MyDD’s andrewalker08 screams, Absolutely awesome. Another one comes on the radar: A new WMAZ-TV (Macon) poll conducted by SurveyUSA says that Democrat Jim Martin only trails the Republican by two points.  This latest poll seems to confirm the numbers released by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) yesterday that showed Chambliss leading Martin by just three points [Source:  Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, "New Georgia Poll Shows Martin Within Three Points Of Chambliss",...

After his fairly good performance in Iraq, General David Petraeus takes charge of his new post as the overall head of the U.S. forces in the Middle East (including Afghanistan) on October 31. But now General Petraeus needs to acquaint himself better with the history and ground realities in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and the Central Asia. History tells us that even the best foreign soldiers, and great conquerors and diplomats, in the world have met their nemesis in Afghanistan. So it would do...

In Austria. But giving sixteen year olds the right to vote seems ill-advised. [See my personal blog.]

My dictionary defines affirmative action as: “action favoring those who often suffer or have previously suffered from discrimination.” Naïvely, I had always thought of affirmative action in terms of the advancement of racial or ethnic minorities (I just found out that I was wrong on this), and as a noble thing (many believe I am wrong on this one). Dahlia Lithwick, in a provocative essay in this week’s Newsweek, set me straight on the former, and Justice Clarence Thomas has—it seems...

There seems to be a global theme emerging in regard to President Bush and the financial crisis. Hot on the heels of yesterday’s Le Figaro article, ‘The Financial Crisis and the Curse of George W. Bush,’ Sérgio Malbergier of Brazil’s Folha also writes of the apparent bad luck of our beleaguered leader. Malbergier writes in part: “George W. Bush, 62, is going to go down history. Fate has gotten him twice, and it has gotten him good. The first time, the aircraft-bombing...

The AP now says McCain has maneuvered himself into a political dead end.‘ But is it a dilemma and is the conventional wisdom getting it wrong again? The reason to balk at quick pronouncements: McCain has gained ground in the latest Gallup Daily Tracking Poll.

According to the Politico’s Jonathan Martin, Sarah Palin is about to be re-introduced, “tak[ing] a more forward-leaning approach and do[ing] additional interviews in the weeks ahead.” First, though, she’s spending some quality time at “McCain’s cabin in Arizona” prepping for Thursday night’s veep debate. And “do[ing] a round of conservative talk radio interviews.” After all, since she can’t quite cut it with Gibson and Couric, and...

The Mainstream Media needs wingmen. I volunteer.  Katie Couric and news operations at the radio and television networks, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, and other national newspapers, are members of the Mainstream Media, or MSM, as it has come to be called. These are the people responsible for encountering, finding, and objectively reporting the news, and they are the ones that really count, in terms of the safety of the democracy. In fact let’s give them an identifier...

A 390-page report by the Inspector General is only a small step for mankind in bringing Karl Rove to justice for what he did to the Justice Department in the firing of the nine US attorneys, but it’s a start. The internal investigation finds political pressure drove the 2006 dismissals but that refusal of major players at the White House and the department to cooperate in the year-long inquiry has left significant “gaps” in understanding what happened. Investigators’ doubts have led...

Tired of contentious election fights and threats of economic Armageddon? This afternoon, at 4 pm Eastern, 1 pm Pacific, I’ll be joining author and film critic Betty Jo Tucker on the Movie Addict Headquarters radio show as one of her guests to discuss the life and work of my all-time-favorite actor, Humphrey Bogart. We’ll be joined by some special guests who are familiar with the star’s family and career. If you would care to join in with your own memories and favorite moments, you...

A new poll finds Democratic Sen. Barack Obama is gaining ground in some key battleground states in his battle with GOP Sen. John McCain for the White House: The latest FOX News/Rasmussen Reports state polls show that Barack Obama has increased his lead over John McCain in Pennsylvania and Virginia. The candidates are within a single point of each other in Colorado, Florida and Ohio. Barack Obama has gained ground in five new state polls — Colorado, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia...

Okay, here’s the scoop everybody. The civil rights roundup is back. But it will be on a significantly-modified schedule. For starters, this is likely the only Tuesday you’ll see it, as I have class with only a lunch break straight through from 9:45 – 4 that day. Most days, though, a probably-abridged roundup will show up by mid-afternoon. And with that, away we go! The trial of a South Carolina state trooper accused of ramming a fleeing suspect with his car has begun. A group of...

I’m a liberal who liked the NYSun: The New York Sun, the six-year-old newspaper with a conservative mind-set, announced on Monday that it would close after publishing Tuesday’s issue. The Sun’s president and editor, Seth Lipsky, said a three-week search for new financial backers had failed. Mr. Lipsky announced on Sept. 4, in a front-page “Letter From the Editor,” that The Sun would shut down by the end of the month unless it raised new money. Mr. Lipsky told editors and reporters who...

Unlike other debates, the Vice Presidential Debate between Senator Joe Biden and Governor Sarah Palin is going to be more of a poker game than a chess match. Biden clearly has more experience than Palin but he has to be wary of forcing any type of confrontation. If he pushes Palin, he will be portrayed as sexist and his every word will be examined under that lens. When you have flopped the best possible poker hand, you should never push your opponent out of the pot, instead let them overextend...

With Election Day five weeks away, here is the state of the game in the presidential race: * Saturday Night Live’s Tina Fey is more qualified to face Joe Biden in Thursday’s vice-presidential debate than Sarah Palin is. * Some six percent of voters tell pollsters that they will not vote for Obama because of his skin color, but the number probably is higher. * John McCain needs a game-changer but has painted himself into a very tight corner because he continues to run a campaign that...

This is the last of three special Guest Voice posts on the present Wall Street economic meltdown by Mikkel Fishman, a TMV reader and frequent writer in our comments section who is also an author and computer scientist. Part I is HERE and Part II is HERE. This final part was written right before the House of Representatives defeated the bailout plan. The 2008 Economic Crisis: How To Protect Yourself by Mikkel Fishman In the prior sections of this series I’ve discussed why I believe our current economic...

And now the “blame game” begins. Who bailed on the bailout? Who sandbagged a bailout bill that seemed on the verge of just passing? Who most contributed to what will go down in history of as a failure of Washington political leadership, leading to the stock market emulating the good ship Titanic? And where will the Titanic the economy go from here? Did the bailout bill flop and send just the wrong signals to Wall Street due to Democratic Senator Barack Obama and Democratic partisanship?...

While Bill Kristol, in a September 29 New York Times Op-Ed, compliments John McCain for being impetuous—and encourages him to continue being so—Nicholas Kristof has a different take in a recent New York Times Op-Ed. As a former military, formerly fond of acronyms, Kristof’s use of the term “impish cubed” for “impulsive, impetuous and impatient” caught my attention. I would have used “I³” as in “C³I” ( “C-cubed-I” for Command Control Communications and Intelligence)....

Phil Singer and Jay Carney are reminded of Newt. I found them via Marc Ambinder who spreads the blame around on his way to an excellent point: Speaker Pelosi gave a partisan speech at the wrong time; it’s indeed possible that it cost her 15 votes. Still, if those Republicans had been of stronger backbones and more nimble minds — and more mature than Pelosi, who, let’s call it, gave a relatively tame, generic partisan speech — the bill would have passed. Those Republicans...

With plans for the biggest rescue of Wall Street since the Great Depression in tatters, the Dow Jones industrial average of shares dived almost 800 points, losing 7 per cent of its value, reports The Times. “It was the worst one-day points fall and the worst percentage fall since Black Monday in 1987. “American taxpayers, who will elect a new president in five weeks’ time, have hated the bailout from the beginning. Already struggling with rising unemployment, collapsing property prices...

Daryl Cagle, MSNBC.com

Nalaka Gunawardene, the well-known Sri Lankan journalist, makes an interesting point as to why every banker should see Mary Poppins, the famous 1964 Walt Disney movie. As he says: “For it holds a very important and fundamental lesson for their profession: the need to win every customer’s trust and confidence… “The movie has many interesting scenes, but one that is directly relevant to bankers is when Mr Banks takes his daughter Jane and son Michael to his work place, the Dawes...

Was President Bush born under an unlucky star? Philippe Gelie of France’s Le Figaro ponders the unfortunate record of George W. Bush, and the way that today, at the end of his second term, he has been singularly abandoned by his own supporters, most of whom are up for election in November: “A kind of curse must be following George W. Bush. The president, who began his first term under the shock of the September 11, 2001 attacks and inaugurated his second term with debacle of Hurricane...

What if the stock market fell from 11,000 to 5,000? What if loose credit evaporated overnight? What if people who took outrageous mortgages and debt were sent back to a reset point? What if people had to rent a place to live and save up until they had a reasonable down payment and mortgage payments they could afford? What if some people lost their highest paying jobs and had to take lower paying, local jobs (or even two) to make ends meet? What if credit became tight to the point where average households...

The Guardian contrasts public reactions from the two presidential candidates. The McCain campaign responded the way a lot of politicians responded today—by assigning blame (and taking no responsibility). The response from economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin: From the minute John McCain suspended his campaign and arrived in Washington to address this crisis, he was attacked by the Democratic leadership: Senators Obama and Reid, Speaker Pelosi and others. Their partisan attacks were an effort...