Political News/Rant: John McCain's Duplicitous Wall Street Connections

Good Morning Bloggers - It's another day so of course I have to point out that John McCain is full of it again - and again, and again. This time it's his relationships with Wall Street industry lobbyists, which completely contradict his claims that he has been trying to fight against Wall Street greed and corruption, and wants to clean up the "old boys network." Based on this and other evidence, the man is running the old boys network for God's sake!

A Raw Story article this morning entitled, Exposed: McCain team includes 83 Wall Street lobbyists, includes an actual list of them.

Excerpts:
As Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) rails against Wall Street while concurrently benefiting from its largess, some journalists are getting tired. David Corn - an investigative reporter formerly with The Nation and currently reporting for Mother Jones - has printed a list of 83 Wall Street lobbyists he says are working for or have bundled contributions for McCain."

The article points out that the Democratic National Committee has counted at least 177 lobbyists overall in the McCain campaign. In addition, the article points out that Wall Street lobbyists and close McCain advisor and friend Phil Gramm went so far as to fight for a provision - now law - to keep credit default swaps unregulated, which many say went a long way to create the current crisis.

"Of those 177 lobbyists,... at least 83 have in recent years lobbied for the financial industry McCain now attacks ... These are high-paid influence-peddlers who have been working the corridors of the nation's capital to win favors and special treatment for investment banks, securities firms, hedge funds, accounting outfits, and insurance companies. Their clients have included AIG, the newest symbol of corporate excess; Lehman Brothers, which filed for bankruptcy on Monday sending the stock market into a tailspin; Merrill Lynch, which was bought out by Bank of America this week; and Washington Mutual, the banking giant that could be the next to fall."

(Read the whole article at: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/McCain_team_includes_83_Wall_Street_0917.html)

I don't know about you guys, but usually when it smells like rotten fish, it's rotten fish. It's incredible to me that McCain supporters are not bothered by FACTS like these. Are you concerned that you're going to harm our nation even more than you already have? Aren't you worried that you might be wrong, and that you could make things worse? I suggest that you have a good long think about what you're planning to do before you give us more of the same. Four more years of heavily lobbied, special-interest, socialized capitalism for the well off. The business community and the nation may not survive more of your bad judgement.

Thursday's Political Rant #1 - Michael