Shocking development: Mrs Obama decides enough is enough: “My husband was born in Hawaii and adopted by his step father, does that make him unpatriotic; she asks”, on a direct telephone to API.  —  Accusing API of colluding with American internet bloggers in an effort to bring down her husband …

Bill Ayers: ‘What could I possibly add?’  —  Decades removed from his radical opposition to the Vietnam War, UIC professor William Ayers lies low amid the political furor  —  As his name was tossed back and forth Tuesday in the fury of the presidential campaign, 1960s radical William Ayers spent …

McCain, advisers divided over Wright attack  —  John McCain is at odds with many of his top advisers over launching a renewed attack on Barack Obama's ties to his long-time pastor and mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, according to campaign sources.  —  Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin …

Obama Dominating Among Early Voters in Five Swing States  —  SurveyUSA has a lot of good habits as a pollster, and one of them is breaking out the results of early and absentee voting in states where such things are allowed.  So far, SurveyUSA has conducted polling in five states where some form of early voting was underway.

OBAMA FIRES A ‘ROBIN HOOD’ WARNING SHOT  —  WASHINGTON - You won't find it in his campaign ads, but Barack Obama let slip his plans to become a modern-day Robin Hood in the White House, confiscating money from the rich to give to the poor.  —  Conservatives yesterday ripped Obama after he was caught …

CIA Tactics Endorsed In Secret Memos  —  The Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects — documents prompted by worries among intelligence officials …

Voting for Obama anyway  —  I just got an astounding e-mail from a Republican consultant I know well.  He's a guy who's always thought Obama had a “glass jaw,” and was always among those agitating for hitting Obama harder.  —  Recently, he conducted a focus group in an upper-Midwestern state …

“Waterboard Him!”  —  In a perfect confluence of all the current toxic elements of the GOP: … Not a lone protestor or crowd member.  Not a fringe nut on Free Republic.  On the official Republican website in the state capitol of the most populous state in the Union.  This is why the GOP has to be defeated this time.

Ambushed By History  —  For all their talk about respecting the constraints of reality, conservatives generally hold to the “great man” theory of history.  It is leftists who embrace economic determinism.  Conservatives read biographies of Winston Churchill and wait in constant expectation for the second coming of Ronald Reagan.

CNN POLL: Obama making gains in red states  —  HEMPSTEAD, New York (CNN) - As the two major party presidential candidates get ready to face off in person one last time, new polls in some crucial states that could decide the race for the White House suggest John McCain is having to defend himself …

CNN bid to tie Palin to secessionists is a stretch  —  The cable news network fails to show that Sarah Palin embraced the call by some in the Alaskan Independence Party to sever their beloved state from ‘the Lower 48.’  —  'Who is Todd Palin?  What is his influence?

Obama Voted ‘Present’ on Mortgage Reform  —  The only banking ‘deregulation’ in recent years was that of Fan and Fred.  —  In each of the first two presidential debates, Barack Obama claimed that “Republican deregulation” is responsible for the financial crisis.

US communists say their time has come  —  NEW YORK (AFP) — A rare bird in the political world, the US Communist Party is feeling rather smug in these days of capitalist turmoil.  —  At the party's New York headquarters on 23rd Street in Manhattan, regional party chairman Libero Della Piana …

Cheney has heart problem, misses fundraiser  —  Vice President Dick Cheney experienced an abnormal heart beat this morning, went to the White House physician and scheduled a hospital visit to “restore his normal rhythm.”  —  For the 67-year-old Cheney, who canceled his appearance …

What Went Wrong  —  How did the world's markets come to the brink of collapse?  Some say regulators failed.  Others claim deregulation left them handcuffed.  Who's right?  Both are.  This is the story of how Washington didn't catch up to Wall Street.  —  A decade ago, long …

Matt Taibbi and Byron York Butt Heads Over Whether McCain Deserves Blame for the Wall Street Meltdown  —  Every day (or close to it) until November 4, a series of writers and thinkers will discuss the election over instant messenger for nymag.com.  Today, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi …

Don't Mean to Be a Party Pooper  —  The triumphalism on the Left and defeatism on the Right about the present moment in American politics have long since departed from reality.  I know emotions such as glee and angst are always lying just below the surface among the politically active …

McCain: ‘Unethical’  —  A new McCain spot, unreleased, keeps whacking away at Obama.  This one hits Obama for a new round of alleged Chicago sleaze, and the suggestion he's done favors for Chicago political allies.  —  “Obama rewards his friends with your tax dollars,” the narrator says …

New Robocalls From McCain Campaign And RNC Slam Obama's Patriotism, Charge He Put “Hollywood Above America”  —  The McCain campaign and the RNC are pumping new robocalls into North Carolina that question Barack Obama's patriotism by charging that he and his fellow Dems put “Hollywood above America …

OBAMA CAMPAIGN ISSUES TALKING POINTS TO MEDIA AHEAD OF DEBATE  —  The Obama campaign issued a set of debate ‘talking points’ to media on Wednesday morning, the DRUDGE REPORT can reveal.  —  Press Secretary Sean Smith issued the directive in an email from Pennsylvania, 12 hours before the debate.

The Polls - 10/15  —  Share This: Digg!  —  Yesterday, Sarah Palin said: … Meanwhile, back on Planet Earth, today's look at the polls.  DKos/R2000 has Obama up 11, 52-41.  NYT/CBS has Obama up 14, 53-39.  Battleground has Obama up 13, 53-40.  The LATimes has Obama up 9, 50-41.

Public Not Desperate About Economy or Personal Finances  —  Obama Clearer than McCain in Addressing Crisis  —  Americans are concerned about the nation's economic problems almost to the exclusion of every other issue, and they register the lowest level of national satisfaction ever measured in a Pew Research Center survey.

Gods That Failed  —  In 1949, a number of famous writers, among them Arthur Koestler, André Gide, Richard Wright, Stephen Spender and Ignazio Silone, wrote essays explaining why they were no longer communists.  The essays were collected in a volume entitled “The God That Failed.”

More Racism, Please  —  Normally, I condone racism only in its more adorable forms.  I've always found the beef between the Danes and the Swedes delightful in its own fighting-for-the-top-rung way.  (And what slurs!  “Who you calling a butter cookie you rutabaga!")

Pinch Yourself  —  The contrast between, on the one hand, the huge amount of material about Obama's radical associations that has been published in on-line journals and in a few brave newspapers, and on the other the refusal by big media to address it and to vilify those who do, becomes more astounding by the day.