Bush EPA ignores hundreds of water pollution cases

All of the regulatory agencies under Bush look the same. They fail to perform their basic mission and focus more on accommodating business instead of individuals. Anyone who thinks McCain can/will change this is living in a fantasy world. He is too beholden to the far right to fight them on every issue and worrying about the environment is not going to be a priority for McCain.

From July 2006 through December 2007 there were 304 instances where the EPA found what would have been violations of the Clean Water Act before the court's ruling, according to a memo by the agency's enforcement chief.

Officials "chose not to pursue formal enforcement based on the uncertainty about EPA's jurisdiction," according to the memo, which was released Monday by two Democratic House committee chairmen.

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Is McCain campaign illegally coordinating media strategy with outside groups?

It's illegal for federal campaigns to coordinate with outside groups. Looks like we're dealing with more illegality from the McCain campaign:

Politico has a story up showing the clearest indication yet that the McCain campaign is illegally coordinating television advertising with an outside group. The short-story is this: on July 2, the McCain campaign placed $1.5 million in advertising in the Virginia area. The next day -- July 3 -- the McCain campaign canceled that media buy. On the very same day -- July 3 -- the outside group made a large media buy in the same region, filling the gap created by the McCain campaign's cancellation.

What a coincidence...or not. Watch this video of McCain and his lap dog, Lindsey Graham, parrot the talking points of the same outside group, Vets for Freedom.


Yeah, that was McCain calling Vets for Freedom "a wonderful organization." Lap dog Lindsey and Joe Lieberman were leaders of that group, too. But, there's no coordination....sure.

Hey, McCain's already broken the campaign finance laws. Why stop there? Read More......

The Mortgage Lender Implode-O-Meter

The subtitle says it all: Tracking the housing finance breakdown: a saga of corruption, hypocrisy, and government complicity. The Times story on the site here and the site itself, here. Read More......

Oil drops $9 in last two days

It may not last, but it's hard to not like this news. Longer term, forecasts suggest (again) that prices will remain high through the autumn when they peak. What a great energy policy the GOP stuck us with. Read More......

After launching negative ads against Obama, the McCain camp accuses Obama of launching "first attack ads." Will the media fall for the McCain spin?

Huh?

Earlier today, I wrote a post noting that the RNC, which is basically an arm of the McCain campaign, had already started running negative ads against Barack Obama:

The RNC is already running negative ads against Obama. Those ads are bought and paid for by George Bush.

Even the Rupert Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal called it the "first anti-Obama ad":

The Republican National Committee released their first television ad targeting Barack Obama on Sunday. The spot is running in four states—Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—and will air for ten days. The 30 second ad, “Balance,” features images of both candidates and both touts John McCain’s record and criticizes Obama’s on energy policy.

To be clear, an attack from the RNC is an attack from the McCain campaign. According to McCain's own campaign officials, the McCain campaign = the RNC. Or as one of them told Politico,

“The McCain camp is funded jointly” is how one adviser describes it.

The Obama campaign has made it clear they won't let any attack go unchallenged. So, today, the campaign started airing its own ad. That's what freaked out the McCain campaign. The Obama campaign ad appropriately links McCain to Bush. It is Bush, after all, who is raising the money for McCain to run the negative ads against Obama.

Like their candidate, the McCain campaign is very thin-skinned. Like their mentors in the Bush administration, the McCain campaign doesn't hesitate to lie. So, despite all the coverage of the RNC attack ad, today, the McCainiacs disingenuously accused Obama of launching "the first attack ad from either campaign."

This claim of the first negative ad is a bizarre argument coming from the McCain campaign. It just isn't true. But, it's the kind of campaign spin that can only work if the political press is as malleable as we all think. It'll be a test to see if the political reporters fall for the McCain campaign's spin or if they actually call them on it. Read More......

Temper Fi

John McCain lectures a vet about how his question is wrong because only people who served have the right to question McCain's judgment. Yeah, good try, except the guy is a vet. You introduced him as a vet. So you don't get to brush his question off by claiming that you know better because you served and he didn't. You can just see McCain's temper rising. Rather than answer the question, he just kept repeating how he has a perfect voting record on military issues. The vet claims McCain is lying about that perfect voting record. Fact checkers anyone?



(Hat tip, AHiddenSaint at Kos for the video) Read More......

Now that the Iraqis are talking about a timetable, what's McCain got to say?

So are we going to stay in Iraq even after the Iraqis have signaled they want us to leave? Once upon a time, John McCain said we'd leave Iraq if the Iraqis asked us to. McCain also has eviscerated anyone who has even mentioned the possibility of a timetable. Well, the Iraqis are talking about one, so what does McCain have to say now?

Here's what McCain had to say in 2004 when speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations:

Question: "What would or should we do if, in the post-June 30th period, a so-called sovereign Iraqi government asks us to leave, even if we are unhappy about the security situation there?"

McCain's: "Well, if that scenario evolves than I think it's obvious that we would have to leave because -- if it was an elected government of Iraq, and we've been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government then I think we would have other challenges, but I don't see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people." (Council of Foreign Relations, 4/22/04)

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McCain's plane should really be called the Flip-Flop Express

If the media types who covered John McCain actually paid attention to his words, instead of stressing about whether they'll be considered "good" enough to sit up in the front of the plane, they'd probably notice a pattern with McCain. The guy has no core principles. When it comes to McCain, that's not a factor for the press. In fact, David Broder has issued the edict that McCain can say what he wants without repercussions, because the press corps knows McCain:

McCain benefits from a long-established reputation as a man who says what he believes. His shifts in position that have occurred in this campaign seem not to have damaged that aura.

Broder's tepid mention of "shifts in position" is a gross understatement. But, when Broder speaks, the rest of the pundits -- and Broder wannabes -- listen. I keep harking back to that column he wrote because it says so much about how the media is willing to coddle McCain.

Steve Benen uncovered and documents a "whopping" 61 flip flops from McCain on a wide range of very important issues. There are so many, it's no wonder the traditional media types can't keep track. Too much work. As important, Steve notes, McCain tried to take the high ground on issues of character:

Remember, just two weeks ago, John McCain said, “This election is about trust and trusting people’s word.” Just a few days prior, the McCain campaign admonished Barack Obama for trying to “have it both ways” on issues.

McCain counts on the fact that the political press won't hold him accountable. And, they don't.

Read Benen's entire list and keep the link handy. Here's are several of the flip-flops towards the end of the list that you won't want to miss:

59. McCain was against presidential candidates campaigning at Bob Jones University before he was for it.

60. McCain decided in 2000 that he didn’t want anything to do with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, believing he “would taint the image of the ‘Straight Talk Express.’” Kissinger is now the Honorary Co-Chair for his presidential campaign in New York.

61. McCain believed powerful right-wing activist/lobbyist Grover Norquist was “corrupt, a shill for dictators, and (with just a dose of sarcasm) Jack Abramoff’s gay lover.” McCain now considers Norquist a key political ally.

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No live-blogging of McCain and Obama from the LULAC conference for AMERICAblog - they refused to let us in

I planned to live-blog the speeches of John McCain and Barack Obama from the LULAC conference in DC today. Immigration is a front-burner issue for me (I volunteer to teach english to immigrants so pay particular attention to how the candidates are addressing the issue.) Also, I really wanted to see how McCain was received given his many flip-flops on this issue. I was also interested in seeing Obama as well.

The conference is literally across the street from my place -- over at the Washington Hilton. I dutifully followed the instructions to pre-register last Thursday -- and didn't hear anything back, so figured I was all set. Obviously, if anyone at LULAC had any questions about this site, they could have Googled it, or asked anyone who knows anything about blogs.

But, it's not going to happen, thanks to the LULAC media staff. They wouldn't give me the media credentials for which I pre-registered. They told me I had to have a media ID. Um, should I go to Office Depot and buy a laminating kit and fake one? Blogs don't have media IDs. Anyone who understands the Internet knows that. Apparently, the LULAC media team hasn't heard of blogs and doesn't understand new media, which is still fairly typical of many D.C.-based organizations.

Anyway, it's annoying. No matter what happens to McCain at the conference, rest assured the traditional media will coddle him, like always. Too bad we won't be able to hold them accountable because LULAC, like so many groups in Washington, is still stuck in the last century. Read More......

Don't be fooled. McCain is flush with RNC cash raised by George Bush.

On June 28, Jed wrote a post titled, "The Myth of John McCain's Fundraising Disadvantage." It is a myth perpetuated by McCain's friends in the media, despite being told otherwise by the McCain campaign:

In fact, when McCain campaign manager Rick Davis gave a strategy briefing to supporters earlier this month, he explicitly noted that as far as the general election is concerned, there is no meaningful distinction between McCain campaign fundraising and RNC fundraising.

Davis argued -- correctly -- that to get a true understanding of who is leading the fundraising battle, one must look at the combined totals of each candidate and their party.

In other words, it's not the John McCain 2008 committee versus the Obama for America committee, it's McCain+RNC versus Obama+DNC.

In fact, the RNC is delivering gobs of cash for McCain -- and George Bush is out there clandestinely raising a lot of that dough as the Washington Post reported earlier this week:

[Bush] has already clocked 31 political events this year, raising nearly $70 million for GOP candidates and the national and state parties, according to the Republican National Committee. The tally puts the president on track to meet or exceed the amount he raised before the midterm elections in 2006, according to GOP officials.

To look at it another way: Since the start of 2007, Bush alone is responsible for raising more money than the entire Democratic National Committee.

Finally, some in the traditional media are starting to grasp the McCain/RNC/Bush fundraising prowess. Newsweek looks at the numbers:

When you combine McCain's individual war chest with his party's bankroll, it turns out the Republican nominee has about $90 million currently burning a hole in his pocket, while Obama and the DNC weigh in at a relatively paltry $47 million, or half as much. And even though McCain has agreed to an $84.1 spending limit by accepting public funds--a decision he likes to portray as a principled stand against the corrupting influence of money on politics--at least double that sum will be dropped on his behalf before Election Day thanks to loopholes in the law that allow outside groups to effectively skirt such limits with largely unregulated "soft money" contributions.

McCain's "principled stand" is just another fundraising scam. And, let's not forget, this fundraising is fueled by George Bush.

The RNC is already running negative ads against Obama. Those ads are bought and paid for by George Bush. Read More......

Another market drop coming soon?

Enough already. This analyst says the market still has one more hard drop before it's out of the system. He cites the credit crunch which has many large corporates on the verge of insolvency without new cash injections. An example could be the rumors of GM at risk of going bankrupt. Even if that is too pessimistic, can you imagine such an idea is even being kicked around?

How does anyone expect a Republican to fix the economic problems that they created? The credit crunch is closely linked to McCain campaign co-chair and economic brain Phil Gramm and he still has no idea how his plan went so wrong. They believe that the resolution is less regulation and more tax cuts for these businesses. Can you imagine? Read More......

G8 agrees to do nothing on climate change

Despite what the G8 leaders are spinning, once again they pushed out change to another generation. If you thought Detroit was bad with their delayed action, this is even worse but it's what we've come to expect from these summits. How do we get stuck with such meek leadership?

"The G-8 nations came to a mutual recognition that this target — cutting global emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050 — should be a global target," said Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who announced the endorsement.

The G-8 last year at a summit in Germany pledged to consider the 2050 target, and this year's Japanese hosts had hoped to solidify that commitment at the meeting in Toyako, northern Japan.

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LA Times writer calls Obama "the black presidential candidate," says he want to bring back "slavery"

This is what passes for legitimate journalism in the corporate media nowadays. The Los Angeles Times, like the New York Times, decided to hire a far-right activist writer in the hopes that this might stop conservatives from being mean to them. How's that working for you? The LA Times' conservative just called Obama "the black presidential candidate" and accused him of trying to bring back "slavery." Funny, but I'm guessing that an African-American doesn't need a lecture on slavery from some guy named Jonah Goldberg. How many times does the Los Angeles Times and New York Times need to cringe at something these conservatives have written before they realize that these guys don't practice journalism, they practice Limbaughism. They're literary shock jocks. Their "columns" are nothing more than political performance art. It's all about being vulgar and getting attention, all at the expense of their victim, their newspaper, and their own credibility. Read More......

Cheney deleted inconvenient truths from climate report

The truth has no place in the Republican party.

Vice President Dick Cheney's office pushed for major deletions in congressional testimony on the public health consequences of climate change, fearing the presentation by a leading health official might make it harder to avoid regulating greenhouse gases, a former EPA officials maintains.

When six pages were cut from testimony on climate change and public health by the head of the Centers for Disease Control last October, the White House insisted the changes were made because of reservations raised by White House advisers about the accuracy of the science.

But Jason K. Burnett, until last month the senior adviser on climate change to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Stephen Johnson, says that Cheney's office was deeply involved in getting nearly half of the CDC's original draft testimony removed.

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If the McCain campaign is such a disaster, how could he run the country?

In today's NY Times, Adam Nagourney takes a look at the snake pit that is the McCain campaign. It's a primer for all the other political reporters and pundits so they can figure out who is up and who is down on the Lap Dog Express. Political reporters love this kind of internecine intrigue, which does not exist in the Obama campaign. But, the article, of course, misses the larger point: John McCain is a terrible manager. Instead of providing a scorecard, Nagourney should be asking: If his campaign is this screwed up, how could he ever run the country?:

After a period of relative calm on that score, it is becoming clear that his campaign is once again a swirl of competing spheres of influence, clusters of friends, consultants and media advisers who represent a matrix of clashing ambitions and festering feuds. The cast includes the surviving members of Mr. McCain’s 2000 campaign, led by Rick Davis and Mark Salter; a new camp out of the world of Karl Rove, led by the recently ascendant Steve Schmidt; and on the periphery, the ever-present Mike Murphy, Mr. McCain’s strategist in the 2000 presidential race who has been dispensing advice to the candidate to the annoyance of the other camps, and is the subject of intensifying rumors in Republican circles that he is about to re-enter the campaign.

Mr. McCain is uncomfortable firing people or banishing them entirely. His orbit remains filled with people who have been demoted without being told they are being demoted, like Mr. Davis, who continues to hold the title of campaign manager even as Mr. Schmidt manages the campaign. Yet, Mr. McCain inspires uncommon loyalty in those who serve with him — hence the willingness of Mr. Murphy to consider coming back into the McCain campaign, despite his own rather brutal history of enmity with Mr. Davis.

Okay, if there was a "matrix of clashing ambitions and festering feuds" on the Democratic side, the punditry would be agog, constantly challenging Obama's capacity to lead. Yet, with McCain, they treat this like their own personal side-show. The political reporters covering McCain are like the old Kremlinologists hunting for any sign of change or intrigue. It's all a game for them, but it's not a game for the rest of us.

Put McCain, who has never managed or run anything besides his campaign, to the same test Obama set for himself: Watch how McCain manages his campaign for clues as to how he will govern. If that's the test, McCain has already failed. Big time. The country can't afford a President whose management style borders on mayhem. Read More......

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Seventeen weeks -- 119 days -- til Election day. The Repubs are already on the air trashing Obama -- and that won't stop for the next seventeen weeks. According to the Politics Blog at SFGate.com, the ad, which is running in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin has "got enough whoppers in it to make the Midwesterners cough up their leftover Fourth of July potato salad." That's all voters will get from McCain and the GOP: whoppers. But, Americans do love their whoppers. So, you have to wonder if the American people will fall for the GOP negativity and lies -- again.

Start threading the news.... Read More......

US and EU nearing deal on data sharing

Our forefathers must be so proud that we've been able to shed the unnecessary hassles of democracy and instead borrow from the Soviet Union, our new model. Besides not having a government that has shown any ability to maintain data security and the little issue of no clear ground rules for using (and abusing) this sensitive data, it's unclear why people don't like it. Since when was collecting personal data an issue?

The United States is negotiating deals with European countries to exchange fingerprint and DNA data in criminal and terrorist cases, and in some circumstances to transfer data on race or ethnic origin, political and religious beliefs, or sexual orientation.

Such agreements are a condition for granting citizens of newer European Union member states the right to enter the United States without visas, and for maintaining that right for older E.U. members. U.S. citizens already enjoy such a right when traveling to Europe.

"Race or ethnic origin, political and religious beliefs, or sexual orientation?" Joseph Stalin would be proud. Read More......

Beijing air quality failing tests

Now there's a surprise. In 2004 there was a daily bashing of the Greek Olympic effort with cost overruns and late deliveries. Maybe it was true, maybe it was overblown, but we're hardly seeing much criticism of the failure to clean up the air. Heavens, that might be "inappropriate" and we would never want to upset the Beijing government. They may get angry and we can't have that.

When Beijing bid for the Olympics in 2001, it said that its air would meet World Health Organization standards.

The BBC put this to the test using a hand-held detector to test for airborne particles known as PM10.

We found that the city's air failed to meet the WHO's air quality guidelines for PM10 on six days out of seven.

These particles are caused by traffic, construction work and factory emissions. They are responsible for much of this city's pollution.

On one of these days, the pollution reading was seven times over the WHO's air quality guideline.

Read More......