McCain Surrenders AGAIN! Rockefeller '91, Bush 2000, K-Street Today

[Dig]

McCain Received $100,000 From Convicted Felon Jack Abramoff's Firm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/12/mccain-received-100000-_n_86245.html
February 12, 2008 02:38 PM

On the stump, Sen. John McCain has touted his work tackling the excesses of the lobbying industry to bolster his reputation as a "maverick" reformer.

"Ask Jack Abramoff if I'm an insider in Washington," McCain often contends. "You'd probably have to go during visiting hours in the prison, and he'll tell you and his lobbyist cronies of the change I made there."

But how much change did McCain actually effect? And is he all that removed from Washington's special interests?

A review of campaign finance filings shows that the Arizona Republican has accepted more than $100,000 in donations from employees of Greenberg Traurig, the very firm where Abramoff once reigned.

Those donations include several thousand dollars from registered lobbyists who represent, or have represented, businesses such as NewsCorp, Rupert Murdoch's media empire; Spi Spirits, a Cyprus based company that has fought with the Russian government for the rights to the Stolichnaya vodka brand name; El Paso Corp, a major energy company; General Motors; and the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, a group of businesses and trade associations "concerned" about the shortage of lesser skilled and unskilled labor.

All told, McCain has received more than $400,000 from lobbying firms, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. And among his major fundraisers ("bundlers") 59 have been identified as lobbyists by the non-profit organization Public Citizen.

There is nothing illegal about these contributions. But campaign watchdog groups and McCain's opponents view them as more than just a reflection of political irony. McCain, they argue, has on occasion been far more bark than bite when it comes to taking on lobbying interests.

Indeed, this past week, the Democratic National Committee put together a memo challenging McCain's assertion that he was a corruption hound while investigating Abramoff. The document and some government watchdog groups note that while McCain put pressure on Jack Abramoff and several prominent Republicans, he also went out of his way during the Indian Affairs Committee hearing to spare his congressional colleagues.

"Although Sen. McCain has long bragged of his role in the Abramoff investigation, he let Tom DeLay and the other members of Congress who were doing Abramoff's bidding completely off the hook. The sole exception was Rep. Bob Ney, who is now serving time in prison," said Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics In Washington. "Sen. McCain knew what his colleagues were up to, he chose to take the easier path and give them a free pass."

Neither McCain's office nor the Indian Affairs Committee returned requests for comment. In the past, McCain has claimed that it was not his responsibility to "involve ourselves in the ethics process [of Senators]." A source close to the investigation, who asked to speak anonymously so as to maintain his political neutrality, defended McCain's work as proper and effective. So did Paul Miller, the director of the American League of Lobbyists at the time of the Abramoff hearings.

"I think if you look at the report that Senator McCain and his committee, it was a bipartisan 16-0 vote to approve that report," Miller told the Huffington Post. "Yes, Bob Ney was the focus in some of these hearings, because he was one with the most evidence [against him]. But Senator McCain has not shied from taking anyone on, on this issue."

At well over 350 pages, the report was thorough, exploring layers of corruption that had allowed Indian tribes to part with tens of millions of dollars in search of political favors. But it did not include the names of prominent U.S. Senators with Abramoff ties, such as Conrad Burns and David Vitter, or for that matter Bush strategist Karl Rove, who accepted gifts from and met with Abramoff clients.

And while the report pushed for greater transparency and accountability, towards the end, McCain and the other authors seemingly put the onus for change not on Congress itself, but on the tribes that Abramoff bilked.

"Although the Committee does not believe that additional federal legislation is required to address Abramoff and Scanlon's misconduct," the report reads, "it does recommend that tribes consider adopting their own laws to help prevent a similar tragedy... The Committee strongly encourages those tribes that have not adopted such [good-government] laws and regulations to enact law and regulations that embrace the principles contained in the following recommendations. The Committee notes, however, that it is not recommending that Congress enact legislation mandating tribes to enact laws dealing with these subjects..."

[Dig]

DIGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[thrashbassist]

Consider it dugg.

This is only the tip of the iceberg.

[Dig]

Abramoff: McCain deliberately humiliated me
http://www.azcongresswatch.com/?p=1258
From the Republic:

Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff says in the April edition of Vanity Fair that he had a long and contentious relationship with Sen. John McCain, and believes the Arizona Republican deliberately humiliated him.

Abramoff, who once represented several Indian tribes with casinos, pleaded guilty earlier this year to federal felony charges related to congressional influence peddling.

In the several-page-long article, the lobbyist says he believes a series of high-profile hearings McCain held examining whether he defrauded his Indian clients were unfair, and he implies they were motivated by a personal grudge.

Although McCain’s staff denies the senator knew Abramoff [But he took over $100,000 from him!], the lobbyist says he had met McCain several years back. Abramoff says he raised money for President Bush in 2000 and urged tribes not to contribute to McCain, Bush’s opponent in the primary that year.

…

“Mr. Abramoff flatters himself,” McCain’s chief of staff, Mark Salter, responds in the article.

[Sub-X]

Dugg 

[Dig]

So McCain took Jack's monsy and then he f-d over Jack, hahaha

oh man, I wonder if Jack will sing like a canary about McCain. 

these guys are total scumbags.  they create incentives to create people like abromoff out of thin air, and then when the shit hits the fan, they got their patsies!

[DCUBED]

This is the only reason McCain is the front runner. He has got more skeletons in his closet than any other candidate. With the exception of Hillary (who probably has actual skeletons in her closet).  The media can build him up then tear him down. And Hitlery will get a free pass to the White House.

This however is great for Ron Paul. 

EXPOSE THIS SHIT!!

[LIbertAS]

Dugg

[Phineas]

dont worry the MSM will make sure this never reaches the light.

[Dig]

Blast from the past...Back with the Keeting 5 (he was always a Democrat!) he used the Bush excuse.... "huh?"

Is John McCain a Crook?
http://www.slate.com/id/1004633/
Chris Suellentrop Posted Friday, Feb. 18, 2000, at 2:35 PM ET

The controversial George W. Bush-sponsored poll in South Carolina mentioned John McCain's role in the so-called Keating Five scandal, and McCain says his involvement in the scandal "will probably be on my tombstone." What exactly did McCain do?

In early 1987, at the beginning of his first Senate term, McCain attended two meetings with federal banking regulators to discuss an investigation into Lincoln Savings and Loan, an Irvine, Calif., thrift owned by Arizona developer Charles Keating. Federal auditors were investigating Keating's banking practices, and Keating, fearful that the government would seize his S&L, sought intervention from a number of U.S. senators.

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.

In November 1990, the Senate Ethics Committee launched an investigation into the meetings between the senators and the regulators. McCain, Cranston, DeConcini, Glenn, and Riegle became known as the Keating Five.

(Keating himself was convicted in January 1993 of 73 counts of wire and bankruptcy fraud and served more than four years in prison before his conviction was overturned. Last year, he pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud and was sentenced to time served.)

McCain defended his attendance at the meetings by saying Keating was a constituent and that Keating's development company, American Continental Corporation, was a major Arizona employer. McCain said he wanted to know only whether Keating was being treated fairly and that he had not tried to influence the regulators. At the second meeting, McCain told the regulators, "I wouldn't want any special favors for them," and "I don't want any part of our conversation to be improper."

But Keating was more than a constituent to McCain--he was a longtime friend and associate. McCain met Keating in 1981 at a Navy League dinner in Arizona where McCain was the speaker. Keating was a former naval aviator himself, and the two men became friends. Keating raised money for McCain's two congressional campaigns in 1982 and 1984, and for McCain's 1986 Senate bid. By 1987, McCain campaigns had received $112,000 from Keating, his relatives, and his employees--the most received by any of the Keating Five. (Keating raised a total of $300,000 for the five senators.)

After McCain's election to the House in 1982, he and his family made at least nine trips at Keating's expense, three of which were to Keating's Bahamas retreat. McCain did not disclose the trips (as he was required to under House rules) until the scandal broke in 1989. At that point, he paid Keating $13,433 for the flights.

And in April 1986, one year before the meeting with the regulators, McCain's wife, Cindy, and her father invested $359,100 in a Keating strip mall.

The Senate Ethics Committee probe of the Keating Five began in November 1990, and committee Special Counsel Robert Bennett recommended that McCain and Glenn be dropped from the investigation. They were not. McCain believes Democrats on the committee blocked Bennett's recommendation because he was the lone Keating Five Republican.

In February 1991, the Senate Ethics Committee found McCain and Glenn to be the least blameworthy of the five senators. (McCain and Glenn attended the meetings but did nothing else to influence the regulators. [OK, now they are just being silly, just like the magic bullet in the warren commission and the "fire melts steel" in the 9/11 commission.  They really think we are that stupid] ) McCain was guilty of nothing more than "poor judgment," the committee said, and declared his actions were not "improper nor attended with gross negligence." McCain considered the committee's judgment to be "full exoneration," and he contributed $112,000 (the amount raised for him by Keating) to David Rockefeller the U.S. Treasury.

Next question?

[Dig]

Ron Paul has an FBI agent provocateur send him $500 and there is 24/7 news coverage of how evil Ron Paul is.

John McCain takes over $100,000 from the world's most notoriously corrupt lobbyist who is a convicted felon and the MSM yawns.  Well we ain't yawning.

[Dig]

2 months ag, Drudge Report smelled a rat called McCain...

McCain Denies Drudge Rumor Of Lobbyist Scandal
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/20/mccain-denies-drudge-rumo_n_77729.html
AP   |   December 20, 2007 02:23 PM

Sen. John McCain, rising in the polls as a Republican presidential candidate, defended his integrity Thursday, declaring he had "never done any favors for anybody -- lobbyist or special interest group." McCain made the remark to reporters in Detroit when questioned about a report that The New York Times was investigating allegations of legislative favoritism by the Arizona Republican. McCain acknowledged that his presidential campaign aides have had discussions with the newspaper regarding its inquiries. "I have not been in talks with The New York Times. They've been communicating with our staff and with us," McCain said.

"I've never done any favors for anybody

-- lobbyist or special interest group

-- that's a clear, 24-year record."

-----------------------------------------------

You guys get that?

Everybody see how easy this is going to be?

[Dig]

McCain Embroiled in Telecom Lobbying Scandal
[McCain just voted FOR blanket immunity for Telecoms]
http://pwtenny.newsvine.com/_news/2007/12/20/1177286-mccain-embroiled-in-telecom-lobbying-scandal
News Type: Opinion — Thu Dec 20, 2007 3:46 PM EST Paul William Tenny

There's a report circulating today that the New York Times has a story coming up that details extensive involvement between Senator McCain and a telco lobbyist that may have resulted in the telco retro-active immunity provision of the new FISA amendment.

That legislation was pulled until after the Holiday recess by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid after efforts by Senator Christopher Dodd and a handful of other Democratic Senators engaged in a filibuster against their own party, and it was made clear that even if there were more than enough votes to invoke cloture at every step, the slowed process would have put other much more important legislation at risk.

McCain came out against the story with statements this afternoon from the campaign trail telling the Associated Press that "I've never done any favors for anybody — lobbyist or special interest group — that's a clear, 24-year record." The Senator also said he finds the timing of issue "very interesting" and compares this story to smears made against him during his failed 2000 presidential campaign.

According to Matt Drudge, McCain has hired legal counsel to pressure the Times to hold back on the story until after the primaries, or kill it outright.

Additionally, according to Drudges account, "Rutenberg had hoped to break the story before the Christmas holiday, sources reveal, but editor Keller expressed serious reservations about journalism ethics and issuing a damaging story so close to an election."

This is the part where Glenn Greenwald would reign down fire and surfer on a "corrupt" and "complacent" press that is more interested in manipulating the political scene either through specific actions or not acting at all, rather than simply reporting the news.

Then he'd tell you about how it's not exactly a secret than telecom immunity is overwhelmingly disfavored by the public, but remains a top and nearly unstoppable priority in Washington due entirely to pressure from lobbyists who have contributed heavily to the players on the Senate Intelligence Committee that crapped out a bill ripe with immunity that would forgive willful lawbreaking and privacy invasions on an epic scale for extremely wealthy corporations, that would never be granted to any of us.

That is pretty much a given.

It's why Republicans fought so hard against lobbying reform in the Senate this year, and why Trent Lott is retiring less than a year after winning a new six year term which he pledged to serve out. If Lott waited any longer, he'd be subject to the new lobbying rules that would ban him from lobbying for two years rather than just one, from the rules currently in effect.

Although Drudge says this story has been in the works for six weeks, it may have been accelerated by a court order issued about three weeks ago, compelling the Director of National Intelligence to release documents on meetings between the Bush administration and telecom lobbyists that were directly related to the controversial immunity provision.

According to Ryan Singel, author of "Threat Level", a Wired blog, the government initially agreed to the EFF's FOIA request but ended up sitting on it for months, until the EFF sought a court order to compel the disclosure before the upcoming primaries.

Quoting from the order, as referenced by Singel (bold mine, emphasis original):
Plaintiff is correct that defendant has failed to provide the Court with “specific information that might explain why it will require four months to process ‘approximately 250 pages of unclassified material and approximately sixty-five pages of classified material’ identified as responsive to the FOIA requests.” Reply at 6 (quoting Opp’n at 6).

That's a pace of 2.5 pages per day over the course of four months, by the way.
[T]he agency’s description of its United States District Court processing methods in this case—which apparently are assigned to a single agent—appear to be wholly inadequate to the task of handling an expedited request, let alone a standard request, on the timely basis required by Congress. See Hackett Decl. ¶ 8. While defendant notes that it has a small FOIA staff, that argument is more properly directed at Congress, not to the courts.

Note the part where it says "required by Congress", not "suggested" or "intended", but factually required that requests be processed -- within reason -- as fast as possible.

It was inevitable that some of the presidential candidates would be wrapped up in this fiasco when these documents came to light precisely because we already know how beholden to special interest lobbyists most politicians are, regardless of party or principle -- at least those that serve in the House and Senate.

Senator McCain, as others have noted, has already been through one lobbying scandal before, after being tied to Charles Keating and the 80's securities fraud.

This shouldn't have and for many people wasn't unexpected at all, it is in fact the very reason the government fought so hard to keep these documents away from the public, and why McCain is fighting so hard right now to keep this story out of the papers.

Greenwald at Salon (Nov 29th):
Needless to say, the Bush administration raised every argument it could to avoid having to disclose this information. These disclosures will reveal -- among other things -- which telecom lobbyists and other representatives were meeting with DNI Michael McConnell in order to secure telecom amnesty, as well as which members of Congress McConnell and other Bush officials privately lobbied. As an argument of last resort, the administration even proposed disclosing these documents on December 31 so that -- as EFF pointed out -- the information would be available only after Congress passed the new FISA bill. The court rejected every administration claim as to why it should not have to disclose these records.

The deadline for release of these documents was exactly 10 days ago, leaving little time for reporters to read through them and conduct investigations based on what they've seen. That this specific story has been in the works for over a month, and that McCain seems to afraid of its publication, .. well you do the math.

Quoting McCain spokesperson Jill Hazelbaker today (AP), "John McCain has a 24-year record of serving this country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the important issues facing our country. Americans are sick and tired of this kind of gutter politics."

Given McCain's factual involvement with a previous lobbying scandal, it's not hard to believe that as one of the most conservative hawks in the Senate that welcomes lobbying money and fights lobbying reform at every turn, is knee deep in special interests every single day of the week.

If anything, Americans are sick and tired of politicians that go to Washington under the false pretense of representing the wishes of the voters that put them there in the first place, only to suck up corporate lobbying money like sponges and begin passing legislation that is repugnant and even damaging to their constituents in return.

Mudslinging barely makes the top 10 when it comes to that kind of political corruption where elected representatives become de facto employees of billion dollar corporations such as AT&T -- companies that by the way are making hundreds of millions of dollars from these illegally spying contracts which they have a vested self-interest in protecting at any cost.

[thrashbassist]

"McCain Denies Drudge Rumor Of Lobbyist Scandal"

I just added it to Digg
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/McCain_Denies_Drudge_Rumor_Of_Lobbyist_Scandal

[thrashbassist]

Time to gather all the dirt we can and digg it.

[Dig]

SCANDAL, ONCE AGAIN, TAINTS JOHN McCAIN
http://www.onecitizenspeaking.com/2007/12/scandal-once-ag.html
December 20, 2007

UPDATE: Together again...

According to the Washington Post...McCain Says Allegations That He Did Favors for D.C. Lobbyist Are Untrue

"It is unfortunate that rumor and gossip enter into political campaigns," said the statement from Jill Hazelbaker, the campaign's communications director. "John McCain has a 24-year record of serving this country with honor and integrity. He has never violated the public trust, never done favors for special interests or lobbyists, and he will not allow a smear campaign to distract from the important issues facing our country."

Hires top-notch Washington lawyer, Bill Bennett, to negotiate with the New York Times...

Bennett represented President Bill Clinton during the impeachment investigation mounted by Congress. In 1989, Bennett was special counsel to a Senate ethics committee probe of five senators, including McCain, over their ties to convicted savings-and-loan executive Charles Keating. The panel concluded that McCain used poor judgment in interceding with banking regulators on Keating's behalf, but that no punishment was warranted.

Original story...

According to a developing story on the Drudge Report, John McCain may be involved in another scandal involving special interests. While John McCain may be decrying the "suspicious timing" of a report which may link him to impropriety, given his past history of scandal and back-room deals, I say it is better we learn the truth NOW rather than later.

MEDIA FIREWORKS: MCCAIN PLEADS WITH NY TIMES TO SPIKE STORY


"Just weeks away from a possible surprise victory in the primaries, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz has been waging a ferocious behind the scenes battle with the NEW YORK TIMES, the DRUDGE REPORT has learned, and has hired DC power lawyer Bob Bennett to mount a bold defense against charges of giving special treatment to a lobbyist!"

"McCain has personally pleaded with NY TIMES editor Bill Keller not to publish the high-impact report involving key telecom legislation before the Senate Commerce Committee, newsroom insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT." 

"The drama involves a woman lobbyist who may have helped to write key telecom legislation. The woman in question has retained counsel and strongly denies receiving any special treatment from McCain.

Rutenberg, along with reporter David Kirkpatrick, has been developing the story for the last 6 weeks. "

THIS IS NOT THE FIRST TIME McCAIN has been questioned on his ethics...

According to Wikipedia...

"The Keating Five (or Keating Five Scandal) refers to a Congressional scandal related to the collapse of most of the Savings and Loan institutions in the United States in the late 1980s."

"In 1989, the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association of Irvine, Calif., collapsed. Lincoln's chairman, Charles H. Keating Jr., was faulted for the thrift's failure. Keating, however, told the House Banking Committee that the FHLBB and its former chief Edwin J. Gray were pursuing a vendetta against him. Gray testified that several U.S. senators had approached him and requested that he ease off on the Lincoln investigation. It came out that these senators had been beneficiaries of $1.3 million (collective total) in campaign contributions from Keating."

"This allegation set off a series of investigations by the California government, the United States Department of Justice, and the Senate Ethics Committee. The ethics committee's investigation focused on five senators: Alan Cranston (D-CA); Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ); John Glenn (D-OH); John McCain (R-AZ); and Donald W. Riegle, Jr. (D-MI), who became known as the Keating Five."

"After months of testimony revealed that all five senators acted improperly to differing degrees, the senators continually said they were following the status quo of campaign funding practices. In August 1991, the committee concluded that Cranston, DeConcini, and Riegle's conduct constituted substantial interference with the FHLBB's enforcement efforts and that they had done so at the behest of Charles Keating. The committee recommended censure for Cranston and criticized the other four for "questionable conduct."

Campaign Finance Legislative Failure...

"McCain also remained in the Senate and he made campaign finance reform a key legislative interest.  Substantial campaign finance reform was not passed until the adoption of the McCain-Feingold Act."

The impact of the poorly-crafted McCain-Feingold Act has given power to lobbyists and others who use its provisions to raise almost unlimited and untraceable amounts of money using special tax-exempt entitites known as 527s after their IRS tax code section. This has made people like far-left weirdo George Soros major players in democratic campaigns and the plan to defeat the Bush Administration.

Kennedy-McCain SHAMnesty Act

McCain was also a key player in a secret backroom deal (apparently the type he favors) with the democrats to craft the Kennedy-McCain SHAMnesty legislation which would have subverted the sovereignty of the United States and furthered the destruction of our healthcare, education, retirement, law enforcement and social benefits infrastructure in ways that are still affecting legislation and government programs.

Google claims approximately 360,000 hits on "John McCain Scandal"...



What can YOU do?

For whatever motives, thank the media for attempting to expose scandal-tainted politicians who may decide to sell-out their nation's interests for a few bucks.

Even if McCain is found not-guilty of improper conduct, his past legislative efforts in McCain-Feingold and McCain-Kennedy should mark him as someone who is not a clear thinker and prone to allow the secret crafting of legislation with negative unintended consequences.

Do not vote for any candidate or current politician who is willing to subvert the safety, security, sovereignty and economic strength of the United States or limit an individual's right of self-defense for personal power, prestige or profits.

-- steve

[Dig]

The Dirt on John McCain, Big Telecom, Net Neutrality, and the Drudge Report
http://www.mceades.com/index.blog/1305429/the-dirt-on-john-mccain-big-telecom-net-neutrality-and-the-drudge-report/
Saturday, 22 December 2007

The Drudge Report's revelation Thursday of a story possibly developing at the New York Times regarding alleged misdealings by John McCain with a telecom lobbyist opens a host of questions on precisely what McCain's relationship with the telecom lobby might entail, particulary given the paper's own stony silence on the matter. According to Drudge, the McCain campaign "has been waging a ferocious behind the scenes battle with the New York Times" to get the story killed, and "has hired Washington attorney Bob Bennett to defend McCain against charges of special treatment to a lobbyist" (see also Washington Post). Drudge writes further that the story involves a "high-impact report involving key telecom legislation before the Senate Commerce Committee," citing "newsroom insiders" and suggesting that the story was leaked out of frustration at "McCain's aggressive and angry efforts to stop any and all publication." Also involved in the story according to Drudge is a certain "woman lobbyist who may have helped to write key telecom legislation," and who "has retained counsel and strongly denies receiving any special treatment from McCain." McCain responded to the story Thursday by denying all charges of granting special favors to lobbyists, but admitted that his staff had been in contact with the New York Times regarding the story (see AP). While McCain denied having any personal contact with the paper, Politico has confirmed that McCain himself had indeed spoken with executive editor Bill Keller on concerns regarding the story.

Recent reports on McCain's relationship to telecom lobbying focus on his noted opposition to "net neutrality" efforts aimed at preventing broadband companies using their ownership of internet "pipes" to discriminate between content providers based on profitability. At present, the internet is a "neutral" playing field with free and equal access to all, and any censorship or "gatekeeping" by carriers strictly prohibited. On grounds of "free competition," however, McCain has supported the efforts of broadband carriers such as Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon at gaining congressional permission to control access to websites on a two-tiered basis consisting of a fee-based "fast track" for more profitable websites and a "slow track" for sites whose owners can't afford the fee. In effect, carriers would be permitted to replace our current open internet with a fee-based caste system, and even to block access to competitors' websites. As e-Week and The Daily Background note, John McCain has a history of support for telecoms in these efforts, as the senator himself has expressed: "When you control the pipe you should be able to get profit from your investment." Broadband Reports also notes McCain's history of opposition to net neutrality, including his introduction of the "Consumer Broadband Deregulation Act of 2002," a deregulation measure aimed at preventing the government from requiring broadband providers to offer access to competing ISP's in the residential broadband market. In 2005 McCain co-introduced the "Broadband Investment and Consumer Choice Act," which as Democracy Now! observes would eliminate the requirement that telecom companies pay franchise fees to local municipalities, eliminating also the only source of funding for public access programming. From McCain's home state of Arizona, Tucson Weekly notes that in 2006 McCain cast the deciding vote against the Snowe/Dorgan proposal to preserve internet freedom, noting also that McCain took in $44,250 in contributions that year from big telecom.

More currently, Wonkette suggests a possible link between the Drudge story and McCain's introduction of a telecom bill (S.744) linked to lucrative lobbying efforts earlier this year. Described as a public-private partnership to build a national broadband network for public safety, the bill would in fact place said public safety network in private hands, causing concern among public safety groups (see MRT). As Wonkette observes, two companies that stand to benefit from the bill, Cyren Call Communications (also here) and FrontLine Wireless, have hired several lobbying firms to advocate for it according to lobbying records linked here. In fact, the company favored in McCain's authorship of the bill is Cyren Call Communications, headed by Nextel founder Morgan O'Brien, and which according to Open Secrets spent more than $1.2 million on lobbying between 2006 and 2007 (see also here, here, here, here, and here). By process of elimination Wonkette names several possible candidates from these firms for the mysterious "woman lobbyist" mentioned by Drudge: Lisa Kountoupes formerly of Clark & Weinstock, now of Kountoupes Consulting; Julie Hershey Carr of Kountoupes; Kathleen M. (Kathy) Ramsey of Fritts Consulting (pictured at left); and Mary Tripp and Anne Wexler of Wexler & Walker. Of the firms and lobbyists named by Wonkette here, Fritts Consulting has been most closely associated with Cyren Call by authors such as Jeffrey Birnbaum in the Washington Post, Fritts CEO Edward O. (Eddie) Fritts the former CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), chief lobbyist Kathy Ramsey the former Executive Vice President of Public Affairs for NAB. Of the woman lobbyists named by Wonkette, Ms. Ramsey seems most to possess both the history of strong Republican support and the specific background in broadcast lobbying one would expect of a candidate for the mystery "woman lobbyist" named by Drudge. According to contribution reports publically available online, Lisa Kountoupes and Anne Wexler are both Democrats, with no significant links either to John McCain or to the telecom industry. Though Republicans, neither Julie Hershey Carr nor Mary Tripp have significant links either to John McCain or to the telecom industry. Only Kathy Ramsey has all the ingredients: A strong record of support for Republican PACs, including PACs that have contributed to John McCain campaigns, and the background in lobbying for broadcasting concerns as Executive Vice President of Public Affairs for NAB necessary to "write key telecom legislation" such as that to which Drudge refers above and Wonkette elaborates here. In cases such as that cited here, NAB has long lobbied for carriers' ownership and profitability rights over the public good and the principle of net neutrality. Beyond her work with NAB, Ramsey has also contributed to such Republican PAC's as the New Republican Majority Fund, which in turn like NAB has been a McCain contributor. If it is, therefore, from among the candidates listed by Wonkette above that we must choose Most Likely to be John McCain's Mysterious "Woman Lobbyist," my vote goes to Kathy Ramsey.

Meanwhile, as Wonkette also observes, the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials, the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and the International Association of Fire Chiefs "oppose McCain’s bill because it (surprise) would allow some companies (or a company) to profit off of the spectrum before the public (and public safety organizations) would be able to utilize it for the greater good." Jeffrey Birnbaum writes likewise on concerns over public safety interests versus those of private profit in the Cyren Call-McCain bill, noting that some "see it as a money grab using first responders as a front." Among Cyren Call's opponents, Birnbaum notes, is former Federal Trade Commission and White House budget office policy aide Jeffrey A. Eisenach, who describes it as "a get-rich-quick scheme to the tune of billions of dollars." Other opponents cited by Birnbaum include CTIA-The Wireless Association, the Consumer Electronics Association, and Representative Fred Upton (R-Mich.), former chairman of the House's telecommunications subcommittee. Even the conservative Heritage Foundation has spoken out against the plan on grounds that its potential cost to the public may well outweigh its benefits. The bill is currently in referral with the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, on which McCain sits, as identified by Drudge above. In addition to those named above, Cyren Call's paid advocates on Capitol Hill included Tom Blank, former Acting Deputy Administrator of the Transportation Safety Administration. Other Cyren Call supporters include former Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge - whose recent private-sector work with Ridge Global and Savi Technology has made him a major player in the lucrative security technology market - recently seen with McCain on the campaign trail. Big telecom must have high hopes for a McCain presidency.

Though figures may differ according to breakdown, data provided by Open Secrets shows campaign contributions to John McCain from the telecom industry totalling in the hundreds of thousands of dollars since 1998. Large individual contributors to McCain include AOL/Time-Warner, AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and Viacom. A detailed contributor breakdown from the 2000 election cycle (here), for example, shows PAC contributions of $65,200 from Verizon, $63,604 from Viacom, $44,825 from Time-Warner, and $15,750 from Comcast. Additional detail on industry contributions to McCain's congressional and presidential campaigns 1998-present may be found here, likewise showing substantial support from big telecom. In return for their support, McCain has consistently backed the ownership and profit interests of big telecom over the public good and the free exchange of information. Whether or not McCain turns out to be guilty of any crime, he certainly appears guilty of the same corrupt beholdenness to K Street as any of Washington's worst.


Posted by Mark C. Eades at 12:01 AM GMT
Updated: Monday, 24 December 2007 5:58 PM GMT

[thadividedsky]

We need to exploit this s**t to the max and royaly f**k insane mccain over. They've been playing dirty, maybe it's time to use their tactics against them. If we can expose a s**tload of bad stuff on this goon, maybe we can "persuade" the delegates to our side. I feel evil, in a good way. If that's possible. lol

[Dig]

From a liberal blog (takes them a long time to wake the heck up!)...

Bye Bye Love: It’s Time For Media, Independents To Break Up With McCain
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/02/12/bye-bye-love-its-time-for-media-independents-to-break-up-with-mccain/
By: Logan Murphy on Tuesday, February 12th, 2008 at 11:14 AM - PST   

 Old habits die hard. The media has had a tough time coming to grips with the reality of John McCain 2008 — The Maverick is dead. Chris Matthews is probably the worst offender, but the media narrative that McCain is the darling of Independents has run its course and needs to be put to bed. Arianna Huffington writes the Dear John letter:

I hate to be the one to break up a love affair, especially with Valentine’s Day just around the corner, but I can no longer stand idly by and watch the media and independent voters continue to throw themselves at the feet of John McCain.

The John McCain they fell in love with in 2000 — the straight-shooting, let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may maverick - is no more. He’s been replaced by a born-again Bushite willing to say or do anything to win the affection of his newfound object of desire, the radical right.

So, please, stop pretending that McCain is still the dashing rebel that made knees buckle back in the day — and stop referring to him, as the New York Times did this weekend, as “moderate” and a “centrist.” Full story from Arrianna Huffington in next post...

[Dig]

End of a Romance:

Why the Media and Independent Voters Need to Break Up with John McCain
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/end-of-a-romance-why-the_b_86086.html
Posted February 11, 2008 | 03:52 PM (EST)

I hate to be the one to break up a love affair, especially with Valentine's Day just around the corner, but I can no longer stand idly by and watch the media and independent voters continue to throw themselves at the feet of John McCain.

The John McCain they fell in love with in 2000 -- the straight-shooting, let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may maverick - is no more. He's been replaced by a born-again Bushite willing to say or do anything to win the affection of his newfound object of desire, the radical right.

And we've got the money shot of his betrayal on tape: McCain singing the praises of Karl Rove, calling him "one of the smartest political minds in America," and saying, "I'd be glad to get his advice."

So, please, stop pretending that McCain is still the dashing rebel that made knees buckle back in the day -- and stop referring to him, as the New York Times did this weekend, as "moderate" and a "centrist."

What is it going to take for you guys to face reality? McCain verbally stroking Rove should be the equivalent of that great scene at the end of The Godfather where Diane Keaton's Kay watches in horror as Al Pacino transforms, in the kiss of a ring, from her loving husband Michael into the next Don Corleone. This ain't the same man you married.

I know it's hard. I myself was deeply enamored of the old McCain. In 2000, I invited him to give the keynote address at the Shadow Convention I'd helped organize. He spoke with passion about the need to clean up the "iron triangle of lobbyists, big money, and legislation."

And now he'd be "glad to get" advice from one of the preeminent architects of that triangle?

Of course, McCain's embrace of Rove is just the latest proof that the new McCain bears no relation to the old.

The old John McCain once rightly called Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and like-minded religious bigots "agents of intolerance." The new John McCain now slavishly seeks their endorsement.

The old John McCain talked about trying to do something about global warming and encourage renewable energy. The new John McCain didn't show up for a vote last week on a bill that included tax incentives for clean energy, even though he was in DC. And then his staff misled environmentalists who called to protest by telling them that he had voted for it.

The old John McCain once stood tall as a fearless leader on immigration, co-sponsoring a humane, bipartisan reform bill with Ted Kennedy. The new John McCain, when asked during a recent GOP debate whether he would support his own proposal, replied: "No, I would not." In other words, he was for his core beliefs before he was against them.

What's the opposite of a "maverick?"

So McCan has backed an amendment that would limit the right to habeas corpus, has endorsed an Arizona constitutional amendment that would not only ban gay marriage but deny benefits to unmarried couples of any kind (lest those pesky gay people find some kind of loophole), and has discovered a newfound support for teaching "intelligent design" in schools.

The old John McCain once tried to take the mantle of true conservatism away from George W. Bush. The new John McCain is now essentially running to give America a third Bush term - and, indeed, will even out-Bush Bush when it comes to staying the disastrous course we're on in Iraq.

Right on time, the new McCain got Bush's blessing on Fox News Sunday: "I know his convictions," Bush said. "I know the principles that drive him. And no doubt in my mind he is a true conservative."

There you have it: John McCain, a Bush conservative. If you love George Bush, and all that he's brought you over the last seven years, you're gonna love John McCain.

And though McCain threw the mouthbreathers at CPAC into weeping, lamentation, and gnashing of teeth last week for not being right-wing enough, he is demonstrating every day that he will be more than right-wing enough come November.

As it turns out, the new John McCain doesn't need any advice from Karl Rove. He's already internalized the Boy Genius' lessons.

If you think the problem with the United States right now is that we haven't given Bush enough time to finish his agenda, then John McCain is your man. If not, it's time to stop running on the fumes of romantic notions past and find a good divorce lawyer (and, yes, I'm talking to you in the campaign press corps and to you independents and to you moderates and to you anti-war McCain voters in Florida).

The Thousand Year War Express is careening along the road to the White House, and the new John McCain is gunning the engine. And he has to be stopped.

Arianna Huffington

[Dig]

McCain: ‘Anyone Who Worries About How Long We’re In Iraq Does Not Understand The Military’
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/02/12/mccain-understand-military/


Speaking to reporters in Richmond, VA last night, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) attacked “anyone” who points out that he is “fine” with keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for 100 or more years. “Anyone who worries about how long we’re in Iraq does not understand the military and does not understand war,” said McCain.

He then added that it is “really almost insulting to one’s intelligence” to question “how long we’re in Iraq” because he believes the current “strategy” is “succeeding.” Watch it:


http://video.thinkprogress.org/2008/02/McCainUnderstandMilitary.320.240.flv

By dismissing as naïve those concerned with how long the U.S. military is mired in Iraq, McCain is claiming that top officials in the Pentagon don’t understand “the military” or “war” as well as he does. In a recent GOP presidential debate, McCain argued, “I’m the expert” on Iraq.

Top military brass, such as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen and Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey, have worried in the past year that “a protracted deployment of U.S. troops”in Iraq would not be a wise move for the military:

- In October 2007, Casey said that “it’s going to take us three or four years and a substantial amount of resources to put” the Army “back in balance” and that time frame depends on when “the conflict end[ s].”

- In July 2007, Mullen testified that without political and economic progress in Iraq, “no amount of troops and no amount of time will make much of a difference” and that “a protracted deployment of U.S. troops to Iraq…risks further emboldening Iranian hegemonic ambitions.”

By McCain’s logic, both the Army Chief of Staff and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff don’t “understand the military” as well as he does.

[orangeblue]

 

[lordssyndicate]

DIGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DUGG!


Well we were waiting for a big scandal we knew would come to take out McCain. If this isn't big enough to have McCain brought up on charges himself it's at least big enough to seriously hurt his campaign.

Good find Sane .

Great work as always staying on top of things.

[Dig]

On Jack Abramoff,
John McCain Drives Straight Talk Express
Into Double Talk Detour
http://www.democrats.org/a/2008/01/on_jack_abramof.php
January 11, 2008

Maybe it was the strain of doing three debates in five days, or the pressure of facing a second must-win primary in a week, but last night John McCain took his "do anything to win" campaign mentality to a new low. During last night's debate in South Carolina, McCain tried to position himself as an agent of change by bragging about Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff being in prison and claiming that "he will tell you, and his lobbyist cronies, of the change I made" in Washington. [Fox News Debate, 1/10/08]

But John McCain isn't kidding anyone. Not only did he flat out refuse to investigate any of his fellow members of Congress when his Senate committee investigated Abramoff, he refused to back the kind of lobbying reform that could prevent future lobbying scandals--choosing instead to advance his presidential campaign by cozying up to K Street lobbyists. McCain even chose a top crony of indicted former Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay as his first campaign manager.

"Campaign McCain is desperately trying to revive his maverick image by pretending to have fought the Republican culture of corruption, but the real John McCain turned a blind eye to his corrupt colleagues and stood in the way of real reform," said Democratic National Committee spokesman Luis Miranda. "The straight talk express' latest double talk detour shows that the new John McCain is a hollow shell of the John McCain Michigan voters used to know, and a powerful reminder that a vote for John McCain is a vote for a third Bush term on everything from the economy to ethics reform."
Campaign McCain's REAL Record on Corruption,
Lobbying Reform


REFUSING TO INVESTIGATE COLLEAGUES
McCain Acknowledged That Some Legislators Had Committed "Wrongdoing," But Refused To Investigate. Asked if he believed that some legislators had committed a crime related the Abramoff scandal, Senator McCain said "There's strong evidence that there was significant wrongdoing, but I'm not a judge or jury," and refused to investigate his colleagues in Congress, saying "I will not, because I'm a chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. This was brought to our--this whole thing started--was brought to us--attention by some disgruntled tribal council members in a small tribe in Louisiana, and we took it as far as we thought was our responsibility, which is where the money ends up." [NBC, Meet the Press, 12/4/05]


REJECTING LOBBYING REFORM
McCain Was Soft On Lobby Reform While Strengthening K Street Fundraising Efforts. "McCain's usual allies say he could have done more to strengthen what they consider a generally disappointing [lobbying] reform bill. At the same time, lobbyists say that McCain has been reaching out to K Street to strengthen his national fundraising network. While McCain's efforts to court Bush contributors around the country have been reported, his efforts inside the Beltway have been overlooked." [The Hill, 3/8/06; San Francisco Chronicle, 1/18/06]
McCain Rejected More Robust Lobbying Reform Bill. When Senator Feingold asked McCain to support a bill with "more robust disclosure of lobbyists' activities," McCain "had considered the idea, but viewed it as 'too onerous' on the lobbying community." [San Francisco Chronicle, 1/18/06]
McCain Voted Against Bipartisan Lobbying Reform Bill. McCain voted against the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2006, which passed 92-8. [109th Congress, S. 2349, Vote #82, 3/29/06]


FLIP-FLOPPING ON GRASSROOTS LOBBYING BILL
McCain Flip-Flopped On Grassroots Lobbying Reform. "Senator John McCain has told conservative activists that he will vote to strip a key provision on grassroots lobbying from the reform package he previously supported. The provision would require grassroots organizations to report on their fundraising activities and is strongly opposed by groups such as the National Right to Life Committee, Gun Owners of America, and the American Civil Liberties Union. While grassroots groups on both sides of the political spectrum oppose the proposal, social conservative leaders such as Dr. James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, who broadcasts a radio program to hundreds of thousands of evangelical Christians, have been its most vehement critics. McCain sponsored legislation last Congress that included an even broader requirement for grassroots lobbying coalitions to reveal their financial donors. But now he will vote to defeat a similar measure." [The Hill, 1/18/07]

MCCAIN'S FIRST CAMPAIGN MANAGER A TOP TOM DELAY CRONY
McCain Named Terry Nelson Campaign Manager Said He Had No Qualms about Nelson's Ethics. Senator McCain named Terry Nelson as his campaign manager in 2006. Nelson is "known for hardball tactics that don't exactly square with [McCain's] white-knight image," such as the racist ad aired against Ford Jr., involvement in the Delay indictment and the New Hampshire phone jamming scandal; Dick Polman noted that "in view of [Nelson's] hardball track record, his presence at McCain's side is sufficient proof that the 'maverick' label no longer applies." In 2006, it was reported that McCain still "had no qualms about Nelson's ethics," even after they were revealed to him. In fact, McCain called Nelson "a fine man" and defended hiring him, saying, "he was very helpful to President Bush and he is very well regarded." [Time, 12/10/06; "Dick Polman's American Debate," dickpolman.blogspot.com, 12/7/06; Union Leader, 12/8/06; Cox News Service, 4/3/06]
McCain Strategist Terry Nelson Served As Middleman in Delay TRMPAC Money Laundering Scheme, Named in Indictment and Had to Testify. Before the 2002 election, John Colyandro, the executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority, sent a blank check to Jim Ellis. According to the indictment, Ellis, who ran Delay's Americans for a Republican Majority, negotiated an exchange of corporate money for campaign donations with Terry Nelson, RNC Political Director. As a result, TRMPAC contributed $190,000 to the Republican National State Elections Committee on September 20, 2002 - a contribution that included corporate money. Within two weeks, the RNSEC contributed the same amount back to seven Texas legislative candidates that were TRMPAC targets. Nelson testified to the grand jury investigating the Delay scandal in March of 2004. [Austin American-Statesman, 9/14/05; Travis County District Court Bill of Indictment, Thomas Dale DeLay, 9/28/05; CQ Weekly, 3/20/2004; San Antonio Express-News, 3/15/2004; Austin American-Statesman, 2/26/2004; FEC,4/8/2004; Texas Ethics Commission, 4/8/2004; AP, 3/20/04; Houston Chronicle, 10/15/05]

HIRING MORE LOBBYISTS ON PAYROLL THAN ANY OTHER CAMPAIGN
McCain's Campaign Has More Lobbyists On Board, 32, Than Any Other. "As a presidential candidate this year, McCain has found himself assiduously courting both lobbyists and their wealthy clients, offering them private audiences as part of his fundraising...a recent study by the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute and the liberal advocacy group Public Citizen found that McCain has more lobbyists raising funds for his presidential bid than do any of his rivals. He has 32 "bundlers" of donations who are lobbyists." [Washington Post, 12/31/07]

[Dig]

McCain appoints Abramoff-linked ex-Senator to leadership post
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/McCain_appoints_Abramofflinked_exSenator_to_leadership_0129.html
Michael Roston Published: Tuesday January 29, 2008

Senator John McCain has appointed a former Republican Senator who had major links to former lobbyist Jack Abramoff as head of his Montana presidential campaign.

Conrad Burns lost his senate seat to Democrat Jon Tester in 2006. The Republican senator's ties to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who pleaded guilty to three federal fraud and corruption charges in 2006, are believed to have played a major role in his defeat. Earlier this month, according to the AP, the Justice Department informed Burns that he was no longer a subject of the Abramoff probe.

Burns' appointment as the chair of McCain's Montana campaign was a curious move, given some of the conflict that has existed between the two senators when they both served in Congress. The Chicago Tribune on Monday described one scenario in which Senator McCain publicly decried Burns for an earmark that he had placed in an appropriations bill:
John McCain went to the Senate floor in 2003 to mercilessly ridicule a fellow Republican, then-Montana Sen. Conrad Burns, for tucking a $1 million earmark into a spending bill to study the DNA of Montana's bears.

"One can only imagine and conjure up an idea as to how this might be used," mocked McCain. "Approach a bear: 'That bear cub over there claims that you're his father and we need to take your DNA.' Approach another bear: 'Two hikers had their food stolen by a bear, and we think it is you. We have to get the DNA.'"

In spite of such testy exchanges, Burns described his support for McCain as deriving from their long service together, and added that he approves of "the way he wants to run an administration," according to the Billings Gazette.

While Burns was not charged with any crimes related to Abramoff's corrupt activities, the senator and his staff had a close relationship with the lobbyist. Two members of Burns' staff joined Abramoff's lobbying firm, and the senator received $150,000 in donations from Abramoff and his associates. Ultimately, Burns donated the money to charitable causes.

Burns and his staff met with Abramoff on a number of occasion, and succeeded in attaching pricey earmarks to spending bills in Congress at the lobbyist's request. In spite of these activities, Burns attempted to argue that he was in the dark about what happened with Abramoff.

"A lot of things happened that I didn't know about," Roll Call quoted him saying in 2005.

McCain did not address the controversy in accepting Burns' endorsement.

"Conrad served his country in the United States Marine Corps, and was a dedicated representative of the people of Montana for more than two decades," he said in a statement over the weekend. "I am humbled by his support."

[Dig]

Despite media hailing McCain as "untainted" reformer,
like many Dems he took money from Abramoff clients
http://mediamatters.org/items/200601230005
Mon, Jan 23, 2006 4:28pm ET

Summary: Media figures have argued that the scandal surrounding former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff is good news for Sen. John McCain because, unlike other members of Congress, he is untainted by the scandal and could benefit politically from being cast as a reformer. But these media figures failed to note that, like many Democrats who they have suggested are tainted, McCain received campaign money from Abramoff's clients, as reported by the Associated Press and the Center for Responsive Politics. *

In covering the federal corruption scandal surrounding former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, many in the media have focused attention on Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who chairs the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs -- which is investigating the Abramoff matter -- and who has introduced, in light of Abramoff's abuses, legislation to regulate lobbying activities. Media coverage has largely cast McCain as "untainted" by the Abramoff scandal, while at the same time, implying that lawmakers who received legal campaign contributions from Abramoff or his American Indian clients are not. Some commentators have argued that the Abramoff scandal is good news for McCain: They assert that McCain has no connection to Abramoff and could therefore benefit politically from being cast as a reformer.

But a January 5 Associated Press article reported that Mark Salter, McCain's chief of staff, confirmed that McCain received "at least two donations from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians while Abramoff was their lobbyist." The AP reported that Salter said he expects McCain will give this money back. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that McCain received $5,000 from the Mississippi Band of Choctaw while Abramoff was their lobbyist: $1,000 during the 2000 election cycle and $4,000 during the 2004 election cycle. In addition to those who have overlooked these contributions while focusing positive attention on McCain, CNN congressional correspondent Ed Henry drew attention to campaign contributions Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) -- the Democratic vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs -- received from Abramoff's clients but did not inform viewers of the contributions McCain received from the lobbyist's tribal clients.

While simply receiving campaign contributions from Abramoff clients is not an indication of corruption, news reports have portrayed such contributions as "tainting" lawmakers -- lawmakers other than McCain, that is.

A Media Matters for America review has found the following examples of media outlets portraying the Abramoff scandal as good news for the purported reformer McCain while failing to note McCain's receipt of campaign money from Abramoff's clients:
New York Post Washington bureau chief Deborah Orin: In a January 5 column titled," Mr. Clean Can Come In & Wipe Up Floor of Congress," Orin asserted that the Abramoff scandal "could ... be good news for Mr. Reformer, Sen. John McCain." Orin stated that "[t]he revolting Jack Abramoff scandal ... is tainting everyone in Washington," but quoted Republican strategist Rich Galen, who argued that "an untainted outsider who can play to that has an huge advantage" in the upcoming 2008 presidential race. Orin stated that "Democrats would like to paint the Abramoff mess as a Republican scandal, but Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid [D-NV] got plenty of Abramoff-linked money." But she did not inform her readers that McCain had also received "Abramoff-linked money."
Newsweek chief political correspondent Howard Fineman: In a January 4 MSNBC online column, Fineman listed "the political losers and winners" in the Abramoff scandal. Among the "losers," Fineman cited "[l]awmakers fingered by the feds in Abramoff probe, or who received campaign contributions through the networking of Abramoff, and who are facing re-election this November." Also included among the "losers" was House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), who, as Fineman wrote, "hastily returned all of his Abramovian campaign contributions, but that only served to underscore his visibility." But among the "winners," Fineman cited McCain, explaining, "If Sen. John McCain doesn't win the Republican presidential nomination, I could see him leading an independent effort to "clean up" the capital as a third-party candidate." Fineman did not note that, like Hastert and other lawmakers on the "losers" list, McCain also received "Abramovian campaign contributions."
MSNBC and NBC host Chris Matthews and his January 15 Chris Matthews Show panel: On the January 15 broadcast of the NBC-syndicated The Chris Matthews Show, Chris Matthews discussed the Abramoff scandal with a panel consisting of NBC chief Washington correspondent Norah O'Donnell, Time magazine assistant managing editor Michael Duffy, Atlanta Journal-Constitution editorial page editor Cynthia Tucker, and Time columnist and former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan. Duffy asserted that "part of the problem [facing Democrats in the Abramoff scandal] is they've got ... Harry Reid and [Rep.] Patrick Kennedy [D-RI] and Byron Dorgan also took some of this money from Abramoff's clients." When O'Donnell later argued that "the Republicans have, to some degree, beaten [Democrats] to the punch" in proposing lobbying reforms in the scandal's wake, Sullivan added: "They haven't just beaten them to the punch. In McCain, they have a person whose record on this is so long and so strong." But neither Matthews nor his panel members informed viewers that McCain had also taken "some of this money from Abramoff's clients," along with Reid, Kennedy, and Dorgan. Matthews's failure to note that McCain received contributions from Abramoff clients stands in marked contrast with his repeated references -- during three separate segments on the January 5 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews -- to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's (D-NY) decision to donate $2,000 she received from Abramoff's clients, despite the smaller amount of money she received and the fact that Clinton does not sit on the committee investigating the Abramoff scandal.

Additionally, on the January 3 edition of CNN's The Situation Room, Henry reported on contributions Dorgan's campaign received from Abramoff clients. But Henry did not inform viewers that McCain had also received money from Abramoff's clients. When host Wolf Blitzer asked Henry which members of Congress were "sweating ... out" the Abramoff scandal, Henry said of Dorgan:

HENRY: Now, there's a Democrat who Republicans keep bringing up, Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota. He is somebody who has been leading this investigation in the Senate of Jack Abramoff. He recently gave back some money that was given to him. His office points out that it was actually money that Abramoff's clients gave, not maybe directly from Abramoff. Dorgan says he has never met Abramoff. He doesn't know anything about Abramoff himself. But it's a sign that both sides are taking a close look at all of this money.

From the January 15 broadcast of the NBC-syndicated The Chris Matthews Show:

MATTHEWS: Then there's the Abramoff scandal. What a fat target this is -- which keeps going on, by the way. Tom DeLay is now officially out as [House majority] leader. He's pulled himself out of leadership politics. And at least a handful -- and that's being modest -- of Republicans in the Congress are figured in this investigation. Their names keep popping up. Mike, how come this has metastasized into a -- not a Democratic opportunity, not a Democratic win and a Republican loss, but this vague kind of "Washington stinks."

DUFFY: The best thing you can say about the Democratic strategy here is that they know that when the opposition party is in trouble, the best thing to do is stay out of the way. That's the smartest spin, but I don't think they're even thinking that much. I think part of the problem here is they've got, you know, Harry Reid, and Patrick Kennedy -- and Byron Dorgan also took some of this money from Abramoff's clients. Not all of those people have given it back, by the way. And that's not a good thing if you're trying to say --

MATTHEWS: OK. Are we to believe that they could be the reform party? I have never -- if they become -- let me ask you this: How can the Republicans effectively mean -- the main problem area here, losing their leadership over it, now come back and offer themselves up as the reformers? [Former Speaker of the House] Newt Gingrich is posing as a reformer now. The Democrats are blowing this chance.

DUFFY: These are different kinds of reformers. When [President] Gerald Ford and [Defense Secretary] Don Rumsfeld took over from [former House Majority Leader] Charlie Halleck [R-IN] (ph) in '64, they were reformers. When Newt Gingrich and [former Rep.] Vin Weber [R-MN] took over from Bob Michael, they were reformers. This is the same group that was in charge last week, now deciding to grab every lobbying proposing bill -- reform bill they can find, and say, "We're reformers."

MATTHEWS: Why don't the Democrats offer themselves as reformers?

O'DONNELL: They are. They're trying to do that. I mean, [Senate Democratic leader] Nancy Pelosi [D-CA] is banding with others and inviting them to come back early in January to put forward a reform proposal. But again it remains -- the Republicans, to some degree, have beaten them to the punch. But that's going to be the big battle, right after the State of the Union.

SULLIVAN: They haven't just beaten them to the punch. In McCain, they have a person whose record on this is so long and so strong. Again, the opposition in this country is in the Republican Party. It's not in the Democratic Party. The Democrats are just whiners and spectators.

TUCKER: But the Democrats still have a chance on the Abramoff scandal because that is still brewing. They can find their voice on that and turn it into a credible campaign issue.

MATTHEWS: I think you nailed it, Andrew. I think the split between the Democratic true believers and the people that pay for the campaigns are very different. The conservatives are paying the bill, and the conservatives are keeping that party confused in its voice.

From the January 3 edition of CNN's The Situation Room:

BLITZER: So, who's sweating it out the most?

HENRY: Well, I can tell you, one name that always comes up, obviously, is Tom DeLay. He's the former House majority leader who is very close to Jack Abramoff, used him to raise money and whatnot. But DeLay, again, has insisted throughout this, no wrong -- you know, absolutely no wrongdoing, and time will tell. He's not mentioned at all -- it's important to point out -- in this plea deal.

But a name that does get mentioned in this plea deal today is Republican Bob Ney of Ohio. He very clearly has been linked to Abramoff. He says he was duped by Abramoff; he was misled; he did nothing wrong as well. But, in this plea deal, it mentions a trip to Scotland that Bob Ney took with Jack Abramoff to play some golf -- that trip still getting a lot of scrutiny.

[...]

Now, there's a Democrat who Republicans keep bringing up, Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota. He's somebody who's been leading this investigation in the Senate of Jack Abramoff. He recently gave back some money that was given to him. His office points out that it was actually money that Abramoff's clients gave, not money directly from Abramoff. Dorgan says he's never met Abramoff. He doesn't know anything about Abramoff himself. But it's a sign that both sides are taking a close look at all of this money.

And, finally, you're going to -- you're going to see Democrats using this as an issue to say, "This is another sign" -- in their eyes -- "that there's a culture of corruption in Washington." And they want to throw the Republicans out of power.

[Dig]

Jack Abramoff Pays John McCain to Hide Contacts
McCain’s Abramoff redactions - Contacts Remain Hidden
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/7018.html
Posted March 31st, 2006 at 12:57 pm

About a year ago, John McCain launched a series of hearings on Jack Abramoff through the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, which McCain chaired. Did Mr. Straight Talk take a “let the chips fall where they may” attitude? Not so much. Roll Call reported that McCain “assured” his Republican colleagues that he would look into Abramoff’s frauds — without airing their dirty laundry.

With McCain and Abramoff in the news right now, Wampum offered an important reminder this morning that McCain released a series of Abramoff emails as part of the Indian Affairs Committee investigation — but McCain’s office redacted all the names of the members of Congress who had a “positive response” to Abramoff’s lobbying.

This image, for example, reflects two senators and two congressmen who were connected to Abramoff. There’s no reason, however, to keep their names from public view, except to help keep Abramoff’s Hill contacts secret. As Wampum’s post put it:

Senator McCain promised his Congressional colleagues that their misdeeds would not be the focus of his investigation of Jack Abramoff, and this is the result. Stop the stonewalling.

Sounds like a good idea. McCain announced before the hearings even began that he would investigate Abramoff while keeping the lobbyist’s Hill connections under wraps. McCain kept his word, but in this case, that’s not a good thing.

[Dig]

John McCain is putting the K-Street Band back together

Paper reports Ney may be released from prison soon
http://www.timesreporter.com/index.php?ID=79560&r=6
February 12, 2008

Disgraced former U.S. Rep. Bob Ney may be released from federal prison soon, according to the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call, which Monday cited an anonymous source close to the inmate.

The Times-Reporter was not able to immediately and independently confirm the report.

Ney was sentenced to 30 months in prison after his conviction on corruption charges, stemming from his involvement with scandal-plagued lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Ney began serving his term last March 1.

The Ohio Democratic Party, reacting to the report, issued a terse news release Monday afternoon.

“With John McCain promising voters nothing short of a third term for George Bush, Bob Ney will do an excellent job reminding Ohioans of exactly what the first two terms of the Bush presidency have meant for our state,” said Ohio Democratic Party Communications Director Alex Goepfert. “Any word on Tom Noe?”

Ney of Heath is serving his term in the minimum security facility at Morgantown, W.Va.

[Dig]

John McCain Embraces Key Figure in GOP Culture of Corruption
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/02-11-2008/0004753720&EDATE=


    WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- John McCain's principles
took another hit this weekend. While McCain has tried to convince voters
that he stood up to the Republican culture of corruption in Washington,
McCain showed his true colors by trying to advance his political career by
cozying up to Karl Rove.



    Asked by reporters about Rove's endorsement, McCain refused to
criticize President Bush's scandal-plagued crony despite the fact that Rove
has been linked to just about every Republican scandal in the last seven
years. Rove has been tied to the Abramoff scandal, the scandal over the
politically motivated firing of nine U.S. Attorneys, and the leak of an
undercover CIA agent's identity in a time of war. Yet, McCain said he's
"always respected Karl Rove," called him "one of the smart great political
minds" in American politics, and said he would "welcome any information or
advice and council he can give us." [CNN, 2/9/08
http://youtube.com/watch?v=nV3ia_aFsOY] John McCain's decision to cozy up
to the right wing of his Party by defending Rove follows his support for
President Bush's decision to commute Scooter Libby's sentence after Vice
President Cheney's chief of staff was convicted of perjury and obstruction
of justice.



    "John McCain's attempts to shore up his campaign by cozying up to one
of the most divisive and corrupt figures in American politics shows that a
vote for McCain is a vote for four more years of the culture of corruption
Republicans brought to Washington," said Democratic National Committee
spokesman Damien LaVera. "If voters can't trust McCain to put open
government and accountability ahead of his political ambitions, how can
they trust him to change the failed Bush policies that have undermined our
economy and made America less secure."



    KARL ROVE & THE REPUBLICAN CULTURE OF CORRUPTION

    Campaign McCain: Abramoff Investigation Shows He Made Change. "Ask Jack
Abramoff if I'm an insider in Washington -- you'd probably have to go
during visiting hours in the prison -- and he'll tell you and his lobbyist
cronies of the change I made there." [Fox News Republican Debate, South
Carolina, 1/10/2008]



    Campaign McCain: "I've Always Respected Karl Rove." "I've always
respected Karl Rove as one of the smart great political minds I think in
American politics. I've always respected him. It's not so much whether I
approve of his tactics or not. It's that he has a very good, great
political mind. Any information or advice and council he can give us, I'd
be glad to have. I don't think anybody denies his talents. So I'd be glad
to get any advice and council. We would obviously decide whether to accept
it or not." [CNN, 2/9/08, http://youtube.com/watch?v=nV3ia_aFsOY]



    Rove Met With Abramoff Clients Who Donated to Friendly Groups. "Sources
tell Newsweek that Abramoff often steered clients' funds to ATR as a way to
ease access to the administration. It seems to have worked. A lawyer for
the Saginaw Chippewa Indian tribe in Michigan told NEWSWEEK that tribal
leaders had 'three or four' meetings at the White House -- including one
with Bush and another with Rove -- after they gave a $25,000 donation to
Norquist's group at Abramoff's request." [Newsweek, 5/2/05]



    Top Rove Aide Accepted Gifts from (Former Boss) Abramoff. A top aide to
White House strategist Karl Rove "resigned after disclosures that she
accepted gifts and passed information to now-convicted lobbyist Jack
Abramoff, becoming the first official in the West Wing to lose a job in the
influence-peddling scandal." Susan Ralston's resignation came a month
before the midterm elections, just after "a congressional report showed
that Ralston accepted sometimes-pricey tickets to nine sports and
entertainment events from Abramoff while she provided him with inside White
House information." Ralston "was Mr. Abramoff's executive assistant before"
taking a similar job for Karl Rove at the White House where she was
eventually promoted to Special Assistant to the President. [Chicago
Tribune, 10/8/06; Washingtonpost.com, 4/16/07]



    Rove Told Grand Jury He Discussed Plame With Reporters. "In grand jury
appearances and other conversations with federal investigators, Rove has
testified that he discussed Wilson's wife briefly with columnist Robert D.
Novak and Cooper before she was publicly unmasked in July 2003, according
to lawyers in the case. Fitzgerald zeroed in on Rove's contact with Cooper
yesterday, according to the source who provided Rove's version of events."
[Washington Post, 4/26/2006,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/26/AR200604260
0849.html]



    Rove At "Epicenter" of U.S. Attorney Scandal. "New unreleased e-mails
from top administration officials show that the idea of firing all 93 U.S.
attorneys was raised by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove in
early January 2005, indicating Rove was more involved in the plan than the
White House previously acknowledged. The e-mails put Rove at the epicenter
of the imbroglio and raise questions about Gonzales' explanations of the
matter." [ABCNews.com, 3/15/2007,
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Story?id=2954988&page=1]

[Dig]

GROVER NORQUIST IS PUSHING MCCAIN!!!!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aKz0lMEzaxWg&refer=home
He has vowed to veto any tax increases. That amounts to a ``read my lips'' moment, said Grover Norquist, an advocate of lower taxes, referring to former President George H.W. Bush's 1988 ``no new taxes'' pledge.  Norquist, who once clashed with McCain over the tax activist's ties to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, said the senator is ``coming back to his Reagan roots,'' after having gone ``AWOL'' by opposing President George W. Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.

-------------------------------------------

OK,

Jack Abramoff - links of over $100,000 from the firm that Jack built

Karl Rove - Praising McCain

Grover Norquist - Saying that McCain is getting to his Reagan Roots

George Bush - Just said that McCain is a true conservative

Conrad Burns - is now hired by McCain

Bob Ney - Being released from prison soon and being prepped to support McCain

McCain redacted the contacts in the Abramoff investigation.

Just like Rockefeller and the MK Ultra hearings  or the Iran Contra hearings. They make it look like someone is the the "Maverick," but they are just controlled opposition. All roads lead to Abramoff, there are too many people that supposedly should be pissed at McCain who are now praising him. This is just another in a long line of scandals showing how he will get completely blown away when the general election comes. He is the only candidate that will never be able to challenge Hillary's corruption.  He is knee deep in it himself.

[Dig]

K Street eyes McCain warily
http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/k-street-eyes-mccain-warily-2008-02-11.html
By Jim Snyder  Posted: 02/11/08 07:12 PM [ET]

Sen. John McCain’s (Ariz.) maverick streak has strained relations with social conservatives. It could also cost him with another key part of the GOP coalition: big business.

The danger of angering voters on the religious right is that they will stay home Election Day. The sting from business, meanwhile, would hurt most in the pocketbook and in a lack of participation this fall by Washington campaign veterans, many of whom now represent the special interests McCain has on occasion railed against.

 
K Street’s prevailing opinion seems to be that the party faithful will come around, even if some lobbyists hold their noses as they write their checks.

“McCain is the lesser of three evils,” said one lobbyist and former supporter of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, comparing the Arizona Republican with the two Democratic candidates, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and Barack Obama (Ill.).

A fundraiser sponsored by GOP powerbrokers and scheduled for Wednesday at the Grand Hyatt is showing signs of success. As of last week, 39 co-chairmen had pledged to raise $10,000 to support McCain. A $2,300 donation gets a picture with a candidate.

As lobbyists shift their allegiances, however, there is nagging worry on K Street that McCain’s support of campaign finance reform, his attacks on the pharmaceutical and tobacco companies and his quest to cap greenhouse gas emissions will weaken enthusiasm for the presumptive GOP nominee.

With troops still in Iraq and an economy teetering toward a recession, Republicans already feel they are starting the 2008 race at a disadvantage.

“It would be hard enough to win if everyone was in the boat rowing in one direction,” said one Republican energy lobbyist. “We won’t have near everyone in the boat.”

Lobbyists expect McCain’s past fundraising problems, which forced him to fly coach last summer after a steep slide in the polls, will be alleviated by the title “presumptive nominee.”

But enthusiasm also counts in politics, and some seem worried that McCain will not be able to generate enough of it to combat the level of interest in Clinton and Obama.

“I think he will raise enough,” said a third Republican lobbyist. “But are [supporters] really going to break their necks for him? Right now, I don’t have a sense that they will, but that could change.”

Romney, with an extensive background in business as an executive with Bain Management, an investment firm, was the overwhelming choice of corporate America.

He raised more money from McCain from practically every industrial category as rated by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Backers of other GOP candidates can tick off McCain’s perceived list of prior offenses more easily than his positive traits.         
He’s angered drug makers by calling for the legalization of drug imports from Canada to lower costs for prescriptions. At a recent GOP debate, McCain indicated he believed drug makers were, in fact, the “big bad guys” that Romney said they were not.

McCain was a consistent opponent of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which was pushed by some large oil companies.

He now supports a cap on greenhouse gas emissions that a number of energy companies strongly oppose as massively burdensome government regulation.

McCain, a former chairman of the Senate Commerce Science and Transportation Committee, also has upset the cable industry by supporting a provision known as a la carte that would allow consumers to purchase only the channels they want.

McCain’s backing of the surge in Iraq, meanwhile, earns him kudos from national security experts. But his support for overhauling how the Pentagon buys its weapons and his opposition to earmarks that populate the defense budget make some defense lobbyists and executives nervous.

Supporters note a list of positives: McCain is perceived as an ally of telecommunications companies and supports free trade. He is also generally perceived to be right on taxes, although there are still lingering hard feelings over his “no” votes to Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003.

Jade West, the top lobbyist at the National Association for Wholesalers-Distributors, said McCain’s opposition to those tax cuts may be his biggest “apostasy.”

But she credited McCain for opposing efforts to repeal those tax breaks.

“I don’t think the business community is going to ask for anything more,” West said. “We are coalescing and coming together.”

But West, who has been involved in campaigns for three decades, said bad feelings from intra-party battles can last longer than inter-party skirmishes.

“It’s much more personal,” West said. “Getting over it takes a tad longer.”

House Republican staffers who have since moved to K Street seem to harbor particular enmity toward McCain, with his opposition to the Bush tax cuts and support for campaign finance reform generally being the most mentioned slights.

Some lobbyists believe McCain was overly aggressive in pursuing the Jack Abramoff scandal. That investigation embarrassed the party and further diminished the profession in the eyes of the public.

Even so, McCain has enjoyed more support from Washington lobbyists, in terms of number of supporters enlisted on the campaign, than any of other presidential candidates, according to Public Citizen, a watchdog group.

Speaking in language most executives could appreciate, the GOP lobbyist who used to back Romney said any “cost-benefit analysis” of pro-business records among the candidates left standing would put McCain’s name on top.

“McCain is still more conservative than Sen. Clinton or Sen. Obama,” the lobbyist said.

[Dig]

Senator McCain: Have You and Reagan Surrendered? 
http://www.politicalcortex.com/story/2008/2/10/155526/954
By Bill Hare  02/10/2008 03:55:26 PM EST

It is interesting, Senator McCain, how you, in an effort to get more Republicans aboard  your presidential ship, how you push two buttons you hope will achieve immediate success:  1) accusing the Democrats of "surrender"; 2) invoking the name of Ronald Reagan as you proclaim yourself to have been an early foot soldier in the "Reagan Revolution."

Since you brought up the subject of surrender, let us explore it with you and Reagan.  Beginning with yourself, what about that disgraceful 2000 Republican primary campaign in South Carolina when the forces of George W. Bush.

Led by Karl Rove, the ruthless neocons attacked your wife as a harlot, attacked your mental stability, and used stereotypical racism by alleging that you had a "black" daughter, meaning the little girl you adopted from Bangladesh?

Many of us attacked this shameful scorched earth style of savage and thoroughly repugnant campaigning.  At one debate with Larry King moderating you demanded that Bush not even touch you.

What happened at the end?  You were seen embracing and being embraced by George W. Bush.  I have seen that scene repeated many times with the same visceral feeling of disgust being shown by you as your body tightens up and recoils. 

You know what Bush was responsible for and you detest him for it, but rather than embrace principle and tell him as well as his ruthless organization what you think of them you swallowed your distrust and detestation in the interest of political expediency.

Could we not say that this embodies surrender on your part?

Now you take credit for tackling corruption in government.  You went after lobbyist Jack Abramoff.  Here is the question many of us have asked:  Why did you not extend your committee's investigation beyond lobbyists to fellow Senate members?  As one political analyst bluntly put it the other day, "It's one thing to jail the johns but what about going after the whores?"

Once more it appears that expediency won the day, Senator McCain.  You capture headlines by going after Abramoff but know just where and when to pull your investigative wagon to a halt.

Could we not say that this embodies surrender on your part?

After you used your wife's fortune to secure election to the Senate as a Reagan corporate Republican you became one of the "Keating Five," a distinction you would prefer the body politic to forget. 

In 1987 it was revealed that you were one of five Senators who took huge campaign contributions from so-called savings and loan entrepreneur Charles Keating, a huckster who bilked a fortune out of seniors seeking assistance on the best means of investing and gaining interest on their retirement money.

In return for Keating's generous campaign assistance, you and your four colleagues pressured government regulators to spend their time and attention elsewhere rather than to probe Keating's dirty dealings, which ultimately saw him convicted and sent to federal prison. 

Johann Hari of London's Independent quoted your response to the Keating tragedy:  "I did it for no other reason than I valued (Keating's) support."

Senator McCain, did your activity on Keating's behalf embody surrender?

Now you seek to link yourself to Reagan to gain the worthwhile support of such noble Republicans as Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter.  You even finally came around and embraced Bush's tax cuts, modeled on the old Reagan formula.

Those tax cuts produced results for both Reagan and Bush respectively, not to mention America.  When Reagan left office his tax cuts heavily skewed toward the rich had tripled the national debt to $3 trillion.  After four more years under Reagan's Republican successor George Bush the Elder the figure rose another trillion, meaning a quadrupling of the national debt to $4 trillion.

Reagan and the elder Bush were pikers compared to the younger Bush and his tax cut efforts.  The younger Bush began with a surplus and soon extended that into what resulted in a mad rush toward economic oblivion. 

The cuts you earlier opposed as wasteful and now support brought America from a surplus to the early prospect of a $10 trillion debt, the highest in the history of the planet and larger than all of America's previous debt combined.

Congratulations, Senator McCain, for surrendering to the wild-eyed Bush neocons in the realm of fiscal sanity.

Your hero Ronald Reagan surrendered when he on the one hand put Iran at the top of the world embargo list and denounced it as a pariah, but secretly cut an arms for hostages deal with his own self-declared devil.

Senator McCain, was that not surrender on Reagan's part?

How about those Kurds in Iraq's northern provinces that were subjected to genocide by ruthless dictator Saddam Hussein?  Did Reagan stand up to Saddam then, Senator?  No, he was too busy cutting oil deals with him in exchange for weapons, including information in the development of chemical weapons.

Senator, Saddam gassed those people and murdered them ala Hitler and the Jews in World War Two, while Donald Rumsfeld shook Saddam's hand and smiled while a new oil for weapons deal was announced.

Was that surrender, Senator McCain?

How about that moment during Reagan's second debate with Mondale in the 1984 presidential race, Senator?  While most of the mainstream media was looking the other way your hero Reagan said that the Director of the CIA was ultimately responsible for intelligence activities. 

Mondale disagreed, saying that the ultimate responsibility rested under the Constitution with the President of the United States.

Innocent people, including women and children, were being gunned down on Central American streets, places like Gautemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua.  Meanwhile CIA operatives had helped along this cause by preparing an assassination manual.

Was this abdication to decency and surrendering to mob rule by thugs a surrender, Senator McCain?

You get the idea.  You and your hero Ronald Reagan bear the same badly tarnished feet of clay.       

[Dig]

John McCain: The Manchurian Candidate
http://www.usvetdsp.com/manchuan.htm
By Ted Sampley U.S. Veteran Dispatch December 1992 Issue

Those following the proceedings during the past year of the Senate Select Committee on POW and MIA Affairs have been mystified by the rabid actions of the one man on the committee who should be grateful that for the nearly three decades there have been activists in America who have refused to let die the issue of the fate of Americans lost and missing in Southeast Asia from the Vietnam War. I am speaking of course of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). None of the Senators on the Select Committee have been as vicious in their attacks on POW/MIA family members and activists than the man behind the mask of war hero, former POW, and patriotic United States Senator . . . 

Not even Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who went into his job as chairman of the Select Committee with a predisposition that no one was left alive in Southeast Asia, that it was therefore "time to put the war behind us" and normalize relations with Hanoi, has shown such a bias against those who have fought and kept alive the POW/MIA cause. Not even Sen. Kerry, with his own record as an anti-war protester during the early 1970s after serving in Vietnam--has turned a totally deaf ear to the numerous individuals and groups who are, correctly or not, convinced that Americans were and are alive in captivity in Southeast Asia. What, therefore, motivates a John McCain to attack as a pit bull everyone and anyone who has the opinion that men are still alive in the very same captivity that he himself once experienced? Mr. McCain disguises his attacks on the POW/MIA by claiming he is on the committee to ask "the tough questions" to grill and berate in order to get to the truth. What motivates the man, who at the same time has shown a sensitive, almost patronizing approach to U.S. government officials who have lied to the committee? . . .

Borrowing from the title of a popular movie of some years ago, many activists who have felt the fangs of this pit bull call him the "Manchurian Candidate." Is that a fair accusation to level at Senator McCain, the war hero and the former POW? In the movie, "The Manchurian Candidate," actor Lawrence Harvey portrayed the character of a former POW and war hero of the Korean War, whose brainwashing by his communist captors resulted in his enemies being able to manipulate his actions. To trigger him to do their bidding all they had to do was have him play solitaire with the Queen of Diamonds being the trigger that made him theirs, body and soul . . .

SOMETIMES TAKES EXTREMES

While there are some who have over the years taken extreme measures to keep alive the POW/MIA issue, to paint everyone--even some of the most extreme--with a broad brush as being frauds and predators is not just. As Senator Kerry, once an activist himself, knows, and I am sure understands in his heart, the activist must be at times an extremist. He must do extreme things because he is the David taking on the Goliath, or, to put it another way--you can't fight a tiger with a dish rag. In the case of Kerry, the anti-war activist, he could not fight the powerful, often vengeful government officials with the proverbial dish rag. So, he and his followers disrupted Senate committee meetings, threw red paint, representing blood, on the Capitol steps, etc.

In the case of the POW/MIA activists they have chained themselves to the White House fence, at times verbally abused government officials--whatever it took to peacefully draw attention to their cause, just as Kerry before them.  Presently, Kerry the senator does not approve of POW/MIA activists and POW/MIA activists, particularly Vietnam veterans, do not approve of the pro-Hanoi Kerry. And yet there is a common ground with Kerry. There is none with McCain. He has, simply put, declared his own personal war on POW/MIA activists, and one must ask why?

Even during the Select Committee hearings, H. Ross Perot, perhaps at one time, one of the most devout POW/MIA activists of all, was a target of Senator McCain. And yet, it is doubtful if another POW in America would have anything but the deepest respect for Mr. Perot.

When someone suggested during the committee hearings that Mr. Perot's efforts in drawing attention to the plight of the POWs in Vietnam during the war years which ultimately caused the POWs to receive more humane treatment from their captors, McCain snidely remarked that he thought it was the bombing of Hanoi that was responsible for their better care. But after his release by Hanoi in 1973, McCain had nothing but praise for Perot and his followers who ignited and fanned the flames of POW/MIA activism. Nor has McCain stopped there. He has also viciously attacked fellow war hero, fellow POW and fellow retired Navy captain, Eugene "Red" McDaniel, as a fraud and a dishonorable man who preys upon the families of those still unaccounted for from the war. Again, it is a case of McCain attacking the activist. McDaniel has been in the forefront of activism in keeping the POW/MIA issue alive during the years, before the Select Committee, when few, particularly much of the press, could have cared less.

Today, there is extreme pressure on members of Congress to lift the trade embargo with Vietnam and to establish diplomatic relations with Hanoi, both actions are opposed by the POW/MIA activists.  McCain, like his fellow Senator, Mr. Kerry, favors lifting the embargo and both were on record as such long before they became associated with the Select Committee. In fact, the efforts of both have reflected at times more interest in bettering relations with Vietnam, in consort with greedy U.S. big business interests, than resolving the POW/MIA issue by accounting for the missing men; in McCain's case his FELLOW POWs. However, before becoming a powerful figure in Congress, McCain the candidate, said: "The regime in Hanoi, politically degenerate even by totalitarian standards, refused to provide or even assist in providing a satisfactory accounting of American MIAs . . .

EXPLOITATION OF POWS



While the Senate Select Committee in its final days of existence is spending its time and resources on alleged instances of what it considers to be "fraud," and "predator fund-raising activities," it has and is ignoring an issue which is vital to resolving the POW/MIA riddle, that being the issue of intelligence exploitation of U.S. prisoners of war by Soviet, Chinese, Cuban and Vietnamese psychological warfare experts. There has been some debate in the committee as to the extent of Soviet KGB and GRU (Soviet military intelligence) involvement in attempts to "turn" American POWs, with attempts by the Pentagon, supported always by McCain, to deny that the Soviets were involved in any such activity. Nevertheless, there was extensive testimony that POWs were interrogated and possibly recruited before the Paris Peace Accords were signed in 1973 ending U.S. military involvement in the war--and afterwards, possibly as late as 1978.

"While we all assume the very best about our servicemen who were held it captivity," one POW/MIA activist wrote to Sen. Kerry, "there is a historical precedence of Soviet, Chinese and North Korean exploitation of American prisoners of war. The success of the communist program in Korea may well have been duplicated to a degree in Vietnam." The communist definitely had a sophisticated system of "turning" U.S. prisoners of war in Korea and, ironically, the movie, "The Manchurian Candidate," fiction that it may be, was not a misrepresentation of the creative experiments and attempts by the communists to "turn" American prisoners of war into agents.  According to some, the FBI has/had a program to monitor the activities of returned prisoners of war from Indochina. That FBI investigation is based on historical knowledge which concluded that some American POWs had been "turned" into agents of the communist.  "Turning" a prisoner of war is not necessarily the prisoner being convinced or "re-educated" by his captors to change his beliefs or politics. The process can involve the use of a variety of means, both subtle and brutal, elaborately contrived to manipulate an otherwise patriotic U.S. prisoner's situation or environment to a point where he is convinced that he must cooperate with his captors in order to remain alive.

One method which had been used successfully by the KGB for their clandestine purposes was the use of threats of exposing embarrassing behavior, particularly any illicit sexual behavior. As a classic example, several years ago, the KGB used sex and seduction to get the U.S. Marine guards to allow them to infiltrate the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.  Another example, if a subject, in this case a POW, became involved in a homosexual situation and his captors found out about it, his captors would most certainly make a record of the homosexual behavior. Later an interrogator would use that record as blackmail to extort intelligence information from anyone involved. Thus, an otherwise defiant prisoner could be blackmailed into becoming an unwilling collaborator and agent of his captors. After the first collaboration it is a process of threatening to expose the prisoner to his peers or family back home unless the prisoner further "cooperates" by giving even more information. Another example, if U.S. prisoner "X," under duress or torture, reveals sensitive information about prisoner "Y," which causes prisoner "Y" to be tortured or punished, prisoner "X" certainly doesn't want prisoner "Y" to know he was the source of that information.

Thus, even more information or collaboration can be extracted from prisoner "X." What in the beginning would seem a necessary collaboration to save one's reputation or life, could be used over the long term by experienced interrogators to create an extensive dossier of collaborations by the prisoner. Anyone trained in the interrogation of enemy prisoners knows this. Nearly all of the POWs have reported that they were threatened with the denial of medical treatment unless they provided their captors with specific information.

BOTH KOREA AND VIETNAM

According to sources, some of the same KGB agents and their associates, often the latter posing as foreign journalists, were involved in attempting to exploit American POWs for intelligence and propaganda purposes in both Korea and Vietnam. To cite as just one example, Australian communist journalist Wilfred Burchett, well known to American POWs for this activity in Korea, later appeared in the same role in Vietnam.  Pentagon files regarding exploitation of U.S. prisoners of war in Indochina are kept secret, except from the hierarchy of the U.S. intelligence community and some high U.S. government officials. It of course also remains in the files of the communist exploiters of the POWs. As it stands, the American people will never know the truth about this exploitation in Vietnam, unless some official body, such as the Senate Select Committee, subpoenas the files from the Pentagon. As an example, the Senate Select Committee has never followed up on the explosive testimony of former KGB Maj. Gen. Oleg Kalugin, who testified, under oath, that the KGB interrogated U.S. POWs in Vietnam.

Kalugin stated that one of the POWs worked on by the KGB was a "high-ranking naval officer," who, according to Kalugin, agreed to work with the Soviets upon his repatriation to the United States and has frequently appeared on U.S. television. Whether this is true or not it certainly begs to be investigated and, like it or not, Sen. John McCain fits the description, and his behavior, also like it or not, raises serious questions. The fact that he is a United States Senator should not be a factor, alas, "The Manchurian Candidate" possibility. When it comes to matters of national security and the welfare of every man, woman and child in the United States, there should be no sacred cows, and it must not be forgotten that Sen. McCain was being considered for higher office, prior to his numerous appearances on national television defending his involvement in the Savings and Loan scandal. In November of 1991, when Tracy Usry, the former chief investigator of the Minority Staff of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, testified before the Select Committee, he revealed that the Soviets interrogated U.S. prisoners of war in Vietnam. Sen. McCain became outraged interrupting Usry several times, arguing that "none of the returned U.S. prisoners of war released by Vietnam were ever interrogated by the Soviets." However, this was simply not true and Sen. McCain knows that from firsthand experience.

Col. Bui Tin, a former Senior Colonel in the North Vietnamese Army, testified on the same day, but after Usry, that because of his high position in the Communist Party during the war, he had the authority to "read all documents and secret telegrams from the politburo" pertaining to American prisoners of war. He said that not only did the Soviets interrogate some American prisoners of war, but that they treated the Americans very badly. Bui Tin, who indicated he favored a normalization of relations between the U.S. and Vietnam, also offered the committee his records concerning his personal interrogations of American POWs.

A WARM HUG FOR THE ENEMY



Sen. McCain stunned onlookers at the hearing when he moved forward to the witness table and warmly embraced Bui Tin as if he was a long, lost brother. "Was that hug for Bui Tin, a Vietnamese official responsible for the torture of some American prisoners of war, a message 'please don't give them my records?'" one activist questioned at the time. In any case, many of McCain's fellow Vietnam War POWs were aghast, not to mention former POWs of World War II and Korea, who could, only in some instances after decades, forgive but never forget the inhumanity of their captors--certainly not to the point of embracing them. Shortly thereafter, as a direct result of Sen. McCain's lobbying of other Republican Senators, Usry, a distinguished Vietnam veteran, and all other members of the Minority Staff, who had participated in the POW/MIA investigations, were abruptly fired. If the Senate Select Committee finds it pertinent to investigate alleged instances of "fraud" by POW/MIA activists, then certainly, by even the most liberal standards, the charge of collaboration with the enemy by a "high-ranking naval" officer should be investigated just as seriously as were the charges against Marine Private Robert Garwood, the only American POW charged and convicted of this crime.

THE ADMIRAL'S SON

John McCain was born in the Panama Canal Zone on August 29, 1936. His father was Admiral John McCain II, who became commander-in-chief of the Pacific forces in 1968. Admiral McCain later ordered the bombing of Hanoi while his son was in prison. His grandfather was Admiral John S. McCain, Sr., the famous commander of aircraft carriers in the Pacific under Admiral William F. Halsey in World War II . . .

On his 23rd mission in Vietnam on Oct. 26, 1967, he was shot down by a surface-to-air missile. 

To relate the event, McCain later recalled that he was "flying right over the heart of Hanoi in a dive at about 4,500 feet, when a Russian missile the size of a telephone pole came up--the sky was full of them--and blew the right wing off my Skyhawk dive bomber. It went into an inverted, almost straight-down spin. "I pulled the ejection handle, and was knocked unconscious by the force of of the ejection--the air speed was about 500 knots. I didn't realize it at the moment, but I had broken my right leg around the knee, my right arm in three places and my left arm. I regained consciousness just before I landed by parachute in a lake right in the center of Hanoi, one they called the Western Lake. My helmet and my oxygen mask had been blown off. "I hit the water and sank to the bottom . . . I did not feel any pain at the time, and I was able to rise to the surface. I took a breath of air and started sinking again." After bobbing up and down, he was eventually pulled from the water by Vietnamese who had swam out to get him.

A mob gathered on shore and McCain was bayoneted in the foot and his shoulder was smashed with a rifle butt. He was put on a truck and taken to Hanoi's main prison. After being periodically slapped around for "three or four days" by his captors who wanted military information from him, which McCain claims he refused to give, providing only his name, rank and serial number, he realized he was in critical shape and called for an officer. He told the officer, "O.K., I'll give you military information if you will take me to the hospital." Regardless of the reasons, the offer to give "military information" in exchange for better treatment was a violation of the military Code of Conduct and Collaboration No. l.

The doctor, according to McCain, said about taking him to the hospital, "It's too late."  At that point, McCain knew he was in big trouble. According to information obtained by the U.S. VETERAN, the flier in desperation invoked the name of his famous father, Admiral John S. McCain, Jr., the soon-to-be commander of all U.S. Forces in the Pacific. And that was a violation of the Code of Conduct and Collaboration No. 2. McCain admits that because of the Vietnamese having the knowledge of who his father was, he thus survived because they rushed him to the hospital. The Vietnamese figured that because POW McCain's father was of such high military rank that he was of royalty or the governing circle. Thereafter the communist bragged that they had captured "the crown prince."

Later, the Vietnamese would erect a monument in Hanoi near the site of his landing in the lake, stone figure of a pilot raising his arms skyward in surrender and referring to their catch McCain, by name, as an "air pirate." At the hospital his wounds were treated. He readily admits that other U.S. prisoners with similar wounds were left to die, pointing out "There were hardly any amputees among the prisoners who came back because the North Vietnamese just would not give medical treatment to someone who was badly injured. They weren't going to waste their time.  "McCain has failed to mention in public what he has confided to another U.S. prisoner privately, that since the Vietnamese felt they had in their hands such a "special prisoner", a propaganda bonanza, a Soviet surgeon was called in to treat him.

HOW MUCH MORE INFORMATION DID HE GIVE?

McCain has admitted that the Vietnamese repeatedly threatened to withhold much needed operations unless he would give them more information. Did he provide it? After six weeks of this type of threats and medical treatment, he was delivered to Room No. 11 of "The Plantation" and into the hands of two other POWs, who helped further nurse him along until he was eventually able to walk by himself. For the next 22 months, McCain was kept isolated from the other American prisoners. Because the Vietnamese considered him a "special prisoner" he was the target of intense indoctrination programs. His communist interrogators believed that because McCain came from a "royal family," he would, when finally released, return to the United States to some important military or government job.  The communist were very much aware that POW McCain would be under great psychological pressure not to do or say anything that would tarnish his famous military family and they considered that to be the key to eventually breaking and then "turning" him.

During that period of time McCain was visited by several foreign delegations (including Cubans) and interviewed by many high ranking North Vietnamese leaders including Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, North Vietnam's Minster of Defense and national hero . . .

On Dec. 7, 1969, McCain was moved out of "The Plantation" and into the "Hanoi Hilton" with other prisoners of war. McCain was released as a prisoner of war on March 15, 1973. Following various medical and surgical procedures, he attended the National War College in Washington, D.C. and was later posted as commanding officer of Replacement Training Squadron 174 in Jacksonville, Fla. In 1977, McCain was ordered to the Office of Legislative Affairs and was assigned as the Director of the Navy Senate Liaison Office, where he remained until disability retirement in April 1981. A year earlier, in 1980, his marriage and personal life soured. His marriage to Carol, who had been seriously injured and crippled in a motor vehicle accident during his confinement in Vietnam, ended in divorce.

NEW WIFE, NEW LIFE, ENTER McCAIN THE POLITICIAN

Later that year, McCain married Cindy Hensley, whose father, Jim, was an Arizona "beer baron," owning Hensley and Co., the Anheauser-Busch distributor for Phoenix and Tempe, where McCain settled with his new wife after his retirement from the Navy in the spring of 1981. His new father-in-law made him vice president in charge of public relations for Hensley and Co., and soon McCain was writing guest editorials for Arizona newspapers and thus paving the way for a career in politics. Most of the articles were of a patriotic nature--"For POWs in Hanoi, Christmas Eve 1971 marked a spiritual turning point," "America--Bastion of liberty, beacon ofhope," "Remember MIAs fought for valid cause," etc. It was not long until McCain caught the attention of Sens. Barry Goldwater and Paul Fannin, both Arizona institutions and devout conservative Republicans, men who could easily be identified with "America--Bastion of liberty, beacon of hope."

Soon, McCain was their choice to succeed veteran Congressman John J. Rhodes, a Republican representing Arizona's 1st Congressional DIstrict, which conveniently included the city of Tempe.  When McCain was still with the Navy's congressional liaison office it was no secret that Rhodes, the House minority leader, was getting ready for retirement. The seat to be vacated in the House was a ripe plum waiting to be picked. The would-be Congressman had long envisioned a career in government service. And thus began John McCain's first run for elective office. From the beginning the cards were in his favor, even though he was accused of being a carpetbagger since he had only recently moved to Arizona . . .

THE COUNTERFEIT HERO

McCain's rising political power in Arizona Republican politics was due in large measure to his friendship with Duke Tully, the publisher of the conservative and powerful ARIZONA REPUBLIC and the PHOENIZ GAZETTE, with a combined daily circulation of about 400,000. Described as "equal parts cowboy, commando, swashbuckler and elegant tycoon" by the CHICAGO TRIBUNE (Jan. 9, 1986), Tully was, according to the Chicago paper, "a George Patton who drove a Corvette, a Randolph Hearst who flew an F-16, a John Wayne in aviator glasses and Air Force dress blues." "I tell Arizona what to think," he stated in public more than once, and it was particularly true regarding backing for the efforts of his friend, Congressman McCain.

Tully appeared to have a lot in common with his close friend, former Navy combat pilot and war hero John McCain. He boasted of his 100 missions over Vietnam, retiring from the Air Force as a lieutenant-colonel. His service, according to Tully, also included air combat in Korea, where he once was forced to crash land his P-51 Mustang fighter and spent time in a hospital as a result--so he said. His smashed front teeth were replaced with stainless steel, he also said. He had, just like his friend John McCain, received the Purple Heart, Distinguished Flying Cross and the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry. However, the day after Christmas 1985, it was revealed, according to the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, that John McCain's close friend had "an imagination as big as his ego." In fact, the man who even was the godfather to one of McCain's daughters, was a total fake.

Duke Tully, the man who had arranged to have his newspapers endorse and further the chances of McCain's first run for the House and was already touting him as Goldwater's successor, had "never even went to boot camp." Nevertheless, the genuine American patriot, Barry Goldwater, almost a national icon, decided not to run for re-election in 1986 and McCain quickly moved in to fill his shoes.

According to the NEW YORK TIMES (June 1, 1988), "When John McCain arrived in here [in Washington] as a freshman Republican Congressman in 1983, one of the issues very much on his mind was how the United States should deal with Vietnam . . . He was, he said, dismayed by the Reagan Administration's flat refusal to afford any kind of diplomatic recognition to Hanoi, something he thought could help clear up a number of issues, including the fate of those servicemen still missing in action . . . Mr. McCain, now the junior Senator from Arizona, is leading a legislative effort to force the Administration to open a lower-level American post in Vietnam, which could be preliminary to more formal relations."

SPEAKING OF FRAUD

Otherwise, McCain after his switch to the Senate differed little on any Reagan Administration policy. He made few waves until suddenly he found himself on television trying to explain himself as one of the "Keating 5," five U.S. Senators who became enmeshed in the scandal involving the collapsed Lincoln Savings and Loan and the financial machinations of now convicted cheat Charles Keating. The U.S. taxpayers will feel for years the aftershocks of what has become known as the "S & L scandal" and will be paying off the billions that S & L clients found themselves swindled out of by Keating and others involved in the massive fraud.

As one of the "Keating 5" Senators, John McCain saw his chances to higher office go down the drain. Reports from a variety of U.S. publications tell of the involvement of McCain in the ever-widening scandal.

ECONOMIST, Mar. 9, 1991--"Mr. McCain, despite his claims of innocense, was the only one of the five who benefited personally--family holidays in the Bahamas on Mr. Keating's tab."

NEW REPUBLIC, Dec. 31, 1990--"The only Republican of the bunch [the five Senators], John McCain of Arizona wins credit for finally drawing the line. After the second of the two April meetings [with Federal regulators] he told Mr. [Sen. Dennis] DeConcini [D-Ariz.] and Mr. Keating that he wouldn't lean on the regulators any more. Mr. Keating called him a wimp. But before the rupture, Mr. McCain and his family were regular guests of Mr. Keating's on trips to the Bahamas. Mr. McCain reimbursed the owner of Lincoln Savings and Loan for only a small fraction of the cost of these holidays. Yet, he never reported the vacations on Senate disclosure forms, or his income taxes. He said he thought his wife had paid Mr. Keating back. This is hard to believe."

NEW REPUBLIC, Sept. 9, 1991--Calling McCain part of the "Senatorial Lincoln Brigade," the NEW REPUBLIC reported that Keating, while bankrupting his Savings and Loan, had channeled $1.4 million to the campaigns or causes of the five Senators, who in turn pressured the Savings and Loan regulators to "back off our friend."Ultimately, the fall of Lincoln Savings and Loan will cost the U.S. taxpayers $2 billion. It lost $1 million dollars a day from the time Keating bought it in 1984 until its collapse in 1989, and yet he continued to pay off McCain as "one of his assets," REGARDIE'S magazine reported in its April-May 1992 issue.

POT CALLS THE KETTLE BLACK

Referring to POW/MIA activists who have raised public funds for their work in trying to resolve the issue of Americans left behind in Vietnam, McCain said while seated on the Senate Select Committee on POW and MIA Affairs:

"The people who have done these things are not zealots in a good cause. They are criminals and some of the most craven, most cynical and most despicable human beings to ever run a scam."

Yet, it's difficult to find anything bad Sen. McCain has said about his friend, Charles F. Keating. And words like "craven" and "despicable" are impossible to find at all to describe his friend, who cheated, among others, little old ladies out of their life savings . . . The U.S. VETERAN has also learned that during a meeting with Vietnamese officials last July, Frances Zwenig, the $118,000-a-year staff director of the Senate Select Committee, was told by the Vietnamese that something had to be done about the POW/MIA activists.  Not long after the meeting in Hanoi, the Senate Select Committee started after POW/MIA activists, painting them as cheats and con artists, prompting one observer to ask, "Are the Vietnamese now directing the affairs of the Senate Select Committee?" The Senate Select Committee will make its final report to the Senate and the American people on Jan. 5, 1993, as its plans now stand. If Sens. John McCain and John Kerry have their way, as all factors seem to indicate that they will, the report will trash POW/MIA activists, whose activities the Vietnamese have asked the senators to curtail. The report will conclude that U.S. Prisoners of war were left behind but all have since died and that the Vietnamese are doing all they can to help search for the remains of the dead. Nevertheless, a report by Senators, each following his own personal agenda, will not be written in stone and it will not end the dispute.

And the U.S. government will soon lift the trade embargo with Vietnam and normalize relations. However, if there are no POWs/MIAs left alive in Southeast Asia then it must be assumed that in one way or another the Vietnamese caused their deaths. Certainly, Sen. John McCain, a former POW, knows the current leaders of Vietnam were responsible for murdering many while he was in a Hanoi prison. Why, Sen. McCain, is there such a rush by you and others to do business with the same regime, which you, yourself, once called "degenerate" and whose leaders' hands are dripping with the blood of captive, helpless Americans--your fellow POWs? Have the Vietnamese flipped you a Queen of Diamonds?