Ed Tinsley was recently named "Worst Person in the World" for saying that Democrat Harry Teague wanted to "cut your throat" - meaning the throats of Tinsley's nephews serving in Iraq and the Persian Gulf.  He may be up for a second nomination to that post.

Over at Disenchanted 2nd I've gathered information on what appears to be a secret campaign slush fund that Tinsley used to fund his push for primary victory.  By my accounting, he received over $300,000 in illegal over-the-limit campaign donations on or about 5/20/08 from donors who had already maxed out their donations in at least one election cycle.  He held that money until either 06/16/08 or 06/19/08 - just under a month.

Would it surprise you to find out that the primary was held between those dates?  On June 3rd, to be precise.  What we have hear is either a confluence of amnesia and bad money management, or a conspiracy to circumvent the federal camapign finance laws.  I report, you decide.

We're constantly barraged by the media and our more conservative Democrats (hello, Al From!) that John McCain is the serious candidate when it comes to war and Iraq and dealing with International threats.  By converse, those Democrats who oppose the idiotic war in Iraq (even if they support other wars like Obama with Afghanistan) are peaceniks, doves and dirty effing hippies who should be shunned and ignored.

We never get, of course, anything empirical to back this assertion up.  Not one of the chattering morons or DLC leaders can point to anything other than their own desire to blow shit up and risk other people's lives to support their theory that more wars means more serious.

In fact, the evidence seems to go against that idea.  Via The Hill, it turns out that a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of donations from soldiers says Barack Obama is the choice of the people actually put into harms way.

In February of 2006, when we were just begining to get national traction on the crooked methods behind the "PERMINANT MAJORITY" aspirations of the Bush League wing of the republican party, I wrote an article that might as well have been titled, "Republicans Miss the Commies".

Well, I thought that in light of the Bush Administration`s single handed reignightion of the "Cold War", we could take a look at how Russia achieved such a quick rise to dominance, what role the Republicans played in causing this, and at what cost.

Crossposted at Strategy08.

Frankly, the grumbling from Clinton supporters (and the candidate herself) about Obama's "lack" of help retirement will probably take more of a hit with the pending publishing of the Atlantic story, but per Politico, there is some behind-the-scenes maneuvering to allow her more than 20 days after the convention to pay herself back. Or, even more interesting, allow her to use 2012 senate funds to pay herself back.

We Are Perilously Close to Losing It

YOU CAN’T MAKE DEMOCRACY WORK, if you don’t have a fully functioning FREE PRESS to keep the legislators honest.  The word Free in the title means the Press is by definition free of any censoring, free of any governmental or corporate control over what it publishes. The PRESS is how we have always kept excesses under control in America.  But that was then, this is now.

Within days of McSame's decision to endorse offshore oil drilling, oil industry money started to pour into his campaign.  Big oil was so eager to get as much money as possible to McCain that they broke the law to do so by funnelling money through employees in order to evade campaign finance limits.

This happens all the time, right?  Not this way, where thousands of dollars are given to people to donate in their own name.  In the most egregious case, an office manager at one of the nation's five biggest auto companies gave over $61,000 to McCain within days of his decision to endorse offshore oil drilling.

(Details after the jump)

I gave the following remarks as an opening statement at a town hall meeting tonight in Chambersburg, Franklin County, PA.  After these remarks were given, audience members asked many questions. Unfortunately, we don't have any video of my responses.  Sorry, I wasn't thinking.  TB

HI! It's great to see everyone here tonight. I'm so glad you folks were able to make it.

We've got big problems in this country. I don't have to tell you folks that. Gas Prices, Jobs, Health Insurance, Global Climate Change, National Debt, and the War in Iraq are just a short list. I know these are the issues on your mind because you've told me so. I've spent the summer driving around this district, walking door to door, talking and listening to you the voters. The question is: what can we do? Well,before I tell you what I think we should be doing, I want to tell you who I am. I want to do this because who I am directly affects how I am going to go about the job. The how, of course, affects the what.

Street Sense, the newspaper in D.C. for, about, (partially) by, and sold by the homeless comes out every two weeks.  I always buy a copy from the same vendor.   There are some very good stories about what’s happening in and to the homeless community, often poetry and/or art, and some interesting profiles of the street vendors (who get $.75 of every dollar).
But on the front page of the current issue is a picture of several people marching with signs. The signs are all handmade and have slogans like "AFFORDABLE ENERGY NOW!" and "FOOD OR FUEL – Don’t Make Me Choose."  Since this is a paper about the homeless, I assumed that the protest would be in support of low-income energy programs or maybe about getting low cost heating oil from from Hugo Chavez.  I couldn't have been more wrong.
There was no article about this protest, but the caption under the picture read:

I find it so ironic that Mr. Obama is being criticized for opting out of a public financing campaign system when he has infact run the most direct, publicly financed campaign in the history of this country.
If the idea is to publicly finance campaigns so that the influence of special interests and big donors are minimized, then hasn’t Mr. Obama done precisely that?
Should we rather fail him on the current inferior standards when he has indeed pushed the standards to levels never attained before? Shouldn’t this give us an opportunity to revise campaign-financing rules?
The indirect public financing system as it stands now is seriously flawed. It limits the fund-raising ability and strategy of campaigns in a highly competitive election environment. Hence, the abuse and this calls for a revision.

This is my first Diary so be gentle please.  While I don't relish spinning out wild accusations this floored me.  I hope 'tis not redundant as I performed a search and found nothing.

John McCain reversed his long held position supporting the moratorium on offshore drilling recently under what one might consider questionable circumstances. The following is from today's Washington Post.

Industry Gushed Money After Reversal on Drilling

McCain delivered the speech before heading to Texas for a series of fundraisers with energy industry executives, and the day after the speech he raised $1.3 million at a private luncheon and reception at the San Antonio Country Club, according to local news accounts.

"The timing was significant," said David Donnelly, the national campaigns director of the Public Campaign Action Fund, a nonpartisan campaign finance reform group that conducted the analysis of McCain's oil industry contributions. "This is a case study of how a candidate can change a policy position in the interest of raising money."

::Jump::

I closed out four years in office as a southern Governer throughout this period without one person being killed in demonstrations and marches.

  These are the words of man whose guiding principle as a public servant has been the Latin of my title:  the safety of the people is the supreme law.  On January 20, 1959, at age 37, he became governor of South Carolina, having already served in the South Carolina legislature beginning in 1948.  He failed in his first try for the U. S. Senate, was out of elected office from January 1963 until winning a special election to the United States Senate in November of 1966, and he served until January of 2005.  His 38 years is the 7th longest in Senate history.   And now he has written an important book, entitled Making Government Work.  His name is Ernest "Fritz" Hollings and I am delight to be able to write about him and about this book.

Patrick McHenry, in my humble opinion, is the worst excuse we have for a Congressman in this country. I've been covering the NC-10 race between McHenry and Daniel Johnson for the past month. I knew about McHenry giving away military information  on a trip to the green zone

I didn't know a lot of what I just found out at a site called Republicans Against McHenry

 Daniel Johnson, is a military hero, new father and a man of great character. If you haven't thought about this race already, this gets  on your pocketbook radar. We know there are many important races, but I'm not sure any contrast two candidates like this one.

What are the limitations for a 527 "World for Change" group that is able to take international money?  Are 527s limited to taking national money only?  If not it would be very good idea to have a group that reaches out the world community.  

If people of the world want to help promote new visions and ideas and want to show that they support a non imperialist approach, thoughtfulness, and temperament that Obama brings, then we need to find a way to channel that energy into funding for local media buys.

Being a 527 group they can't promote Obama directly. But I think international funds supporting advertising here, could be an interesting marketing and funding approach.  Rarely if ever, have we seen a presidential candidate be able to potentially be able to indirectly raise huge amounts of money to set the message from the international community.

Discuss....

As I write this, Lawrence Lessig is giving his talk at Netroots Nation.  As usual, it is extraordinary.  If you didn't get a chance to see it in person or online live (as I am from San Francisco), it will be archived (and I'll update this with a link).

But even before he started speaking, I got the email I'll post in full after the jump from Japhet Els (who is also at Netroots Nation).

 Change Congress has an Act Blue page and Lessig wants at least 500 of us to give contributions ending in .09 (the current approval rating of congress) to at least one of these candidates

http://www.actblue.com/...

Update: Right after I posted this, Lessig used a photo I took in his presentation.

We've collectively grown used to the idea of a biased media.  Conservatives consistently harp on the idea of a liberal media bias, to the point that it's almost accepted wisdom, while authors such as Glenn Greenwald and Ariana Huffington have exhaustively laid out the case that it is the right that controls the media narrative.

At times, however, it's more interesting to temporarily set aside which way the media is biased, and in stead focus on why the media would have an incentive to be biased.  That is, forget for a moment that the right wing rewards loyal journalists with access and scoops, or that many journalists are part of the wealthy elite that benefits from extreme neoliberal economic principles.  In stead, just think about the media as a business that wants more eyeballs so they can sell advertising at higher rates.  With that in mind, it becomes clear that they need a compelling story to tell.

See article here regarding the fundraising "edge" that the RNC/McSame have over the DNC/Obama.  A few things in there confused me, I was hoping fellow Kossacks could help.  Most of my befuddlement comes from the whole "primary election" funds vs. "general election" funds distinction, though media bias in general also had me scratching my head.

Validating my endorsement of his candidacy, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich has both raised over 1 million dollars in the last quarter, possibly outraising the ethically challenged Senator Ted Stevens, but he has chosen to disclose every single one of his contributions, even the small-dollar ones (under $200) that don't require disclosure.

This isn't just disclosing it to the press - he's placed his FEC filing on the web, so anyone can go look at what he has done in this campaign.  And while you're at it, one can also look at his financial disclosures, showing exactly where his income and assets come from.

Very smart move, and a good faith effort at showing how the ethics of campaign finance really should be handled.

So, go ahead.  Donate to Mark Begich and any one else on my list for 2008.

Oh, and if you're wondering, my $15 donation to Mayor Begich appears on page 1,628 of the 2,163 page report.  I'm probably going to add to that later today.

Barack Obama doesn’t understand or more precisely does not want t understand any longer what Leadership is all about. It’s quire simple as we all know. LEADERS LEAD as few and far between as they are. Here is a corollary. You can turn leadership on and off as the occasion “calls for.” Either you are a leader or you aren’t. In other words Obama you can’t play at being a leader. You are or you aren’t.