So the Supreme Leader says to the U.S. Health Insurance Industry....

By way of The Political Carnival's Cartoon of the Day...

Mike Luckovich, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Click on the cartoon to e-mail it to a friend. Visit an archive of the artists cartoons at cagle.com.

Randy Scheunemann, McCain's Foreign Policy Advisor and the Project for the New American Century, that helped shape the Iraq war policy

ABC NEWS
McCain OK with aide's lobbying past

McCain Says He Has No Problem with Foreign Policy Adviser's Past Lobbying Work

The fighting between Russia and Georgia has brought renewed attention to Scheunemann and the lobbying firm he founded, Orion Strategies, which received more than $730,000 from Georgia since 2001, records show.

Scheunemann's role as lobbyist and campaign adviser came to light in May, when USA TODAY reported he had contacted McCain's Senate office on Georgia's behalf last year while he was working for the campaign.

Scheunemann in March ended his lobbying work for Orion, which continues to represent Georgia, and formally separated from the firm in May, said McCain spokesman Brian Rogers.

"I'm proud to have supported them," McCain said of Georgia in an interview on the campaign plane. "And I'm so proud that so many of my friends have done so, who also believe in freedom and democracy."

McCain said he found it interesting that Barack Obama's campaign called him "confrontational" with Russia.

Yet "rather than worry about the people of Georgia," McCain said, his Democratic rival "worried about whether someone on my staff had supported Georgia or not."

Democratic groups have criticized Scheunemann's past lobbying work as a conflict of interest.

At Orion Strategies, Scheunemann's foreign clients have included Romania, Latvia, Macedonia and Taiwan.

"The fact that John McCain is proud of the lobbyists running his campaign and doesn't understand the conflict of interest his lobbyist-advisers represent shows that he simply cannot be trusted to bring change to Washington," Damien LaVera, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said Sunday.

Campaigning in Nevada, Obama also criticized McCain's advisers as "the same old folks that brought you George W. Bush. The same team."

Scheunemann has been a prominent foreign policy conservative for years. He was an adviser to former senator Bob Dole, both in the Senate and during Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. Scheunemann also advised then-Senate majority leader Trent Lott before leaving to join a lobbying firm, the Mercury Group, in 1998.

McCain's 2000 presidential campaign brought in Scheunemann as a foreign policy adviser. After the 2000 election, Scheunemann returned to lobbying and also joined the board of directors of the Project for the New American Century, a conservative foreign policy think tank.

Scheunemann and others at the think tank wrote to President Bush nine days after the 9/11 attacks, urging "a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq." Scheunemann founded a group called the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq during the run-up to the March 2003 invasion.

Scheunemann's partner, Michael Mitchell, signed a $200,000 contract for Orion Strategies to represent Georgia on April 17, the firm's Justice Department filings show.

That same day, McCain issued a statement saying he had spoken by phone with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili "about Russian moves to undermine Georgian sovereignty."

McCain, an advocate for Georgia democracy for more than a decade, has advocated Georgia's "territorial integrity" since the invasion.

Georgia's internationally recognized borders include the breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, now occupied by Russia.

On Sunday, McCain said there are a number of steps the international community can take short of military force to produce "pressures that will change the Russians' behavior."

They include rejecting Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization, canceling Russia-NATO military exercises, and possibly speeding up the admission of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO.

for source - click here

Fight Club: Democrats aren't wussys. Did I hear Barack Obama raise his voice? Yes I did. When McCain lies, Obama fights back. Excellant.

No more hugs as Obama tears into McCain

He tears into his GOP rival's health care, tax and energy policies

RENO, Nev. - So much for hugging in church.

A day after Barack Obama and John McCain exchanged an embrace during a faith forum at a California megachurch, Obama called the U.S. economy a disaster thanks to "John McCain's president, George W. Bush," and chided his Republican rival's campaign team for trying to make him look unpatriotic and weak.

At a town hall meeting with several hundred union members, Obama said he had had a great conversation with McCain at the forum at Saddleback Church sponsored by the popular evangelical pastor Rick Warren. The two candidates shook hands, briefly hugged and stood onstage with Warren, the first time they appeared together in public since the end of the primary season.

But Sunday, after praising the Arizona senator as a "genuine American patriot," the Democratic presidential hopeful got back to business — methodically tearing into McCain's health care, tax and energy policies and criticizing his advisers.

"McCain says 'Here's my plan, I'm going to drill here, drill now which is something he only came up with two months ago when he started looking at polling," Obama said of McCain's energy policy.

The GOP hopeful has become a vocal proponent of offshore oil drilling as a way to ease U.S. dependence on foreign oil and has criticized Obama for failing to embrace it as a way to help bring down oil prices. Obama noted that McCain had long opposed lifting the moratorium on offshore drilling.

Criticizes McCain's advisers

The Illinois senator also criticized McCain's advisers as "the same old folks that brought you George W. Bush. The same team." He noted many had been lobbyists in Washington before McCain asked them to sever all lobbying ties.

Obama added, "They say this other guy is unpatriotic, or this guy likes French people. That's what they said about Kerry," referring to the 2004 Democratic nominee who lost narrowly to Bush. "They try to make it out like Democrats aren't tough enough, aren't macho enough. It's the same strategy."

for source - click here

for video of Obama' Reno Town Hall - click here

John McCain: You just can't have too many lobbyists for Campaign Advisors these days

In Split Role, McCain Adviser Is Sometimes a Lobbyist

By MICHAEL COOPER

Published: August 13, 2008

When Senator John McCain led a Senate investigation three years ago of Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist who later pleaded guilty to fraud charges, Mr. Abramoff’s old firm turned to a former McCain campaign adviser for help.

The firm, Greenberg Traurig, which had quickly cut its ties to Mr. Abramoff, hired Randy Scheunemann, who had been the McCain campaign’s foreign policy adviser in 2000 — and is again this year — for advice on handling the Senate investigation.

“After Greenberg Traurig severed ties to Mr. Abramoff, Mr. Scheunemann advised the law firm on how best to cooperate with the Senate investigation,” said Brian Rogers, a spokesman for the McCain campaign. “The record reflects that the law firm cooperated.”

Mr. Rogers said he believed that Mr. Scheunemann was hired because he had worked in Congress for more than a decade and had experience with investigations, and not because of any ties he had to Mr. McCain. He added that Mr. Scheunemann had served the firm in an advisory role, and had never spoken with Mr. McCain about the issue.

Since the Russian invasion of Georgia, Mr. Scheunemann has drawn attention for his lobbying efforts on behalf of the Georgian government, for which he lobbied until March. Mr. McCain has been outspoken in his support of Georgia. During a flight on Tuesday on the McCain campaign plane, Mr. Scheunemann told reporters that Mr. McCain has known the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, for more than a decade. read more here

McCain's top foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann on Georgia's (the country) payroll

On Payroll

08.13.08 -- 10:50AM

By Josh Marshall

Whatever you do, do not miss the article in the Washington Post about Randy Scheunemann's lobbying for Georgia. From the lede ...

Sen. John McCain's top foreign policy adviser prepped his boss for an April 17 phone call with the president of Georgia and then helped the presumptive Republican presidential nominee prepare a strong statement of support for the fledgling republic.

The day of the call, a lobbying firm partly owned by the adviser, Randy Scheunemann, signed a $200,000 contract to continue providing strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington.

...

At the time of McCain's call, Scheunemann had formally ceased his own lobbying work for Georgia, according to federal disclosure reports. But he was still part of Orion Strategies, which had only two lobbyists, himself and Mike Mitchell.

Scheunemann remained with the firm for another month, until May 15, when the McCain campaign imposed a tough new anti-lobbyist policy and he was required to separate himself from the company.

Since 2004, Orion has bagged $800,000 from Georgia.

For months while McCain's presidential campaign was gearing up, Scheunemann held dual roles, advising the candidate on foreign policy while working as Georgia's lobbyist. Between Jan. 1, 2007, and May 15, 2008, the campaign paid Scheunemann nearly $70,000 to provide foreign policy advice. During the same period, the government of Georgia paid his firm $290,000 in lobbying fees.

Even though Scheunemann has now somehow cut his ties and is receiving no money directly from Georgia, as far as I can tell he is still the co-owner of the company -- and the name that is its main draw. So whatever it does still has a direct bearing on him because of that ownership stake.

After you read the article it's astonishing that Scheunemann is even still with the campaign. And it just adds to the continuing mystery of how McCain preserves this image of being the scourge of lobbyists when he is almost a caricature of the kind of politician whose conduct is managed by a series of lobbyists who manage his actions on almost every point of policy.

for source - click here