Vanity Fair floats allegations GOP chief Hastert took Turkish bribes

The Raw Story has the scoop.

OH-02: Come Clean Jean!

Bob Brigham has the scoop on the "wicked witch" of Ohio. ( Ok, that's a little inflammatory ) To "Noe" or not to "Noe," that's the question before Jean.

continuing inability of the U.S. military to understand the nature of the Iraqi insurgency, as reported in a New Yorker article, points to "one extraordinary but glaringly simple fact," writes War In Context's Paul Woodward, "America has virtually no friends in Iraq."

DC's Inside Scoop finds that as of today the White House "continues to maintain formal ties" with cash-for-coverage pundit Armstrong Williams. Plus: 'Open Wide and Eat Your Propaganda' and 'No Pundit Left Behind.'

Seeing the Forest's Dave Johnson describes a "conventional wisdom" machine set up by the Right, that in addition to working through conservative media outlets, attempts to influence more mainstream opinion leaders to "reject 'marginalized' information sources," including "Progressive online news sources or blogs." Plus: 'They can dish it out, but...'

You remember Betsy McCaughey, don't you? She's the right wing hack who propagated a purposely misleading article in The New Republic that was used to torpedo the Clinton health plan, and more recently the author of the "death panels" lie.

Well, Rolling Stone's Tim Dickinson has a hell of a scoop in their Oct. 1 issue in an article called "The Lie Machine: The Plot to Kill Health Care Reform":

McCaughey's lies were later debunked in a 1995 post-mortem in The Atlantic, and The New Republic recanted the piece in 2006. But what has not been reported until now is that McCaughey's writing was influenced by Phillip Morris, the world's largest tobacco company, as part of a secret campaign to scuttle Clinton's health care reform. (The measure would have been funded by a huge increase in tobacco taxes.) In an internal company memo from March 1994, the tobacco giant detailed its strategy to derail Hillarycare through an alliance with conservative think tanks, front groups and media outlets. Integral to the company's strategy, the memo observed, was an effort to "work on the development of favorable pieces" with "friendly contacts in the media." The memo, prepared by a Phillip Morris executive, mentions only one author by name:

"Worked off-the-record with Manhattan [Editor's note: At the time, McCaughey was a fellow at the Manhattan Institute] and writer Betsy McCaughey as part of the input to the three-part expose in The New Republic on what the Clinton plan means to you. The first part detailed specifics of the plan."

McCaughey did not respond to Rolling Stone's request for an interview.

The Seattle Times: (h/t miss kitty)

Eighth Congressional District candidate Darcy Burner's Eastside home went up in flames today.

The fire started between 7 and 7:30 a.m. on the 3600 block of West Ames Lake Drive Northeast near Redmond, fire authorities said.

The cause of the blaze remains unknown.[..]

Her 5-year-old son, Henry, came into her and her husband's bedroom around 7 a.m. screaming there was a fire in his room, Burner said.

"I scooped him up and got him out of the house," she said. Everyone, including the family's golden retriever Bruce Wayne, made it out uninjured, but their cat did not survive.[..]

Burner said she hadn't yet considered whether the fire would impact her campaign.

"I am today focused on my family and just really grateful that my family is OK," she said. "Tomorrow I'll wake up and figure out what comes next."

Goldy has more...

UPDATED: If you'd like to help, www.helpdarcy.com has been launched: (from email)

People can leave comments of support (we'll collect a large sample and put them on a physical message board which we will give to the family) upload photos of the family to replace the recorded memories that burned, use the actblue link to make a contribution, etc. Eventually we'll also post a list of things the family needs when Darcy gets that to us. We'll also add more tools and features as needed.

Turns out John McCain keeps all his assets (save for one small checking account) in Cindy's name, and then refuses to disclose her assets. Slate has the scoop.

Slate:

And that's pretty much it. Aside from a Wachovia checking account, in which he keeps between $15,000 and $50,000 (wouldn't some of that money earn more interest in a certificate of deposit?), all of the couple's assets are in Cindy's name. John McCain's tax return is so anemic, so marginal to the couple's actual financial situation, that he doesn't even take a deduction for interest on his home mortgage. Presumably Cindy does, since disclosure forms indicate that she has several mortgages.

There's nothing wrong with this per se. But with all the attention given to tax returns lately, why does this get completely overlooked? Especially when "proof" of "elitism" may lie within.

The Atlantic's Mark Ambinder has the scoop:

Michigan’s 156 delegates would be split 50-50 between Clinton and Obama.

–Florida’s existing delegates would be seated at the Denver convention—but with half a vote each. That would give Clinton a net gain of about 19 elected delegates.

– The two states’ superdelegates would then be able to vote in Denver, likely netting Clinton a few more delegates.

Given the slew of bad and costly remedies floated so far, this actually doesn't sound like a bad way to quickly save untold millions and seat the two states' delegates. On the one hand we don't want to essentially disenfranchise these voters, but on the other, the rules are the rules. We don't need to start the post-Bush era of America by breaking the rules.

Howard Dean needs to start cracking skulls and make this right.

Bob Morris of the leftie tree-hugging Politics in the Zeros here with more links for you.

Coffee, tea or torture? U.S. Company Jeppersen Dataplan is being sued for arranging logistical support for CIA torture flights but our freedom-loving government of course wants the suit dismissed because the documents are "classified."

Media conglomeration often creates unmanageable companies says Oligopoly Watch. Thus big media companies often end up fracturing into smaller pieces whether they want to or not. Works for me.

A solar power tower is a wondrous thing indeed. Acres of photovoltaics and mirrors reflect sunlight to a solar reflector at the the top of a giant obelisk, creating steam from piped-in water thus powering the turbines.

The V.A. is overwhelmed. Claims can take months, sometimes years, to process. During that time, the veteran gets no medical help. Since 90% of claims are accepted, let's provisionally accept claims and get vets the help they need fast.

HeadZup has the inside scoop on why Trent Lott is resigning. (And don't let the door hit you on the way out, Trent.)

Send tips to bob (at) polizeros (dot) com

More blog links from Bob Morris of Politics in the Zeros (where I blog about antiwar, global warming, Left politics, etc.)

Subtopia, the amazing "field guide to military urbanism," has the scoop on the migrant detention center being built at Gitmo to house 10,000 people in case, y'know, there's a boat crisis or something.

Hawaii activists convinced a sugar plantation to burn sugar cane scrap to fuel an ethanol plant rather than coal. Using local biomass is way more carbon-friendly as it eliminates shipping coal from the mainland and the traditional burning of cane in the fields - and also saves the owner money. So, everyone wins. We need more solutions like this.

Ecosocialism joins green with red, saying we need new economic structures to deal with global warming and peak oil.

4th Generation Warfare is the military doctrine that says small, non-state players can damage and sometimes defeat much larger, more powerful forces - something with direct relevance to all manner of conflicts today.

And who would have guessed My Boyfriend is a Twat, her hilarious (and totally workplace safe) blog, would turn into a book?

Send tips to bob (at) polizeros (dot) com.

(Guest blogged by Logan Murphy)

Michael Collins of "The Scoop" brings us great news out of Florida.

Florida Plan Gives Citizens Real Paper Ballots

North Florida. Retired Navy aviator and veteran, Bill Faulkner, MBA, may have done the impossible. He devised a plan to return believable elections to Florida by turning optical scan forms into the ballot of record, to be counted by citizens in public areas where all can view the process taking place. This radical departure from the maze of today's computerized voting harkens back to over 100 years of U.S elections history.

Florida Gov. Crist Makes History

This is one of the most revolutionary and far reaching proposals made by a governor in years. The removal of voting rights for ex-felons, those who have served their time and returned to society, is a direct descendent of the 1890 Mississippi Constitution. This document proudly listed a variety of ways Post Reconstruction whites would remove all political power form black citizens.