The Washington McClatchy bureau is reporting that Republican 527 groups are oddly lacking in number during this general election season as compared to 2004:

Obama cited the threat of unregulated attack groups — called “527s” because they’re authorized to raise unlimited cash under that section of the Internal Revenue Service code — to justify dropping his pledge to take public financing — along with its spending limits — for the general election campaign.

Yet there’s no 2008 equivalent to the 2004 Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which spent $22 million attacking Democrat John Kerry. Prominent groups and donors that played key roles in independent conservative 527 groups four years ago say they’re sitting out this election. And while they’ve raised more than they did at this point four years ago, the independent pro-Republican groups still lag more than $50 million behind pro-Democratic groups.

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Re. the controversy of the day (Clark on McCain’s military record): Andrew Sullivan - a passionate supporter of Barack Obama indeed - disagrees with Claudia. He beliefs that what Wesley Clark is doing is ‘Clintonesque’ (a tremendous insult for Sullivan) and “repulsive.”

It is, of course.

What’s even more repulsive is that so many bloggers take this stuff serious enough to write about it.

A good op-ed about the idiocy of trying to control the price of oil appeared in today’s Washington Post. It’s written by Sebastian Mallaby and it is truly a must read; he perfectly explains why both Barack Obama and John McCain are wrong about this issue.

Perhaps it is time for politicians to learn from mistakes made in the past. There’s no reason to repeat them… time and again. Nixon tried to do this, the result was chaos. If America’s president would try to artificially control the price today, it would not be less destructive.

Well, it’s not bad news that is: ‘Stocks were winding down the second quarter in muted fashion on Monday, marking some modest gains but remaining not far from bear-market levels. Oil futures flattened after an overnight rally.’ (more…)

According to the Politico, Mitt Romney tops McCain’s Veep list. A good choice indeed. (more…)

Via reader Lucrece comes the following news; ‘A U.K. committee report Friday cautioned against suspending Turkey’s talks with the European Union, despite acknowledging that the current crisis sparked by the ongoing case questioning the legitimacy of the Turkish ruling party may have extremely serious consequences.’ (more…)

Although the race for the Republican nomination was quite passionate, it seems that former Mitt Romney supporters and donors flocked to Senator John McCain shortly after Romney dropped out. This was obviously an important development for McCain, because Romney was the number one Republican fundraiser and more popular among the conservative base than he, McCain, was. (more…)

All too often, people - albeit especially progressives - assume that conservatives were strongly opposed to the civil rights movement, back in the early second part of the 20th century. Conservatives, most progressives believe, were opposed to equal rights and equal treatment because they were either racist or because they, well, opposed any change because they preferred the status quo out of fear that change may produce unwanted results and chaos. (more…)

It’s about time that Pakistan is finally acting against the Taliban. It took the new Pakistani government several months, but it finally seems to realize that you can’t talk to the Taliban forever. Sometimes reality is truly quite simple; the Taliban are extremists, bend on taking over entire countries, not just Afghanistan. The pose a threat to the Afghani and the Pakistani governments. (more…)

Israel’s cabinet approved ‘a rare prisoner swap with the Shiite militia Hezbollah, agreeing to free a convicted murderer and others in exchange for two Israeli soldiers who are believed to be dead.’ Yes, you read that correctly; Israel is willing to give up terrorists and will, in exchange, receive the bodies of two murdered soldiers. (more…)

Gregory Scoblete takes a look at the underlying philosophies of Barack Obama and John McCain re. foreign policy. He concludes that McCain is a Universalist, whereas Obama is a particularist. In this post I will not try to analyze whether Gregory’s assessment of both men is correct; I’ll just deal with the two philosophies and, as the title implies, argue that Universalism has major weaknesses. As I see it, and as I will argue, Universalism is not a good basic philosophy for foreign policy. (more…)

We all know about the “race card” and even the “gender card”. They are derogatory terms, used against people who are thought to be “crying wolf” on prejudice. The race-card was used against Biden when he had the gall to say that Obama was “articulate” (to me the most ridiculous racism charge to date) and the gender card was used against Obama when he said that Clinton launches attacks “periodically, when she’s feeling down” (which, while not at the level of Biden-silliness, was pretty funny as well).

But there’s a new card in town, the military card! This is the card whereby any criticism of McCain on military matters, or worse, the implication that being a soldier does not necessarily make you qualified to lead an army, is taken as a personal attack on his service and a denigration of his suffering as a POW.

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There’s a fascinating debate going on in the liberal blogosphere about the ideology of Barack Obama. (more…)

One of the people who responded to my “fresh blood” post (published here and at FaceBook) is Michael Merritt. He told me that he would be thrilled to join PoliGazette. Since I knew about his work and appreciated the comments he always leaves here, it did not take me long to create an account for him so that he could get going.

Michael published his first post shortly after - it is one about a subject many of  you  are interested in; the media.  Go read it. (more…)

Spain beat Germany 1-0 to win the European Soccer Cup today. Tonight is a night of celebration all over Spain.

The last time we won was 44 years ago. The last Spaniards to see a European Cup saw it in black and white, handed over by an unelected dictator. Today a democratic country saw it’s champions, all born well after the last cup, recieve it in full color. It is a good day.

Hello everyone. I think Michael is going to make an official introductory post later, but I couldn’t wait to get started. My name is Michael (you all will be confusing the two of us now), and I am one of the new bloggers here at Poligazette! I am a student who is about to enter the professional television production field, so I thought it would be fitting as my first post to speak a little bit about the news media and political biases.

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If you’re a blogger, or a blogreader who wants to become a blogger, and willing to write for PoliGazette - a place where people of all stripes come together - contact me. We’re looking for fresh blood.

Don’t hesitate; we’ll be glad to have you join the team. We’re an ambitious bunch, hoping to turn PoliGazette into one of the internationally leading news and opinion websites (although with an emphasis on the US). (more…)

Not only does John McCain refuse to pay taxes (well, a trust his wife’s overseeing that is), he also doesn’t know the actual price of gas! O my, one controversy after another. It’s horrific. He might as well drop out immediately. O, o, gone are the days of Republican hope and change. (more…)

It’s really quite simple: gun control legislation did not reduce violence. Secondly, people started actually reading the text of the second amendment of the United States Constitution. Thirdly, ‘laws allowing concealed weapons proliferated - with no ill effects.’ (more…)

Martin Ivens wrote what is, with ease, the column of the week. He wrote it for the Times (London) and it’s truly a masterpiece. It’s witty, clever, reasonable and intelligent. It has you laughing out loud every now and then, next you are serious, and then you laugh mockingly at the subject of the piece. (more…)

Well, a trust overseen by John McCain’s wife Cindy doesn’t, that is. ‘San Diego County officials, it turns out, have been sending out tax notices on the La Jolla property, an oceanfront condo, for four years without receiving a response. County records show the bills, which were mailed to a Phoenix address associated with Mrs. McCain’s trust, were returned by the post office.’ (more…)

In her attempt to prove that the French are not lazy, Marie-Helene Martin does a great job… proving that they are. Their productivity is quite high, true enough, but they work the least of all developed peoples. Sure, small-business owners work a lot of hours each week, but so do small-business owners in every other country. It’s part of owning a small business. If you want to succeed, you’ve got to work hard. (more…)

As said a week ago, we have established a new FaceBook Group, PoliGazette FaceBook. Please take the time to join the group; we’re updating it on a daily basis, and will make it better and more effective over time.

While you’re at it, feel free to add me as a friend. I normally accept such requests.

There are lot of individual polls out there, but most analysts and observers believe that it’s best to keep an eye on Real Clear Politics if you want to be able to see what the trends nationwide are. One of those observers is me. Therefore; here’s a look at the RCP national poll averages. (more…)

Clearly.

Days after the government of Afghanistan criticized Pakistan for being too soft on Al Qaeda and the Taliban, the Pakistani government ordered a military offensive against ‘Taliban fighters near the northwestern city of Peshawar.’ In reaction, Taliban leaders suspended peace talks and threatened with retaliation. (more…)

Michael Goodwin writes for New York Daily News that Hillary Clinton has convinced him that she would make a good running mate for Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee. According to Goodwin, he first had his doubts, thinking that Obama does not need her, but their latest appearance together and Obama’s flip-flopping have given him the impression that his initial assessment was wrong. (more…)

After doing its best to revive the American economy - by making it more attractive for businesses and individuals to invest - the US Federal Reserve is now focusing its energy on inflation. Due to the rising oil prices, the danger of high inflation is present. Those who know a bit about modern economies know that this is a major concern of any federal or national reserve, but especially of the American one. (more…)

In what can easily be called as one of the most surprising developments in the blogosphere in the last couple of months (lets face it, the blogosphere is quite predictable) Senator Chuck Hagel - the maverick but very conservative Republican - has created an account at the liberal website the Huffington Post. He published his first post yesterday. (more…)

Below follows the transcript of the speech Senator John McCain gave to NALEO, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. As usual, I will not comment on the speech myself; it is simply published here so that you can read and think about it. And, of course, comment on it yourself. (more…)