Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Senator John McCain likes to claim credit for rooting out the corruption of lobbyist Jack Abramoff to burnish his alleged "maverick" reformer image.  Yeah, not so much.  McCain’s job was actually to limit the scope of the damage caused by Abramoff’s lobbyist ties to GOP legislators and the White House.

McCain did not entirely succeed in his task.  On Monday, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released hundreds of pages of documents which show that Abramoff regularly communicated with former White House political adviser Karl Rove and his deputies regarding the administration’s domestic agenda.

Abramoff, who pleaded guilty two years ago to corruption charges, had 485 lobbying contacts with White House officials between January 2001 and March 2004, including 170 meetings over meals and 16 meetings over drinks, the report said. Read the report here http://oversight.house.gov/abramoff/docs/abramoff.pdf

Part 3 of the investigative report by Mark G. Levey explores "Senator McCover-up: Abramoff & the GOP Foreign Money Machine."  Read the full article here Election Fraud News and The Money Party .  Snippets from the report:

"Senator John McCain has proved to be Jack Abramoff’s best friend.

As Chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee from 2005-2007, McCain was instrumental in suppressing evidence of Jack Abramoff’s role in directing illegal foreign payoffs to ranking members of the Republican Party.

McCain also did a big favor for Abramoff’s principal partners in crime, Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed , identified in the 2006 Committee report as key players in the Choctaw Indian and Marianas Island scandals. Not one of the principal witnesses in the matter were compelled to publicly testify by McCain’s panel. The Committee also sequestered 99 percent of the documents it received, and these remain locked away, unseen by the public, in Senate files.

But there’s much more to the scandal than the Indian tribes rip-off McCain did disclose. The strand that runs through all the Abramoff-McCain relationship is foreign money – many, many millions – that Jack, Grover and Ralph funneled to GOP leaders from some of the world’s worst bad guys as part of a foreign influence-peddling operation.

Senator McCover-up: Why McCain Was Chosen by GOP Leadership to Oversee the Abramoff Investigation

By late 2005, it was becoming clear as the Justice Department started scratching the surface of Abamoff’s influence-peddling network that its exposure was going to be politically explosive, and that it was going to blow up the Republicans. Details started coming out that showed the scandal was more sinister than the mere rip-off of Indian tribes by their Washington lobbyists.

* * *

The Republican Congressional leadership recognized the problem. McCain was perfectly positioned to be the one to manage it. He had previously served as the Chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee, and most importantly, he had some credibility as a “maverick” reformer and a track record of highly publicized enmity with one of the primary suspects as a base to build on. McCain’s talent for damage-control was demonstrated early-on in his Senate career, when he survived his involvement in the Keating Savings & Loan scandal.

McCain Covered Up the Malfeasances of his Fellow Senators

So, in 2005, “Straight-Talk” McCain was the natural pick as Chairman of Indian Affairs to replace the former Chair Ben Nighthorse Campbell after his sudden resignation.

* * *

The inquiry initially had a limited mandate. The committee stated it would look into the exploitation of several American Indian tribes by Abramoff and a close circle of GOP lobbyists, including Michael Scanlon, Ralph Reed, and Grover Norquist.  Amazingly, none were ever put on the stand under oath and publicly questioned by the Senate Committee. Norquist and Reed were never issued subpoenas to appear. Abramoff and Scanlon refused to testify after being subpoenaed.  Chairman McCain settled without much apparent fuss on hearing from a few underlings.

(Note: Senator Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), House Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas, Rep. Bob Ney (R., Ohio), and Rep. John Doolittle (R., Calif.), are the subjects of ongoing Justice Department investigation into Abramoff’s lobbying activities.  Bob Ney has plead guilty to corruption charges).

* * *

I had a nice conversation with Democrat Mary Kim Titla, the former news reporter and internet entrepreneur, who is standing for nomination in Congressional District 1. She seeks the seat being "vacated" by "retiring" congressman Rick "call me Dick" Renzi. Titla calls herself a moderate with traditional, small-town values. One possibly distinguishing position is that … Read more

Posted by AzBlueMeanie: Several readers have sent me a copy of an article which appeared in the British newspaper The Daily Mail this past Sunday.  It answers the question, "whatever happened to the first Mrs. McCain?"  It is the first interview given by Carol McCain in almost 30 years. To read the full story: The … Read more

By Ted Downing and Sheila Tobias as published in the Arizona Republic, Jun. 10, 2008 Today, all Americans can say to their sons and daughters, "Some day, you can be president of the United States." The 2008 Democratic primary, the Obama-Clinton contest, has reshaped our political landscape. The way we look at who can aspire … Read more