Government economists in Mexico City have warned President Calderón that a total collapse of the U. S. economy could result in a mass illegal invasion of Mexico by U. S. citizens looking for work picking crops.

He's one of them, you know.

(A Negro . . .)

John McCain is starting to remind me of someone — another great old soldier long past his prime who traded his fading honor for a shot at power . . . just not thinking straight, I fear.  At any rate, at this point no American who cares about his or her own honor, or the honor of the nation, can afford to support this pathetic old man on his dark journey to moral oblivion.

My friends Lily and Cotty (above) flew into town from Los Angeles this weekend and met up with another old friend, Frank, and his pal Bob, who'd driven here from the same place.  They'd all come to volunteer for a couple of days' work going door to door for the Obama campaign, collecting pledge cards and contact information, registering new voters and generally spreading the good word.

They walked (and walked) through middle-class neighborhoods dotted with foreclosure signs (and abandoned homes that will probably soon sport foreclosure signs.)  They did what they could — and Frank (on the left below, with Bob) actually managed to get a new voter to register.  Such things, multiplied many times over, might make the difference in what still looks to be an election of razor-thin margins — with Nevada a crucial battleground in the contest.

Their virtuous behavior was richly rewarded by the gods of chance here in Silly Town.  Lily, who's sixteen, couldn't join us, alas, but the rest of us went off gambling downtown.  We ended up at Binion's, where Cotty and Frank hit the craps tables, Bob took his chances at roulette and I sat down at a no-limit game in the poker room.

I was up $96 when Cotty tapped me on the shoulder and said the gang was ready to head home.  I cashed in my winnings and was feeling pretty smug, until I heard about Cotty's and Frank's run at the craps table.  Without revealing too much specific personal information, perhaps I can say that between them they won about $1500.

The stock market rebounded a bit today.  The big crash has been postponed — Congress has a little more time to get its act together.  With luck, John McCain will stay away from Washington until a rescue bill is passed.

I pulled the truck around to the back of the cabin and put a tarp over it.  I'm still spending a lot of time in front of the mirror, practicing my Depression game face.

When I drifted off to sleep this morning I wasn't expecting the House to vote down the credit market rescue bill, but that was the news I woke up to this afternoon.  I guess John McCain wasn't expecting it either.  Has anyone bothered to tell him that the deal on the bill has collapsed, or is he still out on the stump taking credit for putting it together?  Good work on that one, John!

This morning, I was worried that the market had fallen 300 points in half an hour.  It managed to fall nearly 500 more points while I was dozing. If you think it's hit bottom, I suspect you're still asleep and dreaming.

Of course you can't blame the House Republicans for voting 2-1 against the bill — Nancy Pelosi was mean to them in a speech before the vote, right there on the House floor, in public.  It was like the most popular girl in high school (like, the homecoming queen or something) dissing them at assembly — in front of everybody!  You could hardly expect them to be thinking clearly, or considering the welfare of the country, after something like that.  It's not like we're dealing with grown-ups here.

My friend PZ sends a line from an old pop song — “They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday's just as bad.”  I fear that Tuesday will in fact be much worse.

I'm writing this just after seven in the morning Pacific Time.  After working all night, I was getting set to go off to bed when I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach — a sense that the bail-out bill crafted by the geniuses in Washington wasn't going to work, that the markets would feel the same way about it . . . and that the American economy was about to go under, suddenly, in one fell swoop, today.

I turned on the television and saw that the Dow Jones Average had plummeted three hundred points in less than half an hour.  I hope things won't continue in that vein, but I have a horrible premonition that they will.  If the House Of Representatives approves the bail-out bill in the next few hours and the market continues to fall, it means that Washington has waited too long — dithering around for a John McCain photo-op and other exercises in political posturing and giving more banks time to fail, undermining investor confidence beyond repair.

As I head off to bed once again, I have a feeling that I might wake up in a world that has been utterly changed.

As you undoubtedly know, John McCain and I have been working tirelessly over the past few days to rescue America from its worsening economic crisis.  John felt it necessary to suspend his campaign for the Presidency in order to spend more time on the phone asking people how things were going, while monitoring events closely on CNN.

I suspended this blog, vowing to contribute only “Freedom Bulletins” until the crisis was resolved.  This is Freedom Bulletin No. 2.

John also threatened to withdraw from the first Presidential debate, in order to dramatize the seriousness of the situation.  Simultaneously, working in close coordination with John's staff, I threatened to leave the dishes in my sink unwashed until Congress made meaningful progress on a rescue bill.

Our unprecedented actions bore fruit — Congress did make meaningful progress towards a bill, John showed up at the debate and I am making plans to begin work on my dishes any day now.

All of this has taken a terrible toll on John and myself, both physically and emotionally.  Last night I decided I needed to take a break from the almost unendurable strain, so I headed off to the Paris, Las Vegas casino to play some poker.

                                                                                                                     [Image © 2006 Paul Kolnik]

I played for about six hours and showed a profit at the end of the session of $31 dollars.  $31 may not seem like a lot of money in real terms, but it's actually very hard to win any money at all at a Las Vegas poker table.  Sure, there are a lot of tipsy tourists who are easy to best, but there are just as many local sharks who know how to strip you of your chips, your dignity and your sense of self worth.

Driving home at about 3am I heard on the radio that Hank Paulson believed a deal on the bail-out bill was done.  I raced home to await his call thanking me for my efforts to get America out of this mess, but he must have been too exhausted to contact me at that hour.  I understand this, and feel that no slight towards me was intended.

I poured myself a beer, averting my eyes at all times from the kitchen sink, stretched out in the La-Z-Boy and smiled.  I didn't feel like a hero — I had only done my duty.  I thought of the extra $31 in my wallet, the prospect of America solvent and prospering once again, and the dance Fred Astaire and Ann Miller do to Irving Berlin's “It Only Happens When I Dance With You” in Easter Parade.

I thought of one poker hand in particular from the evening now coming to a close.  I was dealt AK of spades.  There was a fair amount of betting before the flop — the pot was sweet.  I stayed in, of course.  The flop came with the makings of a low straight, but two of the cards were spades.  A guy bet 20 bucks, I called and everybody else folded.  I figured he was drawing to the straight.  The turn brought another card in the straight sequence.  My opponent bet 15 bucks.  I figured he'd made his straight and was feigning weakness, hoping for a call.  I called.  The river brought a jack of spades.  My opponent bet $30.  I raised him $30, sensing that was the most I could induce him to call.  He thought about it for a long time and called. 

Inspired by John McCain's example, I have decided to put country first and suspend this blog until Congress passes legislation to solve the nation's credit crisis.

I will continue posting as usual, but I will not think of my entries as “posts” — I will think of them as “Freedom Bulletins”.  I encourage everyone to think of my posts as “Freedom Bulletins”.

If my “Freedom Bulletins” lead to a rapid solution of the deadlock in Washington, I will let the American people decide, in their own way, how to honor my sacrifice.  If they wish to place a small historical marker at the site of my birth, so be it.  If they wish to erect a full-scale equestrian statue on the Mall in Washington, so be it.