In the mid-1980's Charles Keating was Chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association. With deregulation of S&L's in the early '80's Keating was able to use depositors funds to make risky investments. The investments caught the attention of federal regulators who then limited to 10% the amount of FDIC insured funds that an institution could direct toward the high risk ventures.  

At that time, John and Cindy McCain were close friends and business associates of Charles Keating. Keating was a significant financial contributor to McCain's campaigns. When Keating needed his friend's help, McCain obliged.

At Keating's behest, four senators--McCain and Democrats Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Alan Cranston of California, and John Glenn of Ohio--met with Ed Gray, chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, on April 2. Those four senators and Sen. Don Riegle, D-Mich., attended a second meeting at Keating's behest on April 9 with bank regulators in San Francisco.

Regulators did not seize Lincoln Savings and Loan until two years later. The Lincoln bailout cost taxpayers $2.6 billion, making it the biggest of the S&L scandals. In addition, 17,000 Lincoln investors lost $190 million.

Earlier this afternoon NPR's Day to Daydid a story on the prevalent Obama VP rumor. Incredibly, high on the list was Colin Powell, he was the focus of the story.

With any luck this is just wishful thinking on Powell's or NPR's part, but the possibility that there is a shred of truth to it is unnerving. Powell has never come clean about his complicity in the fraud that led to the war, or made an effort to make amends the crime spree perpetrated by the Bush administration.

His selection would undermine Obama's credibility in opposition to the war and severely limit any chance that there would be accountability for the costly deception. Remember, Powell's career of whitewashing military crimes started with My Lai in 1968, and 40 years later he barely shows remorse. This is not a man capable of personal change, much less leading the country toward a better tomorrow.

The dirty little secret of the proposed increased domestic drilling of oil is that we export more of our domestic production today than at any time in history:

U.S. oil firms seek drilling access, but exports soar

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - While the U.S. oil industry wants access to more federal lands to help reduce reliance on foreign suppliers, American-based companies are shipping record amounts of gasoline and diesel fuel to other countries.

A record 1.6 million barrels a day in U.S. refined petroleum products were exported during the first four months of this year, up 33 percent from 1.2 million barrels a day over the same period in 2007. Shipments this February topped 1.8 million barrels a day for the first time during any month, according to final numbers from the Energy Department.

The surge in exports appears to contradict the pleas from the U.S. oil industry and the Bush administration for Congress to open more offshore waters and Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling.

Ninety percent of Pennsylvanians will vote on unreliable, unsecured, paperless touchscreen machines tomorrow.

Study: Touch screen voting systems may be unreliable
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"We use the tools that hackers would use and our expertise, and we attempt to subvert the system just like we were the bad guys," he said. "Ultimately, we were able to substantially compromise all of the systems we evaluated. They all had failures in unique ways."
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While it is too late to change the machines before Pennsylvania's April 22 primary, Rogers said there is an option to switch the machines before the general election on Nov. 8.
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"They're not dependable. They're not reliable. They're not secure," she said.

Most people remember the Clinton pardon scandal as the last gasp of the VRWC to nail Bill Clinton. Not much is discussed about Hillary and her brother's role. Who knew Hugh Clinton charged $400,000 to arrange pardons for special clients?

When her brother's role was revealed, Hillary said she was unaware and disappointed that her brother sold pardons. As a matter of fact, Clinton added she didn't even know much about the pardons she helped to facilitate:

While much of the news conference centered on her brother, Mrs. Clinton briefly discussed her own role. Asked if she had any discussions about pardons or commutations with Bruce Lindsey, the former deputy counsel in the Clinton White House, she said, ''information was coming to me, information was passed on.'' Later she elaborated, ''People would hand me envelopes. I would just pass them on. You know, I would not have any reason to look into them.''

That's experience no other candidate can own.

Friday, Clinton released her, and President Clinton's, tax returns from the last several years. The returns showed considerable income, and considerable tax payments. There is also at least one question of interest which hasn't been answered.  Ben Smith at the Politico:

UPDATE: The interesting part, of course, is the roughly $18 million that the summary doesn't account for -- (though it is accounted for in the returns).

In prepared statements Clinton spokesman Howard Wolfson went on the record yesterday with a comparison of Barack Obama to Ken Starr. This planned, despicable, slur was the final step of the transition by the Clinton camp's the kitchen sink strategy to the bottomless pit plan to prevent Obama's election in November.

When asked about her spokesman's gutter politics, Clinton replied, "Oh, I'm not going to respond to that."

Last week, during his press conference, Bush became indignant with a demand for an upordown vote on FISA in the House. Bush insisted that if the House was allowed such a vote, it would pass. It was tempting to dismiss his words as the ramblings of a madman, since there had already been an upordown vote on FISA in the House, but it was clear he was talking about something reality based.

Talk about a kick in the gut, the President announced the Democrat's plan to screw America, and the base, before the snakes who substitute as Democratic Party leaders bothered to reveal their treachery. Keep in mind, there is only one reason to hold a second vote, and that is to capitulate.

Bush is up in five minutes to go directly to the American people and demand amnesty for telecom companies. As everyone knows, he House is the last link, if they capitulate it's over. The House bill did not include the immunity the President demands to avoid a veto, the Senate's did. Presumably they are in Conference Committee now, but details on that issue are scarce.

FDL has a clip up of Clinton hack Lanny Davis in which he favorably compares Hillary Clinton to Joe Lieberman.

There is a certain déjà vu here Allen. Right after the Connecticut primary which Ned Lamont won by exactly the same margin that Barack Obama won 50/46, I was for Joe Lieberman and it looked like it was lost. But that was a Democratic primary electorate and there is a big general electorate out there. Barack Obama is completely unknown, and I think Hillary Clinton is the stronger candidate, at least according to the Republicans I know....

Lanny may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even he knows that Lamont would have won the general election if Lieberman hadn't divided the Democrats.

Davis's analogy is idiotic unless..

THE GRIEF PROCESS

Grief is an adaptive process that has several components. Harrington defines grief "not as a state or set of symptoms, but a succession of clinical pictures which blend into and replace each other"5. Several researchers, including Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, George L. Engel, John Bowlby and C. Murray Parkes, have described the stages of grief in various ways.

The four dimensions of the mourning process outlined by Bowlby and Parkes are
(1) shock and numbness,
(2) yearning and searching,
(3) disorientation and disorganization,
(4) resolution and reorganization.

The four dimensions do not follow a set order and a person may experience feelings from several stages at one time.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identified five stages of grief which are best known:

-Denial (this isn't happening to me!)

-Anger (why is this happening to me?)

-Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)

-Depression (I don't care anymore)

-Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes)

Bush Threatens Veto in Surveillance Laws

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush threatened a veto Tuesday in the debate to update terrorist surveillance laws, assailing Democratic plans to deny protection from lawsuits for telecommunications providers that let the government spy on U.S. residents after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the letter was premature since there still isn't any legislation yet.

"It's a little early to have a veto threat," he said.

The existing surveillance law will expire Feb. 15. Bush has said he would resist extending it again.

After nearly two months of legislative wrangling, Reid announced the Senate would begin voting on amendments Wednesday. Debate began Tuesday evening.

The administration's veto threat was aimed at amendments that would bar retroactive immunity to phone companies and other telecom providers that have given the government access to e-mails and phone calls linked to people in the United States.

Mother ship  II posted.

The debate to give the administration and telecoms retroactive immunity is underway on the senate floor now.

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unless the specific method is declared illegal.

I just hung up the phone with Senator Shcumer’s office; his staffer cleared it all up for me. The Senator’s position is that unless a particular method of torture is specified as illegal through statute, that method it is legal. It is apparently impossible to use treaties as controlling, or even general statutes which prohibit torture, assault, and so forth. Nope, Congress must pass a law prohibiting each and every form of torture before the Attorney General would be required to prosecute. No wonder things are such a mess! During the past 200+ years, our leaders have failed to enumerate every imaginable method of torture, which must mean they are all legal!!