How come all the cool YouTube grassroots political activity is coming from our side alone?

Calling it a "precautionary effort," John McCain's campaign said yesterday:

...that it would return all the contributions solicited for it by the Jordanian business partner of a prominent Florida fund-raiser for Mr. McCain.

For the McCain camp, the decision caps a queasy two days in which news accounts scrutinized a cluster of more than $50,000 in unusual contributions from a single extended family of Californians, the Abdullahs, and several of their friends.  [...]

The donations came under scrutiny because of their large size and the fact that for the most part, the Abdullahs do not appear wealthy. In addition, several of them interviewed expressed indifference or even hostility to Mr. McCain’s candidacy.

All this taken together has raised the question of whether at least some of the family and their friends may have been donors in name only who were reimbursed by someone trying to skirt individual contribution limits.

It raised the question? It seems pretty clear that there is no question about the fact that a $9,200 donation from a Taco Bell manager, or another $9,200 from a man who, after first denying the donation, said of McCain:

He’s like a worse copy than Bush. I’m still not going to vote for him."

...does more than raise a question. And while the McCain campaign is still feeling queasy, perhaps they could look at the donation from the Hess Corporation office manager who decided to hang onto her 15 year old car so she could give McCain $57,000.

Update by SusanG: Marc Ambinder asks his own very interesting question about these donations:

If there were a group of questionable donations all with the name Abdullah
that were funneled through a guy in Jordan
who is a Jordanian national
who is under investigation for war profiteering
and it were Barack Obama
instead of John McCain
would this be a bigger deal?

Second update by SusanG: And another great question posed by our own Zackpunk:

So wait a minute

Does that mean this Taco Bell manager gets to keep the money being "returned" to him?

Wouldn't that be a hoot?

July started out incredibly badly for Darcy Burner and her family. While the family is still dealing with the loss of pretty much everything they owned, Darcy's future remains as bright as ever. That's in large part thanks to the netroots, who stepped up to help make sure that her campaign could go on in the face of her family's catastrophe.

Saying that we stepped up is putting it mildly:

Burner's campaign has just turned in their pre-primary filing with the FEC, and she's reporting to have raised nearly $351,000 in the month of July, ending the period with close to $1.5 million in the bank. Those are monstrous numbers, especially when you consider that only $18,000 of her total came from PACs.

Reichert's numbers are in, too, and and it doesn't look good for the incumbent. His July take, was just $115K.

Here's the breakdown in their reports for July and for the election cycle to date.

Total for July:
Burner: $350,897.68
Reichert: $115,474.88

From Individuals:
Burner: $329,022.30
Reichert: $49,159.88

Small Individual Donations:
Burner: $186,832.07
Reichert: $8,544.00

Total for Cycle from Individuals:
Burner: $1,995,109.43 (85%)
Reichert: $1,084,379.23 (58%)

PACs for July:
Burner: $18,100.00
Reichert: $62,250.00

Total for Cycle from PACs:
Burner: $296,859.24 (13%)
Reichert: $570,645.46 (31%)

Total for Cycle:
Burner: $2,337,372.67
Reichert: $1,866,086.08

Refunded in Cycle:
Burner: $6,550.01
Reichert: $56,970.00

Cash on Hand:
Burner: $1,476,757.53
Reichert: $928,113.96

It doesn't really get better than that. The difference between a people-powered progressive campaign and that of an establishment Republican really couldn't be made more clear. Also note that Burner's ActBlue numbers are at $416,118, or just under the difference in cash on hand. One of the reasons Darcy gets so much support is because, even though she's not in Congress yet, she's already a leader.

And she'll be talking about one of her projects, the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, today on Meet the Bloggers (http://meetthebloggers.org/ [link corrected]) at 1:00 EDT. Her appearance will be followed by a roundtable discussion on Iraq by David Goldstein, Matt Stoller, and me. You can stream the show live and participate through the comment thread, or you can view an archive after it's posted.

(From the diaries. SusanG)

Amy Silverman knows her subject. She writes,

I've been a writer and editor at [the Phoenix] New Times for 15 years. For much of that time, I wrote about Arizona politics, which is to say that I wrote about John McCain. It's still odd to see the guy in the spotlight, because for quite a while, I was pretty much the only one covering him. I never did fall for him in the way reporters fall for politicians, probably because he wasn't much to fall for back in the early 1990s. In those days, McCain was still rehabilitating the image he'd later sell to the national media. He was known then for cavorting in the Bahamas with Charlie Keating, rather than for fighting for campaign finance reform and limited government spending.

Silverman has written an excellent compendium of all things McCain. Think of it as McCain 101 -- a primer for pulling information about Grumpy McBush to dazzle your friends and befuddle your enemies (not to mention phone banking and such). I'll share some material from the story below the fold, but you should definitely read the entire thing. It's a big one; pack a lunch.

(Note: AxmxZ did a much shorter diary on this article yesterday, though I didn't see it until after writing my own. He deserves some recognition.)

Let's do it in timeline format, kinda like we do it at the History Commons:.

1982: McCain, recently remarried to Arizona beer heiress Cindy Hensley, moves to Phoenix and wins a seat in the US House. He quickly forges a relationship with the Democratic House eminence from Tucson, Mo Udall, who although a strong progressive, has always welcomed the opportunity to work with Republicans.

1982-88: McCain takes over $100,000 in contributions from our well-remembered buddy from Lincoln S&L, Charles Keating, and his employees. McCain and Keating are very close, with McCain frequently joining Keating on outings to the Bahamas, on Keating's dime. Keating also has what Silverman calls a "business relationship" with Jim Hensley, Cindy Hensley's father, and with Cindy as well.

1986: During McCain's race for the Senate, Arizona Democrats ask the Udall staffers not to allow McCain to cling too closely to Udall, worrying that McCain is using Udall as a campaign tool. Udall aide Bob Neuman later says he tries to be subtle, but when McCain figures out what Neuman wants, he bawls Neuman out using words the aide refuses to repeat. Neuman later says McCain was so extreme in his reaction that, as Silverman writes, he thought "there was something really wrong with the guy." McCain is running for Barry Goldwater's seat, with Goldwater's endorsement. But after the Keating scandal, Goldwater loses much of his respect for McCain, and, Silverman writes, "soon found he had to stop McCain from using his good name."

1986: McCain jokes to an audience from the National League of Cities and Towns, asking if they've heard "the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly, and left to die?" The punch line: "When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, 'Where is that marvelous ape?'" Neuman later says, "John McCain is the Eddie Haskell of politics. You can attribute that to me, and he'll kill me for it."

1987-1988: McCain battles against campaign finance reform, in part on behalf of his pal Keating.

April 12, 1988: Governor Evan Mecham (R-Lunatic) has just been impeached, and Democrat Rose Mofford, the Secretary of State, takes over the position. Mofford, a kindly lady with an astonishing snow-white beehive bouffant, is as non-partisan as one can be and still belong to a political party, gracious and well-liked by just about everyone in the state government. But not by McCain and some of his buds. (Disclaimer: Mrs. Max, who describes herself as either a Goldwater Republican or a Reagan Democrat depending on the day of the week, knows Mofford, and likes her tremendously.) McCain and his pals want to eject Mofford using the same recall process that was launched to yank Mecham. Eight days into her tenure, Mofford goes to DC to take part in what one aide later calls the "perfunctory wet kiss" meeting with the Arizona congressional delegation. The meeting is strictly ceremonial, or so most people think. Mofford is quite conversant with her duties as secretary of state, primarily the elections department. She doesn't know a great deal about the Central Arizona Project (CAP) or the technical details of water provision in that dry state. And in eight days, she hasn't been able to learn a hell of a lot. She speaks before the Senate Energy and Water Subcommittee on Appropriations about CAP. McCain is not a member of that committee, but his Republican buddy from Idaho, James McClure, is. McClure asks Mofford, in Silverman's words,

a series of questions that would leave any water expert's mouth dry. Her staff jumped in to try to answer, but even so, ultimately they had to file an addendum to the testimony.

Sandbagged. The publisher of the Arizona Republic, Pat Murphy, who considers himself a friend of McCain's, is "crushed" by the incident. It is, Silverman writes, "the beginning of the end of his respect for and friendship with McCain." During lunch, a "mischievously glee[ful]" McCain brags about his setup of Mofford. As Murphy recalls, "he had slipped some highly technical questions to [McClure] to ask Mofford--questions she wouldn't be prepared to answer or expected to answer. Flabbergasted, I asked McCain why would he want to sabotage Mofford's testimony, when in fact the CAP was the nonpartisan pet of Republicans and Democrats--such as far-left Udall and far-right Goldwater--since its inception. His reply, as near as I remember, was, 'I'll embarrass a Democrat any time I get the chance.'" Murphy accompanies McCain back to his office, where reporters ask about a rumor that McCain had tried to sabotage Mofford's testimony. Murphy is floored to hear him answer, in classic straight-talk fashion, "I'd never do anything like that." Murphy later learns that McCain had even brought in a private film crew to film the testimony for use in embarrassing Moffatt in the recall election. The Arizona Supreme Court strikes down the recall effort, so McCain's gamesmanship did little except destroy his friendship with Murphy and embitter Mofford. While she doesn't talk much about the McCains, having known Cindy since she was little, she will tell Silverman, the CAP hearing, "hurt me more than anything ... to be set up like that." She also says that McCain is "certainly no Barry Goldwater or Mo Udall."

Late 1980s: McCain hosts an event ostensibly to honor Goldwater, but in reality to raise funds for his Senate campaign. Goldwater initially refuses to participate and tells McCain to give half of the proceeds to the Arizona Republican Party. McCain retools the event to honor Reagan instead. Goldwater does speak at the event, but later writes to McCain, "You will recall during my speech at the dinner for the president in Phoenix, I announced that you were going to give half of the funds you raised to the State Republican Party. I am told by the Party, that you still owe them $35,000, and unless you pay all of it, or most of it, they cannot meet their payroll next Wednesday." McCain will continue to use Goldwater, a legend in Arizona politics, as well as Udall as a campaign touchstone for himself.

1990: Facing criticism over his relationship with Keating and an upcoming re-election battle, McCain flip-flops and becomes a proponent of campaign finance reform and reducing government spending. Silverman calls McCain's efforts "a farce. McCain famously sponsored a law designed to control special interests' grip on Washington, but at the same time, he took money from those interests." She adds details and links that I won't go into here, but her summation of his efforts: "sadly cosmetic." What he has done is take such a shrill stance against certain types of earmarks--pork, in the vernacular--that Arizona has lost out on federal funding for, among other worthy projects, a program at a Scottsdale hospital that trains military medical personnel in trauma care. Some of that training has been used in Iraq and Afghanistan, for those who were lucky enough to receive it before the program lost much of its funding. Silverman notes:

Arizona's political forefathers--Mo Udall, Barry Goldwater, Carl Hayden — pushed through one of the biggest pork barrel projects in the history of the United States Congress: the Central Arizona [Water] Project. If they hadn't, there wouldn't be much of a state to represent. As a native Arizonan, those are the politicians I grew up learning about. McCain just doesn't compare.

1991 and After: When Udall leaves Congress, McCain, who had voted with Udall on some environmental issues, quits supporting those issues, and begins to rack up low marks from environmental groups. One of his most recent is a zero from the League of Conservation Voters. He has refused to oppose efforts to mine uranium from sites perilously near the Grand Canyon, and refuses to support proposed changes to the Mining Act of 1872, oblivious to the fact that Arizona is a testament to the environmental degradation that comes with strip mining and other practices. He is well remembered for threatening the job of a Forest Service official who disagreed with him on the topic of the endangered Mount Graham red squirrel. However, in campaign appearances, McCain regularly invokes the name and environmental passion of Udall. In April 2008, Newsweek writes, "He traces his environmental awareness to the sainted Rep. Mo Udall, an Arizona Democrat who took McCain as a young congressman under his tutelage ... To environmentalists, that's like saying you learned about civil rights by driving around Alabama with Martin Luther King Jr." It's doubtful that Newsweek bothered to find much on the other side of the story.

Spring 1994: Silverman begins hearing rumors of Cindy McCain's addiction to prescription drugs. She learns of Tom Gosinski, who had been fired from his position as director of government and international affairs for Cindy McCain's nonprofit charity, the American Voluntary Medical Team (AVMT), which provides medical relief to poor countries. Gosinski had gone to the DEA and told them that Cindy McCain was using an AVMT doctor to illegally prescribe her drugs in her employees' names. Gosinski was one of those employees, and he was worried that he might be culpable. Cindy McCain had had numerous prescriptions written for her, some with as many as 500 pills on a single refill. Dr. John Max Johnson, her AVMT drug connection, told the DEA that she kept them in her personal luggage. Gosinski had not just ratted her out, but filed a wrongful-termination suit against the charity. That alerted John McCain's lawyer, John Dowd, to the situation. Dowd charged Gosinski with extortion. The extortion investigation produded public records that Silverman finds and uses for her reporting. But the McCains learn of her records request, and try to inoculate themselves against her reports, acknowledging Cindy's prescription drug addictions and blaming it on her back surgeries and the stress from the Keating scandal. They also claim, falsely, that Gosinski is trying to blackmail them. In her September 8, 1994 story, Silverman prints the following excerpt from Gosinski's personal journal, an entry from July 1992: "I have always wondered why John McCain has done nothing to fix the problem. He must either not see that a problem exists or does not choose to do anything about it. It would seem that it would be in everyone's best interest to come to terms with the situation. And do whatever is necessary to fix it. There is so much at risk ... During my short tenure at AVMT, I have been surrounded by what on the surface appears to be the ultimate all-American family. In reality, I am working for a very sad, lonely woman whose marriage of convenience to a U.S. Senator has driven her to: distance herself from friends; cover feelings of despair with drugs; and replace lonely moments with self-indulgences." Cindy avoids criminal charges by going into a drug rehab program.

1997: McCain is a frequent and steady visitor to Mo Udall, who is slowly dying of Parkinson's disease. Neuman is pleased with McCain's loyalty, but he is stunned when McCain brings reporter Michael Lewis with him to Udall's hospital bedside. (McCain is unable to wake Udall during the visit. Udall will die in 1998.) Neuman later recalls, "That was devastating to me, that he brought in a reporter. I thought that was crossing the line, and it destroyed me." Silverman writes, "I'm sure I would have accepted the offer to go the hospital, as well. I can't blame Lewis, but maybe the sight of the legendary Mo Udall in his final, sad days wasn't McCain's to share."

2000: As the presidential primaries heat up, Silverman flies to Washington to be interviewed by 20/20's Sam Donaldson on McCain. After the interview, Donaldson decides he doesn't want to report anything negative about McCain, and cans the interview. The same thing happens when she helps put together background research for 60 Minutes, when Mike Wallace decides he wants to do a positive story on McCain.

Whee doggies. And there's plenty more in the article: this is just the highlights. Even better, there are links to other New Times stories on McCain. So get to reading, and share the wealth.

Update: Amy Silverman writes in that an entire compendium of New Times links to stories about John McCain can be found on the Vintage McCain page on the newspaper's web site.

So four members of the US Olympic cycling team arrived in China, wearing face masks issued by the US Olympic Committee to protect against the city's oppressive pollution. Given their dependence on healthy lungs, it seems only logical they would protect themselves.

But it offended the Chinese. And the USOC leapt into full damage control mode, doing the Chinese's dirty propaganda work for them.

The USOC was sorry -- so very sorry -- that its band of cyclists embarrassed China by arriving at the Beijing airport wearing black pollution masks that made them look like stage-coach robbers.

"It wasn't the best judgment," said Jim Scherr, CEO of the USOC. "The athletes understand that now."

You can understand the athletes' confusion, though. The USOC did design the filter masks, distribute 200 of them to athletes and, by simple math, surely knew a few of them might wear them. Just not at the airport, in front of cameras.

The USOC made sure the cyclists understood this breach of guest etiquette by scolding them to tears, eliciting an official apology from Michael Friedman, Sarah Hammer, Bobby Lea and Jennie Reed: "Following our arrival on Tuesday, we offer our sincere apologies to BOCOG, the city of Beijing, and the people of China if our actions were in any way offensive. That was not our intent. ... We deeply regret the nature of our choices. Our decision was not intended to insult BOCOG or countless others who have put forth a tremendous amount of effort to improve the air quality in Beijing."

Beijing is a horrifically polluted city. Anyone with eyes (and a camera, as the picture on the right shows) can see that. Or satellite imagery.

As it gears up to host the 2008 Olympic Games Beijing has been awarded an unwelcome new accolade: the air pollution capital of the world.

Satellite data has revealed that the city is one of the worst environmental victims of China's spectacular economic growth, which has brought with it air pollution levels that are blamed for more than 400,000 premature deaths a year.

According to the European Space Agency, Beijing and its neighbouring north-east Chinese provinces have the planet's worst levels of nitrogen dioxide, which can cause fatal damage to the lungs.

For athletes that depend on a healthy respiratory system to be at their peak best, protecting their lungs from toxins that can "cause fatal damage to the lungs" would seem kind of important. Especially since in the course of training and competition, they'll be breathing more of it than the average mortal.

Still, Alfred Munzer, MD, director of pulmonary medicine at Washington Adventist Hospital and former president of the American Lung Association, says that shutting down factories and enforcing driving bans won't eliminate what's already in the air.

"During exercise, the movement of air in the lungs goes up about tenfold, which means exposure to air pollution goes up tenfold," Munzer says. "This has a severe affect on the respiratory tract. It will have an effect on healthy athletes."

But in the Orwellian world of Communist China, it leads to crazy passages as this one from the AFP report on the controversy:

The perception that Beijing's pollution, which prompted a shutdown of factories and reduction in auto travel during the Olympics, was so harmful that Olympians needed masks on arrival was seen as a slap in the face to organizers.

The "perception"? PERCEPTION?

Chris over at the cycling blog Podium Cafe vents:

Granted, if Mike Friedman, Bobby Lea, Sarah Hammer and Jennie Reed put the masks on for the cameras and made stump speeches about the environment, that'd be one thing. Instead, they were among the 200 athletes given the masks by the USOC. And if the Beijing hosts are touchy about pollution, they're in for a stiff dose of culture shock, in the form of media coverage that -- while far, far from perfect -- isn't going to swallow the up-is-down, day-is-night style of reporting the Chinese government typically demands. Seriously, "perception of pollution problems"... is this an Onion piece?

The Chinese have promised to give the international media free access to their country for the duration of the Olympics. If they're freaking out over this incident, it's going to be a long few weeks for them.

Eighty-eight days from now, we will be having ourselves a historic election.

David Brooks: Today I'm pretending to be a pseudo-intellectual and a poseur. Now, I know what you're thinking... that's what I get paid to do twice a week. But I thought I'd be explicit about it lest the technophiles get presumptuous ideas about where they fit in the social hierarchy.

Michael Gerson: You people just don't get it. George Bush, my former boss proved every day that if you just talk nonsense and avoid reality, the press won't pay attention to facts. Watch a master manipulator at work: Obama's maintaining his lead and that's good for McCain. See? All the Beltway heathers are asking why Obama's not ahead by more. If that doesn't drive home the point about how easily the press is manipulated, I don't know what does. Now don't ask why McCain is behind and can't ever catch up. That's a good reporter. Here's some BBQ.

Daniel Henninger: Obama and the Democrats are enviromaniacs, who along with Asylum Chief Al Gore are willing to forgo economic growth in favor of an untried and untested transformation of the American economy. They're bashing Big Oil when in reality it should be called Smart Oil, the only people with the knowledge and experience to produce energy on a world scale. And yes, I am writing this with a straight face.

Charles Krauthammer: Drill, drill, drill, drill, drill, drill.

Paul Krugman: When it comes to energy policy, Republicans really are the party of stupid.

In any case, remember this the next time someone calls for an end to partisanship, for working together to solve the country’s problems. It’s not going to happen — not as long as one of America’s two great parties believes that when it comes to politics, stupidity is the best policy.

Joe Conason: Let me take that one step further.

Touring America's oilrigs and nuclear plants, John McCain sometimes sounds as if he'll produce enough wind to power the nation all by himself. So strongly does his current rhetoric smell of methane -- the gas emanating from manure -- that he might even qualify for an alternative energy tax incentive.

Greg Hitt: The Democrats' new Southern strategy: run good candidates, and win. Even if they might be less progressive than Democrats elsewhere, they'll be responsible for a working majority in Congress.

Mark Blumenthal: More about 'likely' voters than you really want to know. Still, it's a good thing Alan Abramowitz looked into it. Otherwise, Gallup would have given us the impression young voters don't count.

Democracy Corps:

The most recent national survey of young voters conducted by Democracy Corps and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner finds that the last six weeks have not dulled young people’s support for Barack Obama, despite the inauguration of a Republican attack machine. The new research finds the same convincing margin (27 points) as last month.

At Mother Jones, Justin Elliott writes:

^{Don't Know Much About History}

In the summer of 2002, the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA) published an 85-page monograph called "Military Advantage in History." Unusual for an office that is headed by Andrew Marshall, the Pentagon's "futurist in chief," the study looks back to the past—way back. It examines four empires, or "pivotal hegemonic powers in history," to draw lessons about how the United States "should think about maintaining military advantage in the 21st century." Though unclassified, the study was held close to the vest; a stamp on the cover limits its dissemination without permission. Mother Jones obtained it only through a Freedom of Information Act request. Though the report is far from revelatory, it provides a window into a mindset that unselfconsciously envisions the United States as the successor to some of history's most powerful empires.

The study looks a little like a high school text book, devoting chapters to Alexander the Great, Imperial Rome, Genghis Khan, and Napoleonic France and citing texts by Sun Tzu, Livy, and Jared Diamond. It attempts to break down exactly how historic empires sustained their military might across continents and even centuries. The study posits that the historical examples offer "insights into what drives U.S. military advantage," as well as "where U.S. vulnerabilities may lie, and how the United States should think about maintaining its military advantage in the future." ...

Most striking is how the study conceives of the United States in imperial terms. "You'll see some neoconservatives at the beginning of the Bush administration crowing that 'we do have an empire, let's just come out of the closet and say we do,'" said Ivan Eland, the author of a book on America's "informal empire" and the director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at the Independent Institute, on hearing a description of the study. "But the administration never did that because empire doesn't sell well with the public." After reviewing the study at Mother Jones' request, William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation, said he was struck by its "arrogance and immorality." "The presumption that the United States should rule the world, sword at the ready, for the foreseeable future is an unacceptable basis for a just, even-handed foreign policy."

Elliott goes on to point out that it isn't just objectionable ideology to be found in the monograph, but factual inaccuracy as well. Given a chance to review the section on the transformation of the Roman Army over a period of 1000 years, Lee Brice of Western Illinois University, who is the president of the Society of Ancient Military Historians, described it as "so completely incorrect as to be useless."

The entire study, Brice said, is afflicted with "an intense, myopic habit of wanting to make the ancient world fit into modern stereotypes," something that might be expected in "much lower-undergraduate-level work."

It's become habitual over the past nearly eight years to tie such work to the machinations of the Cheney-Bush administration, but imperial thinking is no newcomer to American politics, nor the project of a single administration or two. In this case the idea for the study arose in 1999. Its five authors, employees of federal intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, wrote it for the Information Assurance Technology Analysis Center - a Department of Defense operation that their company has run since 1998. Elliott notes that the Carlyle Group announced in May that it will be taking over Booz Allen's government services operation.

Just as the transformation of the United States from great power to American Empire was not done on the watch of a single administration, it will not be dismantled by a single one. Just getting started on such a project will require a commitment to actually want to dismantle and the political clout to move in that direction.

Gargantuan forces - including a deeply instilled belief among most Americans that the U.S. has no empire - form a strong counterweight to any such moves. One of the strongest of those forces is the election-killing theme that any leaders who try to reduce the imperial footprint - though they do not describe it as such - are "weak on defense." Overcoming that obfuscation, then, has to be the first step.

+ + +

^{The Overnight News Digest is posted..}

Who knew, Democratic voters don't want to send a bigoted, union-busting lawyer to Congress. Nikki Tinker was trounced today in the Democratic primary in TN-09. With 89% of precincts reporting, incumbent Steve Cohen leads Tinker 79% to 19%.

It's a humiliation not just for the vile Tinker but also for those who endorsed her, especially EMILY's List and the DLC's Harold Ford, Jr. Her scurrilous, racist, anti-semitic attacks on the widely admired Cohen were so repulsive that in the last days before the primary EMILY's List felt obliged to renounce them. And so did her former employer, Harold Ford, though only a few hours before the polls closed. The humiliation for Tinker and her backers was not just the repudiation of her and her tactics that Tennessee voters delivered today. The deeper humiliation was the kind of campaign she ran, and the willingness of her backers to look the other way for so long. They've all lost face from this campaign.

Steve Cohen, on the other hand, deserves plaudits for rising above the muck and triumphing.

Tonight's Rescue Rangers are jlms qkw, jennyjem, HansScholl, dadanation (pulling double duty), and ItsJessMe, with shayera editing.

• iampunha uses August 6, 1965: a birthright recognized to remind us of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and how it may be imperiled today. (jlms qkw)
• Chris Rodda explores the growing influence of fundamentalist Christianity in the U.S. military and the the consequences for national security in Attention All "Evil-Doers"... This Really is a Religious War! (HansScholl)
• A Siegel reports that Rep. Earl Blumenauer has come up with a new buzz-word to describe the Republican solution to high fuel prices - Drillusion. (jennyjem)
• distraught makes clear why the U.S. needs National AIDS Strategy [Update 2: CDC stats & concurrent sex]. A very timely offering given the opening of the International Conference on AIDS in Mexico City this week. (dadanation)
• Something the Dog Said reminds us that even though we can lose, we should not lose ourselves in the process, and asks Do Dems Have PTSD? (ItsJessMe)
• Brown Man ATL examines race and how the notion of the American identity has changed in Obama and Racial Ambiguity: Acting White. (HansScholl)
• VirginiaDem digs up some instances where John McCain was MIA in McCain missed key energy votes that failed by a vote. (jennyjem)
• davidwalters educates the Kos community on Spent Nuclear Fuel (SNF) in The Dreaded Nuclear Waste Diary! (ItsJessMe)
• LtdEdishn shares the experience of running for local office with an eye to the expense involved in Low Budget Campaigns... (jennyjem)
• NCrissieB offers a very thought-provoking essay in Racism, sexism, organization, and the politics of mass distraction and suggests how Democrats can win in the upcoming election if they maintain the right focus and discipline. (dadanation)

jotter brings yesterday's High Impact Diaries: August 6, 2008.

va dare brings Top Comments 8.7.08 va dare goes to DC and MD.

Enjoy and please promote your own favorite diaries in this open thread.

So we already discussed how McCain's bus got in a wreck (with a _blue_ van, no less). We know that Joe Lieberman was in the bus. Here's more about what happened inside the bus:

A little more to that Miami traffic accident yesterday involving Joe Lieberman aboard the Straight Talk Express: Turns out the impact sent a staffer's chocolate birthday cake with thick white frosting smack into the Connecticut senator

"At the moment of impact I was sitting in a booth ... right in front of counter right where the cake was. The cake went all over me. That was the end of my suit,'' he said, apologizing for the lack of suit for a taping of "Political Connections" on Bay News 9. "I always wondered whether sometime a political protester would hit me with a pie in the face. I never thought a friendly birthday cake would attack me from the rear."

One could spend a lifetime mining metaphors from this one incident alone.

Surprising precisely no one, the "administration" today moved to appeal the recent federal court ruling ordering Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten to appear before the House Judiciary Committee in response to their subpoenas.

AP:

Planning appeals, two senior White House advisers asked a judge Thursday to delay enforcement of his ruling that they have to testify before Congress.

White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and former White House counsel Harriet Miers petitioned U.S. District Judge John Bates to place a hold on his ruling allowing White House aides to be subpoenaed by Congress.

Bates on July 31 rejected White House arguments that presidential confidants are protected from congressional subpoenas by executive privilege, giving free rein to Democrats who have been trying to get President Bush's aides to testify on the dismissal of nine federal prosecutors.

Obviously there's a good chance that this move runs out the clock on the issue, if the stay is granted. There's some indication from Bates' July 31st opinion that he's sensitive to the fact that the short time window a Congress has to enforce its subpoena power (House subpoenas expire with the adjournment of Congress at the end of its two-year term) has to be factored into the equation, but there's clearly no guarantee that Bates would deny the White House motion.

Without a stay in place, the Judiciary Committee would be looking to resume hearings with Miers and Bolten as witnesses in September, when the Congress returns from its August recess. Still unclear is exactly what happens if Miers and Bolten continue to refuse to appear even in the absence of a stay, or what recourse (if any) the House would have should they agree to appear, but decline to answer any questions on the grounds they originally claimed exempted them from having to show up -- that is, executive privilege.

Also still floating around out there somewhere: inherent contempt. Judge Bates did his best to discourage its use, preferring the use of the courts to settle these issues, if necessary. But a stay, should it be granted, would create incredible pressure on the Congress to resort to the very limited additional options open to it to enforce their rights before the issues were mooted by the end of its term.

Meanwhile, it's back to the waiting game for the House, now eyeing the close of the 110th Congress, the most important thing about winning the majority in which was supposed to be... "subpoena power."

So did you hear the one about how the House Republicans are using the latest online tools to spread the word about their hippie sit-in?

Yeah, Twitter, Qik streaming video, YouTube, all that crap.

And a whole bunch of Republican Members left their mom's basements and their Cheetos behind, put on their suits, and came out to play Model Congress again this week. Because, well, they don't actually have any other jobs.

So there they were, busting their humps for their Sugar Daddies in the oil biz, but noticeably absent from the barricades was Republican Leader, Melanin Johnny Boehner.

Where was Boehner while his troops were Tweeting, streaming, blogging, IMing, and uploading?

Why, he was on the links, of course!

No, not the hyperlinks. The golf links.

Boehner was around for the start of the fake House session Friday but then left town and hasn't been back since. Even former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) showed up today to rally with his GOP comrades, but the current party leader was nowhere to be seen.

What's Boehner been up to? His office says he's been in Ohio raising money for his political action committee, the Freedom Project, and that he should be back in D.C. later this week. He's also doing 18 events in August for GOP candidates across the country.

But Boehner also has found time to squeeze in a couple rounds of golf. Scores reported by Boehner himself to a United States Golf Association site show that he posted an 85 sometime this week at his home course, Wetherington Golf & Country Club in West Chester, Ohio.

Ah, the marvels of the modern online life! (Good thing he has nothing to hide, eh?)

"Thks 4 ur support boss! Hope ur b-lo par!"

Still the face of the House GOP, Newt arrives to save the day:

He led Republicans into government shutdowns in the 1990s, and now, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich indicates his party is seriously considering another shutdown threat to force a vote on offshore oil drilling in September....

Gingrich did attract more camera crews, and he used the opportunity to point to what may be the GOP's next strategy: If Democrats refuse to hold a separate vote on oil drilling, Republicans could try to block the votes needed to keep government running past September 30.

Because that worked so well for them the last time they tried it. Of course, this time they've got a seriously unpopular President in office, but this time he's actually, you know, one of them. Except that even the Bush White House is smart enough to know this is a loser of a cause, and has refused to engage in the theatrics by rejecting calling for a special session of Congress over the issue.

But, by all means, Newt & Co. should try it again. Maybe a repeat of past failures will remind the voters of the good old days of stupid Republican stunts and provide just the kickstart they need to widen the 18 point deficit they've got in polling against the Dems.

Ahh, when you've served in the Senate 200 years, I guess you get to rewrite the criminal code whenever it suits your interests.

"This is an indictment for failure to disclose gifts that are controversial in terms of whether they were or were not gifts. It's not bribery; it's not some corruption; it's not some extreme felony."

We all thought that felonies were felonies, but apparently that's no longer the case. We now have:

Maybe we can add a few categories:

And yeah, some gifts are controversial. Like when oil company execs add a $250,000 addition to your house, complete with Viking gas grill and other fancy furniture, and top it all off with a shiny brand new Land Rover. Merely "controversial".

That's not corruption or bribery. And it's certainly not an "extreme felony". Democratic Sen. Daniel Inouye, campaigning for Stevens this week, would certainly classify the charges as "felonies hardly worth worrying yourself over." So would the rest of the GOP Senate caucus. And Joe Lieberman.

But to everyone else interested in good, clean, and ethical government, it really is time for Mark Begich.

On the web:
Mark Begich for Senate
Orange to Blue ActBlue page

The latest from the DNC, "Maverick No More."

Not surprising.

Eighty-seven percent (87%) of Fox News viewers say they are likely to vote for John McCain, while those who watch CNN and MSNBC plan to support Barack Obama in November by more than two to one.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 65% of CNN voters plan to vote for the Democratic candidate versus 26% who intend to go for the Republican. Similarly, MSNBC watchers plan to vote for Obama over McCain 63% to 30%.

Only nine percent of those who watch Fox News say they will vote for Obama.

But we'll have plenty of Democratic concern trolls like Harold Ford, Lanny Davis, Harold Wolfson, and Geraldine Ferraro tell us how important it is for Democrats to go on Fox to reach their "independents".

There is no such thing. Fox News viewers broke for Bush over Kerry in 2004 by a 88-7 margin, so clearly, not much has changed in four years.

Alan Colmes may not like the fact that he's being used as a token liberal in the GOP's official propaganda outlet, but the numbers are quite clear.

Of course, there's one other explanation for the stark numbers -- that Alan Colmes totally sucks at his job. But I don't think that's it. Fox News is what it is, no matter what its token, cover-providing liberals do or say.