"Sarah Palin's claims on the stump aren't just wrong, they're pants-on-fire wrong."

That she lies consistently is just evidence that she is preparing to be the republican front-runner for the 2012 presidential election.

Ah, a chance to use my pessimism!

Before we get all giddy about the nice upswing in the market, we should remember it's Columbus day, and typically volume is light.

Clearly, the market was responding to Obama's speech on the economy and to Paul Frugman's Nobel prize in economics.

Steve: "Wall Street had a very good day for a change, and the Dow soared 936 points, the biggest single-day point gain ever. As a percentage, the Dow closed 11.1% higher, the fourth best in market history."

I would argue that such a massive one-day rise in the Dow Jones average speaks only to the recent volatility of the market, and is clearly part of the pattern of steep peaks and deep valleys that reflect the overall unhealthy and unpredictable current state of the American economy.

Clearly, the market was responding to Obama's economic policy speech and to Paul Krugman's Nobel Prize in Economics.

Now, about "Curious George...."

The house next to ours is a rental property. A few weeks ago, a family moved in---and the very first thing that came onto the property was a McCain/Palin sign.

A few days ago, he commented about how funny the "Monkeyman" thing was, and my daughter (she's 8) casually said: "That's because even a stuffed monkey isn't stupid enough to vote for McCain."

They don't talk to us any more. I wonder why?

Will Tina make sure to have room for all of us on her spaceship?

I think the Dems should be willing to distance themselves from ACORN. Until the investigations are complete, no one knows why ACORN is having so many problems with false voter registration forms. The Dems defense of ACORN before this is all straightened out plays into the GOP story line that this is all a scheme to get Obama elected.

This doesn't mean that the Dems shouldn't be working to protect the voters. I'd go with: "We don't know what's going on at ACORN and we would like to get to the bottom of it. But we do know that many, if not the vast majority, of the registration cards filed by ARCORN are for legitimate voters who should have the opportunity to vote. These voters are innocent victims and should not have their constitutional right to partipate in this election stripped of them because of the conduct of ACORN."

Before we get all giddy about the nice upswing in the market, we should remember it's Columbus day, and typically volume is light. Posted by: doubtful

The Dow Jone Industrials and the S&P 500 are not indicators of overall economic health. People make money in the stock market three ways - 1) Insider trading 2) Large volume/institutional trading where a $.25/share change in a stock can make a huge difference 3) over-trading in piss ant accounts (i.e. Mr. & Mrs. Joe Investor's $23,000.00 portfolio) to generate fees.

The market most days behaves like a manic-depressive meth head - jittery and prone to overracting to the smallest things.

That being said, the "smart money" was active today picking up bargains because the Fed is changing tack on the bailout with the focus now being liquidity instead of clearing bad debt off the books - something a lot of people smarter than Paulson said should have been done nearly three weeks ago.

Asteroids, bitches

Steve,

You are doing phenomenal work! You deserve the Nobel for blogging.

Hate radio Limbaugh, Michael Medved, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and other are banging out a ringer of real lies. From the Political Fix to the market fix America is witness to the premier house of cards.

Obama is reported, but some of the insider stuff is yet to be. Mainstream media completely avoids the whole ideal president Bush hand picked at least five directors that serve on these so called problem banks, Fannie May or Freddy Mac. Especially the Neopost, nypost must be complicit with this insider knowledge. How many Bush Brownies are there in this mess?

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09242008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/house_of_cards_130479.htm

America this latest gain in the stock market is economic drama, for me it reek of fixed or rigged money. Never, never have I saw this stock market move like this. For my opinion this is being propped up because of a simple Moving average envelope can be noticed to be trending down. Even if this market had a two thousand swing it still would be trending down. So time will tell? Check it out.

http://research.scottrade.com/public/markets/statistics/statistics.asp

My friend Adam Serwer has a thought-provoking piece today on conservative attempts to call Obama a "socialist"...
From the Wikipedia entry on "Socialism":

Some socialists advocate complete nationalization of the means of production, distribution, and exchange; while others advocate state control of capital within the framework of a market economy.(Emphasis added)

Rachel Maddow notes the McCain campaign staff is no longer talking about the mortgage buy back plan: McCain advisors are unsure of McCain's policies or his buddy Phil Graham's.
In Virginia Beach, McCain says... "My friends--we gottum right where we want 'em."
First I may have laughed all day...another one of those days where conservatives are
showing their demoralized state...
Ambient factors at work...
Plus the stagecraft of Palin's lack of coordination with the campaign.
The campaign already changed her response to North Korea...

Right on, Washington Monthly.
Thanks for all the quality posts today--numerous plus substantial

In 2006, Mark Foley's sex scandal cost him his career. It now appears his replacement, Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fla.), will also see his career fall apart in 2008 thanks to his own sex scandal. What is with that district?

It's West Palm Beach. That pretty much says it all. Sort of larger version of Wasilla with better weather.

agree with Rocky--Steve Benen gets Nobel for blogging.

Clearly, the market was responding to Obama's economic policy speech and to Paul Krugman's Nobel Prize in Economics

Hell, I thought it was because GWB did not make a speech.

"Did Obama push Iraqi leaders to delay a security agreement with the administration? Of course not."

Unlike the REagan Republicans, who in 1980 did a deal with the Iranians not to release the American hostages until after the election, sabotaging the efforts of the Carter Administration, great patriots that Republicans are.

SadOldVet is right; I expect to see "Palin 2012" bumper stickers soon after the election. She probably reasons that she could do much better on her own without that pathetic old geezer following her around. I'm sure she also looks forward to calling the shots in her own campaign and telling staffers to shove those thick briefing books.

Anything new? --Saw this on Levi Johnson:
who...discussed his relationship with Palin and how life has changed with fatherhood fast approaching. He agreed to talk despite the presidential campaign's advice in the days following Gov. Sarah Palin's nomination to avoid the media.

"They're not telling me anything right now," Johnston said as he checked his Blackberry.
"It's pretty chill."

... The baby is due Dec. 18. Johnston has dropped out of high school to take a job on the North Slope oil fields as an apprentice electrician.

A friend just sent this youtube video to me. I laughed a lot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DIc8jdra0o

GW has proven that being able to sell a lie (with the aid of the MSM) is a first order skill for a Republican presidential wannabe. Sarah is just showing her stuff.

Margaret,

Thank you for the link---I'll play it for the Palinists next door!

if mccain/palin wins on election day, tina fey plans to leave earth.

well, she would have an inside track on that, being creator and producer of the outer space comedy 30 rock from the sun.

oh, wait...

Oooooookay.....

On the one hand, I guess it is good that the market has gone back up. On the other hand, am I the only person who saw that number and thought, "Woah, *major* over-correction!"? I'm no stock expert, but I find it hard to believe that such a large and sudden jump is sustainable.

I guess we'll find out soon enough.

Nouriel Roubini, just on CSPAN this weekend, has asserted as vital "a massive direct government fiscal stimulus packages that includes public works, infrastructure spending, unemployment benefits, tax rebates to lower income households and provision of grants to strapped and crunched state and local government."
Barack Obama is spot on with his economic ideas today.

Right-wing attempts to paint Barack Obama as a socialist aren't just disingenuous. They're rooted in a history of conservative smears against black leaders.

LOL. The tinfoil-paranoid-schizophrenic crowd is off their meds.

What exactly does calling someone a socialist have with racism? Incredibly stupid. Way over anything we've heard from the McCain/Palin camp.

From TPM: So as the GOP campaign to make an issue out of ACORN continues -- and we'll be keeping you posted as it does -- remember that the number of fraudulent votes that will be cast in November as a result of the group's voter-registration activities is close to zero. But the number of valid voters who could potentially have obstacles placed in their way of voting, as a result of the Republican campaign, is far larger.

If ACORN is not trying to commit voter fraud, who is?

After seeing about McCain being the main speaker at an ACORN rally, I finally realized that people ought to be selling "McCain boots" with each one having about ten bullet holes in them. This underestimates the number of times he's shot himself in the foot, but an accurate count and there'd be no boot left.

Johnston has dropped out of high school to take a job on the North Slope oil fields as an apprentice electrician.
And I'll bet that the poor schlep thinks that the Palins got him the job because they like him. Stupid + electricity means that his young bride will be a widow in less than six months.

(via Sadly, No!)

"While all the polls suggest that Obama could win the election, I’ve interviewed several GOP operatives who shockingly say that he’s going to lose big-time."

Karl Rove resigned from the Bush administration for a reason...to go undercover before this presidential election, keeping his extensive travels off the public records, while he scurries around our nation in the shadows, working on "the math," which is Republican "code" for trying to steal another election, by whatever means possible, legal or illegal.

Which means that if Rove's "math" involves gaming the electoral college in some way, disenfranchising enough Democratic Party-leaning voters and "fixing" enough electronic voting machines, then McCain and Palin will win by a landslide...and civil war will break out in America the day after the election in November...especially if Obama and Biden enter election day with a commanding lead in the polls...and if exit polling indicates that they won handily.

Which may explain why the Bush/Cheney administration has been putting a police state in place, in preparation for the outrage of American citizens at so blatant a stealing of the White House occurring.

Hopefully, I'm wrong, but since Karl Rove and so many other "non-reality based community" Republicans are certifiably insane, I wouldn't put anything past these corrupt, anti-American election stealers and neo-fascist police state pushers.

"Ayers and Obama ran a radical education foundation together".

Is it actually permitted to connect the dots in this manner? Obama knew Ayers, although they were not close. They were both associated with the Annenberg Foundation. Both had some sort of administrative role, if you take the term to its broadest abstraction.

This is like saying that because a dog has a nose and John McCain has a nose, John McCain is a dog. Or that he stole the plane he was in when he got shot down, and remained with the VC by choice, so he was therefore AWOL for 5 years.

If you just make shit up, of course you'll get a few people to believe it. But what does it say about the kind of governance you'd provide? If a report was due and the State Department didn't have it ready, would you say the dog ate it?

Good luck convincing thinking, paying-attention voters that you're leadership material, Mr. McCain.

Couldn't get to the Mother Jones site because the internet nanny at work won't let me, but if Obama was able to persuade the Iraqis on an important policy matter, then he's a far more effective leader than our current one.

Ha, Oracle, watch X-Files a lot? Manchurian Candidate?

Hey, if you can, go over to gateway pundit and flag the thing for hate-pimping. It's out of control.

You have the power. Shut it down.

"On the one hand, I guess it is good that the market has gone back up. On the other hand, am I the only person who saw that number and thought, "Woah, *major* over-correction!"? I'm no stock expert, but I find it hard to believe that such a large and sudden jump is sustainable.

I guess we'll find out soon enough."

Posted by: Shade Tail on October 13, 2008

We are in a pretty gray area here aren't we. Heh.

Maybe a lot of people see things happening with the "bailout/rescue" and think it's safe to get back in the water.

I'm a tad bit leery of that, but they might be right. I remain scared of external forces that could clobber their confidence. For example, what if Bush finds bin Laden or what if one of the big US banks goes bankrupt? Those kinds of events could disrupt what right now seems like a nice recovery scenario.

Or, maybe people see a lot of non-financials went down along with the financials and so they're just seeing great bargains. It really made no sense for so many company's stocks to go down except that many people felt the financials would pull everything down.

But, where is it going next?

I suppose people will probably want to see continued government bailout action to reassure them -- before long they'll want to start seeing actual real improved results (via statistics). But for now it's just confidence building and the market is reflecting that.

Well, actually there is one other thing, there are some people who have little choice but to go in. But, overall that's probably a pretty small number.

If you want to know where it's going tomorrow I'd say sit and watch. It might "correct" some (as some doomsayers continue to sell or some others sell off yesterday's gain to make a little money), it might roar on up or it might just bounce around a little with no overall change.

Personally I find it amazing that anyone would risk being in this kind of market unless they were required to. But, for those who are good at it this could be a great time to make tons of dough. A good day trader who is used to quick ups & downs would probably do better than a long-term investor who gets nervous looking at the vertical graph lines.

Personally I find it amazing that anyone would risk being in this kind of market unless they were required to. markH

One of the news shows last night was saying that part of the reason for the big jump yesterday was that short sellers had to cover their margins, while mutual funds, which are required to keep specific ratios of stocks, had to reinvest.

Is the Acorn hype today's Welfare Queen? Finding black people and black organizations to vilify has been a staple of Republican campaigns for a while now. Why should we be surprised.

I am waiting for the expose that the guy who registered 73 times was really a Fox "news" plant.

It's pretty simple really. ACORN works to remove impediments to voters, especially low-income voters. The GOP hate that. Therefore, they make the argument that ACORN's work increases the chance of voter fraud. Actually, they argue that ACORN deliberately enrolls unqualified people onto the voter rolls, but that's pretty demonstrably false. Even if that's sincere, and I really have trouble believing that anything coming out of FOX is sincere, then there's still a question you need to answer. What's worse: that one person who shouldn't vote did, or that one person was disenfranchised?

Personally, I think we're more harmed more on a one-to-one basis by preventing a legitimate voter than by allowing someone else to vote who shouldn't have been able to do so. There's a ripple effect when you see someone turned away from the polls. People doubt their own status, and some, in an effort to avoid confrontation, walk away.

Actually, they argue that ACORN deliberately enrolls unqualified people onto the voter rolls, but that's pretty demonstrably false.

Uhhh, no. CNN interviewed some guy who said he filled out about 70 voter registration forms for ACORN, putting all kinds of names down. The lawyer for ACORN admitted there were a few "bad apples" in the employee roles and that they were being fired.

Personally, I think we're more harmed more on a one-to-one basis by preventing a legitimate voter than by allowing someone else to vote who shouldn't have been able to do so.

We're talking about allowing someone to vote 70 times who should have only been able to vote once. And dead people voting.

We're talking about allowing someone to vote 70 times who should have only been able to vote once.

Actually, no, we're not. We're talking about someone registering to vote 70 times. Do you understand the difference between registration fraud and vote fraud? Do you not get that there has been no evidence of people actually voting on these fake registrations?

Paying registrars per each registration they obtain is a bad idea ripe for abuse, and ACORN needs to reexamine it. It's also, unfortunately, ripe for the GOP to conflate registration fraud with vote fraud for low-info, low-comprehension audiences like SJRSM.

Do you understand the difference between registration fraud and vote fraud?

Yes. One comes before the other. Thank goodness, though, it is not an attempt to conduct electoral fraud by a most definitely left leaning organization. Instead, it is just good ol' liberal greed at work.

Of course it overtaxes the review of all of the voter registrations (of 5000 submitted by ACORN in one Ohio city, 2100 of the first 2100 had proved fraudulent), making it far more likely bad ones get through.

They are both criminal activities, they have that in common. Here's a fun article from the summer of 2007 talking about the last election and the charging of 7 ACORN employees with felonies. ACORN sure learned their lesson. Not.

In addition to filing criminal charges, Satterberg said state and local officials had signed a five-year agreement with ACORN that requires the organization to beef up its training and procedures for detecting and reporting fraud.

ACORN President Maude Hurd said in a statement, "It appears that a handful of temporary workers were trying to get paid for work they hadn't actually done. While we don't think the intent or the result of their actions was to allow any ineligible person to vote, these employees defrauded ACORN and imposed a burden on the time and resources of registrars and law enforcement."

Instead, it is just good ol' liberal greed at work.

Good old greed, yes. I can hear some tiny bits of comprehension worming their way through the dead wood of your brain, making an end run past the unearned sarcasm...ah. But then we get this:

They are both criminal activities, they have that in common.

Mmmhhhmmm. But enough Palinizing. Any time you want to present evidence that fake registrations have resulted in actual voter fraud (something ACORN's detractors have so far been unable to do, which is why they're confusing the issue for mental rubes like you), we'll be right here.

The time to catch voter fraud is at registration, which is why they are scrutinized. Once past that point, good luck catching them.

Since I don't actually know any ACORN members and can't see into their hearts, I just have to trust your word that these thousands (thousands!) of fraudulent registration attempts across multiple states and multiple election cycles are just honest mistakes of lack of oversight by a company of its employees. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Amazing what you are willing to explain away, or tolerate from your own "side".

Hey, you made the argument that a company's policies flow down to their employees. Is it true then that employee actions are indicative of company policy?

The time to catch voter fraud is at registration, which is why they are scrutinized.

We have only a handful of documented instances (which is a handful more than is acceptable, but probably not more than are preventable) of actual voter fraud (distinct from the larger category of election fraud, which encompasses illegal purging of rolls, vote suppression techniques, ballot tampering, and more). Again, none of those cases has been traced to ACORN. I don't expect you to take this in no matter how many times it's pointed out to you, but there are other people reading this blog who have less invested in trying to save a thoroughly discredited argument.

Once past that point, good luck catching them.

Hmmmm, this comment makes me wonder if you've ever actually voted or have any idea what boards of election commissioners or election judges do.

Amazing what you are willing to explain away, or tolerate from your own "side".

Yum, there's that low comprehension again. Since I said up front that ACORN's registrar payment policies have to go, do we assume from this foolish statement of yours that you're stupid or a liar? Why limit ourselves so when your work here is brimming with evidence going both ways?

Hey, you made the argument that a company's policies flow down to their employees. Is it true then that employee actions are indicative of company policy?

What I actually did was point out to you that business/organization owners or top management setting company policy is not a radical concept to most people, and wondered whether the trouble you have understanding this relates to your inability to maintain employment.

I don't know if the registration problems at ACORN are caused by top-down policy, although it's not hard to see that either way, dealing with them will have to be. We need more information on what's going on there, because there are clearly some crimes regarding registration taking place and we need to know what plans are or aren't in place for dealing with that. Of course people need to be held accountable.

But you wouldn't be trying to move the goalposts after getting busted not knowing the difference between registration fraud and voter fraud, would you, Jingo? Hasn't your inability to gracefully accept correction caused you enough problems in your life? Why keep beating your head against that wall?

What a timely day to be discussing voter fraud considering that James Tobbin, former head of the Republican Senatorial Committe for the Northeast Region, is being indicted yet again regarding his phone-jamming schemes against Democrats in 2002.

Here are the facts. Acorn verifies the legitimacy of every registration its canvassers collect. If they can't authenticate the registration, or it's incomplete or questionable in other ways, they flag that form as problematic ("fraudulent", "incomplete", et cetera). They then hand in all registration forms, even the problematic ones, to elections officials, as they are required to do by law. In almost every case where you've heard about fraud by Acorn, it's because Acorn itself notified officials about the fraud that's been perpetrated on them by rogue canvassers. Most officials who run to the media screaming "Acorn is committing fraud" know all of the above but don't bother to share those facts with the media they've run to. None of this is about voter fraud. None of it. Where any fraud has occurred, it's voter registration fraud and has resulted in exactly zero fraudulent votes.

You'll hear that Donald Duck, Mary Poppins, Dick Tracy, Mickey Mouse and (new this year) the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys football team have all had fraudulent registrations submitted in their names. That's true. And we know this, why? Because Acorn told officials about it when they followed the law and turned in those registrations, flagged as fraudulent.

Please, please let's discuss registration and election fraud. I have half a dozen articles lined up where Republicans recently committed both kinds and I'm ready to go.

And speaking of "bad apples" upthread, both former military interrogators in Iraq as well as Chief Investigator Gen. Anthony Taguba have come forward and said that the orders to torture (even innocent) prisoners at Abu Ghraib came from the White House. Taguba has said that Bush and Cheney have committed war crimes and should be charged.

In the scheme of things, I wonder which is more of a concern: false allegations of voter fraud by a party that has successfully spoiled millions of votes in the past six years or ignoring the war crimes of a sitting president? If I were someone with integrity and a concern for justice, just where would I be spending my efforts?

Perhaps denying the largest refugee crisis in modern history because it makes that same party look bad?