Good-bye Yankee Stadium; We Consider Ourselves the Luckiest Fans on the Face of the Earth

Sunday is the last game at the real Yankee Stadium. I have no idea how many games I saw at the Stadium, but they date back to 1978. My memories are endless: the first time I saw the green of the grass of the infield; the aroma of the hot dogs and pretzels; the taste of the beer on a hot August afternoon; and the players I saw -- Munson, Jackson, Mattingly, Jeter.

Derek Jeter and Joe Girardi talk about their memories:

Lou Gehrig's farewell speech:



Here is the full text of his impromptu speech. It's not well-known, but it's truly as glorious a speech as any other:

"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

"Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky.

"When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift - that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies - that's something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter - that's something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body - it's a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed - that's the finest I know.

"So I close in saying that I may have had a tough break, but I have an awful lot to live for."

Babe Ruth Day, 1947, and his funeral:



Babe Ruth's 60th Home Rune, 1927:



Mickey Mantle's 500th Home Run:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1Y0hKB2dqo

Joe McCarthy interviews Joe DiMaggio ("Be a clean liver and swing that ball hard"):



Phil Rizzuto getting hit by a pitch, 1955.

Obama Tells Florida Audience: McCain Would Gamble Your Social Security Away; FactCheck.Org Calls That a Lie

Sen. Barack Obama warned people at a rally today in Daytona Beach, Fla., that Sen. John McCain would “gamble with your life savings” by investing Social Security money in private accounts, which would be affected by the financial markets that suffered so many problems this past week.

“If my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would’ve had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week,” Obama said. “How do you think that would have made folks feel? Millions would’ve watched as the market tumbled and their nest egg disappeared before their eyes.”

The McCain campaign fired back as its spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement: “John McCain is 100 percent committed to preserving Social Security benefits for seniors and Barack Obama knows it — this is a desperate attempt to gain political advantage using scare tactics and deceit.”

Factcheck.org had its own take on Obama's statement today, saying Obama's contention is not true:

The plan proposed by President Bush and supported by McCain in 2005 would not have allowed anyone born before 1950 to invest any part of their Social Security taxes in private accounts. All current retirees would be covered by the same benefits they are now.

Obama would have been correct to say that many workers under age 58 would have had some portion of their Social Security benefits affected by the current market turmoil – if they had chosen to participate. And market drops would be a worry for those who retire in future decades. But current retirees would not have been affected.

In our "Scaring Seniors" article posted Sept. 19 we took apart a claim in an Obama-Biden ad that McCain somehow supported a 50 percent cut in Social Security benefits, which is simply false. Then, on Saturday Sept. 20, Sen. Barack Obama personally fed senior citizens another whopper, this one a highly distorted claim about the private Social Security accounts that McCain supports.

Obama also said in his prepared statement today:

And I'll protect Social Security, while John McCain wants to privatize it. Without Social Security half of elderly women would be living in poverty - half. But if my opponent had his way, the millions of Floridians who rely on it would've had their Social Security tied up in the stock market this week. Millions would've watched as the market tumbled and their nest egg disappeared before their eyes. Millions of families would've been scrambling to figure out how to give their mothers and fathers, their grandmothers and grandfathers, the secure retirement that every American deserves. So I know Senator McCain is talking about a "casino culture" on Wall Street - but the fact is, he's the one who wants to gamble with your life savings.

That's untrue, according to Factcheck.org.

All current retirees would be covered by exactly the same Social Security benefits they are now under what the Obama campaign likes to call the "Bush-McCain privatization plan," which Bush pushed for unsuccessfully in 2005.

Who Would Have Been Affected?
As the White House spelled out at the time, on page 5 of the document titled "Strengthening Social Security for the 21st Century," released in February 2005:

Bush Plan: Personal retirement accounts would be phased in. To ease the transition to a personal retirement account system, participation would be phased in according to the age of the worker. In the first year of implementation, workers currently between age 40 and 54 (born 1950 through 1965 inclusive) would have the option of establishing personal retirement accounts. In the second year, workers currently between age 26 and 54 (born 1950 through 1978 inclusive) would be given the option and by the end of the third year, all workers born in 1950 or later who want to participate in personal retirement accounts would be able to do so.

Large Truck Bomb Kills at Least 40 at Marriott in Pakistan

A five-star Marriott Hotel in Islamabad was attacked by a large truck bomb Saturday evening, killing at least 40 people. The hotel is located a short distance from the residence of the prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, who was hosting many government leaders for dinner. Authorities said that 100 people are wounded and they expect the death toll to rise.

Carlotta Gall of The New York Times reports from the scene in Pakistan:

Witnesses said they dragged out dozens of bodies from the lobby of the hotel and an adjacent parking lot, including those of a number of foreigners.

One wounded American who works at the embassy here in the capital said he had just opened his car door in the parking lot when the explosion erupted. The American, who gave only his first name, Chris, said he had received injuries to his face, neck and shoulder, and was holding a bloody T-shirt to his face.

He said American Embassy personnel were at the scene, trying to help American citizens they said were trapped in the hotel.

Amjad Ali Khan, a guard on duty at a side entrance to the hotel, said he saw four to five bodies in the hotel parking lot and that he helped carry out 40 bodies from inside the hotel. He said they were “in the lobby and in the restaurant and everywhere.”

“There were very few people injured,” he said. “They were all dead.” He said he saw three Western women who had died from head wounds.

“They are terrorists,” he said when asked who he thought was responsible for the blast. “They threatened a few days ago. We heard there were four to five suicide bombers on the loose.”

Rangel on Palin: 'You Got to Be Kind to the Disabled'

Rep. Charlie Rangel described Gov. Sarah Palin as disabled in an interview with WCBS Channel 2 in New York today. Asked during an interview why Democrats seem afraid of Palin's popularity, Rangel replied: "You got to be kind to the disabled."

The reporter repeated the phrase.

"Yes," replied Rangel and then added, "There's no question about it. Politically it's a nightmare to think that a person's foreign policy is based on their ability to look at Russia from where they live."

Soon after the interview aired, Rangel in a statement said that he meant to say "disadvantaged."

"Governor Palin is an obviously healthy person who in no way fits the description of disabled. I meant to say then, and I am saying now, that she entered the campaign with a disadvantage in the area of foreign policy," Rangel said in the statement.

Alex Conant, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, told The Associated Press in referring to Rangel's remark: "As if achieving new ethical lows was not sufficient, now Rangel is hitting a rhetorical low. Insulting the next vice president will not distract from Rangel's tax scandals."

An advocate for the disabled was interviewed by WCBS and he too was upset.

"It makes me feel as if he's trying to put her down, trying to say she's not good for the presidency or the vice presidency," Michael Imperiale of Disabled In Action Of Metropolitan N.Y. told WCBS. "A disabled president ran this country. He was disabled. His name was Roosevelt."

Pennsylvania Is a Keystone for Obama's Quest for 270 Electoral Votes (Well, 269)

It's time to forget about the daily tracking polls and take a serious look at the Electoral College map.

It's the only thing that matters. As you might remember, a candidate can win the national popular vote and lose the election. Matter of fact, a candidate could win 11 specific states by one vote and not even be on the ballot in the rest of the country and still win the election. There are 538 electoral votes. This number no longer increases (well, at least until any new states are added to the union) because the number of members of the House of Representatives and the Senate does not change. Instead, every 10 year with the new census, the number of electors shifts from states who have lost population to states who have gained population. So in 2012, some states will have a new number of electoral votes.

A candidate, therefore, needs to win 270 electoral votes to have a majority plus one. But for Sen. Barack Obama, he only needs 269. That would result in a tie, which is broken by the House of Representatives. It's highly unlikely that a Democratic-controlled House will be favorable to Sen. John McCain.

So, which states does the road to the Promise Land go through for Obama?

Well, if he successfully defends the states won by Sen. John Kerry in 2004, he will start off with 252 votes. Of those states, a few are close, but still leaning toward Obama. Pennsylvania (21 electoral votes) is the most notable. A number of state polls there show a 1-3 percentage-point lead for Obama. It's tight, but for the Democrats, turnout is the key. If the Democrats can get a strong turnout from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh it will be very difficult for McCain to produce the numbers in the rural and suburban areas to match. In Pennsylvania, Obama can win with sheer volumne alone.

And by winning Pennsylvania, the Electoral Map becomes very easy for Obama. He would need only 17 more electoral votes to win, and there are plenty opportunities for him to find them. Ohio, where McCain has only had a 2-3 point edge in polls, is obtainable. That alone will do it for him. (I'm sure John Kerry has thought of that already.) But here is Iowa (7 votes), where he is leading in the polls; New Mexico (5 votes) is blue on most maps right now; Colorado (9 votes), where many polls give him an edge; Indiana (11 votes), Virginia (13 votes), and Nevada (5 votes) are toss-ups in many polls.

There are a number of combinations for Obama to dial in. But for him, the key is Pennsylvania. Ironically, if he had chosen Sen. Hillary Clinton as his running mate, he would have had that state in his pocket. So on election night, watch for the Pennsylvania results. If they go blue, it's going to be a very blue night for John McCain.

Schanberg: Media Is Quiet on McCain's Efforts to Hide POW Information

Sydney H. Schanberg, writing for The Nation, takes the media to task for not pressing Sen. John McCain on his long-time push to keep secret documents on prisoners of war in Vietnam:

John McCain, who has risen to political prominence on his image as a Vietnam POW war hero, has, inexplicably, worked very hard to hide from the public stunning information about American prisoners in Vietnam who, unlike him, didn't return home. Throughout his Senate career, McCain has quietly sponsored and pushed into federal law a set of prohibitions that keep the most revealing information about these men buried as classified documents. Thus the war hero who people would logically imagine as a determined crusader for the interests of POWs and their families became instead the strange champion of hiding the evidence and closing the books.

Almost as striking is the manner in which the mainstream press has shied from reporting the POW story and McCain's role in it, even as the Republican Party has made McCain's military service the focus of his presidential campaign. Reporters who had covered the Vietnam War turned their heads and walked in other directions. McCain doesn't talk about the missing men, and the press never asks him about them.

The sum of the secrets McCain has sought to hide is not small. There exists a telling mass of official documents, radio intercepts, witness depositions, satellite photos of rescue symbols that pilots were trained to use, electronic messages from the ground containing the individual code numbers given to airmen, a rescue mission by a special forces unit that was aborted twice by Washington—and even sworn testimony by two Defense secretaries that "men were left behind." This imposing body of evidence suggests that a large number—the documents indicate probably hundreds—of the US prisoners held by Vietnam were not returned when the peace treaty was signed in January 1973 and Hanoi released 591 men, among them Navy combat pilot John S. McCain.

Schanberg, who I had the great pleasure working with during my stint at Newsday, was The New York Times' Vietnam War correspondent in the early 1970s. He won the George Polk Award for excellence in journalism in 1971 and 1974.

McCain Outlines Fiscal Intervention Plan

Sen. John McCain outlined his six-point proposal to attack the current financial crisis in a speech before the Chamber of Commerce in Green Bay, Wisc., this morning.

He proposed creating a Mortgage and Financial Institutions trust, whose principle goal would be to keep people in their homes and safe guard their life savings by protecting the financial system and capital markets. "This trust will work with the private sector and regulators to identify institutions that are weak and fix them before they become insolvent," he said.

As president, McCain said, he would propose reforms to prevent financial firms from concealing their bad practices. He urged for improvements to enhance regulatory clarity. "We don't need a dozen federal agencies doing the job badly -- we need the best federal agencies to do the job right," he said.

He told the chamber that government must ensure that consumers and investors are protected. He also said that in cases where failing companies seek taxpayer bailouts, the Treasury Department in his administration will follow consistent policies in deciding whether to guarantee loans. In addition, he said that the Federal Reserve should get back to its core business of responsibly managing our money supply, and to get out of the business of bailouts. "The Fed needs to return to protecting the purchasing power of the dollar. A strong dollar will reduce energy and food prices. It will stimulate sustainable economic growth and get this economy moving again," he said.

On more political issues, he revisited his comments yesterday about "firing" the SEC chair. After a day of criticism that the president might not have that authority, he said that while Securities and Exchange Commission Chris Cox is a "good man," he should "step down."

McCain renewed his attack on Obama for taking large campaign contributions from both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sources and that the one-time head of Obama's vice presidential search team, Jim Johnson, had received a multimillion-dollar severance deal after stepping down as Fannie Mae CEO. Obama is the No. 2 recipient of campaign money from employees of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and PACs, receiving $126,349 from those sources ($6,000 of which came from PACs), the Center for Responsive Politics says. McCain received $21,550 from individuals (no money came from PACs), according to the report, which covers contributions from 1989 to 2008.

"Sen. Obama may be taking their advice and he may be taking their money, but in a McCain-Palin administration, there will be no seat for these people at the policy-making table. They won't even get past the front gate at the White House," McCain said.

Here are his prepared remarks:

Thank you all very much. It's a great pleasure to be introduced by Governor Sarah Palin -- and I can't wait to introduce her to Washington.

If Governor Palin and I are elected in 46 days, we are not going to waste a moment in changing the way Washington does business. And we're going to start where the need for reform is greatest. In short order, we are going to put an end to the reckless conduct, corruption, and unbridled greed that have caused a crisis on Wall Street.

Here and all across our country, people are wondering what exactly is happening on Wall Street. And with good reason, they want to know how their government will meet the crisis. Clear answers are hard to come by in Washington.

As Senator Obama's leader in Congress memorably put it the other day -- and I quote -- "no one knows what to do." Perhaps given that reaction, it shouldn't surprise us that the Congressional leaders of this do-nothing Congress also said that they weren't going to take action until after the election, claiming that it wasn't their fault. I am hopeful that last night's discussions are a sign they have changed their mind and will take action soon. But any action should be designed to keep people in their homes and safe guard the life savings of all Americans by protecting our financial system.

There are certainly plenty of places to point fingers, and it may be hard to pinpoint the original event that set it all in motion. But let me give you an educated guess. The financial crisis we're living through today started with the corruption and manipulation of our home mortgage system. At the center of the problem were the lobbyists, politicians, and bureaucrats who succeeded in persuading Congress and the administration to ignore the festering problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

These quasi-public corporations lead our housing system down a path where quick profit was placed before sound finance. They institutionalized a system that rewarded forcing mortgages on people who couldn't afford them, while turning around and selling those bad mortgages to the banks that are now going bankrupt. Using money and influence, they prevented reforms that would have curbed their power and limited their ability to damage our economy. And now, as ever, the American taxpayers are left to pay the price for Washington's failure.

Two years ago, I called for reform of this corruption at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Congress did nothing. The Administration did nothing. Senator Obama did nothing, and actually profited from this system of abuse and scandal. While Fannie and Freddie were working to keep Congress away from their house of cards, Senator Obama was taking their money. He got more, in fact, than any other member of Congress, except for the Democratic chairmen of the committee that oversees them. And while Fannie Mae was betraying the public trust, somehow its former CEO had managed to gain my opponent's trust to the point that Senator Obama actually put him in charge of his vice presidential search.

This CEO, Mr. Johnson, walked off with tens of millions of dollars in salary and bonuses for services rendered to Fannie Mae, even after authorities discovered accounting improprieties that padded his compensation. Another CEO for Fannie Mae, Mr. Raines, has been advising Senator Obama on housing policy. This even after Fannie Mae was found to have committed quote "extensive financial fraud" under his leadership. Like Mr. Johnson, Mr. Raines walked away with tens of millions of dollars.

Senator Obama may be taking their advice and he may be taking their money, but in a McCain-Palin administration, there will be no seat for these people at the policy-making table. They won't even get past the front gate at the White House.

My friends, this is the problem with Washington. People like Senator Obama have been too busy gaming the system and haven't ever done a thing to actually challenge the system.

We've heard a lot of words from Senator Obama over the course of this campaign. But maybe just this once he could spare us the lectures, and admit to his own poor judgment in contributing to these problems. The crisis on Wall Street started in the Washington culture of lobbying and influence peddling, and he was square in the middle of it.

The financial services industry -- and there are many honest and honorable people who work in it -- plays a vital role in our economy. Mutual fund companies help Americans save for retirement. Banks and lending companies provide the mortgages that help us buy our homes. Investment firms supply the seed money that helps entrepreneurs create tomorrow's jobs. Insurance companies protect us against unknown risks.

Yet as the financial crisis continues and bailouts and bankruptcies mount, it's clear financial firms have lost the trust of the American people. That trust cannot be regained unless we adopt some fundamental reforms. Government has a clear responsibility to act and to defend the public interest. That is exactly what I intend to do.

First, to deal with the immediate crisis, I will lead in the creation of the Mortgage and Financial Institutions trust -- the MFI. The underlying principle of the MFI or any approach considered by Congress should be to keep people in their homes and safe guard the life savings of all Americans by protecting our financial system and capital markets. This trust will work with the private sector and regulators to identify institutions that are weak and fix them before they become insolvent. The MFI is an early intervention program to help financial institutions avoid bankruptcy, expensive bailouts and damage to their customers. This will get the Treasury and other financial regulatory authorities in a proactive position instead of reacting in a crisis mode to one situation after another.

The MFI will restore investor and market confidence, build sound financial institutions, assist troubled institutions and protect our financial system while minimizing taxpayer exposure. This is an important step, but it is not enough. I will also take the additional actions needed to make sure a crisis like this is never allowed to build and break over the American people again.

Second, I will propose and sign into law reforms to prevent financial firms from concealing their bad practices. An inexcusable lack of financial transparency allowed Wall Street firms to engage in reckless behavior that padded their profits and fattened executive bonuses when times were good, but now imperil the financial security of millions of Americans when their bets turned sour.

So much of the damage to our economy could have been avoided if these practices had been exposed to the light of day. Americans have a right to know when their jobs, pensions, IRAs, investments, and our whole economy are being put at risk by the recklessness of Wall Street. And under my reforms for the financial sector, that fundamental right will be protected.

Third, we need regulatory clarity. The lack of transparency in our financial markets went unnoticed by the regulatory agencies scattered throughout Washington charged with protecting the common good. We've got the SEC, the FDIC, the CFTC, the SIPC, the OCC, the Fed. At best, this confusing assortment of regulators and institutions was egregiously lax in carrying out their responsibilities. At worst, they engaged in the old Washington game of guarding their bureaucratic turf, instead of safeguarding the public interest and protecting investors.

Many in the financial services industry also either forgot or neglected their duty to act ethically and honorably. This shortcoming was aided and abetted by the creation of financial instruments that allowed lenders to escape any responsibility for the risk of their loans. In the past, lenders had to pay a price if they made a bad loan. Today, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac worked with Wall Street to bundle together all these dicey subprime loans and then pushed them off on investors who didn't have the tools of transparency needed to assess or even understand the risk.

The current system promotes confusion, encourages bureaucratic infighting and creates incentives for financial firms to cut corners. We need to enhance regulatory clarity by holding the same financial activity to one regulatory standard. We don't need a dozen federal agencies doing the job badly -- we need the best federal agencies to do the job right.

Fourth, we must ensure that consumers and investors are protected. Our regulatory system must protect consumers and investors by punishing individuals who engage in fraud, break contracts, or lie to customers -- like the predatory lenders who know you can't afford an adjustable rate mortgage, but mislead you into signing one. These actions are criminal and the people who commit them should be behind bars. And corporate governance rules will be reformed so that shareholders have a clear say in determining the pay of CEOs and other senior executives. On my watch, the consequences for corporate abuse will not be more enrichment, but more likely an indictment.

Fifth, in cases where failing companies seek taxpayer bailouts, the Treasury Department will follow consistent policies in deciding whether to guarantee loans. It must have well developed remedies for a financial crisis. With billions of dollars in public money at stake, it will not do to keep making it up as we go along.

Finally, the Federal Reserve should get back to its core business of responsibly managing our money supply and inflation. It needs to get out of the business of bailouts. The Fed needs to return to protecting the purchasing power of the dollar. A strong dollar will reduce energy and food prices. It will stimulate sustainable economic growth and get this economy moving again.

All of these measures will calm and help us to avoid future panics and disasters in the financial markets. But to get through this tough time for America, and to come out stronger, we need a strategy of economic growth. And the massive new tax burden that my opponent plans for the American economy is exactly the wrong answer. His tax increase -- along with the enormous new federal programs he proposes -- are the surest way to turn a recession into a depression. In every respect, the Obama tax hikes would make things even worse for the working people of this country.

I have proposed, and will sign into law, an economic recovery plan for working Americans that is directed to the middle class. It will grow this economy, create millions of jobs and bring opportunity back to Americans. You will get a tax policy that creates family prosperity and allows you to save for the future. I will not raise your taxes on income or investments. And we will simplify the tax code so people can understand it and do their tax returns themselves.

I will give every family a $5,000 credit to buy their own health insurance policy and let them chose their own doctor. This will make insurance affordable to every American.

I will double the child exemption from $3,500 to $7,000 to help families pay for the rising cost of living.

Under my plan, a married couple with two children making $35,000 will get $5,000 to pay for health insurance and additional medical expenses. This family would get another $1,050 from my child exemption. That adds up to over $6,000. That is a lot more than what any hardworking middle class family, gets under the Obama plan.

Business taxes will be cut from the second highest in the world at 35 percent to 25 percent. Tax incentives will spur investment in new plants and equipment. Research and development incentives will keep companies on the cutting edge of their industries. Healthcare costs will diminish. Companies will stop sending jobs overseas to low-cost, low-tax countries and start creating jobs here in America.

I will expand markets for our goods and services. A one in five of all jobs in this country are linked to world trade. In five states alone Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Colorado over 5 million jobs depend on trade. My economic recovery plan will create millions of jobs in America instead of driving them overseas.

I will adopt an "all of the above" energy policy which expands our use of oil, natural gas, clean coal and nuclear facilities. We will embark on a national mission to build an alternative energy base, creating millions of new jobs. We will create the most diversified energy economy in the world. And, I will return to the American economy the $700 billion dollars we send overseas every year to buy oil.

My opponent offers a very different economic future. He has continuously shifted his position on taxes. At the beginning of this campaign he promised to raise taxes on your savings and investments. He said he won't raise taxes for most people but he has voted 94 times in his short Senate career for tax increases and against tax cuts. He said he would only tax the rich, but he voted this year to raise taxes on those making just $42,000. Senator Obama has simply not given Americans good reason to trust him with your tax dollars.

My opponent is against lowering taxes on businesses which are the second highest in the world. He will impose mandated health insurance on businesses that would cost up to $12,000 per employee. He opposes free trade. He also wants to take away the fundamental right of workers to have a secret ballot when voting to be part of a union.

Now is not the time for these destructive policies that will cripple business growth, destroy jobs and hurt the middle class. Now is the time to take action to address this crisis and take action to put our economy back on a path of growth.

Even though Democratic leaders say they don't know what to do, I believe the deep problems afflicting our financial system won't be solved by one political party. There is only one candidate in this race who has a record of reaching across the aisle to work out the bipartisan solutions needed to move our country forward in times of crisis -- and I will bring that same spirit of bipartisan cooperation to the White House. It took members of both parties to get America into this mess, and it will take all of us, working together, to lead the way out.

Thank you.

Obama Backs Paulson and Bernanke on Emergency Economic Plan

Sen. Barack Obama, speaking in Coral Gables, Fla., this morning, said he "fully support the efforts of [Treasury] Secretary [Henry] Paulson and [Fed Chief] Ben Bernanke to work in a bipartisan manner with Congress to find a solution" to the current financial crisis.

Obama asked for bipartisan support from Sen. John McCain and President Bush for an emergency economic plan to help families with energy costs and for "retooling assistance for America’s auto industry." In his statement, he offered four principles he said he would like to see from the Treasury and the Fed: That it helps "main street" as well as Wall Street; that it be fair, and not reward particular companies; that it be temporary; and that it be coordinated internationally.

Here are his prepared remarks:

We are facing one of the most serious financial crises in this nation’s history. The events of the last week – from the failure of Lehman to the bailout of AIG to the continued volatility of the market – have not just threatened the trading floors and high-rises of Wall Street, but the stability and security of our entire global economy. Across this country, Americans are worried about whether they can make their mortgage payments, or keep their jobs, or ensure that their retirement is secure. Truly, we are all in this together.

Our government and the Federal Reserve have already taken unprecedented action to prevent a deepening of this crisis that could jeopardize the life savings and well-being of millions of Americans. But it is now clear that even bolder and more decisive action is necessary.

In recent years, I have outlined plans that would have helped prevent the problems we now face, and yesterday I proposed the outlines of a plan that would establish a more stable and permanent solution to strengthen our financial system. Today, I fully support the effort of Secretary Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke to work in a bipartisan spirit with Congress to find this kind of solution.

What we’re looking at right now is to provide the Treasury and the Federal Reserve with as broad authority as necessary to stabilize markets and maintain credit. We need a more institutional response to create a system that can manage some of the underlying problems with bad mortgages, help homeowners stay in their homes, protect the retirement and savings of working Americans.

In the coming days, I will more closely examine the details of the Treasury and Fed proposal, and as I do, I’ll work to ensure that it provides an effective emergency response by including four basic principles that my economic advisers and I just discussed this morning.

First, we cannot only have a plan for Wall Street. We must also help Main Street as well. I’m glad that our government is moving so quickly in addressing the crisis that threatens some of our biggest banks and corporations. But a similar crisis has threatened families, workers and homeowners for months and months and Washington has done far too little to help.

For too long, this Administration has been willing to hit the fast-forward button in helping distressed Wall Street firms while pressing pause when it comes to saving jobs or keeping people in their homes. We already know that the credit crisis that has emerged from our largest financial institutions is becoming a credit crunch for small business owners, homeowners, and students seeking loans in big cities and small towns. Now that American taxpayers are being called on to share in this new burden, we must take equally swift and serious action to help lift the burdens they face every day.

In the same bipartisan spirit that is being shown with regard to the crisis on Wall Street, I ask Senator McCain, President Bush, Republicans and Democrats to join me in supporting an emergency economic plan for working families – a plan that would help folks cope with rising gas and food prices, spark job creation through repair of our schools and roads, help states and cities avoid painful budget cuts and tax increases, help homeowners stay in their homes, and provide retooling assistance for America’s auto industry. John McCain and I can continue to argue about our different economic agendas for next year, but we should come together now to work on what this country urgently needs this year.

The second principle I would like to see in the emerging plan from the Treasury and the Fed is that our approach should be one of mutual responsibility and reciprocity. It must not be designed to reward particular companies or the irresponsible decisions of borrowers or lenders. It must not be designed to enhance the personal gain of CEOs and management. The recklessness of some of these executives has helped cause this mess, even as they walk away with multimillion dollar golden parachutes while taxpayers are left holding the bag. As taxpayers are asked to take extraordinary steps to protect our financial system, it is only appropriate that those who benefit be expected to contribute to the protection of American homeowners and the American economy. Just as support is not designed to payoff egregious executive compensation, it should not reward those who are ruthlessly foreclosing on American families.

Third, this plan must be temporary and coupled with tough new oversight and regulations of our financial institutions, and there must be a clear process to wind down this plan and restore private sector assets into private sector hands after restoring stability to the system. Taxpayers must share in any upside benefit that such stability brings.

Fourth, this plan should be part of a globally coordinated effort with our partners in the G-20. This is a worldwide issue, and while the United States can and will lead in stabilizing the credit markets, we should ask other nations, who share in this crisis, to be part of the solution as well.

One last point. We did not arrive at this crisis by some accident of history. What led us to this point was years and years of a philosophy in Washington and on Wall Street that viewed even common-sense regulation and oversight as unwise and unnecessary; that shredded consumer protections and loosened the rules of the road. CEOs and executives got reckless. Lobbyists got what they wanted. Politicians in both parties looked the other way until it was too late. And it is the American people who have paid the price. The events of this week have rendered a final verdict on that failed philosophy, and it will end if I am President of the United States. We must build upon the ideas I have laid out over the last several years about how to modernize our financial regulation in this country, and establish commonsense rules of the road for our financial system to help restore confidence in our financial system.

Finally, given the gravity of this situation, and based on conversations I have had with both Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke, I will refrain from presenting a more detailed blue-print of how an immediate plan might be structured until I can fully review the details of the plan proposed by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. It is critical at this point that the markets and the public have confidence that their work will be unimpeded by partisan wrangling, and that leaders in both parties work in concert to solve the problem at hand.

I know these are difficult days. And I know there are a lot of families out there right now who are feeling anxiety – about their jobs, about their homes, about their retirement savings. But here’s what I also know. This isn’t a time for fear or panic. This is a time for resolve and for leadership. I know we can steer ourselves out of this crisis. That’s who we are. That’s what we’ve always done as Americans. Our nation has faced difficult times before. And at each of those moments, we’ve risen to meet the challenges as one people, and one nation. That is the America we need to be and can be today.

Dow Up More Than 400 Points at Opening Bell

The Dow Jones Industrial Average continued its roaring rebound this morning, opening 409.71 points in the first 15 minutes of trading today. The S&P 500 jumped up 52.79 points in that time as well.

Bloomberg's market chart is here.

"The ban on the short sales is what's having the immediate impact on the market. That should calm the market down," Paul Mendelsohn, chief investment strategist at Windham Financial Services in Charlotte, Vt., told Reuters. "Anybody who has been shorting these financial stocks is going to get burnt in here. What authorities are trying to do is just buy enough time for the market to settle down and for the details of the Paulson plan to be understood, how long it would take to implement and what it means for the banks."

Limbaugh Fires Back at Obama for Quotes in Ad

There has been a back-and-forth between the Obama campaign and Rush Limbaugh that was started when Sen. Barack Obama released an advertisement that used some of Limbaugh's quotes concerning NAFTA and immigration.

Here is the commercial, which is in Spanish:

Here is the English translation from The Associated Press:

English translation of "Dos Caras," or "Two Faces": Obama: "I'm Barack Obama and I approved this message." Announcer: "They want us to forget the insults we've put up with, the intolerance. They made us feel marginalized in a country we love so much. John McCain and his Republican friends have two faces. One tells lies just to get our vote, and the other, even worse, continues the failed policies of George Bush, putting the interests of powerful groups above working families. John McCain, more of the same Republican deceptions."

The "Two Faces" ad aired by the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee shows photos of immigrants as a picture of Limbaugh appears at the bottom of the screen. Limbaugh is quoted in text as saying, "Mexicans stupid and unqualified" and "Shut your mouth or get out!" As the announcer speaks of Republicans with two faces, a Spanish newspaper headline appears: "They caused the failure of immigration reform." Photos of McCain with President Bush appear.

Here is Limbaugh in April 2006, where the quote on immigration was taken:

And here is Limbaugh's response today in The Wall Street Journal:

And more to the point, these sound bites are a deception, and Mr. Obama knows it. The first sound bite was extracted from a 1993 humorous monologue poking fun at the arguments against the North American Free Trade Agreement. Here's the context:

"If you are unskilled and uneducated, your job is going south. Skilled workers, educated people are going to do fine 'cause those are the kinds of jobs Nafta is going to create. If we are going to start rewarding no skills and stupid people, I'm serious, let the unskilled jobs that take absolutely no knowledge whatsoever to do -- let stupid and unskilled Mexicans do that work."

My point, which is obvious, was that the people who were criticizing Nafta were demeaning workers, particularly low-skilled workers. I was criticizing the mind-set of the protectionists who opposed the treaty. There was no racial connotation to it and no one thought there was at the time. I was demeaning the arguments of the opponents.

As for the second sound bite, I was mocking the Mexican government's double standard -- i.e., urging open borders in this country while imposing draconian immigration requirements within its own borders. Thus, I took the restrictions Mexico imposes on immigrants and appropriated them as my own suggestions for a new immigration law.

Here's the context for that sound bite: "And another thing: You don't have the right to protest. You're allowed no demonstrations, no foreign flag waving, no political organizing, no bad-mouthing our president or his policies. You're a foreigner: shut your mouth or get out! And if you come here illegally, you're going to jail."

At the time, I made abundantly clear that this was a parody on the Mexican government's hypocrisy and nobody took it otherwise.

The malignant aspect of this is that Mr. Obama and his advisers know exactly what they are doing. They had to listen to both monologues or read the transcripts. They then had to pick the particular excerpts they used in order to create a commercial of distortions. Their hoped-for result is to inflame racial tensions. In doing this, Mr. Obama and his advisers have demonstrated a pernicious contempt for American society.

Huge Gains for Global Markets; SEC Bans Short Selling For Now

Global stock markets showed strong gains today as they responded to the report of a possible U.S. government plan to rescue banks from huge mortgage debt. A temporary ban to short-selling in the United States, Britain and Ireland, also helped fuel the rebound.

Early this morning, the Securities and Exchange Commission, acting in concert with the U.K. Financial Services Authority, today took temporary emergency action to prohibit short selling in financial companies to protect the integrity and quality of the securities market and strengthen investor confidence. The U.K. FSA took similar action yesterday. Here is its announcement.

"The short-term changes to short selling are certainly giving markets and regulators room to breathe," Keith Bowman, equity analyst Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers, told The Associated Press. "But there are going to be a significant number of hurdles to overcome for this temporary measure to prove useful at solving the fundamental problems over the long term."

The European Central Bank, Swiss National Bank and Bank of England announced plans today to offer a combined $90 billion into money markets.

London's FTSE was up 439.50, or 9 percent, at 8:36 a.m. Eastern. In Frankfurt, the DAX index was 312.24 higher, which represents a 5.33 percent increase. Oil prices were slightly above $100 a barrel today, with light, sweet crude for October delivery up $2.16 to $100.04 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by noon in Europe. Overnight, the contract rose 72 cents to settle at $97.88. The euro fell to $1.4221 in European trading from $1.4247 in New York late Thursday. The British pound dropped to $1.8019 from $1.8076, while the dollar rose to 107.40 Japanese yen from 106.19 yen.

Lawyer Says McCain Critics Wrong About President's Power to Fire SEC Chair

Sen. John McCain has been taking some heat for his statement that if he were in the Oval Office right now, he would fire the SEC chairman Christopher Cox. His statement is here:

Keith Olbermann led the charge on his show tonight for the left:

But Daily Standard contributor Adam White, an attorney, writes that McCain's critics are completely wrong:

It's true that the SEC is an "independent agency," and that the statute creating the SEC (specifically, Section 4 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934) doesn't expressly state that the president can fire SEC commissioners. But the law on this point is well settled: As the D.C. Circuit reiterated as recently as last month, in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, 537 F.3d 667, 668-69 (D.C. Cir. 2008), "[m]embers of the Commission, in turn, are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate and subject to removal by the President for cause; its chairman is selected by and serves at the pleasure of the President."

The courts have never said that Congress can completely prevent a president from firing officials of an independent agency. At best, Congress can limit the president to firing such officials only "for cause," and the term "for cause" is generally interpreted pretty broadly.

Todd Palin Refuses to Tesify in 'Troopergate' Probe

Todd Palin, husband of GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, has refused to testify in the investigation of his wife's alleged abuse of power in a case involving their former brother-in-law. Lawmakers in Alaska said late Thursday that without the testimony of some key witnesses, the investigation will potentially be delayed until after Election Day.

The Alaska Legislature subpoenaed 13 people in the case, but not the governor. Palin's lawyer, Thomas Van Flein, announced in a letter to investigators that Todd Palin would not testify Friday.

"The objections boil down to the fact that the Legislative Council investigation is no longer a legitimate investigation because it has been subjected to complete partisanship and does not operate with the authority that it had at the time of its initial authorization," McCain-Palin presidential campaign spokesman Ed O'Callaghan said, reported The Associated Press.

Alaska State Sen. Bill Wielechowski, a Democrat, told AP that the McCain campaign is working hard to prevent the Legislature from completing its job. AP reported that Wielechowski said the witnesses can avoid testifying for months without penalty and that court action to force them to appear sooner is unlikely.

Republican Sen. Gene Therriault, who opposed the subpoenas, told AP, "If we had turned the rhetoric down and turned the pressure down to do some things we might have gotten voluntary cooperation."

FOX: Hacker Attacked Palin's Family, Staff E-mail Accounts

FOX News is reporting that the hacker who invaded Gov. Sarah Palin's e-mail account also targeted her family and staff.

“Yesterday, the Department received a referral alleging that the personal e-mail accounts of Gov. Sarah Palin, her staff, and her family had been unlawfully hacked. The Department is reviewing the matter,” Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney told Jana Winter of FOX today.

The hacker who compromised Palin’s account used Ctunnel.com, an Internet proxy site, which renders Web users anonymous, to get into Palin’s e-mail. The site is run by Gabriel Ramuglia, 25, a Web developer from Athens, Ga., who said the hacker left behind revealing clues after posting screen grabs of Palin’s inbox. Ramuglia said he saw the screenshots and recognized his site. He is now working with the FBI to provide agents with his business logs to help identify the criminal.

“I should be able to find out who is involved by going through my logs,” he said. “The FBI called me last night and they wanted to know that the logs weren’t deleted — as long as they weren’t deleted — and they asked me to help, so I’m downloading them.”

There was also continuing speculation as to exactly who was responsible for the attack.

Jose Nazario, a senior security engineer with Arbor Networks Inc., said he knows “through personal contacts” that members of the group Anonymous were involved in the Palin e-mail attack.

He said Anonymous is a loose network of a few dozen people who live in the United States and abroad and range from teenagers to 30-year-olds who share what he said is a “sociopathic sense of humor.”

“Anonymous sort of takes pride in doing this publicly and pissing people off. There are other groups that do this, but they aren’t as public about it,” Nazario said.

Also circulating the Internet is an online confession signed with an e-mail address belonging to David Kernell, 20, from Memphis, Tenn. Kernell, a student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and described on various Web sites as a fan of chess and online gaming, is the son of Democratic state representative Mike Kernell.

Mike Kernell told FOX News that he wasn’t aware of any investigation of his son.

The confession read: “i am the lurker who did it, and i would like to tell the story.” It continued to say that what started as a prank was cut short because of panic over the possibility the FBI might investigate, the hacker wrote.

Biden: Paying Higher Taxes Is Patriotic

Sen. Joe Biden, in reaching deep into a page from the traditional Democratic playbook that was once used by Walter Mondale, said on two occasions today that paying higher taxes is patriotic.

Perry Bacon Jr. of The Washington Post described his comments this way from Arkon, Ohio:

"Wealthy people are just as patriotic as poor people, we just have not asked anything of them," Biden said at small event with labor activists here. "John McCain is making fun of the fact that I said paying taxes is patriotic."

Repeating his remark that he tells people worried up about higher taxes, "It's time to be patriotic," Biden added: "We have no problem, sending our kids -- 1 percent of us -- sending our kids to war. We have no problem sending National Guard folks, two, three and four times" to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Earlier in the day, while appearing on ABC's "Good Morning America," Biden said, "It's time to be patriotic ... time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut."

The Obama campaign has in the past said if the senator from Illinois is elected, only those earning more than $250,000 a year would experience a tax increase.

Gov. Sarah Palin had the Republican response later in the day in Cedar Rapids, Iowa:

"Raising taxes is about killing jobs and hurting small businesses and making things worse."

The McCain campaign introduced a new television ad today saying that Obama would increase the size of the federal government amid an economic crisis. "A big government casts a big shadow on us all," a voice over states in the ad, which features the image of a shadow slowly covering a sleeping baby as it describes McCain's thoughts of an Obama tax increase.

"Obama and his liberal congressional allies want a massive government, billions in spending increases, wasteful pork," the ad says. "And we would pay — painful income taxes, skyrocketing taxes on life savings, electricity and home heating oil. Can your family afford that?"

Stocks Soar 617 Points From Day's Low on Paulson's Resolution Trust Corp. Plan

Stock traders were euphoric yesterday after a CNBC reported late Thursday afternoon that that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is considering creating an entity like the Resolution Trust Corp., which was formed after the failure of savings and loan banks in the 1980s, to stabilize the financial markets. Stocks immediately rallied, posting the largest gain in six years.

Elizabeth Stanton of Bloomberg reported tonight:

Traders erupted into cheers on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange as the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 617 points from its low of the day after Senator Charles Schumer proposed a new agency to pump capital into financial companies. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index climbed 4.3 percent as 68 companies in the gauge rose more than 10 percent.

Wachovia Corp. soared 59 percent, Citigroup Inc. added 19 percent and Bank of America Corp. jumped 12 percent, sending the KBW Bank Index to its biggest gain since July. Morgan Stanley erased a 46 percent tumble and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. recovered most of a 25 percent slide after the nation's three largest pension funds stopped loaning shares of the brokerages to investors betting on their declines.

"Any actions regulators or other entities or players take to try to slow down the bear raids will be received positively," said David Katz, chief investment officer of Matrix Asset Advisors in New York, which manages $1.4 billion. "There's no reason a Goldman Sachs or a Morgan Stanley should be forced to sell themselves in a shotgun wedding if they've got economic models that work, and they do."

The S&P 500 advanced 50.12 points to 1,206.51, recovering most of yesterday's 4.7 percent tumble. The Dow surged 410.03, or 3.9 percent, to 11,019.69. Both the S&P 500 and Dow posted their biggest percentage gains since October 2002. The Nasdaq Composite Index jumped 100.25, or 4.8 percent, to 2,199.1. Seven stocks climbed for each that fell on the NYSE, its broadest rally since April.

The Chicago Tribune described a resolution trust corporation this way:

The best solution appears to be the creation of a new Resolution Trust Corporation. This was the mechanism used to resolve the savings and loans crisis approximately 15 years ago. The trust could either buy selected distressed assets through fair and transparent prices or create an orderly market for the disposition of assets from failed institutions. This would hopefully stabilize the market for mortgages and distressed assets. It would be designed to stop the current fire sales of assets which have a snowball effect as relatively healthy institutions mark their assets to lower and lower levels pushing more financial companies to the point of bankruptcy. Badly needed confidence would be restored.

Richard Cowan and Kevin Drawbaugh of Reuters elaborated on the Paulson proposal, and one by Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) :

A possible federal plan to calm financial markets and address the housing crisis began to take shape on Thursday, with rival proposals from U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Sen. Charles Schumer.

Paulson has been talking with congressional leaders about possibly setting up a federal agency to deal with the broken mortgage debt instruments that are choking global capital markets, said a congressional aide and a lobbyist.

"It's a modernized version of the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC), which was used after the S&L crisis," said the aide, declining to be further identified.

Schumer offered a different idea in a speech urging that future federal capital infusions for banks be conditioned on their making loan modifications and other terms.

The New York Democrat proposed setting up a federal agency that would "provide capital to struggling financial institutions in exchange for an equity stake in the banks," similar to the Depression-era Reconstruction Finance Corp (RFC).

As Campaign Gets Uglier by the Hour, Obama Urges Supporters to Argue and Get Into Neighbors' Faces

A month ago, the American people were being told by both Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain that they should look forward to a campaign that emphasised issues and reject the negativity that marked recent presidential elections. Both campaigns had grabbed the mantra of offering a change in politics, and the way Washington does business.

Well, forget about it.

Both sides are snapping at each other, and on a very personal level. With about 46 days until we go to the polls, it has started to become a bloodbath. The trend starts at the top.

Today, Obama urged is supporters to get angry with McCain supporters on a personal level. Literally, urging hand-to-hand combat among neighbors. Kathleen Hennessey of The Associated Press reports this afternoon:

In Elko, Obama tried to anticipate his critics and called on the crowd of about 1,500 to sharpen their elbows, too.

"I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face," he said.

"And if they tell you that, 'Well, we're not sure where he stands on guns.' I want you to say, 'He believes in the Second Amendment.' If they tell you, 'Well, he's going to raise your taxes,' you say, 'No, he's not, he's going lower them.' You are my ambassadors. You guys are the ones who can make the case."

The nastiness doesn't start or end there. In the same AP report, McCain is quoted as saying Obama isn't interested in the country's future, he's interested in his future.

"Let's have some straight talk: Sen. Obama is not interested in the politics of hope; he's interested in his future. That's why he's hurling insults," McCain said as he and running mate Sarah Palin addressed a rally in Ohio.

But wait, there's more. While it's pretty ugly on the campaign trail, it gets worse among the hardcore supporters.

For instance, as we all know by now, an Obama supporter has hacked into Sarah Palin's private email account and through a sympathetic web site released her personal messages, family photos and her address book with contact information. Most, probably 99.9999999 percent of Americans both Democrat and Republican, would find this as an awful invasion of privacy. But there are vocal Obama supporters who are positively gleeful over this act of personal vandalism.

For example, David Lester Young writes in a blog on Democrats.org:

Now she know how it feels to have people in government as our political leaders to hack "At Will" into Confidential Personnel Files and Confidential Workman Comp files of Palin subordinates for the reason to Terminate them. That a innocent state employee got Terminated for opposing her "At Will" authority.

What an irony this is. She is getting the treatment she used that her Ethnic Lawyer warned her would have grave concerns.

If they prosecute the hackers it will be fun in court as they bring them into court, and say they want to be treated like Palin, special.

Not to spend a long time on what "at will" means, but Young doesn't seem to understand that a chief executive has every right to look into a personnel file and/or a Workman's comp file. It's not "hacking" when a chief executive looks into those files. But more importantly, it would seem that anyone who is concerned about civil liberties and privacy issues would be in an uproar about this, even to the point where they would defend someone who stands across the political fence. Unfortunately, for some on the left, winning is everything. And if it means putting aside your fundamental belief system in order to hurt a political adversary, so be it. For some liberals, civil liberties and privacy only matter if you are on the left. Those on the right are fair game.

If Palin can survive the next 47 days as the left throws everything at her, legal or not, then she is more than qualified to be "one heartbeat away" from the Oval Office. Nobody deserves the treatment she is getting. And it's only going to go downhill from here.

This campaign is getting scary. As long as Obama and McCain give their supporters the green light to attack by any means possible, even to the point where neighbors are urged to "get into the face" of neighbors, we are going to see a true bloodsport over the next few weeks on a very personal level.

Dow Regaining Ground; Oil Tops $100 a Barrel, Then Slides Back

Wall Street is fighting back after yesterday's nearly 450 point loss in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. At 2:27 p.m. Eastern, the Dow was up 35.99 points, or 0.34 percent, to 10,645.65 from today's opening bell. The Dow was up more than 150 points earlier in the day. The S&P 500 is posting a similar gain of 3.51 points, or 0.30 percent, to 1,159.90.

Oil is making a rebound. Light, sweet crude for October delivery was up above $100 a barrel earlier today, but has settled down to about $96. Overall, it has been creeping upward in the past couple days.

There are a few key reasons for the increased prices in oil. First, the shaky financial markets around the globe will push oil higher as investors shy away from equities and look at commodities. Then there was Hurricane Ike, which temporarily shut down oil production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Houston area.

Jad Mouawad of The New York Times writes this afternoon:

Caught in wild and gyrating markets, crude oil prices briefly returned into the triple-digit territory on Thursday morning, but pared all of their gains by mid-morning to fall back below $100 a barrel.

Crude oil futures jumped above $102 after trading opened on the New York Mercantile Exchange, but then dropped to around $96.50 a barrel. The fall followed a 6.6 percent jump on Wednesday when panicky investors fled the stock market to seek shelter in the perceived safety of commodities.

After six months in the triple-digits, oil prices had slumped earlier in the week because of concerns that the financial turmoil on Wall Street would slow economic growth and hurt oil demand. Prices, which had fallen to $91.51 a barrel on Tuesday, have since made up some of their losses.

The Associated Press reports this morning:

"Oil is not viewed as safe a haven as gold, but investors consider it safer than equities," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with consultancy Gertz & Purvin in Singapore. "If these financial troubles lead to a world recession however, that's going to affect demand big-time."

Finally, there is another news story that is affecting the price of oil. An oil war has started in the past week in Nigeria. Given the recent high-profile events, this has seen little play in the media. But Karl Maier and Dulue Mbachu of Bloomberg are on top of the current situation in that African country in a report filed this morning:

Nigeria's main militant group in the Niger River delta intensified its "oil war" for a fifth day, claiming to have destroyed an oil-pumping station and a pipeline operated by a unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, in an e-mailed statement today, said it attacked the Orubiri pumping station in Rivers state at 10 p.m. yesterday. A Nigerian military spokesman confirmed the raid. MEND later said it destroyed an oil pipeline at Rumuekpe, also in Rivers state.

"The political mood in the capital Abuja is shifting away from negotiation and dialogue towards a tough military response," Antony Goldman, an independent analyst specializing in Nigeria, said by phone from London. "If militants can take the violence beyond Rivers, it will represent a setback for what appears to be the military's new strategy."

Attacks by armed groups in the Niger delta region have cut more than 20 percent of Nigeria's crude exports since 2006. Nigeria was Africa's top oil producer last month.

Palin's E-Mail Account Hacked; Private Images, Messages Published on Web

In a new low this presidential election season, a group of hackers has broken into the Republican vice presidential candidate Gov. Sarah Palin’s private e-mail account, and a Web site has published screen grabs from it. The site, which I refuse to name or link to, posts family photos and snapshots of e-mail exchanges the Alaska governor had with colleagues. The email account apparently has been shut down, but the web site vows to keep the images up on its site for all to see.

FOX News reports:

“Here are the screenshots of the emails saved before the account went dark, along with the contact list. It’s newsworthy and we will not be taking it down!” the site declares.

Rick Davis, campaign manager for John McCain, released a statement calling the publication a “shocking invasion of the governor’s privacy and a violation of law.”

“The matter has been turned over to the appropriate authorities and we hope that anyone in possession of these e-mails will destroy them. We will have no further comment,” Davis said.

The article boasts about the lengths to which the reporter went to verify the account, saying he or she even called a phone number listed for Palin’s teenage daughter, Bristol, which apparently went to her voicemail. The site also listed dozens of contact e-mails from the account.

I won't even link to this because it's a terrible violation of privacy. But this is how the web site introduced its garbage on its main page:

Did the internet just cause Sarah Palin to destroy evidence? The potential Veep is in a bit of trouble for conducting state business using her personal, unarchived email address (gov.sarah@yahoo.com) instead of her official account (which is, of course, subject to laws requiring the retention of government records). Emails from that Yahoo account are already being sought in connection with the Troopergate investigation. Now comes word that Anonymous, the fun-loving Internet trouble-makers based loosely around the message board 4Chan, gained access to another Palin email account: gov.palin@yahoo.com. It looks legit! The offending posts, screenshots, heretofore unseen family photos, and emails have all been deleted from Imageshack and 4Chan. But we have them. You want to read Sarah Palin's email?

"Fun-loving" trouble-makers? This is the scum of the earth. What's amazing are all the idiots on the web posting comments on the blogs about how she deserved it.

Fed Steps in With $85 Billion Rescue of AIG

The Federal Reserve officially announced late last night that it would provide a $85 billion rescue loan for American International Group in a move that it hoped would save the the insurance giant from bankruptcy as well as calm fears of a meltdown on financial markets.

Here is the text of the Fed's statement:

"The Federal Reserve Board on Tuesday, with the full support of the Treasury Department, authorized the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to lend up to 85 billion dollars to the American International Group (AIG) under Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act. The secured loan has terms and conditions designed to protect the interests of the U.S. government and taxpayers.

"The Board determined that, in current circumstances, a disorderly failure of AIG could add to already significant levels of financial market fragility and lead to substantially higher borrowing costs, reduced household wealth and materially weaker economic performance.

"The purpose of this liquidity facility is to assist AIG in meeting its obligations as they come due. This loan will facilitate a process under which AIG will sell certain of its businesses in an orderly manner, with the least possible disruption to the overall economy.

"The AIG facility has a 24-month term. Interest will accrue on the outstanding balance at a rate of three-month Libor plus 850 basis points. AIG will be permitted to draw up to 85 billion dollars under the facility.

"The interests of taxpayers are protected by key terms of the loan. The loan is collateralized by all the assets of AIG, and of its primary non-regulated subsidiaries. These assets include the stock of substantially all of the regulated subsidiaries. The loan is expected to be repaid from the proceeds of the sale of the firm's assets. The US government will receive a 79.9 percent equity interest in AIG and has the right to veto the payment of dividends to common and preferred shareholders.

Cavuto Heats Up on 'O'Reilly Factor' Over Gas Prices

Neil Cavuto got into a heated debate last night with Bill O'Reilly on "The Factor" over high gas prices and whether gas companies are gouging Americans.

Cavuto seemed to get the best of him. Cavuto was trying to explain that O'Reilly isn't giving his viewers the complete picture with the data. He kept his cool while O'Reilly kept raising his voice, at one point having to tell him to lighten up.

I'm a big fan of Neil because we went to St. Bonaventure together, and he gave me my first real newspaper job on the university paper. So I'm a bit biased in his favor, but he won last night hands down.

Hey Olbermann, When Can I Be a Worst Person?

Keith Olbermann spent a full minute last night attacking Kevin D. Williamson of National Review Online for actually posting a comment from a reader who defended Sarah Palin's tanning bed. Most likely, the reader's major crime was using Olbermann's name. But Olbermann was stunned at the audacity of Williamson for using a reader's comment in a blog that questioned his political beliefs; surely Williamson must be the worst person in the world.

He failed to mention to his viewers (who by the way number about a half of Bill O'Reilly's) that Palin actually paid for the tanning bed herself. "She did. She paid for it with her own money," Roger Wetherell, chief communications officer of Alaska's Department of Transportation and Public Facilities told Us.

What does it matter to Olbermann if Palin bought a tanning bed? Would it also be a problem if she had a big-screen plasma TV? Why is this an issue coming from the side that keeps complaining that McCain doesn't stick to issues that matter?

But more importantly, Olbermann usually leaves his condescending remarks to his political opponents, which as a commentator is perfectly fine. He is paid to advance his political viewpoint. But usually the targets of his comments are big boys (and gals) who have the ways and means to refute his opinions if they feel it's necessary. The usual winner of his "Worst Person in the World" segment is O'Reilly, who has plenty of opportunity to defend himself on radio and TV.

Going after the real media players or big-time politicans is one thing, but to lash out at a comment posted on a blog? Gee, I allow comments on my blog, and some of them disagree with Olbermann. I better watch out, I guess I'm could be the next "Worst Person in the World."

Pelosi to Investigate Bush's Role in Wall Street Crisis

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has set into motion a broad, swift investigation of Wall Street, and will demand testimony during the presidential campaign from Bush administration officials and financial leaders, congressional officials have told Mike Allen of Politico tonight.

Excerpts of Allen's report are as follows:

House Democrats plan to aggressively look at the administration’s role in the meltdown over the weekend and to explore further regulation and government structures that would be taken up under the new president.

Republican aides accused Democrats of trying to shift blame with a series of “show trials,” but acknowledged that key officials will wind up cooperating.

The hearings will take place over the next few weeks, the officials said. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who regularly appears on Capitol Hill, will be called to testify as part of the investigation.

As the main event, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), chairman of the House oversight committee, wrote to Richard Fuld, chief executive of the imploded Lehman Brothers, to ask him to appear on Capitol Hill on Sept. 25.

“The hearing will examine the regulatory mistakes and financial excesses that led to yesterday's bankruptcy filing by Lehman Brothers,” Waxman wrote. “The committee will also explore the impacts of the Lehman bankruptcy on financial markets and the United
Separately, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, plans a forward-looking hearing with economists on Wednesday to “begin a conversation about where we go with the capital markets,” a House aide said.

Earlier on MSNBC, Pelosi had said that Democrats have no responsibility in causing the crisis, and that is was completely the fault of the Republicans.

Casey Anthony Out on Bail Once Again

Casey Anthony, the 22-year-old mother of missing Orlando child Caylee Anthony, was released from jail on Tuesday, shortly after appearing before a judge on new charges unrelated to the little girl's disappearance.

Anthony, 22, posted the $1,250 bond and left for home, where she'll remain on house arrest with an electronic ankle monitor. The new charges accuse her of stealing checks and petty theft.

She showed no emotion during the two-minute hearing, and told the judge that she understood the latest charges against her. Her attorney, Jose Baez, criticized police after the hearing, saying he isn't afraid of police and won't back down.

NY Times: Fed Readies $85 Billion AIG Loan for an 80 Percent Stake

Citing unnamed sources who were briefed on the negotiations, the Federal Reserve was close to a deal Tuesday night to take a nearly 80 percent stake in the troubled giant insurance company, the American International Group, in exchange for an $85 billion loan, Michael J. de la Merced and Eric Dash of The New York Times are reporting tonight.

All of A.I.G.’s assets would be pledged to secure the loan, these people said, and in return, the Fed would receive warrants that could be exchanged for an ownership stake. Stock of existing shareholders would be diluted, but not wiped out.

A person briefed on the matter said the agreement does not require shareholder approval.

If the Fed takes a controlling stake, it is likely that it would want to replace A.I.G.’s board as well as its chief executive and chairman, Robert B. Willumstad.

The Fed’s action came after Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson and Ben S. Bernanke, president of the Federal Reserve, went to Capitol Hill on Tuesday night to meet with House and Senate leaders. Mr. Paulson called the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, about 5 p.m. and asked for a meeting in the Senate leader’s office, which began about 6:30 p.m.

The Federal Reserve and Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase had been trying to arrange a $75 billion loan for A.I.G. to stave off the financial crisis caused by complex debt securities and credit default swaps. The Federal Reserve stepped in after it became clear Tuesday afternoon that the banking consortium could not be able to complete the deal in time.

It's Katie Couric's Turn to Interview Sarah Palin

CBS has announced that Katie Couric will spend two days on the campaign trail with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin on Sept. 28 and Sept. 29.

During that time she will conduct an exclusive interview to be broadcast on the "CBS Evening News With Katie Couric" starting on the broadcast of the 29th.

Coverage will continue on Sept. 30 on "The Early Show" and CBSNews.com.

CBS says coverage of Couric's time with Palin will include behind-the-scenes access, and with Sen. John McCain as they campaign together in battleground states.

So, first ABC, then CBS. No word on why NBC is out of the mix so far. Could it have anything to do with Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and the rest of the MSNBC's blend of politics and news?

Biden and Wife Average $369 a Year in Charitable Giving

Democrat vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden and his wife reported giving a fraction of 1 percent of their income to charity during the past decade, below the national average, Bloomberg reports. A Biden spokesman said the couple has given more to charity than they claimed on their taxes.

Ryan J. Donmoyer of Bloomberg writes:

Biden and his wife, Jill, earned $319,853 in adjusted gross income and paid $72,787 in federal taxes last year, including $2,721 in alternative minimum taxes. They claimed $995 in deductions for charitable giving, about triple what they deducted in any of the nine previous years. Over the past decade they reported giving an average of $369 to charity.

Their deductions for charitable giving -- about two-tenths of 1 percent of their income -- is lower than the national average of about 3.1 percent, according to JustGive.org, a nonprofit organization that connects donors with charities.

"That lack of charitable giving at that level of income would definitely be outside the range of what we say is normal," said Russell James, a professor at the University of Georgia who researches charitable giving.

Pelosi: Democrats Are Innocent of Any Blame in Financial Crisis, It's All GOP's Fault

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, appearing on MSNBC today, said the Democrats had no role in the current financial crisis, and that all the blame belongs to President Bush and the rest of the Republican Party.

“I think the American people have had it with this situation where the middle-income people in our country are not protected from the ramifications of the risk-taking and the greed of these financial institutions,” Pelosi told MSNBC.

When asked whether the Democrats “deserve some responsibility” regarding the economic crisis, Pelosi responded: “No.”

“John McCain said that this is a result of overregulation by the Democrats in Congress,” she added. “Either he doesn’t know what he's talking about or he’s misrepresenting the facts as he knows them. But it’s simply not true.”

Dow Ends Wild Day Up About 141 Points

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished a chaotic day with a preliminary result of 141.51 points, or 1.3 percent, ahead of its level at the opening bell. It was a session of wild swings of about 175 points, and it came the day after the index gave away more than 500 points on the news of the troubles with Lehman Brothers and AIG.

At one point in the afternoon, the Dow dropped about 100 pints in minutes after the Federal Reserve announced in Washington it would not change its key interest rate.

Other stock indicators advanced by the end of the day. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was up 20.90 points, or 1.75 percent, to 1,213.60, and the Nasdaq composite index finished trading 27.99 points higher for the day, or 1.28 percent, to 2,207.90. On Monday, the worst day on Wall Street since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the Dow fell 4.4 percent, the S&P surrendered 4.7 percent and the Nasdaq dropped 3.6 percent.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note was up to 3.52 percent from 3.41 percent late Monday. The dollar was mixed against other major currencies. Gold prices fell.

Light, sweet crude for October delivery fell $3.70 to settle at $92.01 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, bringing its two-day decline to $10. Investors feel a slowing economy will crimp demand.

Galveston Stuggles to Recover From Ike's Wrath

Thousands of victims of Hurricane Ike are struggling to get just basic food and water, waiting in lines for up to six hours for the necessities of life. Electricity may not return to homes and businesses for months. The number of distribution centers in southeastern Texas was to be quadrupled to 60.

The Associated Press reports:

"A good bath would be nice: have the fire department swing by and spray us down," said Carlos Silliman, 48, as he sat on a picnic bench in front of his Galveston Island home, where 18 inches of water flooded his garage and ruined a freezer full of venison. "I'm ready to have a cold beer and read the paper."

For most, such luxuries are far beyond the horizon. Many service stations have no gasoline, and some major highways remain under water. More than 30,000 evacuees are still living in nearly 300 public shelters, and roughly 2 million people in Texas alone are without power.

Ike's survivors have already walked for miles and waited for hours at supply distribution centers, gobbling up all that was offered: 1 million bottles of water, 1 million meals and 600,000 pounds of ice in just the first 36 hours after the storm passed.

It's not enough, and those dispatching truck after truck to distribution centers around the city know it. One such center north of Houston drew 10,000 people Monday in search of food and water.

Aerial surveys showed earlier this week most homes on Bolivar Peninsula, where an unknown number of people were trapped during the storm, are destroyed. Galveston County Judge Jim Yarbrough says there are a "hardy bunch" of roughly 250 people still trying to live there, including some "old timers who aren't going to want to leave." Officials there want those residents to leave in order for crews to start cleaning up.

FOX News is reporting this afternoon that people wanting to come back to Galveston are allowed to briefly return to check out their property. Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas on Tuesday announced a "look and leave" re-entry advisory on the island between the hours of 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Central. Galveston residents and business owners must show show photo identification at highway check points under the policy.

Fed Leaves Key Interest Rate Unchanged; Dow Continues to Drops

UPDATE 2:45 p.m. Eastern

The Federal Reserve decided this afternoon to keep its federal funds rate unchanged at 2 percent despite the struggling global financial markets.

Scott Lanman and Craig Torres of Bloomberg reports:

"Downside risks to growth and the upside risk to inflation are both of significant concern," the Federal Open Market Committee said in a statement in Washington. "The committee will monitor economic and financial developments carefully and will act as needed to promote sustainable economic growth and price stability."

Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and his colleagues signaled they will continue to address market turmoil with emergency lending and aim monetary policy at a longer-term economic forecast that may still show the economy skirting a recession. Stocks fell after the decision, while the dollar gained and Treasuries remained higher.

"Tight credit conditions, the ongoing housing contraction, and some slowing in export growth are likely to weigh on economic growth over the next few quarters," the statement said. "Over time, the substantial easing of monetary policy combined with ongoing measures to foster market liquidity, should help to promote moderate economic growth."

The decision was unanimous, the first such agreement in a year.

The markets and the dollar had turned higher in today's trading as investors were anticipating the Fed would cut interest rates to calm worries related to AIG's financial problems. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 19.46 points to 10,936.97 at 2:12 p.m. Eastern. The S&P 500 was up slightly by 0.8 to 1,193.50 at the same time.

But the markets reacted to the Fed's announcement immediately. The Dow fell to 10,826.57 at 2:27 p.m., a 90.94 drop from the opening bell. The S&P 500 fell to 1,180.88 at the same time, a drop of 11.82 from the start of the day.

Rasmussen's Electoral Map Almost Identical to 2004

While most of the media is focusing on the national daily tracking polls, which show a slight or statistically insignificant lead for Sen. John McCain, Rasmussen Reports' electoral map paints a picture of a race that is almost identical to 2004.

According to Rasmussen's polling, Sen. Barack Obama has maintain a lead in every state that Sen. John Kerry won in 2004. It also lists only Iowa as a state that is leaning Democrat this time around, and that is based on a poll that was conducted in August before the conventions. In that poll, Obama had a five-percentage-point advantage. Iowa has seven electoral votes.

Rasmussen says McCain is maintaining an edge in most of the states that were won by President George Bush.

McCain now leads in states with 200 Electoral College votes while Obama is ahead in states with 193 Electoral College votes. When “leaners” are included, it’s Obama 259, McCain 247.

Currently, states with 124 Electoral College votes are leaning slightly in one way or the other. Four states with a total of 32 votes -- Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Virginia -- are pure toss-ups.

Those four states were won by Bush.

BlackBerry Was a Miracle McCain Helped Invent, Campaign Adviser Says

Did he steal this from Al Gore?

Politico's Jonathan Martin, with the help of Amie Parnes, has been blogging this morning about a claim from a John McCain supporter that the Arizona senator helped invent the BlackBerry.

Asked what work John McCain did as chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee that helped him understand the financial markets, the candidate's top economic adviser wielded visual evidence: his BlackBerry.

"He did this," Douglas Holtz-Eakin told reporters this morning, holding up his BlackBerry. "Telecommunications of the United States is a premier innovation in the past 15 years, comes right through the Commerce Committee. So you're looking at the miracle John McCain helped create and that's what he did."

Martin then posted the denial later in his blog, noting that the McCain staff disavowed the comment:

Matt McDonald, a top McCain aide, said the candidate "laughed" upon hearing Holtz-Eakin's claim.

"He would not claim to be the inventor of anything, much less the BlackBerry," McDonald said. "This was obviously a boneheaded joke by a staffer," McDonald said.

CNBC: Markets Nearing a Top 10 2-Day Drop

Ariel Nelson of CNBC gives some historic perspective of the market downturn in the past two days:

With the markets down again today, here are the top ten 2-day percent and point moves for the major indices. If the Dow [.DJIA 10896.02 -21.49 (-0.2%) ] closes down more than 23 points today, it would reach a top 10 point move. The S&P [.SPX 1189.49 -3.21 (-0.27%) ]would need to close down less than 1 point to reach a top ten status. The Nasdaq [COMP 2173.55 -6.36 (-0.29%) ] is far from a top ten 2-day point or % move.

Here are the charts Nelson prepared in his blog:

Dow - biggest 2-day point drops:

Date Points
4/14/2000 -819.363
9/18/2001 -702.111
10/27/1997 -686.621
9/17/2001 -684.814
3/12/2001 -649.993
8/31/1998 -626.927
7/22/2002 -624.912
10/19/1987 -616.35
3/7/2000 -571.162
9/20/2001 -527.19

Dow - biggest 2-day % drops:

Date Percent
10/19/1987 -26.17
10/29/1929 -23.62
10/20/1987 -18.06
11/6/1929 -15.13
7/21/1933 -14.36
10/28/1929 -12.97
3/14/1907 -11.90
10/10/1932 -11.78
7/20/1933 -11.42
5/14/1940 -11.40

S&P - biggest 2-day point drops:

Date Points
4/14/2000 -109.86
8/31/1998 -84.98
3/12/2001 -84.6
10/27/1997 -73.72
10/19/1987 -73.02
1/4/2000 -69.83
10/1/1998 -62.63
7/22/2002 -61.71
4/13/2000 -60.08
9/18/2001 -59.8

S&P - biggest 2-day % drops:

Date Percent
10/19/1987 -24.50
10/29/1929 -21.78
7/21/1933 -16.81
10/20/1987 -16.29
11/6/1929 -14.66
7/20/1933 -13.36
9/14/1932 -13.22
5/14/1940 -12.59
5/31/1932 -12.52
11/12/1929 -11.57


NASDAQ - biggest 2-day point drops

Date Points
4/14/2000 -448.4
4/4/2000 -424
4/12/2000 -418.6
4/11/2000 -390.5
4/13/2000 -379.2
3/30/2000 -376
3/14/2000 -342
7/28/2000 -324.7
3/15/2000 -324.6
3/29/2000 -313.9

NASDAQ - biggest 2-day % drops

Date Percent
10/20/1987 -19.33
10/19/1987 -14.75
4/14/2000 -11.90
3/12/2001 -11.31
12/20/2000 -11.16
8/31/1998 -11.10
10/26/1987 -11.08
1/2/2001 -10.40
4/12/2000 -9.99
10/27/1987 -9.78