Welcome to the final stages of the coup...  UPDATES AT BOTTOM … In 2000, the long fought for and long admired democracy of the United States of America began a slow and steady decline toward fascism - a Bush family tradition - with the installment of a president - a man the citizens overwhelmingly rejected …

Franken helps craft McCain ‘SNL’ skit  —  Al Franken, the former “Saturday Night Live” star now running in a high-profile Senate race in Minnesota, helped craft the opening sketch mocking John McCain that kicked off the NBC comedy show Saturday, according to two well-placed sources inside the network.

Seeking a President Who Gives Goose Bumps?  So's Obama.  —  Now that he's finally fired up on the soup-line economy, Barack Obama knows he can't fade out again.  He was eager to talk privately to a Democratic ex-president who could offer more fatherly wisdom — not to mention a surreptitious smoke — and less fraternal rivalry.

The Push to ‘Otherize’ Obama  —  Here's a sad monument to the sleaziness of this presidential campaign: Almost one-third of voters “know” that Barack Obama is a Muslim or believe that he could be.  —  In short, the political campaign to transform Mr. Obama into a Muslim is succeeding.

Obama's “Got A Problem” If He Tries to Take Biden's Guns  —  CASTLEWOOD, VA — Memo to Barack Obama: don't mess with Joe Biden's guns.  —  At a fish fry for mine workers in rural Southwest Virginia, the Delaware Senator commiserated on being from coal country himself …

The incredible shrinking Obama  —  How's Barack Obama's narrative going?  —  Journalists used to tell stories, now they plumb narratives.  Narrative is a pretentious borrowing from the abstraction-clotted world of academic criticism, where texts are interrogated, authors are dead and high-toned fatuousness is king.

Did Obama Just Touch the Third Rail?  —  CURIOUS EDITS TO HIS SOCIAL SECURITY PAGE.  —  Barack Obama is such a hard-core wonk, his camp grinds through policy day in, day out.  That may be a great quality to have in a president—but it's not necessarily a smart strategy for a presidential candidate just weeks before an election.

All the Candidates' Cars  —  From the magazine issue dated Sep 29, 2008  —  When you have seven homes, that's a lot of garages to fill.  After the fuss over the number of residences owned by the two presidential nominees, NEWSWEEK looked into the candidates' cars.

Bill Moyers & Kevin Phillips on Bad Money  —  Bill Moyers sits down with former Nixon White House strategist and political and economic critic Kevin Phillips, whose latest book BAD MONEY: RECKLESS FINANCE, FAILED POLITICS, AND THE GLOBAL CRISIS OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM explores the role …

Protesting Obama by Air  —  JACKSONVILLE, FL - Protesters are as common to the campaign trail as supporters - from those waving McCain signs at the entrance of events, to the more subtle passersby who flash the thumbs down gesture (or worse) along the motorcade route, to the occasional group that infiltrates and interrupts an event.

Just the Facts: The Administration's Unheeded Warnings About the Systemic Risk Posed by the GSEs  —  For many years the President and his Administration have not only warned of the systemic consequences of financial turmoil at a housing government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) …