And If You Think I Worry Too Much About This Election...

I've got nothing on author Erica Jong.

It seems that the final days of the presidential campaign have made Erica Jong and her friends more than a little anxious.

A few days ago, Jong, the author and self-described feminist, gave an interview to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the choicest bits of which were brought to my attention by the reliably sharp-eyed Christian Rocca, the U.S. correspondent of Il Foglio, who published excerpts on his Camillo blog. Basically, Jong says her fear that Obama might lose the election has developed into an "obsession. A paralyzing terror. An anxious fever that keeps you awake at night." She also says that her friends Jane Fonda and Naomi Wolf are extremely worried that Obama will be sabotaged by Republican dirty tricks, and that if an Obama loss indeed comes to pass, the result will be a second American Civil War.

Gosh I hope not.

Of course, I took Monday through Wednesday off work for a reason...

Here's A Scary Halloween Treat For You

Atrios sez:

Digby:

I think we're about to get schooled. Again. The torture loving right is dusting off its completely hypocritical "government is full of jack-booted thugs" playbook --- and it's going to drive us all completely crazy.

Indeed. They'll try to bring Obama down on some abuse of power scandal. Should be fun!

I'll go one step further.

If Obama tries to clean up Bush's "unitary Executive" abuses of power by way of signing statement and Executive Order, he'll be accused of being soft on terrorism, and we'll hear William Ayers and Rashid Khalidi and cries of him being SECRET MUSLIM TRAITOR WEAKENING AMERICA FROM THE INSIDE, and the calls will be long and loud for his impeachment.

If he doesn't, as Atrios says, the calls for his impeachment will still be just as long and loud as all the other secret and highly illegal Bush programs that we don't know about are immediately leaked before Obama can do anything with them, with folks coming out of the woodwork to say "Well Obama knew about them as a Senator and didn't stop them then, and he's not stopping them now as President."

Has there ever been calls for a President-Elect to be impeached before taking office? We may set a record.

As I have said time and time again, if you thought they hated Clinton, wait until you see what they do to Obama. Twelve months from now, his approval numbers will look like Bush's, the financial meltdown will be his fault, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran will be his fault, everything will be his fault.

If the Pretty Hate Machine doesn't create the next Timothy McVeigh or Eric Rudolph to "handle the job" the Village Bipartisans and the Palinites will take him down the Clinton way.

I just don't see how Obama makes it through his term without extrordinary luck.

As Digby says about the GOP in her post linked up there:

They leave the rest of us standing on the sidelines looking like fools for ever caring about anything but winning.

And winning means the absolute, total, and complete destruction of Obama and the Democrats by any means necessary.

Do not ever forget that. Yes, I'm assuming Obama actually wins...but assuming Obama wins is, of course, forgetting that, now isn't it?

Vote. Tuesday. And even then, there is a long hard fight ahead for all of us.

Helpful US Attorney Is Helpful

US Attorney Troy Eid is helpful, saving taxpayer money and stuff by refusing to prosecute those three fellows in Denver that allegedly threatened to kill Obama at the DNC Convention a few months ago.

Eid, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2006, declined to prosecute the three men on charges of threatening to assassinate Barack Obama during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, saying that the suspects were "just a bunch of meth heads" and their words failed to meet the legal standard for "true threat."

Nope, not a serious threat. Even though they had weapons. But hey, it's not like Republicans are soft on crime or anything.

Legal experts say that Eid's definition of true threat directly conflicts with the statue covering threats to presidential candidates, 18 U.S.C. 879, which defines the threat as "whoever knowingly and willfully threatens to kill, kidnap, or inflict bodily harm upon a major candidate for the office of President or Vice President, or a member of the immediate family of such candidate."

While noting the statute must be weighed against First Amendment rights, they argued that because voluntary intoxication is not a viable defense the First Amendment does not protect a speaker's threatening speech.

George Fisher, Stanford Law Professor and one of the nation's top scholars of criminal law and evidence, explained, "Certainly when there's a state of mind requirement in a crime, 'knowingly,' for example, you could say as a logical matter that somebody can't do something knowingly while under the influence. But there are these other laws, sometimes in the form of statutes and sometimes in the form of case law, that will say, 'But voluntary intoxication is no defense.' And the Supreme Court many years ago upheld those laws as not being a violation of due process."

Colorado defense attorneys agreed. They said Colorado state law does not differ from the Supreme Court's ruling on voluntary intoxication.

Thus, legal experts agreed that a verbal threat alone, intended by the speaker to be taken seriously, and said willfully and knowingly, is all that is necessary to satisfy the legal requirement for true threat. Contrary to what Eid told the press, a prosecutor in this case would not have to prove a plan existed or the viability of any such plan, only that a threat was made and understood by the speaker and receiver of the words to be said in earnest.

But a Bush appointed US Attorney from the Bush Justice Department (home of a not-too-long-ago scandal involving the mass politicization of the department and ended with former AG Alberto Gonzales resigning in shame) once again taking unusual action that can only really be explained by a refusal to embarass McSame supporters by prosecuting folks threatening to kill Obama say, a few weeks before the election.

That's not political at all.

The Grand Delusion

John McSame once famously said "The media is my base." Sarah Palin on the other hand believes the media is in fact America's number one enemy.

Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama's associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate's free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

"If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations," Palin told host Chris Plante, "then I don't know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media."

However she feels about the way her story has been told in the press, Palin told WMAL she is not discouraged.

"It's sort of perplexing to me, because I'm a practical person and plainspoken also, but just cutting to the chase and calling things like I see them, just like most Americans. But this has not left a bitter taste in my mouth, the bitter shots taken by the mainstream media and by some of the elitism there in Washington," Palin said.

"What this has left me with is a very energized and positive feeling about America, because there are enough Americans who are desiring the positive change that John McCain's gonna usher in."

Plante then suggested that in her next sit-down interview, Palin should tap the reporter on the knee and ask, "So who you votin' for?"

Palin laughed and said, "Yeah, maybe that just would say it all."

"I'm gonna try that," she said.

I bet she would in fact follow up on that idea as President. After all, Bush did. The current administration's famous "Free Speech Zones" exist to keep protesters away from the President at his events. You can just imagine the wheels turning as she pictures what she'll do to that nasty media that doesn't agree with her.

One of the reasons the GOP base loves Sister Sarah so much is because she's bought into the notion that the "Evil Liberal Media" is out to destroy the GOP talk radio empire. You see this delusional behavior often from folks on that side, that there's a vast conspiracy by American news organizations, television networks, cable channels and newspapers to try to limit what right wing folks say. They complain that the Media is "in the tank for Obama" and

That's laughable on its face considering what the Bush administration really has done to limit free speech in this country. But the right wingers plunge on and vow that anyone who doesn't agree with them is un-American, Socialist, Communist, terrorist, or traitor, while at the same time they "defend their free speech rights" to slander millions of Americans for he crime of dissent.

GOP Rule #1: If they complain that the Democrats are doing something, it's because the GOP is already doing it. Always. What's the GOP complaining about? Socialism, vote fraud, and stifling dissent. What are the GOP currently doing? Giving banks trillions, purging millions of traditionally Democratic voters from the rolls and making voting nearly impossible for those traditionally Democratic voters who ARE still on the rolls, and now of course they are working to harm any outfit that might publish dissenting viewpoints.

Think about that on Tuesday when you vote...those of you who can. We already know what the litmus test for belonging to the GOP post-November 4th is: Where did you stand on Sarah Palin?

Are you ready for her to be your President? Do you think Obama would be a better President then Sarah Palin?

Be honest. Either way, vote.

StupidiNews, Halloween Edition!

Here's some scary news, kids. What's your Halloween costume this year?

• 10 million homeowners are going as hobos this year, breaking even or owing more on their homes than their homes are worth.."underwater" on equity.
• Nearly 1 in 4 Texans are going as Archie Bunker, they believe Obama is Muslim.
• The US military is going as the Men in Black, complete with "flashy things" to manipulate memory and amnesia.
• 12,000 Floridians are going as the Invisible Man, because state law says their IDs don't exactly match voter registration, they need to now present other forms of ID to be able to vote.
• Phillies Phans are going as Phillies Phans to today's World Series parade.

Scary stuff, huh kids? Woo!

M Night Bipartisans' The Village

They're coming.

The Village Bipartisan Idiots.

They'll never leave Obama alone until he becomes one of them.

Their attack is already underway from people like Nebraska's Bob Kerrey.

I believe this is likely because Obama will surround himself with professionals, not ideologues or acolytes. An unprecedented number of patriotic, politically savvy and centrist men and women have been part of his campaign team - and are therefore likely to make up President Obama's governing team.

I believe this is likely because of who Obama is. Republicans have tried desperately to paint the man as a secret radical. But the imagery just doesn't connect; Americans see a man who is calm, respectful, considerate and careful. That is just what the doctor ordered for our politics.

Last, I believe this is likely because Obama understands that to succeed, he must make peace with John McCain just as he has done with Hillary Clinton. When this historic election concludes, I expect the two to sit down, without precondition, and negotiate an agenda of reform.

But that will only be the beginning. To build up the political capital for the kinds of changes needed in these difficult times, Obama will need to communicate the following to Congress, in no uncertain terms: The Democrats have not won a mandate for all their policies. Rather, the American people have resoundingly registered their frustration with a failed status quo, and the next President must chart a new, less partisan course.

Bob Kerrey is only the start of the Sensible Washington Establishment douchebaggery that will start in long and loud on November 5.

Everyone in the Village Idiot club, left, right, "sensible" center, will be saying how Obama now needs to immediately do whatever the hell the GOP wants to do as a "bi-partisan effort".

There will be a good two months of pressure for Obama to:

1. Keep as much of Bush's cabinet as possible, especially Robert Gates and Michael Mukasey, if not Condi Rice.
   
2. Drop all charges/pretense of charges/hints of pretenses of charges against Bush and quash any investigations.
   
3. Drop any notions of reversing controversial Bush policy at all: PATRIOT Act, Gitmo, torture, wiretapping, etc. Kerrey's already asking for this.
   
4. Show he "reaches across the aisle" by giving into more bad GOP legislation from the wingnuts.
   
5. Abandon progressives, period. Obama will be pressured to prove he's not a liberal, and will be advised to "distance himself from Pelosi/Reid".
   
6. Enact McSame's economic, health, and military plan rather than his own.
   
7. Escalate wars in Afghanistan and start one in Iran.

In other words, Obama will be told to be McSame, because he doesn't have a "mandate like Bush did." Even if the Democrats have 60 Senate seats, 275 or even 300 in the House, and Obama in the White House, it's not a mandate for change...it's a mandate to do the same exact f'ckin stuff for the last 8 years, got it?

Palinocrats

There's been a lot of talk this election season about Obamicans: pissed-off moderate Republican voters (mostly male) who are sick of Bush, sick of the wingnuttery, and sick of the GOP in general.

But there's always a flipside to everything, and to the Obamicans, their opposite number is the disaffected pro-life feminist who believes that the GOP putting Palin on the ticket and Hillary's loss of Obama is proof the Democrats have abandoned feminism...the Palinocrats like the Daily Beast's Wendy Button.

The final straw came the other week when Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher (a.k.a Joe the Plumber) asked a question about higher taxes for small businesses. Instead of celebrating his aspirations, they were mocked. He wasn’t “a real plumber,” and “They’re fighting for Joe the Hedge-Fund manager,” and the patronizing, “I’ve got nothing but love for Joe the Plumber.”

Having worked in politics, I know that absolutely none of this is on the level. This back and forth is posturing, a charade, and a political game. These lines are what I refer to as “hooker lines”—a sure thing to get applause and the press to scribble as if they’re reporting meaningful news.

As the nation slouches toward disaster, the level of political discourse is unworthy of this moment in history. We have Republicans raising Ayers and Democrats fostering ageism with “erratic” and jokes about Depends. Sexism. Racism. Ageism and maybe some Socialism have all made their ugly cameos in election 2008. It’s not inspiring. Perhaps this is why I found the initial mocking of Joe so offensive and I realized an old line applied: “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party; the Democratic Party left me.”

The party I believed in wouldn’t look down on working people under any circumstance. And Joe the Plumber is right. This is the absolutely worst time to raise taxes on anyone: the rich, the middle class, the poor, small businesses and corporations.

Our economy is in the tank for many complicated reasons, especially because people don’t have enough money. So let them keep it. Let businesses keep it so they can create jobs and stay here and weather this storm. And yet, the Democratic ideology remains the same. Our approach to problems—big government solutions paid for by taxing the rich and big and smaller companies—is just as tired and out of date as trickle down economics. How about a novel approach that simply finds a sane way to stop the bleeding?

That’s not exactly the philosophy of a Democrat. Not only has this party belittled working people in this campaign from Joe the Plumber to the bitter comments, it has also been part of tearing down two female candidates. At first, certain Democrats and the press called Senator Clinton “dishonest.” They went after her cleavage. They said her experience as First Lady consisted of having tea parties. There was no outrage over “Bros before Hoes” or “Iron My Shirt.” Did Senator Clinton make mistakes? Of course. She’s human.

But here we are about a week out and it’s déjà vu all over again. Really, front-page news is how the Republican National Committee paid for Governor Sarah Palin’s wardrobe? Where’s the op-ed about how Obama tucks in his shirt when he plays basketball or how Senator Biden buttons the top button on his golf shirt?

As Digby says at the end of eviscerating Wendy Button here:

I suspect there's going to be a very lucrative niche opening up for these Palin Democrats with lots of wingnut welfare to go around.

Hell, I'll go one step further: The path Sarah Palin will have to take to the Oval Office in 2012 is by walking directly on the backs of people like this. They need each other, just like Bush and Rush did.

The GOP is already maneuvering for 2012. The sycophants and water carriers are already lining up for Obamabashing, The Industry.

As I've said before, the hatred for Clinton and Bush combined will be shockingly pale compared to the pure vehemence against Obama.

His honeymoon will be over before he is even sworn in.

Starting the Palinocrats tag now, and keeping an eye out for em. There will be more.

Errm, Another Last Reminder Of Bushenomics

GDP officially contracted by 0.3% for 3rd quarter. Remember, that's all BEFORE most of the bailout. Steve Benen makes the point about what this means for the last 6 days:

The McCain campaign, presumably with a straight face, issued a statement that argued Barack Obama, by moving the country in an entirely different economic direction, "would accelerate this dangerous course." The McCain campaign added, Obama is "change Americans cannot afford."

I have to admit, this is rather amusing. The economic policies of the last eight years clearly haven't worked. Obama is offering a new approach. McCain's argument, in effect, is that we need to stick with what we know has already failed. If can only keep doing what Bush has done, and wait for it to start working, everything will work out fine. Indeed, we "cannot afford" to go in a different direction.

Why anyone would find this persuasive is a mystery.

22% of America still believes Bush and his policies are fine, remember?

One Last Reminder Of Bushenomics

ExxonMobil reported a nearly $15 billion third-quarter profit today, a new American milestone of capitalist excess. Fifteen. Billion. Dollars. So far the company has made $80 billion plus in the last 21 months or so despite the financial downturn.

Companies make profit, it's what they do. But oil companies still need government subsidies for "exploration" and land deals and tax credits and discounts, and ExxonMobil is making roughly $1 billion a week, and that's where I have something of a problem with them when they're still demanding my taxpayer dollars with the best lobbyists money can afford.

And of course, the Maverick Twins fought these companies so very hard. Dems are just as complicit. But it's time to get our priorities straight.

How To Know When The GOP Is Up To No Good

Follow this simple checklist:

1. The GOP exists.
2. It's a day of the week ending in the letter 'y'.
3. They are behind in the polls.
4. They are accusing the Democrats of cheating, for this is the only way Democrats could possibly be ahead in the polls.

If you answered yes to all four questions, simply take whatever the GOP is accusing the Democrats of doing, and you now know exactly what the GOP is up to.

The Ohio Republican Party launched Tuesday a radio ad that opens with the sound of a ticking clock and asks, "Could Ohio's election be stolen?"

In suggesting that "many" voting registrations in the state "may be fraudulent," the 60-second spot cites the case of a Cleveland man who has told election officials and news reporters that he signed multiple registration cards in exchange for cigarettes. The ad says that the man was "bribed to register 72 different times and vote illegally."

Mike West, a spokesman for the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections in Cleveland, said Tuesday that the board has uncovered 80 registration cards with Freddie Johnson's name on them that were submitted since January, "but he has never voted. ... We have no record of him ever voting."

Ohio Republicans have said in court briefs that fraudulent registration forms raise fears that fraudulent voting could occur.

The ad berates Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner (D) for allegedly ignoring problems with voter registrations and "concealing evidence." The ad will run throughout the state, as many as 20 times a day in some locations through Nov. 4.

Asked about the spot, Kevin Kidder, a spokesman for Brunner, said, "We are not going to dignify it with a response."

The fact that the GOP is taking out radio ads on this is a huge clue that the GOP is up to no good in Ohio. When they are accusing Dems of trying to steal the election, you'd better believe the GOP is trying to do exactly that.

Interestingly enough, the US Justice Department said it's not going to investigate the Ohio GOP's claims too closely. Not enough evidence. Perhaps they are tired of being Bush's legal thugs. Perhaps they are being held in reserve. Perhaps it's one hell of a feint.

Perhaps Obama is going to win by such a margin that Ohio really won't matter by itself.

StupidiNews!

• The Phillies take the world's longest game 5 to win the World Series.
• Can Obama take down McSame...in Arizona?
• The Beatles could be coming to your own "Rock Band".
• America's third party Presidential candidates debate this evening in Cleveland.
• Scientists zero in on a neighboring solar system and its planets.

OBAMAVISION!

Enjoy. Pretty good stuff here, actually.

Epic Train Wreck Omega Super Fun Time Fail

The train wreck that is McSame/Palin just got hit by another train the jumped the tracks from four counties over, and is now busy trying to make baby train wrecks with the first train wreck (h/t BooMan):

Wolf Blitzer: And this just coming into the "Situation Room," the Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin now speaking out openly about her intentions in 2012 if, if she and John McCain were to lose this contest next Tuesday. In an interview with ABC News, Sarah Palin is now saying, she would be interested in remaining a serious national political figure, going ahead to 2012. She was asked what happens in 2012 if you lose on Tuesday, would you simply go back to Alaska? Elizabeth Vargas of ABC News asked her and Palin said this, and I will read it to you verbatim according to an ABC News transcript: "Absolutely not," Sarah Palin says. "I think that, if I were to give up and wave a white flag of surrender against some of the political shots that we've taken, that ... that would ... bring this whole ... I'm not doin' this for naught," and that is a direct quote from Sarah Palin. Clearly, leaving open the possibility that she would be interested in leading the Republican Party in 2012 if she and John McCain were to lose this presidential contest right now.

EPIC. CAMPAIGN. MESSAGE. FAIL.

The GOP Sucks Across The Board

Today's example of why the GOP has to be put out in the wilderness until it learns basic human civility? Liddy Dole.

Falling behind in her reelection race, Sen. Elizabeth Dole has uncorked one hell of a charge: The Democrat running against me is godless.

Dole's 30-second ad, which is running on television in North Carolina but has not (understandably) been promoted by the GOP, uses a September fundraiser co-hosted by 40 people, including a representative of the Godless America PAC, to falsely accuse Democrat Kay Hagan of being an atheist herself.

The end of the ad features a picture of Hagan with a female voice yelling "there is no God!" -- the clear implication is that the voice is Hagan's. In fact, the Democratic candidate is a Sunday School teacher and an elder at her Presbyterian church.

The Charlotte Observer reported Wednesday morning that Hagan's campaign is seeking a "cease and desist" order against Dole's new attack.

This is about as bad as it comes, folks. There are such things as devout Democrats, be they Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or what have you.

There are also plenty of Atheist Democrats who vote too. That's the great thing about America, no matter what your spiritual inclination is, your vote counts. So attacking a candidate's religion when she's a freakin Sunday School teacher is probably a bad, bad idea.

But that's what Liddy Dole and the GOP will do to win an election. Honor, integrity, civility? These are weapons to Republicans...and weaknesses their Democratic enemies have that are exploitable.

Obamavision Now In THREE-DEE

Obama's Big Commercial(tm) is tonight at 8. Should be interesting.

Of course, since Obama's doing it, Politico is already complaining about it.

Barack Obama will go on national television tonight and air a 30-minute infomercial about himself and his presidential campaign.

Several political image makers, both Republicans and Democrats, say it’s a smart move. But is there a risk of excess in it, as well?

While Obama hasn’t made many strategic mistakes in his campaign against Republican John McCain, he has, on occasion, shown a weakness for extravagance.

In July, Obama’s visits to Afghanistan and Iraq generated comforting images of the senator with military leaders and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. But his trip ended in Berlin with an image of 200,000 fans, mostly Europeans, chanting Obama’s name.

In August, his campaign navigated the minefield of the Democratic Party’s feuding families to pull off a convention that began healing the wounds between the Clinton and Obama camps. Then it came to its conclusion between two Greek columns where a triumphant Obama delivered an acceptance speech to a football stadium crowd of more than 80,000.

Today, Obama is dominating the television ad wars. As of Oct. 22, Obama placed 150 percent more ads than McCain in Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, according to the Nielsen Co.

Despite all that, and despite his lead in national and most battleground polls, the campaign decided to plunk down between $3 and $5 million to buy half-hour blocks of time at 8 p.m. tonight on NBC, CBS, FOX, Univision, BET, MSNBC and TV One for delivery of his final argument to the voters.

Could it seem to some voters like overkill?

Glad to see we're back to the elitist, out-of-touch, The Chosen Uppity Colored Man meme from September there, guys. I was kinda beginning to miss it.

But that's okay. Remember, Your Liberal Media is "in the tank for Obama".

Dick Morris Explains It All Again

Dick Morris: still America's Worst Pundit(tm).

If current survey trends continue, Obama will finish with less than 50 percent in the polls. Even discounting the Nader vote (some people never learn), the undecided voters could tip the race either way. How will they break?

Since there is no incumbent, they cannot automatically be assigned to the challenger; and since turnout is likely to be huge, the current undecided voters will probably make their way to the polls and cast their ballots.

But for whom?

At the beginning of this contest, Obama effectively made the case that the election was a referendum on Bush's performance in office. Painting a vote for McCain as a desire for "four more years of the same failed policies," he made the most of Bush's dismal approval rating. Had he been able to keep the focus on Bush, he would likely have inherited most of the undecided vote.

But as Obama surged into a more or less permanent lead in October, animated by the financial crisis, he has assumed many of the characteristics of an incumbent. Every voter asks himself one question before he or she casts a ballot: Do I want to vote for Obama? His uniqueness, charisma and assertive program have so dominated the dialogue that the election is now a referendum on Obama.

As Obama has oscillated, moving somewhat above or somewhat below 50 percent in all the October polls, his election likely hangs in the balance. If he falls short of 50 percent in these circumstances, a majority of the voters can be said to have rejected him. Likely a disproportionate number of the undecideds will vote for McCain.

Got that? Obama is now the incumbent before he has even been elected, therefore his aura of "inevitable" means the public is tired of him, they are "rejecting" him, and that McSame is the scrappy, energetic challenger that undecided voters will flock to in the last week.

You know, even though all the polls show Obama leading. All of them.

I have doubts about the "inevitability" of Obama, myself. But this theory is not the explanation for what a McSame win would consist of. That little nightmare scenario has a much different tune.

Oh, and Dick Morris is still an idiot.

Yeah, I'm Real Proud Of This In My State

Wildcat Pride, baby.

University of Kentucky police are investigating who hung an effigy believed to be Democrat Sen. Barack Obama from a tree on the Lexington campus Wednesday morning.

UK President Lee Todd, after a news conference Wednesday, said that UK police have notified federal authorities of the incident. Todd said a professor saw the effigy on the tree near the Rose Street parking garage across from the Mining and Minerals building this morning and called police. The professor then sent Todd an email notifying him of the incident.

UK police took down the effigy and have it as evidence, Todd said. Todd said anyone with any information about the incident should contact UK police. The effigy was likely placed there sometime overnight. But it's in a well-traveled area and police are hoping that someone saw something, Todd said.

Todd called the act "deplorable" and "abominal" and says that type of behavior is not tolerated on UK's campus.

GO BIG BLUE!

...And take Mitch McConnell and this racist bullshit with you.

Rate Cut!

Fed does make that 50 BP rate cut. Markets wanted more, of course. Dow dropped under 8,900 there for a while. Of course...it's not like it'll do any good anyway.

So far at least, the Fed (and Treasury) have had less success in restoring confidence. "Pushing on a string" is the term often used to describe a central bank that can't get economic activity to respond -- no matter how aggressively it acts -- because sentiment is so fragile, not to mention the banking system.

There are three likely long-term outcomes to such a scenario, and only one of them is particularly hopeful -- kinda like what coaching legend Woody Hayes said about passing the football: "Only three things can happen, and two of them are bad."

• The Fed's actions help put a floor under the economy, preventing a severe recession and paving the way for a normal recovery.
• The Fed cuts rates to zero and the economy remains moribund, i.e. the dreaded Japan scenario.
• The Fed reignites inflationary pressures by continuing to devalue the dollar via its "easy money" policies. (If you believe that's the most likely outcome, best to have some exposure to commodities, TIPs and equities since cash will become trash - perhaps literally.)

I'm betting on both number 2 AND number 3 myself. The 1% interest rate "REFI YOUR HOME NOW! INTEREST RATES AT HISTORIC LOWS!" beast is how we got into this mess in the first place.

Hell, I expect us to be at 0.5% before the end of the year. There will be big pressure from Wall Street to drop the rate to zero. They'll have to. They'll have no other choice. Not even Obama will stop them.

And then the hyperinflation fun REALLY begins.

What Obama Is Up Against In PA

He's up against this. I don't buy Fivethityeight.com's Obama 96%+ win percentage on Tuesday for a second. I don't buy the GOP "We expect McSame to lose" argument for a second. McSame himself is still guaranteeing a win. He says the polls are wrong across the board. He knows voters out there in America think like the folks in the video above and aren't telling pollsters about it.

One reason McSame's camp says the polls are wrong is because they believe true voter turnout is being massively overestimated based on new registrations. They know these new voters -- primarily Democratic voters -- will either not vote, not be able to vote, or not have their vote counted correctly.

Mass disenfranchisement of urban, minority, and poor voters -- Obama voters -- is already underway. The election will be far closer then anyone thinks. As I said yesterday in pointing out Digby's post on the GOP trying to own the voter fraud meme, the GOP Pretty Hate Machine must be dismantled. The GOP is preparing to steal the race once again, this time by saying the Dems are the ones defrauding the nation's voters when as usual with these assclowns, just the opposite is true.

But does anyone here actually think the unitary executive power that Preznitman/Nameless One acquired over eight years will just be handed over to the Democrats?

I don't buy it. Neither should you. Vote. If America blows it here, if the GOP gets away with it yet again, we don't get another chance to save the country.

McSame...and President Palin...will see to that.

[UPDATE] Steven D at the Frog Pond has more on the "McSame = Truman" meme the GOP has been pushing for the last two weeks.

StupidiNews!

• Yesterday's huge Dow gain comes in part from the expected Fed rate cut this afternoon, but how low will they go?
• Defense Secretary Robert Gates is demanding a new nuclear weapons program, or the Pentago may have to resort to nuke testing.
• Both Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty are warning of an Obama win.
• The Iraqi government has put forth its own draft proposal for US troops remaining in the country, which the US is expected to completely reject.
• MTVMusic.com takes on Youtube by posting "nearly every music video ever made".

It's Time For Yet Another Installment

...of Yeah, What Digby Said(tm):

There will never be a better opening for the Democrats to fix the electoral system and expose the sophisticated GOP vote suppression and propaganda program than now. The US Attorney scandal was never fully dealt with and it needs to be if we hope to have fair elections in the future.

The Republicans have a very well funded, professional operation, developed over years, to keep Democrats from voting and to brainwash local election officials. If the race isn't close enough to win it by vote suppression and intimidation, they will have laid the groundwork to call the legitimacy of the outcome into question to justify total obstruction of the mandate. (And they have the nerve to say that ACORN is destroying the fabric of democracy.)

One of the purposes of having political power is to use it to ensure your future political survival. It doesn't have to be underhanded or illegal -- indeed, in this case protecting the franchise protects the Democratic Party. If that weren't true, the conservatives wouldn't work so hard to keeping people from voting. The Democrats are suckers if they don't take the opportunity of an historic win, with no sour grapes involved, to clean this up. This meme about "voter fraud" is taking hold and if they don't put a stop to it right now they will regret it.

Amen to that.

We have to remember that if nothing else, this majority must be used to roll back all the anti-Constitutional "unitary executive" garbage this country has been run by for the last 8 years.

The GOP Pretty Hate Machine must be dismantled for good.

Doing The Right Thing

...for the wrong reasons, maybe. Still, Florida Republican Governor Charlie Crist does the world a solid and throws out his own party's law restricting early voting times.

Gov. Charlie Crist on Tuesday extended early voting hours across Florida to 12 hours a day.

The executive order comes after record early voting turnout has contributed to long lines at polling sites.

Current Florida law allows for early voting to be conducted eight hours a day each weekday and for a total of eight hours during the weekends.

With Crist's order, early voting sites will be open the rest of this week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. They will be open a total of 12 hours on Saturday and Sunday, the last day of early voting.

''It's not a political decision,'' Crist said moments after signing the order, which declares a state of emergency in Florida. "It's a people decision.''

Between Crist's decision and the complete abandonment of Senator Intertoobs after his conviction on seven felony counts yesterday, GOP solidarity is completely disintegrating.

It's everyone for themselves now as the ship of state sinks beneath the waves of history...

Sucker Born Every Minute

So, here's today's economic news:

A key measure of consumer mood fell to an all-time low, a reflection of the dismal market performance and tough economic conditions. The Conference Board's Consumer Confidence index plunged to 38 in October from a revised 61.4 in September. Economists thought the survey would fall to 52, according to Briefing.com forecasts. (Full story)

Another report showed home prices in August fell for the 25th month in a row. Meanwhile, prices in 10 major markets tumbled a record 17.7% versus a year ago.

Treasury prices slumped, raising the yield on the 10-year note to 3.77% from 3.68% late Monday. Treasury prices and yields move in opposite directions. (Full story)

And today's market result? Dow gain 888 points.

It's all insanity now.

The Schism

As BooMan points out, the coming GOP thrashing in the polls will rip the party apart:

Jim Nuzzo, a White House aide to the first President Bush, dismissed Mrs Palin's critics as "cocktail party conservatives" who "give aid and comfort to the enemy".

He told The Sunday Telegraph: "There's going to be a bloodbath. A lot of people are going to be excommunicated. David Brooks and David Frum and Peggy Noonan are dead people in the Republican Party. The litmus test will be: where did you stand on Palin?"

If that's truly the test for the wingnut branch of the GOP, then the Republicans are dead and buried for a long, long time. As I said before, the lesson the GOP hardliners are taking away from this election is that the reason John McSame is about to lose is that the problem is that he's not Sarah Palin, despite all the evidence to the contrary that Sarah Palin is in fact the largest single drag on the ticket.

But the GOP is never interested in any reality the GOP wingnuts haven't created themselves. The new reality they face is the wilderness.

StupidiNews!

• Game 5 of the World Series? For the first time in history suspended due to weather tied 2-2 in the sixth.
• Global stock markets rallied overnight in the grandfather of all dead cat bounces, pointing to a big day on Wall Street.
• Sarah Palin and the GOP are washing their hands of convicted felon Senator Toobs.
• Preznitman is fast-tracking a new EPA rule to weaken environmental regs on power plants before he leaves office.
• The US Army thinks using Twitter from your cell phone is a security threat to America.

Government Agency Overtime Pay Is Justifiable At Times

...especially when you're up against crap like this.

Law enforcement arrested two men in Tennessee who had plans to rob a gun dealer to shoot Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and "as many non-Caucasians" as possible, an official said on Monday.

An official from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said police found the men in the Jackson, Tennessee area with a number of guns, including a sawed-off shotgun, in their car.

"They wanted to go to a place where they could shoot as many non-Caucasian as they could," the official said, noting that the men first planned to rob a gun dealer. "They also had a plot to assassinate Sen. Obama."

Constant vigliance, boys. Constant vigliance.

Welcome to America, 2008.

Senator Down The Toobs

Breaking news at this hour, Alaska Senator Ted "Series of Toobs" Stevens is now Senator Ted "Series of Felonies" Stevens: Guilty on all seven counts.

The jury found Stevens guilty of "knowingly and willfully" scheming to conceal on Senate disclosure forms more than $250,000 in home renovations and other gifts from an Alaska-based oil industry contractor.

Stevens faces a maximum sentence of up to to 35 years in prison -- five years for each of the seven counts.

Legal experts note the judge has the discretion to give Stevens as little as no jail time and probation when he is sentenced.

As Stevens left the defense area, he and his wife exchanged a kiss on the cheek. Stevens said: "It's not over yet." Stevens' defense team said they will move for a new trial.

Stevens left the courthouse without comment.

The 84-year-old senator is locked in a tight race for re-election against his Democratic challenger, Mark Begich. Stevens hopes to retain the seat he has held since 1968.

Not even Alaska will re-elect a convicted seven-time felon to office, folks.

Fork. Done.

Down the Toobs.

Not All Conservatives Are Complete Whackjobs

Some of them, in fact, make very good logical arguments, such as Daniel Larison explaining why the GOP is in fact, completely screwed for the next several elections.

Robert Stacy McCain strikes again:

In other words, Rush’s 20 million listeners are what’s wrong with the Republican Party. If only they’d listen to these young Harvard graduates who know everything . . .

That isn’t what Ross said, as Ross was arguing against the obviously ridiculous claim from Limbaugh that it is somehow undesirable to win over independent and moderate voters during election campaigns. As McCain might say, even a Harvard graduate can see the flaw in this view.

However, in point of fact, yes, that audience is part of what’s wrong with the Republican Party. Part of what has been wrong with the GOP is that its rank-and-file members take their political advice and insights from radio entertainers who seem to understand little about political reality and even less about policy, and who substitute bluster for understanding. When they are confronted with an administration that does much the same, they have seemed only too willing to buy into the bluster. They remain steadfastly loyal to a failed President and his indefensible decisions, and they break with him only when he supports measures that are absolutely intolerable and even then they do this only when the President is profoundly unpopular and no longer very influential. This audience may have the right views about many things, but in practice that translates into reliable loyalty to a party that virtually never serves their interests, which enables the politicians who support all of the intolerable policies that they themselves reject.

The “young Harvard graduates” and the like may not have the right answers, and indeed I think they don’t have most of the right answers, but they at least recognize that there is something deeply awry on the American right that isn’t going to be fixed by repeating worn-out mantras and slapping oneself on the back. The Limbaugh approach recommended to his audience (which hasn’t been 20 million-strong in years) is that Republicans and conservatives have made no mistakes and need to learn nothing, except that they were not hard-core and true-believing enough according to whatever caricature of conservatism Limbaugh claims to represent, which actually might not be so very conservative after all. Being far to the right of Limbaugh, even I can recognize the absurdity of the argument that Republicans do not need to expand their coalition beyond core constituencies. Of course, it is only absurd if you assume that they want to win elections.

In other words, the lesson the GOP is about to take away from this election loss is "blame the moderates and burn them as heretics, purge them from the ranks of the faithful and rip out their lifeforce to feed our true masters!"rather than "maybe we should re-examine this whole purging thing, guys."

Which is fine with me, because it means the Dems will be in charge for quite a long time. Also, putting people like Eric Cantor in charge after the Great Losing will assure The Even Greater Losing later on.

I'm good with it. Let em work it out while the rest of the country does yeoman's work.

Dick Morris Explains It All

...about how McSame wins the election:

1. TAXES!
2. JEREMIAH WRIGHT!
3. SOCIALISM!

Because of course that's been working so well over the last month.

This has been another episode of Dick Morris, Worst Pundit In America.

Don't Sweat The Polls

As Chris Bowers reminds us at OpenLeft, the last week of this election is just statistical noise. Obama wins running away, it's only the degree of victory. Remember, the most lopsided popular vote victory was not either of Reagan's electoral "landslides", but Clinton's 8.5% in 1996.

Worried about "the tightening?"

Well, Obama's national lead has been stable at 7% for a month now. The national campaign is not tightening, and we are just seeing statistical noise.

Even if the campaign were tightening, Obama would still have a comfortable national lead. According to polling conducted over the weekend during the tracking poll "tightening," Obama reaches 264 electoral votes in states where he leads by 9.5% or more, passes 277 in Virginia where he leads by 8.0%, and hits 286 in states where he leads by 7.3% or more. So, he is actually doing even better in the Electoral College, where 270 votes are needed to win, than he is doing in national polls where he leads by 7%.

Obama has this thing. All we have to do is vote.

Global No Confidence Vote: Event Horizon

As the hell of October in the markets comes to a close this week, the world is wondering what November will bring, and most investors aren't going to like the answer. This week is already shaping up to be a disaster, the Nikkei has now hit a 26-year low, Euro markets are down 4-6% at this hour, and US futures are pointing to another big loss.

Stocks tumbled, extending the MSCI World Index's biggest monthly drop on record, as concern grew that government efforts to stabilize financial markets won't avert a global recession. Treasuries rose as investors sought the safety of government bonds.

U.S. index futures slid, indicating the market's worst monthly slump in 70 years may deepen. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index sank as much as 15 percent, the most since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, as money-market rates rose. Hungary's BUX Index lost 10 percent after the International Monetary Fund said it will give the country ``a substantial financing package.''

``We've gone from financial worries to economic worries,'' said Roland Lescure, who manages the equivalent of $128 billion as chief investment officer of Groupama Asset Management in Paris. ``We're looking for direction for the economy. The problem is stock market declines lead to more declines. It's linked to forced selling.''

The new downward pressure on the markets are coming from the death spiral of hedge funds and emerging markets. As both groups continue to collapse, they are dragging the rest of the economy down with them.

The damage to the global financial system is too pervasive and too widespread to stop. High-flying hedge funds are having to sell off huge blocks of stock to raise cash...lowering the prices of stocks worldwide, causing them to have to sell more stock to raise more cash to continue to operate as the rest of their stock assets decrease in value. This classic death spiral is close to claiming trillions in hedge fund assets now as investors continue to pull their money out. A worldwide system of margin calls -- banks demanding loans used to buy stock be repaid now that the stock has collapsed -- is about to wreck the entire house of cards, for the only way to pay these loans back is to sell stock and force more margin calls. We're trapped in tailspin, and there's no way out until we hit the bottom. Hedge funds will be the next casualty...and the one that kills the system.

All these funds operated with virtually no regulatory oversight -- because they accepted funds only from wealthy investors, not the general public. They then "leveraged" this capital, borrowing billions more that they invested exotically, often "hedging" their bets by making investments set up to pay off when stocks and other assets lost value.

No one benefited more from all this hedging legerdemain than hedge fund managers themselves. They became the planet's highest-paid power-suits. In 2002, 25 hedge fund managers pulled in over $30 million each. In 2006, reports the trade journal Alpha, the top 25 hedge fund managers each made at least $230 million. Last year, 43 of them walked off with at least that many millions.

But now the hedge fund bubble is bursting. High-leverage strategies don't work when banks aren't lending. And new regulations have put a crimp on "short selling," the betting on assets to fall in value. The result? Last month ended up as the hedge fund industry's second-worst year on record.

So far this year, the industry's top index has dropped 13.9 percent. Some analysts are predicting that as many as half the world's hedge funds may shut down before the current crisis ends.

That has wealthy investors spooked. In September alone, investors yanked $43 billion out of U.S. hedge funds, shifting their cash to investments less risky. Hedge fund managers have become so alarmed they're offering to slash their standard -- and exorbitantly high -- fees if investors agree not to ask the funds to redeem their investments.

And the largest investors in hedge funds?

You got it in one. 401(k) funds and pension plans.

We're past the event horizon, past the point where the black hole is now pulling us in despite anything we try. Global emerging markets in Europe, Asia, and South America are near collapse. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index has gone from 32,000 to 11,000 in the last 12 months. Ukraine and Hungary have become the latest countries to ask for IMF loans to keep them out of bankruptcy. South Korea cuts its central bank rate by 75 BP, but to no avail as the South Korean currency, the Won, continues to fall apart.

``More aggressive cuts are on the way,'' said Lee Sang Jae, an economist at Hyundai Securities Co. in Seoul, who expects Korea's key rate will be slashed to around 3 percent by the first half of 2009. ``The government would need to expand tax cuts and increase fiscal spending to support the economy.'

South Korea last week said it will spend as much as 8 trillion won ($5.5 billion) helping the construction industry, including buying unsold homes and land. The central bank said Oct. 24 it will inject 2 trillion won into the financial system through repurchase-agreement operations.

South Korea's total external debt was $420 billion as of June, according to the finance ministry. Of that, $176 billion was short-term debt due to mature within a year.

It's not banks that are needing bailouts now...it's entire countries.

And November will be much, much worse, folks. We're talking entire countries on the edge of economic obliteration. Wednesday's Fed meeting and subsequent rate cut won't matter a bit.

The global financial system continues to break down, one day at a time.

Be prepared.

StupidiNews!

• More banks are applying for bailout money, including a pair of Ohio banks, Key Bank and Fifth Third Bank.
• Gas prices dropped 53 cents in two weeks and continue to fall.
• McSame discounts the entire national political polling industry in America and guarantees a win in 8 days.
• A combination of the credit crunch and low harvests are driving food commodity prices up big time.
• The US military is threatening to cut off all military services in Iraq if there is no status of forces agreement by the new year.

Zandar's Thought Of the Day

Should Obama win (I know, Dad, Nate Silver has a 96%+ chance of him winning but the GOP will cleat, lie, and steal this election down to the very end) the Village Idiot calls for him to abandon progressives, his entire platform, and the people who elected him and pull out his sextant and compass for some Clinton-style triangulation will come at near relativistic speeds.

They will immediately expect him to prove to them he is "sensible and moderate" and govern exactly like Bush, and will demand he give in at every turn to the GOP minority or else. In this case, "or else" consists of making what they did to Bill Clinton (culminating in his impeachment) look like a walk in the park. Obama will have to work every second of every day to prove he's not a Liberal.

In other words, What Digby Said(tm).

October Surprise!

A week and change before the election, and the US supposedly crosses into Syria with gunships.

Syria's state news agency SANA said four U.S. helicopters crossed the border and struck a farm about 8 kilometers (5 miles) inside Syria before returning to Iraqi airspace.

The raid occurred about 4:45 p.m. (1345 GMT). The helicopters hit a civilian building under construction on the farm, killing killing three men, the wife of a guard and four children, SANA said.

Military officials are investigating the claims, Sgt. Brooke Murphy, a U.S. military spokeswoman, told CNN.

"Unfortunately, we cannot confirm anything at the moment," she said.

Still think the GOP is playing to lose? Not me. Looks to me like Preznitman and the GOP is trying to take the news cycle off permanent "economic disaster" mode.

We'll see if anyone bites. I don't see how this can win it for them.

The Pennsylvania Polka

The GOP dirty tricks brigade in the Keystone State is bad enough to look like the Keystone Kops. First was the EPIC FAIL surrounding Ashley Todd's hoax, and now news that the PA GOP sent an email to 75,000 Jewish voters that warns Obama will cause another Holocaust.

The state GOP is now running away from that email as fast as it can. The AP leads with the state GOP's disavowal of the email, but it seems a bit more complicated than that. There doesn't seem to be any dispute that the state party or one of its committees sent the email. The party's defense seems to be that the consultant who the party hired wasn't authorized to send that particular email and was fired.

Except the AP got in touch with the consultant and that's not quite the story he tells:

Political consultant Bryan Rudnick was identified as the person responsible for it. Rudnick, reached Saturday night, confirmed that he no longer works for the party, which employed him a few weeks ago as a consultant to do outreach to Jewish voters.

"I had authorization from party officials" to send the e-mail, Rudnick said, but he declined to say who had signed off on it. "I'm not looking to drag anyone else through the mud, so I'm not naming names right now," he said.

That's a pretty good story in its own right: Another under-the-radar GOP sleaze tactic exposed and yet another low- to mid-level GOP operative scapegoated because he got caught on the wrong side of the McCain campaign's shifting line between what is just sleazy and what is too sleazy (a line that seems to get drawn immediately after the GOP gets busted).

But it gets better.

Like the state GOP, the McCain camp is running away from this email, and the spokesperson doing the distancing is none other than Peter Feldman. That's the same guy who on Thursday, the day the email went out, was pushing the mugging hoax to reporters as a politically motivated attack by a black Obama supporter, playing to the worst of white fears and racial prejudices.

Speaking of the email to Jewish voters and without any apparent hint of irony, Feldman told the AP Saturday night that McCain "rejects politics that degrade our civics."

Amazing.

No word on whether the AP asked Feldman about his role in pushing the mugging hoax.

McSame has no honor left. None. And yet the righty whackjobs out there are convinced this soulless piece of garbage is going to magically win, because Hillary supporters will defect en masse at the voting booth.

If McSame does end up President, we deserve the hell we cast ourselves into.

Off The Snowmobile Reservation

When you have CNN reporting as its front page story that your own campaign staff has come forward to say that your own running mate has deliberately sabotaged your campaign not ten days before the election, you've lost.

With 10 days to go until Election Day, long-brewing tensions between GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and key aides to Sen. John McCain have become so intense they are spilling out in public, sources say.

Several McCain advisers have suggested to CNN that they have become increasingly frustrated with what one aide described as Palin "going rogue." A Palin associate, however, said the candidate is simply trying to "bust free" of what she believes was a damaging and mismanaged roll-out.

McCain sources say Palin has gone off message several times, and they privately wonder if the incidents were deliberate. They cited that she labeled robocalls -- recorded messages often used to attack a candidate's opponent -- "irritating" even as the campaign defended their use. Also, they pointed to her telling reporters she disagreed with the campaign's decision to pull out of Michigan.

A second McCain source tells CNN she appears to be looking out for herself more than the McCain campaign.

"She is a diva. She takes no advice from anyone," said this McCain adviser. "She does not have any relationships of trust with any of us, her family or anyone else.

"Also, she is playing for her own future and sees herself as the next leader of the party. Remember: Divas trust only unto themselves as they see themselves as the beginning and end of all wisdom."

They're done, ladies and gentlemen. It's over. The GOP base will be so demoralized by this that the Obama landslide is all but certain. Palin and her supporters are already angling for 2010 and 2012. The GOP is about to split down the middle, with moderate Republicans (Obamacans? Barackerfeller Republicans?) jumping ship and the diehard Palinites staying on, screaming at their own impotence.

The Schism is here. Politico.com has more.

The emergence of a Palin faction comes as Republicans gird for a battle over the future of their party: Some see her as a charismatic, hawkish conservative leader with the potential, still unrealized, to cross over to attract moderate voters. Anger among Republicans who see Palin as a star and as a potential future leader has boiled over because, they say, they see other senior McCain aides preparing to blame her in the event he is defeated.

"These people are going to try and shred her after the campaign to divert blame from themselves," a McCain insider said, referring to McCain's chief strategist, Steve Schmidt, and to Nicolle Wallace, a former Bush aide who has taken a lead role in Palin's campaign. Palin's partisans blame Wallace, in particular, for Palin's avoiding of the media for days and then giving a high-stakes interview to CBS News' Katie Couric, the sometimes painful content of which the campaign allowed to be parceled out over a week.

"A number of Gov. Palin's staff have not had her best interests at heart, and they have not had the campaign's best interests at heart," the McCain insider fumed, noting that Wallace left an executive job at CBS to join the campaign.

Wallace declined to engage publicly in the finger-pointing that has consumed the campaign in the final weeks.

"I am in awe of [Palin's] strength under constant fire by the media," she said in an e-mail. "If someone wants to throw me under the bus, my personal belief is that the most graceful thing to do is to lie there."

This public, unprofessional, and complete disintegration of coherence 10 days before the election is a sign of just how hopelessly split the entire GOP is over this. There are those who will blame Sarah Palin for the disastrous loss of the ticket, and those who will blame John McSame for the loss.

But they will lose. There is no way this public bloodletting will do anything but completely demoralize GOP voters to the point where the Republican Party may not survive as we know it. from the ashes, who knows what will arise.

It will not be the modern GOP. Whether it's a moderate party or a radical fringe movement, this complete crackup is liable to give the Democrats control of the country for a very, very long time.

Liberalgeddon!

McSame's almost out of time. With ten days to go, he's now making the argument that only he can save America from LIBERALGEDDON.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain on Saturday raised the prospect of a complete Democratic takeover of Washington as a reason to elect him over Democrat Barack Obama in 10 days.

McCain, struggling to defend New Mexico and other Western states that typically vote Republican from falling for Obama on November 4, used the argument to try to change a gloomy election picture.

Obama holds a commanding lead in national opinion polls and leading in several key battleground states that McCain needs to win. In a text of remarks he was to deliver later in Reno, Nevada, Obama hammers McCain as little different than President George W. Bush

At an Albuquerque rally, McCain accused the Illinois senator of seeking to raise taxes on most Americans, particularly small businesses responsible for much of the hiring during a severe economic downturn in which hundreds of thousands of jobs have been shed.

Obama says his plan to tax Americans making more than $250,000 would allow a tax cut for 95 percent of Americans.

McCain said having Democrats in control of the White House, the U.S. House of Representatives under Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and the Senate under Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, would give Democrats unfettered power.

Riding Americans' desire for a change from the Bush administration, Democrats appear poised to make major gains in the House and Senate.

"Senator Obama's tax increase would put even more people out of work," McCain said. "We've seen this before in other countries. It doesn't work. The answer to a strong economy is not higher taxes."

"But that is exactly what's going to happen if the Democrats have total control of Washington. We can't let that happen. Are you ready for Obama, Pelosi and Reid?" the Arizona senator said.

The answer would appear to be an overwhelming yes, Senator.

America is indeed more than ready for a realignment election that repudiates the GOP totally and completely, and that election is a mere 10 days away.

Ashley Todd's Aftermath

More details have now come to light about the disturbing and disgusting hoax Ashley Todd perpetrated upon America on Thursday and Friday.

Most disturbing are new facts that the McSame campaign did indeed push this story on the media in an effort to harm Obama.

A spokesman for the McCain campaign gave reporters an inflammatory version of Thursday's hoax story about a McCain volunteer being attacked by a man who carved a "B" into her face, Pittsburgh's KDKA reported.

Long before any facts about the Ashley Todd case had been established, McCain's Pennsylvania campaign communications director told reporters the alleged attacker had told the woman, "You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson."

The Drudge Report featured a teased story about the incident before any details about it were released. That caused KDKA reporters to contact the spokesman, confirmed as Peter Feldman.

Feldman's presumptuous claims are "significant because it reveals a McCain official pushing a version of the story that was far more explosive than the available or confirmed facts permitted at the time," an election blog at Talking Points Memo reported.

The story could deal a sharp blow to the McCain campaign, which might be seen as having pushed an incendiary story that had no basis in fact and that nearly blew up into a "national incident," said Pittsburgh Police Assistant Chief Maurita Bryant, reported KWTX News.

Obama's campaign has already privately accused the McCain camp of promoting a racially-charged version of the story.

Let's honestly talk about what this means. Despite Pittsburgh cops (and any rational, intelligent human being's reasonable assumption for that matter) believing that the reversely drawn B on her cheek was an obvious sign of a self-inflicted wound and a hoax, and having strong reason to doubt her story, the McSame camp attributed one of Ashley Todd's completely fabricated quotes to the media in an effort to score damage against Barack Obama and try to scare the crap out of (or seriously anger) white people across America.

Let's think about what might have happened if Ashley Todd hadn't confessed until, say, after Election Day, and she had been a slightly more intelligent liar. You would have had a nationalized incident that would have racially divided this country 11 days before the election. You would have massive manhunt in western PA, northern WV, eastern Ohio. It would be the top story in the news: White female McSame supporter attacked by black male Obama supporter! There would SURELY be reprisals against black folk in the area.

We'd stop talking about the issues, of course. We'd be talking about race. This would be the game changer McSame would have needed in PA and OH to win those states, and we'd have Ashley's face on McSame ads across the country. This election would no longer be about the economy, or Iraq, or any of the issues.

It would be an election solely about race. You don't think it would happen? McSame would make it happen. Joe the Plumber would give way to Ashley the Campaign Worker, I guarantee it. Obama's poll numbers would drop like a stone, it would be Obama's Willie Horton moment writ large, and there's a fair chance that it would have cost Obama the election.

But maybe that was the goddamn point. Maybe this was an effort to cost Obama Pennsylvania and Ohio, possibly North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida too. The McSame campaign's Pennsylvania folks were more than eager to pin this all on the phantom black man.

In a real sense, America got lucky. It got lucky because there were so many holes in Ashley Todd's story she had no choice but to recant her story after only 48 hours. If she had been craftier, it's possible that right now we'd be watching the end of Barack Obama's presidential run, and watch a wave of righteous indignation based on a total lie sweep McSame into office, in a worst case scenario.

Here's the most chilling part.

This time we got lucky.

There will be other times. You can count on that. I've given McSame the benefit of the doubt because he has served his country. He did suffer for serving his country. He did survive multiple bouts with cancer. But the sick, disgusting story of Ashley Todd, and what it could have meant to this country, what it could have done to throw race relations in this country back fifty, a hundred years, this is the direct result of the honorless, race-baiting, lowest common denominator, win at all costs strategy that has come from the top of the McSame/Palin campaign. It has come from the top of the GOP.

This is what the Republican Party has been reduced to now, a cariacture of sleaze, corruption, and pure hatred. My nightmares feature folks who look like me, getting lynched, in America, in 2008, because of Ashley Todd. It very well could have been the case. We came razor close to an all-out race war in this country.

It's a race war that was ignited by John Sidney McSame III in order to win at any cost. It almost caught fire and obliterated the country. That's what this man and his running mate have descended into in the last month of the campaign...a campaign so vile and manipulative it convinced one of his supporters to try to injure herself and pass herself off as a martyr in order to destroy Barack Obama, race relations, and African-Americans in this country.

Repugnant, hideous, vile, angry, and hateful doesn't begin to describe it. But it is all laid at the feet of this man and the party he represents, and honor he sacrificed to try to win the Presidency.

America was saved this time because Ashley Todd is a terrible liar. Think about that. Think about how the country got to that point...and who took it there.

Then work to make sure we never get to this point again.

Ashley Todd's America...John McSame's America...is not my America. My America is a much, much better place.

StupidiNews, Weekend Edition

• Could Joe The Plumber become Joe The Congressman?
• Bush is pushing for Ukraine and Georgia to get into NATO.
• Iraqi PM Al-Makili refuses to sign the deal to keep US troops there past December 31.
• A Princeton study shows how easy it is to hack Sequoia voting machines.
• Treasury may buy stakes in insurers as well as banks.

How Does McSame Win?

With McSame all but surrendering Colorado, Virginia and Iowa, and playing directly for "low-information" white voters in rural Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida, how does he get to 270?

The map for McSame is actually pretty simple: The battleground states are now IN, MO, NV, NC, OH, PA, and FL. McSame must now take ALL SEVEN of those states to win. His firewall, Colorado, Virginia, and Iowa, are gone. His back is against the wall...he simply cannot afford to lose any more states.

Polls are showing Florida and North Carolina may go to his column now, but Indiana, Nevada, and especially Ohio are slipping away, and Obama's lead is just too much in PA.

At this point he's going to need a miracle. We'll know more next week.

The Sad, Strange Story Of Ashley Todd

Ashley Todd is a 20-year-old white female college student who told police that she was assaulted by "a 6 foot 4 black man" at an ATM in Pittsburgh, and when the man saw her McSame bumper sticker, the man became enraged and scratched the letter B into her cheek, for "Barack Obama" supposedly. Matt Drudge ran this as breaking news last night, and the whole world bit.

The McSame campaign seized on the Todd story as proof that Obama supporters are violent, hate filled racists. McSame himself called Ms. Todd, and this morning the right-wing noise machine was up in arms...amazingly enough not over the attack, but that the attack was fishy. Even Malkinvania cried "foul" over the account.

And surprise! It turns out Ms. Todd made the entire thing up.

A John McCain campaign volunteer made up a story of being robbed, pinned to the ground and having the letter "B" scratched on her face in a politically inspired attack, police said Friday.

Ashley Todd, 20-year-old college student from College Station, Texas, admitted Friday that the story was false, police said.

Maurita Bryant, the assistant chief of the police department's investigations division, said Todd is being charged with making a false police report.

Police doubted her story from the start, Bryant said.

"She just opened up and said she wanted to tell the truth," Bryant said, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. "She was upset with the media for blowing this into a political firestorm."

I cannot wait for this election season to die. Really.

There are some sick people out there. Really, truly sick people. You have to be a complete sicko for Michelle Malkin to call you out as a liar.

Sarah Palin: Policy Maven

Today Sarah Palin laid out the McSame policy on special needs children and health care:

In her first policy speech of this election cycle, Sarah Palin elaborated Friday on how a McCain administration would help children with special needs, a topic that has become a fixture of her stump speech in cities across the country.

Palin, speaking at a hotel in Pittsburgh, unveiled a three-point plan that would expand educational choice for parents, increase funding for children with disabilities and improve services available to parents, medical professionals and schools.

Under the plan, federal money would be used to give parents the opportunity to send their children to a public, private or religious school of their choice.

"Because even the best public school teacher or administrator really cannot rightfully take the place of a parent making these choices," Palin said. "The schools feel responsible for the education of many children, but a parent alone is responsible for the life of each child and how to make that life better."

She also proposed expanding funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which was signed into law in 1975 but has never been fully funded. The McCain campaign estimates that fully funding the program will cost an additional $45 billion over five years, money that Palin said could be found by cutting federal pork barrel spending.

"We've got a $3 trillion budget in this country," she said. "And Congress spends some $18 billion on earmarks for their political pet projects, and that right there is more than the shortfall to fully fund IDEA."

It's nice and all, but the Obama response has rather killed any chance the McSame camp has of making this work:

The Obama campaign called the attack a “hypocritical” one. “This is a blatantly false, desperate political attack made by a campaign that’s out of touch, out of ideas and running out of time,” said Pennsylvania spokesman Sean Smith. “Senator Obama has consistently been clear that he would not increase taxes on families making less than $250,000 a year.

“As the Wall Street Journal reported, John McCain’s own health care plan would actually cut $1.3 trillion from Medicare and Medicaid that children with disabilities truly depend on, which makes this attack especially hypocritical. Senator Obama has a comprehensive plan to support families that have children with disabilities and empower all Americans with disabilities.”

Arguing to fully fund this program for $45 billion looks rather bad when making $1.3 trillion in Medicare/Medicaid cuts, huh?

Nice try Sarah. Go back to calling attacks on your $150,000 clothing bill "sexist". I'm sure that'll stick too.

Obamanomics Crashing The Markets

The latest GOP screed (and you can count on US News hack Jim Pethokoukis to spew it out) is that Obama and the Democrats are sinking the stock markets.

Are investor concerns about an Obama presidency influencing the stock market? And by "concerns" I mean "existential panic." And by "Obama presidency" I mean "a tax-hiking and regulatory reign of terror." And by "influencing" I mean "eviscerating." At least that's the overwrought take I get from a few of my more skittish E-mailers. Chillax, y'all!

Now a few of my own (more tranquil) observations about a possible jittery Investor Class, the plunging market, and the now famous Obama Discount Theory:

1) I find it hard to believe that fears about a deep recession are suddenly dawning upon investors and thus are solely responsible for kneecapping the market. I've been hearing such dire forecasts for weeks from top Wall Street economists, and I really think they're already baked into the cake. (And credit markets actually look like they are finally picking up a bit—a plus for stocks.) So with that perception locked in, maybe the future political landscape is finally playing a greater role in the minds of investors, especially with polls showing a possible landslide Obama win and big Democratic congressional majorities. Is it really more plausible to suggest no effect whatsoever from a possible once-a-generation, political sea change, especially one that moves away from the winning economic formula of the past 25 years ? Not even a smidgen of worry? C'mon, now.

The article continues on like this for a good bit, the practical upshot is that the markets are so terrified of the Democrats being in charge that smart conservatives are selling, selling, selling and that Obama deserves most of the blame for the Dow not being about 10,000 again after we "solved the credit crisis". I mean it's not like there could be another reason why the markets are falling, could there?

But the GOP is already blaming Obama for the mess because the market is terrified of what he might do in the future, like, I don't know...regulate it.

US Goes Limit Down

World economic numbers are out today, and they are nothing short of catastrophic.

The pound tumbled below $1.53 in its biggest drop in at least 37 years after a report showed the U.K. economy contracted more than forecast in the third quarter, bringing the nation to the brink of a recession.

The decline surpassed that of Black Wednesday in September 1992, when the U.K. was driven out of Europe's Exchange Rate Mechanism. Gross domestic product contracted 0.5 percent in the three months through September, the Office for National Statistics in London said today, more than the 0.2 percent forecast by analysts in a Bloomberg survey. The FTSE 100 index slumped as much as 9.1 percent and the yield on the U.K. 10-year gilt headed for its biggest weekly decline in a decade.

``This is once-in-a-lifetime stuff, we're all sat under our desks with tin hats on,'' said Neil Mellor, a currency strategist in London at Bank of New York Mellon Corp. ``The U.K. is in the first step toward a recession and the dollar's bid because of repatriation flows.''

Similar news in Japan and China earlier this morning has led to a disintegration of world markets today. Nikkei down 800 points, European markets are down 7-9% at this hour, and US stock futures have reached limit down numbers.

According to Reuters data, December S&P futures hit a low of 855.20, while Dow Jones futures touched a low of 8,224 -- the lowest levels at which both contracts could trade in a session.

"We are in a panic mode, I don't know how else to describe it and when you're in panic mode, all rational thought goes out of the window," said City Index chief market strategist Tom Hougaard. "We've just got to let this thing rage. I think we'll see the Dow below 8,000 today."

With global recession numbers showing that the UK, China, and Japan may actually be in worse shape the US right now, world markets have now thrown in the towel. LIBOR numbers are still high, having only fallen another miniscule less than 2 BP, and the overnight rate went UP 8.

This is going to be a horrendous day on Wall Street. Despite the global bailout efforts, the markets are once again in total freefall. Confidence is a casualty. This was the week where Wall Street tested the waters, and failed miserably. The Dow's been floating around 9,000 for the last couple of weeks, and Monday's close of around 9250 was a good sign that the worst might have been over.

I said then more pain was coming. Surprise! Folks, when Dow futures hit limit down 2 hours before the markets open, it's a disaster. I've been saying for six weeks now I fully expected the Dow to set a new Bush era low under 7,200.

We may very well be there next week. The next couple of days are vitally important. If we drop through the floor today under 8,000, then I honestly think we're heading for a complete meltdown.

What more can world governments do? The US, Japan, Canada, Australia, UK, and Eurozone took unprecedented action to prevent a meltdown just two weeks ago. That action has now failed. The wheels are off, folks. It's sinking in just how bad this is going to be...it's going to be brutal, and it's going to be global.

You will be hearing those two words often in the next several days, I will wager: limit down. We're approaching the point where trading circuit breakers will kick in and stop the markets, and it will happen if not today (we'd need to see an 869.1 point drop before 2 PM to hit the 10% circuit breaker for an hour time-out) then it will happen at some point soon.

After all, the lower the Dow gets, the lower the 10% circuit breaker level gets.