krome2ez

BREAKING: Massive Voter Fraud in St. Lucie County, Florida Heather Ginsberg Blogger, Townhall.com Nov 10, 2012 01:21 PM EST On Tuesday only one precinct had less than 113% turnout. “The Unofficial vote count is 175,554 registered voters 247,713 vote cards cast (141.10% ). The National SEAL Museum, a St. Lucie county polling place, had 158.85% voter turn out, the highest in the county.” The Supervisor of Elections, Gertrude Walker, had this to say concerning the 141% voter turnout: “They may have had something like that in Palm Beach County, but we’ve never seen that here.” So maybe Allen West wasn’t crazy to ask for a lock-down on the ballot boxes and machines in this county. According to the report given the day after elections, Allen B. West garnered 52,625 votes in St.Lucie county and Patrick Murphy 65,896 votes. This is a problem that must be addressed right away. There is no reason that there should ever be more than 100% turnout. This county alone could have cost Allen West his election. Voter fraud is real, and it is time that this be solved. http://townhall.com/tipsheet/heatherginsberg/2012/11/10/breaking_massive_voter_fraud_in_st_lucie_county_florida

Maybe this will be the kick in the pants they need to gett'r done. Thanks for the post Yota.

AH!Believable-Vol. 1-"Ridiculous Speed Sign"

Thanks Obe for the update. I did write, again, to Gov Scott asking him to look into Common Core and how it takes the power away from the states. The last time I wrote him about it, I got some cookie cutter answer spouting how good Common Core is. Argh!!!!

I agree with you Divemaster. I don't use Mary Jane, but believe that it is far less destructive than alcohol abuse. The "War on Drugs" has gone on for decades and spent billions of tax payer dollars, and has no affect on drug use or it's availability. There are already laws on the books for "under the influence" that would address safety on the road and in the work place. This is a state issue and the feds need to drop it.

I went to the Lucis Trust web site, and was not able to confirm references to satan/lucifer, but it was easy to find out that they are involved with the occult. Definitely not some one I would trust with writing text books for our children.

College Students Cheer for Karl Marx, Socialism, and Barack Obama posted on November 10, 2012 by Gary DeMar It’s been said that if you want to find out where Communism is thriving, then go to America’s college campuses. Communism and Socialism are alive and well in America among those who depend on the hard work of capitalists. Without economic freedom, Socialism wouldn’t be possible. The former Prime Minister of Great Britain said, “Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money.”[1] It goes deeper than this. There are a number of professors who are outspoken apologists for Communist dictators. For example, Grover Furr, a professor in Medieval English at Montclair State University, from the deep blue pro-Obama state of New Jersey, “recently denied Soviet Union Leader Joseph Stalin was responsible for the murder of millions, saying he has ‘yet to find one crime – one crime that Stalin committed.’ . . . I know they say he killed 20, 30, 40 million people,’ but ‘It’s bulls**t.’” Our tax dollars at work educating the next generation of freeloading voters. Most students are in college on someone else’s dime. State universities are funded by tax payers. In-state tuition is subsidized by money confiscated by property owners in the form of property taxes, sales taxes, and state income taxes. Most young people grow up under socialism. Everything is paid for them – food, clothing, shelter – by someone else, namely, their parents. They expect their parents to pay for their college education as well, and when they can’t afford it, it’s off to government-backed loans and grants and subsidized tuition. Let’s not forget that one of the planks of the Communist Manifesto is, in addition to “a heavy progressive or graduated income tax” is “free education for all children in public schools.” “Free education comes with a price – bondage to the State. A majority of California voters voted to increase taxes on the wealthy to pay for their “free” education. Karl Marx would be so proud. The youth vote was big for Obama, so it’s no surprise that “A group of college students chanted ‘Karl Marx’ and ‘socialism’ while celebrating President Obama’s electoral victory in front of the White House late Tuesday night, a video shot by Campus Reform reveals. “The raucous group of students chanted ‘Karl Marx, Karl Marx, Karl Marx,’ and cited abortion, socialism, and ‘Obama phones’ as reasons for their support of President Obama’s second term.” “One student from Howard stated she couldn’t vote for Romney because ‘I can’t support someone who wants to take away financial aid.’” Here’s the video from Campus Reform (WARNING: Explicit language): Read more: http://godfatherpolitics.com/8017/college-students-cheer-for-karl-marx-socialism-and-barack-obama/#ixzz2BsDLL96E

November 10, 2012 Early Education or Early Indoctrination? By Jamie A. Hope When your children or grandchildren venture off to school in America, someday soon, most likely, their education curricula will be developed not by a state education association, or even by the National Education Association (NEA). Rather, they will be developed by the United Nations -- specifically, their education arm, United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). This is an educational organization that could not only threaten the sovereignty of America, but indoctrinate our unsuspecting children with a dangerous progressive ideology -- an ideology in which children are no longer taught that America is the land of the free and home of the brave or the right to freedom of worship. Their agenda is to teach every child in the world a universal education curriculum compromising Common Core Standards. Common Core Standards "provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy." While many in the education community view these new global standards as an answer to our educational woes, some do not. Many are concerned that the Common Core Standards, once successfully implemented, will provide unfettered access of our educational system by the United Nations. Some textbooks and curricula for our public schools have already been written by UNESCO and the International Baccalaureate program that is currently in many school districts across the United States. Grabbing additional access is a natural next step. Once they write the curricula, they must have authority to develop all testing tools. They will decide who becomes a teacher and what preparation will be provided for that teacher. The International Baccalaureate curriculum upsets parents and teachers because the focus includes sustainable development, abortion rights, *** marriage, universal disarmament and social justice curricula. The problem with the Common Core Standards is not that they promote reading, writing, and arithmetic; it is the added dangerous ideologies they would like to teach our children -- their agenda of teaching social justice, abortion rights, population control, environmentalism, and *** marriage. The easiest way to implant their ideologies into the unsuspecting minds of our youngest is not only to educate America's children in grades K-12, but to mandate compulsory education for children ages 0-5 in a program known as early education. According to UNESCO's website, "UNESCO advocates for Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) programmes that attend to health, nutrition, security and learning and which provide for children's holistic development. It organized the first World Conference on ECCE in September 2010, which culminated in the adoption of a global action agenda for ECCE called Moscow Framework for Action and Cooperation: Harnessing the Wealth of Nations. The United Nations believes we should have a uniform global educational system and that children even from birth should have 'rights' to an early education." The United Nations is creeping into our educational system and not only changing the way our youngest learn academic basics, but challenging family beliefs on American sovereignty, parental rights, and freedom of religion. According to a White House press release dated March 10, 2009, "President Obama is committed to helping states develop seamless, comprehensive, and coordinated 'Zero to Five' systems to improve developmental outcomes and early learning for all children." It also stated, "In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity, it is a pre-requisite. That is why it will be the goal of this Administration to ensure that every child has access to a complete and competitive education -- from the day they are born to the day they begin a career." Educational elites support the president. "These new partnerships must also inspire students to take a bigger and deeper view of their civic obligations -- not only to their countries of origin but to the betterment of the global community." While the educational community touts minimal studies showing how effective early education is, and how important in implementing their agenda, they are perhaps purposely ignoring studies that suggest otherwise. We studied a wide range of measures of child well-being, from anxiety and hyperactivity to social and motor skills. For almost every measure, we find that the increased use of childcare was associated with a decrease in their well-being relative to other children. For example, reported fighting and other measures of aggressive behaviour increased substantially. Our results are consistent with evidence from the National Institute of Child Health and Development Early Childcare Research Network (2003), showing that the amount of time through the first 4.5 years of life that a child spends away from his or her mother is a predictor of assertiveness, disobedience, and aggression. According to the NICHD Early Childcare Research Network: The second enduring link between early child care and child development detected in this inquiry indicated that children with more experience in center settings continued to manifest somewhat more problem behaviors through sixth grade[.] ... One possible reason why relations between center care and problem behavior may remain is that primary school teachers lack the training as well as the time to address behavior problems, given their primary focus on academics (Rimm-Kaufman & Pianta,2001). Not only are their studies suggesting detrimental emotional effects on children being raised in these early education programs, but there are studies that show lack of long-term advantages from these programs. According to the Council of State Governments, "[p]re-kindergarten programs achieve their goal of increasing reading and mathematics skill levels. On average, disadvantaged children who did not attend an early education program scored in the 33rd percentile, while those who did attend scored in the 44th percentiles. However, that achievement boost seems to largely dissipate before the child begins second grade." Since there are credible conflicting studies on early education programs and a possible detriment to the emotional well-being of children in these programs, why are the federal and state governments continuing to pour billions into these possibly ineffective United Nations-created Common Core agendas and pushing for children to be required to go to school at birth? This is not the first time early education and a call to hand over babies to the government has been attempted. The First Congress of Bolshevik Workers said in 1918 that "we must remove children from the crude influence of their families. We must take them over, and to speak frankly, nationalize them. From the first days of their lives they will be under the healthy influence of children's nurseries and schools." The Bolsheviks understood that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/early_education_or_early_indoctrination.html#ixzz2BrvuKmuL

Obviously you've never used Tricare. My family and I have used nothing but Tricare Prime since I retired over 10 years ago, and have not had 1 problem with it. There are plenty of doctors and providers in network. So, I have no idea what your talking about.

WORDS USED TO CONFUSE AMERICANS – POPULIST, LIBERALISM, DEMOCRACY, PROGRESSIVE, AND SOCIAL JUSTICE by Lawrence Wilson, MD Ó January 2012, The Center For Development POPULIST This word, now being used in the 2012 elections in America by the Democrats, is a code word or substitute word for socialism and communism. Please know that this is the truth. It has nothing to do with what is “popular” or good for the people. It is just a remake of socialism and communism, big government, the welfare state and suppression of individual rights that has been pushed by certain groups for several hundred years. Those who propose socialism and communism know that they must use different words to describe their agenda, and populist is one of the best available. It has been used in the past, as well. LIBERALISM The meaning of the word liberalism has been altered deliberately and today is most confusing. Let us examine this. Classical liberalism was the name given to the system of government and economics present in the early United States of America. Today, however, the word liberalism means the exact opposite – namely a large, powerful central government that controls most aspects of people’s lives. Other words for it include dictatorship, socialism, communism, Nazism (or national socialism) and progressivism. CLASSICAL LIBERALISM From 1776 to about 1900, the word liberalism in politics meant: · A small, and therefore accountable government. Its powers and responsibilities were strictly limited by the federal Constitution and the Bill of Rights, which are the first 10 Amendments to the federal Constitution. The US Constitution clearly spells out the roles of the federal government, as opposed to the roles of the state and the local governments of the United States of America. It also spells out those powers and responsibilities that are left up to the people. The roles of the government are strictly and clearly limited in the Constitution so that the people can go about their lives in a way that is undisturbed by intrusive regulations, unnecessary taxes, and other impediments to human development. The government’s role was mainly similar to that of a referee in a sports event, not a controller or ruler over men. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court and other courts of the United States have been corrupted by both ignorance, the necessities of war, and dishonest and corrupt presidents and legislators so that the Court does not understand or does not care about upholding the Constitution, as it was written and intended. Many of the justices of the Supreme Court even hate the Constitution, thinking it is just an impediment to their power and the power of a “benign” government, as they see it. However, there is no “benign” government, as George Washington and the other founders knew well. Mr. Washington called government “a necessary evil”. That is much closer to the truth. They said “government is force from a gun”. That is not benign and cannot ever be benign. It is needed, at times more than at other times, but it is not benign and must be reigned in and strictly monitored and controlled by the people or it will slowly steal the people’s liberties and rights. This is exactly what has happened in America. Sadly, in most of the world, the people have never had a chance for freedom and liberty in the same way as Americans were given. Their rights were never secured by a Constitution like ours. The constitutions of other nations, such as Russia, Cuba, and even European democracies, are nothing like ours. Power rests with the parliament or the legislature, not the people. Even if the constitution of these nations says the power belongs to the people, they do not enforce it and it is basically a fake and a sham. · Enforcing and protecting the rights of the people. The main role of the government was to enforce and protect the natural rights of each individual citizen – men, women and children alike. It was not to decide among groups of people who gets special rights and privileges such as women’s rights, *** rights, and so on. This is a very modern concept that is quite foreign to our founder’s concept of justice and the proper role of government. The founders realized that some people would always be discriminated against due to their race, color, creed, beliefs, even superficial qualities like one’s size or weight. However, they chose not to legislate equality in these areas because it is very cumbersome, such discrimination is very hard to prove in many cases, and it is not helpful because a myriad of laws leads to many lawsuits. Also, it engenders resentment, as occurs today, when, for example, black people are given special privileges just due to the color of their skin. The black individuals often do not appreciate it, as they would really like to be judged on their merits and their actions, rather than by the entirely superficial fact of their skin color. Many problems are caused by the group rights laws such as *** rights, black rights, Hispanic rights, women’s rights and so on. For example, what if a person is half black and half white, as our president is? How can this be handled? What if the person is one-eighth Hispanic, or if the person is bisexual. These laws often effectively discriminate against those who are not in a favored group, so they are a form of reverse discrimination and tyranny. It becomes very complicated. One of the principles of laws is they should be simple, clear and direct. Group rights laws are anything but direct and clear for a number of reasons. Hate crimes. Today, group rights have spawned a new class of basically “thought crimes” that are called hate crime laws. These laws make it a worse crime if a person was feeling hateful toward a person of another faith or color, for example. Such laws, related to group rights, greatly complicate the legal process today as it is hard to figure out the thoughts of a person who commits a crime. The problem is getting worse as more of these laws are passed by legislators who do not realize the harm they do with these laws. · The economic sphere. In classical liberalism, the economic sphere was to be left mainly to the individual. This system is sometimes called the free enterprise system, capitalist economic system or laissez faire. The latter is a French word that means “left alone” or “left to their own devices”. Laissez faire is the opposite of the socialist or communist system, in which the government either owns many businesses, or controls them indirectly through massive regulations and laws governing every aspect of conducting a business. The free enterprise system has been shown to be at least twice as efficient and far more creative than government-owned businesses. This has been shown in many controlled studies. Here are some reasons why this is so: 1) Competition and freedom to fail. Private businesses that do a poor job go out of business as they cannot compete. Government businesses such as the US Postal Service just keep losing money, but stay in business. 2) Freedom to work very hard for a future reward. Money is not an ideal reward, but it causes entepreneurs to work very hard in business, much harder than 9-5 employees who must follow government and union work rules, and have no hope of financial reward for their efforts. 3) Freedom to run your own operation, rather than be simply a cog in the government machine. Smart people like to be in charge of their own work and the free enterprise system allows this. 4) Freedom to hire and fire employees to create the ideal workforce for a business without lots of regulations. This is very important, since each business has unique needs. Only by trying out people and letting some go can any business find the right people for the job. This is often impossible in government jobs due to union rules, work contracts, etc. 5) Freedom to innovate and change at will. Small, private firms are not beholden to politicians and taxpayers. They are free to do as they will, governed only by their ingenuity and ability to raise money privately. Thus they can change and alter course far more easily in most cases. 6) Much less political. Private individuals and companies are not controlled by Congress and other political bodies. These bodies often manipulate and use government agencies and research institutes for their own political purposes, and in so doing subvert the stated goals and aims of the agency. This is almost standard procedure and it often gets in the way of the efficiency and ability to operate of government businesses. I will give a simple example. A car company should be in business to build the best cars possible. However, a government-owned car company may have all sorts of secondary aims such as making the current administration look good, employing loads of people, even if they are not needed and get in the way, or promoting other political agendas such as rewarding those who gave a lot of money to the current rulers of the nation. As a result, the government car companies and most nations do not produce good cars at a good price. As a result of all the above, government enterprises are always less efficient, less creative, slower to innovate and often do a very poor job. With classical liberalism, the government’s main role in the economic sphere was to conduct trials if a business engaged in theft, breach of contract, fraud, misrepresentation or other similar crimes. In other words, once again the main role of government was to act like a referee in a baseball game who assures that the rules are followed and that offenders are punished and perhaps removed from the game if they cannot play by the rules of honesty and integrity in their business dealings. However, starting in the early 20th century, the US government began to engage in massive regulation of businesses for various reasons. Today things are much worse as the government now literally owns businesses such as Amtrak ( a large railroad) and General Motors. These companies lose money and waste taxpayer dollars. The commerce clause. Nowhere does the US Constitution allow the federal government to run businesses, or even to heavily regulate business activity. Such action is usually justified by the “commerce clause” of the US Constitution. This clause states that the government shall promote commerce between the states. However, the original intent of the clause has been totally perverted. It was inserted in the Constitution because there arose a problem when one state did not allow goods to pass from another state into its borders and imposed taxes on those goods. The “commerce clause” was designed to stop these practices so that goods could flow easily from state to state. Never was it intended that the government could impose all sorts of regulations on commerce. This needs to be returned to its original meaning, which was crystal clear to the founders of America. However, certain forces have wanted an empire, not a republic, and they have changed the law in this direction. · The spheres of education, health care and welfare. With classical liberalism, these areas of life were also left to the states, and mainly up to individuals and groups such as charities, churches, civic organizations like the Rotary and Lions Clubs, community health associations, community hospitals, veterans groups and hundreds of other organizations that used to take care of the needs and wants of the poor, the infirm, the mentally ill, the elderly, widows, orphans and others in society who cannot take care of themselves. This is a critical function in any modern society. How it is handled is a reflection of the humanity of the society. Americans have always been among the most generous people in the world. This is not a guess. It is the fact, and remains so today. Still today, anyone, anywhere in the world that wishes to raise money for a cause often comes to America. It is not that Americans are wealthier, although they were in the past. It is that Americans are more generous and think of others and are willing to give of their time, money and energy for good causes, of which the welfare of the poor and infirm is one. The coming of social security and government welfare. The slow death of private welfare and the private insurance industry began under Franklin Roosevelt in 1934. In that year, the federal government imposed mandatory old age insurance run by the federal government. It was called social security. In essence, the government set up its own old age insurance company. However, unlike private insurance companies, the government forced their ‘policy’ upon the American people, whether or not the individual wanted it. Not only that, but there was no negotiable contract given to each person and there was no competition or choice allowed. Also, the policy comes with no guarantee of payout later on, as one gets with private insurance policies. This was blatantly illegal, but when it was challenged, Franklin Roosevelt “packed” the Supreme Court with his own people. This means he added more members to the Supreme Court with his own supporters. They were thus able to override constitutional prohibitions against forcing people to buy a product against their will, and other constitutional prohibitions against such schemes. Social security is a horrible failure. Not only does it not pay out enough for real welfare, but it is totally bankrupt today. It is such a mess that American politicians of both parties have been terrified to really address the problem. Early on, the Social Security fund, which was to be a sacred insurance fund to be used to the welfare of the people, was “raided” by the Congress when they needed money for other things. As a result, there is no fund today. It is just a pile of “I owe you’s”. This must be addressed soon, as the problem is worsening every day. One problem is that when the system was established, the average lifespan in America was about 65. Social Security was intended only as an emergency system for those that exceeded that age. Today the lifespan is about 80, so they system is paying out millions of dollars to people who could be working. Just raising the age of qualification would solve the crisis, at least for a while. No one, however, is willing to touch the issue, however, so far. We will see if any brave politicians emerge, as this is a critical problem. The founders of America realized that government welfare, government health care, and government “charity” is problematic. Among its problems are extreme waste, fraud, abuse, inefficiency, perverse incentives to waste money, downright foolishness motivated by politics, and perhaps other problems. These are clearly occurring today in America and around the world. They are one reason that the nations of Europe, for example, are going broke. These nations simply cannot pay all their obligations, many of which are foolish and politically motivated. This means that politicians reward their friends and punish their enemies. It also means that fraud in government programs is so easy to get away with, that it multiplies and there really is no way to stop it. Private versus public welfare. Welfare has to do with the redistribution of wealth. A key difference between private welfare and private redistribution of wealth versus government or public welfare and government or public redistribution of wealth is that the private system is voluntary. This means it respects the right of every person to be as generous or as stingy as he or she wants. This is non-violent and encourages virtues such as charity and caring about others. When the government is in charge of welfare, health care, education and other things, the system is forced or mandatory. This means that money is confiscated from the people by force through taxes. This is inherently violent, encourages lying and cheating, and does not encourage charity and caring for others. Other problems with government redistribution of wealth is that politicians tend to reward their friends, and not necessarily those in need. This is basically corruption and fraud. Private charities, by contrast, must do their jobs well and efficiently. If they do not, they will usually stop receiving donations and will go out of business. This acts on a check of private charities that keeps them fairly honest, unlike government “charities” like social security, Medicare, Medicaid and hundreds of other government welfare programs in most nations. · Private banking versus government-controlled banking. Banking was another important business that the government of the United states was not to engage in, according to the US Constitution. Gold and silver were to be the only legal money in America. The founders knew well that if the government were given the right to print paper money, it would abuse it by printing too much, causing inflation and basically stealing the wealth of the people. Gold and silver as the only legal tender prevented this, for the most part. Private companies quickly sprang up in America to handle the people’s banking, credit and lending needs. While there were periods in which America had a central bank, the system of private banking only worked quite well in America throughout the 1800s. This all changed in 1913 with the passage of another thoroughly unconstitutional law called the Federal Reserve Act. It established a national bank called the Federal Reserve that would be in charge of all the banks in America and would regulate all of them under one system. This put an end to free banking in America as the government took over control of banking, essentially. The system was foisted on the people supposedly to prevent recessions and depressions. Yet by far the worst depression occurred soon afterwards in 1929. To give you an idea of how miserable a failure the central bank has been, a dollar in 1900 is now worth about 1 penny. This means that the people’s money has been essentially stolen from them to this degree. The Federal Reserve is a complete deception. It is not federal, there is no reserve, and it directly caused the great depression of 1929 and the economic woes we have today. This sad story is discussed in books such as The Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin, and in a very short form in an article on this website called Introduction To Banking. · Other roles of the federal government. With classical liberalism, the federal or national government is to be concerned with relatively few items that the states and the people cannot do well on their own. These include declaring war and making peace, negotiating treaties with foreign nations, raising armies, carrying the mail, setting up a federal court system, and a few others – and that is all. This was intended to keep the federal government small and accountable to the people and to the states. The fruits of classical liberalism. Until after the Civil War, and even up until about the turn of the 20th century, the classical liberal system of government functioned incredibly well. This does not mean there were no problems. But it means that there was an amazing flourishing of creativity, prosperity, wealth of the common man, and growth of the American nation in many ways, in the sciences, the arts, invention, and more. Nothing like it has ever occurred in modern times. The seeds of destruction. This success did not sit well with everyone. In particular, a small group of European bankers were not happy at all. They controlled the nations of Europe, essentially, who were always at war with each other, and therefore needed to borrow money with interest from the bankers. This suited the bankers very well, as they used their monetary power to control even the kings and queens of Europe. America was becoming independently wealthy and therefore out of their control. There is clear evidence that the European bankers did not like this, and in fact incited the War of 1812 and the American Civil War in order to weaken and hopefully destroy America’s growing wealth and power. These efforts failed, thanks largely to the stamina of Abraham Lincoln and the efforts of the North and even the South to reconcile their differences. The bankers hoped America would be split in two, which would not have lasted, but would have slowed the growth of the nation. Instead, the war really accelerated industrialization, particularly in the North, and so the bankers realized that the “divide and conquer” strategy had not worked. Now they embarked on a new strategy to weaken America. It was to restrict the freedoms and liberties of her mighty people. This strategy has worked all too well, sadly. It has worked only because Americans do not realize their heritage, the sacredness of their founding documents, and the wisdom of her founders. This was the plan, of course, carried out by the public or government schools to miseducate the American children. It was mass propaganda on a scale never before attempted and it has worked all too well. The founders of America have been largely discredited as rich, old, white, non-Christian or at least non-believing, slave owners. In reality, a very few owned slaves and most of them were very poor, indeed, as they were farmers and colonists in a new land. Most were devoutly religious, and most were not old since the average lifespan was about 60. Also, they were not all white-skinned. They included free African-Americans, many racial groups from Europe, and those of all religions. All participated in the early meetings that led to the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, which stand today as the greatest documents in modern times. A great nation always is made up of all the races of men, and all the religions – at least all that tolerate others. Islam is not among these, sadly. To return to our theme, the bankers were furious that they could not stop the rise of America. They embarked on a program to discredit the founders of America, to discredit and destroy Christianity, which had inspired them, and to destroy the morals and brainpower of the people. This they have succeeded in doing only too well, and with it we see the decline of American power, wealth and positive influence around the world. To some, this is good. To many, it is disheartening as America is the last great hope of the world. American exceptionalism, as it is called, is the truth. America is different, even though the current president of the United States does not see it, and indeed is ashamed of it. Shame on him, as he throws away his heritage as an American as someone would throw away a gold bracelet or a diamond ring, ashamed of his wealth, his heritage, and his power to influence others for good. This is the sad state of America, and it is exactly how the European bankers want things. That way they are in control. Liberalism. One way the bankers and others have operated was to deceive the people through words. That is the theme of this article. They changed the meaning of words to confuse the people. One of those words is liberalism. It meant freedom, free enterprise and a small government restrained by the Constitution. So they changed the textbooks and wrote scholarly articles and popular pieces in newspapers in which they used the word liberalism to describe dictatorship, communism and socialism – the exact opposite of its original meaning. Make no mistake about it. The words liberal and liberalism mean the exact opposite of their original meaning before around 1900. These words now refer to a large, powerful central government, and often are code words for communism, Nazism and socialism. WHAT IS A MODERN “LIBERAL”? Here are just a few characteristics of modern liberals, as I have observed them for years and listened to others who also have observed them carefully: 1. Elitists. They do not like the common man, you and me, and believe that they know better how to run the country, decide its policies, etc. 2. Negative. They are often doom-and-gloom types. Just observe many environmentalists, for example. Statistics do not support their gloomy predictions. History illustrates that the same people were predicting disaster 50 years ago – overpopulation so that we would all starve, death from pollution that has not occurred, global warming, global cooling, death of all trees on the planet, and so on. Today there are more trees than there were 100 years ago because replanting has occurred. Many such examples could be cited. 3. Often far more interested in feelings than in facts. Often liberals embrace ideas that sound and/or “feel good”, even though they make no logical sense. For example, studies repeatedly show that the private sector can do most jobs such as run the schools, health care and other businesses far more efficiently and honestly than can the government. Yet liberals persist in the belief that it would be nice for the government to run health care, welfare, education and even corporations such as car companies. 4. Much more interested in narrative, than in true discussion. By the word narrative I mean that they believe if they talk about something enough, like global warming, they can solve the problem. Facts don’t matter as much as thinking about what you would like and discussing it with your friends. This is a curious mental phenomenon that is essentially wishful thinking. Wish it enough and it will occur. 5. No absolute truths. This means the Ten Commandments and the US Constitution must be relegated to the trash heap, and be replaced with what is called moral relativism. This is a very dangerous doctrine that basically says that whatever a person “feels” is right, is the truth for that person. Technically, it means that if you feel it is right to harm or even kill another, then it is probably okay because you probably have a “reason” that explains your behavior. Maybe that person’s race killed people in your race, or oppressed your parents or your friends in some way. Sadly, these ideas have found our way into our laws to a degree. 6. Against cruelty. Many liberals are against things, and the one they usually pick is cruelty. For instance, capitalism and free markets are considered cruel because some accumulate more wealth than others and some work harder than others. So they advocate a welfare state to even out the differences. However, this always causes severe corruption and laziness, and other problems like bankruptcy of an entire nation, as is occurring now in Europe. This is also an interesting psychological trait, since their actions are often quite cruel. This they are ready to excuse, however. 7. America is not an exceptional nation. The president has said as much many times, and is actually embarrassed by America, at times. Yet the facts show that America has been a bulwark of hope, liberty, military resistance to tyranny, and much more for the entire world for over 100 years, at least. PROGRESSIVE AND PROGRESSIVISM A related word to liberalism that basically means the same thing today is progressivism. The words progressive and progressivism used to mean simply forward-looking or moving forward instead of backwards. However, after the Civil War, the propaganda experts discussed above needed to deceive people with words. They came up with the idea to use a word that means to forge ahead, and to twist its meaning so that today it means to move in the exact opposite way. The words progressive and progressivism were adopted by the communists, Marxists and socialists to mean an evolutionary process that would move society away from freedom and liberty, and move society toward dictatorship, Marxism, Leninism, socialism and communism. This is critical to understand, because progressive and progressivism no longer means moving forward. They mean moving backward, back toward a dictatorship and away from liberty and individual rights. The intent of brainwashing is always to confuse, deceive and reverse the flow of energy in a human being, and the use of words to do this is a common tactic. It is like calling something that is black, white, and calling the word yes, no and so on. It is completely confusing to a logical mind and it sets up a cognitive dissonance, as it is called, that the person literally cannot escape from without a complete explanation like the one above. This is the essence of brain washing, and that is what has been done to Americans more than to any other people on earth. When force did not work, brainwashing was the only other alternative to slow down the mightiest nation on earth. This is the truth, not some patriotic rambling. SOCIALISM, COMMUNISM, MARXISM, NAZISM (NATIONAL SOCIALISM) AND PROGRESSIVISM ARE NOT ALL BAD, JUST MISGUIDED The governing idea behind socialism and the other isms above is that mankind is best governed by a powerful central government that knows best how the people should live their lives to promote peace, commerce and spiritual development. This is not a bad idea. It is just incorrect at this time. At least, no nation that has tried it, and many have over the years, has succeeded or even come close to the success of the idea of limited government restrained by a constitution that guarantees individual rights. The idea behind socialism and communism is that the role of government should not be mainly to protect individual rights. These are seen as secondary to the community or social fabric of society. If some are made to suffer imprisonment or even death for the “cause of society” then so be it. Much more important, they say, is the welfare of the community. Bureaucracy. Again, this sounds plausible. The trouble is – Who is to say what is best for the community if it not individuals? The answer in all these nations is the central committee, the parliament, the dictator or the bureaucrats who run the government. Bureaucrats are people who are quite ordinary who take government jobs, just like you would take a job to make money and little else. In other words, they are not the brightest and most hard-working and caring people. They are just ordinary folks who happen to end up in positions of power. They are the main problem in all socialist, communist, progressive, Marxist nations. They are simply not smart enough and don’t care enough to run the nation, but they are given that task. As a result, they become corrupt, lazy, callous, and often downright mean and nasty. But since they run the show, so to speak, there is nothing anyone can do about it. They can be replaced, but the replacements are just as bad. One of the worst problems of bureaucracy is that once installed in their jobs, they are hard to unseat. Unions are a big force in this problem. Unlike a private company that fires workers who are less productive or less needed even if they are productive, government workers are usually immune to this problem because of their contracts. This was part of the plan as well. Another problem is that bureaucrats tend to vote for more government jobs, as this helps secure their future. If there are too many of them, they vote to bankrupt the nation just out of self-interest. In others words, they vote to raise taxes on the companies and corporate world to pay for their jobs. This is simple self-interest, and not evil. It is just the fact. This is why schools are more expensive today, why colleges are more costly, in part, and so on. Those who run them spend a lot of money campaigning and lobbying the government for even more money for themselves. People complain about the lobbying efforts of the big corporations, which is a lot. However, they forget about the massive lobbying efforts of the government bureaucrats, and their unions, which is even more, though much is hidden in various gifts, and other “educational” efforts. For example, SEIU, the Service Employees International Union, gave president Obama some $70 million dollars or so. This would be totally illegal to come from one person or group, but it was stretched out among thousands of union members, although the members are often not consulted. The leaders make the decisions. When asked about the health care legislation of 2010, the head of that union, Andy Stern, said it was nothing more than a “return on his investment”. In other words, the union invested in the Democrats and they got their bill. They couldn’t care less about the consequences for America. Unions. Today, all bureaucracies around the world are unionized, which makes it even harder to get rid of the incompetent, corrupt or stupid people who run the large government agencies. They are just shifted around or paid not to work, which bankrupts the system eventually, as is happening in Europe today. but to redistribute wealth and power from the haves to the have-nots. This applies to the American public or rather government education system, in particular. Through the unions has come the propaganda that has changed the school books and the practices, removed prayer and religion from the schools, although it was the goal of education in the founding of the nation, and harmed the children in thousands of ways to the point that now I don’t recommend public schooling for anyone. Colleges and universities are even worse. They are not unionized, but they all use the tenure system, which is just as bad or worse. That is, once a professor has been there for a while, he cannot be easily fired even if he is incompetent. This was also instigated as a propaganda methods, as young minds are very vulnerable to lies and twisting the truth because youth is restless and idealistic and often rebellious against authority, even when it is good authority. So these traits were and are exploited every day in the high schools and particularly in the colleges and universities of America. All this is not by accident, in other words. It has been orchestrated. I know this sounds like a conspiracy theory, but books exist that explain it with the documentation. One of the best concerning the money in America, a very serious issue, is The Creature From Jekyll Island, by G. Edward Griffin. Redistributing the wealth. In a classical liberal society that values free enterprise, the people who are most industrious, most hard-working, most creative and smartest, often make the most money. This was the case in America. This is not exactly fair, as some are born with more natural talents than others. However, it serves society well because it rewards effort. That is an important point we will return to. The progressive, socialist, Marxist and communist model rewards the opposite. It rewards those who are parasite, basically – the bureaucrats and their masters – while it takes away the money from the productive members of society. This is a very important point because our president continuously talks of redistributing the wealth from the evil rich people to the downtrodden. This is almost all propaganda. It has been used for years to justify stealing the wealth of the productive people and giving it mainly to the friends of the government leaders, who then use it to elect more of their friends. This sounds simplistic, and it is. But overall, it is the plan and it is working well. They throw a few crumbs to the old people, the blacks, the Hispanics and so on, but they keep most of the money they confiscate from the wealthy for themselves and their favored foundations and causes such as radical environmentalism, another word and cause that has been hijacked today. So one aspect of communism and the other isms is actually redistributing wealth through high taxes and other means from the less well connected or less favored groups in society of all sorts, to the favored or well-connected groups. Often they are union members, communist party members, and often they are government workers or bureaucrats. It is no accident, for example, that today the counties around Washington, DC are the wealthiest counties in America. They have few factories in Maryland and Virginia. However, this is where most of the federal employees or bureaucrats reside. The income of the average government worker such as a secretary today is approximately double that of an equivalent private sector employee if one counts all the benefits such as health insurance and retirement pensions. This does assure some good people go into the government, but it causes financial difficulties for the nation if it gets out of hand. Some government workers deserve this and much more. Some, however, are just parasites, and these are the only ones I am referring to. I worked in two government agencies – education and health care. In both these departments, the agency was filled with parasites. I was told not work after about noon. I soon left these positions, as it was just not my style. I am told the situation is the same today, if not worse. In a private sector job, many of these people would be fired, but they cannot be fired due to union rules in the federal government. Not only that, but the system is quite entrenched and is not likely to change any time soon. The only solution, short term, is to limit the size of government. This was the genius of the founders of America, as they realized that reigning in a large federal bureaucracy is practically impossible. Sadly, presidents in the past and particularly the present one have greatly expanded the government, setting up 50 or more new agencies that will have the same problems. I am even opposed to medical research by the government for this reason. That is another topic, however, that is discussed in other articles on this website. Basically, once you set up a National Cancer Institute, for example, or a heart disease institute, or any other, the bureaucrats want it to continue. They will even suppress cures for cancer to do so, and they are doing this today. This is easy to prove and discussed in a number of well-researched books. I found out about it thirty-five years ago when I researched alternative cancer treatments. It is the truth and it is due to bureaucracy and little else. It is also very hard to stop without dismantling these seemingly humanitarian efforts, though I know it sounds very harsh. We don’t need their research. We need to eat better and allow private medical research institutes, which means we need the people to have the money, not the government agencies. A REPUBLIC OR A DEMOCRACY? This is another subtle word play that has confused many Americans. America was set up as a republic. A republic means the rule of clearly written laws. In this system, the laws apply to everyone, and everyone should learn the laws to stay out of trouble. In contrast, England and the rest of the world were monarchies, which is the rule of a king or queen. Other nations today are dictatorships. These are basically the exact same idea. One strong man or woman, or perhaps a small committee of strong men and women, have all the power. Democracy means the rule of the majority. Another word for it is mob rule. In a democracy, if 51% of the people vote to kill you, this is acceptable. In other words, one has no individual rights in a democracy. In this sense, democracy is similar to a monarchy or a dictatorship. It is just the dictatorship of majorities. James Madison wrote about the tyranny of majorities and how a pure democracy would destroy America if it were ever permitted. A republic is a middle ground between the rule of a king or dictator, and the rule of the mob or majorities. Only with a republic are individuals protected. In other words, only in a republic ruled by a constitution and bill of rights, is an individual safe even if the majority do not like him. America was intentionally set up as a republic because the founders of America knew that democracies do not work. They had witnessed the French revolution in which democracy was tried and failed miserably. Democracies are fickle and the people can vote one way one year, and do something totally different the next year. There is no stability and consistency, in addition to there being no protection for individual rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of worship. Yet today, most of our leaders, teachers, media spokesmen and others all refer to America incorrectly as a democracy. This is horrible and confusing. America is a constitutional republic – that is, it is ruled by a short, clear written law – with democratically elected leaders. SOCIAL JUSTICE Another word that has been hijacked by the progressives and liberals is the word justice. It was a favorite word of the founders of America, and is still one of the most important words in the English language. Since the corrupters could not erase that word and its meaning, they have tagged onto it various adjectives that reverse its meaning. The word justice, a key to American society, means the fair and equal treatment of all people regardless of race, color, creed or national origin. This is sometimes called equal justice under the law or due process of law. Once again, after the Civil War in the late 1800s, a new term appeared called social justice. This is not justice at all. It is basically a way to avoid justice by making excuses for some people to break the law, while forcing others to endure even harsher punishment for the same crime. In other words, it is often the exact opposite of equal justice under the law, just as liberalism today is the exact opposite of the original meaning of classical liberalism. The idea of adding adjectives to the word justice has been expanded radically since the 1960s of so, when the corrupters increased their power over America and wanted to finish the job of corrupting the nation’s roots. Today we hear about environmental justice, economic justice, and others, perhaps. They all mean the same thing, really. They mean that the word justice has been modified, you might say, to mean whatever those in charge feel it should mean. Environmental justice might mean that you will lose your land and your livelihood to save the endangered black rat. Economic justice might mean that the bureaucrats believe you should be taxed at twice the rate of others so that more people can sit around and watch TV on welfare every day while you work hard. This is the essence of these almost code words for dictatorship and Marxism. It is notable and sad that our current president uses these terms quite often, although the media and others rarely point out what they mean. CONCLUSION Americans, please wake up. Stop listening to rhetoric. Stop listening to this president, sad to say, and to the majority in the Congress. The end of their reign is near, I believe, if enough people wake up and learn the truth. America is on the verge of bankruptcy and it is exactly what the European bankers have wanted for along time. They are happy with bankruptcy because the nations must then borrow money from them, which earns them interest, which is their life blood. Any nation that does not pay tribute to them in this way is their enemy and they are still very powerful. This is the truth. It is not fantasy or conspiracy theory. Those who believe in a large, bloated, wasteful government have made significant inroads into American life with programs such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and thousands of others, literally. These are the biggest, however, and not coincidentally, the most bankrupt of our social programs. These must be set aside and it will be painful, but nothing compared to the pain that will come if the present course of bankruptcy is continued for even another ten years. The choice is ours. America was set up as a nation with a small government and more power left to the people and the local governments. This has slowly eroded and changed to where the federal government controls most business activity in every sphere of our lives. With this has come not better schools, better health care and better financial management, but far worse schools, a bankrupt and dysfunctional health care system, a very bankrupt welfare systems and general corruption on a scale America has never seen before. The purpose of this article is to remind readers that while there are powerful forces pushing for more government intervention, it is not the answer. The answer is a return to a constitutional republic with a small government that is restrained b the Constitution, as it was meant to be used, and leaves the daily life of the people to their own devices and creativity. The president speaks of creativity, but it is not something that can be forced on the people. It is natural, when people are left alone and children are taught the truth in school, not the lies they have learned today. This system appears to work far better in our present world, and history proves it over and over again. If Soviet Communism or Nazi Germany were the superior system, we would be living under it, if we were allowed to live at all. The free enterprise system and limited constitutional government also leads to a much more spiritual nation. This is another involved and long topic of discussion. Basically, slaves are less spiritually advanced than free people, even if the free people are allowed to make some blunders. Slaves cannot make the blunders, but they also cannot advance themselves very much. So let us rethink the past and rethink our words carefully. The choice, once again, is ours, while we still have it. http://www.drlwilson.com/Articles/LIBERALISM.HTM

So, because it was "drafted" during the Bush administration, which by the way had a Democratic majority in both the House and the Senate the last 2 years, but not IMPLEMENTED till the Obama administration, makes it Bush's fault. Really?? Just because it was drafted during an administration, does not mean that the President supported it. Last year the House Republicans drafted several budgets, yet not one was implemented by the Obama administration. hmmmmmm......

And don't forget.......

I agree. No way going to a $1, let alone $2. A revalue to a nickel would be great.

171,000 Retirees Likely To Lose Tricare Prime Tom Philpott | November 08, 2012 171,000 Retirees Likely To Lose TRICARE Prime Option With the presidential election over, Defense officials are expected to announce soon that military retirees and their dependents living more than 40 miles from a military treatment facility or base closure site will lose access to TRICARE Prime, the military's managed care option. These beneficiaries would be expected to shift to TRICARE Standard, their fee-for-service insurance option, which would mean an increase in out-of-pocket costs for beneficiaries who are frequent users of health services. A total of 171,000 retirees and dependents are expected to have to shift coverage when remote Prime networks go away. Tentative plans are for this to occur April 1 in the West Region, which would coincide with UnitedHealth Military and Veterans Services taking over the region's support contract from TriWest Healthcare Alliance after 16 years. [Let your elected officials know how you feel about this issue.] The North and South TRICARE regions are expected to close down Prime service areas beyond 40-mile catchment areas of bases or base closure sites by Oct. 1, 2013, the date when current Prime enrollment periods expire for most beneficiaries. Active duty members and their families generally would not be impacted. Drilling National Guard members and reservists living far from military bases could see small increases to health costs. This would occur if they have been taking advantage of modest discounts available under TRICARE Reserve Select when network providers are used. Such discounts would end in areas far from bases if the Prime option goes away. Under TRICARE Prime, beneficiaries get managed care through providers in the network. They pay an annual enrollment fee of $269.28 for individual coverage or $538.56 for family coverage. Retirees and family members also are charged co-pays of $12 for each doctor visit. Under TRICARE Standard, beneficiaries can choose their own physicians and pay no annual enrollment fee. But when they need care, retirees must cover 25 percent of allowable charges. Retirees also have an annual deductible of $150 for the individual or $300 per family. Total out-of-pocket costs, however, are capped at $3000 per family. In most Prime service areas, about half of eligible retirees already choose to use Standard rather than enroll in the network. The end of Prime outside of 40-mile "catchment" areas of military treatment facilities has been anticipated since 2007, when Defense officials drafted the third generation of TRICARE support contracts. It called for returning the managed care option to its original concept of being a backup network to military clinics and hospitals when they can't provide managed care to all beneficiaries living nearby or in areas where bases have been closed and military health facilities shuttered. Through the first two TRICARE contracts, on the assumption that managed care saved money for the government, contractors had financial incentive to establish networks beyond 40-mile catchment areas. In the South Region, for example, the contractor has offered Prime everywhere. But experience has shown that providing Prime far from bases can add costs to the system, TRICARE officials concluded. Though they wrote the new generation of support contracts to constrict Prime service areas, health officials wanted the shift to occur across all regions simultaneously. That hasn't been possible until now because of delays in finalizing contract awards, the result of multiple protests and even a few reversals of original contract awards. Contracts for every region are now settled. Health Net Federal Services has been running the North Region under the new contract since April 2011. Humana Military Healthcare Services has operated the South Region under the new contract since April this year. But all Prime service areas have been maintained with contract modifications, awaiting final word from Defense that Prime area restrictions are to be implemented. The new contracts were drafted during the Bush administration and are intended to be more comprehensive and efficient. But sensitive to how a change in Prime eligibility might be used by politicians this fall, Defense officials ordered plans to end Prime for retirees living outside catchment areas, including draft notification letters, shelved until after the election. Plans for implementation have not changed, congressional and health sources said. But they also have not been announced officially yet. "The Department is considering whether to maintain the same number of PSAs (Prime service areas) as it has now," said Cynthia O. Smith, a spokeswoman for the Department of Defense. Until a decision is final on reducing PSAs, the department won't confirm the number of beneficiaries potentially impacted or the likely dates for executing the changes. Some members of Congress already are concerned. Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) told Dr. Jonathan Woodson, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, in recent letter he was "dismayed" by news reports that Prime "will be cut for many of the military families and constituents I represent, not only in Reno but also throughout the northern part of the state." Heller said the plan would cause "more out-of-pocket expenses and longer drive times…I am very troubled by these changes and am concerned that these alterations are not being made in a transparent manner. If changes are made, I hope you will notify those affected immediately." A spokesman for Heller said Woodson had not yet answered the letter. Given the nation's debt crisis and the budget cuts looming for defense programs, Congress is not expected to block this long-standing plan to tighten access to Prime if the intent is to hold down costs. Doing so likely would require lawmakers to find equivalent budget savings elsewhere. http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,251962,00.html#.UJwifbusPkI.facebook

I know, I know.... I felt exactly the same way.

Business Yes, This Is the Obama Cover for Newsweek’s Post-Election Issue Posted on November 8, 2012 at 3:41pm by Becket Adams Newsweek editor Tina Brown announced earlier this year that the magazine would transition from print to all-digital by early 2013, meaning that, excluding the following, the publication has one more issue to go. And you didn’t expect Newsweek, a magazine well-known for iconic, controversial, and bold covers, to go out without a bang, did you? Yes, the same publication that asked why the president’s critics are so dumb has a post-election message for the GOP: You’re old, you’re white, and you’re finished. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/yes-this-is-the-obama-cover-for-newsweeks-post-election-issue/

Market Plunge

Four More Years

Who honestly thought this was a good idea? Posted November 6, 2012 at 12:37 pm by Meredith Jessup This is a polling place in Philadelphia. Seriously: Fox News reports on the funny business: Further, one polling site in Philadelphia apparently had a mural of President Obama emblazoned on the wall directly behind the voting machines. The mural, at a local school being used as a polling site, contained the words “change!” and “hope,” along with a quote from the president. Republicans were drawing attention to the image Tuesday morning, with one Mitt Romney spokesman tweeting: “Voters in Philly’s Ward 35 are being forced to cast their ballots next to this.” Pennsylvania election law states “no person within a polling place may electioneer or solicit votes for any political party, political body, or candidate, nor may any unauthorized written or printed materials be posted within the polling place.” http://www.theblaze.com/blog/#post-462038

You know, we're not a "true democracy," but rather a Republic. A much better form of government, imho.

Once again, my attempt to load a video was squashed. Argh! Click on link provided. It's pretty funny. November 5, 2012 at 8:36 am Chris Rock: Obama is Whiter Than Romney Read more: http://conservativevideos.com/2012/11/chris-rock-obama-is-whiter-than-romney/#ixzz2BRceiVWR

U.S. Spending $900,000 to Help Women Start Businesses- -in Peru and El Salvador By Pete Winn November 5, 2012 Secretary of State Hillarious Clinton (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta) (CNSNews.com) - The U.S. is spending $900,000 to help women start businesses and create jobs--in Peru and El Salvador. Secretary of State Hillarious Clinton announced the new Women's Entrepreneurship Trust Fund last month on visit to the Peruvian capital of Lima. “The United States is making an initial contribution of $900,000 to launch pilot programs here in Peru and in El Salvador,” Clinton said on October 16. “But we need more partners and more contributors to the trust fund, so I’d like to invite other governments and businesses to contribute.” The money, according to Clinton, will be used to train rural women in Peru and in El Salvador for jobs as entrepreneurs and small business owners. Clinton said the U.S. and Peru were working together as partners to support women in rural areas who “are replacing thousands of hectares of illegal coca fields with profitable crops, like chocolate and coffee and palm oil.” Approximately $500,000 of the money will go to Peru. The program will go far beyond job training, Clinton said. “With $500,000 in initial funding, we’ll focus on helping Peruvian women advocate for their own needs, mobilize broad national support for issues affecting them, particularly rural women. “We want to make sure they know who to contact if healthcare workers in rural clinics do not have proper training or if schools lack basic supplies. With more advocacy, openness, and accountability, women and their government can work together to improve the lives of Peruvians.” The money is part of the U.S.’s Women’s Leadership Initiative, which Clinton announced earlier this year. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/us-spending-900000-help-women-start-businesses-peru-and-el-salvador

Time to eliminate the Electoral College? By William La Jeunesse Published November 05, 2012 FoxNews.com Time to eliminate electoral college? Difficulty in predicting election winner Karl Rove plays out Electoral College scenarios Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore in 2000 won roughly 500,000 more votes than Republican nominee George W. Bush but lost the election. In the next presidential race, Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry lost to Bush by more than 3 million votes across all 50 states, but a mere 60,000 more votes in Ohio would have given him the election. This year, some anticipate a similar scenario, where one candidate wins the popular vote and the other the Electoral College. Take your best shot at predicting the final electoral map for the 2012 Presidential Election "The odds are always against it,” Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said. “But in a close election, it's always possible. … It has happened four times in American history. Is it going to happen a fifth time this year? Nobody knows." With some national polls showing the possibility of Romney winning the popular vote over Obama but failing to secure 270 electoral votes, an effort is underway to eliminate the Electoral College. Which states have Obama and Romney visited the most? Check our Candidate Tracker to find out. The so-called "college" essentially is a process in which representatives – or “electors” -- from each state vote for the president in accord with their state’s popular vote. There are 538 electors, and the winning candidate must get the 270 majority. States are allotted electors based on their congressional delegation – one for each House members and two for each senator. "The current system has the problem that presidential campaigns concentrate on only 10 of the 50 states, and at least four out of five Americans are left out of the process of deciding who their president should be," argued John Koza, who leads an effort to eliminate the Electoral College. In this election, statistics show Romney and Obama spent 95 percent of their time and money in just 10 states. Obama has traveled to Ohio 19 times for 26 political events. Together with Romney's team, Ohio was the site of 71 campaign visits. By contrast, neither presidential candidate visited Kansas, Alaska or North Dakota. The candidates come to New York and California to raise money but not to meet voters. States that trend too Democratic or Republican get ignored, while so-called “purple states” get the attention. "This is the structure of our country,” Sabato says. “It's the rules we played by for 200-plus years. Sabato doesn’t think the process is illegitimate but says people should question the fairness of the popular vote being split from the Electoral College vote. “If the answer's no, then what can we do to modify the Electoral College to change that?" he asks. Nine states have so far joined the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. In doing so, they agree to replace the electors for the candidate with the most popular votes in all 50 states. The agreement goes into effect only when the states obtain the 270-vote majority. Right now, they have 132. While the compact is based on Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution, which gives each state legislature the right to decide how to appoint its own electors, some think Congress would also have to affirm the agreement. In the past decade, prominent such Democrats as Secretary of State Hillarious Clinton, as well as Sens. **** Durbin and Charles Schumer and even Obama in 2004 supported eliminating the college, while Republican Sens. Orrin Hatch and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell opposed it. However, the parties' positions could promptly flip should, in the reverse of 2000, the Republican wins the popular vote but loses the election because of the Electoral College. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/05/effort-underway-to-end-electoral-college-with-chance-romney-wins-only-popular/#ixzz2BRQw5kTf

Excellent post Butifldrm. I still think that many people still don't know a whole lot about government, politics, or presidential elections. Not from lack of information, but rather from apathy. I understand, but you know this post isn't referencing paper ballot vs electronic. That's a whole other debate.

Did you even watch the video?? And if you knew anything of Bill Whittle, you'd know he's not in the Republican camp. Here's a bit of history for you..... In order to appreciate the reasons for the Electoral College, it is essential to understand its historical context and the problem that the Founding Fathers were trying to solve. They faced the difficult question of how to elect a president in a nation that: was composed of thirteen large and small States jealous of their own rights and powers and suspicious of any central national government contained only 4,000,000 people spread up and down a thousand miles of Atlantic seaboard barely connected by transportation or communication (so that national campaigns were impractical even if they had been thought desirable) believed, under the influence of such British political thinkers as Henry St. John Bolingbroke, that political parties were mischievous if not downright evil, and felt that gentlemen should not campaign for public office (The saying was "The office should seek the man, the man should not seek the office."). How, then, to choose a president without political parties, without national campaigns, and without upsetting the carefully designed balance between the presidency and the Congress on one hand and between the States and the federal government on the other? Origins of the Electoral College The Constitutional Convention considered several possible methods of selecting a president. One idea was to have the Congress choose the president. This idea was rejected, however, because some felt that making such a choice would be too divisive an issue and leave too many hard feelings in the Congress. Others felt that such a procedure would invite unseemly political bargaining, corruption, and perhaps even interference from foreign powers. Still others felt that such an arrangement would upset the balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. A second idea was to have the State legislatures select the president. This idea, too, was rejected out of fears that a president so beholden to the State legislatures might permit them to erode federal authority and thus undermine the whole idea of a federation. A third idea was to have the president elected by a direct popular vote. Direct election was rejected not because the Framers of the Constitution doubted public intelligence but rather because they feared that without sufficient information about candidates from outside their State, people would naturally vote for a "favorite son" from their own State or region. At worst, no president would emerge with a popular majority sufficient to govern the whole country. At best, the choice of president would always be decided by the largest, most populous States with little regard for the smaller ones. Finally, a so-called "Committee of Eleven" in the Constitutional Convention proposed an indirect election of the president through a College of Electors. The function of the College of Electors in choosing the president can be likened to that in the Roman Catholic Church of the College of Cardinals selecting the Pope. The original idea was for the most knowledgeable and informed individuals from each State to select the president based solely on merit and without regard to State of origin or political party. The structure of the Electoral College can be traced to the Centurial Assembly system of the Roman Republic. Under that system, the adult male citizens of Rome were divided, according to their wealth, into groups of 100 (called Centuries). Each group of 100 was entitled to cast only one vote either in favor or against proposals submitted to them by the Roman Senate. In the Electoral College system, the States serve as the Centurial groups (though they are not, of course, based on wealth), and the number of votes per State is determined by the size of each State's Congressional delegation. Still, the two systems are similar in design and share many of the same advantages and disadvantages. The similarities between the Electoral College and classical institutions are not accidental. Many of the Founding Fathers were well schooled in ancient history and its lessons. The First Design In the first design of the Electoral College (described in Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution): Each State was allocated a number of Electors equal to the number of its U.S. Senators (always 2) plus the number of its U.S. Representative (which may change each decade according to the size of each State's population as determined in the decennial census). This arrangement built upon an earlier compromise in the design of the Congress itself and thus satisfied both large and small States. The manner of choosing the Electors was left to the individual State legislatures, thereby pacifying States suspicious of a central national government. Members of Congress and employees of the federal government were specifically prohibited from serving as an Elector in order to maintain the balance between the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. Each State's Electors were required to meet in their respective States rather than all together in one great meeting. This arrangement, it was thought, would prevent bribery, corruption, secret dealing, and foreign influence. In order to prevent Electors from voting only for a "favorite son" of their own State, each Elector was required to cast two votes for president, at least one of which had to be for someone outside their home State. The idea, presumably, was that the winner would likely be everyone's second favorite choice. The electoral votes were to be sealed and transmitted from each of the States to the President of the Senate who would then open them before both houses of the Congress and read the results. The person with the most electoral votes, provided that it was an absolute majority (at least one over half of the total), became president. Whoever obtained the next greatest number of electoral votes became vice president - an office which they seem to have invented for the occasion since it had not been mentioned previously in the Constitutional Convention. In the event that no one obtained an absolute majority in the Electoral College or in the event of a tie vote, the U.S. House of Representatives, as the chamber closest to the people, would choose the president from among the top five contenders. They would do this (as a further concession to the small States) by allowing each State to cast only one vote with an absolute majority of the States being required to elect a president. The vice presidency would go to whatever remaining contender had the greatest number of electoral votes. If that, too, was tied, the U.S. Senate would break the tie by deciding between the two. In all, this was quite an elaborate design. But it was also a very clever one when you consider that the whole operation was supposed to work without political parties and without national campaigns while maintaining the balances and satisfying the fears in play at the time. Indeed, it is probably because the Electoral College was originally designed to operate in an environment so totally different from our own that many people think it is anachronistic and fail to appreciate the new purposes it now serves. But of that, more later. The Second Design The first design of the Electoral College lasted through only four presidential elections. For in the meantime, political parties had emerged in the United States. The very people who had been condemning parties publicly had nevertheless been building them privately. And too, the idea of political parties had gained respectability through the persuasive writings of such political philosophers as Edmund Burke and James Madison. One of the accidental results of the development of political parties was that in the presidential election of 1800, the Electors of the Democratic-Republican Party gave Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr (both of that party) an equal number of electoral votes. The tie was resolved by the House of Representatives in Jefferson's favor - but only after 36 tries and some serious political dealings which were considered unseemly at the time. Since this sort of bargaining over the presidency was the very thing the Electoral College was supposed to prevent, the Congress and the States hastily adopted the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution by September of 1804. To prevent tie votes in the Electoral College which were made probable, if not inevitable, by the rise of political parties (and no doubt to facilitate the election of a president and vice president of the same party), the 12th Amendment requires that each Elector cast one vote for president and a separate vote for vice president rather than casting two votes for president with the runner-up being made vice president. The Amendment also stipulates that if no one receives an absolute majority of electoral votes for president, then the U.S. House of Representatives will select the president from among the top three contenders with each State casting only one vote and an absolute majority being required to elect. By the same token, if no one receives an absolute majority for vice president, then the U.S. Senate will select the vice president from among the top two contenders for that office. All other features of the Electoral College remained the same including the requirements that, in order to prevent Electors from voting only for "favorite sons", either the presidential or vice presidential candidate has to be from a State other than that of the Electors. In short, political party loyalties had, by 1800, begun to cut across State loyalties thereby creating new and different problems in the selection of a president. By making seemingly slight changes, the 12th Amendment fundamentally altered the design of the Electoral College and, in one stroke, accommodated political parties as a fact of life in American presidential elections. It is noteworthy in passing that the idea of electing the president by direct popular vote was not widely promoted as an alternative to redesigning the Electoral College. This may be because the physical and demographic circumstances of the country had not changed that much in a dozen or so years. Or it may be because the excesses of the recent French revolution (and its fairly rapid degeneration into dictatorship) had given the populists some pause to reflect on the wisdom of too direct a democracy. The Evolution of the Electoral College Since the 12th Amendment, there have been several federal and State statutory changes which have affected both the time and manner of choosing Presidential Electors but which have not further altered the fundamental workings of the Electoral College. There have also been a few curious incidents which its critics cite as problems but which proponents of the Electoral College view as merely its natural and intended operation. http://uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/INFORMATION/electcollege_history.php