Reply #22: Fundies wouldn't like McCain's career long dependence on liquor industry

[Divernan]

Great find, BrklynLiberal!

This is a powerful, fact-filled history which reflects very poorly on John McCain.
The most he ever made as a military officer was $45,000. In 1980 He meets young, blonde,hottie heiress; starts affair; dumps first wife and marries wealthy heiress within 1 month of divorce. Works for her father's national beer distributorship. In 1982, he is paid $50,000 by his new father-in-law; new wife pulls in over $700,000 that year. In that capacity he travels his brand new homestate of Arizona, ostensibly promoting the liquor/beer distributorship, but actually campaigning and getting his name known. He quickly & successfully ran for Congress w/in 2 years of marrying Cindy & moving to Arizona. Today McCain is ranked as the 26th wealthiest member of Congress, out of 535 members of the House & Senate. Here's some more material detailing the sleazy, criminal history of the source of McCain's wealth.

"This story examines the roots of the Hensley fortune and John McCain's implacable bond to the liquor industry -- how it has enriched him personally and as a politician, and how those ties have dictated his actions on questions of public policy. John McCain's political allegiances to liquor purveyors and his father-in-law's interests are subtle. That narrative is marked by a pattern of patronage. The Hensley saga, meanwhile, swirls with bygone accounts of illicit booze, gambling, horse racing, deceit and crime. James Hensley embarked on his road to riches as a bootlegger."

* * * * * * *

"It was December 6, 1945. World War II had ended a few months earlier. Joseph F. Ratliff was just about to wrap up another day as office manager at United Distributors Company when two of his bosses, Eugene and James Hensley, paid a visit to Ratliff at the company's Tucson liquor distribution warehouse around 5 p.m. The Hensley brothers were partners with a powerful Phoenix businessman named Kemper Marley, who had cornered a large share of Arizona's wholesale liquor business after Prohibition was lifted in 1933."

(Here the article details the testimony of a Hensley employee charged with overseeing shipments; keeping track of invoices and filing tax and sales reports with the federal govt.
At the time there was a black market were prices were double the regulated market price.)
* * * * * * *
"The seven invoices prepared by James Hensley -- after the warehouse was closed -- indicated the liquor had been sold and delivered to seven establishments in southern Arizona. . . . . .
In fact, none of the liquor went to the retailers named in the invoices prepared by James Hensley. Nobody but James Hensley knows where it really went, and he never told authorities. He declined repeated requests to be interviewed for this story. What is certain is that what occurred that December day was standard operating procedure for the Hensley brothers between April 1945 and January 1947. During this period, a 1948 federal criminal indictment charged, the Hensleys made approximately 1,284 false entries related to the sale of thousands of cases of liquor by their two companies -- United Sales Company in Phoenix and United Distributors in Tucson.