Another scandal-a-day week is behind us. I can't even scratch the surface on the financial crisis in a little wrap like this, so I won't even start. (I will say this, though, because I'm incredibly agitated: George Bush laid out a massive plan this morning to shore up the mortgage industry. It will cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. He and his cronies caused this mess, likely getting at least a little more rich along the way, and yet it's the taxpayers — who have lost their homes and businesses and life savings — who are being forced to step in and bail water. (And that makes me want to pick a fight, so stay tuned.)

This just in from the Christian Broadcasting Network via the Advocate: Barack Obama's campaign is set to launch a "Faith, Family and Values Tour" next week with a pro-Prop 8 scholar, Douglas Kmiec, as the main speaker. According to the Advocate: "Kmiec wrote an op-ed for the San Francisco Chronicle June 13, titled: 'On Same-Sex Marriage: Should California amend its Constitution? Say 'no' to the Brave New World.' Kmiec's first two sentences in the piece read, 'The California ballot initiative intended to set aside the state Supreme Court's judicial invention of same-sex marriage deserves public support. Maybe it is enough to say, as many do in conversation, that it merely re-secures a millennia of tradition and common sense.'" While it's understandable that Obama wants to lock in the moderate and progressive faith voters, Kmiec may be disappointed to know that the latest polls show 55% of California voters against Prop 8 with only 38% saying they will vote in favor.

Moving on...

Perhaps the most non-story stories was the whole Troopergate escapade... on ice. Here's how the story goes: Before Sarah Palin was chosen to be John McCain's running mate, she did an interview with Philip Gourevitch from the New Yorker in which she said “that one of her goals had been to combat alcohol abuse in rural Alaska, and she blamed Commissioner (Walt) Monegan for failing to address the problem. That, she said, was a big reason that she'd let him go — only, by her account, she didn't fire him, exactly. Rather, she asked him to drop everything else and single-mindedly take on the state's drinking problem, as the director of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. 'It was a job that was open, commensurate in salary pretty much — $10,000 less” — but, she added, Monegan hadn't wanted the job, so he left state service; he quit.”

This week, however, Palin's attorney contends that Monegan was fired over “outright insubordination” because of a trip to Washington D.C. “to seek funding for a new, multimillion-dollar sexual assault initiative the governor hadn't yet approved.” (Alaska has the highest sexual assault rates in the nation.) All of this begs the questions: Was he fired or not? Was he the guy to take on a major state problem or was he a renegade? In addition to these inconsistencies, Palin also initially agreed to cooperate with the investigation and is now refusing, and the McCain campaign is trying to get the whole thing thrown out, at least until after the election. On top of that, Alaska's Attorney General is not letting the 12 subpoenaed state employees testify and Todd Palin, witness number 13 and the man some are calling Alaska's 'shadow governor', is also ignoring his subpoena. What coulda/shoulda/woulda been a non-starter, local story and family dispute has now become an international scandal that seems to indicate that the Palins have something to hide.

McCain is still rolling out false ads that fail to pass the Fact Checkers. According to the Washington Post, the latest is an attempt to tie Barack Obama “to Franklin Raines, the former CEO of the bankrupt mortgage giant, Fannie Mae, who also happens to be African-American.” The Post tracks the rumors back to a single conversation at a photo shoot between a Style section reporter and Raines. The Obama camp, Raines and the reporter in question all deny the link that McCain is making in the ad.

On the international front, China is in the middle of a tainted milk crisis which is enveloping baby formula and liquid milk. According to the AP, “Tainted baby formula has been blamed for killing four infants and sickening 6,200 in China since the scandal broke last week. Some 1,300 babies, mostly newborns, are currently in hospitals and 158 of them are suffering from acute kidney failure.” Sales and imports of all milk and dairy products have been suspended.