McCain Aide's Firm Was Paid by Freddie Mac  —  WASHINGTON— One of the giant mortgage companies at the heart of the credit crisis paid $15,000 a month to a firm owned by Senator John McCain's campaign manager from the end of 2005 through last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of the arrangement.

Stephanopoulos: McCain Holds Key to Administration's Bailout Passage on Capitol Hill  —  ABC News' George Stephanopoulos reports: If Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain doesn't vote for the Bush administration's $700 billion economic bailout plan, some Republican …

Economic Fears Give Obama Clear Lead Over McCain in Poll  —  Turmoil in the financial industry and growing pessimism about the economy have altered the shape of the presidential race, giving Democratic nominee Barack Obama the first clear lead of the general-election campaign over Republican John McCain …

Bush Mouthpiece Admits: They've Been Sitting on this Plan  —  Hidden in an article reporting that Cheney's going to go hunt up some support for the $700,000,000,000 bailout is this admission that the Bush Administration has been sitting on it for some time: … Which raises three questions for me:

Americans Oppose Bailouts, Favor Obama to Handle Market Crisis  —  Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) — Americans oppose government rescues of ailing financial companies by a decisive margin, and blame Wall Street and President George W. Bush for the credit crisis.  —  By a margin of 55 percent to 31 percent …

McCain camp tries to keep reporters out of Palin meetings  —  (CNN) — McCain-Palin campaign officials shifted course Tuesday after being informed by television news organizations that they would not broadcast footage of Sarah Palin's meeting with Afghan leader Hamid Karzai Tuesday in New York …

A Note to Bill Clinton  —  Given that we would never have had the odious George W. Bush in the White House in the first place if it wasn't for your blow jobs, Bill, it seems obvious that you owe it to the people of this country, and especially to the parents whose kids died in the Iraq War …

Democrats to let offshore drilling ban expire  —  WASHINGTON - Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.

Heart-ache: Tiny terrorist gives Bush speech thumbs down at the UN; Update: Obama rips UN, Ahmadinejad  —  A spontaneous gesture of disapproval?  Hardly.  ABC caught him waving at the White House press corps intermittently to get their attention.  He may be a cretin, but he's a media-savvy cretin.

269 tie: An electoral college ‘doomsday’?  —  Scholars speculate on scenario  —  President Obama, with Vice President Palin?  President Biden?  President Pelosi?  Call them the “Doomsday” scenarios — On Nov. 5, the presidential election winds up in a electoral-college tie, 269-269 …

Chattanooga: UT student not indicted in Palin e-mail hacking case … A federal grand jury in Chattanooga ended its session around lunch time today without indicting a University of Tennessee student who authorities believe may have hacked into vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's personal e-mail account.

Credit Is Not a Civil Right  —  I have no way of judging whether the Wall Street bailout is a necessary evil or an impending disaster.  But we're in this mess, ultimately, because our political elites thought it was good social policy to encourage banks to give mortgages to uncreditworthy people …

And the Media Worries about Palin's Experience and McCain's Age?  —  I think in the space of about the last 24 hours, Joe Biden claimed that the AIG bailout was bad, but then said it wasn't bad;  —  that his apology about the dirty McCain ad was, as they say, inoperative;

‘Grim’ Afghanistan Report To Be Kept Secret by US  —  “No Plans to Declassify” New National Intelligence Estimate for White House  —  US intelligence analysts are putting the final touches on a secret National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Afghanistan that reportedly describes the situation as …

Obama Dramatically Ramping Up Overall Ad Spending; Now Outgunning McCain  —  In a sign that the Obama campaign is getting serious about tapping his financial advantage over McCain with six weeks to go, Obama's overall spending on TV ads has jumped 50% in the last two weeks …

Goldman to Raise Capital, With $5 Billion From Buffett  —  Warren E. Buffett, the country's most famous investor and one of the world's richest men, announced on Tuesday that he would invest $5 billion in Goldman Sachs, the embattled Wall Street titan, in a move that could bolster confidence in the financial markets.

If Ohio polling looks like Chicago, ‘thank’ Brunner  —  Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner has a reputation as the most partisan state official in Ohio.  And she works hard to earn it.  The Democrat's latest stunt rejected absentee ballots for thousands of Republicans.  —  But it's not her first rodeo.

Bernanke and Paulson: Here's Why We're Screwing You  —  At today's Wall Street Bailout Hearings, we finally learned what Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke are thinking.  Specifically, we learned what prices they plan to pay for the crap assets they're buying (more than they're worth).

Time 's Carney claimed new McCain ad — which contains falsehoods — is “[l]egitimate” and “entirely within bounds”  —  In a September 23 post on Time.com's Swampland blog headlined “McCain's Legitimate Attack,” Time Washington bureau chief Jay Carney wrote that “what's important” …

For Palin in New York, a Predebate Introduction to Motorcade Diplomacy  —  Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska met her first head of state on Tuesday as she crisscrossed New York City receiving foreign policy tutorials in advance of her debate next week with Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Michelle Obama thanks me  —  Just seeing if you're awake.  —  Hee.  —  Actually, Michelle Obama really did thank me — in her mass e-mail, which has now been sent to me twice, urging the Obama cultists to watch her video promoting The One's first presidential debate.

Obama: ‘Stem Cell’  —  The Obama campaign hasn't released this radio ad to the press, though readers say it's running in (at least) Colorado, Ohio, and Virginia.  —  But the McCain campaign sends over a copy, calling it “incredibly misleading,” a conclusion Jake Tapper more or less shares.

Chuck Schumer to Sec. Paulson: Why $700 billion?  Why not $150 billion?  —  OK... I know asking for only $150 billion is kind of ridiculous but why should Congress commit a whopping $700 billion to the Treasury without knowing how that money will be spent?  Sen. Chuck Schumer asked Secretary Paulson …