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.