McCain Convention Manager Resigns After NEWSWEEK Reveals Burma Ties

Around noon today, the powers-that-be at NEWSWEEK posted "A Convention Quandary" on our website. In the story, investigative ace Michael Isikoff reported that the man chosen by John McCain's presidential campaign to run this summer's GOP convention--Arizonan Doug Goodyear--was causing some headaches within the ranks.

The problem? Goodyear is CEO of DCI Group, a consulting firm that earned $3 million last year lobbying for ExxonMobil, General Motors and other clients--not the most convenient association for a candidate who's already struggling to reconcile his reputation as an anti-special interests crusader with the sizable number of lobbyists on his senior staff. Further complicating matters: Isikoff's revelation that DCI was paid $348,000 in 2002 to represent Burma's military junta, leading "a PR campaign to burnish the junta's image, drafting releases praising Burma's efforts to curb the drug trade and denouncing 'falsehoods' by the Bush administration that the regime engaged in rape and other abuses." Ouch.

Shortly after 5:00 p.m. this afternoon, the Republican National Convention announced that it had accepted Goodyear's resignation, setting a new land speed record for shortest time lapsed between the "story breaks" and "ax falls" phases of a political scandal.

Don’t all of us baby-boomer men all have Burma ties?

His cheek
Was rough
His chick vamoosed
And now she won’t
Come home to roost
Burma-Shave

The place to pass
On curves
You know
Is only at
A beauty show
Burma-Shave

On curves ahead
Remember, sonny
That rabbit’s foot
Didn’t save
The bunny
Burma-Shave

Twinkle, twinkle
One-eyed car
We all wonder
WHERE you are
Burma-Shave

These signs
We gladly
Dedicate
To men who’ve had
No date of late
Burma-Shave

A guy
Who drives
A car wide open
Is not thinkin’
He’s just hopin’
Burma-Shave

A whiskery kiss
For the one
You adore
May not make her mad
But her face will be sore
Burma-Shave

His brush is gone
So what’ll we do
Said Mike Robe I
To Mike Robe II
Burma-Shave

If your peach
Keeps out
Of reach
Better practice
What we preach
Burma-Shave

April 20, 2006, 5:56 a.m.
Google...China...and Us
Moral challenges we face.

By Representative Christopher Smith

On Wednesday, I conducted a hearing to examine China's human-rights record. Over the years, I have held more than 25 hearings on human-rights abuses in China and although some economic progress has been made, the human-rights situation remains abysmal.

Among other things, this week's visit of President Hu Jintao to the United States provides an opportunity to expose the terrible human-rights situation in China today on a global stage. And it will, I hope, convey our unshakeable regard and commitment to press Beijing for serious, measurable, and desirable reform. Any relationship we have with China must begin with a fundamental respect for basic human rights. The people of China deserve no less. It is our moral duty to stand with the oppressed, not with the oppressor.

State Department and other human-rights watchdogs indicate that Chinese government's repression of its citizens continues. In fact, the current regime is one of the worst violators of human rights in the world. The most recent State Department Human Rights Report for China is approximately 45,000 words and lists 22 major rights problems.

Beijing views the information on the Internet as a potential threat to the party's control over the people and the monopolization of political power. And so, they restrict it. The freedom to publish information and read news on the web unfiltered does not exist and individuals who attempt to speak freely are frequently imprisoned and tortured. U.S. corporations should not be aiding in that process. Yet at a February hearing I chaired on global Internet freedom, some of the biggest corporations in America revealed how they have partnered with the Chinese secret police to find, apprehend, convict, and jail religious believers and pro-democracy advocates.

Though Yahoo voiced their profound regret for the imprisonment of Shi Tao for 10 years, they couldn't say — and didn't seem to know — how many others were condemned to jail and torture because of their willingness to comply with the secret police. When asked under what conditions — court order, police demand, a fishing trip — Yahoo surrenders e-mails and files to authorities, their representative declined to reveal the information because it would break Chinese law. Sadly, it was revealed at our hearing that Yahoo's cooperation with the Chinese police has seemingly lead to the imprisonment of another democracy advocate, Jiang Lijun.

Google, for its part, created a search engine tailored to the wishes of the People's Republic of China. Type in any number of searches, for "human rights," or "Tiananmen Square massacre," or "Falun Gong," and the site conveniently reroutes the web surfer to government propaganda — much of it heavily anti-American, anti-Bush, and full of hate. Google responded to concerns about enabling a dictatorship to expand its message of hate by hiring big-time lobbying firms like Podesta-Mattoon, and the DCI group to put a good face on it all — and presumably kill my pending legislation, the Global Online Freedom Act of 2006.

Amazingly, Cisco showed no concern whatsoever that its "Policenet" technology — a tool for good in the hands of legitimate law enforcement, but a tool of repression in the hands of Chinese police — has now linked and expanded the capabilities of the Chinese police. Microsoft censors and shuts down blogs that the government objects to. (So I'm guessing Bill Gates kept human rights off the agenda when he hosted Hu on Tuesday.)

A Stalinist Nightmare Revived for the 20th century
China's continued repression of religion is among the most despotic in the world. Citizens practicing a faith other than officially sanctioned religions are often subject to torture, imprisonment, and death at which time prisoner organs are frequently harvested. Christians, Tibetan Buddhists, and Muslim Uighurs are all being persecuted for their faith. Today, numerous underground Roman Catholic priests and bishops and Protestant pastors languish in the infamous concentration camps of China for simply proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Complete article available here:
http://nationalreview.com/comment/smith200604200556.asp

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