Longtime Republican operative Peter Hong, who served as campaign spokesman in 2002 for Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R-MN) – a top-tier candidate frequently mentioned as a possible V-P candidate for McCain – was arrested for soliciting prostitution on Wednesday in St. Paul, MN and was booked at the Ramsey County Jail early that evening.

I got this email, cause I'm on some strange lists:
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This is a Message Alert for all Republican pundits and emplaced "reporters",  Note the recent news itemfrom (of course!) California:

LOS ANGELES — California, a national trendsetter in all matters edible, became the first state to ban trans fats in restaurants when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill Friday to phase out their use.

Under the new law, trans fats, long linked to health problems, must be excised from restaurant products beginning in 2010, and from all retail baked goods by 2011. Packaged foods will be exempt.

We believe this is the golden opportunity those fools in California have given us to steal this election for its rightful owners!

In past elections, the Bush/Rove team undercut, back stabbed and push polled John McCain's campaign without mercy, limits nor reservations.  Now, we are supposed to believe that they are "good friends"?  Mr. McCain has attempted to become the nominee in past elections and has been viciously attacked by his own party's hard core base.  The primary leading to his nomination this election cycle was no exception to that historical precedent.  Right wing talk radio and pundits were seen to join Mitt Romney's campaign and Mike Huckabee's campaign in attacking the authenticity of McCain's conservative credentials, his "Republicaness" if you will.  Once again, completely out of touch with the average voter and America at large (even the average Republican voter, perhaps), the far right wing of the Republican party pushed McCain and the other candidates as far to the right as possible to appeal to the base. This is fairly typical of a primary fight, one must acknowledge, and McCain, of course, managed to win the nomination despite these attacks from within.

Once those two steps are completed, Obama said, the government should offer a path to citizenship for existing illegals.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...

   I admire his honesty and his ability to get it right.

I have to say that he has the attention of everyone that live in a border state when comparing McCains views and flips on the border subject.

First, a caveat - I am not voting for McCain this year.  But I probably think more like a Republican than most Kossacks.

I take as my launching point a wonderful diary today by Cognizant, who asks an important question:  After watching Barack Obama today in Berlin, why would half the country still want to support John McCain?

Now, I don't claim to speak for all Republicans.  But as a Bush voter in 2000, and a newly minted member of the Netroots, I thought I'd share some perspective...

More coming soon - for now, a simple poll.  Vote your conscience.

Update 1, 2:23 PM CDT: I find it telling that 32% of Kossacks have reasons to vote for McCain.  Personally, none of those reasons are convincing to me.  Stay tuned...

From Federal Computer Week:
"The House rejected a bill last week that would have funded the purchase of paper ballots as a backup to electronic voting systems for the upcoming election.

   The bill would have directed the Election Assistance Commission to establish a program to make the grants in time for the November vote."

http://www.fcw.com/...

If Democrats, who lost two presidential elections under questionable e-voting can't pass a bill providing alternative paper ballots to guarantee free and fair elections, then you have to ask "which lobby paid them off?"

I just read an article on Truthout about a billionaire named Peter Peterson who set up a foundation with a $1 billion (that's right $1 billion) endowment to reduce government spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

So here is my question: If he can give away $1 billion, why does does he care about government spending on these programs? He obviously isn't hurting financially because of it. Is he upset because he has to pay taxes at all and only earns several billion dollars a year instead of multiple billions a year? Does anyone else think this man is sick?

Oh, and I might add that the article states that "as a manager in a private equity fund, Mr. Peterson was allowed to take advantage of the fund manager tax subsidy - a provision of the tax code that allows some of the richest people in the country to pay much lower tax rates than ordinary workers.

   With his enormous wealth, Mr. Peterson was probably given more than 1,000 times as much money through this tax subsidy as the typical worker can expect to see on her Social Security."

Typical.

Yes, I know this has been written up before and commented on.

Here for example.

But I thought that I needed to comment on it.

I kept thinking about it and getting more pissed by it, and so once I woke up I knew what I had to do, I had to diary about it.

So please forgive me for writing another diary on this topic.

<more after the break>

By Jwilkes from Eyes on Obama:

At least 14 GOP Representatives and Senators are withholding their endorsements of the "maverick" Arizona Senator, whose tepid relationship with a number of his fellow Republicans has been the subject of much coverage. They represent all factions of the GOP, and come from all over the US...that may spell trouble for John McCain.

By Alan Hurwitz/North Star Writers Group

Last Thursday, Rep. Linda Sanchez called for Karl Rove to be arrested for failing to comply with a Congressional subpoena and appear before her Committee. While I applaud Congresswoman Sanchez's sentiments, I seriously doubt Karl Rove will face such action and I blame Sanchez and her ilk in Congress. Sanchez wrote:

"After my ruling that Mr. Rove's claims of immunity are not legally valid, Congressman Conyers and I gave him one last chance to comply with the law. He ignored us. As he let yet another deadline slip by this week, Mr. Rove's disregard for Congress has become intolerable..."

Translation: "I subpoenaed Mr. Rove and he didn't show up. Then I warned him and gave him one last chance, and he still didn't show up. Then I double warned him and he still didn't comply. If he refuses to comply any longer, I may have to super-duper double-secret warn him and see if he complies then..."

Stephen D reports on a Phil Gramm Friday night dump attributing Gramm's resignation from the McSame campaign to the "Americans are whiners!" comment. I think that is just cover for the more likely real reason:

UBS, LGT Helped Hide Assets, Evade Taxes, Senate Says
By David Voreacos and Carlyn Kolker

July 17 (Bloomberg) -- UBS AG and Liechtenstein bank LGT Group aided rich U.S. clients who wanted to disguise ownership of accounts and evade taxes on hidden assets, a Senate subcommittee said.

UBS, the world's largest wealth manager, hid as much as $17.9 billion for 19,000 Americans who didn't declare assets to the Internal Revenue Service, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said in a report released in Washington late yesterday. LGT, owned by Liechtenstein's ruling family, fostered a ``culture of secrecy and deception'' while assigning code names to U.S. clients, the panel said.

Remember that Phil Gramm works for and lobbies for one arm of UBS in the USA. A whole lot more below...

   I often wonder about the true motivations and goals of those in power.  In the context of the GOP, I wonder:  what is it they are driving at?  Is it power for power's sake, corruption for corruption's sake?   What about those truly ideological conservatives who fancy themselves great thinkers, what future world do they imagine they would create for us, were they unfettered by pesky liberal opposition?

    I invite the reader to join me in imagining a decidedly unpleasant hypothetical scenario wherein all opposition to the current incarnation of the Republican party and their corporate allies simply ceased, for whatever reason; it doesn't really matter for the purposes of discussion.  I imagine some sort of virus which attacks only those who prefer Steinbeck to Ayn Rand.  :D

I was watching the Situation Room today while eating my lunch, and I nearly choked on a cucumber when I heard this from Republican strategist Terry Jeffrey:

The question is, is Medicare socialism? My answer is yes, of course it is. Socialism is government ownership of something.

By Jwilkes from Eyes on Obama:

What a difference a few years can make. Back in 2000, Al Gore had found in Joe Lieberman the perfect running mate. But by 2006, the political winds had changed. Already, whispers in Washington are suggesting that Democrats may move to strip Lieberman of his chairmanships if the party manages significant gains in 2008. But is it a wise move?

When we as American citizens are called upon to work for and support not only our chosen Party, but the candidate that our Party has selected for the General Election, then that is what we must do, to do other wise is to commit a serious wrong. The Constitution grants us certain rights and common sense requires that we should exercise those rights.

As our forefathers before us and the succeeding generations since have accepted the truth that all men/women are created equal; that by the very citizenship granted by this the Government of the United States of America, they must participate in the political system that these same forefathers had designed, to fail to do so will allow a government that will gather onto itself powers other than those granted by the governed.

Many people are not happy with the two parties or the two party system. It forces candidates to pander to the base during primaries and run to the center during the general election. Both Obama and McCain are going through that now. And what we get in the end is mostly status quo, with just a slight leaning to the left or right depending on who wins in November.

Don't get me wrong, I'm working hard for the Democrats, as I see another 4 or 8 years of Republican rule as being ruinous. But, as Chomsky says, the entire American spectrum, from Democrat to Republican is one single power structure that only seeks to perpetuate itself.

Nothing can really, really change unless we break the two party system, which guarantees a Republican win if any third party candidate gets close.

See below for the real reason why: