McCain: Flip-Flopper

Everyone, except corporate media executives, know McCain is a flip-flopper. Do you think the establishment media will ever catch on?

A few examples without commentary, 'cuz I'd probably just be telling you what you already know.

Immigration Reform

Permanent Tax Breaks for the Wealth

Torture Prohibitions

Association with Religious "Agents of Intolerance"

Bob Jones University

For/against Ethanol

Abortion: For/against Roe v Wade

State Promotion of Confederate Flag

Gay Marriage

Sam and Charles Wyly: Were slimy, now supporters

creationism in the classroom: Not OK, IS OK

Being a moderate (actually never was)

Being a straight-talker (not any more)

Is Terry Nelson a flip-flop or just evidence that McCain ISN'T a straight talker? *shrug*?

Sources:

Not the corporate media. Carpetbagger Report, DemocraticUnderground.com

Movie Recommendations

This just in from a contributing writer...

2 movies I want to recommend:

Metropolis(1927), Fritz Lang's recently restored masterpiece pits the workers against the aristocracy. Workers, underground, are consumed by the machinery they toil over to make life wonderful for those who live above ground. Prescient northern/southern hemisphere comment? Who knew silent films could be so passionate?

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) This one is a bit hard to follow &
I believe a real oiling of the right brain would help one enjoy this
to its fullest capacity, but it takes you down the rabbit hole and
doesn't let you out!! How come they could do that in 1919 without any
computers or special effects?? It's like living in a Dr. Suess
book. In fact, I began to wonder if Theodor Geisel had seen this
movie before writing his many classics.

Pew Credibility Problem

OK, maybe my mainstream brain washing is evident when I admit that I assumed the Pew Research Center did respectable work. I recently came across the Pew Global Attitudes Project when researching the US favourability rating.

They had a survey that seemed reasonable to me. But before citing the work, holding to journalistic principles, I checked the source a bit more closely. The note I wrote to Pew, below, tells the rest:

I was about to cite one of your studies in an essay, but as I read the titles of your studies, I got a funny feeling. I sensed an establishment bias.

So I looked more closely and came to realize that Madeline Albright is involved. You should be aware that her lack of credibility is undermining the Pew's work.

Although anecdotal, her involvement with the Carlyle Group and her statement that the death of tens of thousands of Iraqi children due to the economic sanctions was justified undermine her legitimacy as an unbiased voice.

Carlyle Example

So, if Pew thinks having Albright's name associated with its surveys lends credibility, you might reconsider that perspective.

How Bush Started the Iraq War

Most of us believe that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) served as Bush's lynch pin for starting the war with Iraq five years ago today (March 20 in Iraq). But Bush used a different criterion to trigger the war.

The context to Bush's ultimate trigger was that the WMD inspections were going well, unless like Bush you wanted to use WMDs as the excuse for starting a war. 731 inspections between November 2002 and March 2003 had found nothing, despite using intelligence from the US. As an aside, this puts the lie to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's claim that....

We know where they are (Iraq's WMD). They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.

On March 7, 2003, Hans Blix, the UN's chief weapons inspector in Iraq, told the UN Security Council that his inspectors faced "relatively few difficulties," and

at this juncture are able to perform professional, no-notice inspections all over Iraq and to increase aerial surveillance.

Asked how long it would take to address the remaining issues, Blix said it:

will not take years, nor weeks, but months.

Bush's excuse for starting the Iraq war, disarming Saddam Hussein, was seriously threatened. He had to come up with a guarantee to ensure he could have his war. At the 11th hour Bush changed his criterion for triggering a war. On March 17, 2003 Bush gave an ultimatum that he knew Hussein would not accept:

Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict.

There you have it. Bush's final excuse for starting a war of agression was that Hussein and his sons would not leave Iraq upon his demand.

Sources:

1. Interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News This Week, March 30, 2003.

Vincent Buliosi, The Prosecution of George Bush for Murder. See pages 130-135 for more on this.

Obama Fingers the Corporate Villain

Recently I've been thinking of casting a protest vote against Obama, assuming he wins the Democratic nomination. First, he and Clinton have been pathetic in the face of Israel's collective punishment and disproportionate use of force in the Gaza strip. Second was the way he denounced pastor Jeremiah Wright's for his honest, albeit politically incorrect, statements about "damning" the US for it's imperial adventures through out history - .

But Obama has made a "come back" speech. It's summed up in an Associated Press article:

Most of the speech was fairly high-minded, with few if http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifany overt appeals for votes. Obama doubtlessly raised eyebrows in many circles, however, with a populist pivot that named a new villain in the racial divide.

"Black anger" and "white resentments," he said, have "distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle-class squeeze: a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices and short-term greed."

Yes. Before we, the little people, start fighting for the scraps during the coming harsh recession, we should recognize that the corporate elite want to create divisions so we don't target the true villains. Obama has pointed them out for us.

The "divide" with which we should be concerned is the class dived, not the racial divide. The privileges of corporate charters, exploited by the elite class, need to be reeled in.

Sources:

Associated Press, Analysis: Obama grabs race issue, March 18, 2008.

Tax Payer Bailout Equals Ownership

Paul Krugman writes, in an essay entitled The B Word:

Last week, Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary, and John Lipsky, a top official at the International Monetary Fund, both suggested that public funds might be needed to rescue the U.S. financial system. Mr. Lipsky insisted that he wasn’t talking about a bailout. But he was.

OK. If we the tax payers have to bail out the financial titans, then we should become part owners. How does that happen? One way is to negotiate a partial nationalization of the corporation. Think of it as future profit sharing. These companies are dead if the tax payer doesn't come to their rescue. We could tax them in the future, but I'd rather have their books open to US government audits, and for we the tax payers to simply get our cut. Period.

I'm tired of watching the US tax payer get shafted in historic crisis after crisis. We're still paying for the 1980s Savings and Loan bail out. It's time to say enough is enough. "The King has now clothes," already. This isn't a free market, it's a free ride, and I'm sick and tired of underwriting the wealthy lifestyle of financial high fliers. Are you?

Lets do something about it. Write your US representatives and senators. We want partial ownership.

You Go Pastor Wright

One can quibble about the harsh tenor of statements by Obama's Pastor, Jeremiah Wright a former Marine, but the thrust of those statements serve as a wakeup call. Take for example the following statement, reportedly made by Wright in a sermon immediately following the events of 9/11:

We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye .... We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.

Wright's main point is backed by intelligence community members past an present. In his book Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, one of three-part series, Johnson details the causes of "blowback," a term coined by the CIA to denote the unintended consequences of "economic colonialism" policies.

Professor Johnson, a former cold war hawk and consultant to the CIA, writes:

The evidence is building up that in the decade following the end of the Cold War, the United States largely abandoned a reliance on diplomacy, economic aid, international law, and multilateral institutions in carrying out its foreign policies and resorted much of the time to bluster, military force, and financial manipulation... The world is not a safer place as a result.

This is a point I made in a brief essay, Four Phases of US Monetary Influence, which outlines how the decline of US monetary power has been mirrored by increasingly coercive foreign policy measures.

Obama needs to say he understands that the thrust of what Wright and others are saying is an honest and necessary assessment of the past policies of the United States government. Obama can do so by pointing out that the government has, at times, been captured by elite powers that use the executive branch for their narrow self interests. In doing so, Obama would further the message that his presidency would reclaim the government from the hands of those corrupting elite powers.

Sources:

Associated Press, Obama denounces pastor's 9/11 comments, NEDRA PICKLER, March 15, 2008.

DIrty War, Dirty Water

Associated Press reports:

Dozens of U.S. troops in Iraq fell sick at bases using "unmonitored and potentially unsafe" water supplied by the military and a contractor once owned by Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, the Pentagon's internal watchdog says.

... and they weren't even drinking it! The AO continues:

A report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.

According to Wikipedia, "Cellulitis is an inflammation of the connective tissue underlying the skin, that can be caused by a bacterial infection."

The article closes with,

KBR is a former subsidiary of Halliburton Co., the oil services conglomerate that Cheney once led.

Note, the Cheney connection is made twice in this article. That wouldn't have happened earlier in the Bush administration, which says something about our fair and balanced corporatized media system.

Another war profiteer story for the growing file.

Sources:

Associated Press, Water makes US soldiers in Iraq sick, March 9, 2008.

We Watch Them Lie

We watched the White House lie about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda's ties to Iraq, and we knew were were being lied to.

We watched Press Secretary Scott McClellan lie about the White House's role in leaking CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, and we knew we were being lied to.

Yesterday, we watched State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey lie about the US's role in attempting to over throw the democratically elected Hamas-led Palestinian parliament, and we know we are being lied to. Read Casey's hollow words, punctuated by transparent attacks on the credibility of the source, Vanity Fair:

The story alleges that there was some kind of secret plot on the part of the U.S. government to create an internal conflict within the Palestinians, specifically an armed conflict. That's absurd. That's ridiculous. I said this morning that I think Vanity Fair should stick to arty photos of celebrities since clearly, at least in this instance, their efforts at serious journalism leaves something lacking.

We know it is Tom Casey, and the US State Department, that has no credibility. We are living in a failing state, when power of legitimacy has given way to the use of force. Hamas knows that all too well. Hamas knows that the US and Israel have intentionally provoked the home-made missile attacks, to break Hamas's unilateral cease fire and be able to point at Hamas and say, "We have a right to defend ourselves," another hollow statement. Because the US and Israel provoked the rocket attacks, the Hamas rocket attacks have a logical basis of legitimacy, as in "You asked for it," literally.

I for one am tired of watching them lie. It's for that reason, and the logic of stopping impunity, that I devote some of my time to ensuring that Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and a long list of others live the rest of their lives fighting off war crimes charges. They can run, but they can't hide. We'll smoke them out. They won't rest until they meet their maker.

Sources:

Voice of America, US Denies Plotting Hamas Overthrow, David Gollust, State Department, March 4, 2008.

Right Wing News Consolidator

WorldNet.com

Mid-East Surrender Negotiations

I hear that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is going to Israel for more so-called peace negotiations. Media reports express concerns that Hamas might play a "spoiler role." While I disagree with the sectarian (religioous) aspects of Hamas, and Israel for that matter, they have built social support structures, like health clinics, which have earned Hamas legitimacy where other corrupt "leaders" have failed.

While atrocities have been committed on both sides, it remains undisputed that Europeans came to the region following World War II and imposed themselves on a place now called "Israel and the occupied territories." The sixty-year imposition has, at its core, been an assault on the dignity of the indigenous people of the region. Sixty years of ebb and flow, but with a constant sea level rise that has increasingly drown the Palestinian lives, sometimes to the point of desperate violent reaction.

Imagine your wife, sister or daughter experiencing the indignity of giving birth in public, a fairly common occurrence due to the Israeli system of checkpoints. Imagine the death of the infant, which likely would not have occurred in a hospital setting. Imagine the number of checkpoints growing, not just at boarders but within your neighborhood, making a trip to the market a regular assault on your dignity. Imagine your grandfather being slapped in the face by a haughty 20 year old foreign soldier at a checkpoint, because your grandfather had scolded the soldier for laughing and making fun the fact that he could touch your female body during a "security" search.

Imagine the family property, held for generations, having a road or wall cut through it, settlements built on it or simply being taken away. Imagine one wall of your town home being bashed through by Israeli soldiers from one neighboring town home, and then your other wall being bashed through into the other neighboring home as part of a house-to-house search. Imagine an Israeli soldier bashes in your television for fun in the process. Imagine they take over your living room to watch a soccer game for a break, and make your entire family stay in a bedroom for the duration. Imagine uncountable, creative indignities of all stripes being imposed on you, your friends and family for sixty years. You are subhuman.

Imagine, a legitimate election brings people to power who have provided health care in your community where no one else has, who resist the indignities described above, whose leaders risk assassination in their legitiamate struggle. Then imagine a foreign power places an economic embargo on your country because they don't like the result of your democratic election. Imagine the foreign power begins to fund, arm and train the political party that lost the election. Imagine their power is so great that they control the media; your story is not heard and a distorted story is widely accepted by average people around the world. Imagine that the embargo results wide-spread power outages, ruining the little food you have in your fridge and the antibiotics in an unprepared medical clinic. Imagine this leads to the death of your lover who had an infection from a shrapnel wound caused by a helicopter rocket attack that killed your younger brother. Imagine the smell of human waste due to the intentional destruction of the sewer lines by the occupying foreign power. Imagine this also leads to the contamination of your water, which must now be boiled, a process that is increasingly difficult due to a lack of fuel associated with the years-long siege. Imagine the taste of the water. Imagine that the boiling process only kills the bacteria, but doesn't remove the toxins that are highly suspected of making people ill and causing the death of the weak or old. Imagine having to give that water to your child because your choice to do otherwise has been taken away by a foreign power.

Crushing indignities that justify resistance. A tightening squeeze that has become so brutal that brother fights brother out of frustration over resistance strategies, none of which have a chance of working in the face of global superpower dominance. Imagine you know your suffering is due, in large part, to the super power's "national security" objective of controlling oil that happens to be located in the middle east.

Imagine your grandmother telling stories of a time when Jews and non-Jews lived side by side in what is now a crippled society, never to fully recover. Imagine that "hope" means capitulation to a 60-year series of indignities, a geographically discontinuous "state" in shambles led by a puppet regime composed of those people who sold out to the occupying powers. The foreign powers will have secured the best land, will control the water, and will insist that their citizens be allowed to remain on land that was stolen by anyone's definition. Imagine the foreign powers will lift their heads high, puff out their chests, smile for the cameras in a hollow victory of securing peace.

It's not peace that's being negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians. It's surrender. We don't need peace negotiations. We need justice negotiations.

Onion News Network on Video

All I can say is "Brilliant."

Diebold

Accidentally Releases Presidential Election Results
in Advance

Dibold, Diebold

Kennebunkport Indictment Resolution

On February 26, 2008 citizens served papers of indictment on George Bush and Dick Cheney to the Town of Kennebunkport, ME More.

Some criticize these actions, and similar actions in Brattleboro, VT, as political stunts, which is not the case. Their actions represent government by the people in the face of failing federal institutions. These actions have a legal basis rooted in the fundamental principles that united independent, sovereign states under the banner people blithely call "USA".

Impunity of Bush et al. would undermine the civil fabric of our nation and the world. The checks and balances of the federal government and corporate media are failing. The citizen's actions represent the assertion of states rights and government by the people as envisioned by our nation's founders. They are patriots in the finest tradition.

The following 3-minue video documents and explains the events of February 26 described above.

US Senate Candidate Laurie Dobson, serves papers on Bush and Cheney

Update:

For a 50-minute video interview with US Senate candidate Laurie Dobson Click Here

Related:

The following 3-min video examines the question of whether the next president will seek criminal prosecution of George Bush and other senior officials: "Prosecute Bush et al. Chapter 1".

Sources:

Laurie Dobson for Senate YouTube Channel

Who Owns WHNT TV?

According to a posting at DemocraticUnderground.com...

"Robert Bass, a classmate and ally of President George W. Bush is the main investor in Oak Hill Capital."

Oak Hill Capital, in turn, owns LOCAL TV, which in Turn owns the Huntsville, Ala. CBS station WHNT TV Channel 19.

Robert Bass

The station is at the center of a controversy following a very rare blackout of the station which coincided with a 12-minute "60 Minutes" segment about Bush adviser Karl Rove's involvement in what is widely considered to be a politically targeted prosecution of former Alabama governor Don Siegelman, a Democrat. This case appears to demonstrate the corruption of the US Attorney function, which is an aspect of the US Attorney firing scandal that has received scant attention by the corporate media.

Sources:

DemocraticUnderground.com posted by originalpckelly

All Eyes on March 4

I'm not talking about Ohio and Texas Democratic primaries. I'm talking about the Brattleboro, VT Town Meeting, where residents will hold a paper ballot on whether or not to

allow for the indictment and arrest of President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for war crimes, perjury or obstruction of justice charges if they ever visit Vermont

this according to the Political Gateway.

According to the Gateway, "The Brattleboro Select Board voted 3-2 to put the measure" before its citizens following a successful petition drive organized by Kurt Daims. Daims said,

This is exactly what the charter envisioned as a citizen initiative... People want to express themselves and they want to say how they feel.

This growing crisis of jurisdiction, between local government and federal government, is spreading to Bush's home town of Kennebunkport, ME. According to After Downing Street Memo.Org, US Senate Candidate Laurie Dobson will Deliver “The Bush-Cheney Indictment Resolution” to the Town Office on February 26, 2008. It is further reported that the Resolution

shall be placed upon the Town Meeting Agenda for the June Ballot.

See Dobson for Senate, and YouTube Dobson for Sentate.

Sources:

Political Gateway, Vt. town to vote on Bush arrest, January 28, 2008.

After Downing Street Memo.Org, Indicting Bush in His Family's Home Town, February 25, 2008.

Four Phases of US Monetary Influence

The US is in it's third phase of monetary history in regard to its international influence. The key is the US dollar serving as the international reserve currency (the US dollar is accepted like gold for exchanges between countries with different currencies). This was established at the Bretton Woods conference following World War II.

First, the US dominated the world when the other nations were in post-war shambles or underdeveloped. The US could give money away to help build other economies, and the other nations naturally accepted US policies. Under the Bretton Woods System the US dollar was placed deliberately at the center of the system, with the US government guaranteeing other central banks that they could sell their US dollar reserves at a fixed rate for gold if they so desired. (The dollar was literally "as good as gold").

Second, after the gold standard collapsed in 1971, the US still had economic muscle and could effectively bribe other nations to go along with its imperialist foreign policies.

Third, the US economy has become hollow, having a huge trade debt, government debt and personal debt. Jobs and corporate head quarters have gone offshore, taking the tax base with them, making it nearly impossible to pay off these debts. The US is starting to depend on military force to get others to go along with its imperialist foreign policies.

The final phase will be the collapse of the dollar and it's rejection by other nations as the international reserve currency. This is already happening. It's just a matter of time, and we might be very close.

The following video discusses the final phase.



Sources:

Four Questions for the Candidates on Global Trade

Lori Wallach, a leading voice on matters regarding corporate globalization, has a timely essay entitled, Questions the Democratic Presidential Candidates Need to Answer on Trade & Globalization, which appears on Huffington Post. In it, she poses four tangible questions for the candidates, modified as questions to an individual candidate (for you to cut 'n paste):

1. How will you change existing trade agreements such as NAFTA, CAFTA and the WTO to counter job offshoring and labor arbitrage that have reduced U.S. wages?

2. How will you, as future president, remedy the China trade imbalance?

3. How will you deliver on your promises to ensure imported food and product safety?

4. How will your proposals to create jobs by rebuilding America's infrastructure work in the face of trade agreement bans on "Buy America" and other domestic preference policies?

Maybe journalists should read her article, and begin asking some of these questions. Maybe all of us should pose the questions. Wanna do it? Here are the Clinton and Obama campaign contacts:

Obama Campaign Contact

Clinton Campaign Contact

I've sent these four questions to the candidates. We'll see if I get a response.

Sources:

McCain's Paxson Problem

Sexual trysts aside, the substance of the Vicki Iseman buzz is starting to gain attention in the main stream media (DemocracyNow had been onto it earlier). According to Market Watch, via the Washington Post:

In a new twist to a potential scandal brewing on the campaign trail, broadcaster Lowell Paxson disputed statements from Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign that the senator did not meet with Paxson or his lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, in 1999.

However, Lowell "Bud" Paxson remembers it differently.

"I remember going there to meet with him." He said he told McCain: "You're head of the Commerce Committee. The FCC is not doing its job. I would love for you to write a letter."

The letter that McCain eventually wrote to pressure the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was in violation of ex parte rules barring outside pressure. The FCC commissioners function like judges in matters of interpretation of regulation, and McCain tried to pressure those judges. For more background and links to an in-depth piece from the perspective of the other side of the Paxson FCC case my essay: Keating Five Belies McCain's Record.

Note: Paxson Communications is now called Ion Media Networks. Paxson "PAX TV" grew throughout the 1980s and 1990s buying stations on the fringe of markets, catering to shopping, informercials and religious programming. According to Wikipedia:

In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the company wanted to buy WPCB, channel 40, from Cornerstone Television, and move the license to channel 16 (which was, and still is, occupied by WQEX), with channel 40 used for educational purposes. The two agreed on a purchase price, but the Federal Communications Commission had too many questions about the deal, most relating to the type of broadcast license to be operated on each channel, and it fell through.

So, Paxson's Pittsburgh deal fell thru, despite, or perhaps as a rebuke of, McCain's pressure. Remember, in 1999, the FCC was of a majority Democratic composition reflected by the Clinton administration.

Sources:

San Fransisco Market Watch,
McCain's denial of lobbyist meeting disputed: report, Sue Chang, February 23, 2008.

Keating Five Belies McCain's Record

In his reponse to the New York Times article regarding lobbyist Vickie Imesman, McCain said:

At no time have I ever done anything that would betray the public trust nor make a decision which in any way would not be in the public interest and would favor anyone or any organization. As chairman of the Commerce Committee, there were hundreds of issues, including many telecommunications issues, that came before the committee. I had to make decisions on those issues, and I made those decisions. Sometimes they were agreed with, sometimes they were not.

Sometimes they were agreed with, sometimes they were not? Aside from being senseless, one has to wonder, does McCain mean to say "sometimes they were above board and sometimes they were not?" The evidence presented below proves that sometimes McCain favored private interests at the expense of the public, contrary to his statement above.

Two well-documented cases belie the claim McCain is upstanding. The first has a historic name, and the second involves lobbyist Vickei Iesman.

The first goes by the name of the Keating Five, of which McCain was one of the five. In short, the Keating Five crimes involved five US Senators who tried to influence regulators on behalf of wealthy Savings and Loan magnate Charles Keating during the 1980s version of today's mortgage and financial crisis. It's as illegal as trying to influence a judge's decision. The point. McCain cannot claim a long unblemished career; he's central to a famous influence peddling scandal.

The second more recent case goes by the name Paxson Communication. In the Paxson case, there is written evidence that McCain clearly violated ex parte rules barring outside pressure on Federal Communications Commission (FCC) decisions, like trying to influence a judge. What makes it even more improper is that McCain did this as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over the FCC, its chartering legislation and its budget. Being in government myself, when the Senator of the committee that approves your budget asks you to jump, you don't wait to ask "how high," you immediately jump as high as you can.

The Issue:

At issue in the Paxson case was Paxson's desire to gain commercial control over a public TV station in Pittsburg, PA. It was a small-time issue, which makes it even more suspicious that Chairman McCain would take a personal interest. The reason for his personal interest was that the now-famous Vicki Iseman was lobbying Chairman McCain on behalf of Paxson.

What McCain Did Wrong:

First, McCain took sides on an issue in favor of a private organization contrary to the public interest. Second, he did so by trying to pressure the "judges" in the case, members of the FCC. There was an issue of the clock running out on Vickie Iseman's client Paxson. McCain wrote letters directly to each FCC commissioner inquiring about their votes, and asking them to respond by a specific date. FCC Commissioner Tristani wrote McCain saying, in diplomatic terms to the man who controlled the FCC budget:

“In that letter, you requested that each commissioner advise you in writing by the close of business today whether we have acted upon these applications. Respectfully, I cannot comply with your request, in order to preserve the integrity of our processes. It is my practice not to publicly disclose whether I have voted or when I will be voting on items in restricted proceedings prior to their adoption by the full commission.”

It's not only Tristani's practice, it's the law. She knew that McCain's actions were illegal. According to Angela Campbell, director of the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown University Law Center, McCain's actions were formally proven to be a violation:

... on December 20th, we actually filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission’s general counsel, alleging that he had violated the rules, and we asked for them to act on it right away. They did not. However, eventually, in August of 2000, they did rule that the senator had violated the rules.

So, McCain's claims of high integrity are probably no better than any other Senator. Given his fame in the Keating Five scandal, his record is probably worse than most.

Update:

John McCain's campaign has denied the Sentor met with Paxson Communications in 1999; however, Lowell Paxson has contradicted this statement. McCain's Paxson Problem.

Sources:

The Arizona Republic, The Keating Five, Dan Nowicki, Bill Muller, March 1, 2007, AZCentral.com.

DemocracyNow!, Behind the John McCain Lobbying Scandal: A Look at How McCain Urged the Federal Communications Commission to Act on Behalf of Paxson Communications, February 22, 2008.

Paxton, Paxon

Another JAG Hero: Colonel Morris Davis

You know. Sometimes the military gets a bad rap, and for good reason. But when it comes to the JAG Corps (Judge Advocate General’s), we are witnessing history in the making. Heroes in our lifetime.

A while back I wrote about a JAG defense attorney, Marine Lt. Col. Colby Vokey Vokey and Cerveny: True Americans.

Today we can proudly point to a JAG prosecution attorney, Air Force Colonel Morris (Moe) Davis.

In a recnet DemocracyNow! piece Davis exposes William Haynes' bias on the Military Commission trials:

“We can’t have acquittals.” Haynes said, “How can we explain holding these people for so long?” and “We have to have convictions.”

Haynes is the general counsel for the Department of Defense... the top legal position. What makes this devastating is that he is quoted by Morris Davis, the former top military prosecutor at Guantanamo. This isn't an idle claim by a partisan.

According to Scott Horton, international law expert and Harper’s magazine legal affairs contributor:

.. let me first say something about Colonel Davis. He is a very highly respected figure within the JAG court. I think a number of people saw him as someone who was likely to emerge perhaps ultimately as the Judge Advocate General of the Air Force, certainly one of the handful of candidates likely to move forward. And he’s hardly some civil libertarian. In fact, his attitudes are extremely conservative. He’s a prosecutor. The friction he had previously with the Pentagon was essentially over the fact that he was chomping at the bit, ready to go forward with these prosecutions.

But will this bombshell get legs? Nothing has gotten legs to bring down Bush. Only the weight of innumerable crimes if finally grinding him and the Republican party into a slow collapse. Nevertheless, we have to point out the fact that Haynes should be added to the growing list of Bush officials who should be prosecuted.

Background:

The following link is to a central Wall Street Journal article describing serious divisions among Guantanamo prosecutors. Article.

At issue was Davis' independence as the lead prosecutor.

"If someone above me tries to intimidate me in determining who we will charge, what we will charge, what evidence we will try to introduce, and how we will conduct a prosecution then I will resign," Col. Davis said in his written statement.

Davis eventually resigned.

Final note: Lt. Cmdr. Charles Swift is another JAG hero, worthy of a blog entry.

Update:

Haynes is out as of February 27, 2008.

Sources:

DemocracyNow! EXCLUSIVE: Rigged Trials at Guantanamo, February 20, 2008.

Credit for the update to Steve Clemons publishes the popular political blog, The Washington Note, picked up by the Huffington Post.