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Obama was the choice of 32 percent of likely Democratic caucusgoers, up from 28 percent in the Register's last poll in late November, while Clinton, a New York senator, held steady at 25 percent and Edwards, a former North Carolina senator, was virtually unchanged at 24 percent.... Six percent were undecided or uncommitted.Read the rest of this post...
And Joe and I have just recorded a New Years Eve podcast looking at where the presidential nominations stand on the eve (almost eve) of the Iowa Caucuses (coming this Thursday). You can listen to our latest podcast simply by clicking this link (it's an mp3). This episode is around 30 minutes."The argument goes that the only way to bring about change is to be angry," said Obama at an event in a church hall here tonight. He quickly added: "I don't need lectures about how to bring about change because I have been doing it all my life."How does "change" fit with cozying up to anti-gay bigots? I appreciate the fact that Obama has been against the Iraq war from the start. This is commendable and it is one issue that I like a lot about him.
- Pharmaceutical: $148,514,782
- Insurance: $281,058,830
- Securities and Investments - $529,351,964
- Commercial banks: $191,424,027
- Health Professionals: $384,917,481
- Telephone Utilities: $109,581,401
The country and much of the world was rightly and profoundly frightened by the single-minded hatred and ingenuity displayed by this new enemy. But there is no excuse for how President Bush and his advisers panicked — how they forgot that it is their responsibility to protect American lives and American ideals, that there really is no safety for Americans or their country when those ideals are sacrificed.Read the rest of this post...
Out of panic and ideology, President Bush squandered America’s position of moral and political leadership, swept aside international institutions and treaties, sullied America’s global image, and trampled on the constitutional pillars that have supported our democracy through the most terrifying and challenging times. These policies have fed the world’s anger and alienation and have not made any of us safer.
A triumvirate consisting of her husband, Asif Zardari (one of the most venal and discredited politicians in the country and still facing corruption charges in three European courts) and two ciphers will run the party till Benazir's 19-year-old son, Bilawal, comes of age. He will then become chairperson-for-life and, no doubt, pass it on to his children. The fact that this is now official does not make it any less grotesque. The Pakistan People's Party is being treated as a family heirloom, a property to be disposed of at the will of its leader.Read the rest of this post...
Nothing more, nothing less. Poor Pakistan. Poor People's Party supporters. Both deserve better than this disgusting, medieval charade.
Benazir's last decision was in the same autocratic mode as its predecessors, an approach that would cost her – tragically – her own life. Had she heeded the advice of some party leaders and not agreed to the Washington-brokered deal with Pervez Musharraf or, even later, decided to boycott his parliamentary election she might still have been alive. Her last gift to the country does not augur well for its future.
How can Western-backed politicians be taken seriously if they treat their party as a fiefdom and their supporters as serfs, while their courtiers abroad mouth sycophantic niceties concerning the young prince and his future.
That most of the PPP inner circle consists of spineless timeservers leading frustrated and melancholy lives is no excuse. All this could be transformed if inner-party democracy was implemented. There is a tiny layer of incorruptible and principled politicians inside the party, but they have been sidelined. Dynastic politics is a sign of weakness, not strength. Benazir was fond of comparing her family to the Kennedys, but chose to ignore that the Democratic Party, despite an addiction to big money, was not the instrument of any one family.
The loss or theft of personal data such as credit card and Social Security numbers soared to unprecedented levels in 2007, and the trend isn't expected to turn around anytime soon as hackers stay a step ahead of security and laptops disappear with sensitive information.Read the rest of this post...
And while companies, government agencies, schools and other institutions are spending more to protect ever-increasing volumes of data with more sophisticated firewalls and encryption, the investment often is too little too late.
Huckabee said Romney was "making up things not about just our records but making up things about his own in terms of things he saw, marches with Martin Luther King ... endorsements from the NRA that never happened."Then again, Romney never helped free a convicted rapist who then went on to sexually assault and murder two more women, so I'm thinking they're about even. Read the rest of this post...
Those tactics backfire, said Warren Tompkins, a political consultant who ran George Bush's 2000 campaign in South Carolina and now is Romney's top consultant in the state. "Anything this outrageous and childish and nonsensical would have a significant fallout on whoever did it and on whose behalf it was done," Tompkins said.Read the rest of this post...
There were 950 natural catastrophes in 2007 compared with 850 in 2006, the highest number since the group started compiling its closely watched annual report in 1974.Read the rest of this post...
The total cost of disasters in 2007 was 75 billion dollars (51.5 billion euros), while the bill for 2006 was 50 billion dollars.
As a presidential contender, Mitt Romney has the looks, the money and the campaign machine. He also has something of a candor gap."Something of a candor gap." That's just classic. More after the break.
When confronted with questions that might conflict with his message of the day or political record, the Republican candidate has shown a tendency to bob and weave or simply dismiss history. He has done so all year, providing an easy target for his opponents.If you aren't being honest, you are a liar. The Associated Press and Huckabee won't use the L-word, but clearly both think Mitt's been lying. Now, Mitt is lying. He just figured no one would call him on it. Read the rest of this post...
''If you aren't being honest in obtaining the job, can we trust you if you get the job?'' Romney rival Mike Huckabee asked on Sunday during an appearance on NBC's ''Meet the Press.''
Former governor Mitt Romney's economic development agency granted initial approval to a tax-exempt bond last year for a Planned Parenthood clinic in Worcester that will provide abortions, just two months before he left office and began highlighting his antiabortion position as a presidential candidate.Read the rest of this post...
more stories like this
Asked about the $5 million financial deal yesterday, the Romney campaign said the former governor was not aware it was under consideration when Planned Parenthood won preliminary approval in November 2006.
Romney repeatedly used the power of his office while governor to advance socially conservative positions, including restricting stem cell research, pushing abstinence-only sex education in schools, and vetoing a bill to increase access to emergency contraception in hospitals.
In the case of the abortion clinic funding deal, the Republican candidate's spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said Romney would have attempted to block it - if he had known about it.
"Mitt Romney is prolife," Fehrnstrom said. "He did not know about this loan. It was made by an agency that does not report to the governor. If it did, he would have told them not to do it."
In additon to providing abortion services, the 10,000-square-foot Planned Parenthood clinic planned for Worcester will offer Plan B emergency contraception, also known as the "morning after pill," which also is opposed by antiabortion advocates.
Jeffrey M. Berry, a political science professor at Tufts University, said he was surprised that Romney and his aides did not catch such a politically sensitive financial deal making its way through his economic development agency. Now, Berry said, the campaign will be put in the position of defending Romney at a time when he is heading into the most critical days of his candidacy.
"It is unusual that his people at the agency did not find a reason not to fund Planned Parenthood," Berry said. "His administration was clearly focused on his run for the presidency and making sure there was no embarrassment like this. It was an administration that was pretty efficient getting everyone operating on the same page and avoiding scandal."
ABC's "This Week" — Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and John McCain, R-Ariz.Read the rest of this post...
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CBS' "Face the Nation" — Former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.
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NBC's "Meet the Press" — Former Gov. Mike Huckabee, R-Ark., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
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CNN's "Late Edition" — Former Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn.; Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Joe Biden, D-Del.; former GOP presidential candidate Steve Forbes; Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; former Sens. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., Tim Hutchinson, R-Ark., and Jim Talent, R-Mo.; former Defense Secretary William Cohen.
"Fox News Sunday" _ Thompson.
Bush's attention comes at a time when he and top advisers feel better about his presidency, confident they have turned a corner after two years of political setbacks and can now focus on reformulating his legacy. Heading into his final year, Bush has turned to big, bracing challenges abroad, most notably finding Middle East peace and forging a consensus on climate change. If global warming turns out to be a defining issue of this generation, advisers said, Bush does not want to be remembered as a roadblock.Ahhh, the good old legacy. A legacy of trashing the environment for years and then talk of change at the end, but without any real change. Only the new Washington Post could fall for such silly nonsense. Bush wants to have it both ways and the friendly scribes from the Post comply. Would a junior high reporter even fall for this?
"As you draw toward the end of an eight-year term, it's human nature to try to look forward and then backward -- look into the future and then back at the past and think about how it looks," said a former Bush adviser who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "You could conclude, as this administration has, that you want to be seen ultimately as having evolved and opened some doors and maybe started a glide path to the next administration."
In the last weekend before the Iowa caucuses, the Republican presidential candidates are bloodying the field with a blizzard of negative attacks, showing the strains of a wide-open and unpredictable race.This is really getting good and ugly. Mitt might actually have his hair knocked out of place -- or he may have to get those five tough guy sons of his into some real hand-to-hand combat after all. There's more after the break. Enjoy.
Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Senator John McCain are involved in what amounts to an elaborate pool-hall strategy that relies heavily on bank shots to win as their campaigns struggle for primacy both here and in New Hampshire.
Mr. Huckabee, after stumbling Friday over several statements about Pakistan, unloaded today on Mr. Romney.
“If a person is dishonest in his approach to get the job, do you believe he will be honest in telling you the truth when he does gets the job?” Mr. Huckabee said at a campaign stop in Osceola, Iowa.
Mitt in a ditch is such a great visual. Do you think the guy has every really gotten his hands dirty? Read the rest of this post...
And in an assist to Mr. McCain _ Mr. Huckabee would love for Mr. McCain to block Mr. Romney from winning in New Hampshire _ Mr. Huckabee added that he was escalating his attacks on Mr. Romney in part because Mr. Romney had the nerve to disparage Mr. McCain, “an American hero.”
“It is enough to attack me, but now to attack John McCain, it is like Mitt doesn’t have anything to stand on except to stand against, and I am saying enough is enough,” Mr. Huckabee declared.
In a bit of political jujitsu, Mr. Huckabee put out a commercial to that effect, saying of negative campaigning: “enough is enough” even as he slammed Mr. Romney. He also put out a spot highlighting Mr. Romney’s reversal of positions on abortion.
By contrast, the Democratic candidates were engaged in more polite campaigning, as Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton and former Senator John Edwards fanned out across Iowa with last-minute appeals to turn out supports on caucus night this Thursday.
The Republican candidates are still bleeding over the Romney-McCain ad wars that flared Friday and released a barrage of new ads today. Mr. Romney lobbed an ad portraying Mr. McCain as soft on immigration, while Mr. McCain fired back with one quoting the Concord Monitor.
The strategy here is to shove Mr. Romney deeper into the ditch, allowing Mr. Huckabee to win Iowa and Mr. McCain to win New Hampshire. But whether Iowans will buy the negative force with which these three, but especially Mr. Huckabee, are confronting each other is unclear.
U.S. officials fear that a renewed campaign by Islamic militants aimed at the Pakistani government, and based along the border with Afghanistan, would complicate U.S. policy in the region by effectively merging the six-year-old war in Afghanistan with Pakistan's growing turbulence.A.J. Rossmiller is, of course, my foreign policy guru, but I find Ricks (who wrote Fiasco) and Wright are very smart, insightful foreign policy reporters. There's more after the break, but the entire piece is worth a read.
"The fates of Afghanistan and Pakistan are inextricably tied," said J. Alexander Thier, a former United Nations official in Afghanistan who is now at the U.S. Institute for Peace.
More than half of 1,000 people polled said they would prefer the second-in-line to be the next to take the throne.Thank goodness reaching out to a "commoner" is relevant. Read the rest of this post...
More people who actually like royalty, including talk of a "commoner" after the jump.
Prince William's popularity is greatest among the younger generation, with 70 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds favouring him as the next king, compared to just 47 percent of 55- to 64-year-olds.
The groundswell of support appears to have been helped by his rekindled romance with commoner Kate Middleton.
Huckabee said 660 Pakistanis entered the country illegally last year. When asked by a reporter the source for that statistic, Huckabee appeared unsure, saying, "Those are numbers that I got today from a briefing, and I believe they are CIA and immigration numbers." The Huckabee campaign later said the figure came from a March 2006 report by The Denver Post. But the Border Patrol told CNN on Friday that it apprehended only "a handful" of illegal immigrants from Pakistan in 2007.Ladies and gentlemen, your Republican Iowa front-runner, Mike "Ron Burgandy" Huckabee!
Charges: You believe in freedom of speech, until someone says something that offends you. You suddenly give a damn about border integrity, because the automated voice system at your pharmacy asked you to press 9 for Spanish. You cling to every scrap of bullshit you can find to support your ludicrous belief system, and reject all empirical evidence to the contrary. You know the difference between patriotism and nationalism -- it's nationalism when foreigners do it. You hate anyone who seems smarter than you. You care more about zygotes than actual people. You love to blame people for their misfortunes, even if it means screwing yourself over. You still think Republicans favor limited government. Your knowledge of politics and government are dwarfed by your concern for Britney Spears' children. You think buying Chinese goods stimulates our economy. You think you're going to get universal health care. You tolerate the phrase "enhanced interrogation techniques." You think the government is actually trying to improve education. You think watching CNN makes you smarter. You think two parties is enough. You can't spell. You think $9 trillion in debt is manageable. You believe in an afterlife for the sole reason that you don't want to die. You think lowering taxes raises revenue. You think the economy's doing well. You're an idiot.Read the rest of this post...
Exhibit A: You couldn't get enough Anna Nicole Smith coverage.
Sentence: A gradual decline into abject poverty as you continue to vote against your own self-interest. Death by an easily treated disorder that your health insurance doesn't cover. You deserve it, chump.
The provision that is causing problems would have allowed the victims of the executed Iraqi dictator Saddam to seek compensation in court, Democrats said. The Iraqi government has warned that former U.S. prisoners of war from the first Gulf War might cite this legislation in an attempt to get money from the Iraqi government's reported $25 billion in assets now held in U.S. banks, they say.Nice. Now who hates the troops? (And how much do you want to bet that the Democrats will fail to capitalize on this issue?) How the Democrats brought this on themselves, after the jump...
In Iowa, which opens the 2008 presidential voting with its Jan. 3 caucuses, the poll found Sen. Obama of Illinois, Sen. Clinton of New York and former Sen. Edwards of North Carolina in a statistical three-way tie.Politico on the Strategic Vision poll:
But other poll findings suggest Clinton might gain stature in both states if Democrats' concern about world affairs increases after Thursday's assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. The poll shows that Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire consider Clinton far better equipped than her rivals to safeguard national security -- as do Democrats around the country.
John Edwards appears to have risen to a new highpoint in Iowa, marking an upward trend over the past two weeks that places him in a statistical tie with Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.Read the rest of this post...
A new Strategic Vision poll released Friday finds that Edwards has the support of 28 percent of likely Democratic cacucusgoers, his best standing in Iowa over the past six months. Edwards now trails Clinton by only one point and Obama by two points, well within the poll’s margin of error of 4.5 percent.
Today’s survey confirms a string of polls in the past two weeks - another by Strategic Vision as well as recent polls by CNN and InsiderAdvantage. All demonstrate a steady ascension by Edwards, while Clinton and Obama appear to have stabilized.
Six out of 10 people polled said they believe it is at least somewhat likely that the U.S. economy will enter a recession next year. Slightly more — 64 percent — said they worried about a major unexpected medical expense, and 55 percent worried that the value of their stocks and retirement investments would drop.Read the rest of this post...
More on the middle class concerns, after the jump.
Forty-four percent said they were concerned that the value of their homes would decrease during the next six months. That sentiment was especially strong in the mountain states.
"Middle class America is being chipped away at," said Edward Lemieux, a 57-year-old pattern maker from North Smithfield, R.I., who plans to support Obama for president.
His view is influenced by the flight of manufacturing jobs from his state, by the "For Sale" signs that outnumber the "Sold" signs on neighborhood lawns and by his mother's health care needs.
"We're all of a sudden becoming a country of rich and poor," he said. "The middle class is eroding."
"I know something about tailspins, and it's pretty clear Mitt Romney is in one," McCain said in the statement. "It's disappointing that he would launch desperate, flailing, and false attacks in an attempt to maintain relevance. As the Union Leader said today, New Hampshire voters just aren't buying his act, and these latest attacks won't help him."More after the jump... Mitt's one of those guys who always got what he wanted. And, he wants to be President now and can't believe lowlifes like McCain and Huckabee are getting in his way. He's fighting back against McCain with a new negative ad:
Mitt Romney takes GOP presidential rival John McCain to task on taxes and immigration in a new advertising push in New Hampshire as he seeks to fend off the Arizona senator's challenge.Go Mitt. And, back to you Senator McCain. Read the rest of this post...
"John McCain, an honorable man. But is he the right Republican for the future?" an announcer asks in the ad that starts airing Friday in New Hampshire, which holds the nation's first presidential primary on Jan. 8. "McCain opposes repeal of the death tax. And voted against the Bush tax cuts - twice. McCain pushed to let every illegal immigrant stay here permanently. Even voted to allow illegals to collect Social Security."
Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests attacked each other with brooms and stones inside the Church of the Nativity as long-standing rivalries erupted in violence during holiday cleaning on Thursday.A cleaning session that turned violent. In one of the holiest sites during the Christmas season. Are they serious? Read the rest of this post...
Musharraf claims the declaration of a "state of emergency" in Pakistan -- which is for all intents and purposes an imposition of martial law -- is due to terrorist threat. This, by all credible accounts, is false. Musharraf is reacting to approaching elections, an impending supreme court decision on his role in the government, and the ascension of opposing political groups, highlighted by the return of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. [...] [T]he idea that this was some big, out-of-nowhere surprise is also totally false. Foreign policy observers have been worrying about this for a while.More after the jump... If you thought it was bad that the US government had a "dramatic drop-off" in expertise three weeks ago, it's now a full-blown disaster. A few commenters were unhappy that I said the Bush administration deserves some blame for this deterioration, that the US has no responsibility for this kind of thing, but *we do.* And the Bush administration does. And nothing from today gives me any confidence that the next year will contain anything but continued foreign policy blunders.
Unfortunately, according to WaPo, there's literally no one at the wheel with this issue:"The problem is exacerbated by a dramatic drop-off in U.S. expertise on Pakistan. Retired American officials say that, for the first time in U.S. history, nobody with serious Pakistan experience is working in the South Asia bureau of the State Department, on State's policy planning staff, on the National Security Council staff or even in Vice President Cheney's office."The article says "even in" the VP's office, of course, because that's where US foreign policy is run, so apparently it's the most important place to have experts.
While it's too soon to fully gauge the effects here of Bhutto's assassination, it could well work most to Giuliani's benefit by enabling him to thrust himself back into the daily political conversation after steadily losing ground to McCain and Huckabee. With his decision to all but skip Iowa and play only at the margins in the New Hampshire primary, Giuliani has watched as the campaign in its final stages has largely passed him by.Read the rest of this post...
But, with the Bhutto's death and the broader implications of the fight against terrorism worldwide likely to dominate the coverage for the next day or two (at a minimum), Giuliani immediately becomes relevant again.
The assassination coincides with Giuliani's decision to directly invoke the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in a new commercial that is running on broadcast channels in New Hampshire and Florida as well on cable nationally.
The key line? "Islamic terrorists would make a terrible mistake if they would confuse our democracy with weakness."
Giuliani must hope that the Bhutto assassination will remind voters that terrorists can strike anywhere, any time, and that with his experience as mayor of New York at the time of the 9-11 attack, he would be best qualified among all the presidential candidates to navigate those dangerous waters.
The Russian foreign ministry said it feared the country could descend into terrorism or civil war....Read the rest of this post...
British political campaigner Mohammed Shafiq said: "This has destroyed any chance of election in Pakistan. It will cause more friction and more problems."
Sky's Asia correspondent Alex Crawford said: "It is almost impossible to imagine how much turmoil this is going to cause within Pakistan. There is going to be team of people who will want to avenge her death. There will be team of people who want to capitalise on the turbulence after her death."
Bhutto, 54, was shot at close range as she was leaving the rally in this garrison city south of Islamabad, aides said. Immediately after the shooting, a suicide bomber detonated explosives near Bhutto's car, killing at least 15 other people.Analysis of the impact of the assassination is also starting. I'm no foreign policy expert, but let's just say, it's pretty clear this isn't good for Pakistan's future:
Bhutto was rushed to a hospital with extensive wounds to her torso, her supporters said. Shortly after she arrived at the hospital, an official came out of the building and told a crowd of supporters Bhutto was dead.
Bhutto's death is a devastating development, coming 12 days before Pakistanis are set to vote in national parliamentary elections already marked by enormous political turmoil. President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in November -- a move which he said was to combat terrorism, but which was widely perceived as an effort to stave off legal challenges to his authority. U.S. military officials said last week that the terrorist group al-Qaeda increasingly is focusing its efforts in Pakistan.Keep in mind, Pakistan is allegedly our stalwart ally in the war against terror and the fight for democracy. Read the rest of this post...
Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was killed in a gun and bomb attack after a rally in the city of Rawalpindi on Thursday, her party said.Read the rest of this post...
"She has been martyred," said party offical Rehman Malik.
Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was wounded in a gun and suicide bomb attack after an election rally in the city of Rawalpindi, a party security official and police said.Read the rest of this post...
"She is injured," said party security official Rehman Malik. She had been taken to hospital.
Home prices in the United States fell in October for the 10th consecutive month, declining a record 6.7 percent compared with a year ago, according to the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller home price index.Read the rest of this post...
“No matter how you look at these data, it is obvious that the current state of the single-family housing market remains grim,” said Robert Shiller, who helped create the index, in a statement Wednesday.
Gordon Brown's hopes of securing a parliamentary majority for his plans to extend the time terrorist suspects can be detained without charge have been dealt a severe blow by a survey of Commons opinion showing only a third of MPs back tougher laws.Read the rest of this post...
The survey also reveals the appetite for further anti-terror legislation among Brown's own MPs is faltering, with 48% of Labour MPs agreeing there has been too much anti-terror legislation.
Mmmmmm, Iraq...oil, reconstruction contracts and security forces. Yummmmm. Post Katrina rebuilding. Delicious. Tax cuts for the richest Americans and send the bill to the middle class. You have what? No regulations for financial markets? Great! Just keep dishing out favors to millionaire farmers and throw in a splash of a dismantled consumer protection and we'll be set, for now.
Read the rest of this post...
This time, investors are aiming not only at mortgage lenders, brokers and investment banks but also insurers (American International Group), bond funds (State Street, Morgan Keegan), rating agencies (Moody's and Standard & Poor's) and homebuilders (Beazer Homes, Toll Brothers et al).So instead of proper guidance and regulation, we are stuck in this cycle of lawsuits, counter lawsuits and probably counter-counter lawsuits. How is this any easier or less painful than regulation? I'd like to hear how this model is superior because it just looks nuts to me.
Borrowers, too, are suing both their lenders and the Wall Street firms that wrapped up their loans. Several groups of employees and pension-fund participants have filed so-called ERISA/401(k) suits against their own firms. Local councils in Australia are threatening to sue a subsidiary of Lehman Brothers over the sale of collateralised-debt obligations (CDOs), the Financial Times has reported. Lenders are even turning on each other; Deutsche Bank has filed large numbers of lawsuits against mortgage firms, claiming they owe money for failing to buy back loans that soured within months of being made.
“It seems that everyone is suing everyone,” says Adam Savett of RiskMetrics' securities-litigation group. “It surely can't be long before we get the legal equivalent of man bites dog, where a lender sues its borrowers for some breach of contract.”
The authorities, too, are baring their teeth. Several Wall Street banks have received subpoenas from New York's attorney-general, Andrew Cuomo, requesting information on their packaging of now-stricken securities. This comes on top of a deepening probe into possibly inflated home-price appraisals by brokers and lenders, including Washington Mutual and First American Corporation. Ohio's attorney-general, Marc Dann, has been just as hyperactive, suing over a dozen lenders and brokers.
No less important is the spadework being done by the Securities and Exchange Commission, America's main markets watchdog. It is conducting more than 20 investigations, including one into the arrangements banks entered into with hedge funds that may have been designed to hide or delay mark-to-market losses.
Read the rest of this post...
In this primary, the more Mitt Romney speaks, the less believable he becomes.Classic. Read the rest of this post...
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