Ron Howard channels Andy Griffith. This is an open thread.

At this rate, Ted Stevens' jury may still be deliberating on Election Day.

The father of a female juror, identified only as juror No. 4, died suddenly and she is on her way to California to be with family. U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan delayed the trial until at least Tuesday to accommodate the missing juror and to allow time to determine the next step in the case.

Juror 4 may be understandably distracted and in no shape to deliberate next week. Deliberations must start anew if an alternate steps in to fill the missing juror's spot. But as more time passes, there's greater reason to worry that the alternates will watch a news story or read TalkLeft commentary or talk to a friend or otherwise become contaminated by facts they encounter outside the courtroom. Of course, that risk exists even with deliberating jurors, but it's especially difficult for alternates to stay away from the news if they think their role in the trial has probably ended.

Good news out of Georgia:

A federal appeals court gave a last-minute reprieve Friday to a Georgia man set to be executed for the 1989 killing of an off-duty police officer even though several witnesses have changed their accounts of the crime.

Troy Davis, 40, was scheduled to be executed Monday. But the three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered defense attorneys and prosecutors to draft briefs that address whether Davis can meet "stringent requirements" to pursue the next round of appeals.

Amnesty International has background and in a press release today (no link yet) says: [More...]

Wall Street took a steep fall this morning.

For the superstitious among you, October 24, 1929 was the day the Great Depression started.

The crash of 1929, like the current global economic crisis, came after a prolonged period of economic growth.

October 24, 1929, known as Black Thursday, marked the first day of the crash with panic selling ensuing on the Dow Jones. This was triggered by predictions of an impending market crash, leading to a record 13m shares being traded.

In case you missed the Thursday edition of Saturday Night live last night, it was pretty funny.

ABC News has an analysis of the battleground states today.

Eight states that could go either way -- Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, Missouri, Indiana and North Carolina -- hold 111 of the 270 electoral votes needed for either candidate to win the presidency.

Whether those red states will turn blue is yet to be determined, but according to the latest polls, Obama has a 52-45 percent advantage in those battlegrounds. States like Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina, previously leaning in McCain's favor, are now considered toss-ups.

John McCain needs every state Bush carried in 2004 plus a big one Kerry carried -- like Pennsylvania. [More...]

Big Tent Democrat believes that:

The country is rejecting Republicanism and extreme conservatism, not Sarah Palin's "qualifications." The mandate is for a change away from extreme Republicanism and conservatism, not a rejection of Sarah Palin the person.

I agree that Sarah Palin "the person" is not being rejected. But her qualifications are being rejected, and as CNN reports today, her lack of qualifications are the number one reason voters are rejecting John McCain:

Update: (TL) It's 9:30 am MST and we already have 14 posts up today. This may be a record for us. The front page only holds 15, so you may want to click the "more" button at the bottom of the page. I'm off to the jail now and won't be back until late this afternoon.

****

The New York Times has a nice internet feature accessing their Presidential endorsements through the years - back to their 1860 endorsment of Abraham Lincoln. It is interesting to see the discussion of the historic issues in real time. Fun fact - The Times endorsed Wendell Willkie over FDR in 1940.

This is an Open Thread.

In polls released in the past 24 hours, DKos/R2000 has Obama leading by 12, 52-40. WaPo tracker has Obama by 11, 54-43. CBS/NYTimes poll has Obama by 13, 52-39.

The best polls for McCain in the past 24 hours were IBD/TIPP, which has Obama by 1, 45-44; Battleground, which has Obama by 4, 49-45; Hotline which has Obama by 5, 48-43; Gallup Expanded, which has Obama by 6, 51-45. There has not been a poll in the past month that I can remember that has had McCain ahead.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

If and when Barack Obama and the Democrats win a smashing victory in November, E.J. Dionne has provided the narrative to counter the inevitable Meacham nonsense:

Conservatism has finally crashed on problems for which its doctrines offered no solutions (the economic crisis foremost among them, thus Bush's apostasy) and on its refusal to acknowledge that the "real America" is more diverse, pragmatic and culturally moderate than the place described in Palin's speeches or imagined by the right-wing talk show hosts.

Conservatives came to believe that if they repeated phrases such as "Joe the Plumber" often enough, they could persuade working-class voters that policies tilted heavily in favor of the very privileged were actually designed with Joe in mind.It isn't working anymore. No wonder conservatives are turning on each other so ferociously.

It's time for a change. The country is rejecting Republicanism and extreme conservatism, not Sarah Palin's "qualifications." The mandate is for a change away from extreme Republicanism and conservatism, not a rejection of Sarah Palin the person.

By Big Tent Democrat, speaking for me only

Jeffrey Rosen examines the impact John McCain's election would have on the Supreme Court.

Although McCain claims to favor justices who will defer to the political branches, the most likely Republican nominees are hardly consistent advocates of judicial deference. Voters who are hoping McCain will nominate relatively moderate judicial mavericks should think again. ...

Activist conservatives, who yearn for the resurrection of what they call the Constitution in Exile, would be far more likely to challenge Congress and to strike down a range of federal regulations, from health care and the environment to the economic bailout. ... Many prominent conservatives are confident that McCain, who has never cared much about the judiciary, would placate his conservative base by appointing activist movement conservatives.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer is calling attention to racial disparities in the treatment of felony drug cases in Cuyahoga County.

In Cuyahoga County, white people are more likely to have their felony drug charges reduced to misdemeanors -- or to get treatment as an alternative to any conviction -- than black people charged with the same crime.

The Plain Dealer found:

[S]ince 2000, a black person has been 12.7 times more likely than a white person to be sent to a state prison from Cuyahoga County on drug charges.

[more ...]