Wonkette

Well this is pretty nifty! Now you know what to get your editors for Christmas. [BrakeNutz, Gizmodo, Jalopnik]

America never really had an occasion to think about Michael Dukakis for about oh TWENTY YEARS until he showed up in a nice NYT graphic yesterday proving, conclusively, that he could never have defeated George H.W. Bush in an election because he was half a foot shorter. Dukakis was a hilarious failure of a candidate, and now he says the Obama campaign is doing better than his did, which is a true and obvious statement. MORE »

• America’s $700 bailout plan has already failed because now every bank on earth is poor and Europe can’t get its act together so now we have a Global Meltdown. [New York Times]
• A financial guy killed himself and his family, for Honor, after he lost a bunch of money. [Los Angeles Times]
• The presidential candidates’ gloves are off, again! Now the tone of the race is getting nasty! Etc. [Washington Post]
• There’s another debate tonight! John McCain will be there, and so will Barack Obama, and ditto Tom Brokaw and a handful of horrified “real voters” who will share their sad-sack stories with America and ask how Barack Obama can save their jobs when he is off palling around with bombers and suchlike. [San Francisco Chronicle]
• Widening global bank crisis, “worldwide turmoil,” panic, Band-Aids on gaping head wounds. [Washington Post]
• Wachovia might be sold to Citigroup, or maybe Wells Fargo. Perhaps things will be clearer on Wednesday, when the bank’s assets are given away to the first friendly hobo with a fistful of dryer change. [Forbes]

WALNUTS 2: NUT HARDER starring John “Walnuts!” McCain, produced by SalvatoreDIntern and starring Julia Kobos. And your beloved original from 2006 is here.

SECURITY THROUGH TYRANNY! “As our economic system continues to collapse and it’s increasingly evident that the federal bailout of Wall Street has done nothing to calm investors or businesses, we have to assume the new police state will be put into place sometime this month, before the presidential elections, and that John McCain will become our new crazy old dictator guy. Will it really be so bad?” [AOL Political Machine]

Here’s something fun to look forward to, this Friday, other than the End of Capitalism and Electricity or whatever: There’s going to be a fun report on that legal investigation into Sarah Palin’s “abuse of power” in Alaska, when she fired all her sister’s rape victims or something. Troopergate! Nobody knows what it’s about, other than Governor Palin is some cheap crook who has many enemies — mostly the ex-husbands of her white-trash family members — and she destroys their lives by taking away their jobs. Way to fight for the little people, Maverickita! [Crooks & Liars]

When the markets tank, editors need a photograph to illustrate the terrible loss of value in equities most people either don’t own and don’t understand. The obvious photograph — poor people eating trash in the alley because they have no food and no home — is never used, because it would seem racist. Instead, the general-news media relies on a never-ending stock collection of floor traders looking exhausted, or, like in this AP-Yahoo photo used today, floor traders simultaneously vomiting into their hands. Let’s laugh at them, together. MORE »

Ignorant clown Sarah Palin is the laughing stock of the Entire World, which means her only remaining value to the McCain campaign is to yell racist crap at mouth-breathing old wingnuts, in white Florida suburbs, so that at least those people will possibly remember to go to the polls on November 4 … because otherwise the Negroes will make “Ebonics” be the National Anthem and require all white trash kids to listen to Hip Hop. Oh wait, too late on that last point! MORE »

… That’s the mostly likely explanation for this — that Sullivan got mad about Joe Biden’s health records and then took out his crayons and scribbled this new cover, which the publishers just assumed was artistic because Sullivan is gay. This is unreadable and very communist-looking. A cursory glance suggests that this issue is about how women and blogs are coming to kill us, but we knew that already. [Marc Ambinder]

Well here is your updated Dow Jones thing, about which every “person on the Internet” today has been freaking. It went down like 350 points after a far greater initial plunge. This has baffled many, many people today, that this stock index fell triple-digits on a day when every remaining bank on Earth basically failed. MORE »

• NEW VIRGINIA POLLS GOOD FOR THE BLACK: Your favorite communist “half-breed” jerkoff material, Barack Obama, is crushing the American candidate, McCain, in two news Virginia polls — one by 10 points, another by 12. Wow, Virginia, way to stab your president Jefferson Davis in the back. Also: AYERS AYERS AYERS AYERS, AYERS MADE THE 9/11 HAPPEN. [War Room/Salon]

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• Hey you teenagers with your HOPE Word Art “screen savers,” today’s the last day to register to vote in all the states in which such a thing would matter. [Matthew Yglesias]
• Jeffrey Toobin is the only person left in America with a job, and yet he would rather watch a baseball game on his laptop than pretend to think seriously about anything Sarah Palin read off an index card at the debate. [Gizmodo]
• McCain might raise a White Flag Of Defeat in Pennsylvania, which is racist. [Top of the Ticket]
• The GOP is trying to make it as difficult as possible for the three black people in Indiana — one of whom is Obama, campaigning — to vote. [TPMMuckraker]
• McCain’s Action! Comeback Plan includes highlighting Obama’s filthy terrorism fetish, something about gang-bangs/crack, and pointing out how Obama raised taxes 94 times, one time for each of his clandestine illegitimate black children with Bill Ayers. [Marc Ambinder]

Uhh: “On a recent reporting trip to Alaska, TNR senior editor Noam Scheiber came across a piece of paper from an old Wasilla city budget, on the back of which Palin doodled and brainstormed her potential mayoral campaign themes (’time for a change,’ ‘you would be my boss!’) and qualifications (’life-long alaskan,’ ‘NRA supporter,’ ‘taxpayer!’).” The PDF is kind of comical but mostly illegible. Still, good lord this woman makes it tough. It is the job of COMEDIANS to PRETEND that the dumb governor likes to doodle about her silly ambitions on the back of government-held paper. [The Plank, letter (PDF)]