Saturday Night Live's Amy Poehler gave birth Saturday afternoon to a healthy 8 lb. 1 oz. baby named Archie Arnett.

Congratualtions to Amy and her husband, Will Arnett, and to baby Archie, Welcome to the Planet Earth.

John McCain and Sarah Palin are running on empty. All we need to do is get our side to the polls to vote next week and they'll be finished.

Jackson Browne is playing here in Denver next week, he's one of my all time favorites.

Some things I'm reading tonight:

• Dahlia Lithwick in Newsweek, A Guantanamo Homecoming

• Bill Clinton to campaign with Obama in Orlando next week.

[More...]

Fearing a loss of political influence if Barack Obama is elected, right wing religious leaders are spreading fear of Obama.

"Everyone uses fear in the last part of a campaign, but evangelicals are especially theologically prone to those sorts of arguments," said Clyde Wilcox, a Georgetown University political scientist. "There's a long tradition of predicting doom and gloom."

Some of the gloom and doom predicted by Charisma magazine publisher Steve Strang doesn't seem all that awful.

Strang said gay rights and abortion rights would be strengthened in an Obama administration, taxes would rise and "people who hate Christianity will be emboldened to attack our freedoms."

[more ...]

In 1982, Chicago's Dailey administration was indifferent to reports that "police killer Andrew Wilson's face looked normal going into an interrogation room, but resembled ground beef hours later." A few years later, the Chicago Police Department was indifferent when a police watchdog "raised serious questions about the electro-shocking of suspects."

In 1990, another watchdog "catalogued 50 cases of alleged police torture." The police department suppressed the report and retaliated against the watchdog. The report created a brief sensation when it became public in 1992 and a few strong voices in the alternative media and civil rights community tried to sustain an interest in reform, but public and media indifference soon prevailed.

Janet Reno was indifferent. So was the Reagan administration. In an atmosphere of indifference, Jon Burge and the detectives under his command found unchecked power to torture suspects, primarily black, on the south side of Chicago. [more ...]

Leave it to John McCain to turn an opponent's gaffe into one of his own.

Republican John McCain vowed that as president he would "test" America's enemies rather than having them test him. ... "I am going to test them. They are not going to test me."

That's great, Senator McCain. As long as you're announcing a policy of American belligerence, do you think you could be more specific? Which enemy do you have in mind? How exactly do you intend to "test" that enemy? And, since Republicans have not shown any ability to anticipate the consequences of their actions, what trouble do you predict your "testing" might stir up?

Ezra Klein reminds us that today is the 6th anniversary of Paul Wellstone's tragic passing. Ezra is right when he writes the way to honor Wellstone is to help Al Franken, who was very close to Wellstone, recapture the Senate seat Paul Wellstone held from the awful Norm Coleman:

Al Franken, is locked in a grindingly tight race with Norm Coleman, the principle-free conservative who now occupies Wellstone's office in the Senate. I can think of few better ways to mark the anniversary than to help recapture that seat for liberalism. And though I myself, for legal reasons, can't think of any ways one could do such a thing, I'm sure Al Franken's site could give interested souls a bit of guidance.

Franken's web site.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Gators up 1421-0, thanks [in part] to 2 blocked punts. Penn State will lose to the Buckeyes today. College football's BCS system is a travesty and will be proven beyond redemption this year. As early as next year, college football will add a +1 game after the BCS bowls.

Also, I understand there is a baseball game tonight in Philadelphia.

This is an Open Thread.

DKos/R2000 unchanged at Obama +12, 52-40. Ras has Obama at his alltime high lead, +8, 52-44. Newsweek has Obama +12, 53-41. ABC/WaPo Tracker has Obama +9, 53-44. In short, if these polls are right, it is over.

McCain's sliver of hope polls are Battleground and IBD/TIPP - which have him down 3 and 4 respectively.

The real action now is in the Congressional races. Can Al Franken win in Minnesota? Can the detestable Saxby Chambliss be defeated by the new face Jim Martin? Can Jeff Merkley get rid of the two faced Gordon Smith? Can Darcy Burner defeat the Seattle Establishment candidate Dave Reichert? Can Eric Massa win in Rochester? Those are the stories of the election now.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

There are innumberable variables in how an election is decided and generally speaking, it is not easy to isolate what factor "cost a candidate the election." This election, however, it seems to me a fairly easy exercise. John McCain lost this election on September 15, 2008. On September 15, 2008, Barack Obama had a slight lead over McCain in the polls (if you prefer the RCP average, then you would say McCain was leading.)So what happened?

On September 15, 2008 Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy after the federal government refused to bail it out. That was the beginning of the meltdown on Wall Street that led to the bailout that was passed in late September. It signalled the terrible economic times we are now facing are going to get worse, much worse. And John McCain said:

[T]he fundamentals of our economy are strong . . .

Fox News this afternoon replayed Sean Hannity's interview last night with Sarah Palin. Driving home, I tuned in just at the part where he asked her about the clothes. I thought I must have heard it wrong. Did she really say that the clothes were going to be returned as well as donated? How do you return clothes after you've worn them?

I just checked the transcript on Lexis.com. She said exactly that: [More...]

Wisconsin's Attorney General, J.B. Van Hollen, is a dutiful Republican who wants to be noticed. In a blatant attempt to suppress newly registered voters, Van Hollen sued the state to force local clerks to perform laborious cross-checks of new voter registrations and drivers license records. Fortunately, he isn't very good at what he does.

Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi ruled Thursday that Van Hollen had not shown any laws had been broken. She further ruled that Van Hollen didn't have the power to bring the lawsuit even if he'd identified violations of the law.

Despite Van Hollen's pleas for an expedited judgment, Judge Sumi took her time and reasoned her way to a sound decision. Van Hollen says he'll appeal, but at this point he's just making unnecessary noise.

Coming soon to a law enforcement agency near you: robotic bloodhounds.

[The Pentagon is] looking for contractors to provide a "Multi-Robot Pursuit System" that will let packs of robots "search for and detect a non-cooperative human".

The Pentagon gets it first. Eventually the tech works its way down to law enforcement. The U.S. Marshals would love to have packs of robots chasing down "non-cooperative humans."