The Bitter End Of Howard "Buck" McKeon (R-CA)

There's a much bigger Buck McKeon scandal about to break-- one with national security ramifications that could shake the Romney campaign to it's foundations. More about that... soon. But first, let's go back to conservative Republican Darrell Issa, once a common car thief, now the richest member of Congress and the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Issa has put his man John Boehner in a very awkward position by releasing a lengthy report pointing out that another Boehner close ally-- Buck McKeon, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee-- was taking bribes from Countrywide. Above is a clip of Issa on Fox News explaining what the scandal is all about.

He refers to the Countrywide scandal as "a calculated effort to buy friends and manipulate public policy" and the Fox host, Patti Ann Browne, asked him which public policies were influenced by all the bribes Country wide paid corrupt congressmen like McKeon. (By the way, McKeon is the only sitting member of Congress who took bribes from Countrywide who is seeking reelection in November.) Unlike most of what Issa says, this is extremely interesting to listen to. He is clear that what he's talking about are "bribes"-- his terminology.

Problem for Issa is that now that the report is out, he has refused to send it over to the House Ethics Committee for action. That's because Boehner threatened him with loss of his committee chair if he did. On Fox he bragged that "the House has higher standards" than the Senate when it comes to tolerating bribery among its members. And Issa blamed the footdragging on senior Democrats. But now that his report is out, and the #1 culprit is Buck McKeon, a senior Republican, guess who's thrown a spanner into the works and is protecting McKeon. Yes, Boehner, of course. Which brings us to a much bigger scandal that leaked out of Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy's office. McCarthy, who has nothing but disdain for McKeon, is in a district that abuts McKeon's. They share a piece of the Antelope Valley. But his staffers' loyalty to America, apparently, is greater than their loyalty to wretched old Buck.

Ever since he helped drive his deceased parents' country and western costume store, Howard and Phil's, into bankruptcy in 1996, McKeon has been on the verge of personal bankruptcy. That was, in part, what drove him into the waiting arms of Angelo Mozilo of Countrywide. But it also drove him into much more dangerous waiting arms as well: billionaire Las Vegas organized crime figure Sheldon Adelson.

Adelson has a lot of agendas, many of which-- a passionate hatred of working people and unions, an extreme agenda towards Zionism that encourages Israel to take over Arab land and expel Palestinians from their homes, for example-- he shares with McKeon. But Adelson, who is under multiple investigations for serious criminal activities at home and abroad, is also looked at as a cat's paw inside the American political system for communist China. Most of his wealth is derived from his gambling and prostitution businesses in southern China, specifically Macau. He is also Mitt Romney's biggest donor, Eric Cantor's biggest donor, John Boehner's biggest donor and the Republican Party's biggest donor. He's using his Chinese billions to finance a peaceful coup d'etat in the United States of America. So how does McKeon fit in? Glad you asked.


McKeon, who poses as a devout Mormon, is addicted to gambling. And he's a loser. What McCarthy's staffers have leaked is that he's lost very large sums of money at Adelson's casino. He hasn't reported these losses-- which is a crime. He gets the highest national security briefings, briefings the man he owes hundreds of thousands of dollars to is very interested in. He's always welcome at the Venetian Hotel on the Strip, where he's a well-known figure... and where he keeps getting deeper and deeper in debt to Adelson (and Red China). I might add, tangentially, that although there isn't a single casino in CA-25, McKeon is one of the top recipients of gambling contributions in the House ($34,700 so far... the year is young) and that he has a record of supporting the agenda of the big casino companies that bribe him patriotically donate large sums of money to his political career.

Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee have now gone to Boehner and demanded he remove McKeon as chairman because they perceive him as a "potential" threat to national security. Boehner called him in for a meeting. But instead of firing him, he told him to "take care" of the gambling debts before it becomes public. McKeon is putting his two homes-- one in Alexandria, Virginia and one in Valencia, California, up for sale so he can repay Adelson.

Now the House Ethics Committee has finally figured out they have no choice but to investigate this guy or they will be seen for being asleep at the wheel-- which they clearly were. So despite Issa not referring his report on-- at Boehner's insistence-- to the Ethics Committee, it has finally leaked out that they are looking at the Countrywide scandal and his bribes. What about the national security breach? That will probably never surface unless the NY Times takes it up, but McKeon will be eased out of his positions in return for an opportunity to stay out of prison. The Feds are on the case.