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ALL THE WORLD’S A GAME….Well, it appears that John McCain has succeeded in his plan to torpedo the bailout negotiations for a while so that he can swoop in and pretend to be their savior tomorrow. On CNN, Stephen Hayes says he’ll get away with it because most people don’t pay much attention to politics. “All they’ll see is that that McCain suspended his campaign, flew to Washington, banged a few heads, and then we got an agreement. And that’s a win for him.” Sadly, he might be right.

There really seems to be no end to McCain’s preening self-regard and stunt-of-the-week campaigning strategy these days, nor any end to his lack of regard for caring about what’s actually best for the country. If this stuff were a game with no real-world consequences, I’d admire his gamesmanship. Since it’s not, I’m just disgusted.

But if it’s bread and circuses we’re going to get, I might as well get the real thing: USC vs. Oregon State in Corvallis tonight. So that’s where I’ll be for the rest of the evening: watching a game that’s supposed to be a game. I’ll be back in a few hours.

UPDATE: Well, that was a bummer. Sort of like the rest of the week.

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PLEASE—BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

We’ll say it loud and clear: At Mother Jones, no one gets to tell us what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. The deadline’s almost here. Please help us reach our $150k membership goal by May 31.

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