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

Tonight's debate is must-see teevee

"It used to be you'd ask your buddy, 'Where are you watching the game?' " said Armando Walle, Democratic state representative candidate in District 140. "Now it's, 'Where are you going to watch the debate?' " ...

(Last) Friday, an estimated 52.4 million Americans tuned in to watch the McCain-Obama debate — and Thursday night's crowd could be larger.

Traditionally, Thursday is a good night to watch TV; Friday is not. Besides, last week, nobody but McCain knew if he was even going to show up. Also, there's the allure of seeing a potential train wreck.

Ah yes. Train wreck or smackdown. Possibly both, and potentially for either player.

It may be the ugly side of human nature, but regular Americans, political pundits and academics who make their living dissecting just such media events can hardly wait.

"There was some underestimation of how much this election will become the mini-series of the season," said Robert Thompson, professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University. "It's been the most exciting TV on, from the beginning of year till now."

He figures Palin will try to get through the debate by memorizing eight or nine mini-speeches. If she can do that successfully, he said, the 90 minutes will be as boring as some people deemed last Friday's debate. "The only chance for anything interesting is if the moderator, Gwen Ifill, can ask her questions that can't be answered with a push of the button and recitation," Thompson said.

Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said he's heard Palin's debate preparations haven't gone so well.

"It's asking a tremendous amount from a former mayor of Wasilla and a governor of less than two years to get up to speed on foreign and domestic policies," Jillson said. "Even if she is really talented."

Thompson will be glued to his TV set, but with low expectations.

"Is Palin even competent to run for this office?" he asked. "She is making (former vice president) Dan Quayle sound like a Rhodes scholar."

The only thing that reverses the slide and gets the GOP back in the game is a gaffe-free Palin and a gaffe-filled Biden. What are the odds of that occurence?

And what do our locals have to say?

City Councilwoman Anne Clutterbuck will be rooting for Palin.

"I think she's terrific, and I'm real excited about her," Clutterbuck said. "She's been involved and successful in local government, and I recognize the dedication and hard work that goes into that. ... You don't have to be in Washington all your career to be a competent leader."

Peggy Hamric, a former GOP state representative, will be rooting for Palin, too.

"She's just a breath of fresh air," Hamric said. "Palin's a typical American woman. She's Main Street."

Political scientists doubt Democratic women, even disappointed Hillary Clinton supporters, will cross party lines to vote for Palin.

While Clutterbuck and Hamric hope they're wrong, Sissy Farenthold, a lifelong feminist, says she won't be voting her gender. She thinks not only that Palin has poor judgment, but that McCain exhibited poor judgment in selecting her as his VP. "He wanted to invigorate the conservative base, and he thought he might appeal to women," Farenthold said. "All I can believe is that he's not thinking about governance, he's not thinking about the issues. The whole thing is just amazing to me."

We're going out to watch it with a large group of people somewhere. I like to gauge the reaction of others, even those with whom I am simpatico. Last week I was increasingly incensed as Obama played nice to McLame's nasty, complimenting him, saying "Senator McCain is exactly right about ..." about four times too many, and generally not doing what I thought he should do, which was bust the old man in the mouth. He threw a few elbows and a couple of left jabs, yeah, but not nearly enough counter-punching to suit me. Turns out I was mistaken about how that would be perceived by the majority, however.

Biden cannot do anything aggressive at all toward his overmatched counterpart. He must be direct, deferential, keep the focus on the Republican standard-bearer's shortcomings, and when Ms. Palin trips and falls, stand quietly. Hell, maybe he should even help her up.

I just hope there aren't too many cringe-worthy moments. For either person.

Bailout Burger, extra bacon, cut the taxes

The new bill, which is over 400 pages, is full of random tax cuts (e.g., property tax deductions for people who don't itemize), which is sure to please some conservative House Republicans and infuriate Democrats who think cutting taxes without cutting spending is irresponsible. It is also full of pork designed to please both Democrats (requiring insurance companies to cover mental health) and Republicans ($3 billion for rural schools). It is likely that the number of Republicans gained in the House vote will exceed the number of Democrats lost by more than 13 and the bill will probably pass the House tomorrow. Everybody was too busy adding pork to question the basic premise of whether giving former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson $250 billion immediately to help out his friends on Wall St. as he sees fit is a good idea.

So with public sentiment running so strongly against it, will tenuous Republican Senators on the ballot next month -- like John Cornhole, Saxby Chambliss, Norm Coleman, Ted Stevens and John Sununu -- pay a price for their support of the bill?

Update: Indeed he is losing the wingnuts. More at the LST here and here (read the comments).

What 2 Watch 4 in Da House: how many Blue Dogs jump off the bus. Pay particularly close attention to those in tight races, like Nick Lampson for example. And if endangered GOP Congresscritters like John Cumbersome vote for the bill, I say that would be the final nail in his coffin. (He won't.)

Update II: The Blue Dogs get the shaft. Ha ha.

Congress chats, markets take off

Not the credit markets, though.

On Monday, the Dow Jones index plunged 778 points but yesterday it soared 485 points even though nothing changed. One of the fundamental concepts of economic theory is that markets accurately reflect the actual value of the item being traded. But it is hard to believe that the true value of companies as solid as Boeing, Disney, Pfizer, and Wal-Mart can change by nearly 10% in a few hours.

The Senate is likely to vote on a revised bailout bill today. It will probably have sweeteners for various groups, such as an expanded FDIC limit to protect depositors and make them less likely to cause a run on a bank. Such a bill, however, may draw new opposition in the House. Didn't Abraham Lincoln say something like: "You can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't please all of the people all of the time"? This bill is definitely not going to please all of the people. It is being microscopically crafted to please 51 senators (or 50 senators plus Dick Cheney) and 218 representatives. But other plans are being circulated. For example, billionaire George Soros is floating a plan in which the treasury would recapitalize the failing banks by having them issue new stock that the government would buy at the market price. This scheme means that the stockholders of failing banks would have their stock watered down but the stockholders in banks that don't need assistance would be unaffected. Various alternative plans are also being suggested and opposition to it is still strong among conservatives.

A pretty fair assessment by The Votemaster there. While Congress dithers, the economy burns. Here's an observation from one sector, automobile sales: people with good credit scores are being offered car loans at 9 and 10 percent, while nearly no one else is getting financed at all:

“It frankly has become a nightmare for dealers and consumers who need a vehicle,” said Art Spinella, CNW’s president. “This is the worst we have seen it since we’ve been tracking it since 1984.” ...

But Mark LaNeve, head of North American sales for General Motors, estimates that G.M. is losing 10,000 to 12,000 sales a month because of tighter lending practices.

“It’s a bigger problem than $4-a-gallon gas,” said James Press, a Chrysler vice chairman. “We have buyers coming in, but they can’t get a loan.”

Detroit is bracing for particularly bad sales numbers for September. According to estimates from Edmunds.com, Chrysler sales may be down as much as 36 percent, G.M.’s may drop 23 percent, and Ford Motor Company sales could be down 25 percent.

Even Japanese automakers, which specialize in fuel-efficient smaller cars, are expected to record a rough month, with Toyota projected to be down by 17 percent and Nissan by 11 percent.

Last week the largest association of Chevrolet dealers in the country, Bill Heard Enterprises, shuttered its dealerships including its 7th-largest-in-the-nation Landmark Chevrolet in Houston.

And we all look forward to what October -- one of the historically worst months for the markets, and business overall -- will bring.

Reality intrudes

So much to blog, so little time to do so.

I met Mother and Brother in College Station on Sunday for lunch, Nephew's Aggie band concert, and the return drive to Orange County (Mother evacuated from Ike to Fort Worth and hasn't been back home since). Yesterday I got busy cleaning up her yard -- a few limbs and a couple of significant-size treetops down, nothing too large or serious -- and the neighbors pitched in with me, wheelbarrows and chainsaws and tractors large and small. I took a break at 11, cleaned up, went to lunch and the grocer's, and then finally got back in touch with the world about 2 p.m. yesterday afternoon to find it falling apart.

As I worked the phones the rest of the day and into the evening, calling to reassure clients and get reassurance myself from my vendors, mostly insurance companies, I found myself craving a return to the morning's manual labor.

(I should also note here that while we were in Aggieland and with a couple of hours to spare we went through the GHWB library. Vigorously exercising both gag reflex and self-restraint on Sunday turned out to be good preparation for Monday.)

I was thinking the bailout would pass, but I underestimated both the outcry from "Main Street" and the attention paid to said outcry by nervous Congresscritters in both parties. We're in for a few more bumpy days ahead as we ride this financial roller coaster through the High Holy Days.

As for Casa Diddie, well, my agency business looks cooked and the wife was quickly laid off, so I suppose we'll pop a little corn and watch the Blame Game, or maybe Dancing with The Stooges. Meanwhile there's some really good posts on what's going on from Tom Kirkendall here, the Socratic Gadfly here, and this analysis in the Chronic from the McClatchy team is spot on.

The Black Monday afternoon teevee coverage was remarkable in reporting the farce, from John Boehner attributing the bill's failure to the pussification of House Republicans, to David Gregory interviewing John Culberson and Sheila Jackson-Lee side side by side (both voted 'no'), to Keith Olbermann's and Rachel Maddow's careful and calm-inducing explanations. Suze Orman told viewers to stop going out to dinner every night, paying with a credit card and then paying the monthly minimum on that card. I don't think that's what Ma and Pa Mainstreet want to hear or heed.

And if anyone you know happens to be hiring financial experts, I know two people in the job market. Contact me care of this blog.

The Weekly Wrangle

The Texas Progressive Alliance had another great week discussing the politics of Texas and the nation. Here are some of the best of those posts:

The Texas Cloverleaf has the new Palin plan for foreign experience: sitting pretty with puppets.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme says welcome to the United States of Corporate Greed.

Dembones at Eye On Williamson posts on the Texas Association of Realtors (TAR) and their status quo endorsements for the November election, TAR needs to be tarred and feathered.

The past week has been one filled with brilliant people trying desperately to accomplish what is extremely difficult (namely, keeping the US out of a depression) and some exceptionally (some might say BREATHTAKINGLY) stupid people who are narrowly focused on the last shreds of a failed ideology. And their own egos. We at McBlogger have done our best to keep up with all the ups. And downs. First up are the always cretinous folks from the American Enterprise Institute who decided to blame the wrong people for the failures of their own plans. Then there was Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-unfortunately from Texas) who decided his supercharged ego and underpowered little rat-brain had something useful to add. He found out pretty quickly that wasn't the case.

Off the Kuff projects what the Houston Chronicle endorsements for November will look like.

A majority of voters thought Obama won the first debate, but all the media pundits could talk about was what a great job McCain did. jobsanger wonders what debate the "Talking Heads" were watching.

NorthTexas Liberal led an interesting discussion on John McCain's brief campaign suspension.

Vince at Capitol Annex notes that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has refused to answer whether or not the Texas Association of Appraisal Districts should be subject to the Texas Public Information Act and discusses why that was a really stupid move.

Neil at Texas Liberal did not allow the dent in his car to be fixed by the guy who solicited him for the work in a parking lot. That's just the type of post-hurricane scam people are being warned about.

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News does not like Bush and McCain's response to the Wall Street crisis. He has some items he wants included in a bailout bill and not bags of money thrown at the problem.

EV 9/27: Momentum shifts back to Obama

Colorado, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania are back to blue. Missouri, Virginia and North Carolina are no longer red. All of this polling was completed prior to Friday night's debate.

<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

Paul Newman 1925 - 2008

With his strong, classically handsome face and piercing blue eyes, Newman was a heartthrob just as likely to play against his looks, becoming a favorite with critics for his convincing portrayals of rebels, tough guys and losers. "I was always a character actor," he once said. "I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood."

They had a famously durable marriage. Newman spoke about their relationship by noting how they decided to act in the comedy "A New Kind of Love" (1963).

He told Time magazine: "Joanne read it and said, 'Hey this could be fun to do together. Read it.' And I read it and said, 'Joanne, it's just a bunch of one-liners.'

"And she said, 'You [expletive], I've been carting your children around, taking care of them, taking care of you and your house.' And I said, 'That is what I said. It's a terrific script. I can't think of anything else I'd rather do.' This is what is known as a reciprocal trade agreement."

Newman had a soft spot for underdogs in real life, giving tens of millions to charities through his food company and setting up camps for severely ill children. Passionately opposed to the Vietnam War, and in favor of civil rights, he was so famously liberal that he ended up on President Nixon's "enemies list," one of the actor's proudest achievements, he liked to say.

Belligerent and condescending

Which didn't win over many independent voters. Nor many others.

The party was a blast -- SRO inside the Cotton Exchange, and our little group included Councilman Peter Brown, Rep. Al Edwards, Jim Sharp, and Alexandra Smoots-Hogan, among many others. Had that fabulous piece of fish at Cabo in the late night afterwards (the plantain crusted mahi-mahi).

Why didn't McNasty make eye contact with Obama one single time during the entire evening? And did you hear him mutter "horseshit"? Twice?!

Rockin' the debate tonight

Leaving shortly for the party, which means you'll have to look elsewhere for a live-blog. We're going to be drinking every time McLame says "bailout", "crisis", and since it's supposed to be a debate about foreign policy, "9/11", "mushroom cloud", and "Ackmabinehandjob" or something that sounds similar.

Which means we'll all be unconscious before 9:30.

WaMu gets Chased into history

WooHoo:

JPMorgan Chase became the biggest U.S. bank by deposits, acquiring Washington Mutual's branch network for $1.9 billion after the thrift was seized in the largest U.S. bank failure in history.

Customers of WaMu withdrew $16.7 billion from accounts since Sept. 16, leaving the Seattle-based bank "unsound," the Office of Thrift Supervision said late Thursday. WaMu's branches will open today and depositors will have full access to all their accounts, Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said on a conference call.

Well, there go WaMu's socially liberal policies. I had what some may consider a lot of money (and some would think a mere pittance) in WaMu, but never worried about it, even when I learned that the FDIC itself was undercapitalized. I knew the feds would never let them go belly-up, and I knew that before they began rescuing mortgage companies and insurance companies.

WaMu turned down offers of $8 a share earlier this year and $4 a share just a few weeks ago. Today...

... WaMu, down 95 percent in the past year, dropped to 45 cents in extended trading following the announcement, which came after the close of regular trading.

David Bonderman's TPG Inc., which led a $7 billion capital infusion for WaMu earlier this year, lost most of its initial $2 billion investment. TPG, based in Forth Worth, Texas, said in a statement Thursday it was "dissatisfied with the loss" and that the WaMu investment was a "small part of assets."

New York-based JPMorgan, which separately announced plans to raise $8 billion by selling common stock, had its outlook lowered to negative by Moody's Investors Service. Moody's left its Aa2 rating on JPMorgan unchanged.

JPMorgan won't acquire WaMu's liabilities, including claims by shareholders and subordinated and senior debt holders, the FDIC said. JPMorgan paid $10 a share for Bear Stearns in March as the New York-based securities firm teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.

"This is one of the reasons I own JPMorgan: They're going to win from all this," said Anton Schutz, president of Mendon Capital Advisors Corp. in Rochester, New York. "They're taking on credit risk, but they're not taking on any debt obligations."

JPMChase has bought Bear Stearns and WaMu in the past two months; Bank of America owns Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. The last remaining independent brokerage houses in the US, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs (Henry Paulson's former employer), have been OK'd to become banks themselves. But the Chinese are turning off the spigot, so who knows where it goes from here, especially if John McInsane and the House Republicans succeed in derailing Bush's bailout.

And in other news, the stock market is rocketing downward again this morning. Update (at market closing): A nice finish to a wild day.

Putin rears his head and comes into the air space

I'll bet he can see Sarah's house from there ...


Every single time that poor ditz opens her mouth it's a field day.

Harris County election details

Kuffner beat me to it, but I have some information he doesn't (it comes from time spent at the logic and accuracy testing for Hart InterCivic's e-Slates, which took place last week at Beverly Kaufman's office) ...

-- There will be 874 voting precincts in the nation's third-largest county. Some precincts will be combined in polling places, being determined by your respective county commissioner even now.

-- There are 263 ballot versions in the general election, and more than a hundred others for "limited" voting (for example, someone from out-of-state voting just a presidential and/or federal candidate ballot).

-- There are thirteen different election entities, which split precincts in some cases (such as school districts and MUDs).

-- The special election for SD-17 (79 precincts in Harris, but also on ballots in Jefferson, Brazoria, Fort Bend, and Galveston counties) will be at the very top of the ballot, above the presidential candidates and even the straight-party button. Alan Berstein explains:

The contest will appear before the "straight ticket" option that allows voters, with a single physical motion, to vote for all candidates of a particular party, from president to justice of the peace. But, since there are multiple Democrats and Republicans in the SD 17 race, the straight ticket vote would not apply to it anyway. Voters in the district can mark their choice in that race and then get on with the businesses of voting "straight ticket" or cherrypicking their way down the ballot.

Chris Bell will appear first on the ballot in Fort Bend, Galveston and Jefferson counties, in the third position in Brazoria County, and in Harris County Bell's name appears as the last one listed in the SD-17 contest. As I have previously noted -- and despite what you may have read elsewhere, like in Al's post above -- he is the one true Democrat in the race.

-- Here's a sample ballot, listing all of the races. You will obviously get to vote for a single Congressional and statehouse candidate to represent your area, but all of the judicial candidates and all of the Harris County executive races will appear on your ballot (if you're voting in Harris, of course).

-- The deadline for voter registration is October 6. Register, verify your registration, or learn which candidates represent you through the various links listed here. Early voting begins October 20. Here are the EV locations, hours, and more useful information.

-- Harris County election officials project that 1.2 million votes will be cast here. If that holds historically accurate it would represent about 20% of the statewide tally, which works out to six million Texas votes.

-- Finally, Harris County will be parallel-testing its voting machines for the first time ...

Parallel testing, also known as election-day testing, involves selecting voting machines at random and testing them as realistically as possible during the period that votes are being cast. The fundamental question addressed by such tests arise from the fact that pre-election testing is almost always done using a special test mode in the voting system, and corrupt software could potentially arrange to perform honestly while in test mode while performing dishonestly during a real election.

And I will be present as they do.

Update: Kuff points out in the comments that I have significantly understimated the statewide turnout.

So do we have a deal or not?!?

At 1 p.m today we had "fundamental agreement on a set of principles". At 5 p.m today John Boehner spoke on behalf of House Republicans declaring no deal.

Cleared and queered in a matter of hours.

(Please, no one take offense at my use of the phrase "queering the deal". Except for you queers in the Congressional Republican delegation.)

This crisis is tailor-made for the free marketeers: if the deal passes, every one of them can point and scream "Socialist!" at their Democratic opponents. If it fails they can declare that they fought the good fight to the voters (since public opinion is running overwhelmingly against the bailout).

So to recap -- Bush insists the Democratic Congress bail out all of his Wall Street buddies, so that the Republicans in the Senate and House can both vote against it and continue taking the campaign contributions from their Wall Street buddies. It's really a perfect scenario; that is, if you're the prototypical conservative hypocrite.

And of course, we all continue to wait while McCain stalls on showing up for tomorrow night's debate.


Get more yard signs here.

McLame needs a timeout

While he figures out how to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Maybe he should send his running mate to stand in for him. No time like the present to see if she would be ready on Day One.

Post-Ike traffic snarls make Houston's roads even worse

Last Thursday evening I left my house -- ten minutes before the electricity was restored -- and drove from West U to Copperfield, near 290 and 6 on the northwest side, a distance of about 40 miles that takes normally an hour at posted speeds with some traffic.

It took two hours and fifteen minutes. I regularly travel to Beaumont, a hundred miles away, in an hour less than that.

Over the weekend we ventured out for food a couple of times and instantly regretted it: four-way stops at nearly every intersection, with gridlocked cars clogging the lanes at each crossing that had a functioning traffic signal.

Yesterday the Chronic reported that the traffic jams on Monday, with many employees and school children returning for the first time in a week, were among the worst ever across the city:

Metro officials on Tuesday agreed to open high-occupancy vehicle lanes on U.S. 59 and U.S. 290 after traffic on many freeways came to a complete halt during the rush hour Monday, the first day many Houstonians went back to work after the storm.

Today we learn that our county judge -- "recognized worldwide as a transportation expert" -- won't have all the traffic lights restored before oh, maybe Election Day:

With darkened intersections leading to traffic snarls on freeways and city streets, officials are searching for at least some relief by putting more officers on traffic-directing duty and reopening high-occupancy vehicle lanes.

Traffic signals at about 1,200 Houston area intersections were not yet working Tuesday but should all have at least a flashing red light by the end of next week, said Mike Marcotte, the city's director of public works and engineering. ...

Getting all the city's traffic lights functioning at pre-Hurricane Ike levels could take until November, Marcotte said.

That article is sprinkled liberally with the same feel-good BS that last week's all-GOP press avails were similarly full of. Go read it. You'll get diabetes from the candy-coated smarm:

"I've been amazed with the courtesy our drivers have been showing," Marcotte said.

"More and more signals are being put in working condition every day, hour by hour almost," said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, who convened a meeting of transportation officials Tuesday afternoon to seek solutions to the problems. "The flow in the community is getting better."

"For the most part, Houston is behaving extremely well," said Art Neely, who has driven a cab for 25 years.

A cab driver complimenting Houston drivers. That's wow-worthy all by itself. (Have you seen how those crazy cabbies cut through traffic? They're worse than the wrecker drivers. But I digress.)

Ed Emmett led the parade of Republican officials running for re-election across every local teevee channel last week: Rick Perry (yes, he's running for re-election), Bill White (yes, he's a Republican and he's running for governor in 2010 too), John Cornyn, Michael McCaul, John Culberson (who at least publicly bitched a little when his command center ran out of pizza) and even that Michelin Man Tuffy Hamilton from washed-out Orange County managed to get some face time with the cameras. They cried out in unison "All is Well!" even as two million people had no electricity and the PODs couldn't get any ice.

I say we elect a few Democrats to county offices so that they can at least share some of the blame come the next hurricane, eh?

Floating bodies roundup

"After the water started going down the next day, I spent two or three hours clearing debris from the floor inside of the house to where I could get my wife down out of the attic," he remembered. "Then I climbed down a pole into the water and the mud and scavenged around and found a ladder where she could come down eventually. Then I walked the roads up there until I found enough water and stuff for us to survive." ... (Bolivar Peninsula survivor Frank) Sherman believes several close friends died in the storm, but officials have not confirmed any deaths on Crystal Beach.

Post-storm rescuers in Galveston and the peninsula removed about 3,500 people, but 6,000 refused to leave.

Nobody is suggesting that tens of thousands died, but determining what happened to those unaccounted for is a painstaking task that could leave survivors wondering for years to come.

Authorities concede that at least some of those who haven’t turned up could have been washed out to sea, as at least one woman on the peninsula apparently was, and that other bodies might still be found.

“I’m not Pollyanna. I think we will find some,” said Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough, the county’s highest-ranking elected official.

Pustilniks’ office brought in two refrigerated tractor-trailers to store bodies until autopsies are performed. One sat in front of the medical examiner’s office Wednesday morning with a sign on the side: “Jesus Christ is Lord not a cuss word.”

By the afternoon, five deaths had been reported in Galveston County: one man who drowned in his pickup, another found inside a motel, two dialysis patients who could not get to their treatment, and a woman with cancer whose oxygen machine shut down.

Many of you have probably seen the photo of Gilchrist, Texas showing complete destruction of the town of 750 people, save for one lone home. High-resolution satellite imagery made available by NOAA's National Geodetic Survey (Figure 1) confirm that of the approximately 1000 structures existing in the town before Hurricane Ike, only about five survived the hurricane. Approximately 200 of these buildings were homes, and it is thought that some of the residents attempted to ride out the storm in their homes. According to media reports, about 34 survivors from Gilchrist and the neighboring communities of Crystal Beach and Port Bolivar have been fished out of Galveston Bay in the past few days. Rescuers who have reached Gilchrist have not been able to find any victims in the debris because there is no debris. Ike's storm surge knocked 99.5% of the 1,000 buildings in Gilchrist off their foundations and either demolished them or washed them miles inland into the swamplands behind Gilchrist. Until search teams can locate the debris of what once was Gilchrist, we will not know the fate of those who may have stayed behind to ride out the storm.

Hurricane Toons (financial and otherwise)

Still-recovering-from-Ike Wrangle

Seven hundred and sixty-seven thousand Houstonians (34% of CenterPoint Energy's customers) are still without power today, ten days after the hurricane. That's 100,000 more people than Sarah Palin governs in Alaska, and more than the entire populations of the cities of San Francisco, CA, Columbus OH, and both Austin and Fort Worth.

At least I no longer have a big wad of state and local Republicans running for re-election on my teevee declaring "All is Well". Here's this week's edition of the Texas Progressive Alliance’s weekly roundup, compiled by Vince from Capitol Annex.

CouldBeTrue of South Texas Chisme notices cronies are number #1 in Texas from insurance companies to power companies.

jobsanger points out the blatant racism at the “Values Voters Summit” sponsored by the Family Research Council, and wonders if John McCain’s “senior moments” are indicative of a more serious psychological problem.

The Texas Cloverleaf spots state Senator Kim Brimer at a union hall. Unfortunately, as they say, you can’t put lipstick on a pig.

Off the Kuff takes a look at the lawsuit filed by Libertarian presidential candidate Bob Barr to force John McCain and Barack Obama off the ballot in Texas.

WCNews at Eye On Williamson posts on the real-world effects of the TRCC: Builder protection agency “hits home” in Williamson County.

Neither the authorities nor the media have found any bodies hanging from the trees in Galveston or on Bolivar Peninsula — mostly because there aren’t any trees high enough to catch one — but that didn’t stop PDiddie from posting the rumors at Brains and Eggs.

Mike Thomas at Rhetoric and Rhthym notes that Lyle Larson would fight for San Antonio’s share of federal funding based on his latest ad blasting all Congressional earmarks as wasteful “pork”.

McBlogger takes a moment to demystify what’s going on in financial markets. And calls some people really bad names.

North Texas Liberal unveils the second installment of their Sarah Palin series.

nytexan at BlueBloggin wonders how John McCain cleans up Washington and Wall Street of the lobbyists when 177 of them work for him.

Gary at Easter Lemming Liberal News urges all to contact your Congress people now about this bad, very bad $700 billion taxpayer funded bailout of the financial industry. Otherwise, for the next three months and then an additional six months after that, the Treasury Secretary can do anything “appropriate” with your money without anybody anywhere looking it over.

WhosPlayin took a moment to pin that pesky “redistribution of wealth” meme back on the Republicans, where it originated and operates today.

BossKitty at TruthHugger still expects the Bush administration to pull a fast one, because the Pakistan Meltdown Offers Bush More Opportunities To Create Crisis, and the dogs of war are still salivating …

Vince at Capitol Annex tells us that state rep. John Davis is up to his old tricks down in HD-129. This time he’s holding a fundraiser in Austin while his district is without power, and his constituents are without water. He’s clearly addicted to campaign cash. Someone throw this guy a roll of quarters before he has a stroke.

Debate Watch Party this Friday

Blog Action Day, October 15, 2008: Poverty

More Funnies (which ones are the socialists, again?)

EV 9/21: Lots of tossups

The McPalin bounce is officially over. Look at all the states that moved within a polling margin of error this past week: NV, CO, WI, OH, PA, NH, and FL. New Mexico flipped red to blue.

There is no clear favorite now, 45 or so days from Election Day, and 5 days before the first presidential debate.

<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 (The Old Man and the C edition)

Hey, blame Ernest Hemingway...

A McPalin pork sandwich, with a side of lipstick and fries

I wonder if I can get one to go:

ANCHORAGE, Alaska-- A local restaurant is incorporating politics into its menu.

Lion's Den restaurant in midtown Anchorage has created its own specialty called the McPalin grilled pig sandwich.

Lion's Den owner Dale Keefe says normally he keeps politics out of work conversation. But when he was making sandwiches with his crew last week, the big top news story was Barack Obama's comment, "You know, you can put lipstick on a pig, it's still a pig."

Obama's comment began Keefe's political food creation.



"I just kept thinking about that news story when I was making sandwiches and I just kind of had an epiphany," Keefe said.

The McPalin sandwich has grilled pork tenderloin on it with caramelized apples, red onions, melted cheddar cheese, and crisp bacon.

Most food creators add some type of garnish such as parsley or fruit to top off their dish, but Keefe decided to do something a little more personal.

The sandwich is served with a side of lipstick and fries.

The McPalin grilled pig sandwich runs for about $13, and has been selling out.

Cleaning up (after the hurricane, and after the markets)

Off shortly to the second day of Harris County's logic and accuracy testing of the Hart InterCivic e-Slates for November's election. More on that this weekend. Two excerpts from stories highlighting the twin messes that need mopping up; first Ike, Houston, and the immigration paradox, from Reuters:

The men gather early on street corners here in storm-battered Houston, ready for the jobs they know will come their way, sweeping up broken glass and clearing downed trees and debris from city streets.

They speak mostly Spanish, while looking warily at strangers. And these undocumented, also called illegal, immigrants worry that instead of a job and a day's wages, they might instead find themselves arrested and deported.

Indeed, in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, which left a trail of destruction across southeast Texas, America's ongoing debate over U.S. immigration policy is again aflame.

On the one hand, the undocumented in the United States -- an estimated 12 million mostly Hispanic individuals -- are seen by some as a needed labor source, particularly after disasters like Ike turn communities to ruin. But many see the group as a drag on government resources who take jobs from Americans and deserve no assistance.

"They don't have resources and they don't have legal status, and we are concerned that they might not ... have water or electricity," said Fernando Garcia, the director of the Border Network for Human Rights, a nonprofit advocacy group.

"People are afraid to reach out for help as they don't know if immigration (police) will detain them or not," he said.

There are more than one million undocumented workers in Texas, with many living in Houston and surrounding areas hit by the hurricane, according to the Border Network.

With drivers' licenses and Social Security numbers as the keys to unlocking government aid, assistance such as emergency food stamps and help with temporary housing are largely unavailable for this population.

"If you are an undocumented worker you are barred from these resources," said Texas Health and Human Services spokeswoman Stephanie Goodman.

What?!? But what about all that pissing and moaning I hear from conservatives all the time? It's not just more BS from the Republick elitists, is it?

Armed with shovels and rakes, undocumented workers have played a role in clearing away the rubble of many of America's natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the wildfires that ravaged southern California in 2007.

That factor, combined with evidence that many in the Hispanic population have trouble tapping post-disaster aid, needs reform, advocates said.

"The question of benefits and who can apply after a disaster is a big issue," said The National Council of La Raza spokeswoman Sara Benitez. "That has been a really big issue in the Gulf Coast."

Go to the link to get more about the "both sides of the story".

Amid the debate, with thousands of flooded and wind-battered homes and businesses in need of clean-up and repair across southeast Texas and Louisiana, manual laborers, including undocumented workers, are in high demand.

Laborers are needed everywhere from Houston, the fourth-largest U.S. city, to Galveston Island, a seaside community that once housed 60,000 but now is a deemed so storm-damaged that everyone has been asked to evacuate.

"Everyone went to work yesterday," said Mark Zwick, founder of Casa Juan Diego, an assistance organization that houses, feeds and provides medical care for undocumented immigrants in Houston. "Work had been down, but now there is plenty for them."

And this, on the bailout of the money markets accounts inside mutual funds:

The U.S. Treasury Department on Friday announced it will use $50 billion to back money market mutual funds whose asset values fall below $1 in another step to contain raging financial turmoil.

"For the next year, the U.S. Treasury will insure the holdings of any publicly offered eligible money market mutual fund -- both retail and institutional -- that pays a fee to participate in the program," the Treasury said in a statement.

A reaction from analyst David Kotok of New Jersey-based Cumberland Advisors: "Like it or not, we're going to get it. Massive government intervention is re-writing the financial markets playbook."

Update: What's going on locally that is affecting the oil markets post-Ike:

ExxonMobil said in a storm update late Thursday that its 349,000 barrel per day oil refinery in Beaumont, Texas, sustained "some water damage" from Hurricane Ike. The company also said it continued to make progress restarting its 567,000 bpd Baytown refinery and chemical plants.

And the Statesman, via Capitol Annex:

At least 49 offshore oil platforms, all with production of fewer than 1,000 barrels a day, were destroyed by Hurricane Ike as it crossed the Gulf of Mexico, and some may not be rebuilt, the Interior Department said Thursday.

The agency said in its latest hurricane damage assessment that the platforms accounted for 13,000 barrels of oil and 84 million cubic feet of natural gas a day.

There are more than 3,800 production platforms in the Gulf producing 1.3 million barrels of oil and 7 billion cubic feet of gas each day.

Financial markets still melting down

Congratulations, taxpayers: you now own 80% of the nation's largest insurance company. Krugman: "(they) have made determination that risk -- an inherent tenet to the reward of capitalism -- is to be socialized." I prefer "Privatize the profits and socialize the losses". Seems to fit better with the fascism or corporatism or whatever they are refusing to call it that prevails today.

From here, let's just go with a few headlines and maybe an emphasized excerpt:

U.S. regulators try to find WaMu buyer

Federal bank insurance fund dwindling

"We've got a ... retail bank run forming in this country," said Christopher Whalen, senior vice president and managing director of Institutional Risk Analytics.

Bush suddenly scraps comments on financial markets

Stocks plunge over AIG bailout and financial system fears

White House defends AIG rescue and signals possibility of more

The White House gave a newly nuanced description Wednesday of the U.S. economy, calling it a mixed picture and saying it ultimately will weather the current turmoil. Press secretary Dana Perino, President Bush's chief spokeswoman, also defended the extraordinary federal takeover of sinking insurance giant American International Group Inc., while not ruling out further private-sector bailouts by Washington.

A bit more, just to highlight the differences:

Among those pleading for Washington's help, for instance, is the struggling U.S. auto industry, which has suffered massive losses but remains a backbone of the economy. A bill before Congress would give the companies $25 billion in federal loans, a program established but not funded under an energy bill passed last year. Perino said the White House would not comment on that prospect until Congress decides whether to go ahead with approving the money. ...

Perino refused to repeat the White House's standard line about the U.S. economy, often used by Bush, who has said that its "fundamentals are strong." Republican presidential candidates John McCain used that phrase Monday, earning him ridicule from Democratic opponent Barack Obama as being out of touch. McCain later clarified that he meant that the fundamental strength of the American worker remained strong.

With those accusations and counter-accusations swirling in an election campaign environment, Perino suggested Wednesday that this assessment no longer stands.

"It's not clear-cut," she said, because of a proliferation of both positive and negative economic indicators, sometimes coming on the same day.

"We are in a position of strength to be able to deal with this crisis," Perino said. "It will take us awhile."

As recently as July 31, Bush said: "I believe the foundations of this economy are strong." In an Aug. 2 radio address, Bush prodded Congress to expand the energy supply so that "our economy remains the strongest, most vibrant and most hopeful in the world."

And one more, echoing Mr. Whalen above:

FDIC's insurance fund: $45 billion. The assets of Washington Mutual, which is teetering on the brink of insolvency: $309 billion. A WaMu collapse would make it 10 times the size of the greatest bank failure in US history. The FDIC may have to borrow money from the Treasury to cover insured losses (remember that deposits are only insured up to $100,000, which limits taxpayer risk).

John Herbert W. McHoover

Few presidential candidates can lay claim to comparison to history's worst presidents. The 2008 Republican nominee has hit the trifecta:

"The fun-fun-fundamentals of our economy are sound."



John McAlzeimers can now proudly stand alongside GWB ("Iraq for 100 years", bombbombbomb Iran"), GHWB (by virtue of the lamest possible VP selection) and now Herbert ("Prosperity is just around the corner") Hoover.

But in fairness, McSame has displaced Al Gore in urban legend: despite not being able to read his own e-mail or operate a computer, his senior aide claims he invented the Blackberry.

And there's another comparison I am compelled to note by virtue of its withering irony: the SNL skit in 1988 featuring Dana Carvey as Poppy Bush and Jon Lovitz as a height-challenged Michael Dukakis, muttering: "I can't believe I'm losing to this guy."

How can Barack Obama be losing to this guy?

(I have quite a few notions about this, but I'll wait a little longer to see if the American electorate wises up on its own.)