OMG. It’s pretty insane that his hair isn’t the most frightening thing.
A little bit of foreshadowing.
Despite extensive efforts to educate workers about saving for retirement, many employees are not doing a good job of managing their company-sponsored 401(k) accounts, a new study indicates.
The analysis of nearly 1 million retirement portfolios found that 69 percent have inappropriate risk or diversification of holdings and 36 percent have worrisome concentrations of company stock. In addition, one-third of savers aren’t putting enough aside to qualify for the full company matching contribution.
It’s not so much a presidential campaign as it is a lobbying firm. They’d be much more at home on K Street than Pennsylvania Avenue. Let’s keep it that way.
Over the last two days, John McCain campaign has lost two advisors who resigned because of their lobbying firm’s work for the military regime in Myanmar. Unfortunately, these men are only two of 112 lobbyists who are advising, working for or raising money for John McCain’s presidential campaign. And they are not the only ones who have lobbied for foreign governments with headed by questionable foreign governments, including dictators.
Even their own realize the problem with running a “Ooooh Obama is scary” campaign when your party’s brand is rotten.
Tom Davis, who chaired the NRCC for four years, said he doubts the effectiveness of the anti-Obama strategy because of the contrast between the consistently unpopular Bush and the likely Democratic nominee.
“When Bush tries to articulate a vision,” Davis said, pausing to choose his words carefully, “he will butcher the Gettysburg Address. Obama, he will make an A&P grocery list sing.”
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All the love built up between the Clintons and black folks became love and war when a black man stood between them and their castle.
On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, “Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother’s Day,” when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.
“Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote,” he announced.
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt’s request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.
This blog is 100% pro-mother. This is my mom, and she approves this message.
What do you think is the number required in the election for the new president to have a serious mandate? Any win is a mandate, but considering we live in the era of the thisclose election, my guess is that to have a modern equivalent of FDR’s control the number would have to be 52%.
Recent margins between the two parties:
2004 - 2.4%
2000 - 0.5% (with the vote winner not getting the presidency)
1996 - 8.53%
1992 - 5.6%
1988 - 7.8%
It’s so amazing to me that Bush and Republicans had the Presidency, House and Senate and thought: Let’s privatize social security, that’s a good idea.
Progressives beat back Ward Connerly’s anti-civil rights bill designed to turn up conservative votes in Missouri.
From today’s LA Times poll
African Americans would vote overwhelmingly for Obama, the first black candidate with a realistic chance of becoming president. In the poll, he carried 79% of African Americans, with 3% supporting McCain.
In 2004, Bush got 11% of the black vote, which is likely the highest a Republican will receive for the next century. My guess is that the best McCain will be able to muster is 5%. And that might be mighty generous because within the black vote there will be a ton of people who are new voters and especially voters who have just not turned up before. Some of them would have been motivated already by the prospect of a post-Bush post-Katrina presidency, but the vast majority of them are going to want to be part of the history - which the media and punditry have paid lip service to - but I simply cannot communicate with words to you how big a deal this is.
I can only use my own family as a barometer and like most normal people they rarely talk politics. Ever since Obama got in the race, and especially after Iowa, it constantly comes up. And this is from my grandparent’s generation, my mom’s and my own. I’m pretty sure the same thing is going on in black families from coast to coast now. John Kerry, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, were all great guys and black Americans were glad to vote for them (I sure voted for all three) but it just ain’t the same. To paraphrase an exchange I’ve had several times with a friend of mine (who is white):
Friend: Dude, can you imagine?
Me: I know.
Friend: The president’s name will be Barack Obama?
Me: I know.
Friend: And he’s black.
Me: I KNOW.
And then I get a crazed smile.
It’s the sentiment of one voter in West Virginia. And I know I’m in many ways the stereotypical coastal elitist here, but I don’t 
think I’m crazy to think that a party absolves itself of morality by pandering to that kind of thing, always afraid of taking a step forward because it might offend some whose thinking is backwards (ie “That Martin King is kind of radical, shouldn’t we just bide our time rather than upsetting the apple cart? People in the deep south aren’t ready for big change just yet”).
I don’t believe in supporting candidates far outside of the mainstream of thought but at the same time that road goes both ways. I don’t believe in not supporting a candidate because of the opinion of a voting bloc outside of the realm of common sense.
Of course, at the same time, this shows the world of difference between Virginia and West Virginia.
Because they usually come across as stupid as this claim that Bernie Ward’s trial for child pornography would be bigger news if he were a Republican. Of course, if Ward were a Republican he wouldn’t be a local talk host but a national host on thousands of stations. The reason why Rush Limbaugh’s illegal pill popping was such news is that he’s on the airwaves everywhere. Until very very recently liberal radio hosts were blocked from even the potential of such access.
It’s stupid proclamations like this why Glenn Reynolds mostly foists on us the opinions of others and is too much of a coward to say what he believes.
MORE: Sad Putz
Like I’ve always said: Sometimes the mask slips and the truth comes out.
A 24-year-old Fox News Channel production assistant was fired this morning for something she said during the red carpet arrivals at the Time 100 Gala last night.
Insiders tell us the assistant, identified as Jennifer Locke, was on assignment with a camera crew to cover the entertainment angle of the event. When Sen. John McCain walked by, the assistant said, “I voted for you in the primary, you’re going to win.”
McCain was overheard saying to her, “You’re not supposed to reveal that.”
This issue of Time is going to sell well. Mothers and fathers will get it to show their kids its not a pipe dream, it is no longer theoretical. I’ll be getting one to show the children I have in the future.
“I was there. I remember when it happened. Right at the start of it all. Obama.”
Hammerin’ Hank Aaron on Jackie Robinson:
Jackie Robinson had to be bigger than life. He had to be bigger than the Brooklyn teammates who got up a petition to keep him off the ball club, bigger than the pitchers who threw at him or the base runners who dug their spikes into his shin, bigger than the bench jockeys who hollered for him to carry their bags and shine their shoes, bigger than the so-called fans who mocked him with mops on their heads and wrote him death threats.
When Branch Rickey first met with Jackie about joining the Dodgers, he told him that for three years he would have to turn the other cheek and silently suffer all the vile things that would come his way. Believe me, it wasn’t Jackie’s nature to do that. He was a fighter, the proudest and most competitive person I’ve ever seen. This was a man who, as a lieutenant in the Army, risked a court-martial by refusing to sit in the back of a military bus. But when Rickey read to him from The Life of Christ, Jackie understood the wisdom and the necessity of forbearance.
To this day, I don’t know how he withstood the things he did without lashing back. I’ve been through a lot in my time, and I consider myself to be a patient man, but I know I couldn’t have done what Jackie did. I don’t think anybody else could have done it. Somehow, though, Jackie had the strength to suppress his instincts, to sacrifice his pride for his people’s. It was an incredible act of selflessness that brought the races closer together than ever before and shaped the dreams of an entire generation.
I ran into commenter Gyuss Baaltar on the street on in DC today totally randomly.
(Don’t post any BSG spoilers. I’m in season 3 now.)
The Economist responds to my post about how McCain’s trouble with the base is showing up in a 20% protest vote in the primaries. They don’t think it’s a problem, but if you look at the late 2004 Democratic primaries the only candidate getting a substantial vote other than Sen. Kerry is Sen. Edwards. But unlike the Huckabee/Paul vote that vote was not a rejection of Kerry. I was one of those who voted for Edwards, not because I rejected Kerry as the nominee, but because I wanted him to pick Edwards as his running mate.
So when John Kerry was the nominee and a move on to have Edwards as his running mate, their combined votes were 81-87% of the vote - not the kind of number McCain is getting.
Keith Olbermann is reporting that Howard Wolfson and Patti Solis Doyle are currently negotiating book deals about their time on the Clinton campaign. As Olbermann notes, you don’t negotiate for book deals in primary season if you think you’re going to be working a campaign in the fall.
Just one of the reasons Cindy McCain refuses to release her tax records as John McCain hides behind her skirt.
