Biden on Cheney's worst thing: 

I think he's done more harm than any other single elected official in memory in terms of shredding the constitution. You know - condoning torture. Pushing torture as a policy. This idea of a unitary executive. Meaning the Congress and the people have no power in a time of war.  

When the White House brought out its $700 billion rescue plan two weeks ago, its sheer size was meant to soothe the global financial system, restoring trust and confidence.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says the US package to bail out Wall Street is a step forward in easing the global financial crisis. 

The US House of Representatives passed the $US700 billion package overnight. 

It will be one of the world’s largest asset management firms with an impressive $700 billion war chest. Nothing short of the global economy depends on its success. 

And the Treasury Department has barely a month to get it up and running.

Myriad cultural historians have noted the American belief that success is a sign of God's favour.  

Over the past couple of decades, He has had a downright love-fest with the already-rich - so much so that the richest 400 Americans now have more money stashed away than the combined bottom 150 million Americans. Some $1.6 trillion. 

Concern about Palin's readiness to face Democrat Joe Biden has increased following a series of interviews in which the Alaska governor has been sometimes lost for words to answer a tough question. 

John McCain picked her as his running mate in August, energising conservative Republicans with her positions on abortion and gun rights and her background as a moose-hunting, deeply Christian mother of five from the northern frontier. 

"Working together, we are confident we will pass a responsible bill in the very near future," they said.

The House is not due to meet again until Thursday as many members have gone home for a Jewish holiday.

Bush Warning Over Bail-out Delay

European shares were mixed Tuesday, following a similar pattern in Asia, as investors refused to panic about the failure of American lawmakers to pass a financial bailout and were encouraged by gains in futures contracts on Wall Street indexes.

There was disappointment that lawmakers rejected the $700 billion emergency rescue plan Monday and more fears about European lenders after Dexia, a Brussels-based lender, was given a 6.4 billion euro, or $9.2 billion, government-backed rescue Tuesday.

The government’s planned financial bailout is a significant if costly step intended to avert economic calamity, but it may not be the last one, according to economists and finance experts. 

Just days after the United States government brokered the sale of the nation’s largest failed savings and loan, Washington Mutual, regulators in Britain and Belgium swooped in this weekend to engineer emergency rescues of two leading European banks with heavy exposure to soured mortgages. 

Washington Mutual, the giant lender that came to symbolize the excesses of the mortgage boom, was seized by federal regulators on Thursday night, in what is by far the largest bank failure in American history.

Americans’ anger is in full bloom, jumping off the screen in capital letters and exclamation points, in the e-mail in-boxes of elected representatives in the nation’s capital. 

“I am hoping Congress can find the backbone to stand on their feet and not their knees before BIG BUSINESS,” one correspondent wrote to Representative Jim McDermott of Washington. 

The Queen and the Government are locked in a secret dispute over royal demands for increased public funding to meet the growing expense of the monarchy. 

Palace aides have told ministers they need extra money to offset the cost of maintaining the Royal Estate of palaces and pay for increased fuel, food and staffing costs.  

The timing and urgency of the Bush Administration's call for action from Congress on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan to save the financial industry from collapse leaves only two possibilities.

Either the White House is criminally incompetent when it comes to the economy, or our current financial status is part of a structured crisis planned as an early October surprise.