Willens) He has never backed Democratic candidates for president or lesser posts – other than supporting his friend Joe Lieberman in his Independent campaign for US Senate in 2006. Over the years, he has campaigned tirelessly for Republican office-holders in every corner of...

California foreclosures, mortgage defaults soar Tue Jan 22, 2008 8:05pm EST By Jim Christie SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Underscoring the impact of falling home prices in California, foreclosures in the state rose more than 400 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier and default notice filings against distressed mortgage borrowers more than doubled, a report issued on Tuesday said. The DataQuick Information Systems report said the 31,676 foreclosures in the fourth quarter were more than double California's previous peak in 1996 and marked a 421.2 percent jump from a year earlier. The fourth-quarter default notices represented...

“Front-runner.” “Winner.” “Inevitable.” Since Saturday’s South Carolina primary, this is how the mainstream media have been describing Sen. John McCain and his bid for the GOP nomination. And once again, the mainstream media is wrong. John McCain isn’t “inevitable.” He’s not even “likely” at this point in the race. To see why, just look at his vote totals from the primaries thus far. John McCain is the incredible shrinking candidate. In 2000, McCain was just another senator running as a maverick against the GOP establishment’s legacy candidate, George W. Bush. His huge 49 percent to 30 percent clobbering of Bush...

For too long, McCain has been given a free pass by the media, which promotes campaign-finance reform to silence other voices, and by his Republican colleagues, who are concerned about alienating McCain given the GOP's tenuous majority in the Senate. In John McCain's America, any politician who accepts a large contribution or gift from a donor, and then takes steps consistent with the donor's interests — even though there is no legal quid pro quo — is corrupt. Well, then, by his own standard, McCain is corrupt. McCain was one of the so-called "Keating Five" senators. He was investigated by...

John McCain and his Republican allies challenged the president on his own turf—and won. Now that the senator has gained momentum, can he really make the GOP grand again? My party has gone astray," John McCain says, busily signing books at Warwick's, a bookshop in La Jolla, California, late last year. Hundreds of people are lined up around the block to get a glimpse of the GOP's in-house reformer. He is hawking his fourth best-seller, Character Is Destiny, an anecdote-rich guide to idealism for young readers, and the senator teases the store clerk about books that aren't in proper piles,...

John Solomon, who recently joined the political reporting staff at The Washington Post, from The Associated Press has been widely criticized by liberal bloggers in recent months for what they considered unfair stories on Sen. Harry Reid and former Sen. John Edwards. Now he is under attack from a leading Republican -- Sen. John McCain. McCain lashed back today at the Post after Solomon wrote that the Arizonan, who has campaigned against the use of "soft money," is using those types of funds in his GOP presidential nomination. McCain told CNN the article is "worst hit job that has ever...

. John McCain, casting himself as the embodiment of the Republican Party's future in the vein of Ronald Reagan, said Thursday the GOP has lost its way and must return to "common-sense conservatism." "Though we suffered a tough defeat last week, we will recover if we learn our lesson well and once again offer Americans enlightened, effective and principled leadership," the Arizona Republican said in a speech that laid out his vision for the party's path forward — and could set the tone for a potential presidential campaign. The same day he launched a committee to explore whether to run...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Former senator and astronaut John Glenn and his wife, Annie, were discharged Sunday from a hospital where they had been recovering from what he called a “very serious'' car accident. “I do not recommend you go test your air bags the way we did the other night,” Glenn said. Neither Glenn nor his wife was seriously injured, said Dr. Paul Beery. Beery said the former senator suffered a minor fracture in his sternum. Glenn was struck in the chest by his car’s air bag as it deployed during the accident, according to past reports. “As far...

John McCain is running for President 2008. As a republican candidate, John McCain could win the republican nomination. Many feel if John McCain runs against Hillary Clinton, he would win the presidential election in 2008. John McCain graduated from the Naval Academy in 1958. After graduation, John McCain became a Naval Avaitor. For over 5 years, John McCain was a Vietnam captive. John McCain became a US Senator for Arizona in 1986. Senator John McCain is now Chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, and is known for his successful passing of Campaign Finance Reform. Express your...

"Are folks aware of just how meticulously (Sen. John) McCain and his team are going about building their '08 campaign? There's probably not a GOP activist in South Carolina who hasn't been contacted at least once by someone supportive of McCain's candidacy. ... As long as he continues to poll well against Hillary, and as long as the Republicans look as if they could lose power at a moment's notice, McCain should be able to create the air of inevitability that Bush created in 2000." - Hotline editor Chuck Todd in National Journal. Officially, he is not yet running and...