Lobbyists or Communists?

[WhiskeyGirl]

I have often seen John McCain's name linked to lobbyists. 

Recently, the Obama/MoveOn campaign has be quite vocal about the lobbyist problem.  I would agree with some arguments that lobbyist do not always support policies that are beneficial to all Americans.  Some would suggest that the current financial problems of this country are due to special interests and lobbyists.

Here is one such article -

John McCain's Lobbyist Problem

By PA Staff Writers

The Obama campaign, last week, launched a new Web site, McLobbyist.com, to highlight the issues of the 2008 election by examining the special interests and lobbyists tied to the McCain campaign.

The Web site profiles some of McCain's top campaign staff and advisors. While the site will likely cause supporters of McCain to accuse Obama of running a smear campaign, the site highlights the monied interests behind McCain in order to talk about real economics issues to show "what a lobbyist McCain-Palin ticket [would] mean for you."
 
(snip)

In 2005, Davis solicited two $100,000 donations to the McCain's Reform Institute from Cablevision. While the checks were being cashed, the company's CEO testified before McCain's Commerce Committee on behalf of pricing scheme favorable to his company. Subsequently, McCain wrote a letter of support on behalf of the latest Reform Institute donors to the FCC and and convinced other cable companies to go along with it.

Another of Davis' clients, Deutsche Post World Net (USA), the parent company of DHL Holdings, also benefited from McCain's role in convincing other Senate Republicans to not block the expansion of DHL in the US or its merger with Airborne Express. In both instances, Rick Davis' clients got what they wanted, thanks to McCain's well-paid, hard work.

Within just a few years of this deal to allow DHL to expand, its Germany-based parent announced the closing of its processing facility in Wilmington, Ohio, a plant that employed almost 10,000 workers. The largest employer in six counties closed its doors. Who was lobbying on their behalf?

As McLobbyist.com shows, the point is not just to tie McCain to shady people with their eyes on making cash and on influencing our congressional representatives for their own purposes. Though that is bad enough. While they maneuvered to make big deals for their clients, and while John McCain willingly used his seat in the Senate to help them, he did nothing to save the almost 10,000 jobs lost in Wilmington, Ohio.

This is just one example of how John McCain, McLobbyist.com suggests, worked hard for his lobbyist friends and their multinational clients, but ignored the plight of working families.

No wonder to this day John McCain still thinks the fundamentals of the economy are strong – the lobbyist system still works!

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/7413/

How many other politicians were in on these plans?  Where were the Democrats and others to stop the movement of these 10,000 jobs?

Is John McCain so powerful by himself?  How did Barack vote on these issues?

[WhiskeyGirl]

In contrast, Barack Obama's name is often linked to Communists.  Why?  How many living under Communism prosper?  How many have the opportunity to become wealthy?

I did find this about Barack -

July 08, 2008
What Barack Obama learned from the Communist Party

By Andrew Walden

American voters must make up their minds about what Barack Obama really believes in, if anything. His recent rhetorical concessions to the center further muddy the waters. So we must look to his past teachers and associates for help in understanding the inner Obama.

In his first series of national campaign commercials since securing the delegates needed to win the Democratic presidential campaign, Barack Obama struggles to re-introduce himself.  Images focus on the story of lessons learned from his grandparents and his mother, described in his book Dreams from my Father as "a girl from Kansas.... dab-smack, landlocked center of the country," in towns "too small to warrant boldface on a roadmap."  Speaking in Independence, Missouri, Obama tells his audience: "patriotism can never be defined as loyalty to any particular leader or government or policy."   

First Mentor

But there is another story to be told about loyalties and about Obama's education.  A story told by Gerald Horne, contributing editor of Political Affairs, a magazine published by the Communist Party, USA.  Speaking March 28, 2007 at the dedication of the Communist Party, USA archive at New York University Tamiment Library, Horne traces the downward spiral of fortune for Communists in the latter half of the twentieth century.  But in the closing paragraphs of his speech, Horne suddenly becomes hopeful, pointing to the arrival of what Obama might describe as "the ones we have been waiting for."

(snip)

read more here - http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/07/what_barack_obama_learned_from.html

Apparently there was a Youtube with Hornes speech that was removed, some believe it was due to censorship/perceived as anti-Obama.

To whom is Barack loyal? 

[WhiskeyGirl]

Obama and McCain both have ties to troubled mortgage giants

By Jackie Calmes Published: September 10, 2008

WASHINGTON:  Senators Barack Obama and John McCain each cite the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as evidence of the corrosive coziness of lobbyists and politicians that they promise to end. But each man and his party also have ties to the fallen giants that will complicate the next president's job of reshaping the mortgage finance companies that have been essential to the economy.

McCain, the Republican nominee, has numerous close relationships with and enjoys contributions from current and former company lobbyists.

Obama, his Democratic rival, is second among all members of Congress in donations from the companies' employees and political-action committees.

Beyond the anti-lobbyist message, Obama also indicts the Bush administration and the Republicans who controlled Congress for a dozen years until 2007, including McCain. He blames them for hands-off regulation that freed the companies to go deep into debt to buy the mortgages that crushed them as the housing crisis persisted.

Yet his fellow Democrats in Congress have been well known as enablers of the two companies for years, protecting the firms' dueling responsibilities to support affordable housing as well as to maximize shareholder profits.

(snip)

McCain counts six contributors from a Republican lobbying and consulting firm, Fierce Isakowitz and Blalock, for $13,250 in the current campaign, according to campaign finance records.

A New York investor, Geoffrey Boisi, a member of Freddie Mac's board, contributed more than $70,000 to McCain and Republican Party committees working for his election. Both he and a Fannie Mae lobbyist. Richard Hohlt, are among the McCain "bundlers" who have raised from $100,000 to $250,000 from others, according to the campaign Web site.

The people who looked into the backgrounds of potential vice-presidential candidates for both parties have links to Fannie Mae. A former chairman of the mortgage finance company, James Johnson, initially led Obama's search committee, but stepped aside after a controversy over favorable loan terms he received from another firm. McCain's vetter, Arthur Culvahouse Jr., is a past Fannie Mae lobbyist.

Obama's contributors include a Freddie Mac senior vice president, Robert Tsien, and two directors, William Lewis Jr., a banker at Lazard, and Brenda Gaines, a Chicago businesswomen. He does not accept contributions from lobbyists, but Obama has been a favorite of Fannie Mae employees and their political action committee, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

The center said he received $122,850, of which $101,150 was from Fannie Mae. While the two companies have long been careful to hire and contribute to both parties, generally Fannie Mae has favored Democrats and Freddie Mac the Republicans.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/09/10/america/lobby.php

Where is the party that represents the common American? 

Those campaign contributions from Freddie & Fannie, who's pocket are they really coming from?

Dig deep, my fellow Americans...dig deeper.