Done.
Sen. Barack Obama moved into the lead today in the last category that Sen. Hillary Clinton had claimed to have an edge -- support among the Democratic Party's superdelegates.
The Illinois Democrat grabbed the superdelegate lead thanks to a switch by New Jersey Rep. Donald Payne and an endorsement from previously uncommitted Rep. Peter DeFazio of Oregon.
Can we end this now?
Obama outperformed expectations last night, handily winning NC and coming within breathing room in IN. To whom can Clinton credit her victory? None other than Rush Limbaugh:
Eleven percent of the voters in Indiana tonight were Republican, Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic reports -- and they went for Clinton over Obama 52% to 46%.
Over at the Huffington Post, Sam Stein crunches some of the exit poll numbers and wonders: “Thirty-six percent of primary voters said that Clinton does not share their values. And yet, among that total, one out of every five (20 percent) nevertheless voted for her in the Indiana election. Moreover, of the 10 percent of Hoosiers who said ‘neither candidate’ shared their values, 75 percent cast their ballots for Clinton.
Clinton's margin of victory was under 2%. Had it not been for those Republicans, who will not vote for Clinton in November, she would already be out of the race. I hope she can take a sober look at reality and concede.
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents raided the Office of Special Counsel here, seizing computers and documents belonging to the agency chief Scott Bloch and staff.Corrupt from head to toe.More than a dozen FBI agents served grand jury subpoenas shortly after 10 a.m., shutting down the agency's computer network and searching its offices, as well as Mr. Bloch's home. Employees said the searches appeared focused on alleged obstruction of justice by Mr. Bloch during the course of an 2006 inquiry into his conduct in office.
The independent agency, created by Congress in the wake of the Watergate scandal, is charged with protecting federal employees and deciding whether their complaints merit full-scale investigation -- a first line of defense against fraud and mismanagement in government. It also enforces a ban on U.S. employees engaging in partisan political activity.
The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Mr. Bloch had used "Geeks on Call," an outside computer-service firm, to erase his computer and those of two former staff members in December 2006.
Federal Bureau of Investigation agents raided the Office of Special Counsel here, seizing computers and documents belonging to the agency chief Scott Bloch and staff.Corrupt from head to toe.More than a dozen FBI agents served grand jury subpoenas shortly after 10 a.m., shutting down the agency's computer network and searching its offices, as well as Mr. Bloch's home. Employees said the searches appeared focused on alleged obstruction of justice by Mr. Bloch during the course of an 2006 inquiry into his conduct in office.
The independent agency, created by Congress in the wake of the Watergate scandal, is charged with protecting federal employees and deciding whether their complaints merit full-scale investigation -- a first line of defense against fraud and mismanagement in government. It also enforces a ban on U.S. employees engaging in partisan political activity.
The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Mr. Bloch had used "Geeks on Call," an outside computer-service firm, to erase his computer and those of two former staff members in December 2006.
The United States has fallen into an "awfully pale recession" and may remain stagnant for the rest of the year, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan was quoted on Monday saying.Pale? If you call negative GDP growth and skyrocketing prices pale, then ok. As for the employment figures, 1. the unemployment rate doesn't tell the whole story (i.e. it doesn't include people who have been looking for work for over 6 months, those who have given up altogether or those who work part time), and 2. our latest economic boom was really a jobless recovery."We're in a recession," Bloomberg news agency reported Greenspan had said in a television interview. "But this is an awfully pale recession at the moment. The declines in employment have not been as big as you'd expect to see."
How could this be?says Friedman, in a column the NYT describes as "Lost Greatness."
Read up, it's a good article.
Under the current system, the winners are the insurance companies. By shrinking coverage to healthier and wealthier people - by charging more for it - insurance companies are raking in huge profits, because these people will not get sick as often. What this is about is maximizing insurers' profits at the expense of consumers. Both healthy, rich people, who pay higher premiums for the same service, and sick, poor people, who receive no coverage, are worse off. If we socialize the risk by way of a universal health care plan, costs will dramatically fall and everyone will be insured. Under that system, the losers are the insurance companies. Boohoo.
Sure, we'll trust the perennial optimists to tell us when the market has bottom. Look at this chart of the S&P 500 from 4Q07 to date. First they told us there was no crisis, then they told us it was contained, now they're telling us it's already passed.Many on Wall Street, the epicenter of the credit mess, seem to think that the worst is over. For the first time in months, analysts and executives sound upbeat again. Many of them see a broad, sustained recovery in both the economy and the financial markets coming in the second half of this year, a prediction some market strategists call hopeful at best.
For now, policy makers are echoing the mood on Wall Street. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Thursday that “we are closer to the end of this problem than we are to the beginning.”
That first sentence sums it up really well. Look at the logic on which the optimists - let's call them ponyboys - are banking their recovery on: tax rebate checks - $600 is enough to solve every negative homeowner equity and bad commercial/real estate loan ever! - and lower interest rates - $4 gas! That stimulates somebody's pockets - will save the world.It is, of course, not uncommon for Wall Street to run ahead of the broader economy. Investors, after all, make money by anticipating the future. The job market, by contrast, improves more slowly than other aspects of the economy.
But specialists say the two sides will eventually converge. Either the markets will give up their recent gains or, if the optimists are right, the broader economy will show greater strength as tax rebate checks and lower interest rates stimulate the economy.
