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MIAMI – It may be tempting the weather gods just to point this out, but this has been a dud of a hurricane season so far. Only two hurricanes have formed in the Atlantic over the past three months, and neither hit the U.S. — a somewhat unusual lull. "I'm glad that I didn't have to go out and get anything — yet," said Lissette Galiana, who was shopping at a Wal-Mart in suburban Miami on Friday, around what is usually the very peak of the Atlantic hurricane season. "There's always a chance." Forecasters attribute the calm to a weak...

With Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) facing an uphill battle to win reelection next year after a series of Washington scandals battered his popularity back home, President Obama and other national Democrats are sparing no effort to help him. Despite the scandals which left his ethics called into question, the three-decade Senate veteran is not trying to shake his Beltway image. Instead, Dodd is working furiously to show the impact of his long service by racking up big legislative accomplishments - including, potentially, a health care reform bill - before the midterm elections. And some of the national Democratic Party's biggest...

Senate Banking committee Chairman Christopher Dodd told CNN’s Dana Bash and Wolf Blitzer Wednesday that he was responsible for adding the bonus loophole into the stimulus package that permitted AIG and other companies that received bailout funds to pay bonuses.

At the end of my tenure on this committee, I want it to be said that the safety and soundness of our financial institutions was not weakened on my watch -Chris Dodd, February 15, 2007 (H/T Ironman, who notes that the Dow has fallen nearly in half since that date). Senator Dodd has a lot to answer for and it looks like Connecticut voters are turning on him, as a new Quinnipiac poll out this morning shows he would narrowly trail moderate Republican former Congressman Rob Simmons 43-42 if the election were held today. (H/T) Simmons has been publicly mulling...

There is nearly universal agreement that the opening salvo of the Obama administration’s campaign to restore health to the financial system, delivered last week by new U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, fell with a loud and ugly thud. The most common criticism is that the announcement was short on detail. What is abundantly clear, however, is that the new administration intends to push spending back up to pre-crash levels and to fill the entire credit void that has disappeared into the black hole of the U.S. financial system. Whether or not the prior levels of spending and lending were...

Last Thursday evening at the Democratic National Convention, presidential candidate Barack Obama tried to score a political touchdown on the 50 yard line of Denver's Invesco Field stadium. Instead, he won the all-time governmental convention award for the best over-the-top political spectacle of sight, sound, speech and pyrotechnics – complete with superstar performances, Braveheart-like epic music endings and an Olympic-sized fireworks show. For a week prior to the event, newscasters, commentators and pundits were trying to guess what exactly that Greco-Roman, column-structure was that served as a stage backdrop, and what it was supposed to be representing and stating on...

Well, today is supposed to be the day the big, huge, bad, devastating, apocalyptic, {insert-dire-adjective-here} political "bombshell" is supposed to drop on Senator The Obama's head. Which... um... (looking around)...so far, no "boom." So I am proposing we mount a "Bombshell Watch." And thus, I make the first log entry: 6:13am PT — so far, no "boom" In the meanwhile, you can (if you like) read my own prediction Man your posts, FReepers!

Campaign 2008 Fifty percent of adults would not vote for Clinton By Kelly McCormack March 27, 2007 Half of voting-age Americans say they would not vote for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) if she became the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, according to a Harris Interactive poll released Tuesday. More than one in five Democrats that participated in the survey said they would not vote for Clinton. Overall, 36 percent say they would vote for the former first lady and 11 percent are unsure of their top choice. Forty-eight percent of Independent voters also said that they would...

Were all the pundits wrong about Hillary's strength? by Chris Reed at January 17, 2007 10:50 AM For years, the assumption has been nearly universal that Hillary Clinton would have an easy path to the 2008 Dem nomination. She had the money, the establishment support and the great goodwill among Democrats for the first Clinton administration going for her. Well, maybe everyone was wrong. Reason Online's David Weigel makes the case:   Anyone But Hillary   David Weigel | January 17, 2007, 1:20pm Rasmussen Reports has been polling the Democratic field, and today they measure the strength of Hillary...

Zune launched this week and, as predicted, it easily jumped to the number one spot in one of the most critical market metrics. How can this happen? How can a company known for practices that should dominate this metric fall so far behind its Redmond rival? Sometimes it’s about focus and commitment and a never ending desire to maximize critical metrics like third party studies. Sometimes it about executive integrity and the ability to present a product in the most favorable light in the face of all information to the contrary to overcome all objections in getting a product to...

North Korea sets off an earthshaking explosion _ and claims it was nuclear. Was it? For scientists, that was not a quick and easy question to answer. *****Snip**** His agency estimated the North Korean blast at around 1 kiloton or less _ equivalent to the explosive force of 1,000 tons of TNT. For a nuclear device, that would be so weak that the French defense minister suggested that "there could have been a failure" with the North Korean reported test.

CARVILLE'S 'Clinton is electable! Clear the way!' BATTLE CRY SPELLS TROUBLE FOR HILLARY by Mia T, 7.02.06 he embarrassing need to dispatch longtime clinton operatives, James Carville and Mark J. Penn, to the Washington Post in order to prop up hillary clinton yet one more time,1 confirms what is plainly in the field... and what is doubtless in missus clinton's internal polls: Big problems ahead for the quondam shoo-in. "Faugh a Ballaugh!" The Post Carville-Penn apologia, full of poses, poll-tested phrases and prevarication is, clearly, missus clinton's response-by-proxy (how else?) to the growing 'dump hillary' movement within the Democratic...

THE THIRD PARTY HILLARY NEEDS... TO WINFLIM FLAM SCAM42% WILL VOTE FOR HILLARY. 40% WON'T. SHE NEEDS TO MAKE SURE THE OTHER 18% WON'T VOTE REPUBLICAN... JUST LIKE THE DNC MANAGED TO DO IN BOTH 1992 AND 1996 n 1991 when Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton decided to challenge President George H.W. Bush for the White House, all of the honest in-house polls the Clinton Campaign and the Democratic National Committee took indicated that Clinton would lose to Bush by a margin of 16 points. The polls taken by Bush and the Republican National Committee said the same thing. Bush...

'HILLARY'S BIGGEST PROBLEM... SHE'S OLD NEWS' by Mia T, 6.07.06     "I think the reason somebody like Mark Warner is doing better, I think the reason they picked Tim Kaine, for example, to give the response to the State of the Union is because hillary's biggest problem isn't the scandals, it isn't her being a polarizing figure, which she is. I think it's that she's old news. I think the Democrats are looking for somebody new. They're looking for a new face. And that's what they think they need." young, unidentified reporterThe Chris Matthews ShowVIDEO   THE DECLINE...

THE DECLINE OF HILLARY CLINTON: THE DYNAMICS (SHE HAS ONLY ONE WAY TO GO. AND IT ISN'T UP.) From THE HOTLINE Luntz Focus Groups The Dems.... March 30, 2006(ANNOTATED BY MIA T, 6.04.06)   Luntz Maslansky Strategic Research presented its findings on the '08 Dem field this a.m. to reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast. Their focus groups tested Dem primary voters in NH and IA.... Support for Hillary Clinton "disappeared by the time the night was over, and she won virtually no new converts. Only Edwards faired worse." KORNBLUT:  And I would add to that.  It's 51...

TIRE INFLATION, GAS STATIONS + THE NEED TO SEQUESTER HILLARY by Mia T, 6.01.06   hillary talks:ON GANDHI & GAS STATIONS(Why it DOES matter...)by Mia T, 01.08.04 HILLARY GOES NUCLEARPROLIFERATION IN THE AGE OF CLINTON by Mia T, 5.30.06     For more than a half decade, the Clinton administration was shoveling atomic secrets out the door as fast as it could, literally by the ton. Millions of previously classified ideas and documents relating to nuclear arms were released to all comers, including China's bomb makers. William J. BroadSpying Isn't the Only Way to Learn About Nukes The New...

The Nation -- The news that Chris Dodd, the stodgy senior Senator from Connecticut, is pondering a run for the presidency proves that ego knows no bounds. Dodd's been in the Senate forever, has no natural constituency in any important primary state and has recently angered the Democratic base by repeatedly defending Joe Lieberman. Think John Kerry is a liberal elitist? Wait until you meet Dodd. He may be an able, distinguished Senator, but Dodd has absolutely no chance of becoming president. The fact is, everyone, including ten of Dodd's Senate colleagues, is running for president these days. What better...

THREE WOMEN AND A FUNERAL:HOW THE CLINTONS ARE HANDLING THE HILLARY DUD FACTOR 3   by Mia T, 03.18.06   er head bobbed nonstop in servile compliance.... Her gaze was fawning, fixed on him.... Her mouth was frozen shut, corners upturned a carefully calibrated nine degrees above the horizontal.... Not a smile.... (Never a smile).... Just enough of an upturn to hide the always-present anger. His sock puppet was on display.... Finally.... He spoke for both of them, alternating between oily racist and reliable misogynist. Instead of striking out as her own person in this friendly venue--it was the...

BILL MAHER WARNS DEMOCRATS: HILLARY WILL TAKE YOU OVER A CLIFF IN '08 First of all, she will never win the presidency. The people who are worrying about that should stop worrying. She will never be elected president of this country. The democrats should buddy up to that concept before they walk over the cliff with her in 2008. Bill MaherHardball with Chris Matthews February 14, 2006 'HIATUS' FOR HILLARY? by Mia T, 02.02.06 The clintons, as is their wont, are now taking this proxy scheme to even more outrageous extremes. The latest: an actual hillary clinton proxy presidency,...

  THE (oops!) INADVERTENT ADMISSIONS OF BILL + HILLARY CLINTON part one FROM WHENCE COMES THEIR REPUTATION FOR BRILLIANCE, ANYWAY? AND WAS THEIR FAILURE TO TAKE OUT BIN LADEN WILLFUL?   by Mia T, 02.08.06 "You know... the job which we should have done 1... which should have been our primary focus, to find [you know] bin Laden and eliminate al Qaeda." hillary clintonSaturday, Jan. 28, 2006 Chitchat with Jane Pauley San Francisco, CA "Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in '91 and he went to the Sudan. We'd been hearing...