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FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right
In a couple of weeks, we’ll be starting our FiveThirtyEight forecasts for the general election. But there’s still a fair amount of work to get those ready, and we seem to be seeing an increasing number of head-to-head polls pairing President Obama against Mitt Romney in the meantime. Thus, as we transition into general election season, I wanted to articulate a few quick reminders about the philosophy I take toward looking at these polls and other important pieces of general-election related data. 1. Be patient. Many of the poll-watching habits you learned for the primaries you will need to unlearn for the general election.
Edward Washington, second left, and Dwayne Moore, second right, stand in the courtroom with their attorneys as verdicts are read on Thursday. (AP/The Boston Herald) A jury has acquitted one man, Edward Washington, who was accused of gunning down three adults and a toddler during a drug robbery and deadlocked on murder charges against another, Dwayne Moore.
WBUR Boston » News and Analysis, New England, U.S., World, From
A Dangerous Crossroads Ominous signs emerged last week that a threat to undermine an economic recovery is afoot, and that threat has particularly severe consequences for America's 15 million unemployed. Before voting on an already scaled-down jobs and jobless aid bill, House Democrats succumbed to pressure from conservative Blue Dogs and nervous moderates and weakened the bill further, eliminating some of its core provisions.
TomPaine.Com - Home
Mitt Romney will be the Republican to face President Obama in the fall. Tuesday night was the clincher, as the Mormon zealot won in Wisconsin, Maryland and Washington DC. He may stumble on, but the Catholic zealot Rick Santorum is finished. It’s hard to detect any alluring feature in Romney’s psychic or political make-up, and I’m none too sure about Ann Romney, who at this stage of the game is filling the role played by the late Elizabeth Edwards in the Edwards campaign on its upward trajectory back in early 2008.
CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
Calculated Risk
On a nationwide basis, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac own or guarantee 60 percent of the mortgages outstanding, but they account for only 29 percent of seriously delinquent loans, obviously a much lower proportion than their share of the market. Even though the Enterprises have a smaller share of seriously delinquent loans than other market participants, they account for just over half of all Home Affordable Modification Program, or HAMP modifications. Between HAMP modifications and their own proprietary loan modifications, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have completed more than 1.1 million loan modifications since the fourth quarter of 2008. It has been well-publicized that there is one form of loan modification that FHFA has not embraced, that being principal forgiveness . To be clear, the disagreement is not about helping borrowers.