Posted on 02/11/2008 8:01:48 PM PST by Tigen
Candidate's Reform Institute also accepted funds from Teresa Kerry
As Sen. John McCain assumes the GOP front-runner mantle, his long-standing, but little-noticed association with left-wing donors such as George Soros and Teresa Heinz Kerry is receiving new attention among his Republican critics.
In 2001, McCain founded the Alexandria, Va.-based Reform Institute as a vehicle to receive funding from George Soros' Open Society Institute and Teresa Heinz Kerry's Tides Foundation and several other prominent non-profit organizations.
McCain used the institute to promote his political agenda and provide compensation to key campaign operatives between elections.
In 2006, the Arizona senator was forced to sever his formal ties with the Reform Institute after a controversial $200,000 contribution from Cablevision came to light. McCain solicited the donation for the Reform Institute using his membership on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation. In a letter to the Federal Communications Commission, he supported Cablevision's push to introduce the more profitable al la carte pricing, rather than packages of TV programming.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
Now, they used the walk-out of the Republicans over the FISA rules, to indict members of the Bush administration for refusing to testify in the investigation into the firings of the US attorneys.
This is war, the Democrats have declared all out war and we have no one in line to defend us, now that McCain has locked up the nomination.
That, if explored further, might explain North’s endorsement.
Actually, I think it might explain the endorsements of Bill Bennett, and Jack Kemp, and... ??? There was a certain faction of the WOD crowd that looks interesting.
Not so sure what category to put Ollie in.
I think the rest of these crooks and commies are just putting on a show.
Um........sounds like it just might well be, Cal.....and we know that Ollie is backing McRino.....saying, "I cannot sit silently while my fellow conservatives do to John McCain what GOP "moderates" did to me," which, of course, comes right back to......Noriega.
The Washington Post. Apr 11, 1989
National drug policy director William J. Bennett, describing drug-related violence in the District as “out of control,” yesterday unveiled an emergency plan to build two federal prisons in the Washington area, evict drug dealers from public housing projects and bring in extra federal prosecutors, drug agents and military intelligence analysts as part of a concerted attack on the city’s drug problems.
“Make no mistake, we are insisting on resolute and substantive efforts from the District,” Bennett said at a news conference with Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Jack Kemp. “The plain fact is that, for too long and in too many respects, the D.C. government has failed to serve its citizens.”
But the plan, which Bennett estimated would cost “roughly $70 million to $80 million,” stops far short of the more sweeping request for assistance made last week by D.C. Mayor Marion Barry. It does not turn over any funds to the D.C. government and provides no money for the 700 new city police officers, 11 new judges and 79 extra probation officers and other court employees sought by Barry. It fails to declare the District a “high intensity drug trafficking area,” as Bennett suggested he would do three weeks ago, largely because of objections from the Justice Department.
Bennett, who did not invite any District officials to join him in announcing the plan, pointedly criticized Barry’s administration for “irresponsibility” in its effort to combat drug-related crime. City officials, while publicly welcoming the federal effort, said that Bennett’s criticisms were uninformed and that, for the most part, his plan was little more a reshuffling of existing programs.
(snip)
What kinda plan is that?
A peripheral power play, I think.
I think the main game had to do with centralizing the WOD activity and gaining control over the budget.
Looks like.
...thus raising the question: Can there possibly be anything else that could make McCain any more unacceptable to true conservatives than he already is?
Unfortunately, I think there is.
I haven’t seen a bottom to this pit, yet.
I think you're right. Too bad nobody has really been able to penetrate, especially, that trackless swamp known as the VietNam MIA/POW issue. There are enough open questions attached to that one to keep even you busy researching and documenting for the next 2 years. I understand that McCain had something to do with the fact that most of the DoD data that would have been declassified by now is in fact still classified and, of that actually released, it has been redacted to shreds.
Years ago, I read through many of the FBI files on the leftist group "Committee of Liaison with Families of Servicemen Detained in North Vietnam" (COLIFAM) that operated in the 60s and 70s. It was filled with communists and traitors -- all the usual suspects. Unfortunately, the remnants of this group were also active about the time that John Kerry and John McCain were pushing for trade normalization in Vietnam (with Kerry's cousin setting up to make some very big bucks). In trying to research the evidence data that is available on McCain, et al... it becomes difficult to distinguish the truth because there is so much propaganda thrown into the mix. Now that we see such blatant use of "think tanks" and groups like The Reform Institute being used to push their cause du-jour, I'm afraid it will be a long time before the whole truth is laid out for all to see--or sadly, it may never happen.
There is a wealth of info in this post. Here is an excerpt of just one article:
Here are few more FR posts. The latter was produced by Ed Asner--take that for what it is worth.A column carried by the Scripps Howard News Service on January 2nd, "Home-front Problems for Clinton on Vietnam," by Jack R. Payton, foreign editor of the St. Petersburg Times, is typical of the coverage given to the shameful Senate measure, which passed 62-38:
[T]he two men pushing the resolution were John Kerry, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz. Both are Vietnam veterans. Kerry was wounded three times fighting the Vietnamese Communists and won a Silver Star. McCain, a fighter pilot and also a Silver Star winner, was captured and held prisoner for almost six years. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., another senator supporting the resolution, lost a leg and won a Medal of Honor in Vietnam. Nobody can accuse any of these men of being unpatriotic or soft on communism [emphasis added].
Obstructionist Senators
Nobody except those who are familiar with their careers, that is. Senators Kerry and McCain have been key obstructers of the investigations into POW/MIA matters and have been hell-bent, it seems, to sweep aside all delays to normalization of relations with Vietnam. As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on POW/MIA Affairs, the suave Kerry, aided by the irascible McCain, did everything possible to debunk the evidence and witnesses brought forward to show that live POWs remained in Southeast Asia after Operation Homecoming, the official return of our POWs in 1973. As Al Santoli, journalist, author, Vietnam veteran, and noted POW-MIA investigator, reported in a January 24, 1994 column in the Washington Times, "Sen. John Kerry had 120 boxes of potentially explosive National Security Agency files reclassified before Senate [POW/MIA] investigators could study them."
When John Kerry's Courage Went M.I.A.: Senator Covered Up Evidence of P.O.W.'s Left Behind
Village Voice ^ | February 25 - March 2, 2004 | Sydney H. Schanberg
Posted on 02/24/2004 10:37:29 AM PST by dead
Senator John Kerry, a decorated battle veteran, was courageous as a navy lieutenant in the Vietnam War. But he was not so courageous more than two decades later, when he covered up voluminous evidence that a significant number of live American prisoners—perhaps hundreds—were never acknowledged or returned after the war-ending treaty was signed in January 1973.
The Massachusetts senator, now seeking the presidency, carried out this subterfuge a little over a decade ago— shredding documents, suppressing testimony, and sanitizing the committee's final report—when he was chairman of the Senate Select Committee on P.O.W./ M.I.A. Affairs.
Over the years, an abundance of evidence had come to light that the North Vietnamese, while returning 591 U.S. prisoners of war after the treaty signing, had held back many others as future bargaining chips for the $4 billion or more in war reparations that the Nixon administration had pledged. Hanoi didn't trust Washington to fulfill its pro-mise without pressure. Similarly, Washington didn't trust Hanoi to return all the prisoners and carry out all the treaty provisions. The mistrust on both sides was merited. Hanoi held back prisoners and the U.S. provided no reconstruction funds.
The stated purpose of the special Senate committee—which convened in mid 1991 and concluded in January 1993—was to investigate the evidence about prisoners who were never returned and find out what happened to the missing men. Committee chair Kerry's larger and different goal, though never stated publicly, emerged over time: He wanted to clear a path to normalization of relations with Hanoi. In any other context, that would have been an honorable goal. But getting at the truth of the unaccounted for P.O.W.'s and M.I.A.'s (Missing In Action) was the main obstacle to normalization—and therefore in conflict with his real intent and plan of action.Award Winning Documentary Shows Allegations Of McCain's Efforts To Block POW Investigations, Reports
eworldonline ^ | January 18, 2008 | Staff
Posted on 01/19/2008 4:38:35 AM PST by america4vrThe award-winning documentary film, "Missing, Presumed Dead: The Search For America's POWs" narrated by Ed Asner backs up allegations that John McCain repeatedly thwarted attempts by U.S. Senate investigators to examine the abandonment of American POWs in Southeast Asia and North Korea.
"Missing Presumed Dead," which won two film festival "Best Documentary" awards, explores McCain's successful attempt to pass a stealth bill in the Senate which effectively keeps his POW records sealed in perpituity and provides insight into why he does not want these records ever to be made public - including the revelation of the many propaganda radio broadcasts he delivered for the North Vietnamese. The film also explains why McCain's refusal of early release from a North Vietnamese POW camp had a less than honorable motive.
The charges against McCain are revealed in the documentary by such political luminaries as former New Hampshire Senator Bob Smith; Jesse Helms' chief of staff, Dr. James Lusier; former Congressman Bob Dornan; U.S. Senate lead investigator, Tracy Usery; and author, Dr. Joseph Douglass, Jr. ("Betrayed").
Robert W. Kelly is a Founder and Managing Partner of CenTauri. Prior to CenTauri, Mr. Kelly served as Vice President and General Counsel for Gray Hawk Systems Inc. and its successor ManTech-Gray Hawk.
Well, lookie here! Robert Kelly on the receiving end of this little scandal.
"Homeland Security Expert" -- pffft! Looks like another Brent Wilkes, to me.
Capitol Crooks (US News and World Report, 9/17/06)
It started with the bribery indictment of California Rep. Randall "Duke" Cunningham,
but before it's over, a sprawling investigation into a Pentagon contractor called MZM
could snare some of Washington's most powerful inside players...a massive corruption investigation involving [Mitchell] Wade, MZM, and [Randy "Duke] Cunningham. The former eight-term Republican congressman from California pleaded guilty last November to accepting more than $2.4 million in bribes and favors from Wade; his mentor, Brent Wilkes, a San Diego-based defense contractor; and two other "unindicted coconspirators."
"A huge spider web." Cunningham "earmarked" millions of dollars in defense . Cunningham now is serving an eight-year prison term, while Wade, 46, has pleaded guilty to paying Cunningham more than $1 million in bribes and is cooperating with prosecutors.
(snip)
• Wade made it appear that his employees were working for federal agencies in order to obtain their security clearances and used his connections to expedite them, MZM sources say. He urged employees not to disclose trips abroad, as required by law, and failed to disclose personal assets in Panama, another legal infraction.
• Wade had a highly classified Pentagon budget document lying on his desk. Prosecutors say Wade's extraordinary access gave him "insight" into the Defense Department's "bargaining position" and allowed MZM to "squeeze top dollar" out of a key proposal.
• Wade's close ties to former senior officials of a Pentagon agency, the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which helps identify and thwart terrorists and spies, are also being examined. So is his relationship with a defense contractor called Gray Hawk Systems Inc. Gray Hawk obtained several lucrative and questionable contracts from CIFA, which it then shared with MZM. Three senior CIFA officials with influence over the contracting process left the agency and joined Gray Hawk. The company's owner, Harry "Pete" Howton, sold it last year for $100 million cash and has since created a new company, Kingfisher Systems Inc.
Through Gray Hawk, Wade won tens of millions of dollars in subcontracts on CIFA work. Investigators believe Wade sought out insiders at CIFA for tips on upcoming agency projects, which he then used to craft earmarks for Cunningham, who allegedly inserted them into appropriations bills and then pressured Pentagon officials to award the contracts to Gray Hawk and MZM. Howton, the former CEO of Gray Hawk and current CEO of Kingfisher, did not return phone calls seeking comment.
(snip)
In the fall of 2002, Burtt asked a team of private contractors, including MZM, to evaluate CIFA's unclassified and classified networks, installed by MZM's prime contractor, Gray Hawk. Defense Department rules require that even its unclassified day-to-day business must be handled within the Pentagon's secure .mil domain. But the evaluation team learned that Gray Hawk had built a .net commercial-type intranet instead. Separately, the team also discovered that most CIFA intelligence analysts lacked access to classified intelligence data, including situation reports of potential terrorist threats, stored in secured classified networks. "My comment was," a team member told U.S. News, "if these networks were airplanes, they would be crashing." But senior Gray Hawk officials, who were nervous and angry about the evaluation, repeatedly blocked the team members from giving Burtt an honest assessment, the team member said.
Around this same time, prosecutors say, Cunningham earmarked $6.3 million for projects "to benefit" CIFA in the fiscal 2003 legislation and told a fellow congressman not to make any decision that would hurt "his two top priorities," namely, Wade and Wilkes.
(snip)
Contractor [Mitchell] Wade pleads guilty in Cunningham bribery scandal (MZM, Inc.)
Defense contractor Mitchell J. Wade pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to conspiring to funnel more than $1 million in bribes to former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham. Wade, 46, admitted to his part in a payoff scheme intended to win federal contracts for his firm, MZM Inc., that included an attempt to bribe a Pentagon official. ... [More articles on Wade]
Poway contractor guilty of bribing Cunningham (Brent Wilkes)
In addition to Wilkes and Cunningham, the investigation into the bribery ---- spawned by a newspaper story in 2005 ---- netted charges against three other men: two men, including [Mitchell] Wade, who pleaded guilty to a role in bribing the politician, and another man who still faces trial.
Feds call for 60-year sentence for Wilkes (defense contractor bribed Randy “Duke” Cunningham)
Gaming the system. Everything about the ‘Reform Institute’ stinks. And they have their paws in just about everything.
There is a model here for fleecing the government (i.e. taxpayer).
Kelly must have learned it during his WOD years. Now we have the WOT opportunity. They are now set up to continue that and most likely will be putting their paws in McCain’s faux “border control,” “green technology” to fight climate change, etc.
They make me sick.
DC has always been full of these folks - insiders that know how the system works. DC has always been full of politicians who give their buddies the upper hand on contracts, bids, etc.
Besides the corruption, what pisses me off is McCain’s “holier than thou” attitude. Mr. “no earmarks” is even worse than the earmarkers. It’s infleunce peddling - mostly for liberal causes, no less.
A SPECIAL FReeper THANK YOU to calcowgirl for all her hard work here.
Her investigative work substantiates what I have suspected all along....both the left and the right are corrupt as hell...and America is clueless.
Washington “insiders” are not motivated by allegiance to America but to a darker and more sinister agenda.
All of this bipartisanship and reaching across the aisles can be quite lucrative. ;-)
Mitchell Wade and MZM were also hooked up with Mollohan.
Mollohan and MZMTop Democrat on the House Ethics Committee is in with MZM, Inc.
I meant to ping you to the above.
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