Oh hey guys: Up in Alaska, Mark Begich is about 800 votes to the good now, per official figures. But also, he’s extended that lead all day as the absentee votes rolled in.

So: the Cheerleader’s dreams of becoming a Senator? Looking slim right about now. That’s just tubes bad.

[pause]

What? What’s wrong?

OK, everybody: al-Qaeda is in. Final chapter of Election 2008 begins…. now:

An al Qaeda leader has called for President George W. Bush and the Republicans to be “humiliated”, without endorsing any party in the upcoming U.S. presidential election, according to a video posted on the Internet.

“O God, humiliate Bush and his party, O Lord of the Worlds, degrade and defy him,” Abu Yahya al-Libi said at the end of sermon marking the Muslim feast of Eid al-Fitr, in a video posted on the Internet.

Libi, one of the top al Qaeda commanders believed to be living in Afghanistan or Pakistan, called for God’s wrath to be brought against Bush equating him with past tyrants in history.

Geezer? Barry? This one’s for the game.

(This comes at precisely the right time for the old man. Seriously: there was some off-the-charts bullshit from Geezer today about how Barack Obama supports tax breaks for oil companies. And he gets a free pass, because al-Qaeda wants to pull votes away from Black Eagle.)

Hopey had better come strong here, before Geezer drives the narrative. They’ve got about 12 hours before the blast-ad drops. Barry: hurry up, but don’t rush.

The last bits of economic data before the election just came out.  And… it’s a recession.  (You knew this, but the Commerce Department just fessed up.) 

3rd Quarter GDP: 0.3% FAIL.  Initial jobless claims this week?  Well, there are 479,000 new socialists out there.  (Welcome!  Coffee and danish out in the hall if you want some — help yourself.)  Oh: and Exxon Mobil beat expectations on its earnings this morning and had a record-breaking quarter.  (This is a recording.) 

Hopey can spin all three numbers today.  Geezer and Tailbunny have to find a radical professor at Northwestern to harp on (UIC and U of C are tapped out for that at this point) — don’t you worry… National Review is on the case as we speak.

And there it is.  Only two things can save the old man now: something that allows Geezer to spin terrorism (Osama or Mahmoud popping off, the military killing al-Qaeda’s number two for the sixteenth time, etc.), or a massively effective vote suppression effort (which has been a big pile of nope thus far, the efforts of GOPers notwithstanding).  Both still could happen.  But: my cautious optimism meter is ticking upwards, slightly.

Item: Liddy Dole has brought an ad insinuating that her Senate challenger, Kay Hagen, is a closet atheist.

Nothing has been decided yet, of course. But, good Lord, they are grasping at straws like mad, aren’t they?

As everybody knows by now: Tubes is going down.  Guilty, across the board. 

Open thread for your schadefruede-induced expressions of AWESOME.

LATE UPDATE: Jesus. You knew this was coming but, per AP: The ATF says it has broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree. In court records unsealed Monday, agents said they disrupted plans to rob a gun store and target an unnamed but predominantly African-American high school by two neo-Nazi skinheads.

So open-thread on these nutcases as well, if you’d like — though there is probably very little to say about these idiots that could be printed in a family blog like this one.

graphic: The General

Item: AP reports thusly:

Gov. Sarah Palin charged the state for her children to travel with her, including to events where they were not invited, and later amended expense reports to specify that they were on official business.

The charges included costs for hotel and commercial flights for three daughters to join Palin to watch their father in a snowmobile race, and a trip to New York, where the governor attended a five-hour conference and stayed with 17-year-old Bristol for five days and four nights in a luxury hotel.

In all, Palin has charged the state $21,012 for her three daughters’ 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office in December 2006. In some other cases, she has charged the state for hotel rooms for the girls.

What was the kids’ official business? Looking adorable.

NEXT!

Supreme Court, without dissent, per curiam, smacks down Ohio GOP suit to force a voter registration purge three weeks before an election.  Stay of order granted, TRO vacated, have a nice day.

Hey, Geezerplex: not to give you unsolicited advice or nothing, but I wouldn’t go with angry. Solemn and resigned is the better way to go.

[Note well that further shenanigans are certainly afoot. But, say what needs to be said: EPIC WIN.]