From the "Since you asked…" file.

Oliver Willis wonders...

The RNC is having Andrew Breitbart in for an event, along with Chairman Steele. Besides the studied idiocy of Sarah Palin, is there a better statement about the intellectually dishonest state of the right in America?

Since you asked, nope, not that I can think of.

That's it, close 'em down.

I heartily join the chorus decrying the RNC's misogynistic substitution of Nancy Pelosi's surname for a vulgarity for female genitalia. It's unconscionable and un-American.

This, though? This is downright anti-American...

The RNC video, which begins with the speaker’s head in the iconic spy-series gun sight...

The Republican National Committee has created an ad which depicts the Speaker Of The House Of The United States Of America, the third highest Constitutional officer in the nation, second in the line of Presidential succession, in the sights of a gun.

This isn't the work of a random blogger with a perverse imagination and a pirated copy of Photoshop, or the work of (theoretically) some extremist hate-monger. This is the work of the Republican National Committee.

Iconic or not, depicting the Speaker's - any Speaker's, any party, any time - immanent assasination is downright treasonous.

When the RNC staff shows up Tuesday morning, they should find Secret Service padlocks on the door with paddy wagons lined up for the perps. The line of legitimacy as an American political party has faded from the RNC's rear-view mirror.

Money makes the map.

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama raised $52 million in June, a sum that far outpaced the fundraising of Republican rival John McCain and promised a wideranging Democratic campaign that will reach into states that previous Democratic candidates had considered unwinnable.

The Obama/DNC COH is $92 million, v. the McCain/RNC's total of $95 million, but with Obama freed from the constraints of public financing and raising money at about double the McCain clip, this may be the last quarter that Republicans can claim an advantage. The DNC itself took in over $22 million in June, as the end of the primary campaign has people looking at needs beyond Presidential candidates.

With some $328 million already raised, Obama has broken all records and established a new campaign finance paradigm. Bush set the old record last cycle with a finance strategy that involved getting dozens of people to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. Obama has taken the lead with a strategy that involves getting millions of people to give something. The job ahead is to translate that success into a new organizing paradigm that brings a Democratic campaign to new ground, crossing not only geographic borders, but borders of class, race, faith and ideology.

In other financial news, Goldy has the goods on WA-8…

Darcy Burner has outraised incumbent Dave Reichert for a fifth quarter in a row, hauling in $585,000 over the April to June period compared to Reichert’s $347,000. Burner now has $1.25 million cash on hand compared to Reichert’s $916,000.

It should go without saying (but it obviously won't) that both Obama and Burner can be found on the Upper Left ActBlue page.