Aug 12
Video from the the past 18 years on McCain’s relationship with lobbyists.
Added: August 12, 2008
Source: YouTube
Tags: corporations, John McCain, Lobbyists, U.S.
Jun 11
Scott McClellan, the most significant defector from behind the Iron Curtain of the War Party’s domain, doesn’t think we were lied into war. According to him, it was all due to the “partisan” attitudes that dominate Washington discourse on every issue. As he puts it, “the permanent campaign” atmosphere made them do it: “I don’t think that this was some deliberate, conscious effort to mislead the American people.”
In an interview with Keith Olbermann the other night, he disdained the very idea as a “conspiracy theory.” McClellan seems to believe that the need to bias intelligence is inherent in the American political system, the inevitable consequence of the Washington ethos as defined by the struggle between the two major parties. He denies any “criminal intent” in the actions of the administration and its flunkies, and he trivializes the matter by referring to “people sitting around a table” making plans to dupe Congress and the American people. The evidence, however, points in the other direction, as “Phase Two” of the long-awaited and deliberately-delayed report of the Senate Intelligence Committee makes clear [.pdf].
In spite of Keith’s effusive reference to McClellan as “the Rosetta Stone” for helping us understand what we’ve endured during the past eight years, the former White House spokesman seems incapable of deciphering what he saw and participated in, as the first section of the “Phase Two” Senate report shows. All the prewar “talking points” of the administration, and the flimsy-to-nonexistent “evidence” used to back them up, are here debunked, and the pattern of deceit is all too clear. However, it is the second section of the report - which deals with the activities of the Office of Special Plans and other parallel intelligence-gathering operations set up by the neocons - that suggests something more sinister than extreme partisanship is motivating the actors in this drama of deception.
In 2001, as the wheels that would eventually drive us to war with Iraq began to turn, the groundwork was being laid for the inevitable denouement of that historic error: the present looming conflict with Iran.
Leafing through the story of the secret Rome meetings conducted by Michael Ledeen and Manucher Ghorbanifar - set up by a “foreign intelligence service,” as the report avers - this section of the Senate report reads like a spy thriller set in the future, a future in which we are about to go to war with Iran.
Neocon warlord Ledeen isn’t just one of the War Party’s most tireless polemicists. The fun part about being a foreign agent disguised as a “commentator” is that you get to rail away at the Bushies for not being enthusiastic enough about the Grand Plan of “liberating” the Middle East, demanding “faster, please!” Yet Ledeen isn’t just one of those armchair types who merely pontificates from his pundit’s perch: this student of Italian fascism is a man-of-action, too.
Indeed, that’s a considerable understatement. He and Ghorbanifar are longtime partners in crime, having been the two biggest spiders at the center of the Iran-Contra web, in which Ledeen and Ghorbanifar deployed their contacts in Israel - and within the Iranian government - to broker the mid-1980s arms-for-hostages deal. Continue reading »
Tags: AIPAC, CIA, Congress, Government, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Lobbyists, Military, Pentagon, U.S., War
May 19
Last week, two McCain staffers resigned after it was reported that they had performed extensive lobbying on behalf of the Burmese junta. However, Doug Goodyear and Doug Davenport are the not the only lobbyists on McCain’s campaign staff with ties to unsavory international figures.
Three other lobbyists, Charlie Black, Tom Loeffler, and Peter Madigan, and their firms’ clients, have generated at least $3.5 million in campaign donations to Sen. McCain over his career, according to Campaign Money Watch analysis of campaign finance data provided by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics (hyperlink: www.opensecrets.org). DCI Group, which employed Davenport and Goodyear, and their clients provided less than a quarter as much campaign money — $817,685 - to McCain’s elections.
Charlie Black, McCain’s senior counsel and spokesman, began his lobbying career by representing numerous dictators and repressive regimes
- Black’s firm represented the governor of Philippines dictator Ferdinand Marcos. According to a 1985 report, the firm Black, Manafort & Stone earned $950,000 plus expenses for its work to provide “advice and assistance on matters relating to the media, public relations and public affairs interests.”1
- Black’s firm lobbied on behalf of Mobuto Sese Seko of Zaire, earning $1 million a year for his efforts.2
- Black’s firm lobbied on behalf of Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.3
- Black’s firm represented Nigerian dictator Ibrahim Babangida, earning at least $1 million for his efforts.4
- Black’s firm has represented Equatorial Guinea, an oil-rich state “best known for the outlandish brutality of its rulers.”5
- Black represented Angolan rebel and “classical terrorist” Jonas Savimbi, a job that earned him $600,000.6 “We have to call him Africa’s classical terrorist,” Makau Mutua, a professor of law and Africa specialist told the New York Times. “In the history of the continent, I think he’s unique because of the degree of suffering he caused without showing any remorse.”7
- In recent years his client list has also included the Iraqi National Congress8, Friends of Blackwater9, and the China National Off-Shore Oil Corp.10
- Since 2005, BKSH has received more than $700,000 in fees from foreign entities.11
Thomas Loeffler, co-chairman of McCain’s campaign, has represented the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia RESIGNED: Click here
- The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia paid the Loeffler Group “a whopping $7.9 million from December 1, 2005, though November 2006 — the largest fee collected from a foreign government by any lobbying firm in 2006,” according to National Journal.12 The Washington Times reported that “Mr. Loeffler’s firm has received more than $10 million since 2006 from the Saudi Embassy and the Ministry of Commerce & Industry of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”13 Much of this work was centered on gaining admission for the Kingdom to the World Trade Organization.14
- Since 2005, according to the Washington Times, “the Loeffler Group reported more than $11 million in fees from foreign lobbying clients.”15
Peter Madigan, a leading McCain fundraiser, lobbies on behalf of the king of Dubai
- Madigan has earned upwards of $800,000 to improve the United Arab Emirates’ reputation in the face of a class action lawsuit over the enslavement of boy camel jockeys.16
Click here to download the fact sheet (pdf).
————- Continue reading »
Tags: Burma, Dictators, John McCain, Junta, Lobbyists, Oil, terrorists
Apr 16
The tax provisions of the Foreclosure Prevention Act, which consumer groups and labor leaders say amount to government handouts to big business, show how the credit crisis, while rattling the housing and financial markets, has created beneficiaries in the power corridors of Washington.
It also shows how legislation with a populist imperative offers a chance for lobbyists to press their clients’ interests.
This has proved especially true on the housing legislation, which many lawmakers and lobbyists view as one of the last opportunities before Congress grinds to a halt amid election-year politics.
In the Senate bill, the nation’s biggest home builders, some now on the verge of bankruptcy, won a provision that would let them claim millions in tax refunds by charging their current losses against the huge profits they made three or four years ago. Other struggling industries would benefit from this provision.
Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, was the main author of the Senate bill meant to help homeowners.
(The ones who will really benefit from this are, like always, the corporations.
And guess who will pay for these tax breaks in the end? - The Infinite Unknown)
Tags: airlines, alternative energy producers, American Airlines, automakers, bill, Businesses, corporations, Economy, financial market, Ford, Foreclosures, General Motors, Goodyear Tire, Housing Bill, Lobbyists, Northwest Airlines, Rubber., Senate, Tax Breaks, tax provisions, Wall Street, Washington
