More McCain Staffers to Fall Due to Lobbying Connections?

Today's New York Times advances the story of John McCain's myriad connections to lobbyists. First, new details on Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager. Davis is in charge of writing and enforcing the new 'no lobbying' policy that John McCain put into effect when he realized that his reformist campaign was staffed by a huge number of influence-peddlers. As you might have guessed, Davis was a lobbyist until two years ago and now finds a way to act as a lobbyist without registering as one:

...while Mr. Davis took a leave from [his firm] Davis Manafort in 2006, the company has developed a specialty in recent years in a type of lobbying for which firms do not have to register — namely, representing the interests abroad of foreign politicians and businessmen.

In recent years, the company's clients have included the richest man in Ukraine and a former premier of that country whose opponents were supported by Mr. McCain. The Washington Post reported in January that Mr. Davis also set up a meeting in Switzerland in 2006 between Mr. McCain and a Russian businessman, who has been barred from entering this country, apparently because of accusations about past ties to organized crime in Russia. That businessman, Oleg Deripaska, has denied such links.

Here's that Post story. Honest to God, Davis set up a meeting between a U.S. Senator and a Russian mobster because it was in the interest of his lobby shop. Now he's running that Senator's presidential campaign.

But the problem lies not just with McCain's top guys, Davis and senior adviser Charlie Black. Witness:

Ted Kennedy Has Malignant Brain Tumor

Breaking news: Treatment of Ted Kennedy's seizures over the weekend revealed that the longtime Massachusetts Senator has a malignant brain tumor in his left parietal lobe. More information as it is available.

Update: More from CBS/AP:

Doctors for the Massachusetts Democrat say tests conducted after Kennedy suffered a seizure this weekend show a tumor in his left parietal lobe. Preliminary results from a biopsy of the brain identified the cause of the seizure as a malignant glioma, they said.

His treatment will be decided after more tests but the usual course includes combinations of radiation and chemotherapy....

Students Think Environment/Global Warming Is the Most Important Issue

The results of our student activism survey are already flooding in, and respondents—both current and former students—believe today's most important issues are global warming and the environment (second place: human rights). Don't miss your chance to chime in.

We're still looking for the lowdown on student activism, past and present. Been arrested and regret it? Would your school win the prize for silliest student protest? Was student activism way better when you were in school? Is your cause unique?

Help us put together our best student activism roundup yet. It's our 15th annual! Check out last year's. Answer a few quick questions and you could win some cool prizes.

Click here to begin!

Kansas Governor Vetoes Voter ID Law

Good for Kathleen Sebelius!

Update: More awesome Sebelius vetoes.

GOP to Minority Candidates: Thanks, We're Not Interested

Respecting our gay brothers and sisters means you have "San Francisco values." I wonder what kind of values you have when you don't respect blacks, Hispanics, or Asians. Politico:

Just a few years after the Republican Party launched a highly publicized diversity effort, the GOP is heading into the 2008 election without a single minority candidate with a plausible chance of winning a campaign for the House, the Senate or governor....

At the start of the Bush years, the Republican National Committee — in tandem with the White House — vowed to usher in a new era of GOP minority outreach. As George W. Bush winds down his presidency, Republicans are now on the verge of going six — and probably more — years without an African-American governor, senator or House member.

That's the longest such streak since the 1980s.

Republicans will have only one minority governor, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, an Indian-American, when the dust settles on the '08 elections. Democrats have three minority governors and 43 African-American members of Congress, including one — Illinois Sen. Barack Obama — who is their likely presidential nominee. Democrats also have several challengers in winnable House races who are either black or Hispanic.

Only four black Republicans have been elected to Congress since Reconstruction. Sounds like they'll be on the wrong side of history in a few decades.

"San Francisco Values" Makes Another Appearance

Run for your lives, there are ethnic men in cowboy hats dancing with two women at the same time! You know what that means!

Kay Barnes may look like a perfectly nice woman (and an effective mayor of Kansas City to boot!), but don't be fooled. Sam Graves knows she loves teh gay.

Update: Does anyone else feel like they found these dancers by putting out a casting call for Black Eyed Peas look-a-likes?

Operation Get a Grip

OK, I've gotten another cup of coffee, and almost feel the strength to deconstruct this piece of lousy journalism.

1) This is the Jerusalem Post quoting Israel Radio, e.g. they didn't even report it themselves.

2) It's not only second hand in terms of one media outlet citing another; it's third hand in terms of sourcing it cites, and all anonymous at that. The Jerusalem Post is citing Israel Radio which is quoting an unnamed Israeli official quoting an again unnamed "senior member of Bush's entourage" which includes a universe of people that could be say the spouse of a businessperson who was part of the delegation. Almost certainly not a government official and almost certainly not someone informed about policy deliberations. Something in the realm of idle gossip.

3) If all that didn't, this line should give you pause: "However, the official continued, 'the hesitancy of Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice' was preventing the administration from deciding to launch such an attack on the Islamic Republic, for the time being." In other words, while according to fourth hand anonymous sources Bush and Cheney believe force may be necessary, they are prevented from acting by the Secretaries of Defense and State. To begin with, Bush gets to override his cabinet heads when he wants to. Secondly, this is a line that essentially negates the first part of the story.

Lobbying Problems Force McCain to Put Straight Talk on Hold

In light of the continued pressure John McCain is facing to rid his staff of lobbyists and former lobbyists, the normally gregarious candidate is experiencing a fresh conversion to message discipline. From a press conference he held with reporters yesterday:

Question: What was the impetus for the new lobbying policy?

Clinton Camp Flaming Her Supporter's Sense that Obama's Win Is Unfair?

Even though Hillary Clinton is campaigning onward, a key question for her is how gracious a loser she can be. How she handles what seems to be her pending defeat could affect Barack Obama's prospects in the fall and her own future political career, especially if Obama is defeated by John McCain in the fall. Regarding the former, much media attention has been showered on the possibility that many Clinton voters are so mad-as-hell that they won't vote for Obama in November. On Monday, The Washington Post front-paged a piece on PO'ed women who support Clinton and suggested that some of these voters will choose John McCain rather than vote for the guy who dashed Clinton's glass-ceiling-breaking dreams.

For Clinton, a test will be what she does to mitigate the anger of her followers and lead them into Obama-land. Right now, she appears to be putting off this challenge until after the primaries end of June 3. Which is fine. But her campaign does seems content until then to flame her voters' sense of being aggrieved.

Declaring Victory? Bad Idea, Obama

Barack Obama reportedly is not heading to Des Moines tomorrow to declare victory in his race against Hillary Clinton. After the North Carolina and Indiana primaries on May 6, an unnamed Obama staffer pointed to the Kentucky and Oregon primaries slated for tomorrow night. "On May 20," he said, "we're going to declare victory." Now, the Obama camp is taking a milder approach.

That said, Obama doesn't have to actually declare victory for the impression to be delivered. After all, he's speaking in Des Moines, site of his victory in the Iowa caucuses four and a half months ago. The campaign has come full circle, is the obvious suggestion. The campaign started here and it ends here.

It's too late for the site of the event to be changed, but there's still time for me to insist, in agreement with Dana Goldstein, that this is a bad idea. The Clinton campaign has legions of supporters who feel their candidate is being unfairly pushed out of the race by the media and, to a lesser extent, the Obama campaign. Why lend (even more?) credence to their complaints? These are Democrats that Obama will need in the fall. He should avoid alienating them at all costs.

Montana and South Dakota, the final primaries, are June 3. Obama can't wait 15 days?

How Female Military Pilots Spell Relief

As an armchair historian, I'm always scouring for info on how chicks in the Old West etc. went to the bathroom and dealt with their periods in all that long sleeved, flowing train, Texas-heat get-up. As a sci-fi geek, I'm always frustrated not to know how the Star Trekkers went (will go?) potty in the 24th century and whether periods were ever conquered before the Cylons invaded Earth. Well, I still don't know the answer to these questions (though I can't wait for you commenters to tell me how stupid I am) but I know how US military pilots did until recently. (With great difficulty, especially chicks). CNN:

"Piddle packs"—heavy-duty bags containing absorbent sponges—have been blamed for at least two crashes over the years, and they're not always tidy.

...When nature's call becomes too pressing to ignore, a pilot has to fly and unbuckle the harness at the same time—while using both hands to maneuver around in a seat to which he or she is virtually molded.

The aerobatic maneuver is even harder for female pilots.

The Wisdom of Crows

I'm fascinated by crows and the fact that they are always left off the list of super smart animals (dogs, dolphins, chimps). In fact, crows use and even create tools in impressive ways, and adapt to their environments so quickly it may shock you. Here's an interesting video on this subject from TED.com, where you can find a wealth of videos on perhaps more serious topics like how the news is geographically distorted and why we eat all wrong.

Naughty GOPers Won't Go Quietly

It's every ethically troubled man for himself in today's GOP. MSNBC nails it:

How about things you missed in politics because they had nothing to do with the presidential primaries... Start with Vito Fossella and lump him in with Larry Craig and Ted Stevens. The three, if the full barrage of the national political press corps had focused on their issues, all three would likely have made different decisions. Craig and Fossella probably would have resigned; Stevens probably would have retired, saving, potentially three seats that shouldn’t be in play -- two in the Senate and one in the House. But all three are in play now. Now, scandal alone isn't the reason why the GOP is on the brink of another disastrous downballot election cycle, but the decisions by these three lawmakers haven't helped things. That Idaho Senate seat should have an appointed incumbent Risch running for a full term; the GOP should be dealing with a fascinating primary to replace Stevens in Alaska; and if Susan Molinari's offspring were old enough to run for Congress, then Fossella might have already been forced out. Seriously, Alaska, Idaho, and Staten Island shouldn't be where the GOP is playing this fall.

I would add Rep. Don Young (also of Alaska) to that terrible trio. Republicans are dying to unseat him in the primary. Young (who shares responsibility with Stevens for the Bridge to Nowhere, is awash in Abramoff money, and is under criminal investigation because of his links to an oil company) has won reelection with over 70 percent of the vote in the past; Charlie Cook currently has his race rated as a toss up.

McCain-Huckabee: Dream Team?

Every time one of my more moderate Democratic friends mentions that they could probably vote for John McCain because they think he's a moderate, I jokingly remind them that a vote for McCain could also be a vote for former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee. He's a longshot, but it's clear that Huckabee is stumping for the VP slot.

Yesterday on Meet the Press, Huckabee said,

"There's no one I would rather be on a ticket with than John McCain...All during the campaign when I was his rival, not a running mate, there was no one who was more complimentary of him publicly and privately. ... I still wanted to win, but if I couldn't, John McCain was always the guy I would have supported and have now supported. But whether or not I do the best for him, that's something that only he can decide."

While McCain's best hope, of course, is to ignore the Christian Right and run as a centerist, if he does at some point decide he needs someone on the ticket to mobilize evangelicals in November, there's nobody better out there right now than Huckabee. The Baptist minister won the Iowa caucuses and seven other states before dropping out of the presidential race. As someone who can't get enough of the squirrel-in-the-popcorn-popper story, I'm rooting for him. The only thing better for political reporting this fall than a McCain/Huckabee ticket would be if McCain picked Ron Paul as his running mate.

Is Charlie Black Next to Fall?

If you've been paying attention, you know that John McCain has a lobbyist problem. A longtime critic of special interests and Washington's lobbying culture, John McCain has built a campaign with lobbyists in dozens of key positions. Under pressure to clean up his shop last week, McCain forced all of his staffers to fill out a disclosure form that detailed lobbying contracts and possible conflicts of interests. The first to leave this week, and the fourth to leave in the last two weeks due to lobbying connections, is one of McCain's national finance chairman, Tom Loeffler. Loeffler's lobbying for Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments was revealed by Newsweek over the weekend.

McCain's critics are pushing hard for the resignation of Charlie Black, the man who reportedly plays the role of McCain's Rove. McCain told the media that "Charlie Black and Rick Davis are not in the lobbying business; they've been out of that business." (Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, is also a former lobbyist.) But according to the Washington Post, Black was the chairman of the super-powerful lobbying shop he helped found, BKSH and Associates, until March 2008. So Black has been "out of that business" for all of two months. And don't forget that Black doesn't mind mixing his lobbying work with his campaign work; in February, he admitted that he makes lobbying calls from on board the Straight Talk Express.

In February, we posted all the lobbying clients of BKSH and Associates that we could find since 1998. They are below.

Update: Black responds here.

On Iran, Bush May Talk Tough, But the Results Are Lacking

Shmuel Rosner, chief Washington correspondent for Israel's leading newspaper Ha'aretz, has been a critical observer of presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. But in an analysis of Bush's Iran comments in Israel this past week, he points out that while Bush has talked tough on Iran, his Iran policy has thus far been a failure:

Bush should be measured by the same yardstick. Meetings will not stop Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, but neither will speeches in Knesset.

Bush may not be as naive as Obama, but U.S. foreign policy under his leadership has failed time after time on the Iranian issue. International sanctions are too skimpy to mount any real pressure against Iran's uranium enrichment program, and Tehran is gaining.

Appeasement Watch

These were the remarks of Defense Secretary Robert Gates at the American Academy of Diplomacy on May 14 -- a day before his boss President Bush likened those who would advocate negotiating with the Tehran regime to Nazi appeasers in an address to Israel's parliament, the Knesset:

. . . I think that the one area where the Iraq Study Group recommendations have not been followed up is in terms of reaching out the Iranians. And I would just tell you I've gone through kind of an evolution on this myself. I co-chaired with Zbig a Council on Foreign Relations study on U.S. policy toward Iran, in 2004. But we were looking at a different Iran in many respects. We were looking at an Iran where Khatami was the president. We were looking at an Iran where their behavior in Iraq actually was fairly ambivalent in 2004. They were doing some things that were not helpful, but they were also doing some things that were helpful.

And one of the questions that I think historians will have to take a look at is whether there was a missed opportunity at that time. But with the election of Ahmadinejad and the very unambiguous role that Iran is playing in a negative sense in Iraq today, you know, I sort of sign up with Tom Friedman's column today. We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage with respect to the Iranians and then sit down and talk with them. If there's going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander with them not feeling that they need anything from us.

Problematic FEC Nominee Withdraws Name... Finally

Hans von Spakovsky, the major hold-up in seating the FEC and the GOP's point man in disenfranchising minority voters, may finally exit the national stage.

President Bush's contentious nominee for the Federal Election Commission removed his name from consideration Friday, potentially ending a lengthy stalemate that had paralyzed the work of the agency.

Hans von Spakovsky, a former Justice Department official who never had Democratic support to win confirmation, withdrew his nomination, saying it was time for the protracted deadlock to end....

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., welcomed von Spakovsky's withdrawal. Democrats have charged that von Spakovsky tried to suppress voter participation through new restrictions such as voter identification laws and voter roll purges.

"Democrats stood united in their opposition to von Spakovsky because of his long and well-documented history of working to suppress the rights of minorities and the elderly to vote," Reid said. "He was not qualified to hold any position of trust in our government."

Progress has already been made on the FEC. This may seal the deal. Next step: Get to work.

Scenes From a Nader Fundraiser at a San Francisco Dive Bar

The 540 Club, in an old bank building at 540 Clement Street in San Francisco, is the only bar in town to call an elephant its mascot. A 300-pound stuffed pachyderm blobs on a ledge above the front door, a cast-off inherited after the San Francisco zoo shuttered its elephant exhibit. The bar's logo, a pink elephant found on its tables, its business cards and the forearm of its soda jerk, is described by the staff as "the universal symbol of alcoholism and sloth etc," and not as any sort of inducement to Republicans. In fact, the threat, in liberal San Francisco, of being labeled a GOP sympathizer never really occurred to the owner of the bar, Jamie Brown—until this week, that is, when he found himself debating whether to supplement the elephant with a stuffed donkey. The bar was set to hold a fundraiser for none other than the Great Spoiler, Ralph Nader. "What the hell?" Brown said Sunday morning, apropos of nothing, as he dragged on a Camel and waited for Nader's entourage to arrive. "Just in general, what the hell?"

Brown had sent two emails announcing the event. One said Nader would be coming. The other said this wasn't a joke. The local media had called to ask if the fundraiser was a ploy to sell drinks. Patrons hadn't known what to think. A few days after the email went out, during the bar's "Uptown 20s Jazz and Big Band" night, one drinker had supposed Nader would read from Don Quixote; another wondered of the man: "What did he do? Was it a car dealership?"

"I still think people think it's a joke," Brown said that morning before the Pabst Blue Ribbon clock struck noon. Nader was running late. A small crowd at the bar nursed pint-sized bloody marys. Brown, who sported several days stubble and a severe bed head, excused himself for a moment. "I need a shot, sunglasses, and a pack of cigarettes," he said.

Right Wing Hackery the Same the World Over

Who else is attacking their domestic political opponents for failing to wear a flag pin? Lawrence of Cyberia has the extremely enjoyable answer: Hamas.