FOUR HORSEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE

Robert Aiken

Robert Aiken is vice president of Pinnacle West Capital Corporation, an Arizona-based energy company that provides most of the state's electricity through its subsidiary Arizona Public Service. Company executives have long been close to the Republican Party. CEO Bill Post, for instance, has been friends with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) since 1987 (This was before the Keating 5 Scandal); Aiken advised George H.W. Bush on energy issues during his 1992 campaign and he raised $60,000 for Sen. George Allen's (R-VA) 2000 election campaign. The company has also donated $15,000 to the International Republican Institute (IRI), which McCain currently chairs, over the past two years. Pinnacle has lobbied Congress hard over the years in favor of nuclear power - something John McCain supports (Let's build 45 new plants) - and against further industry regulation (John McCain hates regulations...look at what deregulation has done for the financial industry) including energy taxes. A Pinnacle subsidiary, SunCor Development, also benefited from a provision McCain inserted in a 2003 defense bill that secured $14.3 million for a land acquisition program (Some might call this pork barrel spending) which allowed the Air Force to purchase from SunCor 122 acres near Luke Air Force Base, paying three times the county's assessed value and twice the military's estimated value.(John McCain screwed John Q Public on this one.)
In 1998, Mother Jones magazine reported that it had obtained a "confidential strategy memo" that suggested Pinnacle West helped Sen. Frank Murkowski (R-AK) draft legislation that would bar public utilities from selling tax-exempt bonds and force them to buy back all their outstanding bonds before they could compete with private energy firms such as Pinnacle. According to Mother Jones, Murkowski received $43,000 in contributions from 21 private utilities in the first half of 1997, "the most from any single industry and 25% of his total receipts."Another form of payola!!!!

Charlie Black

Charlie Black of BKSH & Associates, a Bush Pioneer in 2004, is perhaps the most experienced Republican lobbyist in Washington, D.C. He is a close friend of former president George H.W. Bush and has served as an adviser to presidents Reagan and George W. Bush ( Bird's of a feather stick together), as well as working as official spokesman for the Republican National Committee. Recent reports about his work for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) observed that, prior to taking a leave of absence, he did a lot of his lobbying work from the back of McCain's campaign bus. He certainly has had a lot of clients to manage, many of whom have pressing business in Washington.

Over the years his client list has included Ahmed Chalabi (went into Iraq with his so-called intelligence) and the Iraqi National Congress (what a bedrock they turned out to be.), Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party, the China National Off-Shore Oil Corp( should have guessed this one), Zaire dictator Mobutu Sese Seko and Angolan rebel Jonas Savimbi.(What a nice bunch of guys he associates with.) Black has also said that he sees great opportunities for lobbyists in Iraq (I bet he can't wait to get there) and has considered opening up a branch of his office there.(Can't wait until he goes), "Is there too much cronyism?" he asked, referring to Iraq. "I just wish I could find the cronies." If anybody could find cronies it certainly would be Charlie Black!!!!

Phil Gramm

Phil Gramm, a former Republican senator from Texas, currently serves as vice chairman of investment firm UBS Warburg. His role advising Sen. McCain on economic policy has recently been criticized for two reasons: he was largely responsible for the lax regulations that led to the Enron debacle, and his current employer has been embroiled in the subprime mortgage crisis. (Oh yes this is definitely the kind of man we want at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.) In 2004, Gramm encountered criticism from Texas Democrats for supposed illegal lobbying for a plan to bail out the state's teacher pension fund. According to critics, Gramm failed to register as a lobbyist before taking up the issue. (Must have slipped his mind, eh!) Gramm's name has come up in other scandals as well. During the 2006 corruption trial of Republican Illinois Gov. George Ryan, Ryan accused Gramm's congressional staff of giving thousands of dollars in donations to Ryan in exchange for an endorsement for Gramm's aborted 1996 presidential campaign.(Republican vs Republican).

Asked about the propriety of such an arrangement, Gramm said, "It's a difference between love and prostitution."(What a class act). Gramm was also tied into the collapse of Enron. His wife, Wendy Gramm, had served on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission(Runs in the family I guess) where she helped write regulations that removed oversight of companies like Enron. She then took a seat on the company's board, while Enron employees gave $95,000 in contributions to Gramm's campaigns.(God, this is better than a soap opera). Gramm's role as an economic advisor to the McCain campaign and his public presence on the campaign trail were both reduced in July after Gramm said the country was in a "mental recession" and had become a nation of "whiners." Gramm is no stranger to excessive fundraising. In 1996 in his failed run for the Republican presidential nomination, Gramm raised a then-record-setting $4.1 million at one event to kick off his campaign, at which he declared, "I have the most reliable friend you can have in American politics, and that's ready money." As a bundler, he has raised at least $100,000 for McCain's presidential campaign, according to information released by the campaign.

Rick Davis

Rick Davis, a partner in the lobbying firm Davis Manafort, currently serves as Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) campaign manager. (He managed McCain's 2000 campaign as well.) A former aide in the Reagan administration and the deputy manager of Sen. Bob Dole's (R-KS) 1996 campaign, Davis' dual role as a political operative and as a lobbyist has caused controversy. During the 2000 campaign, critics noted that two of the companies his firm represented, SBC Communications and Comsat, had controversial mergers pending at the Federal Communications Commission. The Senate Commerce Committee, which McCain chaired at the time, oversees the FCC. Davis tenure as head of the McCain-affiliated Reform Institute, where he solicited tens of thousands of dollars in contributions for the Institute from communications companies, has also come under scrutiny. Davis earned $110,000 a year from the Institute while still serving as McCain top political advisor. Davis has faced other controversies as well. During the current campaign, rivals accused him of self-dealing, noting that the McCain campaign had hired a company he partly owns, 3eDC, to provide Internet services. (This is the firm that officials are now investigating for Stealing the 2000 election.) Davis did not initially disclose his interest to McCain.(Do you really think that McCain who object) Davis also came under fire recently when it was revealed that he had arranged a 2006 meeting between McCain and Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska, critics noted, is not only one of the richest men in Russia and an ally of Vladimir Putin, but has also been linked to organized crime and had his American visa revoked.(Want to bet that Putin is really mad when McCain suggest throwing Putin out of UN) Nevertheless, Deripaska is not the only shady figure to benefit from close relations with Davis. Davis Manafort has also done political consulting for former Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovich, who had close ties to Putin and was defeated in that country's 2004 Orange Revolution.(These nice guys actually poisioned their opponent Viktor Yushchenko of the Ukraine) Other recent lobbying clients include Verizon, GTECH, and Airborne Express.

Update on McCain News:

This guilt by association path is going to be trouble ultimately for the McCain campaign,” Democratic strategist Paul Begala said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “John McCain sat on the board of a very right-wing organization, it was the U.S. Council for World Freedom, it was chaired by a guy named John Singlaub, who wound up involved in the Iran contra scandal. It was an ultra conservative, right-wing group.” Since Begala made his comments, in which he mentioned the Anti-Defamation League’s 1981 condemnation of the council’s parent group as anti-Semitic, a growing group of bloggers have referenced Begala’s self-described “shot across the bow,” and have tried to flesh out McCain’s ties to the council and to Singlaub, a decorated retired Army major general with a background in special operations and intelligence.