McCain keeps touting change, but with 7 lobbyists on his staff, how can he justify that statement.  CNN wrote a piece on the McCain lobbyist connection.  The list of the 7 follows:

1.  Current Campaign Manager, Rick Davis, a former tellecommucation lobbyist.  McCain has backed tax bans on telecomms and has received about $765,000 from them.  McCain also backs the retroactive immunity for the telecomms as a result of the Bush administration illegal wire tapping.
2. Senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann, a former foreign lobbyist for the Republic of Georgia.  Scheunemann recently faced scrutiny over his foreign lobbying on behalf of the Republic of Georgia, which has been embroiled in a military conflict with Russia.
3. Senior adviser Charlie Black was a foreign lobbyist for dictators in Zaire and Angola in the 1980s.  Black commented in a June 2008 interview with Fortune magazine that another terrorist attack inside the U.S. would "be a big advantage" to McCain in the November presidential election.  McCain responded that he could not imagine why Black had said such a thing.  That’s complete control.
4. The Republican National Committee’s liaison to the McCain campaign, Frank Donatelli.  He was formerly a registered lobbyist for Exxon Mobil.  Perhaps that is where the "Drill here, drill now" originated.
5. Economic adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer has lobbied for corporate giants like Koch Industries.  In 2000 the EPA issued a 97-count federal indictment charging it with concealing illegal releases of 91 metric tons of benzene, a known carcinogen, from its refinery in Corpus Christi, Texas. Koch faced fines of up to $352 million, plus possible jail time for company executives.  After Bush became president, however, the US Justice Department dropped 88 of the charges. Two days before the trial, John Ashcroft settled for a plea bargain, in which Koch pled guilty to falsifying documents. All major charges were dropped, and Koch and Ashcroft settled the lawsuit for a fraction of that amount. Koch had contributed $800,000 to the Bush election campaign and other Republican candidates - a small price for the ability to pollute and get away with it.
6. McCain’s congressional liaison, John Green, a founding partner of what is now Ogilvy Government Relations.
7. National finance Co-chairman Wayne Berman (and John Green) billed more than $720,000 in lobbying fees from 2005 through last year to Ameriquest Mortgage through their lobbying firm, disclosure forms show. Ameriquest, which since has been bought out, was forced to settle suits with 49 states for $325 million. More than 13,680 New York homeowners got taken for a ride by the company, records show.

"I’m a hockey mom.  I’m a pit bull with lipstick", Palin proudly declares at the Republican National Convention last week.  You just called yourself a dog, lady, but that being feisty, not sexist. 

Comes Obama.  He makes the following remarks:

"John McCain says he’s about change too," Obama told a crowd here. "So I guess his whole angle is: Watch out, George Bush — except for economic policy, health care policy, tax policy, education policy, foreign policy and Karl Rove-style politics, we’re really going to shake things up in Washington.

"That’s not change. That’s just calling the same thing something different. But you can put lipstick on a pig, it’s still a pig. You can wrap an old fish in a piece of paper called change, and it’s still going to stink after eight years."

Now the Republican spin machine interprets this as calling Palin a pig.  I think she’s closer to a stinky fish, but the Repugs are making a huge deal out of it.  They are only trying to piss off women in an attempt to trick them into voting for McCain.

 Good one, Rove.  Let’s see if it sticks. Does America have an IQ of 60?  Stay tuned.

According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune,  818 people were arrested for rioting and demonstrating during the four-day convention, which ended Thursday. Of those 396 were arrested Thursday night.  Journalists were not immune from arrest during the demonstrations.  An AP photographer and radio host Amy Goodman were arrested, but then released "pending further investigation".  

 Most of the demonstrators were protesting the Iraq war, but there were other various causes sprinkled into the crowd.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the protests were more violent than in the past:

  Local prosecutors brought felony charges against 21 people for protesting the Republican National Convention, and federal prosecutors announced that they have charged another man with possessing explosives he said were intended to bomb tunnels under the convention site.

Demonstrations this week have been the most violent at a national party convention in recent memory, with protesters smashing windows, slashing tires, throwing bags of urine and excrement and physically confronting Republican delegates in the streets.

A group a little more nefarious than Code Pink was out to protest at the Republican Convention in Minnesota this week.  The Star Tribune reported on a 17-page document filed with the Ramsay County District Court outlined the activities of a group called the Republican National Convention Welcoming Committee.  According to the document, the Ramsay County Sheriff’s Department has had their eye on them for some time, so much so they had an embedded informant and another paid informant within the group.

Some of the groups activities include an "action camp" held at Lake Geneva, MN last August, plans to throw urine-filled balloons, using large puppets to conceal and transport Molotov cocktails, leaving abandoned or overturned vehicles at intersections, pulling a single officer from a police line and beating him, using liquid sprayers filled with urine or chemicals, techniques to free people arrested by police, obtaining fake credentials and dozens of other tactics.

Protesters managed to disrupt John McCain’s acceptance speech, causing McCain to state, "Ignore the ground noise and static."  At one point a woman from the group Code Pink in the audience began taking her clothes off, revealing a pink camisole with slogans written on it.  As security drug her out, the audience chanted, "USA! USA!".  Another man dressed in black positioned in the rafters of Xcel Energy Center, held a sign showing "McCain Votes Against Vets". 

The previous day, two other code pink women managed to get in and attempted to disrupt Sarah Palin’s speech on Wednesday.

When asked how they did it, they said they "dressed Republican" and asked around for extra tickets outside the venue. Aparently that worked.  Because the women had valid credentials, they were not arrested.

Vanity Fair reported on the prices of the outfits Cindy McCain and Laura Bush wore at the RNC.  Cindy McCain is the winner with $300,000 (That’s more than my house lost value this year) :

Laura Bush
Oscar de la Renta suit: $2,500
Stuart Weitzman heels: $325
Pearl stud earrings: $600–$1,500
Total: Between $3,425 and $4,325

Cindy McCain
Oscar de la Renta dress: $3,000
Chanel J12 White Ceramic Watch: $4,500
Three-carat diamond earrings: $280,000
Four-strand pearl necklace: $11,000–$25,000
Shoes, designer unknown: $600
Total: Between $299,100 and $313,100

Vanity Fair readers commented that Cindy McCain’s outfit made her look like a "banana dominatrix" and that she was trying to dress like a 20-something.  However, Laura Bush received complements on her conservative outfit. 

According the National Enquirer, Sarah Palin has had an affair with her husband’s business partner.  This from an Enquirer Spokesman:

The National Enquirer’s coverage of a vicious war within Sarah Palin’s extended family includes several newsworthy revelations, including the resulting incredible charge of an affair plus details of family strife when the Governor’s daughter revealed her pregnancy. Following our John Edwards’ exclusives, our political reporting has obviously proven to be more detail-oriented than the McCain campaign’s vetting process. Despite the McCain camp’s attempts to control press coverage they find unfavorable, The Enquirer will continue to pursue news on both sides of the political spectrum

The McCain camp had threatened to sue.

During Palin’s speech at the RNC she said the following:

Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic havoc on America and he’s (Obama is) worried someone won’t read them their rights.

 Who needs the 4th Ammendment anyway?

At the RNC today, CNN got the exclusive interview with Mark Knopf, the youngest 17-year old RNC delegate.  Mark had some scary things to say.  When asked if he should be in school, Knopf said:

A lot of my liberal teachers are a little bit upset with me and think I picked the wrong party.                                                                                                       

Your teachers are right to be left, son.  When asked what he thought of Palin, he said she was a "hard-working housewife".  Give that man a can of Bud, a woman to hit, and a caribou to shoot. He on his way to being a McCain Republican.

In retaliation for what McCain calls an unfair interview between CNN’s Campbell Brown and McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds, John McCain has cancelled a long-scheduled appearance on CNN’s Larry King Show.  Today on CNN, Wolf Blitzer announced:

A senior McCain adviser tells CNN the interview has been pulled because of a segment CNN ran last night during Campbell Brown’s ‘Election Central’.  CNN does not believe that exchange was over the line.  

In the segment Brown pressed Bounds to answer questions about her foreign policy experience.  Given several chance to answer the questions, Bounds did not give Brown a satisfactory answer.  The McCain camp believes the questions went too far and will be licking their wounds for a while before their next appearance on CNN.

Levi "sex on skates" Johnston, father to Bristol Palin’s baby, will be joining his future family at the RNC convention on Wednesday.  According to the AP:

 WASILLA, Alaska (AP) — The boyfriend of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s unwed, pregnant daughter will join the family of the Republican vice presidential candidate at the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn.

Levi Johnston’s mother said her 18-year-old son left Alaska on Tuesday morning to join the Palin family at the convention where Sen. John McCain will officially receive the Republican nomination for president. The boy’s mother, Sherry Johnston, said there had been no pressure put on her son to marry 17-year-old Bristol Palin and the two teens had made plans to wed before it was known she was pregnant.

"This is just a bonus," Johnston said.

A bonus would be Johnston giving a speech on abstainance at the convention.  Somebody should slip him a condom before someone else gets knocked up.