• Former Congressman and failed Presidential candidate Tom "I See Brown People" Tancredo yesterday said that Judge Sonia Sotomayor was a member of the Latino KKK, otherwise known as the National Council of La Raza, the oldest political advocacy group for the Latino community. Unmitigated racists, meet your leader. [Politico]

• Texas Senator John Cornyn, who understands the importance of Latino votes in winning his own re-election, thinks that all this racist crap is "terrible." [Huffington Post]
• And even über-Catholic activist and anti-abortion advocate Bill Donohue isn't going to get all up in opposing Sotomayor. [BeliefNet]
• In fact, most Republicans want those who are calling Sotomayor a racist and opposing her to shut the fuck up already. [Politico]
• There must be something new in the Kool-Aid at GOP headquarters, because Dick Cheney sort of apologized to Colin Powell [ThinkProgress]
• Plus, George W. Bush has finally weighed in the torture issue, saying that the practice was effective. [Detroit Free Press]
• North Korea just launched another missile. [CNN]
• They've even annoyed China. [Wall Street Journal]

• Yale University awarded Secretary of State Hillary Clinton an honorary Doctorate of Law yesterday, after which she spoke to the Law School graduating class. You know some of the undergraduate seniors were pissed. [Associated Press]

• Clinton will soon extend spousal benefits to all domestic partners (same sex or otherwise) of Foreign Service Officers, making other federal employees jealous. [Washington Post]
• One of her predecessors, Colin Powell, is sick of taking shit from Rush Limbaugh, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. [Reuters]
• Karl Rove, for his part, still thinks Dick Cheney rulez and Colin Powell droolz. [Think Progress]
• Seventy percent of Americans disagree with Rove, but what else is new. [Time]
• Oh, and if you were wondering why, other than an Elektra Complex, Liz Cheney is running around kissing her dad's ass and talking about how good torture is for America's moral authority in the world, it's 'cause she's gonna run for office. [ThinkProgress]
• Kim Jong Il shot off a couple of missiles at that news. Then he launched some nukes. [NY Times]
• The RNC can't decide whether it wants to screw Nancy Pelosi or hurt her, but it certainly doesn't want to debate her policies because its full of a bunch of misogynist frat boys jerking off to old James Bond films. [Politico]

• Kate Moss has been cooking for her boyfriend, Jamie Hince. Now she wants to be the first supermodel to release a cook book and it may be kosher for passover.

• "Kate recently cooked Jamie a Jewish meal following kosher techniques from Stasha. It's all she's been talking about," says a source. [Hollywood Rag]
• Here are some more details about Samantha Ronson and Lindsay Lohan's split. Lohan denies they're through, but a source claims, "This time, Sam means it." [Us]
• Samantha Ronson uploaded a picture of this cocaine cake to Twitter, which means whatever it means. [Jossip]
• Hugh Jackman is now on Twitter. [Just Jared]
• Miley Cyrus is now wearing a promise ring. [Hollywood Rag]
• The Sex and the City sequel has a big problem - Chris Noth has yet to sign on due to "scheduling problems." [Yahoo via E!]
• There's a seven minute behind the scenes video from Beyoncé's Nintendo DSi commercial. This is has shocked and captivated YouTube audiences because she "comes across as pleasant and un-diva-ish" in the video. [Brandfreak]
• You can watch Beyonce's performance on the animated Nickelodeon show, Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! here: [People]
• Here are some pictures of ANTM judge and former supermodel Paulina Porizkova, 43, prancing around topless on the beach. [City Rag]
• As mentioned earlier, Farrah Fawcett is in the hospital. She's being treated for a complication from a routine procedure and her doctor and producer told the AP that despite previous reports, she's "not on death's door." [AP]
• Harrison Ford, Calista Flockhart and her son Liam took a tour of the White House briefing room and took pictures next to the podium before heading to the West Wing. Does playing the president mean you're allowed to wander around the White House? [Politico]
• Colin Powell is going to be on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. He'll be thanking a disabled Gulf War veteran for his service, not getting his home remodeled. [Yahoo]
• Nicole Kidman didn't sell pictures of her baby, Sunday Rose, but she did share a picture from her iPhone during the Academy of Country Music Awards. You can check it out here: [E!]
• LeAnn Rimes wore her wedding ring to the Academy of Country Music Awards this weekend, but she didn't bring her husband and didn't thank him in her acceptance speech. [Perez Hilton]
• Dennis Rodman was asked to leave a hotel in Hollywood because he was slapping and groping female guests, and yelling obscenities. "He is the most obscene and out of control guest I've ever seen up here," a hotel staffer said. [TMZ]
• The first Melrose Place veteran cast in the CW remake of the show is Laura Leighton. [Star]
• Former Bachelorette stars Trista and Ryan Sutter have welcomed their second child, Blakesley Grace Sutter. [Star]
• Drew Barrymore and Justin Long may be on again. They were seen strolling on the beach over the weekend. [Just Jared]
• In this video Whitney Houston and daughter Bobbi Kristina laugh when told that Bobby Brown is having another child. [TMZ]
• Why were Dr. Dre and Joanie "Chyna Doll" Laurer hanging out on the beach this weekend? [TMZ]
• Emily Blunt says she's going to take up the cello again. "I played it for a very long time when I was a kid. Then I stopped playing because I was a teenager and rebellious," she said. [Newsweek]
• Hugh Hefner fell asleep during his 83rd birthday party this weekend. [TMZ]
• Ha: "Has Paris Hilton finally found her real-life Ken?" [The Daily Mail]
• Viggo Mortenson has quit making films ... unless the right role comes along, that is. He says, "No more movies. I haven't said yes to one in over a year ... If it all dries up now, I've had a good run." [New York Mag]
• On a radio show, Spencer Pratt was asked to name artists Heidi Montag is more talented than. He said, "Madonna, Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Beyonce and Christina Aguilera. I wouldn't even compare them to Heidi's level. I am in the studio everyday with Heidi I know what's coming. I can make claims like that." [Pop Dirt]

• Obama's announced his transition team co-chairs — the folks that will help pave the way for his Administration, not a shadow Cabinet — and it includes John Podesta, Pete Rouse (Obama's Senate Chief of Staff) and Valerie Garrett. The advisory board to the co-chairs includes former EPA head Carol Browner; former Commerce Secretary William Daley; former transportation secretary Federico Peña; Obama national security adviser Susan Rice; and Governor Janet Napolitano. Don't expect to see those names on a future list of official appointments, though. [Washington Post]
• Obama's first official appointment will, however, be Congressman Rahm Emanuel. [NY Times]
• Four Senate races remain undecided: Alaska and Oregon are too close to call; Minnesota is likely to have an automatic recount; and Georgia's results require a runoff. [CNN]
• But, the anti-abortion "personhood" amendment in Colorado and the abortion ban in South Dakota went down by wide margins. [Denver Post, Argus Leader]

• By the way, when the state of Missouri elected Denise Juneau to be their superintendent of public instruction, they made her the first Native American woman in the state (and probably the first in the nation) to hold statewide office. Are there any other barriers we can bulldoze this week, please? [Missoulian]
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave a press conference to state the obvious, which is that, since the economy sucks, Democrats are going to have to set and stick to priorities. Too bad she's spent the last two years proving she knows how to roll over. [Politico]
• Russian President Dmitry Medvedev went out of his way to prove Senator Joe Biden right, threatening to escalate a nuclear standoff with the U.S. in Eastern Europe if Obama moves forward with Bush's missile defense shield there. Cuban Missile Crisis anyone? Bueller? [Washington Post]
• They might be Bushies at heart — and partially responsible for the catastrophe that is the Iraq War and the potential new nuclear standoff for Russia — but electing our first African-American President choked up Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, too. [CNN, Huffington Post]
• More than 70 percent of unmarried women voted for Obama yesterday, but half of the married ones went for McCain. Can married women please fill the rest of us in on what changes with a ring? [US News & World Report]
• More than 130 million Americans turned out to vote yesterday, or about 64% of eligible voters, making it the biggest election ever and the higher voter turnout in a long damn time. [Politico]
• The ACLU, along with the Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, have filed a brief with the California Supreme Court arguing that it should rule Proposition 8 invalid if it officially passes. They argue that, since Prop 8 invalidates another section of California's constitution, it requires greater legislative scrutiny than the average ballot initiative. Good luck! [ACLU]

MEGAN: It's Friday, and I am sooooo looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.

LATOYA: You know, I must say, it is really nice to have a four day workweek. There's always a three day weekend. But don't worry — my spot is a non profit, and we're advocating for everyone to have a 4 hour work week! We should succeed in a few years, faster if the economy implodes and we convince businesses that happy, productive employees need Friday off and full benefits.

MEGAN: I like your ideas, but somehow I have this chorus running through my head.

LATOYA: Blows kisses. But I still love you Megan!

MEGAN: I am too grumpy in the morning to love almost anyone. I'll love you, too, at about 11:30.

LATOYA: Whatever — we need to spread some love around. Did you see the news? East Asia is looking to set up a funding block to protect themselves from financial crisis.

MEGAN: Ahh, the sweet siren song of capital controls! Nicolas Sarkozy will probably point to that as a reason to re-think Bretton Woods.

LATOYA:

East Asian nations have pledged to set up an $80bn (£51.2bn; 63.6bn euros) swap scheme by mid-2009 to help protect the region from financial turmoil. The move by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) is backed by South Korea, China and Japan. Countries could borrow directly from the fund in times of emergency, to boost liquidity. The meeting comes as 43 European and Asian leaders meet in China to discuss how to tackle the financial crisis.

See, this is why we need friends. Rugged individualism isn't going to put 80bn in a pot for us to share. Where the hell is the coalition of the willing? Can we get some help?

MEGAN: Isn't it starting to seem like rather than try to prevent the inevitable from happening — and rather ineffectively — we should start planning for how to get out of it? Like, put some of our money toward that?

LATOYA: It's like Dubya read How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, thinking it was Carnegie's book.

MEGAN: The coalition of the willing told us to go fuck ourselves about the time that McCain declared diplomatic war on Spain (if not far earlier).

LATOYA: One would think it's time to reevalaute how we — as a government and as a nation — view money, investments, solvency, humans and capital.

MEGAN: Workers are a fundamental of the American economy, and they are strong. Strong enough, one hopes, to survive unemployment and a recession, but since they'll still be strong we can totes not call it that. It's a mental recession, for a nation of whiners that are nonetheless fundamental and strong.

LATOYA: That's a lot of strength there. But, umm, can we drop the bullshit for a second.

MEGAN: Is that allowed? It's a Presidential campaign.

LATOYA: See, unlike a maverick (which I learned from my friend Alyssa Quart is an unbranded calf), I am a patriot. I shocked the hell out of my friends by admitting this — they wanted to put me in rehab.

MEGAN: You only love the Fake America, though.

LATOYA: But I really do love my country. And I do believe that America is destined for greatness, if we can stop letting asswipes who fear every little thing stay in charge.

MEGAN: Well, then this might make you happy: the GOP is expecting to lose between 11 and 23 House seats, including Bachmann.

LATOYA: Courtney (of Feministing) has this cool interview on Alternet with Deborah Stone who wrote The Samaritan's Dilemma: Should Government Help Your Neighbor?. I think this interview gets at part of the reason why the GOP is imploding. Basically put, this mess isn't working. I know no one wants to pay more taxes. I sure don't, and Joe the Plumber isn't gonna no matter what. But seriously — an educated workforce with basic needs taken care of benefits everyone.

MEGAN: It's an interesting argument, actually. Adam Smith argued that the market and competition fostered trust and interdependence, and that's the basis of a lot of capitalist/democratic theory. But the way this has played out, you sorta gotta wonder about whether that's true. Even economists recognize the value of social goods, though conservatives like to forget it and whine about eliminating the Department of Education.

LATOYA: And with as much money America has, it's shameful that so many of us working (fake or real) American citizens have to hustle and scratch for the basics — and for what? Yeah, Adam Smith's work gets so perverted sometimes. They just pick the parts they like (endless consumption!) and jettison the parts they don't (accountability!) The interview gets really good here:

CEM: You argue that conservative leaders — especially Reagan — have convinced American voters that interdependence is weak and shameful and that rugged individualism is realistic. You also show the ways in which joyful interdependence plays out around us constantly in our personal lives. Why, given our everyday experiences of altruism, did we take to the notion that it was weak writ large?

DS: Partly, I think, the conservative notion of freedom (not having to do anything you don't choose to do) taps into the painful truth of human development. Each of us grows from a helpless, dependent and powerless creature to a reasonably competent and independent adult with a high degree of autonomy. From our teen years on, we savor that freedom from adult control, even as we watch our elders sometimes become frail and revert to childlike dependence. Perhaps that's why it's easy for leaders to evoke terror and shame in us by speaking of dependence.

Partly, too, our culture celebrates individual achievement. Even team sports hype their MVP awards. From the time we're born, when our parents get our Apgar scores of infant health, we are constantly subjected to measures of our individual merits — athletic abilities, intellectual abilities, job performance and financial accumulations. Schools emphasize individual accomplishment, and teachers punish collaboration as "cheating." When parents, schools, employers and others reward people for individual achievement, this way of thinking pushes interdependence into the background of everyone's consciousness. We begin to believe that individuals can do it all on their own if they try hard enough, and we lose sight of all the ways people get help all the time.

MEGAN: Yeah, I haven't lived at home or been financially supported by my parents since I was 18, and even then I had to buy my own shit with the money I could make off of umpiring and temping.

LATOYA: Right — so I don't want to hear that try hard shit. I did. And I do well for myself. But goddamn it, we need more.

MEGAN: Plenty of people try hard and still don't get much of anywhere. And some people don't try at all and get to go places you and I will never be.

LATOYA: Exactly. Like the Real Housewives of ATL.

MEGAN: I was having this conversation over the weekend about my grad school, which was chock full of people from money, many of whom had never gotten a paycheck. And I was working 2 internships — one paid and one unpaid — to make enough money to pay rent and have stuff on my resume that wasn't "Assistant Systems Administrator," so I was always going to class in business clothes (from Marshalls, mostly) because I was going to or coming from work. And I found out later that everyone just thought I was fancy — it didn't occur to people that I was working.

LATOYA: Yeah, some people really don't understand that you can't just ask your parents for money to cover things sometimes because your folks don't have it.

MEGAN: Many of those people have way more money than I can imagine, and it's not because they had bootstraps.

LATOYA: And a lot of people in power willfully shut their eyes to this. We're not saying "take money from the ungrateful rich and redistribute it to the deserving poor." That's a load of fucking bullshit. We're saying, if people with means chip in a bit more and help out those with less, we will all be far better off.

MEGAN: Also, it's a progressive tax system, motherfuckers, it actually exactly means that if you make more money, you're supposed to pay more taxes. (Sorry, I finally saw the "I'm Joe the Plumber" commercial last night and nearly threw my beer at the TV when that came up)

LATOYA: The fate of a nation falls to all of us — not just those with means. And so if we only consider the needs of those with means, while blindly hoping that one day we will have more means and be rich, we have put ourselves in a precarious position. I'm so over this fake class war though.

MEGAN: I'm over wars in general.

LATOYA: Not the stratification of wealth — that's real — but the manufactured Joe the Plumber bullshit. Luckily for us, it appears that the modern conservative movement is cannibalizing itself so maybe we can have a real conversation about these issues once the election is over with.

MEGAN: Also, it's a little ironic that a conservative talk radio station collected money from listeners to pay his back taxes. Apparently, it IS patriotic to pay more in taxes to help others, as long as it's a white dude who makes $250,000 a year.

LATOYA: See, look at that — a classic example of tribalism, right there. Where's Pat Buchanan's outrage over that? Oh wait, I forgot — it's only tribalism when someone else is doing it. I do hope the GOP implodes and recreates though. You can't have a debate with the willfully stupid and all the smart conservatives are kind of just drifting right now.

MEGAN: Pat Buchanan's outrage is reserved for Colin Powell.

LATOYA: It's like they can't believe what's happening either. (Oh, and like Colin Powell gives a shit what Pat Buchanan thinks. That mofo needs to sit down. The only reason I tolerate him is because he is wealth of comedy for Rachel Maddow.)

MEGAN: It's the fundamental problem with the coalition they built, and with the voters they've encouraged this year. They are the know Know-Nothing party.

LATOYA: Yeah - look at this Jonah Goldberg douchnozzle.

MEGAN: Fucking Jonah Goldberg needs to stop wearing too-tight lace thongs, because they are obviously riding up and cutting off the blood to his brain.

LATOYA: Let's revisit the obvious here. People who aren't affected by racism don't need to comment on when it is or isn't happening? How the fuck would you know?

MEGAN: Well, it's unfair to say that Jonah is unaffected by racism, since he's a racist. It affects him daily.

LATOYA: No, he affects other people with his abject ignorance.

MEGAN: Oh, but dontcha know, racism is just a "false memory."

Instead, Obama has set off a case of full-blown race dementia among precisely the crowd that swears Obama is leading us out of the racial wilderness. Rather than shrink, the tumor of racial paranoia is metastasizing, pressing down on the medulla oblongata or whatever part of the brain that, when poked, causes one to hallucinate, conjure false memories and write astoundingly insipid things.

We're all just paranoics, and we should sit down, shut up, smile and pretend that everything in America is hunky-dory. This, however, is the most blindingly stupid and offensive line of the piece: "[Barack Obama] explicitly chose to have a racial identity when he didn’t have to..."

LATOYA: I've been searching my site for that story where the dude burned a cross on someone's lawn and his mom tried to argue that it wasn't racially motivated or that time when we had to post about racial code words since blacks were getting called "reggins" at work (that's nigger, backwards, for those of y'all still sleeping) but it's all there. All our stuff on identity is there, it is obvious that racism isn't a problem that goes away by people not talking about it.

MEGAN: All not talking about it does is allow people like Jonah Goldberg to not get called out for being racist.

LATOYA: When has that ever worked? Can I ignore my fucked up credit and tell a creditor that my BoA bill was in the past and we all need to move on? No — we have to deal with that shit. And the sooner people like Jonah Goldberg shut the fuck up and get out of our way, the better.

MEGAN: I am sitting here watching CNBC and drinking coffee, which I don't normally do. By the way, the economy: still fucked.

LATOYA: Lucky you — I'm already in the office. I know the economy is still fucked — why do you think I'm here? I think we need to chill for the long haul on this one. It's gonna be a while, new stimulus package or no.

MEGAN: I love, by the way, that John McCain is all like, "Obama just wants to throw money at problems like education and special needs kids!" and in the meantime, he's all Mr. New Spending. And Republicans are shoveling money at the market faster than they shovel bullshit at the American people.

LATOYA: Yeah, some free market this is. I didn't know some people got a string to pull if you fucked up. Looks like Bernake's ProBama.

MEGAN: This is what happens when you tell reporters that the economy isn't your strong suit and the economy goes to shit. Also, insulting your opponent by calling him a Socialist while the government is busy nationalizing entire industries and you're calling for the government to, in effect, buy the mortgage rights to have the country is not good either. Bob Schieffer knows that most Republicans are privately Pro-bama these days, they're just too scared to say. It's just the mouth-breathers who don't actually have to, like, work in the government that are all like JOHN AND SARAH OH MY GOD I LOVE THEM SO.

LATOYA: Details, Megan, Details Is it just me that's hoping for a reverse Bradley effect?

MEGAN: If I prayed, I'd pray for one.

LATOYA: Don't waste your prayer on that. The specter of election '00 still haunts us.

MEGAN: Well, I mean, She's supposedly omnipotent, right?

LATOYA: If this comes down to the Supreme Court, I want everyone on this: protest, prayers, fertility dances. I don't give a damn what you do, do it in the Obama direction.

MEGAN: I'm up for a fertility dance, even if it means I have to be celibate for a month.

LATOYA: Nah, you have to stick with the prayers. We have to counteract the scared evangelicals.

MEGAN: Awww, poor babies, once they've denounced him, called him godless, passed around rumors that he's a Muslim and campaigned against him, they're worried he won't talk to them about their conservative, intolerant social agenda? Color me sad.

LATOYA: It's only unfair when you're losing. I'm just concerned they'll call up the ghost of Jerry Falwell.

MEGAN: Oh, right. I mean, it's his duty to represent all the people in the United States, sort of like it was George Bush's duty.

LATOYA: Define "people". Obviously, some of us who aren't here yet count more than those of us who are here, so maybe they just are counting most of us heathens.

MEGAN: Well, I think that by "people" they mean "those of them that are saved" and so that's anything that's in our uteri, and (white) evangelicals. Other than that, um, oh, wait, I think Bush had Chalabi's back for a while when he went to invade Iraq.

LATOYA: Then again, maybe it isn't the extreme set that we should be worried about. Someone shot a bear cub in the head and dropped some Obama campaign tags over its dead body. Now, there are multiple layers of fucked up in that mix and the story doesn't have many details yet. But that is just sick and disgusting.

MEGAN: Also, I think we need an alibi for Sarah Palin. She was just in North Carolina.

LATOYA: Ha — you can handle that. I'm watching how Obama is leaving the campaign trail to visit his sick grandma. It's the little things that get to me in this election, it really is.

MEGAN: I mean, if they sent her home from the hospital last week, and she's that ill, she's probably in hospice care.

LATOYA: Perhaps. I hope she gets well.

MEGAN: I hope for his sake that he gets there in time, and that he's taking Sasha and Malia.

LATOYA: See, I can't even read a sweet story like that without getting pissed. On one hand you have a family man, someone in a partnership with his wife, a thinking politician, someone who has seen the best and worst of America and wants to serve us anyway...

MEGAN: I mean, his spokesman all but said she's not going to get better. It sucks that she won't get to vote for her grandson. And it probably sucks more that if she votes absentee, some Republican will probably object.

LATOYA: Sigh. Moving on. Oh, did you hear? We apparently hate real Americans. Because obviously, we are fake Americans. This isn't news to me — we talk about how PoC are marginalized in America all day every day at my spot — but I thought you would want to know.

MEGAN: Well, that's good to know, at least. If I'm disenfranchised at the polls in two weeks, at least I'll know why. So, am I to assume there's a new God test for citizenship? Do I have to swear fealty to a particular brand of God to vote? Are they going to make me submit to a lie detector to make sure I really believe in God?

LATOYA: Oh, it gets better:

Warming up a crowd in North Carolina Saturday, Republican Rep. Robin Hayes offered the diagnosis that “liberals hate real Americans that work and achieve and believe in God.”

His remarks came shortly after he had said he would “make sure we don’t say something stupid, make sure we don’t say something we don’t mean.”

Hayes had followed Rep. Patrick McHenry, also a North Carolina Republican, who laid out the choice between McCain and Obama.

“It’s like black and white,” yelled someone from the crowd.

You just can't make this shit up. You really can't.

MEGAN: I love how that shit is a) not stupid and b) not something he doesn't mean. Really, can we just pick somewhere for them all to go on November 6th?

LATOYA: Mars?

MEGAN: Perfect! And since it takes 3 years to get there, they won't be back until 2014. I think that's a good plan.

LATOYA: We should tell them real Americans set up camp on Mars.

MEGAN: No, we should tell them that God has called them to journey there, just like God called Moses to lead the Jews out of Egypt. Charlton Heston already left! Outer space is the new desert.

LATOYA: It so is. Mars is red, the Red Sea — we could totally sell this. This is shaping up to be a tough week for McCain. He's running out of cash (down to $47 million!) and he's breaking up with Colin Powell.

MEGAN: I'm actually surprised he has $47 million left when he only had $84 to start. But, then I read about Meg Whitman giving almost $100,000 despite donation "limits" that McCain's supposed campaign finance reform put into place and I'm not that surprised anymore.

LATOYA: I would say something about saving and fiscal responsibility, but it just looks like creative loopholing. I find it interesting that McCain is shocked Colin Powell didn't call.

MEGAN: I mean, why does no one but me point out that McCain wrote the loopholes?

LATOYA: Makes sense though. That's how he knows what to use. I'm still on the McCain/Powell break up. Maybe Powell didn't feel like being called Judas. That title was already flexed on Gov. Richardson. Or maybe Sarah drove a rift in their relationship. Hmmm...

MEGAN: Given how leaky McCain's organization is — as evidenced by no less than 3 staffers telling CNN they're giving up on Colorado — I'm not totally surprised. Plus, when do you think the last time was that McCain called him up? With all the whispers for weeks that Powell was thinking about breaking it off, why wouldn't John call him and be like, Colin, baby, I'm sorry, I've been really busy, let me buy you a drink when this is all over...? Especially since they weren't in an exclusive relationship.

LATOYA: Does Colin Powell have a Facebook page? Maybe John should have checked their status. Telephone is so pre-2000. Maybe Colin sent him a "TTYL" and he just stopped paying attention. I guess after 25 years, the thrill is gone. It's the end of a bromance. We should send him a CD. Or at least email Meghan McCain, have her post "How Come You Don't Call Me" in his honor

MEGAN: Powell's all about "You Don't Own Me."

LATOYA: LOL — "Don't tell me what to say!"

MEGAN: "Don't say I can't go with other boys!"

LATOYA: "Just let me be myself...that's all I ask of you!"

MEGAN: In my head, Colin Powell is, crying, singing this into his hairbrush like Bridget Jones, slightly drunk.

LATOYA: "I'm free — and I love to be free!" See, now that's going to be stuck in my head all day!

MEGAN: I'm a terrible person, I apologize.

LATOYA: Good Morning, Sunshine!

MEGAN: I watched the sun rise this morning, and not in the hot stayed-out-all-night kind of way, but rather in the "shivering in the cold waiting for a dog to pee" kind of way, and I liked it about as much as it sounds like I did. I get the sense that you are more of a morning person than me.

LATOYA: That I am! I tend to wake up around this time anyway — but, look on the bright side. I start falling asleep during prime club hours, so there's a darkside to morning chipperness.

MEGAN: Even my friend's dog was all like, you really want to walk me this early? Ho-kay, if you insist. And he's already back to sleep.

LATOYA: Hahaha — you can join him soon. Let's start with the pride and joy of my Sunday — Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama. Meet the Press never sounded sweeter to my ears.

MEGAN: Except that even my mom last night — who doesn't watch it — was like, can you believe that Rush Limbaugh says it's just because he's black? It's starting to get a little amusing, she's got this growing mental list of all our relatives and neighbors who listen to Rush Limbaugh because they've started admitting to it, and I can practically hear her crossing names off her Christmas card list. She is so offended that people she knows buy his crap, almost like she didn't really know that actual non-crazy-seeming people listen to him. What I want to know is: does this mean every white person that supports McCain is just doing it because they're both white? Are only Michael Steele, J.C. Watts and every white person that backs Obama racially justified?

LATOYA: It only counts when minorities do it — white people obviously have in-depth reasoning skills, the likes of which we pigmented folks do not have. And seriously? Can we talk about how racist that assumption is? People are going to try and act like it's just Rush Limbaugh talking crazy, but come on now — I know you've been hearing the same thing I'm hearing. I get at least one comment a day (that is insta-deleted) where they want to say something like "blacks are the real racists — 90% of them are voting for Obama!" Yeah, that's right. And 90% of us voted for Clinton. And 88% of us voted for Kerry. Only 10% of Blacks are Republican.

MEGAN: Oh, right, God knows there would be NO FUCKING REASON for African-Americans to ever vote for Obama otherwise, y'all would totes be voting for McCain if the Democrats had a white candidate. Or, you know, not.

LATOYA: For real — I mean, Colin could have broke out a thesis statement on the trends of presidents and vice presidents in this country, and a detailed evaluation of his own voting records, alongside a side-by-side analysis of McCain and Obama's platforms with his comments in red ink - and someone would have still been like "yeah, he just voted for the black guy."

MEGAN: Fuck class warfare, wtf is up with those people thinking there's a race war going on?

LATOYA: They're a little early with calls for a race war. They call us minorities for a reason.

MEGAN: Well, I don't want to be on their side, obviously.

LATOYA: Most of us aren't dumb — like Chris Rock said, there's a LOT of white folks out there. We might be able to reclaim Chocolate City, and a couple towns here and there, but we'd lose the war. Uh -oh, Megan — you can't go switching sides now. You got drafted.

MEGAN: Fuck drafted! I swear, my family has been in this country for long enough, there's no way that there's not some non-white in me somewhere.

LATOYA: You know the Army of Joe Six Pack doesn't cotton with quitters!

MEGAN: Joe Sex-Pack will get drunk on his Genny Creme Ale and I will sneak off. Uh, Freudian slip there.

LATOYA: Ha — I noticed. Yeah, I'm sure you can play the one drop rule to your advantage.

MEGAN: Hell, they would. They wouldn't want me, anyway. Rush Limbaugh makes my Tourette's act up. He speaks and I'm all like "Fuckity fuck fuck FUCK!"

LATOYA: But speaking of Joe Sixpack — uh, did we ever find out who this person is? We outed Joe the Plumber. Now I wanna see Joe Six Pack.

MEGAN: Joe Six Pack is they guy with the beer belly, sitting on his porch smoking a Winston and drinking said six pack by himself while listening to Rush Limbaugh and muttering under his breath. No microbrews for him! No elitist bottles! Down with the fancy beer conspiracy! He likes his good old American Molson!

LATOYA: The Kitchen Table blog has some good insight on this. Dr. Yolanda Pierce writes:

"When only Joe Six Pack becomes the target audience for political commercials, tax cuts, legislation, and economic incentives, we ignore the fact that most of this nation does not fit this profile. And finally, we ignore the fact that despite the rhetoric, none of our current political candidates currently fit the Joe Six Pack mode, although some of them have come from humble beginnings. When Sarah Palin indicated that her retirement portfolio lost $20,000 in one week (which means there was much more in there to begin with), she lost her street credentials as a Joe Six Pack wife.

She also mentions she thought "six pack" was slang for abs, but obviously that is out the window in '08.

MEGAN: Yeah, um, Sarah Palin ain't talking about the guy who spends hours at the gym to perfect his abs, though I'd be she would "tolerate" him. She's talking about the guy who drinks 'em. Oh, should we go for verisimilitude? I got my retirement account statement in the mail this weekend. Shall we see in real time how much I lost?

LATOYA: Yes, let's! Help me assuage my guilt over not funding my retirement account yet. (Bad, lazy, self employed consultant!) Then again, maybe just keeping that money liquid was a good idea.

MEGAN: Okay, to put it into context, this is my 401k from two jobs ago, and I only worked there 7 months. I have 80% in stocks, 15% in bonds and 5% in a money market. I lost $326.27. (That's just third quarter, I'm down 20% YTD.)

LATOYA: Ow. Though I would say that if you lost $4. Losing things is not fun, especially when it's money

MEGAN: But that is a Joe Six Pack amount of loss, thank you very much Sarah Palin. It's fake money, I can't even touch it for another 40 years unless Obama wins. Ahem.

LATOYA: Oh boy. Maybe you need a second job. You know, whatever's left at this point. Keep telling yourself that.

MEGAN: That is how I'm not crying. I don't want to know how much my other 401k lost, that's where most of my money is. Also, how happy am I that I was too lazy to take my accountant's advice last fall and start a new 401k? By the way, that means Sarah and Todd had about $150,000+ in their retirement account, assuming equal rates of loss. I'm betting they had more though.

LATOYA: It's ok — you love capitalism. No pain, no gain! If the markets fall, it's all part of the process. You aren't some dirty rotten socialist! Woman up!

MEGAN: I might be a closet Muslim, though! I love, by the way, the way that no one says aloud what this is supposed to indicate:

But some of the other older white diners looked surprised and slightly uncomfortable as Obama stopped at their tables to shake hands. “I’m surprised, but I’m not going to say anything else,” said Pat Smith, who was joined by her husband.

A group of six retired women said they were mostly Democrats — but mostly undecided about how to vote.

“I have to pray about it, think about what’s best for our country,” said Dorothy Buie, one of the women

That's code for "uncomfortable shaking hands with a black man."

LATOYA: Umm-hmm — if you've been paying attention, is clear what's best for our country. Major thinking conservatives are breaking with their own party. All you got left is the people who will drive America into hellfire and hatred headfirst. But no, no - stay afraid of the black man. It's ok — no one needed that commie healthcare scheme anyway.

MEGAN: Who needs health care when you can have tax cuts!

LATOYA: If you can't reach health insurance with your bootstraps, you don't need it!

Powell, who served under George W. Bush until 2005, turned away from his own party in order to endorse Obama, claiming that his dissatisfaction with John McCain sprung from McCain's difficulties handling economic issues. ""Almost every day there was a different approach to the problem and that concerned me," Powell said, "You got the sense that he didn't have a complete grasp of the economic problems that we had." Powell also apparently had reservations over the selection of Gov. Sarah Palin, stating, "I don't believe she is ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice-president."

Whether Powell's endorsement will make any difference at this point is yet to be seen; speculation that he would endorse Obama has been circling for the past few weeks, so today's announcement isn't a tremendous surprise. But it does speak to the fact that someone who was involved in an administration (and who has since distanced himself from it) that has led the country in a downhill direction over the past 8 years is standing up to endorse across party lines.

It was rumored at one point that Powell might have been a vice-presidential candidate for John McCain, but unlike some people who claim maverick bipartisanship, Powell appears to have endorsed the candidate he feels is best qualified, and not the one who shares the tiny R after his name. As Powell told CNN last February, "I will vote for the candidate I think can do the best job in America—whether that candidate is a Republican or Democrat or an independent." Apparently, he feels that candidate is Barack Obama. If nothing else, Powell has just provided America with another example of the importance of voting based on qualifications instead of affiliations, and that might just be the best endorsement he can give.

Colin Powell Backs Barack Obama [BBC News]
Powell Rejects Democratic Convention Talk [AFP]

• P.U.M.A. hunter Katie Halper put together a campaign commercial for John McCain so that his female supporters all understand what they're voting for — including unequal pay, a lack of reproductive choice and half-assed health insurance coverage. Politics starts at home, ladies. [Katie Halper]
• Actual McCain staffers and Sarah Palin are trying to convince John McCain to open up Wright debate again because — as Sarah said yesterday — they've got nothing to lose. McCain, however, still likes his dignity some, so they're sneaking around behind his back to find other people to fund it. [Politico, CBS]
• Yes, of course, Obama is totally prepped to talk about Ayers tonight. He's probably prepped to talk about Wright, too, if it comes to that. [Chicago Tribune]
• McCain's been prepping, too, if this leaked debate prep video is anything to go by. Join in on my liveblog (thread starts at 7:30 ET, I start blogging at 9:00 ET) to see if he takes any of their advice! [The Jed Report]

• Wonder Woman Linda Carter thinks Sarah Palin is the anti-Wonder Woman, calling her "judgmental and dictatorial" and suggesting that Hillary Clinton is more the W.W. archetype. Go Linda Carter! [The Hill]
• Apparently, since Colin Powell is now a confirmed African-American, having announced it at a rally in Africa, Fox News is ready to guarantee that he's going to endorse Obama. There's nothing racist about that, though, nope, not at all. Don't you know all black people do everything together? [Washington Independent]
• Kansas Senator Pat Robert's Democratic opponent, Jim Slattery, has a new ad that makes it look like Wall Street is pissing on us little people. That's kind of what it feels like some days. [Attackerman]
• With another stock sell-off on Wall Street, today was one of those days. [NY Times]

• Hey, did you forget, Barack is on vacation? In a "foreign, exotic place," according to some, where he does wacky, un-American things like visit his grandmother, his sister and take very cute walks on the beach with his daughter Malia. Totally un-American of him. [HuffPo, Crooks&Liars]
• A McCain supporter shook Cindy McCain's hand so hard today that he sprained it. Even when they like you, fervent Republicans can still hurt you! [The Atlantic]
• Speaking of, some of them are using Bill Kristol to spread a rumor that former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell will endorse Obama. Kristol's not sure why (pssst, Bill, you're supposed to say it's because they're both black), but we're pretty sure it has to do with the fact that the Republicans just want to smear Powell. [Fox News]

• In other Krazy Konsertive news, one of them went into the offices of the Arkansas Democratic Party today and assassinated its Chairman, Bill Gwatney. He was later killed by police after a chase. [NY Times]
• The Taliban today ambushed another group of aid workers, killing 3 women (including one American). If the whole of the Taliban can't provide medical relief to the Afghan people, they'll be damned if they'll let a couple of women do it for them. [Washington Post]
• And the Unabomber objects to having his cabin displayed in the Newseum in Washington. I object to a museum that's supposed to be dedicated to the study of the world of journalism turning itself into a disaster porn exhibit to justify its $20 entrance fee, but that's just me. [Washington Post]

MEGAN: Fucking top of the fucking morning to you, motherfucker!

SPENCER: How's my favorite bitchcuntwhore this morning?

MEGAN: This bitch is kind of feeling like a complete asshole for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that my shitty fucking mouth allowed some cocksucker at the Washington Times to write an article about how cuss-filled the liberal blogosphere is. Also, what the fuck? Does he not live in D.C.? Casual workplace profanity is a lifestyle here.

SPENCER: Here's what I love about this asshole:

The top 10 liberal sites (Daily Kos, Huffington Post, Democratic Underground, Talking Points Memo, Crooks and Liars, Think Progress, Atrios, Greenwald, MyDD and Firedoglake) have a profanity quotient of 14.6.

MEGAN: Hey, one of your homes makes the list! Bitchin'!
SPENCER: FDL hosts my blog, and ThinkProgress used to, and I worked for TPM before that. NOBODY BUT NOBODY cursed on ThinkProgress before I got there and no one curses now that I'm gone, so I'm responsible for TP's entire profanity quotient.

MEGAN: That's an impressive fucking accomplishment.

SPENCER: TPM is entirely sweetmouthed, with the occasional dirty word in comments, but not even that often. this no-Polk-award-having douche put TPM in this list to smear it, discrediting its achievements on, say, getting Alberto Gonzales to resign and exposing McCain's big oil connections.

MEGAN: Also, you know my significant fucking methodological problem with his study? There's no distinction made between Republican trolls swearing on liberal sites or vice versa. If all the cussing is done by Republicans on Kos — not that it is — then his entire thesis is off.

SPENCER: ...on FDL we curse and curse heartily, though. Yes, very good point.
And you know who encourages trolling like a fucking Dungeonmaster? John McCain!

On McCain's Web site, visitors are invited to "Spread the Word" about the presumptive Republican nominee by sending campaign-supplied comments to blogs and Web sites under the visitor's screen name. The site offers sample comments ("John McCain has a comprehensive economic plan . . .") and a list of dozens of suggested destinations, conveniently broken down into "conservative," "liberal," "moderate" and "other" categories. Just cut and paste.

MEGAN: I know! And then their webmaster will go check on it for you!

SPENCER: First McCain wanted to ruin the country, but now he wants to ruin the internet. this shit has gone TOO FAR. Notice, however, that McCain's blog, run by a Weekly Standard asshole who tried and failed to get me fired from ThinkProgress, is too pussyassed to allow comments.

MEGAN: Did you see his list of approved liberal sites? ColoradoPols, Crooks and Liars, DailyKos, MyDD and Think Progress.

SPENCER: It's a good strategy for him: troll, so our communities can fuck the trolls up. Someone needs to explain the internet to him. McCain's desire to throw soldiers into unwinnable wars makes a lot more sense now!

MEGAN: What is hilarious to me is that they pick 5 liberal sites, 5 "moderate" sites — including Politico and the Washington Post's "The Fix" blog — and 10 blogs they classify as "other"... and then 35 right-wing blogs.

SPENCER: This suggested talking point for trolls is AWESOME.

There are serious issues at stake in this election, and serious differences between the candidates. And we will argue about them, as we should. But it should remain an argument among friends; each of us struggling to hear our conscience, and heed its demands; each of us, despite our differences, united in our great cause, and respectful of the goodness in each other.

HAHAHAHAHA yes the McCainiac trolls will take to dKos to spread this one.

MEGAN: It's like... who even is going to buy that shit on the Internet? Also, I don't have to struggle to hear my conscience, it's saying "Don't vote for the weird old guy who wants to take away your right to an abortion but doesn't think it's important to pass pay equity legislation." Or something like that.
SPENCER: hahahaha someone put an Obama 08 sticker on the Straight Talk Express.

MEGAN: It might also be saying "You should call your mom." Oh, wait, that was andBegorrah once. Damn her!

SPENCER: I should really call my mom, but I hate using the phone with the passion of 1000 supernovas. Anyway, you know what question I'm dying to ask Condoleezza Rice? The one Mike Allen of the Politico asked:

When asked her Hollywood crush: “Oh, I’ve got lots of them. I mean, doesn't everybody love Denzel Washington?”

MEGAN: Man was that his way of fishing for the lesbian question? Oh, no, just being a sexist.

SPENCER: 1) She's the fucking Secretary of State. You think he would ever ask Colin Powell that?

MEGAN: Actually, would he ask Madeline Albright that?

SPENCER: 2) Yes, he was obviously trying to get her to say "Why, now that you mention it, I'm a — what's the term they use on Jezebel? — right, right, Lezebel. I am a lezebel. Are you happy now? Feel proud of yourself, professionally?"

MEGAN: I think it's important to chuck into the mix here the fact that he wouldn't ask Maddie that, either. But a black woman was fair game. There's been a lot of talk about how African-American women are either angry finger-snappers or over-sexualized in media portrayals, and then Mike Allen asks her about her fantasy life in an interview.

SPENCER: That didn't occur to me, honestly. I should have read your comment before I tapped out an angry email to a listserv that I'm on with Allen
internet feud! Good for exercising my profanity muscles. The ones below my delts.

MEGAN: I mean, also, can you imagine the uproar if she's said someone else? Someone too young or (gasp) not black? Although, I'd give her props if she referenced the upcoming Bush movie and said Josh Brolin (who is portraying Bush) and thus made fun of the question and the whole "she's in love with George" theme.

SPENCER: You know what I'd ask Condoleezza Rice, whose secretary has declined every interview request I've ever put in? Anything but trivial shit about her personal life. I mean, this is a fucking enabler to a war criminal we're talking about! I'd ask her how she feels about the 500th U.S. troop death in a war she cares about not at all.

MEGAN: That's what I was going to ask you about, actually?

SPENCER: I get these troop death emails from the Pentagon, and the last three months or so, the Afghanistan death notices — practically a trickle in 03-05 — have been as torrid as during the worst days of the Iraq war.

MEGAN: You know what? If McCain used email, I'd want him to get signed up for those emails.

SPENCER: Nor are they going to stop — if I can link my Windy piece this morning, Barry McCaffrey just came back from A-stan, and this is what he found:

As U.S. military casualties mount in Afghanistan, a retired four-star Army general, who just returned from reviewing the six-plus-year war effort, said the country "is in misery" and describes the war as "a 25-year campaign."

MEGAN: Well, at least the troops won't have far to go when McCain ends the Iraq War in 2013. Of course, by then, it'll be a 50-year campaign in Afghanistan, but no worries. We'll surge again and again and again. Or not, because they only have heroin and not oil. Can you make ethanol from poppies?

SPENCER: I did an interview yesterday with the Afghan ambassador to the US, I should've asked him that.

MEGAN: I mean, if you can, we should stop forced eradication programs and just set up a few ethanol plants or something, and then they'll have fuel for our cars and something else to do with the poppies.

SPENCER: As Al Gore says, though, you can't skin-pop your way out of the energy crisis.

MEGAN: Actually, I kid. You can make ethanol from anything, including grass and sugar cane (which is how they do it in Brazil). You can make it from agricultural waste products. Just, you know, not here because Chuck Grassley made sure that that it's all-corn, all the time. Plus we keep super-high import tariffs on ethanol, but if Afghanistan and Iraq are going to be Empire America's newest colonies, I'm sure we'd learn from the British example and not impose high tariffs on manufactured goods shipped in from the colonies. Of course, if we were going to learn from the British example, we probably wouldn't take on colonies that require huge military outlays.

SPENCER: It took the British quite a while to learn that lesson, I recall.

MEGAN: Well, if we're only in Iraq for 100 years, then I guess we'll be better than them. So, fuck it.