• OBAMA OPTS OUT OF PUBLIC CAMPAIGN FINANCE SYSTEM: So he is acting like a Hypocrite, but like a Rich Hypocrite who will swamp John McCain with a billion-ad bonanza come fall. [NYT]

Former first lady Hillary Clinton has until the convention in August to get her money back, her goddamn money for Christ’s sake, but how will she do that? The same way she does everything: by lying. Today she sent an e-mail to supporters, asking, “I hope you’ll take a moment to view our online album with some favorite photos from the campaign.” There are like seven mostly terrible photos, and then, of course, the big red CONTRIBUTE button. So basically she asks you to look at photos of her failed, finished campaign, and then to… give her money for it! Done and done. Also, Hilz ends her e-mail with, “I’ll be in touch soon.” Hooray! [Hillary Clinton]

Sure, Hillary Clinton’s campaign ended like $30 million in the red, but that doesn’t mean our intrepid girl candidate will have to start eating out of soup kitchens. Complicated campaign finance laws and a clever lawyer will somehow manage to spin Hillary’s stack of IOUs into mountains of cash, or at least food stamps, or free tickets to Regal Cinemas, or front-row seats to Mark Penn’s nude public flogging. [Politico]

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has acknowledged that it is $20 million in debt. Who cares? That’s about a fifth of the money she and Bill have made in the last seven years, and Barack will help ease some of it when she quits. She can put a few more weeks on her AmEx if she wants to, and she might as well at this point: Let her run out the rest of the primaries, everyone will decide, and the only thing pushing her out will be her old nemesis, Math, finally set-in-stone. And then she’ll sue and take it to the convention where Al Gore will become president, again. [Washington Post]

From this morning’s ABC “town hall” with Hillary Clinton, about the gas tax holiday:

STEPHANOPOULOS: “But can you name an economist who thinks this makes sense?”
CLINTON: “Well, I’ll tell you what, I’m not going to put my lot in with economists.”

Silly George, the Clintons don’t listen to economists for economic advice. Spanky the Money Octopus tells them all they need to know.

Wonkette Monetary Policy Operative “Lee” sends us welcome news: the U.S. dollar is totally beating the pants off the Kenyan shilling. You’ll recall that Barack Obama’s hometown of Kenya, Africa finally swore in a power-sharing cabinet following two months of violence after a disputed election. So it is nice to hear the American currency has gained “a slight ground” versus the currency of a nation with a 21.8% month-over-month inflation rate and a recent history of grave political instability. [NASDAQ.com]

Marketwatch wants you to cheer up. Well, not all of you, just the ones with investments and money who are freaking out because poor people are rioting over scarce food supplies, millions of foreclosed homes are sitting empty and unsold, and local governments are no longer able to afford police and firefighters to protect rich people from the hordes. What to do? Laugh, that’s what! MORE »

According to a new audit from the Government Accountability Office, the United States of America’s Government has been purchasing iPods, lingerie and other goodies with federal credit cards. About 300,000 federal government employees used purchase cards in 2007. Government purchase cards are like corporate credit cards, except the Corporation is YOU, the AMERICAN TAXPAYER PEOPLE. You and your subprime corporate friends should be ashamed and banished to Spain, with the Moors. MORE »

Because Barack Obama is despised by all America save for a small enclave of leftist weirdos, he raised just $40 million in March while John McCain was overseas fighting for Freedom. So far in 2008, Obama has raised $134 million. Why won’t doomed presidential candidate Obama step aside and spend his hundreds of millions of dollars on useful things, such as cigarettes and bowling lessons? [Washington Post]

Today the Bush administration offered its brave response to the current financial crisis, as delivered by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. The administration has faced overwhelming pressure to give the government more oversight and regulation within the financial markets, since every major player (investment banks, hedge funds) keeps dying and then asks the government for money. And who better to ramp up regulation on investment banks than Henry Paulson, the former C.E.O. of Goldman Sachs! So what’s in his funny new oversight package, and how will it not do anything save the economy again? MORE »

Things are looking pretty rough in Republican fundraising circles these days…except for an elite group of operatives who accept campaign contributions in the only denomination that still holds its value in the global market: human feces. MORE »