The Fed lowered the funds rate 50 basis points to 1.5%. This is part of a concentrated global effort to stabilize credit markets. The European Central Bank and the Bank of England followed suit.

ACORN, a voter registration group that targets low-income residents, had its offices raided by the Nevada police on Tuesday. The authorities have noticed a large amount of fraudulent applications coming from ACORN registrars including the entire starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys.

The Fed is buying commercial paper in an attempt to inject liquidity into the markets. The second Presidential debate is tonight; we'll have a liveblog, and hopefully coveritlive won't restrict joining this time. The Nobel in physics was awarded for research involving symmetry breaking .

As the campaigning heats up and the charges and accusations and vitriol fly, I'd like to try our best to keep SC an oasis of civility. By all means lets discuss and argue the news of the day, but keep in mind that our fellow posters are here reaching across the partisan divide. Let's not allow the negative campaigning to corrupt our own level of discourse.

Welcome to the mud. Go ahead, wallow around , get comfortable , there's plenty to go around , and more on the way. What a fantastic month we have to look forward to!

Just so you guys know, I am getting SC ready for an upgrade. I will take the opportunity to revamp the look, and jump to a new hosting platform. The version upgrade jump is sufficiently high that you should see some difference in the way the site behaves.

Also I cleaned up the database a bit in preparation so that you might see a bit of a difference in speed as well. Now I am thinking that the actual upgrade will probably happen sometime next weekend, tentatively next Saturday night (10/11). It would be nice to have a nice fresh, and quicker interface before the election.

The consensus on the VP debate seems to be that Palin did better than expected but not well enough to top Biden. Here is a factcheck of the candidates.

Wells Fargo (not Citigroup) is buying Wachovia . In sports, the Dodgers beat the Cubs again and will look to sweep the series. (Edit by John: And the Phillies beat the Brewers!)

What's happening today? Got any fun weekend plans?

Hat tip to The Liberty Papers :

The economy looks to be worsening: jobless claims hit seven year high and the DOW is down 200 after the modified bailout passed the Senate 74-25 yesterday.

Tonight is the VP debate between Palin and Biden. Here's some advice on debating tailored for Palin but applicable to anyone. I expect both candidates to do reasonably well, I don't think there will be many gotcha questions or openings for blunders, but we'll see. Drop in to chat in our liveblog beginning around 8:30 ET.

Bad news for McCain in recent polling. He's going to need a game-changer; could the VP debate provide it? I expect Palin to come out swinging (what have they got to lose?) and to be extremely well prepared for all the standard questions. We'll see how Biden handles himself and whether the discussion expands beyond talking points and spin. I hope to do another liveblog for the VP debate, starting around 8:30 ET -- if you missed the last one, drop in for the sparkling conversation.

The Senate is going to vote on a revised version of the bailout bill that narrowly failed in the House. They've added some provisions that they think Republicans should like, and there's some stuff in there designed to appeal to Democrats as well. My sense is that the more bloated and try-to-please-everyone this thing gets, the less likely it is to pass -- normally that's not the case with compromise bills, but with public opinion running against the bailout I believe that adding so many extras has the effect of providing an excuse for politicians to say no to their party leaders and go along with their constituents. Which ordinarily I'd also approve of, but it's not clear that there is anything else on the table right now as far as plans, and I think for all its flaws the revised bill has been much improved from the initial proposal and will accomplish some good. What are your thoughts?

Meltdown edition -- in the wake of the stock market plummeting almost 800 points yesterday we look into why the bailout failed and prepare (Wednesday) for renewed efforts, perhaps with a modified plan. Both Obama and McCain are suggesting the FDIC insure up to $250,000 in deposits, perhaps making these remarks at the request of admin officials or Bush directly in what I take to be an attempt to prevent any sort of panicky runs on banks.

In other "news," the LA Times addresses the rumor that Biden will step aside for Hillary after the debate. Today is Rosh Hashanah , the Jewish New Year. Open thread.

A restructured compromise bailout bill is being debated in the House. In other financial news, Citigroup is buying Wachovia and stocks opened down. September is almost over... here's your welcome-to-Monday open thread.

The bailout talks hit a snag late yesterday as House Republicans proposed an alternative plan. Bush is going to make a statement at 9:35 ET.

It's unclear whether McCain will attend the debate scheduled for tonight. Huckabee says he should participate.

Washington Mutual was taken over by the fed and then immediately sold to JPMorgan Chase last night. It's the largest bank ever to fail, but because of the resale the FDIC is not on the hook for covering anything. Open thread -- what's on your mind?

Does ideology trump fact ? Apparently so, some studies report. Regular watchers of Fox News are more likely than watchers of any other news network to believe Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. Similarly, Democrats had a worse opinion of Chief Justice John Roberts after watching a video that claimed he had ties to a violent anti-abortion group -- even after they were told the claim was false.

President Bush has invited Sens. McCain and Obama along with the party leadership in both houses of Congress to come to a consensus regarding the a possible bailout of the country's ailing financial sector.

In California news, Gov. Schwarzenegger has signed legislation that bans text messaging while driving . First time offenders will be hit with a $20 fine, while repeat offenders will have to pony up $50 per subsequent violation.

Bush will address the nation tonight at 9pm ET to discuss the proposed bailout. From CNN:

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Bush wants to explain the issues directly to the public.

"Americans are beginning to understand that a cold on Wall Street could infect Main Street as well," she said. "There are a lot of terms that are very hard to understand."

This is partially intended as a test of the coveritlive module -- we were gonna do this for the debate but it's looking like there's a chance the debate might not happen, so I figured I'd just throw this up. I'll demote it from the frontpage after the speech.

The Supreme Court granted a stay of execution for Troy Davis, accused of shooting a cop. Most of the witnesses against him have recanted the eyewitness testimony that was responsible for his conviction. I don't know whether he is guilty or not but it seems to me there is sufficient uncertainty that the Supreme Court was correct to postpone the execution pending their decision Monday as to whether to grant a new trial.

Democrats have given up efforts to extend the ban on offshore drilling. This doesn't mean drilling will actually take place anytime soon, but it does remove a large obstacle. Open thread -- what's on your mind this Wednesday?

"Rubico" has been named: David Kernell . Mr. Kernell is the son of Tennessee legislator Mike Kernell. Mike has disavowed all knowledge of his son's "hacking session" which consisted of using public information to circumvent the "I forgot my password" functionality of Gov. Palin's Yahoo! email account.

Some voters in Virginia, Kentucky, and Georgia have already cast their ballots. Early voting has already begun in these states and others (including the best state ever -- Ohio) start next week.

A plan has been floated in response to the meltdown of the financial sector. This plan has been nicknamed "Cash for Trash" and "The Authorization for Use of Financial Force". An initial draft seems to give the Treasury Secretary sweeping powers that include no oversight by any non-executive branch of government with respect to his actions to revitalize the financial sector. The bill also raises the debt ceiling to over $11.3 trillion from $10.6 trillion which was just adjusted in July for the GSE bailouts.

The person responsible for cracking Sarah Palin's personal email account has been identified albeit by pseudonym. "Rubico" is a student at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and the son of a member of the Tennessee Legislature. And yes, he's a Democrat.

N. Korea will be resuming their nuclear program shortly. Pyongyang charges that the US has not lived up to their agreement, so the program will go forward as originally planned.

The SEC made an emergency order to temporarily suspend the short selling of financial stocks . Readers should note that this is not a ban on naked shorts as has been proposed in the media, but a ban on all shorting activity.

Finally, VP candidate Joe Biden made the case in a stump speech that paying more in taxes is an exercise in patriotism for wealthy Americans. I have a feeling a few people here might not agree with him on that one.

Matt Welch of Reason is perhaps one of the biggest McCain-despising libertarians around. He even wrote a book about it. He has given many very good reasons to vote against McCain or simply to stay home on election day.

That said, he makes a grudging effort to find a silver-lining in a McCain presidency. I think his points are well-founded and even though he does too, he says his own reasons are not enough to convince himself to vote for the guy.

Bush is giving a statement on the recent upheaval on Wall Street that will "emphasize that he and his administration are continuing to work on efforts to promote stability in the markets."

One of Palin's yahoo email accounts was hacked. There is concern that using personal accounts to discuss government business is insecure and also potentially non-transparent in that those emails aren't archived.

Microsoft is planning to strike back against the "I'm a PC" Apple ads. Open thread -- what's going on today?