The Political Whore

Enjoy your Fourth of July festivities everyone. I’m off next week, but PoHo will be back on Monday.

• Independence Day: Three Americans held hostage in Columbia have been freed.
  
• McCain shakes it up.
• Temper temper, John.
• Just when you think Fox News can sink no lower …
• Psilocybin research re-enters the mainstream.
• Dumb question of the week, from CNBC: “Which Is Better — Strong or Weak Dollar?”
• The Rays sweep the Sox! The Rays sweep the Sox!
• Salveggi crushes Hancock.
• Hot trial: the Christie Brinkley v. architect guy divorce proceedings.

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Here’s your first look at the new, unfortunately-titled Bond movie, Quantum of Solace:

• Starbucks to ax 600 stores in the U.S.
• A blogger outs the Supreme Court for basing their no-death-penalty-for-child-rapists decision on an error.
• Obama to defeat McCain — it’s written in the stars.
• Forget music, today’s college kids are file-sharing their textbooks. You want to guess who’s unhappy about that?
• J.P. Morgan Chase broke into and emptied a house that the bank though was in foreclosure. It wasn’t.
• 10 reasons to not be so glum about surging gas prices.
• A lost 1964 Lennon/McCartney interview turns up in a damp London garage.
• Rays win again.

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Check out the following clip of McCain speaking about the recently passed G.I. Bill:

Now realize McCain was against this bill, and even proposed an alternate version that did not contain the provisions he’s bragging on in this video.

• Seymore Hersh’s latest New Yorker piece, on Bush’s increased covert action against Iran, is a doozy.
• Obama takes aim at southern voters.
• Tampa looks at minimum zoning requirements.
• Wall Street feasts on finger nails before the open.
• Some cry over Wal-Mart’s spilled milk.
• Will they or won’t they? Hollywood actors prepare to strike.
• Checking in on Oliver Stone’s W.
• The Bucs re-sign Earnest Graham.

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The McCain camp actually pulls off a decent viral video! I wouldn’t take a word of this at face value, but you have to admit the video is well done. If McCain knew what a computer was we might actually have a race here …

• Obama gives Clinton $2,300. (Side note: The Times should be shot for using that picture.)
• Novak says Colin Powell will endorse Obama at some point, but not because he’s a fan of Barack. No, he’ll do it to spite W.
• Speaking of traitors to their party: Time has a story on Joe Lieberman that made me puke in my mouth a little.
• Don’t blow your top trying to figure out the energy crisis, there’s a mountain of a solution out there.
• North Korea dynamites the cooling tower at the Yongbyon nuclear power plant.
• One barrel of oil = 28 Subway footlongs.
• This weekend’s viewing: WALL-E is a “Pixar masterpiece.”
• “Six Crazy Hollywood Stories You Probably Haven’t Heard.”

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Breaking news: John McCain is “aware” of both the Internet and computers. He doesn’t use them, silly. He just knows they exist — and that should be good enough for you.

• In other McCain news: Someone really loves their weekends.
• “Reporter M.E. Sprengelmeyer writes that Nader accused Barack Obama of ‘downplaying poverty issues, trying to ‘talk white’ and appealing to ‘white guilt’ during his run for the White House.’”
• The Supreme Court cuts the damages Exxon has to pay for the Valdez disaster to 1/5th 1/10th their original value. The best part: Alito had to recuse himself, as he owns Exxon stock and stands to gain from this decision.
• The Axis of Evil loses another member as North Korea is removed from the list. That just leaves Iran, right?
• Old school: Tuppeware parties. New school: Taser party.
• Coming soon: The Playstation phone.
• The Rays shelve the waterfront stadium plan … for now. (Does this mean they’ll stop winning?)
• Vinny to stick with the Lightning for life.

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How stupid are we as a nation? CNN interviews author Rick Shenkman, in this clip posted to YouTube on June 15.

• Nick of time: Congress acts to remedy the mortgage crisis.
• Alan Greenspan: “We are on the brink.”
• A new documentary on Lee Atwater has conservatives crying foul.
• The IRS opens an investigation of local firebrand Bill Keller. The preacherman cries “Romney!”
• Oh good, Imus is shooting his mouth off again. I had gone months without hearing moronic, racist drivel.
• Bet you don’t know how much oil there is in the world. Turns out, no one does.
• George Carlin’s final interview, a wide-ranging, bittersweet affair, pops up on the Psychology Today’s website. Plus: HBO plans a Carlin marathon and WBAI looks back at history.
• The Mullet drops his cushy ESPN job to become coach the Lightning.

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Greatest toy ever: The Dude (Unemployed) 8-Inch Action Figure.

• McCain adviser Charlie Black sees more dead Americans as a quality election strategy.
• Outrageous quote of the week: “I think [Obama]’s deliberately distorting the traditional understanding of the bible to fit his own worldview, his own confused theology.” —James Dobson, gay-hating [i.e., probably gay] Christian wackjob and founder of Focus on the Family.
• Really? Really? We’re going to talk about how Obama is on the wrong side of the “emotional” Elian Gonzalez issue? Really?
• If the Florida state budget is in such dire straights, how can we possibly afford what Time Magazine calls “the $1.75 billion deal to essentially purchase U.S. Sugar”?
• Eulogizing George Carlin.
• “Kobe, tell me how my ass tastes.”
• First it was those spoiled writers. Now, the Screen Actors Guild prepares to go on strike.
• R.I.P. Wilbur Hardee.

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In the interest of equal-time bashing here at Pohoworld, this morning’s op-ed piece by the New York Times‘ David Brooks is a hardcore (and deserved) stripping away of Barack Obama’s sainthood. Here’s an excerpt:

Dr. Barack could have changed the way presidential campaigning works. John McCain offered to have a series of extended town-hall meetings around the country. But favored candidates don’t go in for unscripted free-range conversations. Fast Eddie Obama threw the new-politics mantra under the truck.

And then on Thursday, Fast Eddie Obama had his finest hour. Barack Obama has worked on political reform more than any other issue. He aspires to be to political reform what Bono is to fighting disease in Africa. He’s spent much of his career talking about how much he believes in public financing. In January 2007, he told Larry King that the public-financing system works. In February 2007, he challenged Republicans to limit their spending and vowed to do so along with them if he were the nominee. In February 2008, he said he would aggressively pursue spending limits. He answered a Midwest Democracy Network questionnaire by reminding everyone that he has been a longtime advocate of the public-financing system.

But Thursday, at the first breath of political inconvenience, Fast Eddie Obama threw public financing under the truck. In so doing, he probably dealt a death-blow to the cause of campaign-finance reform. And the only thing that changed between Thursday and when he lauded the system is that Obama’s got more money now.

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The theme of the presidential election this week is becoming less one of change or no change and is becoming the week of the flip-flop.

Barack Obama announced he will not use public financing of the presidential campaign in this year’s general election. In a questionnaire last year, Obama said he would pursue public financing for the general election, which would cap spending for both candidates at $85 million.

From the New York Times in Feb. 2008:

WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 — The staff of the Federal Election Commission has drafted an opinion that would allow the two major parties’ presidential nominees to adopt what amounts to a fund-raising truce.

The draft opinion would allow the nominees, if both agreed, to return contributions they had solicited for the general election campaign and limit themselves to public financing for it instead.

The opinion is a response to an inquiry by Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, a leading candidate for the Democratic nomination. It is an indication of how the commission, which released the document Thursday, is likely to rule on the idea. The commissioners are expected to issue their decision after a meeting next Thursday.

(more…)

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I searched YouTube for an hour last night looking for something — anything! — worth sharing with the Short List faithful. I finally did a search for “first day of summer” (which is tomorrow, by the way) and found this: