The Nightowl Newswrap

Call a Waaaaaaaaaahmbulance! Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Whiny-Ass Titty Baby of Kentucky, is complaining that the unexpected tightness of his re-election race is the fault of "far-left organizations" campaigning against him. We certainly hope so! Otherwise, what the fuck good are they? And Mitch? Groups that oppose your political positions and behavior campaigning against your re-election is what we liberal elites like to call de-moc-ra-cy. Look it up.

I'm pretty sure this is a bad idea. Yeah, I think Faux and CNN should have to cough up a few million bucks apiece to cover the victory of the man and the party they've been trying to destroy for the last year and a half. But as a former reporter for a small, broke daily, a former broke freelancer and a current broke blogger, I'm deeply disturbed by this kick in the face to the many small outlets that have been instrumental in getting the truth out about this campaign, who have already made arrangements to be in Chicago Nov. 4 and who don't deserve to be left out in the cold. Not to mention that it's incredibly stupid PR. We expected far, far better of this campaign.

Obama campaign: hire this woman immediately! Chaylee Cole, a student at Fairmont State University, lost her part-time job in Weston last Friday after refusing to make telephone calls attacking Barack Obama. McCain-Palin 2008 and the Republican National Committee were paying for the calls, according to a "work paper" handed to Cole and her co-workers at the Weston offices of 1.2.1 Direct Response, a company based in Philadelphia. "I was working at the call center," Cole said. "We got a campaign ad talking about how Obama had been part of terrorist attacks on the Capitol, the Pentagon and a judge's home and had ties with Bill Ayers. "Last Thursday, I told them I did not want to read it," Cole said. "They said, 'Either you read it or you go home.' "I told them I wasn't going to read it. They made me go home without pay for the rest of the day."

Ronald Reagan endorses Obama We are not making this up. Some updated photos, but the exact words from the Great Communicator himself.

This is going to piss off a lot of people who have to pay a fee for each text message. The McCain campaign has launched a sleazy barrage of text messages warning of impending totalitarianism and that we will all be beheaded by Bill Ayers personally if we are so stupid as to elect Barack Obama president!

Ted Stevens corruption case goes to jury After a month of testimony and cross-examination the case against Senator Ted Stevens is in the hands of a federal jury. The 84-year-old Senator testified that he is innocent and that his wife paid all the bills the couple received for the renovations. He also characterized various gifts he had received as "loans." We have to wonder how the panel of eight women and four men feel about his attempt to shift the blame for the entire fiasco to his wife.


In case you have forgotten that Rich Lowry is an irredeemable douchebag you only need to listen to his *ahem* "analysis" on All Things Considered tonight. By the way, am I the only one who is no longer giving them money? So long as little Richie, Mara Liason and Cokie Roberts assault my ears with their obsequious republican shilling, NPR will have to get by without one thin dime from me. The money I used to give to NPR every fund drive now gets spread around to various blogs that are doing good work.

Hand Counted Paper Ballots. NOW!!! Never, ever, ever, ever ever vote on a touch-screen voting machine, no matter how long the line is for an optical scan machine - they aren't perfect, but they don't flip your frickin' vote right in front of your eyes.

The messages being left on ACORN office voicemails are sickening and the haters and idiots leaving the messages sure are mental giants with a lot of witty things to say...

A week ago, Michele Bachmann was sauntering toward easy reelection Then she channeled Joe McCarthy on Hardball and let her authoritarian flag fly, questioning the patriotism of the Democratic nominee and calling him anti-American. Now her opponent is awash in cash after people from all over the country opened their wallets in a fit of righteous indignation and sent whatever they could spare - and the NRCC recoiled in horror and canceled their ad buys in her district, leaving her twisting in the wind.

Careful what you wish for Remember just a few weeks ago how the McCain camp was whining that they weren't getting any media coverage? That probably seems like the "good old days" now that the media is covering them, and the stories are over 60% negative. "Much of the increased attention for McCain derived from actions by the senator himself, actions that, in the end, generated mostly negative assessments,” is the verdict of a study released today. “In many ways, the arc of the media narrative during this phase of the 2008 general election might best be described as a drama in which John McCain acted and Barack Obama reacted.”

Gather round kiddies...todays lesson is about outliers There is really no reason to believe that the AP poll being touted by Breitbart is anything but an outlier - for one thing, it is a national poll, so it means nothing - we don't elect presidents by the popular vote, and for another thing, the respondents were disproportionately from the old confederacy, where McCain is running strong. I could probably find plenty more wrong with the methodology too, if I could stop laughing long enough to seriously consider it. Instead of wasting time thinking about one ourlier, just consider that all the state polls show Obama's lead widening


It takes a lot of scratch to make a sows ear look like a silk purse and the folks who ponied over the dough for Sarah's new wardrobe and her seven year old daughter's Louis Vuitton bag are not happy about footing the bill for her finery. “As a Republican Eagle and a maxed-out contributor to McCain’s general campaign, I’d like my money back – he can still have my vote,” complained one irate donor on Tuesday. “I’m not one who says a candidate shouldn’t wear fine clothes,” he added. “I’d just like to think they were successful enough in the private sector to have afforded their wardrobe with their own money, not the party’s or the campaign’s, which is really our money as contributors.”

In case you had any doubt, the republican party absolutely bears responsibility for the anti-Islamic hatred and fearmongering that have caused republicans to take leave of all their senses during this presidential race.

41 of 50 states reported job losses in September. The number of states reporting job losses doubled from August to September.