Below is an edited version.
A few of McCain's lobbying friends include..
Charlie Black is John McCain's chief political adviser and formerly a partner at the lobbying firm he founded, BKSH & Associates. He took leave from the firm earlier this year.
The firm's client list have included military contractor Blackwater Worldwide and Phillip Morris, as well as Angolan warlord Jonas Savimbi, and former dictators Ferdinand Marcos of the Philipenes and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo).
Last year Black was registered to lobby on behalf of 29 clients, including AT&T, Lockheed Martin, Occidental Petroleum, and JP Morgan Chase.
Charlie Black has earned more than $1.8 million representing the Occidental Petroleum Corporation, the leading foreign producer of gas and oil in Colombia. Significant in view of McCain's trip this week to Columbia.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, who looted his country during his reign and whose totalitarian regime was marked by human rights abuses.
Angolan Guerilla leader Jonas Savimbi, who brutally murdered and tortured civilians and planted land mines in his own country.
Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, who tortured and publicly executed political rivals, and pillaged his country's resources, enriching himself as the people of Zaire starved.
Rick Davis is John McCain's campaign manager from both this election cycle and McCain's run in 2000. However, he recently turned over day-to-day campaign operations to another staffer.
Davis took leave in 2006 from the lobbying firm he founded, Davis Manafort, in which he retains an ownership stake. Davis Manafort's client list has included Verizon and SBC Communications and Ukranian holding company System Capital Management. Although he has not been registered as a lobbyist for two years, his firm was actively involved working as an unregistered lobbyist representing the interests abroad of foreign politicians and businessmen. In 2006 Davis’s firm represented Viktor Yanukovich, a Ukranian politician opposed by the U.S. Government because of his ties to Vladimir Putin.
Also in 2006, Davis represented Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska a close ally of Vladimir Putin, whose U.S. visa was revoked because of his organized crime and anti-democratic ties. Davis used his ties with McCain to set up a meeting between Deripaska and McCain at an economic conference in Switzerland.
Davis was still actively working as a lobbyist while also working as a paid consultant to McCain’s Reform Institute, and later used his contacts with McCain to facilitate a merger between DHL and Airborne. McCain "thwarted [R-Alaska Senator Ted] Stevens's effort to insert language into legislation that would prohibit foreign-controlled companies such as DHL from holding certain military contracts."
Nigerian Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, who supressed opposition political parties, and had a magazine editor critical of his abuses murdered.
Somali dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, whose army slaughtered 5,000 unarmed civillians in ten months.
Phil Gramm is an economic adviser for McCain who was until April a
registered lobbyist for UBS, the world's largest manager of personal
wealth. Gramm is also currently a vice chairman for UBS's investment arm. A former Texas senator and economics professor at Texas A&M, Gramm was still a lobbyist when he advised McCain on the campaign's economic policies unveiled earlier this year.
Additionally, Gramm was a senator who took cash from the banking industry and introduced - and passed - a law that removed consumer safeguards in place since the Great Depression. This allowed banks to merge with financial investment institutions and begin selling risky investment products, including speculating on mortgages. This led to the subprime meltdown we have today which is destroying our economy. Then Gramm quit the Senate and went to work for UBS, a gigantic international bank that took advantage of Gramm's new law and gobbled up investment firms, then had Gramm lobby George W. Bush to remove the remaining consumer safeguards on predatory lending.
John Green is a lobbyist who announced in March that he planned to take leave from his post as a managing director at Ogilvy Government Relations to coordinate the McCain campaign's efforts with congressional Republicans. In recent years, the firm's clients have included European Aeronautic Defense & Space, which beat Boeing for a $35 billion Air Force tanker contract. Also, his firm represented Ameriquest Mortgage, one of the most notorious lenders in the current mortgage crisis.
This year, he is registered to lobby for 57 clients including Pfizer, United Health Care Group, the Carlyle Group and the American Petroleum Group.
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