Gear up for Big Oil vs. The Earth: Part 8 Bajillion. Congress is getting ready to push new, bipartisan legislation requiring new caps on industrial emissions, but President Bush and Big Oil, drawing the cloak of "economic hardship" firmly about themselves, are vowing to kill the bill. When facing a choice between corporate profits and...the earth and all its inhabitants, it's good to know our leaders have their priorities straight.

Holy bananas. Al Gore is hosting a big fundraiser tomorrow night in New York for the Democratic party and the price of admission is $28,000.

Jessica Wehrman of the Dayton Daily News looks in to what elected officials in Ohio are financing out of their campaign accounts -- Attorney General Marc Dann in particular -- in this article that includes commentary from our Executive Director, Nick Nyhart.

It's tricky to know where to draw the line on what an ethical campaign expenditure is, but Dann seems to have tread much closer to the line than other officials:

Joel Stein at Time goes undercover as a lobbyist-for-a-day (well, "advocate" actually, according one of the Representatives he lobbies) and sadly finds no occasion to deploy the $100 bills he stuffs in his pocket. Silly rabbit, you give those out over cocktails!

This weekend, word leaked that Doug Goodyear, the man hired by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) to run the GOP convention this summer, had represented the brutal military regime in Myanmar.

One down, over 100 more to go.

The trouble about running for President on your image as an anti-corruption, reformer kind of guy is that when stories surface that puncture a hole in that image, it's going to be front page news. And that's what happened to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) today in this story in the Washington Post that suggests McCain did a very lucrative favor for one of his campaign's big donors.

Is Barack Obama considering self-imposed contributions limits during the general election if he is the Democratic presidential nominee? Sam Stein at the Huffington Post writes that Obama mentioned the idea at a fundraiser, perhaps in response to the flack he's gotten over possibly not using the presidential public financing system.

Obama's made combating the influence of money in politics a big message throughout his campaign and he continues to do so:

There's a thornbush, I'm pretty sure it's the acacia, from which it is impossible to extricate yourself quickly or smoothly. Once you get swallowed by it it's slow, torturous work to get yourself out -- kind of analogous to escaping the snare of lobbyist contributions if you're politician. This article in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle chastises for giving in to the siren song of lobbyist money (can the acacia bush produce a siren song?

Derrick Jackson of the Boston Globe marvels at the irony of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama attacking oil and gas companies for skyrocketing prices while taking thousands in campaign contributions from these same companies. Campaign cash from the oil industry keeps presidential and congressional campaigns alike churning -- it's no wonder debate about their policies seems so conflicted.

The ad Public Campaign Action Fund's Campaign Money Watch project released yesterday on Colorado Senate candidate Bob Schaffer's connections to Jack Abramoff and campaign contributions from factory owners in the Northern Mariana Islands got some attention from Colorado press, including the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post.