• Both campaigns are gathering “armies of lawyers” to deal with a “perfect storm” of “record turnout” combined with “an insufficient number of poll workers and a voting system still in flux.” Obama has the voters to win this, but they need to make it to the polls for him to pull it off. [Slate]
• George Bush is stepping in to help Ohio Republicans who are still trying to force 200,000 new voters to reconfirm their registration one week after their case was dismissed by the Supreme Court. [WaPo]
• “Joe the Plumber” might not be a real plumber, but if talk radio has their way, he will be a real Congressman. [CNN]
• While writing a blog for the RNC, Ashley Todd visited “Manhatten” where she hung out at a Republican rally with the Jews at “Yeshvia College.” [LifeInTheField (Cached)]
• A 72 year-old retired teacher in New York is fighting military recruiters in city high schools. [NYT]

The “B is for bullshit” headline in today’s New York Post is the best joke I’ve seen so far in response to the Ashley Todd fiasco. Conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch owns the Post and their election coverage is completely biased (today’s issue also contains an article outlining crazy toe licker Dick Morris’ plans for a McCain upset“). Right wingers made Todd’s lies national news and this doesn’t belong on any front page, but it’s still hilarious.

What can I say? I’m a sucker for tabloid humor sometimes. Full close-up after the jump.

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Here, read this. It’s probably the most loaded paragraph published in the New York Times in modern history.

Facing a firing line of questions from Washington lawmakers, Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman once considered the infallible maestro of the financial system, admitted on Thursday that he “made a mistake” in trusting that free markets could regulate themselves without government oversight.

There certainly is something to be said for honesty.

Greenspan Concedes Error on Regulation [New York Times]

Hey, remember that time Colin Powell went to the UN with a little vile of baby powder and some print outs from Google Maps as evidence as to why the Whole Entire World should invade Iraq? Us too! Remember anything about him after that? Us neither!

My favorite blog headline (all I read on the other blogs) about Powell’s shocking endorsement of Barry O for president this morning is “Colin Powell Endorses Obama: Backing a Winner When He’s Winning“. Can’t really beat that one. This is why Powell joined the Bush White House. This is why Powell backed the war despite profound reserverations rather than resigning in protest. And this is why we have appointed him Secretary of the Cynics Party Department of Shame.

Here’s a cruel bit of bitter irony so apparent not even CNN could miss it, as they made it the headline of their story about Powell’s endorsement:

Brokaw: Mr. Secretary, there were a number of chinks in your own armor, actually, because of the lead-up to the Iraq war… will [your endrosement] be taken perhaps by some, because of your previous high-profile position, won’t it be taken by some as a repudiation of the Iraq war?

Powell: I don’t know why. The Iraq war is the Iraq war. We now see that things are a lot better in Iraq. Maybe if we had put a surge in at the beginning, it would have been a lot better years ago, but it’s a lot better now, and we can see ahead to where U.S. forces will start to come out. And so, my concern was not my past or what happened in Iraq, but where we’re going in the future. My sole concern was where are we going after January 20 of 2009, not what happened in 2003.

We are drowning in a sea of integrity here.

That’s so totally embarrassing.

Powell: Support for Obama Does Not Mean Iraq War Wrong [CNN]
Colin Powell Endorses Obama: Backing A Winner When He’s Winning [Campaign Silo]
Irritable Powell Syndrome [Reason]
Powell to Endorse! Remind Me Why I Care [XX Factor]

Perhaps the most retarded matchup between Obama and McCain is taking place here in New York as we speak, and the AP has the exclusive story:

Barack Obama and John McCain will attend a New York cat show this weekend - Obama the Bombay cat and McCain the American Shorthair, that is.

Get it? American Shorthair? McCain is bald!

It continues:

The two felines are vying for the title of “Purr-fect President” at the Cat Fanciers’ Association-IAMS 2008 championship that opens Saturday at Madison Square Garden.

So maybe McCain will get to win something before the year is out. Go get ‘em Johnny!

Tickets right here.

Cat championship include Obama, McCain - the cats [Associated Press]

Colin Powell, United States Secretary of Shame, carries on a vital diplomatic mission.

• Colin Powell, a Republican as well as a black, may endorse Barack Obama even though he once took a his vile of baby powder to the UN in an effort to help America’s Greatest President set the world on fire. [Daily News, Real Clear Politics]
• In the 152-year history of the Republican Party, the Chicago Tribune has never endorsed a Democrat. Turns out all they needed was one from Illinois. [Chicago Tribune]
• Cindy McCain hopes that if she becomes first lady the Plastics will finally let her sit at their lunch table. [New York Times]
• Barack Obama is the recommended presidential candidate of one-in-four American racists. [Politico]
• The depression takes hold: the McCain’s income was down a third in 2007 to paultry $4.3 million. [LA Times]
• Jury-less trials for Americans set to become new feauture of a democratic Iraq. [MSNBC]
• Not news: Obama is a socialist. [CBS News]
• Analysis: McCain is a frantic and flailing old man. [Associated Press]
• Bush is still phoning it in with more remixes of his classic, older stuff. [New York Times, Washington Post]

The new “biopic” from the master of the conspiracy movie isn’t a bad film, but will leave you feeling afterward like you’ve seen a better one. This is due to the dazzling transcendence of Josh Brolin’s performance, which catapults him forever from being “that one dude who bangs Diane Lane and has Barbra Streisand for a stepmom.”

Everything you’ve heard about Brolin’s dead-on turn is true and then some; he nails Dubya down to the befuddled furrow between his eyes. As for the rest of it — well, it’s nothing that we didn’t know, and not even the most damning stuff. Stone actually goes rather gentle on the guy, giving him the classic movie arc: you just keep wanting him to beat the odds and succeed!

(There are no spoilers for this film unless you were born after the year 2000. Eight-year-olds: fuck off)

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I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty exhausted these days by the news cycle. It’s hard to muster concern through all the worn-down defensive apathy. I never thought I’d miss the years where I anguished over Bush’s mounting high crimes and misdemeanors. Oh, how I would blog about impeachment, back in the halcyon days when we had money! Those sunny times when all we had to worry about was hurricanes wiping out our cities, and no one thought twice about the prospect of their retirement savings wiping out.

We’ve been on this ride for a very long while. Remember when Hillary was our biggest concern? I miss her girlish pranks, too. The last few months have run roughshod over my already frazzled, news-addicted psyche. At this point I’ve reached the very depths of cynicism: I don’t even want to give them my outrage. Nothing is surprising or unexpected anymore. And I think you may be with me.

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John McCain could not skulk around the stage this time like Gollum, though he grunted and grimaced enough; thankfully he had to keep to his appointed seat across from a serene Barack Obama. Let’s be honest about what we saw tonight. We saw our near-president Obama, confident and sometimes amused at the baseless attacks — he was comfortable enough, now, to show his disdain whenever McCain lied. Both of them looked exhausted, but Barack’s hair has taken on a silver cast throughout the race, the very real experience of constant campaigning taking its toll on him. And then we saw his opponent.

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There’s been increasing discussion of the angry tone of the McCain campaign, specifically some incidents with the crowds at Sarah Palin’s speeches have raised eyebrows. Al Jazeera followed Palin on the campaign and got some shocking interviews with Ohio voters who just may decide the future of our country again. Watch the footage below if you want to hear about how “the blacks” are taking over, Obama is a threat to our “Christian country,” and Sarah Palin is “filled with the Holy Spirit.”

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