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McCain's Foes, Al Gore's Movie, Clinton, More... NewsMax.com Wires
Headlines (Scroll down for complete stories): 1. McCain Backed by Former Foes Two brothers who helped torpedo Sen. John McCain's 2000 run for president with a controversial TV ad campaign have now joined the McCain bandwagon and become financial backers of his likely 2008 bid. Texas billionaires Sam and Charles Wyly funded the ad campaign for a group called Republicans for Clean Air. In the pro-Bush ad, which ran in California, Ohio and New York during the heated 2000 GOP primary, McCain's face was superimposed on a backdrop of smokestacks belching dark clouds. A voice-over announced: "Last year, John McCain voted against solar and renewable energy. That means more use of coal-burning plants that pollute our air ... Republicans care about clean air. So does Governor Bush."
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Republicans for Clean Air (RCA) initially concealed its funding, using a loophole in the U.S. tax code, and the McCain campaign filed a complaint with the FCC about RCA's anonymity. Congress eventually passed legislation that in effect plugged the loophole. After the Wylys' role in bankrolling RCA became public, the Sierra Club issued a statement claiming that the brothers had given hundreds of thousands of dollars to "anti-environmental politicians who have voted to weaken the Clean Air Act." McCain referred to the brothers as "Wyly coyotes." But this year, Sam Wyly and his wife have given $10,000 to McCain's campaign. The couple, along with Charles Wyly, are also co-chairs of a May 15 fund-raiser in Dallas for McCain's political war chest. The three other co-chairs are Texas businessmen Rob Allyn, who helped fund RCA, Albert Huddleston and Harold Simmons, a Dallas billionaire who has strong backed Bush.
2. China Seeks Growing Influence in Africa China is forging closer economic ties with Africa to help slake its growing thirst for oil – while at the same time trying to downplay its quest for energy resources. After visiting the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Morocco, where one topic of discussion was oil and gas exploration, then headed for Nigeria, Africa's leading oil producer. On the agenda: Energy cooperation, including Chinese investment in one of Nigeria's unprofitable refineries and in other oil operations. On April 26, the day of Hu's arrival in Nigeria, the African country announced that it would offer China's state oil company four oil exploration licenses in exchange for a $4 billion investment in Nigeria's infrastructure. "China is using government-aid and infrastructure projects to woo big oil producers like Angola and Nigeria, where Western oil companies have the advantage of years of experience and better technology," the Wall Street Journal reports. "In the first two months of this year, Angola surpassed Saudi Arabia as the top oil exporter to China." On his African trip Hu also scheduled a visit to Kenya, where China is exploring for oil. African nations have welcomed China and other Asian countries as a counterbalance to dependency on the West. "The Nigerians see it as a point of leverage; they can play one off the other," Anthony Goldman, a London-based business-risk analyst, told the Journal. China is now the world's second-biggest consumer of oil after the U.S., with demand expected to reach nearly 7 million barrels a day this year – and eventually 12 million barrels a day, three times what it produces. But China's state-controlled media have played down the country's quest for new energy sources, reportedly to dampen U.S. suspicions that it is making a grab for oil. "China is trying to blur the intentions that we want oil from [Saudi Arabia and Nigeria], because it would raise too much unfriendly attention from the West," says Zhang Yao, a researcher at Shanghai Institute for International Studies. According to the Journal, Hu's trip highlights how China's need for oil and other commodities essential for its construction boom, such as copper, "could put it in competition with the U.S. for increasingly scarce resources around the world."
3. Anti-Bush Mag Touts Al Gore's Documentary Al Gore's documentary about global warming hasn't even been released yet, but the liberals at The New Yorker magazine are already calling it the "most important" film of the year – and using it as an opportunity to take a swipe at President Bush. The feature-length movie "An Inconvenient Truth" – set for release around Memorial Day – focuses on the former vice president's efforts to call attention to what he has called a "planetary emergency." As The New Yorker's Talk of the Town column puts it, it is "a documentary film about a possibly retired politician giving a slide show about the dangers of melting ice sheets and rising sea levels... "'An Inconvenient Truth' is not the most entertaining film of the year. But it might be the most important." The magazine then delves into attempts by both Bush presidents to discredit Gore's "admirable" position on global warming. The column cites George H.W. Bush's comment in the 1992 campaign that "this guy is so far out in the environmental extreme we'll be up to our necks in owls and outta work for every American." In 2000, George W. Bush remarked that Gore "likes electric cars. He just doesn't like making electricity." The New Yorker goes on to say that the younger Bush criticized Gore's 1992 book "Earth in the Balance" – then admitted he had never read it. "A book that the President did eventually read and endorse is a pulp science-fiction novel, 'State of Fear' by Michael Crichton," the magazine states. "Bush was so excited by the story, which pictures global warming as a hoax perpetrated by power-mad environmentalists, that he invited the author to the Oval Office." Despite rhapsodizing about how much better off the U.S. would be if Bush hadn't beat Gore "in the courts," The New Yorker isn't entirely complimentary to Gore, however. Writer David Remnick notes: "Those inclined to be irritated by Gore all over again will not be entirely disappointed by 'An Inconvenient Truth' ... There are some awkward jokes, a silly cartoon, a few self-regarding sequences, and, now and then, echoes of the cringe-making moments in his old campaign speeches when personal tragedy was put to questionable use."
4. Investors Fleeing GOP Investors at all income levels are increasingly turning away from the Republican Party, endangering the GOP's hold on power. According to pollsters, 35 percent of voters belong to the "investor class," which includes not only wealthy individuals but also union members, mutual fund holders and a growing number of minority-group Americans. They comprise a group that helped put Republicans in power "but now seems restless," Business Week reports. President Bush got the votes of 61 percent of investors in 2004, but now only 43 percent give him a favorable job approval rating, according to a recent Zogby International poll. "Investors' complaints include the administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina and the Dubai Ports deal, the management of the Iraq war, the $8.2 trillion national debt, soaring gasoline prices and immigration policy," according to Business Week. Even Wall Street appears to be turning away from the GOP. As NewsMax has reported, last year Democrats beat Republicans in raising political donations from the financial industry, the first time the party outdid Republicans since 1994. Investors' dissatisfaction could result in defections from the GOP in numbers sufficient to have a seriously detrimental effect on Republican candidates in the 2006 midterm elections. But while investors appear alienated from the GOP, they remain skeptical that Democrats would do any better on economic issues, Business Week notes. Bruce Bagley, a small-business owner in California, told the magazine that if Democrats were to take over Congress, investors would have a "bull's-eye" on their back.
5. Bill Clinton's Encounter with a Porn Star Bill Clinton was about to hit his second shot on the fifth hole at the Las Vegas Country Club when his swing was interrupted by an X-rated film star. Porn performer Sophia Rossi, whose backyard is just off the edge of the fifth fairway, was tossing a birthday party for her 5-year-old daughter on April 22, and Rossi's manager Bobby McKelvey had set up an 18-inch rocket to help the youngster celebrate.
Just before the rocket could be launched, two Secret Service agents accompanying the former president ran toward Rossi's yard, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. "Sir, do not fire that rocket," an agent warned McKelvey as three more agents came out from behind trees. "We cannot have you shooting rockets at President Clinton," an agent said. Clinton was about 50 to 75 yards away at the time. Rossi, one of the stars of porn legend Jenna Jameson's Club Jenna lineup, said: "I'm just disappointed I didn't get a photo with him." McKelvey told the Review-Journal: "If we'd known it was Bill Clinton, we would have invited him to the party." Editor's Notes:
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