Blogging Blue

Asked in an interview on Wednesday how many houses he own, Sen. John McCain couldn’t answer, because apparently it’s really easy to lose track of how many homes you own when you can’t count them all on one hand:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said in an interview Wednesday that he was uncertain how many houses he and his wife, Cindy, own.

“I think — I’ll have my staff get to you,” McCain told Politico in Las Cruces, N.M. “It’s condominiums where — I’ll have them get to you.”

The correct answer is at least four, located in Arizona, California and Virginia, according to his staff. Newsweek estimated this summer that the couple owns at least seven properties.

Considering how hard Sen. McCain has tried to portray his opponent, Sen. Barack Obama, as an elitest, I can’t help but think this is yet another in a long line of examples of Sen. McCain’s unabashed hypocrisy. For a guy who once rode a campaign bus called the “Straight Talk Express,” Sen. McCain sure does seem averse to giving Americans a little straight talk.

Here’s an ad from the Obama campaign about Sen. McCain’s many houses:

H/T to Dan Cody and Deke over at Caffeinated Politics.

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That John McCain, he just can’t help himself when it comes to being a hypocrite. At a campaign event today in New Mexico, McCain called lobbyists “birds of prey” and vowed to enforce a lifetime ban on lobbying for members of his administration. At face value, that sounds really noble, and it almost makes me want to vote for John “No Lobbyists” McCain……but there’s just one thing - McCain’s a hypocrite.

After all, he may say he wants to ban lobbying for members of his administration, but yet he seems to have no problem with lobbyists working for his presidential campaign:

Of the 66 current or former lobbyists working for the Arizona senator or raising money for his presidential campaign, 23 have lobbied for telecommunications companies in the past decade, Senate lobbying disclosures show.

Now sure, that news report is from March, so surely Sen. McCain has cleaned up his campaign, right? Not so fast, because it’s been reported the McCain campaign’s top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, has done his fair share of lobbying in the past, receiving more than $730,000 from Georgia (the nation, not the state) since 2001. And hey, let’s not forget uber-lobbyist Charlie Black, who’s still serving as one of the McCain campaign’s top advisors.

Sen. McCain’s hypocrisy seems to know no bounds, but if I were as desperate as he is to get elected president, maybe I’d resort to blatant hypocrisy too.

Then again, maybe not.

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That’s right, the Republican Party is the part of family values - just don’t tell Wisconsin State Senator Robert Cowles. According to an article on JS Online, Sen. Cowles Cowles has more than $50,000 invested in two companies - Rick’s Cabaret International and VCG Holding, both of which operate numerous upscale strip clubs throughout the United States. Now here’s the real kicker:

Along with owning 15 strip clubs, Rick’s Cabaret also runs an extensive number of erotic Web sites, holds an annual Gentleman’s Club Owners Expo and publishes several magazines, including TEEZE and Exotic Dancer.

The firm’s Web sites include names such as “coupletouch,” a site for swingers to meet one another; “naughtybids,” an online auction site for all things porn, such as one-on-one stripping shows and props used by porn stars in their films; and “xxxpassword,” which gives subscribers entry to unlimited porn sites for $39.95 a month.

This is the same man who last week said, “I’d like to think that I have family values.” I guess Robert Cowles’ family values just don’t extend to his investments.

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Singer-songwriter Jackson Browne is suing Republican presidential nominee John McCain as well as the Ohio and national Republican committees in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. The lawsuit came about after the Ohio GOP ran an ad using Browne’s song “Running on Empty” without his permission. Browne’s lawsuit claims the use of “Running on Empty” in the ad is an infringement of Browne’s copyright and will lead people to conclude he endorses McCain, and the suit says Browne is a lifelong liberal who is as well-known for his music as for being “an advocate for social and environmental justice.” Browne has donated thousands of dollars to Sen. Barack Obama over the course of several years.

Here’s the ad in question:

Republicans were quick to spin the lawsuit, with Robert Bennett, chairman of the Ohio party, calling the lawsuit a “big to-do about nothing.” McCain spokesman Brian Rogers also disavowed the ad, saying it wasn’t a product of the Republican presidential candidate’s campaign.

Here’s the point I find most interesting:

The suit notes that other musicians, including ABBA and John Cougar Mellencamp, have asked McCain to stop using their work.

What, the McCain campaign can’t find any respectable musicians that are willing to let them use some music for an ad? The fact that there’s been a pattern of copyright infringement on the part of the McCain campaign when it comes to their ads speaks volumes about the lengths Sen. McCain and his staff are willing to go to in order to get the good Senator elected president.

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Yet more “good news” about the nation’s economy, as a report released today by the U.S. Labor Department showed a sharp jump in inflation:

U.S. inflation soared to a 17-year-high annual rate in July, a government report showed, led by gains in food, energy, airline fares and apparel.

The consumer price index rose 0.8% in July, the U.S. Labor Department said today. Excluding food and energy, the CPI advanced 0.3% for a second-straight month.

Wall Street economists had expected only a 0.4% rise in the headline and 0.2% core increase.

Consumer prices jumped 5.6% on a year-over-year basis, the highest rate since January 1991.

Now this jump in inflation comes on the heels of a projection by the U.S. Department of Energy that heating costs are projected to rise significantly this winter. The DoE’s projection calls for the typical Midwestern homeowner to pay more than $1,200 this winter, a jump of 21% from last year’s costs.

So let’s recap:

• Inflation rises to 17 year high? CHECK!
• Heating costs projected to rise 21%? CHECK!

So what I’d like to know is when our economy is going to stop circling the drain. When’s George W. Bush going to finally get something right when it comes to our economy, and when are his defenders going to wake up and realize things aren’t very rosy right now? Obviously it’s unlikely things will improve much if Sen. John McCain has a chance to continue more of the same economic policies we’ve had under President Bush, which is why it’s absolutely vital folks don’t give President Bush his third term.

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