(Randy Schuenemann) McCain adviser lobbied for Stephen Payne

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON—A top foreign policy adviser to John McCain has lobbied the National Security Council, Congress and the State Department on behalf of Stephen Payne, the Texas businessman and longtime Republican fundraiser caught up in a controversy over whether he sought to sell access to the Bush White House.

According to records on file with Congress, McCain foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann lobbied the Senate and House on behalf of Payne's firm, Worldwide Strategic Partners Inc., in 2002.

Scheunemann also lobbied the National Security Council and the State Department regarding energy issues in the Caspian region in 2005 and 2006 on behalf of another Payne firm, Caspian Alliance Inc., according to the records.

The fees to Scheunemann's firm amounted to $50,000.

On Monday, the McCain campaign said that from 2002 to 2006, Scheunemann periodically engaged in consulting relationships with the two companies and that Scheunemann was never on the payroll of either firm, but that he was an occasional outside expert consultant.



Read more: http://www.montereyherald.com/politics/ci_9950946

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Homeland Security Adviser Offering Cash-For-Access Deal Worked With McCain's Foreign Policy Adviser

Stephan Payne, Ahmed Chalabi, Randy Schueneman

By Andrew Tilghman - July 21, 2008, 3:55PM
Before last week, we'd never heard of Worldwide Strategic Partners and Stephen Payne, the (former) Homeland Security adviser who was caught on video soliciting big donations for the future George W. Bush Presidential Library fund while offering to arrange access to top White House officials.

~snip~
The Times described the Caspian Alliance as a "subsidiary" of Worldwide Strategic Energy, of which Payne is also president. TPMmuckraker found that many of the same people are involved with both the Caspian Alliance and Worldwide Strategic Partners, but could not independently verify the nature of the relationship between the two firms.

A reporter for the blog Majikthise apparently obtained a 44-page document from Worldwide Strategic Energies that featured Scheunemann prominently, including the above photo. The reporter, Lindsay Beyerstein, said the document was a prospectus distributed to potential investors and listed Schuenemann among the firm's executive team, along with Major General Lincoln Jones III, a former executive at Enron.


more:http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/07/homeland_security_advisor_who.php

[maddezmom]

1. McCain's senior foreign policy advisor tied to global petro-influence peddling

McCain's senior foreign policy advisor tied to global petro-influence peddling
John McCain's senior foreign policy adviser is a close business associate of Stephen Payne, the lobbyist caught on tape offering access to top administration officials in exchange for donations to the Bush Library.

This is explosive news because Payne's company's entire business model is international influence peddling in exchange for oil and gas leases from politically unstable and dictatorial regimes.

McCain's senior foreign policy and national security adviser, Randy Scheunemann, is listed as a member of Worldwide Strategic Energy's executive team in a pre-prospectus obtained by Majikthise.

This document was circulated to prospective investors in 2007, according to the source who provided the document.

Payne is the president and CEO of WSE. The firm Bracewell Giuliani is prominently listed as WSE's outside strategic and legal counsel. "Among this group are former top officials with FERC as well as former top administrators with state and federal agencies that regulate the public utilities and oil and gas industries," the brochure enthuses.

Another member of the WSE executive team, Major General Lincoln Jones III, is a former president of Enron Power Corporation and a former deputy to Colin Powell.


more:http://majikthise.typepad.com/majikthise_/2008/07/mccains-senior.html

[maddezmom]

2. McCain Aide, Randy Scheunemann — A Chalabyist»

Randy Scheunemann — A Chalabyist»
USA Today reports on the lobbying career of John McCain’s top foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann, noting that Schuenemann “lobbied the Arizona senator’s staff on behalf of the republic of Georgia while he was working for the campaign”:

Randy Scheunemann, founder of Orion Strategies, represented the governments of Macedonia, Georgia and Taiwan between 2003 and March 1, according to the firm’s filings with the Justice Department. In its latest semiannual report, the firm disclosed that Scheunemann had a phone conversation in November about Georgia with Richard Fontaine, an aide in McCain’s Senate office.

As the article notes, in his capacity as McCain’s spokesman, Scheunemann often comments on issues directly relating to his firms’ clients. This was the case in an interview Scheunemann gave to Radio Liberty last month, in which Scheunemann attacked Russia’s policy toward Georgia while neglecting to disclose that he had been a paid lobbyist for Georgia until as late as December 2007.

The article notably does not mention one of the Chalabyist’s most significant and successful lobbying operations: the invasion of Iraq. Scheunemann served as president of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, a neoconservative front group created in 2002. CLI coordinated with the Bush White House to gin up public support for the Iraq war by buttressing and echoing the administration’s various dubious claims about the threat posed by Saddam, and the quickness and ease of a war to remove him.

more:http://thinkprogress.org/wonkroom/2008/05/21/chalabis-lobbyist/

[bushmeister0]

3. Big trouble brewing in Georgia, McCain could make Iraq look like a tea party.

"Scheunemann attacked Russia’s policy toward Georgia while neglecting to disclose that he had been a paid lobbyist for Georgia until as late as December 2007."

The Atimes:

"The Caucasus Republic of Georgia, as nations go, is not apparently a major global player. Yet Washington has invested huge sums and organized to put its own despot, Mikhail Saakashvili, in the presidency in order to close a nuclear North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) iron ring around Russia.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited the capital Tbilisi and made sharp statements against Moscow for supporting the separatist Georgian states of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in essence blaming Moscow for an imminent war Washington has incited in order to bring Georgia into NATO by the December NATO summit.

Western media have either tended to ignore the growing tensions in the strategic Caucasus region or to suggest, as Rice does that the entire conflict is being caused by Moscow's support of the 'breakaway' republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In reality, a quite different chess game is being played in the region, one which has the potential to detonate a major escalation of tensions between Moscow and NATO."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JG16Ag01.html

Note that during her very successful sweep through the region last week, her getting the Czechs to sign on the dotted line for W.'s pie in the sky missile defense radar system drew the Russian's ire. The Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying "We will be forced to react not with diplomatic, but with military-technical methods."

Soon after Pravda announced:

"Russia cut the amount of exported crude to the Czech Republic twice last week, which made the country use its owns state crude reserves. Russia started the reduction of shipments immediately after the Czech authorities signed an agreement to deploy a US radar station in the country. Czech media assumed that the reduction of fuel shipments became Russia’s response to the decision."

http://newsfromrussia.com/world/europe/14-07-2008/105772-czech_usa_radar-0

F William Engdahl write for the ATimes:

"It makes abundantly clear that Washington is aiming its military strategy at the dismantling of Russia as a potential adversary. That is a recipe for a possible nuclear war by miscalculation. Rice's latest Caucasus and Czech visit only added to that growing danger."

And just to piss off the US some more, after all the trouble we went through to resucite Killer Kahdfi'sinternational reputation:

"Russian companies beat the competition Wednesday in Tripoli when 23 firms — including three from the United States — announced their bids to drill for oil beneath Libya's desert sands and azure Mediterranean waters.

The U.S. firms — Occidental Petroleum Corp., Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. — were outbid in this third international tender for exploration and product-sharing agreements since the U.S. lifted its embargo on Libya in 2004, allowing American companies to do business in this North African country."

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/12/20/business/ME_FIN_Libya_Oil.php

Keep in mind also that the Russianas are royally ticked off about Kosovo, the nexus to several different competing oil and gass pipelines to Europe.

Search Camp Bonsteel for more info on that. It's one of our largest military bases in the world, on in a country we fought in almost 10 years ago. Do the math.

[maddezmom]

4. I honestly hadn't paid any attention to him until today and his anti-Obama rantings

then I started to google him. A good recap here:

Randy Scheunemann

John McCain 2008 Presidential Campaign: Senior Foreign Policy Advisor
Project for the New American Century: Former Director
Committee for the Liberation of Iraq: Former Head

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1347.html

[bushmeister0]

5. My apologies for the egregeous mispellings, I suddenly had a time issue.

Long story . . .

Anyway, here's more about Kosovo and how this all relates to the issue:

http://imnotworthy.blogspot.com/2008/03/gwot-all-roads-lead-through-kosovo-oil.html

Not shameless promotion, there are links to others who are aware of this too. I did spend a lot of time and effort on it.