I watched only a few minutes of The View today, but here's an interesting tidbit that TP captured:

On ABC's The View today, host Joy Behar complained to John McCain that "you used to be more of the Maverick, then you sort of turned." "In what way?" McCain asked. "You became much more lockstep, I think, with your party, with George Bush's policies," Behar answered, adding, "I don't see the old John McCain. ... I understand why - you want to get elected." McCain issued this challenge in his defense:

I've been through this litany before, where I say, "ok, what specific area have I quote changed?" Nobody can name it. ... I am the same person and I have the same principles.

Here at C&L we'll take that challenge and it only took a few minutes to prove him wrong.

John Kerry did a good job on McCain

And we have: John McCain’s Evolution on Abortion

John McCain flip flops on Taxes on Social Security

Flip-Flopping On Oil Drilling Proves Lucrative For McCain

Or how about this one: McCain Sets a New Record: 10 Flip-Flops in Two Weeks

Former CIA third in command and indicted Cunningham bribery scandal co-conspirator Kyle "Dusty" Foggo is threatening to out agents, secret programs and Bush administration skeletons in an attempt to ward of a possible jail sentence on 30 counts of fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.

Prosecutors say Foggo has threatened "to expose the cover of virtually every CIA employee with whom he interacted and to divulge to the world some of our country's most sensitive programs - even though this information has absolutely nothing to do with the charges he faces."

Prosecutors also allege his lawyers are seeking to introduce classified evidence to "portray Foggo as a hero engaged in actions necessary to protect the public from terrorist acts" to gain sympathy from jurors.

Foggo's efforts to disclose classified information are "a thinly disguised attempt to twist this straightforward case into a referendum on the global war on terror," wrote prosecutors Valerie Chu, Jason Forge and Phillip L.B. Halpern in a court motion filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.

The government wants U.S. District Judge James Cacheris to hold a closed hearing on whether the information is admissible at trial and if it is relevant to Foggo's case.

Desperate much? It's amusing to see the Bush administration panic on this one - especially after all their own thinly disguised attempts to make every issue they could think of a "a referendum on the global war on terror". "Dusty" knows where the bodies are buried on everything from Negroponte's South American death squads to Iraq procurement corruption and if he starts singing who knows where it could end.

But what's truly revealing is the way Foggo only believes in national security up until the point where its his own neck on the line. How Republican of him.

I think this might just backfire.

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.

“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week. He said the local party wanted to make sure that proper electoral procedures were followed.

State election rules allow parties to assign “election challengers” to polls to monitor the election. In addition to observing the poll workers, these volunteers can challenge the eligibility of any voter provided they “have a good reason to believe” that the person is not eligible to vote. One allowable reason is that the person is not a “true resident of the city or township.”

The Michigan Republicans’ planned use of foreclosure lists is apparently an attempt to challenge ineligible voters as not being “true residents.”

The article cited, in the Michigan Messenger, says a full sixty per cent of sub-prime loans in Michigan went to African American families and that thus they bear a far higher rate of foreclosures. Legal experts think the GOP hasn't got a real case (especially in Michigan where the law allows voters to vote from their last known address) but that doesn't take away from the breathtaking nastiness of even thinking about such a move.

J. Gerald Hebert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington D.C.-based public-interest law firm [said,] “I don’t think a foreclosure notice is sufficient basis for a challenge, because people often remain in their homes after foreclosure begins and sometimes are able to negotiate and refinance.”

And then there's the massive conflict of interest:

The Macomb GOP’s plans are another indication of how John McCain’s campaign stands to benefit from the burgeoning number of foreclosures in the state. McCain’s regional headquarters are housed in the office building of foreclosure specialists Trott & Trott. The firm’s founder, David A. Trott, has raised between $100,000 and $250,000 for the Republican nominee.

GOP officials elsewhere in Michigan, as well as Ohio, have said they are looking to challenge voter registration based on foreclosure lists - which points to an orchestrated attempt by the McCain campaign to steal the votes of victims of the credit crunch, especially black American victims. This while banks are offered corporate-socialist bailout after bailout and John McCain the 5 Million Dollar Man suggests that common people should miss a holiday or get an extra job to ensure they keep up their payments on a sub-prime loan.

"Welcome to today's Republican Party - FU, you whiners!" (John McCain approved this message)

Crossposted from Newshoggers

The O'Reilly Factor Interviews continue and in this segment BillO was into attacking the nasty comments on blogs, Ayers and Rev. Wright. I thought Obama did a great job of debunking O'Reilly's arguments and actually caught Bill flat footed when he went directly after FOX News and Sean Hannity for their hate based coverage of himself..

Download | play no QT (At the end of the interview. Rough transcript)

There's a whole bunch of stuff said on FOX about me that is completely biased.

Correct the record.

But I still don't mind coming on your show just because there are a whole bunch of things may be said on this network that I completely disagree with, I don't sort of assume that you have to take responsibilities for everything said on FOX News anymore than I would expect you to take responsibility for everything that is said on Daily Kos. Think about it,

That's a hateful thing, (Obama laughs) FOX News is not hateful. Some of our commentators may...

If you were watching Sean Hannity consistently..

but he's a commentator...

That's all these bloggers are, I'm not making an excuse for them

We do find FOX news biased and hateful, but Obama wouldn't go there and pointed out their second biggest draw as evidence. I find it interesting O'Reilly didn't defend Hannity at all. He just called him a commentator. FOX News has an awful lot of commentators don't you think? Obama could have named Tom Coburn as someone that he's worked with from the far right but he didn't go there either. Anyway, Obama is coming off very well on these segments overall.

Wow

Government officials handling billions of dollars in oil royalties partied, had sex with and accepted golf and ski outings from employees of energy companies they were dealing with, federal investigators said Wednesday.

The alleged transgressions involve 13 former and current Interior Department employees in Denver and Washington. Their alleged improprieties include rigging contracts, working part-time as private oil consultants, and having sexual relationships with - and accepting golf and ski trips and dinners from - oil company employees, according to three reports released Wednesday by the Interior Department's inspector general.

The investigations reveal a "culture of substance abuse and promiscuity" by a small group of individuals "wholly lacking in acceptance of or adherence to government ethical standards," wrote Inspector General Earl E. Devaney, whose office spent more than two years and $5.3 million on the investigation. "Sexual relationships with prohibited sources cannot, by definition, be arms-length," Devaney said.

The reports describe a fraternity house atmosphere inside the Denver Minerals Management Service office responsible for marketing oil and natural gas that energy companies barter to the government in lieu of cash royalty payments for drilling on federal lands. The government received $4.3 billion in such royalty-in-kind payments last year. The oil and gas is then resold to energy companies or put in the nation's emergency stockpile. ...read on

UPDATED: Charlie Savage has much more at the NY Times.

In three reports delivered to Congress on Wednesday, the department's inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, found wrongdoing by a dozen current and former employees of the Minerals Management Service, which collects about $10 billion in royalties annually and is one of the government's largest sources of revenue other than taxes. "A culture of ethical failure" besets the agency, Mr. Devaney wrote in a cover memo.

The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration's watch. The reports portray a dysfunctional organization that has been riddled with conflicts of interest, unprofessional behavior and a free-for-all atmosphere for much of the Bush administration's watch...read on
(h/t Murray W)

Finally. John blogged about this a few months ago and it has been the subject of more than a few heated discussions, both internally and with other bloggers, as we shake our heads and wonder how in the world we've gotten to the point where John McCain -- a man who promises four more years of failed ideas from the least popular president in history -- can be neck and neck with Barack Obama. It's time to hit back and to push back on the Republican framing getting such a strong toehold within the media. The best way to do that is from 527s and it looks like the Obama campaign has realized it:

There's been a spurt of 527 activity on behalf of Sen. John McCain, but Barack Obama campaign has suddenly gone silent on the subject.

That's because, after a year of telling donors not to contribute to 527 groups, of encouraging strategists not to form them and of suggesting that outside messaging efforts would not be welcome in Obama's Democratic Party, Obama's strategists have changed their approach.

An Obama adviser privy to the campaign's internal thinking on the matter says that,with less than two months before the election and with the realization that Republicans have achieved financial parity with Democrats, they hope that Democratic allies -- what another campaign aide termed "the cavalry" -- will come to Obama's aid.

The Obama campaign can't ask donors to form outside groups; it can only communicate, through the public and the media, with body language, tells and hints.

The upshot: Obama's campaign will no longer object to independent efforts that hammer John McCain, just as, in their mind, the McCain campaign has not objected to those efforts targeted at Obama. "I assume with their 527s stirring, some [Democratic] ones will as well," another senior campaign official said.

I don't know about you guys, but I think it's time to start hammering.

Via Avedon and my colleague Libby Spencer at newshoggers, comes Barbara Boxer's statement on just what McCain - who claimed to be a "fighter" - is really interested in fighting for.

In the 16 years that we have served together in the Senate, I have seen John McCain fight.

I have seen him fight against raising the federal minimum wage 14 times.

I have seen him fight against making sure that women earn equal pay for equal work.

I have seen him fight against a women's right to choose so consistently that he received a zero percent vote rating from pro-choice organizations.

I have seen him fight against helping families gain access to birth control.

I have seen him fight against Social Security, even going so far as to call its current funding system "an absolute disgrace."

And I saw him fight against the new GI Bill of Rights until it became politically untenable for him to do so.

John McCain voted with President Bush 95 percent of the time in 2007 and 100 percent of the time in 2008 -- that's no maverick.

We do have two real fighters for change in this election -- their names are Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

McCain can't run on his record and claim to be any friend of veterans, equal rights or of those earning less than his $5 million threshold for being rich - not at the same time. That's partly why his campaign wants to make this election about personas rather than issues.

This video is no shock to any of us, but Digby says that:

It seems to me that this would be a exceptionally effective chain email. And it has the added virtue of being true.

She also says to read this article too.

Read the whole article for a long, shocking list of incidents, most of which I'd never heard about before...

"McCain's history of hot temper raises concerns"

McCain called Cornyn's claim "chicken-s---," according to people familiar with the meeting, and charged that the Texan was looking for an excuse to scuttle the bill. Cornyn grimly told McCain he had a lot of nerve to suddenly show up and inject himself into the sensitive negotiations.

"F--- you," McCain told Cornyn, in front of about 40 witnesses.

It was another instance of the Republican presidential candidate losing his temper, another instance in which, as POW-MIA activist Carol Hrdlicka put it, "It's his way or no way."

There's a lengthy list of similar outbursts through the years: McCain pushing a woman in a wheelchair, trying to get an Arizona Republican aide fired from three different jobs, berating a young GOP activist on the night of his own 1986 Senate election and many more...read on

I've been saying that this is the time America was finally ready to turn away from the phony notion that being a conservative is a good thing---go left and reject conservatism completely. I mean, it's been an utter failure and John McCain has been a big part of that failure. I've been calling on the Obama campaign to attack the ideals that conservatism apply. Not to be used like a wedge issue since he has been running on a platform of bipartisanship, (I disapprove of that also) but to point out the obvious. If a party hates government then they will prove how bad government is. And what we get are people left stranded in NOLA with no water for a week as an example of how dangerous it is.

Well, all summer we had a chance to point that out to America, but unfortunately that did not happen and now we're left watching John McCain try to remake the image of his party while he gets sucked into the conservative Borg organism in the process. And the media rejoices. He's a Maverick they say! What a guy. And if you believe the polls, the public is buying it to so far.

I've also thought that this would come down to the debates because Americans just don't know Obama all that well and when he's side by side with McSame, America will truly see the difference. It's tough to wait it out till then, but that's going to be the defining moments I think in this election unless some really bad news or crazy gaffes take place.

Digby has a great post up called: Self Correcting Conservatives. The Republicans do a great job of defining liberals and The Democratic Party lets them get away with this crap every time.

And I always felt that Democrats should have run hard against conservatism itself so that a majority of voters would reject the GOP brand no matter who was wearing it. Instead we saw airy campaigns rife with symbols of liberal progress and the promise of some new post partisan agreement that only one side had signed on to. Indeed, they have all spent way too much time for the last year extolling the other side, genuflecting to their icons and pretending that there was some national consensus that everyone wanted Democrats to stop their vicious partisanship --- when they hadn't lifted a finger. It's been maddening to watch.

So here we are. It doesn't mean Obama will lose, of course. He probably won't. Their side is even fundamentally weaker now than when the campaign began. But since both sides decided to run on personality and symbols we now have an empty campaign. McCain had no choice because his party is as decrepit as he is and their ideas are even more dessicated. But Democrats didn't have to help them hide it. If they had worked a little bit harder at discrediting conservatism itself, people wouldn't have felt so comfortable coming back to it, which is what Nate Silver thinks may have happened. There's much about the Obama campaign that I admire. But I have always believed it was a mistake to box themselves into a post-partisan trap...read on.

In a disturbing expose Sunday, the McClatchy papers joined the growing list of press, pundits and politicians raising a red flag about John McCain's out-of-control temper. Following on the heels of the devastating revelations from the Washington Post in April, McClatchy documents many of the tantrums, outbursts and eruptions that continue to call McCain's presidential temperament into question. And as Mitt Romney's campaign revealed in January, those McCain tirades are directed at friend and foe alike.

Starting with an f-bomb hurled at GOP colleague John Cornyn, McClatchy details McCain's long history of explosions, a record which led Mississippi Republican Thad Cochran to conclude "the thought of (McCain) being president sends a cold chill down my spine":

There's a lengthy list of similar outbursts through the years: McCain pushing a woman in a wheelchair, trying to get an Arizona Republican aide fired from three different jobs, berating a young GOP activist on the night of his own 1986 Senate election and many more.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to John McCain's white hot temper.

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