Something about the Wall Street bailout deal has an undemocratic (small “d”) whiff to it

2 comments September 20th, 2008

 

There’s quite a buzz on the Internet tonight about this paragraph, among others, in the proposed legislation aimed at curbing the mortgage crisis:

“Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”

Your thoughts?

This is cool stuff with poll numbers

1 comment September 20th, 2008

The Web site FiveThirtyEight.com (the name of which is based on the total number of electoral votes) does some pretty nifty things with the poll numbers it crunches every day.

One of those things is a scenario analysis based on 10,000 computer simulations of the presidential election, using current poll numbers and some historical figures. Once you get the hang of interpreting this analysis, which is not difficult, it makes for interesting reading.

For example, the current analysis above shows that there almost eight chances in 100 that Barack Obama will lose the national popular vote but win the electoral vote, which is what happened to George W. Bush in the election of 2000. There’s barely one chance in 100 that John McCain will achieve that rare distinction.

Today’s analysis also shows that Obama is 5.8 times more likely than McCain to win an electoral landslide in November. On the other hand, it appears unlikely that either candidate will win by such a wide electoral margin (that is, with 375 or more electoral votes).

Anyway, check out the scenario analysis every once in a while. It’s fascinating. You’ll find it on the right-hand side of the FIRST PAGE if you scroll down a bit.

This headline speaks volumes

Add comment September 20th, 2008

(Applesauce hat-tip to AmericaBlog. By the way, the byline on this article from The Washington Post includes Freeport native Dan Balz.)

Anchorage paper says McCain campaign is running Alaska state government

7 comments September 20th, 2008

 

The moose in the photo is laughing at THIS situation in Alaska.

POSTSCRIPT: The McCain campaign also is RUNNING INTERFERENCE for Sarah Palin with respect to her upcoming debate with Joe Biden. The McCain people are insisting on a rigid format with little opportunity for free-wheeling, direct exchanges between the candidates. 

 Apparently, Palin isn’t ready to play in the big leagues.

Utter gibberish from the person McCain considers America’s leading energy expert

2 comments September 20th, 2008

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PolitiFact.com compares the respective tax plans of John McCain and Barack Obama

2 comments September 20th, 2008

THIS is the first installment in the independent Web site’s series on key issues of the presidential campaign.

Women “need education and training”

Add comment September 20th, 2008

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Scary stuff: Paulson and Bernanke privately said we were just days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system

13 comments September 20th, 2008

THIS is pretty frightening.

UPDATE: President Bush SAID this morning that the U.S. financial system had become a “house of cards” and “we were worried about the whole deck coming down.”

Belated candor from the guy who presided over this disaster.

He’s leaving four months from today; I think I’m going to miss him a little

1 comment September 20th, 2008

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Who won the week? Obama or McCain?

1 comment September 20th, 2008

 

It was a wild week, to say the least, and the staffers at Politico.com say it was a clean sweep for Barack Obama.

HERE’s how they saw it, day by day.

UPDATE: Right-winger Pat Buchanan also thinks Obama did “exceedingly well” this week, and Rachel Maddow offers a review of McCain’s bad week:

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