Your Bingo card for tonight's debate

More here.

Update: What Obama should say tonight if the words 'Ayers' or 'Wright' fall out of McLame's mouth ...

John, your campaign has already said it intends to spend the last four weeks of this campaign mostly attacking me. And with the William Ayers thing, we have some idea of what kind of attacks to expect. But you folks at home, if you go to CNN's website -- and this is a bit of free advertising, I guess -- they have a thing called Campaign Fact Check. If you go there, and look up William Ayers, you'll see that they've called that attack FALSE, and you'll see exactly WHY it's false. And that's not my campaign saying that -- that's CNN! They're saying it's false.

That's why if it were just the two of us, if it were just Barack Obama and John McCain involved, and if there were nothing else at stake, I'd have no problem at all turning this election into a mudslinging battle. I've got plenty of mud for you, believe me.

But it's not just the two of us. The American people are also part of this, and if you drag this election down to that level, they're the ones who are gonna lose.

So for their sake, John, I'm asking you to join me in a pledge -- and I don't have any paper to sign, we'll just do it on a handshake if you agree. I'm asking you to join me in a pledge, for the last four weeks of this election, to get rid of the character assassinations, to get rid of the smears, and to run honorable campaigns that talk about the issues -- the economy, health care, Iraq, education, jobs, gas prices -- that the American people actually care about. That's the kind of campaign they deserve.

So John, will you come over here and shake my hand?

The Big Dog and Chris Bell; Richardson and Hoyer for Skelly

In exchange for his support for Hillary in the primary, Chris Bell gets a big ol' bone thrown his way:

Bill Clinton will come to Houston on Monday, Oct. 13 to headline a fundraising event for Chris Bell, candidate in the special election for State Senate District 17.

"I am honored to have President Clinton come to Houston to help my campaign,” said Chris Bell. “It’s unusual to have a former President of the United States of America help raise money for a state legislative race, but he knows that this is an incredible opportunity to make real progress for the people of Texas.”

Ambassador Arthur Schechter will host the fundraiser at his home Monday evening. Democratic Party stalwart Bernard Rapoport will serve as “Honorary Chair” of the event. Details on getting tickets will be posted on ChrisBell.com.

This race is almost out of reach for the GOP. From the same press release:

A poll conducted by Cooper and Secrest in August showed that Chris Bell has a 34-point lead over the Republican candidates who remain clustered in a statistical tie for second place. The initial trial heat, asked of 400 likely special election voters Aug. 14-18, had Chris Bell at 42%, with Republicans Joan Huffman at 8%, Austen Furse at 5%, and Grant Harpold at 4%. A poll subsequently released by Mrs. Huffman’s own campaign confirmed Chris Bell’s standing as a frontrunner and the rest of the field’s statistical proximity to single digits.

In May, an independent poll conducted for Texans for Insurance Reform found that Chris Bell has higher name identification in SD 17 than U.S. Sen. John Cornyn. The pollster, Jeff Smith of Opinion Analysts, labeled Mr. Bell the “front-runner in a very winnable contest.”

Fifty-percent-plus-one eliminates a runoff. This race will be at the top of every ballot in the five Southeast Texas counties that get to vote on it.

In other heavyweight news flashes (pun intended, Governor Richardson), this missive from SDEC member Ron Rea contains the following announcement of events to benefit the campaign of CD-07 Democratic challenger Michael Skelly:

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson will be here for a luncheon on Thursday, October 16, at a location to be announced soon.

Steny Hoyer, Member of Congress and House Whip for the Democratic Party, will be here for a breakfast event in downtown Houston on Wednesday, October 22.

A political contribution for each event is $100 per plate.

More to come on these, but worth noting is that Skelly has pulled within striking distance of incumbent John Culberson, who last Friday hosted a shooting event with John Boehner at a west side gun club.

(I mean, really; could the differences be any more stark?)

The domestic terrorists pallin' around with Palin

When you and your husband spend a lot of time hanging out with a radical secessionist fringe third-party whose founder died in a plastic explosives deal gone bad, you probably shouldn't fling your conservative howler monkey poop at other people:



And if a radical fundamentalist evangelical preacher makes a prayer over you to keep away the witchcraft, then you probably shouldn't attempt to cast aspersions about someone else's minister. That horse, of course, was beaten to death before the summer began, but whipping up BS seems to be the only thing this woman is any good at.

We already knew you were stupid, Sarah. It's just too bad you don't have even the sense to shut up and stop proving it.

John McCain, his tangled involvement in the S&L scandal of the '80's that resulted in his charter membership in the Keating Five, not to mention its foretelling implications on the current economic disaster he so fervently desires to put aside, aside ...

Sarah Palin is nothing but a dumbass bitch who has no business whatsoever in politics above the level of Wasilla, Alaska. Thirty more days of this woman's nonsense and then we won't have to think about her again for at least four more years.

Update:

Palin, unleashed and unhinged, whips a Florida crowd into a racist frenzy ...

In Clearwater, arriving reporters were greeted with shouts and taunts by the crowd of about 3,000. Palin then went on to blame Katie Couric's questions for her "less-than-successful interview with kinda mainstream media." At that, Palin supporters turned on reporters in the press area, waving thunder sticks and shouting abuse. Others hurled obscenities at a camera crew. One Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at an African American sound man for a network and told him, "Sit down, boy." ...

... Palin, speaking to a sea of "Palin Power" and "Sarahcuda" T-shirts, tried to link Obama to the 1960s Weather Underground. "One of his earliest supporters is a man named Bill Ayers," she said. ("Boooo!" said the crowd.) "And, according to the New York Times, he was a domestic terrorist and part of a group that, quote, 'launched a campaign of bombings that would target the Pentagon and our U.S. Capitol,' " she continued. ("Boooo!" the crowd repeated.)

"Kill him!" proposed one man in the audience.

Gee, I wonder where the Secret Service was when the death threats against a presidential candidate were being shouted out.

And Joe Klein, with "Embarracuda":

I'm of two minds about how to deal with the McCain campaign's further descent into ugliness. Their strategy is simple: you throw crap against a wall and then giggle as the media try to analyze the putresence in a way that conveys a sense of balance: "Well, it is bull-pucky, but the splatter pattern is interesting..." which, of course, only serves to get your perverse message out. I really don't want to be a part of that. But...every so often, we journalists have a duty to remind readers just how dingy the McCain campaign, and its right-wing acolytes in the media (I'm looking at you, Sean Hannity) have become--especially in their efforts to divert public attention from the economic crisis we're facing. And so inept at it: other campaigns have decided that their only shot is going negative, but usually they don't announce it, as several McCain aides have in recent days -- there's no way we can win on the economy, so we're going to go sludge-diving.

But since we are dealing with manure here, I'll put the rest of this post below the fold.

You can't make shit like this up. And it's going to get worse. For the next month. And some people are going to decide to vote for the Republicans because of it.

How fucked up is that?

The original pitbulls with lipstick

From an e-mail from my mom:

Dear Daughter and Friends, I saw some of these same pictures in the WWI Museum in Kansas City last May with my sister, Kelly, including the one about Woodrow Wilson ordering the suffragette to be force fed ... amazing! Less than 100 yrs ago in THIS country!! These were truly the first pitbulls with lipstick! Please pass on to remind others how far we have come and how important it is not to go back, no matter what your political leanings are ...

This is the story of our mothers and grandmothers (and some great-grandmothers); they lived only 90 years ago.



Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.



The women were were jailed for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the right to vote.



And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women charged with 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.' They beat Lucy Burns (above), chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping.



They hurled Dora Lewis (above) into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food -- all of it colorless slop -- was infested with worms.



When one of the leaders, Alice Paul (above), embarked on a hunger strike they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf

So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because -- why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?



(Mrs. Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a sixty-day sentence.)

Last week I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could step into the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.



(Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown, New York )

All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.



(Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate)

My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw 'Iron Jawed Angels', too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was -- with herself. "One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie," she said. "What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn." The right to vote had become valuable to her "all over again."

I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum. I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.



(Conferring over ratification [of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution] at National Woman's Party headquarters, Jackson Place, Washington D.C. L-R Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul, Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right)

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn't make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: "Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity."

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote Democratic, Republican or independent party -- remember to vote.



(Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk, Conn. Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner, "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.")

History is waiting to be made.

The Weekly Wrangle (Voter reg deadline is TODAY, people)

Thirty days to go to Election Day, but you must be registered to vote, and today is the deadline. Make sure you're ready to vote by clicking here (scroll down a little, on the right side) to register or verify your registration. Early voting begins in just two weeks. And the blogs of the Texas Progressive Alliance had a lot to say about candidates on the ballot from top to bottom; here's the roundup of the best posts from last week ...

John Cornyn is bleeding support from the conservative wingnut base as a result of his 'yes' vote on the Wall Street bailout. Click on the links in PDiddie's "Bailout Burger, extra bacon, cut the taxes" post at Brains and Eggs.

Keep hanging onto your wallets, CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme warns. Texas is taking it in the shorts over the Bush bailout.

Off the Kuff takes a shot at projecting November turnout.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the on the connections between county elected officials and the ethically challenged 3rd Court of Appeals Chief Justice W. Kenneth Law in Broken Law and the criminality of what is legal.

In the midst of all the brouhaha about bailouts and golden parachutes, McBlogger tells a Real Life Tale of Trying To Buy Something in a store.

The Republican economic policies have caused the loss of 2.2 million jobs in the United States in the last 12 months. jobsanger tells us that the job losses are still growing, and finds a picture that accurately expresses how many Americans feel about Wall Street.

The Texas Cloverleaf recommends voting Yes on the Denton County bond proposal this November.

North Texas Liberal analyzes last week's vice-presidential debate between Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Joe Biden.

nytexan at Bluebloggin takes a good look at a presidential candidate's relationship with a terrorist. As Sarah Palin tries to connect the imaginary dots of terror between Bill Ayres and Barack Obama, she should take a closer look at John McCain's Dear Friend, American Terrorist G. Gordon Liddy. People in igloos shouldn't throw fireballs.

Neil at Texas Liberal says it's crazy that Houston school kids will not be asked to make up days missed because of Hurricane Ike.

Burnt Orange Report rounds up the reasons why Rick Noriega is back in the Texas Senate race with newfound momentum.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is amazed how the Mainstream Media brings attention to nonsense while ignoring how North Korea, Russia, Iran, Myanmar Nukes and US Elections are connected to our future.

In light of its history of endorsement against farmers and agribusiness, Vince at Capitol Annex asks whether Farm Bureau's AGFUND is still relevant.

Over at TexasKaos, Txsharon tells us that Sarah Palin put out a whopper in her one-on-one with Joe Biden. Natural gas is NOT the clean alternative Palin claimed.

Lastly, Julie Pippert at MOMocrats interviewed experts about the economic crisis and discovered that women hit disproportionately hard by economic crisis don't receive adequate help in current bailout, experts say. She'll also be appearing on FOX News Radio, XM Sirius, and Blog Talk Radio on Monday.

More toons (Bailin' and Palin)

EV 10/5: Obama still gaining states

With state polling in the wake of the first presidential and the only vice-presidential debate, New Hampshire and Virginia are blue this week, and Indiana is a tossup.

The next debate between Obama and McCain is scheduled for Tuesday October 7, at Belmont University in Nashville, and moderated by NBC's Tom Brokaw.

<p><strong>><a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'>Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>

Sunday Funnies (McInsane in the Membrane edition)

Rich Lowery needs a date

Or at the very least he must stop publicly fantasizing about Sarah Palin:

A very wise TV executive once told me that the key to TV is projecting through the screen. It's one of the keys to the success of, say, a Bill O'Reilly, who comes through the screen and grabs you by the throat. Palin too projects through the screen like crazy. I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.

We'll leave the ridicule to the professionals. Keith Olbermann:

"We don't care if you masturbated during the debate, just don't tell America about it."

Bill Maher:

"This dude needs to get laid."

James Wolcott:

Good thing Palin didn't blow a kiss at the camera or Lowry might have fucking fainted. I'm not a licensed psychotherapist but when you think the people on TV are addressing you personally and directly it's often a sign of incipient dementia.

(h/t to Markos)

Choice excerpts

A pair of wish-I-had-said-thats ...

How Sarah Palin blew it:

Joe Biden and Sarah Palin were talking to two different Americas Thursday night. Actually, that's unfair to Joe Biden; he was trying to talk to everyone. I can say for certain, though, that Sarah Palin was talking to -- and winking at -- her own private Idaho, and for long stretches of the debate, it was an unnerving experience....

But the pit bull in lipstick was back. After her disarming "Hey, can I call you Joe?" Palin was vicious, with a winning smile. After a passionate Biden plea to "walk with me in my neighborhood," in Delaware and Scranton, where "the middle class has gotten the short end," she ridiculed him: "Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again! Pointing backwards again!"

There were two key moments for me when Sarah Palin blew it badly. One was substantive, one was symbolic. The substantive was her bizarre statement about being happy that Dick Cheney had expanded the powers of the vice-presidency, and wanting to expand the powers more. I think that's what she said, it was one of many moments I didn't entirely understand her point, but I got her overall meaning. Biden came back with a decisive: "Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president in American history," and he defended the existing limits on vice-presidential power. Point: Biden. Big time.

The symbolic moment Palin flubbed was subjective, of course. But I instant-messaged a friend that she lost the debate when Biden choked up over losing his wife and child in a car accident in which his sons were critically injured -- and she went straight back into "John McCain is a maverick." I truly expected her to express human sympathy with Biden, and her failure to do so showed me something deeply wrong with her. But maybe that's just me. ...

I thought Biden and Palin tied for the first third of the debate, that Palin actually won the second third on moxie and charisma, not policy (Biden looked visibly angry at a few points, and that's never good), but Biden cleaned her clock in the last third. He quoted his dad telling him, "Champ, when you get knocked down, get up!" -- and he listened to his father. Biden got up, and he won the debate.

And ...

Why would a smart guy like Hank Paulson advance such a dumb, shady plan?

... Let us count the reasons:

No. 1: It delays our national reckoning until after the presidential election.

Paulson first floated a bailout Sept. 18, at the very hour when shares of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley looked like they might go into a death spiral. It's not so much a bailout, as it is a timeout. He had to follow up with something, anything, to stop the freefall from resuming. It didn't have to make sense.

So it doesn't. The plan is about creating the illusion of stronger financial institutions, not strengthening them.

The banks know this. Otherwise, they would have stopped charging each other near-record rates for three-month loans by now. The reason they haven't is because they're still afraid their customers -- other banks -- might go broke.

No. 2: The reckoning will be worse than you can imagine.

If Paulson were serious about recapitalizing rickety U.S. banks, he would infuse them with hundreds of billions of dollars of fresh government money, in exchange for ownership stakes. And if he wanted to create market liquidity for all those troubled assets on their books, he would be ordering banks to disclose everything there is to know about them, so Mr. Market could figure out their present value.

He can't let that happen. Not now. If everyone could see how much the toxic waste is worth, the writedowns would be so huge that many banks would have to be declared insolvent.

Better to let the next administration deal with the clean- up. The trouble is, the longer the government waits to address the banks' lack of capital, the worse it gets, barring a miracle.

No. 3: He's helping his friends.

Is there any doubt? Let's see.

As of yesterday, Morgan Stanley Chief Executive John Mack owned 2.75 million shares of his company's stock, valued at about $67 million. If Mack can get Morgan Stanley to trade reams of sketchy paper for billions of dollars of our Treasury's cash, without diluting any of his stake in the company, who benefits?

Paulson would have us believe it's you.

No. 4: There's an excellent chance the Congress will pass it. Leave someone else to figure out the costs another day.

Palindrone

Palindrome n. Words or phrases so recited and generic in nature, they can be read in either direction without changing meaning or impact.

Josephine Six-Pack didn't fall down, so she won! Kinda. Gosh.

And hey you third-graders, you get extra credit for watching the debate.

Seriously, I thought the governor started off quite well, had a few actually good moments, got confused once or twice, studied her note cards for the most part, hurt my ears with "nukular", hurt my eyes with all that winky flirty stuff, threw some red meat to the conservative base and generally spoke in mostly complete sentences.

Biden as expected was erudite, on target, and finished the last fifteen minutes strongest with his emotional response, the smackdown of McMaverick, and his solid close.

So yeah, I suppose Ms. Moosechunks stopped the hemorrhaging for the Republican ticket, but as with vice-presidential debates past the result won't ultimately affect the final outcome (think Lloyd Bentsen and Dan Quayle, though this one was never that lopsided).

More debate toons