How Iseman's Clients Benefitted...

[KharmaTrain]

For those who have been following the the Iseman lobbying connection, here's a list and thread from yesterday about her clients...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2899629&mesg_id=2899629

AMFM Inc
AstraZeneca
CanWest
Capstar Broadcasting Partners
Carnival Corp
Computer Sciences Corp
Future Leaders of America
Hillsborough County
Hispanic Broadcasting Inc
Paxson Communications
Sinclair Broadcast Group
Telemundo Network Group
Total Living Network

Josh Marshall linked to a post he did back in 2001 about the big money games going on with the buying and selling of broadcast frequencies...a lot of it ushered in by DeReg '96...at the time it was called "selling broadcasting like pork bellies". In 2000, this wasn't good enough and pressure was put to "speed things up"...and at the center of this was Bud Paxon...Josh has a great article from the time and some excelent background on the real fire here...also it may open some eyes as to what happened to our public airwaves...

http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=spectrum_lords

The man who'll likely be the first to cash in is Lowell W. "Bud" Paxson, chairman of Paxson Communications Corporation, which owns 18 stations nationwide in the 60–69 range. The company also owns PAX TV, "the nation's seventh broadcast television network" and "America's only family friendly TV network." Paxson Communications and about 60 percent of the other license holders in the 60–69 range are willing to move exclusively over to digital--for a price.


The market value of spectrum space used for those channels is between $15 billion and $30 billion. Paxson proposes an auction in which most of the money goes to the broadcaster-occupants. He is currently working with Spectrum Exchange Group, a company that specializes in coordinating private spectrum auctions, on an auction that would allow bidders simultaneously to buy out the individual broadcasters and pay the federal government for the rights to use the space. If Paxson and his partners are able to pull this off, they will make billions of dollars. When Paxson was charged with extorting a ransom in exchange for giving back what he never owned in the first place, he responded with a startling candor that made a mockery of broadcasters' claim to operating in the public interest: "We are entrepreneurs hoping to reward our shareholders who invested in our business of amassing spectrum."


As this column goes to press, Paxson, his fellow broadcasters, and Spectrum Exchange are trying to bring their auction concept to fruition. Meanwhile, the Bush administration's recently released budget proposed a delay of the next spectrum auction from September 2001 until as late as 2004. But given the political clout of the broadcaster lobby and the intense pressure on all sides to get spectrum space into the hands of the wireless-service providers, Paxson and his cronies look like they are holding all of the cards.

Senator McCain was ground zero for making Paxon a lot of money...and many other of Ms. Iserman's clients had similar financial interests on the line.

Discuss...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Ok, is the evidence McCain voted for bills

that helped Paxon get the auction he wanted? I'm at work, and can only read what's here, can't go to links.

[KharmaTrain]

2. Iseman Represented Paxon

Paxon also flew McCain around on his corporate jet and donated to his campaign. The sale of broadcast spectrum made a lot of money for Paxon and other Iseman clients...and McCain as head of the Senate Commerce Committee that oversaw the FCC was putting pressure on commissioners to move rulemaking along that benefitted Paxon. Other Iseman clients benefitted as well and TPMMukraker also reports how she flaunted her access to McCain.

The hope here is to neutralize the bullshit of McCain being some "Maverick"...and it also is to help explain to those who wonder how we "lost the media", how it was done...

Under the byzantine rules of the Senate, I'm sure we'll find that the games played here were legal...but were they ethical...and if McCain attempts to play sanctimonious, he should be called on it.

Cheers...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. Thanks for this information

There's a discussion about this affair on another board, and no one had any indication that McCain had done anything wrong. Conservatives on the board were asking for specifics of impropriety--you've given them to me!

[KharmaTrain]

4. Let Me Know How It Goes...

TPM Muckraker has more background and I know others are digging as well.

Cheers...

[ProgressiveEconomist]

7. You might also focus on the "highly unusual" (then FCC Chair) letters McCain

wrote to the FCC in 1999 on behalf of Iseman's client Paxson Communications. See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x2901467 .

In Wednesday morning's press conference, a reporter asked McCain about the letter, and McC said, "I thought it was appropriate." But the reporter evidently did not know enough to follow up with FCC Chain Kennard's reaction to the letter, or with suspiciously concentrated "contributions" from Paxson to McCain around the time McCain was carrying their water with the FCC.

Also, who was it who said McCain staff were not concerned in 2000 about the appearance of sexual impropriety with Iseman, so much as with how widely Iseman was touting her purported great influence over McCain? As if she had him twisted around her ....

[ProgressiveEconomist]

5. K&R(#4). Great post! Keep up the good work. It's my hope that the right-wing

pressure on the NY Times to deliver real documented dirt on McCain's corruption will get much of this knd of stuff into the mainstream media. "Mile-High Club" innuendo regarding Vicki Isemanmay prove to be a brilliant "tease" for selling the real story--McCain is and has been in bed with telcom lobbyists for many years, and has delivered what their clients wanted time after time after time.

[KharmaTrain]

6. Maybe This Could Scuttle The Telcom Immunity Circus

It exposes the "inside game" these companies have long played within the beltway and among the GOOP. With Renzi's indictment and others on the way (Doolittle) the corruption issue could once again be a big factor in the general election. Here's a chance to get this information out into the debate and let the chips fall where they may.

Cheers...

[Supersedeas]

8. just follow the $$ -- or let the shrill shills have the day

[lyonn]

9. And for the real story...... above set-out, It's not the sex stupid

The sex just gets the attention. It appears the real story is how phony McCain has been from the beginning. Using the sympathy of the U.S. for his years in captivity. Did the other POW's make a career out of the trauma that most pow's had to endure - - The entire war experience most Viet Nam vets had to deal with and now our troops in Iraq.

The greed that has been exhibited in the telcom, airwaves, FCC rules, etc., is disgusting. Our fire and police having to do without real ability to communicate to other emergency workers during disasters, and it appears over the fact that some corps don't feel the are getting their fare share of the PROFIT from the peons.