October 7, 2008, Slow news day
We'll start with an issue that's been buried by other events today: a federal judge, U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina of the district court in Washington, DC, ordered 17 Chinese Uighur Guantanamo detainees (detainees that the U.S. government has asserted are innocent) brought to his courtroom by Friday and released within the United States. The government, of course, is working on an emergency appeal, but God bless Judge Urbina for, after nearly 7 years, finally acting to enforce our laws... the most basic right of us all against the might of our government, that habeas corpus be afforded in a meaningful way, and that procedural dodges be overcome... such as the lack of a heretofore defined immigration status for people kidnapped by our government to the military base in Cuba. This could, we hope, be the middle of the end of Guantanamo, and the restoration of this nation to the rule of law. We're not there yet, but we can hope.
Meanwhile, the financial markets continued their downward spiral of yesterday, and the Dow Jones and other indexes all dropped an additional 5-6%, even after a radical proposed intervention by the Federal Reserve to buy up commercial paper, and even after Fed chairman Bernanke hinted at an interest rate cut. The DJIA is a round 9,500 now, the lowest level in four years; it is unclear where the present sell-off will end, or what the broader implications of these market drops and the recent bailout will be... other than that Team Bush will still be in charge for just over the next three months, no matter who wins the election.
And finally... there's that debate thing (the thrillah in Nashvillah?) The Grey Lady's Caucus Blog is live-blogging this one, so I'm not. I will just say that Obama continues to look calm and Presidential, while McCain looks and sounds ineffective while he goes on rather ineffective looking attacks. That's just me... but with polling not going his way, and continued economic unrest dominating everything... calling Barack a taxer-and-spender and a naif and a liberal... just don't look like it's going to do the job. Especially against an ever-more confident, Presidential looking Barack Obama. FWIW.
Comments
Anyone find any humor in Neel Kashkari being appointed to be interim head of the $700 billion rescue program? Kashkari, as in Cash and Carry, meaning, no credit.
Posted by Just Wondering at October 8, 2008 6:23 PM
That is humorous. What's scary is the guy is only 35 years old.
It's amazing that just two days ago the Dow had dropped to 9,500. I think folks would be very happy if we approached that figure in trading tomorrow. Let's hope we see 9,500 again before 7,500.
Posted by PoliticalCritic at October 9, 2008 8:36 PM