Queens couple's $61,600 donation to McCain questioned  —  WASHINGTON — Alice Rocchio is an office manager at the New York headquarters of the Hess Corp., drives a 1993 Chevy Cavalier and lives in an apartment in Queens, N.Y., with her husband, Pasquale, an Amtrak foreman.

dontgo: A Turning Point for the Right  —  #dontgo is officially a movement.  MoveOn is mobilizing against the House Republicans and the rightosphere this afternoon.  I don't think they've ever done this in response to a grassroots conservative protest.  Something has changed.

TAKE MY WIFE, PLEASE!  —  We're trying to find out a bit more about the Bikini Beauty Pageant at the Buffalo Chip, where John McCain showed up and offered up wife Cindy as a contestant.  ESPN says the event is topless and “occasionally bottomless”.  Actually their description is worth quoting in full ...

25 Reasons You May be a Racist  —  The tendency of Obama supporters to see racist impulses behind every criticism of their candidate has evolved into absurdity.  Now even the first black president feels compelled to declare he's not a racist.  By this measure, nearly every American …

New McCain Ad: “He's The Original Maverick”  —  In this new ad, John McCain tries to achieve separation from George Bush by saying flat out that “we're worse off than we were four years ago.”  At the same time, McCain sidesteps direct criticism of the President and instead blames “Washington”...

Bundler Collects From Unlikely Donors  —  The bundle of $2,300 and $4,600 checks that poured into Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign on March 12 came from an unlikely group of California donors: a mechanic from D&D Auto Repair in Whittier, the manager of Rite Aid Pharmacy No. 5727 …

Hospitals ‘infested with vermin’  —  The cleanliness of most NHS hospitals in England is threatened by frequent invasions of rats, fleas, bedbugs, flies and cockroaches, a report claims.  —  Figures released by the Conservatives show that 70% of NHS Trusts brought in the pest controllers at least 50 times over a two-year period.

Skimble Closes Blog, Election Doesn't Matter  —  Share This: Digg!  —  Via Avedon at Sideshow, longtime political blogger Skimble is packing it in and closing up shop. … Go read the rest, it's a well-deserved attack on the Dems, Harry and Nancy in particular.

Iraq's projected $80 billion surplus stirs anger on Hill  —  WASHINGTON (CNN) — Iraq is raking in more money from oil exports than it is spending, amassing a projected four-year budget surplus of up to $80 billion, U.S. auditors reported Tuesday.  —  Leading members of Congress …

The Obama/McCain Energy Charade  —  That smell on the nation's highways isn't just car exhaust.  It's also the rank odor of political populism, as John McCain and Barack Obama both try to score points with dubious energy ideas.  —  Obama has now reversed an earlier stance and declared …

AUTOBLOG: Obama: 1 million plug-in hybrid vehicles by 2015.  —  UPDATE: Dave Ivers is unimpressed: … Actually, I think the grid could easily absorb a million plugin hybrids, since they'd mostly be charging at night when consumption is way off-peak.  But ultimately you've got to have lots …

Obama's Muslim-Outreach Adviser Resigns  —  The Muslim-outreach coordinator to the presidential campaign of Barack Obama has resigned amid questions about his involvement in an Islamic investment fund and various Islamic groups.  —  Chicago lawyer Mazen Asbahi, who was appointed volunteer …

Bayh: Obama hasn't asked me to join ticket  —  Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., told The Indianapolis Star today that Sen. Barack Obama has not asked him to be his running mate and that he's not expecting Obama to announce his vice presidential pick when Obama is in Indiana Wednesday.

Bruce Ivins Wasn't the Anthrax Culprit  —  Over the past week the media was gripped by the news that the FBI was about to charge Bruce Ivins, a leading anthrax expert, as the man responsible for the anthrax letter attacks in September/October 2001.  —  But despite the seemingly powerful narrative …