What can they run on? Nothing.

so they put up negative, untrue ads in every race.

"Gay marriage," anyone?  Is that the air I hear going out of the conservative movement?

And that's nothing to sneeze at.  How about this for a slogan? "Fear, loathing, divisiveness and extremism: today's Republican Party!"

That really stands out since that's FDR inverted.

Republicans have everything to fear for they have nothing left but fear itself!

or something like that as a slogan.

With the failures of the GOP this year.

Conservatives could give a rats ass if gays get married.

They are more pissed off about the war.

Emotional issues are not a factor this year.

yes, there goes the conservative movement.

How to rally the base in 10 days? Hmm Karl Rove must be scratching his head.

I read somewhere recently that the major stocks which are used to composed the index don't match the current highs of the stock market. Any chance they are fabricating this?

Also, has anyone noticed that gas prices have dropped over a dollar a gallon since the summer? With all the other fabrications is there any chance that these numbers are part of an election strategy? I think they are.

Like an alcoholic everthing is appearances with these people. It doesn't have to be true. And as with alcoholics, we will need to have an intervention at some point.

The Dow's Phony New High

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is composed of 30 stocks. Of these, fully one third of them - 10 stocks - posted their all time highs last century: Coca Cola (KO) and Dupont (DD) in 1998; and McDonalds (MCD), Walmart (WMT), Honeywell (HON), IBM (IBM), Pfizer (PFE), Verizon (VZ), AT&T (T), and Microsoft (MSFT) back in 1999 - seven years ago. Ten stocks made their all-time highs in 2000: Citicorp ( C), JP Morgan (JPM), Walt Disney (DIS), American International Group (AIG), General Electric (GE), Hewlitt Packard (HPQ), Home Depot (HD), Merck (MRK), General Motors (GM), and Intel (INTC).

Only 7 stocks made their new high in 2006, and of these only 3 of them are within 5% of their new high today. 21 of the 30 Dow stocks - that is 70%, folks! - are down 20% or more!

As I pointed out in my earlier article, Manipulation, if the Dow were to make a new high, it would be a phony new high, since adjusted for inflation, we are nowhere near the old highs. Using the Fed's very own CPI Inflation calculator (Thanks to George Ure at Urban Survival for keeping a handy link to this calculator right on his homepage) we find that we'd need a 13,817 Dow today to equal the 11,750 Dow of 2000. Put another way, today's Dow High of 11,754 is equal to only a Dow of 9,995 in 2000. Pfffttt - we didn't even make Dow 10K!

If you calculate the Dow using real money - gold - you find an even worse picture. Measured in Gold, today's Dow is equivalent to only about 5,100! Using an average gold price of $275 in 2000, we establish our year 2000 benchmark: 10,750/275= 39. Using today's gold price of $580, we have 10750/580=18.5 From 39 to 18.5 is a 52.5% drop, which is equivalent to only Dow 5K!

There are a lot of economics who have been warning (screaming) about the impeding economic disaster lead by Bush corporation and a corrupt congress.

Webb has the right positions to change this disastrous course.

Examples are pay as you go, rolling back those disastrous tax cuts for the super rich, bringing back accountability to DoD contracts and renegotiating trade agreements.

Piling up massive fiscal and trade deficits, robbing from the working and middle classes to reward the richest, mortgaging our childrens' futures, wastefully spending our nation into oblivion.  That's Bush-Allen economics in a nutshell.  Why would anyone want that?

...our jobs to China, Wal-Mart'izing our economy (e.g., "race to the bottom"), not investing in the human capital (e.g., world-class education and health care) we need to compete in the globalized economy, selling out on so-called "free-trade" agrreements, etc., etc.

Allen is cosponsoring the "Skil Bill" which is bring in foreign workers to displace Americans, pay them $18k less and control their lives 100% by the fact the Visa is under corporate control.

It's the corollary to outsourcing and basically if they cannot get their slave labor by offshore outsourcing the job, they try to bring in labor to exploit, labor arbitrage Americans.

Allen is actively promoting this.

Allen, is wrong, wrong, wrong from labor economics, to trade policy to budget deficits to minimum wage and social mobility to even right R&D investing. 

If he isn't corrupt then he's stuck on stupid due to the hundreds of reports, studies and statistics saying all of these policies are putting the US in serious fiscal jeopardy.

gas prices have dropped or have been stable even though the Saudis have announced they are cutting production AND even though there's been a terrorist threat against the Saudi oil port.  Doesn't that sound kind of fishy to anybody?  I mean, these futures market guys panic if somebody sneezes.

Here in Nelson County and surrounding areas the price jumped 6 cents yesterday. And away with fear and the Saudi's.(Bush)

I don't often dust-off my tin-foil hat, since I'm not, in general, a "conspiracy nut". But I agree with Jim Webb on the matter of "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Elections..." as regards the gas prices.

I don't drive a whole lot and my car is pretty efficient, so price swings at the pump tend to escape my notice most of the time. But the *mind-boggling* drop after the Labor Day caught even my attention :) Especially since it had not been backed in any way by the price-per-barrel as reported in the business section of the NYT (it's my considered opinion that reading the business section is as profitable as reading about politics; in Bush's world, the two are so intertwined, you can't separate them).

It is my belief that the price differential -- between the cost of crude, per barrel, at the exchange and the cost of refined, per gallon, at the pump -- is being subsidized, *temporarily* by Bush's buddies in the Big Oil Industry, so as to calm down the discontent at the consumer level. And, "incidentally" (? ) to pull the rug from under Dems on at least one electoral issue. The *exceptionally high* profit that Exxon has just posted can be easily explained, despite low (er... *comparatively* low ) prices at the pump, *if* we're willing to consider that the govt has been paying for a good part of it. The Govt *always* overpays for what it wants... :)

IOW, it'll be "see Esso run up the hill" pretty soon. If not on Nov 8, then right after Thanksgiving. Though my bet would  be on the earlier date; they've been holding their horses for long enough, the govt must have been bleeding money on this like a stuck pig, and T-giving is the time when people feel constrained to travel-- either by car or by plane -- to be with their families. And... trains, and boats and planes... they all use gas. Fueling the petro-dollar tyrannies all over the world...

I just saw this on Fox website.  My predicted terrorist threat is right on schedule, for the republicans to try to change the subject. Of course if bush had not so badly bungled capturing bin laden, oops.

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates —  The high command of Al Qaeda appear to be behind terror threats to oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, a U.S. official said Friday.

"Indications are that Al Qaeda central — Usama bin Laden or his second in command Ayman al-Zawahiri — as well an Al Qaeda affiliate" are involved in the plot, the U.S. official told FOX News on the condition of anonymity.

Several sources have said fairly specific information had been intercepted that indicated the attack would come soon in the area of eastern Saudi Arabia.

Coalition naval forces in the Gulf were on a heightened state of alert over possible terror threats to oil facilities in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, Western naval officials said Friday.