Well, at least he was in favor of MLK Day.

Eventually.

Presidential hopeful John McCain has a connection to a former Alabama state trooper charged with the murder of a man at the height of the civil rights movement, according to documents obtained by The Star.

In the early 1990s, Sen. McCain, R-Ariz., wrote a letter to the State Department regarding James B. Fowler, who was at the time imprisoned in Thailand on narcotics charges.

Democrats can say they are better than Republicans as much as they want, but what have they done to put some teeth into the bailout proposals? Some attempts and then surrender. How does AIG get away with an obscenely rich getaway for their execs just days after the bailout? Arent there some conditions made when a bailout is extended to a company? What are the Democratic members of the bailout proposal team doing? yes, the Democrats are better. But they haven't done much to prevent corporate larceny.

There should be laws where bonuses and salaries exceeding a certain amount should be subject to prorated vesting over time. If no law is feasible, shareholders should be allowed to vote on such conditions. It is ridiculous how CEOs make millions when things go good but in the worst case, do not lose any money when things go really bad. And in a lot of cases, they make a lot of money when things go bad.

Cross-posted at THE MOOSE

I live about a half hour from the Northern Virginia suburbs, and things seem to be going well for Obama in this region. I have actually spent most of my grassroots time up in Pennsylvania's York, Chester, and Delaware Counties. It has just been my hunch that the DEMS could use some more help there, as opposed to NoVA.

I think I have changed my mind, and am now motivated to take a couple days off to help get out the vote in the Arlington, VA area after reading this letter delivered to homes sporting Obama signs/stickers:

Folks, we are a month away from (no cliché this time, anyone thinking this is hype doesn't own a home, have a 401k, or a job effected by the credit crunch) the most critical election in the last 50 years.

We also are perhaps seeing the dying throes of a strategy that has moved this country to the right since Nixon: the death of the Southern Strategy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_st rategy

It's been covered today by the Associated Press that John McCain sat on the Board of the World Freedom, many of whose members were staunchly anti-Semitic. What they did not know, however, was the kind of Jew-bashing material they produced in defense of Ronald Reagan's visit to Bitburg, Germany, the burial site of the infamous SS (Hat Tip to TPM).

Palins' Un-American Activities

Imagine if the Obamas had hooked up with a violently anti-American group in league with the government of IRAN!.   By David Talbot

Oct. 7, 2008 | "My government is my worst enemy. I'm going to fight them with any means at hand."    This was former revolutionary terrorist Bill Ayers back in his old Weather Underground days, right? Imagine what Sarah Palin is going to do with this incendiary quote as she tears into Barack Obama this week.   ONLY ONE PROBLEM. The quote is from Joe Vogler, the raging anti-American who founded the Alaska Independence Party. Inconveniently for Palin, that's the very same secessionist party that her husband, Todd, belonged to for seven years and that she sent a shout-out to as Alaska governor earlier this year. ("Keep up the good work," Palin told AIP members. "And God bless you.")

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/200 8/10/07/palins_unamerican/index.html

McCain Camp cannot talk about the economy because their Economics are for the Rich, the well-off and the well connected!

Just a few thoughts looking at today's epic Dow Jones Industrial FAIL:

• The market fell 500 points today
  
• The market fell 375 points yesterday -- nearly 900 points in 2 days.
  
• The market has fallen 1500 points in 4 days.
  
• The market is down nearly 5,000 points in the last year
  
• The market...

...wait, what? 5,000 points in one year?

That's 1/3 of the market's value... in one year?

Christ on a pogostick.

Now, it's impossible to overstate that the Market and the economy are two different things. And frankly, the market may be overperforming the economy still.

The current credit crisis means that in the next few months, we're going to see massive layoffs as payrolls can't be met, massive supply issues as vendors go unpaid. Very few businesses keep enough liquid capital to meet their expenditures during rough times.

Put it another way, if small and medium-sized businesses are the engine of capitalism, credit is the fuel injector.

So, combine these -- businesses unable to borrow. Business worth, as traded on the market, is down 1/3 across the board in a year.

I guess it hadn't really hit me what kind of free fall we were in until I spent some time gazing at the numbers now. But it's uglier than I imagined.

And, to tie this into the election -- I can't be alone in processing this. McCain is toast for a variety of reasons, I've never imagined he'd have lasted this long.

But alot of our faith and trust in the Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are going to be put to the test within minutes of his taking office. I don't know how something like this is turned around -- the banking system in the 1930s was Lincoln Logs compared to the twisted logic pretzels of today's global industry.

In crisis there's always opportunity... but there's little margin for error once Obama takes office. And even a perfect performance by him can be easily lost given the mess he'll be inhereting -- especially since there's only so much even a President and a filibuster-proof congress can do.

I want to believe, as they say. And I have had little doubt since the end of '06 that Obama was best suited to make the best of this bad situation.

But it's hard to have imagined in '06 that this situation was nearly this bad...

The more details of yesterday's Sarah Palin's rally in Florida come out, the uglier it gets. Talking Points Memo spoke to a reporter who was at the scene to witness the infamous exchange between the riled up Palin supporter and an African American sound man. It isn't pretty.