Gee, let's see what McHypocrite and his crew are up to now?  Good old Sid hasn't met a criminal fundraiser he doesn't like.

From Nico Pitney at Huffington Post: "The co-host of a recent top-dollar fundraiser for Sen. John McCain oversaw the payment of roughly $1.7 million to a Colombian paramilitary group that is today designated a terrorist organization by the United States.

"Carl H. Lindner Jr., the billionaire Cincinnati businessman, was CEO of Chiquita Brands International from 1984 to 2001, and remained on the company's board of directors until May 2002. Beginning under his tenure, Chiquita executives paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (known by the Spanish acronym AUC), which is described by George Washington University's National Security Archive as an "illegal right-wing anti-guerrilla group tied to many of the country's most notorious civilian massacres."

"Following a Justice Department indictment last year, Chiquita admitted to illegally funding the paramilitaries and agreed to pay a $25 million fine. Chiquita's payments to the AUC began in 1997 and lasted seven years; roughly half of the funds came after the group was designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. State Department in 2001.

According to the Justice Department, the payments 'were reviewed and approved by senior executives" of Chiquita, who knew by no later than September 2000 "that the AUC was a violent, paramilitary organization.'

"Late last week, Lindner co-hosted a $25,000-per-person fundraiser for McCain and the Republican Party in the wealthy Indian Hills neighborhood of Cincinnati, Ohio. The event raised about $2 million; Lindner also serves on McCain's Ohio Victory Team.

"While Lindner was CEO of Chiquita, the company began sending money to the AUC through its shipping subsidiary Banadex. A report by the Organization of American States states that Banadex also engaged in arms trafficking, helping to deliver 3,000 Nicaraguan AK-47 rifles and millions of rounds of ammunition to the AUC in 2001. According to federal prosecutors, when company officials realized the arrangement was illegal, they switched to making the payments in cash.

"Chiquita's funding of violent paramilitaries does not end with the right-wing AUC. The fruit giant "had been making similar payments to the leftist FARC and ELN guerrillas" since 1989, also on Lindner's watch. Those payments ended in 1997 as "control of the company's banana-growing area shifted" to the AUC, according to the Associated Press.

"However, in the past, McCain has done favors on Lindner's behalf. Last May, the Washington Post reported that in the late 1990s, McCain "promoted a deal in Arizona's Tonto National Forest involving property part-owned by Great American Life Insurance, a company run by billionaire Carl H. Lindner Jr., a prolific contributor to national political parties and presidential candidates."

"Moreover, McCain's chief political adviser, Charlie Black, lobbied for Chiquita on two separate occasions in 2001. According to records, Black was paid $80,000 to work on foreign trade issues.

"Black, as the Huffington Post reported on Tuesday, has represented other controversial clients with operations in Colombia. From 2001 through 2007, his work brought his firm more than $1.6 million in lobbying fees from Occidental Petroleum, a company whose security arm was accused of bombing a Colombian village and killing 17 civilians in 1998."

Meanwhile, speak of the devil, J. Sid McSame is down in Colombia hobnobbing with those entities with whom some of his lobbyists/campaign personnel have had lucrative lobbying ties and acquaintance.

As Sam Stein reported: "It is a trip that comes with a share of political risk. While the Arizona Republican is hoping to showcase his command of the world stage, his venture south of the border raises concerns from those opposed to his trade policies. Already, his position as an independent arbitrator on Colombia - a country often criticized for its labor and human rights practices - is undermined by a bevy of advisers who have earned large amounts either lobbying for the Colombia Free Trade Agreement, or representing corporations that do business with that country.

"On some occasions, these companies have been linked to the killings of union workers and other civilians, sometimes in collusion with Colombia's government or allied paramilitary groups."

Leave it to J. Sid McBush to surround himself with those who mirror his values: unethical, immoral and greedy.

He's in Colombia trying to promote a trade agreement that is neither free nor fair and realistically described by another member of Congress: 'Many Democrats, including presidential candidates Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, oppose the Colombia free trade agreement because they say the government still has not done enough to stop murders of trade unionists and jail their killers.'

" 'President Bush just doesn't get it. Our so-called 'courageous ally in South America' is home to the worst violence against union members in the entire world,' Rep. Phil Hare, an Illinois Democrat, said in a statement.

"Thirty-nine trade unionists were murdered in 2007, and another 10 to date in 2008. Of the more than 2,500 murders of trade unionists since 1986, only 80 cases -- around 3 percent -- have resulted in convictions." 

J. Sid never lets pesky facts get in the way of his support and cheerleading for greedy, and in many cases murderous, right wing corporate profit making from the Colombia Trade Pact that is unfair and inequitable for workers and the environment in the US and Colombia.