An Ohio man has been charged with a first degree misdemeanor after he allegedly used a law-enforcement computer network to gather information on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber. • North Carolina lawmakers have redefined "life sentence" to mean 80 years. According to the new definition, 20 convicted criminals are now set for release, including several men convicted of raping young girls. • According to a report released by the National Science Foundation, only 33% of people working in science are women. The scarcity of women in science is especially noticeable in the "hard sciences," including the study of radioactive elements. • This photograph, cleverly captioned "Career Choices for Girls According to Videogames" provides a single piece of the puzzle as to why many young girls feel their only options are fashion designer, cheerleader, or professional housekeeper. • John McCain has asked Obama to posthumously pardon black boxer Jack Johnson, who was imprisoned in 1913 for his romantic involvement with a white woman. • As part of an attempt to get male students to be "Renaissance men," Morehouse College in Atlanta has forbidden them from wearing baggy pants, sunglasses, do-rags and clothing "normally worn by women." • Politicians often write books to boost their careers, but Sarah Palin may be a simpler soul. Says onetime Republican spokesman Ron Bonjean, "her goal is to make a whole lot of money." •

Abram was first snapped by a Getty photographer outside a town hall meeting in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, carrying a sign that said "you can only pick one," universal health care or freedom. Inside that meeting, she asked Senator Arlen Specter, "what are you going to do to restore the country back to what our founders created, according to the Constitution?" MSNBC broadcast this question, which led, in turn, to interviews with Abram on CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC's own Hardball — and the above clip from last night's Daily Show. Blog commenters on the left and right are comparing Abram to Joe the Plumber, and her TV appearances do reveal some of the pitfalls of elevating non-experts to sudden pundit status.

CNN's Kiran Chetry was pretty soft on Abram yesterday, but she still came off looking pretty confused. Abram's opposition to health care reform seems to come largely from her belief that America's founders would have been against it. She says, "it doesn't say in the Constitution, give out free health care to people, bail out the auto companies." It's a little hard to imagine the framers talking about "auto companies" in the Constitution (they would've needed a crystal ball), but this oversight just highlights the fact that Washington, Madison, Franklin et al knew that the Constitution could never predict all aspects of future American life — that's why there's an amendment process, and a legislative branch. But Abram isn't on CNN to discuss the finer points of American history and governance. She obviously hasn't been coached in these matters, as she doesn't really seem to understand that the Senate is part of Congress. So why is Abram on TV? Let's look at her Fox News interview with, yes, Sean Hannity.

Hannity is even easier on Abram than Chetry, and the whole segment is kind of meta, talking a lot about how it feels for Abram to be "in the national spotlight." Again, Abram shows she's no policy wonk. She's just an ex-Democrat who switched parties when she saw how much she had to pay in taxes. About health care reform, she tells Hannity,

George Washington is rolling over in his grave right now. This is not what the Constitution wrote. The people in this country are strong enough to just ... do what you need to do.

People "just doing what they need to do" is pretty vague solution to America's health care problems — are those who lose their health insurance due to layoffs, or can't get any because of a pre-existing condition, just not "strong enough?" It doesn't really matter, though, because Hannity doesn't really have Katy Abram (or her mostly mute husband Sam) on his show for their words. His comment to Abram is telling: "I'm listening to your passion."

What's striking about Abram isn't her grasp of policy — which is frankly poor — it's the real emotion with which she delivers her somewhat wrongheaded criticisms. She's obviously angry when she talks to Specter, and she gets choked up on Fox recalling the encounter. Abram is an example Hannity can use to show that the American people are riled up, that health care reform has indeed, as Abram told Specter, "awakened a sleeping giant." But anger, when it's not backed by understanding, doesn't solve anything.

On Hardball last night, Lawrence O'Donnell (filling in for Chris Matthews) was much less forgiving of Abrams's lack of expertise. The clip above shows her admitting that she doesn't know how much money her family makes in a year, and that "my husband takes care of the bills and everything." O'Donnell pointedly asks if she would tell her parents not to participate in Medicare, since it's a single-payer system — she answers, "we don't talk politics." And when he asks her for her opinion on Medicare in general, she gets a deer-in-the-headlights expression and stammers, "a lot of the programs that are in place were not supposed to be here."

But some parts of the interview are actually kind of touching. Abram does get that some people can't afford health insurance. When she says that she thinks "the goodness of the people" can take care of such problems, she admits that it sounds naïve. It does, but at least she knows it. And when O'Donnell asks why she never cared about politics before (she mentioned this to Specter at the meeting), for example, in the wake of 9/11 or after the invasion of Iraq, she says,

[...] you know, I really didn't start even watching the news at all, I think, until maybe 1991, I guess it was, when we first went to the Gulf War. I remember watching CNN with my dad and watching the — the infrared missiles going across that you could see. And I think it — to me — maybe I'm just not that smart, but, you know, it seems like we have kind of been at war for — since then.

It's not a dumb thing to say, and Abram's statement that war "just seems commonplace now" is really kind of an accurate commentary on American life. Katy Abram sounds like a lot of people in this country — a little mystified about why the government does what it does. She's not evil, and she's not stupid, and if she doesn't quite understand Obama's health care plan and its relationship to the Constitution, she's certainly not alone. Unlike most Americans, however, she's now on TV. And like Joe the Plumber, her views now have a legitimacy they may not deserve.

The problem is that the media — especially Hannity — confuse relatability with information. Hannity wants to show us someone who's not a plant, who's "not part of any organized group," who's just like us. But just like most of us, Abram doesn't really know much about health care. And if we want to resolve what's becoming an increasingly nasty national argument, we need to start listening to people who do.

Mom Strikes Nerve At Town Hall [CNN]
Healthcare Reform Opponent Plays Hardball [MSNBC]
"Sleeping Giant" Woman From Specter Town Hall On "Hannity" [YouTube]

Earlier: Katy Lied

• Sarah Palin is taking time off from her busy schedule not pushing legislation in Alaska to headline an "anti-abortion banquet" in Indiana, because that's way more important than her (current) job. [UPI]

• Speaking of jobs, Palin's dad thinks Levi Johnston ought to try getting one so he can buy diapers; Dad is conveniently forgetting that quitting school to get a job Palin's behest was what got Levi fired from his last gig in the first plae. [Us Weekly]
• Palin's best buddy, Joe the Plumber, swears that saying, "In God We Trust" will get you shot in some places in America. Oh, Joe, if only. [Washington Independent]
• Some Republicans are finally admitting that Norm Coleman's pursuit of a shady legal OP has about judges enforcing rather than making laws again. [Huffington Post]
• Another Republican, Dick Armitage, says he should've resigned from the Bush Administration over its love of torture. Too little, too late, bucko. [Huffington Post]
• Former GOP Representative and current Washington conservative "think" tanker Pat Toomey announced he's going to challenge Arlen Specter in next year's primary. Expect Specter to head right, Toomey to win, Specter to pull a Lieberman and the Democrats to still mess it all up. [NY Times]
• Rick Perry wants Texas to secede because it's the only way his dumb-ass will attain higher office. [Time]
• If you're black and live in Florida, don't plan on moving because Republicans there plan to use that to throw out your ballot. [NY Times]
• The NSA continues to spy on everything and everyone without a care in the (legal) world. They've even taken to spying on Congressmen. [NY Times]
• If you're a terrorist, now's the time to get a passport from the State Department, before they stop fucking up. Just kidding! They're not going to stop fucking up. [Washington Post]
• President Obama is in Mexico today, but it's not a vacation. He's not George Bush, after all.) [CBS News]
• Obama is going to keep some of the CIA torture memos classified. [Wall Street Journal]
• And he's rich, beeyotch. [Reuters]
• The Bidens aren't doing too bad, either. [UPI]
• By the way, unemployment is at 8.5%. [Wall Street Journal]
• In foreign news, Vietnam seeks to ban dancing in karaoke bars, India is having an election and Spain isn't going to prosecute Bushies for the whole torture thing. [Huffington Post, Huffington Post, MSNBC]
• Aw, but Michelle Obama sent a kid who offered her a free puppy a nice letter. [UPI]

The Obamas brought some damn fine change to the White House last night, taping a concert with and for Stevie Wonder, who was given the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. Stevie, Diana Krall, Paul Simon, Martina McBride, Tony Bennett, Wayne Brady (yes, that Wayne Brady) Will.I.Am and India.Arie performed some of Wonder's music (you know what I'll be doing when it airs at 8 pm tonight on PBS), the Obamas agreed that Michelle would never have dated Barack if he hadn't been a Stevie fan, and Wonder teased them about makin' whoopee to his music.

In other news, it turns out that Roland Burris got his tax-avoiding, mortgage-avoiding son a job with the Illinois Housing Development Authority by the grace of Blagojevich, and is now also hiring Senate staff. Joe the Plumber and his book have invaded D.C., only he's not going to be plumbing anything anymore, he's into construction now. Oh, and John Boehner thinks it's hard to be a Republican because America is full of whiners who want stuff.

And just in case you thought I was joking when I said Obama's vetters were so bad that Commerce nominee-to-be Gary Locke probably had a body buried in the front yard, it turns out I was right. He dug a hole so deep, in fact, it went all the way to China where he was lobbying for corporate interests... just the way that Obama said no one in his Administration could do. Basically, he's done legal and lobbying work for some of the same companies that will be using the Commerce Department, but at least he paid his taxes (as far as we know, but it's only been a day since his nomination was announced). Luckily, Obama is about to announce that he's going to raise taxes to pay for his health care plan, so the Republicans will be a little busy whining about that to really dig into Locke.

Barack Obama has finally found a way to keep down the ever-increasing costs of the stimulus and bail-out bill: he's decided that any bank that takes significant bail-out money from now on will have to agree to salary caps for top executives. I mean, it'll be hard for these guys to buy new planes or the naming rights for stadiums, pay themselves millions in bonuses or redecorate their offices with carpets that cost nearly twice the median household income in America ($47,000, by the way) without the government giving them the money to do so, but that's what they have layoffs for, so it's cool! Joking aside, although even Donald Trump thinks that salary caps are cool, it doesn't mean that Obama isn't losing the stimulus messaging war in which Republicans bitch and moan about $300 million in contraception funding while sticking in $19 billion for anyone wealthy enough to buy a house this year and defunding health care provisions for the almost-retired and unemployed. Nominate one to, say, run the Commerce Department — where economic stimulus is job 1 — and they still won't vote for the damn bill. But, hey, maybe if you nominate one to replace Tom Daschle at HHS, then they will.

Anyway, in totally important news, Sarah Palin is mad at Ashley Judd for "misrepresenting" aerial wolf-hunting, but she's not mad that Bill Clinton called her to sympathize over the fake stories that she didn't give birth to Trig. In other news of people who could really shut the fuck up now, Dick Cheney says the tur'rists are comin'; Democratic House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel says he didn't really mean to cheat on his taxes or fudge his required financial disclosures; Republicans are blocking Hilda Solis' confirmation hearing and eventual confirmation because over unions' agitating for unionizing. Oh, and Joe the Motherfucking Plumber isn't sure that we deserve his political wisdom more than his son deserves daddy time, so on behalf of all undeserving Americans, Joe, shut the fuck up.

Both Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer withdrew from consideration for the positions they were offered in the Administration yesterday, with Daschle's departure making just a touch more news (being a former Senate Majority Leader who, in effect, supposedly helped write the very tax code he had been out of compliance with will do that). And, if I can be frank, let me just take one moment to illustrate a truth we hold to be self-evident: politicians don't write laws. Staffers write laws. They then explain to the best of their often-just-out-of-college ability what the results of any given piece of legislation will be, and send the Member down to the floor with some damn talking points. It's a big lie that politicians write laws. Our government is pretty much run by people younger than me.

Anyway, Barack Obama is saying it was all his fault:

The mistake, he said repeatedly in interviews with Charles Gibson of ABC, Brian Williams of NBC, Anderson Cooper of CNN, Chris Wallace of Fox and Katie Couric of CBS, was in seeming to give credence to the notion that one set of rules exists for VIPs and another for average Americans.

That's true and always has been. Blame our monarchical roots — hell, after we fought to get out from under a monarchy, most of this nascent country was still willing to make George Washington the King. Regardless, Obama would like to Change it enough that we all can pretend America is some meritocracy, which is probably part of the reason Howard Dean is being floated as a replacement for Daschle even though, at this point, I'm sort of expecting cat-torturer Bill Frist to make the short list. He has magical powers that allow him to diagnose people in just an hour of watching VHS tapes, you betcha.

Speaking of conservative choices that make no sense, today's head-scratcher is Obama's nomination of New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg to lead the Commerce Department. New Hampshire Governor John Lynch has appointed a Republican to replace him, eliminating the excuse that it could be political, and the dude once voted to eliminate the entire department, which bodes well for his stewardship of it. The only remote thought anyone can come up with is that Sam Stein says it gets him the hell out of Harry Reid's hair and "forces" him to explain the GOP's strategery to Obama which sounds like the biggest load of hysterically stupid optimistic crap I've yet to hear out of anyone, frankly.

But, hey, the Obamas read to kids! The Republicans are taking advice from Joe The Motherfucking Plumber! Obama will make rich people make less money, just like the dirty Commie Republicans alleged he was during the campaign! And he sings!





There's nothing ironic about him singing "Chain of Fools," honest.

With all the focus on Hillary Clinton's confirmation hearing Tuesday, we've sort of been neglecting the hearings of the other women of the Obama Administration, which have been going equally swimmingly. Lisa Jackson, Barack Obama's EPA nominee, faced down tough questions from Republicans who are really keen not to see anyone actually regulate at the EPA and are scared to death that companies might have to stop poisoning our environment in the name of Progress. But Jackson thinks science should trump political ideology — who'da thunk? — and said that environmental negligence weighs on her conscience. And you thought Hillary Clinton's hearings were hot.

And if you're not full-up with the womanly awesomeness yet, go check out the New York Times' article about Janet Napolitano in which it's mentioned that she quotes Monty Python, has a photographic memory, laughs at Ed Rendell and plans, basically, to save the world. Oh, and she represented Anita Hill. Come back when you're done swooning, because we're about to get to the bad news portion of the morning.

And that bad news is, of course, related exclusively to Obama's dudely nominees who — one by one — are either facing contentious confirmation hearings or delayed confirmation hearings for being, at a minimum, idiots. First up is Eric Holder, whose hearing is today. He get to face questions about the Mark Rich and FALN pardons, his involvement with a long-ago Gore fundraiser at a Buddhist temple (that's one for Napolitano's photographic memory banks, geez) and Rod Blagojevich, so it should be fun. But, hey, at least he's not Alberto Gonzales, right? Right? Are those crickets I hear?

Next up on the controversy train is Treasury nominee Tim Geithner, whose new problems stem from having neglected to pay self-employment taxes for four years despite having gotten paid extra by the IMF to offset the additional tax liability. Most everyone thinks that, like Holder, he'll nonetheless be confirmed, mostly because Republicans are unwilling to make a big deal about it because they think he's practically one of them, but his confirmation hearing has been delayed.

Finally, the newest nominee to face a delay is Republican Congressman and Transportation Secretary nominee Ray LaHood who, in the wake of the Blago scandal, might face just a touch more scrutiny at his hearing what with all his earmarks that benefited campaign donors. God, when was the last time there was a Republican corruption scandal?

Not that any of this is rubbing off on Obama, who is riding high in the polls and facing tremendous pressure to do politically popular things like eliminate torture, use the bail-out money for the housing crisis and adopt an appropriate dog. He's going to face more pressure to stay at the Inaugural Balls for more than 10 minutes.

And I could talk about Israel bombing more UN civilian targets in Gaza, but I'm scared that Joe the Motherfucking Plumber might be mean to me. CNN's Rick Sanchez, though, is not and he took him on yesterday in a segment that made my ladybits tingle.

Despite all the pound puppy advocacy that has lit up the blogosphere since Barack Obama won the election and promised his girls a puppy, one name continues to resurface in the Obamas' public statements about their choice. That name, sadly, is Labradoodle. I am sure that despite the silly name, Labradoodles are fine dogs but, frankly, they are not very Presidential-sounding and, Ted Kennedy advocacy aside, Portuguese water dogs are not any more Real American than arugula. Plus, you're not likely to find either in the D.C. Humane Society shelter (though, presumably, there are rescue groups for breeds which are almost as good, I guess). Either way, quit with the Labradoodle. Get a dog America can believe in.

One other pick Obama has made is that of Sharon Watkins to lead the post-inauguration National Prayer Service, which he probably hopes will mellow that harsh taste in people's mouths from letting Rick Warren give the Inaugural invocation but totally won't in the end. It also won't let liberals ignore that he's not keen to start investigating — let alone prosecuting — the Bushies, though he won't stand in anyone's way. Between Warren, not forgoing governing to start prosecuting and — gasp — talking about tax cuts (which are nearly always supported by those pesky swing voters), Obama is seeming less like the most liberal, practically Marxist, Senator that McCain and Palin promised and more like a centrist guy interested in reaching out to everyone that he said he was and no one wanted to believe he could really be. Hell, he's not even going to bring back the estate tax.

But at least he's going to close Gitmo, and GOP Senator Jon Kyl is doing his part to make him seem really liberal by claiming that anyone that doesn't support torture doesn't deserve to be in the Executive Branch, which is, I guess, a start. Bush is himself taking personal credit for signing off on torture, which is, I guess, part of that legacy he wants to leave office with. Cheney, however, gets to leave office having expanded the power of the executive branch and, you know, what the hell, they've still got a couple of days to find Osama bin Laden and redeem the entire enterprise, so there you go. You know, since the New Deal failed and all, which makes about as much sense as anything the GOP is saying these days.

And Joe The Motherfucking Plumber is there to help, heading to Israel to let us all know that reporters should never report on war because it, like, totes interferes with government propaganda about how important war is. Not that we're seeing any other alternative news source because this Administration has been so effective at propagandizing against them already.

Oh, right, and Biden's resigning on Thursday, Clinton's got her confirmation hearings this week, Bush found a bail-out package he didn't like, it's going to be cold as balls for the Inauguration, and Michelle's mother is totally moving in. At least Obama knows where he can go for some authentic food in D.C. though, even if it's only half a smoke.

• Hank Williams Jr., who we started studiously ignoring after he murdered our national anthem during a Palin rally, has decided that he's not quite done with being part of a losing campaign and will challenge Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander in the primary for the 2010 race. [Politico]
• Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman today threw out Florida's 31-year-old law prohibiting LGBT Floridians from adopting children, noting that there was no scientific evidence to support the ban and Florida allows LGBT people to foster children. The state plans to appeal. [Wall Street Journal]
• Barack Obama is adopting, too, and not just a puppy — he's adopting current Defense Secretary Robert Gates for his own Administration. [ABC News]

• Obama also named David Orszag, currently head of the Congressional Budget Office, to head up his Office of Management and the Budget. He will be the first blogger to join the Administration. [The Hill, Washington Post]
• One person who won't be part of the Administration is former CIA official John Brennan, who took himself out of the running for any Administration position after being pilloried on the blogosphere for stuff he wasn't a part of. [Washington Independent]
• If you were missing Sarah Palin, she's all over the news today, between receiving an award from Field and Stream, heading to Georgia to campaign for Saxby Chambliss and being laughed at by South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford. [Politico, New York Times, Huffington Post]
• Joe The Motherfucking Plumber is back on the teevees, too, hawking digital converter boxes. When will those two crazy kids ever get it together and admit they belong together... and out of my field of vision? [Wonkette]
• Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal hopes it's soon, so he can kick his Presidential campaign into high gear at last. Yeah, we're turning into that kind of political system. [LA Times]
• Not that this election is actually over yet, as Al Franken's just a little concerned that some officials are squirreling away valid ballots to keep Norm Coleman in office. You'd think it was a paranoid fantasy, but he's got video. [Politico]

• The California Supreme Court this afternoon granted a hearing to the Prop 8 opponents' challenge to the ballot measure that eliminated same sex marriage rights in the state. It did not, however, issue a stay that would have allowed same sex marriages to continue. [Equality California, California Supreme Court (pdf)]
• Missouri finally finished counting its votes and has narrowly gone for McCain. Obama still gets to be President, though. [Politico]
• A judge has ruled that Al Franken's campaign is entitled to written reasons why certain absentee ballots were rejected, which is expected to help his efforts to oust Norm Coleman. I'd bet the voters whose votes were rejected would like to know that sort of thing, too. [Politico]
• But the Dow fell again, so we're all pretty well screwed for now no matter what. [Huffington Post]

• Not as screwed as the automakers, who aren't going to get their piece of the bailout pie, a quest that was not helped by Mitt Romney— the primary candidate who won Michigan by kissing their asses earlier this year — saying that they should be allowed to go bankrupt. [NY Times, NY Times]
• And the auto industry's favorite Democrat, Michigan Congressman John Dingell — who has been chairing the Commerce Committee to their benefit for 2 years — lost a preliminary vote to keep his Committee chairmanship to upstart Congressman Henry Waxman. So it's really been a shitty week for them so far. [Politico]
• But they are definitely not as screwed as Republican crackpot John Ziegler, who decided to give an interview about his crappy new poll that says all Obama voters are poorly informed to Jezebel Crush Object Nate Silver and ended up, in the face of Silver's superior brain, telling him, "Go fuck yourself." Don't mess with our man, John Ziegler. [FiveThirtyEight]
• In a fit of crazy, Michelle Bachmann blithely declared that she never said that thing about investigating Congress members for being un-American that everyone heard her say. [Politico]
• Even crazier is Joe the Motherfucking Plumber, who has an enormous crush on Sarah Palin. Hustler, are you listening? [Huffington Post]
• Nearly two weeks after it was first reported, Obama's people have confirmed that strategist David Axelrod will join his Administration as a senior adviser along with Greg Craig as White House counsel. [Reuters]
• Dick Cheney has been indicted — along with former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — on state charges in Texas that his financial interests in Vanguard Group (which runs some prisons there) are tantamount to participating in that company's abuse of power. Don't get your hopes up: prosecutor Juan Guerra "has a history of launching eccentric court and political battles," as though that needed to be said. [The Telegraph]
• Republican Senator Arlen Specter announced today that he plans to fuck with presumed Obama AG nominee Eric Holder about his role in the Marc Rich pardon at the end of the Clinton Administration, as though any of his constituents care. Apparently, Specter is fully prepared to hop on the train to Crazy Partisan Town with the rest of the Republican Party and ignore his many years as a moderate that have helped him get reelected. [Politico]

• If you weren't already aware, voter turnout is really high. That's led to some scattered problems, which will be chronicled after the jump. [Washington Post]
• In the mean time, the fucking Supreme Court heard the fucking case about fucking swearing on fucking TV. They didn't say "fuck" once, so I felt like someone had to. [Washington Post]
• A lot of people in California who really love each other rushed to get married today in case a bunch of small-minded, easily-led voters decide to make it illegal today for them to do so tomorrow. [NY Times]
• Joe Lieberman "fears" for the future of this country if the Democrats gain a filibuster-proof majority today, and has vowed to join with Republicans to filibuster anything they want to show his contempt for his constituents and the Americans who decided they were okay with a Democratic Senate. [Think Progress]

• Actor Tim Robbins was the most prominent victim of the ironically-named Help America Vote Act's mandated purges of voter rolls today. Being rather well-informed, he took his ass to court to force the city of New York to allow him to vote in the regular fashion, rather than provisionally since it would have gotten discarded. Can we just agree HAVA needs to be revisited next year? [NY Times]
• Rudy and Judith Nathan Giuliani apparent had no such difficulties and even got to cut in line. [Village Voice]
• Some people in Detroit waited 4-5 hours to vote. [CNN]
• Ditto in St. Louis. [CNN]
• A bunch of people in New Mexico that requested absentee ballots never got them and were told to show up and cast provisional ballots, as though if one needed to vote absentee that was a possibility. [CNN]
• At one Florida voting site, they had one machine to accommodate all the voters. Yeah, it was in a predominately African-American neighborhood. [Huffington Post]
• There were big problems with broken machines and a lack of paper ballots in Richmond, Virginia today, too. [Huffington Post]
• In Indiana, the GOP violated a judges orders and tried to challenge the voting status of foreclosed-upon voters. [Huffington Post]
• Some voters in Ohio were forced to cast provisional ballots (which might or might not be counted) because poll workers screwed up and thought that the address on the license had to match the address on the registration. It doesn't. [CNN]
• A 92-year-old woman in Texas cast her ballot from an ambulance outside the polling place when her absentee ballot didn't arrive. [CBS]
• Joe the Motherfucking Plumber went to the wrong polling place and tried to good ol' "Do you know who I am?" when he got stopped for speeding this week. Fuck. Off. Dude. [Wonkette]
• Joining JTMP in fucking off should be P.U.M.A. co-founder Will Bower. [CNN]
• Not that she swears, but 114-year-old Gertrude Baines, the daughter of former slaves who voted for Obama today, probably shares that sentiment. [LA Times]

• The officially-designated GOP scapegoat for Wardrobe-gate appears to be McCain aide Nicolle Wallace (left), despite the fact that I guarantee she knows how to put together a wardrobe for less than $150,000. Wallace isn't "going to engage" with people until after the campaign, but she knows the score and her memory doesn't even have to be that long. [Think Progress, Politico]
• Speaking of the score, Vanity Fair and the National Security News Service are apparently pursuing reports that McCain killed a guy in a car accident (implication: drunk driving) in 1964 and the Navy is still covering it up. Who knew the October surprise would be about McCain? Karl Rove must really hate him. [Huffington Post]
• Joe The Motherfucking Plumber officially endorsed McCain today, and said that Obama would be the end of Israel. What the fuck does JTMP know about Israel? Joe doesn't know jack, actually, and even Fox News had to admit that. [CBS, Huffington Post]

• Though Palin yesterday refused to be a Maverick and call on convicted felon Senator Ted Stevens to resign, John McCain decided he could. So he did. [NY Times]
• Rachel Maddow's viewership is so far up, she can claim to have beat Larry King in one demo. One demo today, tomorrow...all of them. [TV Newser]
• The Dow, too, finally decided to get up. That'll last until it falls again, then goes up, down, up, down and apparently I need to stop watching so much porn. [Washington Post]
• Florida Governor Charlie Crist decided to get back at McCain for not choosing him as the running mate — or, possibly, do the right thing for the right reasons, stranger things have happened — and extended early voting hours in Florida. Someone's gonna get re-elected. [Politico]

• Not that it's surprising, but the 43 economists of the Economists' Policy Group on Women's Issues graded John McCain and Barack Obama on 10 issues of importance to women and Obama came out ahead. McCain got an "F" because the group was concerned that his positions would do harm to women. [US News & World Report]
• They probably didn't take into account, though, that the highest paid person on McCain's staff in October was a woman. She's, um, the woman that does Sarah Palin's make-up, and she got $22,800 for the first two weeks of work. [Huffington Post]
• Once upon a time before Ahmadenijad or Chavez came to power, McCain was casting votes in Congress to get the Reagan administration to sit down with an Mozambique group designated as a terrorist organization without preconditions. [Huffington Post]
• And long before Obama met Bill Ayers, McCain was palling around with Chilean dictator and human rights violator extraordinaire Augusto Pinochet and his pals. [Huffington Post]

• Speaking of domestic terrorists, people that bomb abortion clinics and assassinate doctors aren't, in Palin's Weltanschauung. For some reason, that sounded right-er in German. [Firedoglake]
• For those people keeping track of these sorts of things, Palin announced today that the McCain-Palin Administration would except disability programs from its spending freeze. So far, they're exempting defense spending, homeland security spending, veterans programs, science programs and disability programs. Kinda makes you wonder what they are actually going to reduce spending on. [Washington Post]
• Tom Ridge thinks that maybe John McCain would be doing better in Pennsylvania if he'd picked Tom Ridge as VP, but he totally supports Sarah Palin. Tom Ridge: not as blindingly stupid as one would assume if one watched his performance at Homeland Security Secretary. [CNN]
• In a stellar end of the week for the campaign, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, former Massachusetts Governor (and Republican) William Weld, former Minnesota Republican Governor Arne Carlson and current McCain adviser Charles Fried announced they were all voting for Obama. But they just did it because they're bla... Oh, wait, they're all white. I'm sure Rush Limbaugh will find another reason. [Christian Science Monitor, Talking Points Memo]
• The Republican Party in New Mexico has hired a private investigator to go around and harass elderly Latino voters and try to intimidate them from voting by threatening those completely legal citizens with deportation. [TPM Muckraker]
• In further Republican stupidity and assholery, noted asshole Michelle Bachmann has taped an ad apologizing for calling for the media to investigate anti-Americanism in Congress. Left out of the advertisement is the text of the legislation she'll introduce if re-elected to force Congress to conduct the investigation. [Politico]
• And Joe the Motherfucking Plumber is going to run for Congress in 2010, like anyone will give a fuck about him on November 5th. [The Hill]

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: Holy hell, is it morning again?

LATOYA: That it is. The theme for today is "King of Rock" by Run-DMC. Sucka emcees should call me sire! You can't see me, but I'm doing the wop at my desk

MEGAN: I am sitting on the couch I woke up passed out on. Still.

LATOYA: Ooooh — how was Happy Hour?

MEGAN: It was the hours after the happy part that did me in.

LATOYA: Ha — girl, know your limits. I'll join you next time, but I subscribe to the "drunk or sexy" school of thought. The goal is normally to either get fucked up, or sip and be pretty all night and I dress accordingly. I'm generally a sipper though, warning you now. Anyway, on to the news. The news has apparently caught on to the fact that we young'uns are bored with the election and just want it to end.

"By historical standards, the level of interest is extremely high across all ages. But those under 35 are much less likely to be tracking the election closely," Hawkeye Poll Director David Redlawsk said in a statement. "This suggests they're less engaged — and perhaps less likely to turn out, because those who pay attention are more likely to vote."

MEGAN: That's the ADD generation for you. They are not going to be happy if no one is declared the winner before Jon Stewart comes on. Also, I don't know that "not paying attention to the minutiae of the campaign" translates to "not going to vote." Maybe they're already decided and don't give a shit whether Sarah Palin spent $150 or $150,000 on her suits. Or, for that matter, how Obama is spending $150 million.

LATOYA: What Hawkeye is missing though is that us young'uns are also early adopters — and most of us have been riding this election since '07. We're just tired. And last time I checked we were 2 to 1 Obama. We just want to vote and get it over with. Oh, and I second that — if there is no winner for Jon Stewart and Stephen Corbert to mock, I'm going to bed early.

MEGAN: No one is more tired than me this morning. I need a vacation that lasts longer than intoxication, which is just a mini-vacation from Reality.

LATOYA: Yeah, we don't care. (And you do need a vacation.) We have other things to worry about, like losing our jobs because the economy is in the toilet. Fuck Joe the Plumber, can I hear from Lucy the HR Coordinator?

MEGAN: Lucy the HR Coordinator says update your resume and for God's sake spell-check the motherfucker.

LATOYA: Word.

MEGAN: Also, was there anything stupider to come out of anyone's mouth this week than to hear Sarah Palin say "Tito the Builder"? I don't know why I laughed so hard, but I did.

LATOYA: I must have missed that one, but now I'm perplexed. What did she says about this alleged "Tito?"

MEGAN: Tito got into a fight with a journalist at a campaign rally, but he might or might not still vote for Obama. Or McCain. He won't say, but he's mad as hell about Joe the Plumber. He might be a little crazy.

LATOYA: Can we please put some sane people on TV? And when I say sane, I mean "people who act like they got some sense."

MEGAN: Sane people don't make for good TV! Also, by the way, Tito's friend at the end thinks that an Obama win means Armageddon is coming.

LATOYA: Yeah, what else is new? The Armageddon has been on the way since 999. You know what should be on the news?

MEGAN: More Obama dancing?

LATOYA: This discussion Michelle Singletary is hosting:

Personal finance columnist Michelle Singletary hosts an online discussion with Gary Weiss, author of "Wall Street Versus America: A Muckraking Look at the Thieves, Fakers, and Charlatans Who Are Ripping You Off," on Thursday, Oct. 23 at Noon ET.

MEGAN: Michelle's good, but she's so anti-debt she's against student loans and many mortgages, which is easy to say and FAR less easy to do.

LATOYA: Well, she's justifiably anti-debt. Depression era Big Momma's probably aren't playing on that front. Either way, she still has sense.

MEGAN: No, totally, I think her work is a good place to start, and I think the media on the financial crisis hasn't done a good job of communicating how it affects average Americans and what you can do to avoid ending up in a bad place.

LATOYA: Nope, they haven't. I need to keep tabs on Dubya though. No one is paying attention but this bama is still technically in charge for a few more months.

MEGAN: "Technically" is right.

LATOYA: I found out through a BBC Feed Bush is inviting the world's leaders to come and chat about the crisis. Since life imitates high school, this one is VIP Only:

The summit would be the first of a series announced after talks between Mr Bush, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and EU Commission chief Manuel Barroso.

But the agenda is unclear and differences are already emerging.

Mr Bush said any plan must not undermine free markets. Mr Sarkozy said "hateful practices" must be abandoned.

Looks like Sarkozy is going to be banned from the cool kids table. And can we drop the free market bullshit? We don't have a free market if you can rig the game!

MEGAN: Well, he did say last week that we should reconsider the Bretton Woods agreement, which is the underpinnings of the sort-of-free movement of capital and the intellectual start of the WTO which lowered tariffs. But, Bush is the guy who just nationalized our financial services industry. I think they'll still manage to find something to talk about.

LATOYA: It's not nationalization when we do it. It's smart practices. When other nations do it, it's hindering the free market. sigh We need to switch topics, because I'll be on this for days. I'll start breaking out summary papers and abstracts.

MEGAN: I'm there with you! But, we could talk about Obama's trip to see his grandma. He seems like he comes from a really nice family and I kind of completely want to hang with his sister.

LATOYA: We could. His life just seems so damn normal. I don't understand how people keep saying "they can't relate" to the Obamas. I know that nonwhites have been completely otherized in this country, but I just can't see how after eighteen months of campaigning, pictures, photo ops, investigative articles, and the like, people keep saying crap like "I don't know him." It's not that you don't know him - you just don't want to see who he really is.

MEGAN: I think it is about him being so "other." Like, I think it's sort of hilarious and fucked up that white people think that there is some kind of "being black" that is so intrinsic to the fundamental identity of African-Americans in this country in a way that "being white" is not that it trumps every other identity (husband, father, brother, grandson, Senator, candidate) that a given African-American person has — because, really, as an Official White Person, I really, really, really rarely think about "white" when thinking about my identity. And I think the white people who do believe it probably do add "white" into their identity and think about it more and think about how it separates them from The Others and not in a good, introspective way.

LATOYA: I don't thinks whites think "white" — many of them think "normal" and that's what contributes to the othering.

MEGAN: For the record, I don't think "normal" because most people I know are nearly as fucked up as I am.

LATOYA: That's why you hear people say things like "I don't have race" or "I don't have a culture" — they do, it's just been normalized into the default, and everyone else has been pushed outside of this boundary.

MEGAN: Normal people are "other" to me. But I also think that you're right about the idea that "white" is conflated with "normal."

LATOYA: It is. And it's sad because now the Obama's have to go above and beyond to prove they are an All-American wholesome family when really, that's just what they are.

MEGAN: Because, really, on some level, Obama is super-normal, and yet some people continue to see him and his intact nuclear family and 2-income household as somehow different from their experiences. The thing is that there is no All-American wholesome family, we're a society riddled with divorces, broken homes, step-parents and general dysfunctionality. Maybe that's why the Obamas seem so abnormal: they're the normal we're told is normal and everyone else is just fucked up.

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!

• This is an actual direct mail piece from the Virginia Republican Party, encouraging people to vote against "evil." I encourage people to vote against evil, too — the kind of evil that would stoke racial fears to win an election. [Mark Halperin]
• Also, please vote against the kind of evil that thinks it's funny to put a picture of Obama on a fake food stamp adorned with fried chicken and watermelon. That would be the evil that comes out of the California group Chaffey Community Republican Women [The Press Enterprise]
• Or the kind that suggests that Obama's mother would've aborted him had she the legal right to, so he should consider taking away that right from other people. [National Review]

• Joe The Plumber isn't really named Joe, isn't really a licensed plumber, wouldn't really pay more in taxes under Obama's plan — but he might have to pay his back taxes now. Naughty, naughty. Oh, and because his name is misspelled on his voter registration card, he'd be stopped from casting his ballot if he was a newbie. [NY Times, Politico]
• The Secret Service is now actively separating the press from McCain supporters, which is rather a broad interpretation of their mission to protect the candidate. [Washington Post]
• Unsurprisingly, the FBI and Justice Department are investigating ACORN "for any evidence of a coordinated national scam." Because that's likely. [Huffington Post]
• That lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, who the New York Times said had an affair with John McCain broke her silence and said that she didn't. She thinks she got dragged into it because of some bad feelings between former McCain aide John Weaver and current McCain aide Rick Davis, but who knows. [National Journal]
• But just to end things on an upbeat note for once, go read the inspiring story of civil rights leader Andrew Young who got to cast a ballot for a black Presidential candidate today. It's sweet. [Traverse City Record Eagle]