The Hard Working American vs. The Government Parasite

Which lifestyle choice produces better results - being a hard working American or being a government parasite?  Actually, when you look at the cold, hard numbers they may just surprise you.  In America today, we deeply penalize hard work and we greatly reward government dependence.  If you live in a very liberal area of the country and you know how to game the system, it is entirely possible to live a comfortable existence without ever working too much at all.  In fact, there are some Americans that have been living off of "government benefits" for decades.  Many of these people actually plan their lives around doing exactly what they need to do to qualify for as many benefits as possible.  America is rapidly turning into a European-style socialist welfare state and it is destroying our nation socially and financially.  Ever since the "war on poverty" began our debt has absolutely exploded and yet now there are more poor people in this country than ever before.  Obviously something is not working.
Now don't get me wrong.  I deeply believe in having compassion for those that are going through tough times and having a safety net for those that cannot take care of themselves.  We should not have a single person in this nation going without food or sleeping in the streets.
But in America today it is absolutely ridiculous how many people are climbing aboard the "safety net".  At this point, an astounding 49 percent of all Americans live in a home that receives some form of government benefits.
So who pays for all of this?
The people that drag themselves out of bed and go to work each day pay for it all.
For a few moments, let's examine how the lifestyle of a typical hard working American compares to the lifestyle of a government parasite.
In America today, the median yearly household income is somewhere around $50,000.  About half of all American households make more than that and about half of all American households make less than that.  When you break it down, it comes to about $4000 a month.
So how far does $4000 go in America today?
Unfortunately, it doesn't go very far at all.
First of all, a hard working American family will need some place to live.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of the decent jobs are near the big cities, and it is more expensive to live near the big cities.  Let's assume that an average family of four will spend about $1000 a month on rent or on a mortgage payment.
The government parasite, on the other hand, has a whole host of federal, state and local housing programs to take advantage of.  During the recent economic downturn, more Americans than ever have been turning to the government for help with housing costs.  For example, federal housing assistance outlays increased by a whopping 42 percent between 2006 and 2010.
Once you have a place to live, you have to provide power and heat for it.  For the average hard working American, this is going to probably average about $300 a month, although this can vary greatly depending on where you live.
For the government parasite, there are once again a whole host of government programs to help with this.  For example, LIHEAP (Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program) assists low income households in paying their home heating bills.
Most average hard working Americans are also going to need phone and Internet service.  Let's assume that the hard working family of four in our example is extremely thrifty and only spends $100 a month for these services.
For the government parasite, cell phone service is not a problem.  As I have written about previously, those that "qualify" can receive a free cell phone and free cell phone minutes every single month from the federal government.  In addition, in some areas of the nation low income families can qualify for deeply subsidized home Internet service.
In order to earn money, our hard working family is going to need to get to work.  In most households, both parents have decided to work these days so both of them will need cars.  Let's assume that the family is very thrifty and that both cars were purchased used and that the car payments only total about $400 a month.
The hard working family will also need auto insurance for the two vehicles.  Let's assume that both parents have a great driving record and that they only pay a total of about $100 a month for car insurance.
The cars will also need to be filled up with gasoline.  The average U. S. household spent $4155 on gasoline during 2011, but let's assume that our family is very, very careful and that they only spend about $300 on gas each month.
So what about the government parasite?  Well, the government parasite does not need to go to work, so this expense can potentially be eliminated entirely.  But since most other things are paid for by the government or are deeply subsidized, in many instances government parasites are actually able to afford very nice vehicles.
In addition, a new bill (The Low-Income Gasoline Assistance Program Act) has been introduced in Congress that would give "qualifying" households money to help pay for gasoline....

Low-Income Gasoline Assistance Program Act - Directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to make grants to states to establish emergency assistance programs to pay eligible households for the purchase of gasoline.

A hard working American family is also going to need health insurance.  Well, we all know how expensive health insurance has become.  In fact, health insurance costs have risen by 23 percent since Barack Obama became president.  But let's assume that our hard working family has somehow been able to find an amazing deal where they only pay $500 a month for health insurance for a family of four.
For the government parasite, health insurance is not needed.  If there is an emergency, the government parasite can just go get free medical care at any emergency room.
And of course there is always Medicaid.  Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid, and things are about to get a whole lot worse.  It is being projected that Obamacare will add 16 million more Americans to the Medicaid rolls.
So what about food?
Everyone has to eat, right?
Well, the hard working family in our example is faced with an environment where food prices are constantly rising but paychecks are not keeping up.  Let's assume that the hard working family in our example clips coupons and cuts corners any way that it can and only spends about $50 for each member of the family on food and supplies each week.  That comes to a total of $800 a month for the entire family.
So what about the government parasite?
Government parasites need to eat too.
Well, that is where food stamps come in.  Right now, there are more than 46 million Americans on food stamps.  Since Barack Obama became president, the number of Americans on food stamps has increased by 14 million.  Food stamps have become so popular that rappers are even making rap videos about using food stamp cards.
Okay, so after all of this where do we stand?
Well, the average hard working family so far has spent $3500 out of the $4000 that they have to spend for the month.
We still need to find money for clothing, for paying off credit card debt, for paying off student loan debt, for dining out, for entertainment, for medications, for pets, for hobbies, for life insurance, for vacations, for car repairs and maintenance, for child care, for gifts and for retirement savings.
But wait.
There is actually no money left at all because we have forgotten one of the biggest expenses of all.
Taxes.
When you total up all federal, state and property taxes, our average hard working family is going to pay at least $1000 a month in taxes.
So that puts our average hard working family in the hole every single month.
Meanwhile, the government parasite does not pay any taxes because he or she does not earn enough money to be taxed.
Are you starting to get the picture?
In many ways, life can be so much easier when you are constantly taking from the government instead of constantly giving to the government.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie recently put it this way....

"We'll have a bunch of people sitting on a couch waiting for their next government check"

Once again, I am not dumping on those that have been through all kinds of nightmares because of this economy.  As I have written about so frequently, the U.S. economy is simply not producing enough jobs for everyone anymore, and this is creating major problems.
Just about everyone needs a helping hand at some point, and we should always be compassionate to those that are in need.
However, there is also a growing number of Americans that are content to simply give up and live off of the government, and that is fundamentally wrong.
It is not the job of the U.S. government to take care of you from the cradle to the grave.  What the U.S. government is supposed to do is to make sure that we have a well functioning economy that operates in an environment where hard working individuals and small businesses can thrive, and sadly the U.S. government has failed miserably in that regard.
We desperately need the U.S. economy to be fixed, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
As economic conditions get even worse in this country, millions more Americans are going to turn to the government for assistance and at some point the safety net is going to break.
What is our country going to look like when that happens?

Global Warming Warnings Called 'Gravely Flawed'

Six years ago, the BBC cited climate scientists in predicting that the Arctic would be ice-free in summer by 2013.

Instead, Arctic ice this August covered nearly a million more square miles of ocean than in August 2012 — an increase of 60 percent.

This has led Britain's Mail on Sunday to report: "Some eminent scientists now believe the world is heading for a period of cooling that will not end until the middle of the century — a process that would expose computer forecasts of imminent catastrophic warming as dangerously misleading."

The newspaper also asserted that global warming had paused since the beginning of 1997.

The pause is "important," the Mail stated, because predictions of ever-increasing global temperatures "have made many of the world's economies divert billions of pounds into 'green' measures to counter climate change. Those predictions now appear gravely flawed."

Arctic ice now extends from Canada's northern islands to Russia's northern shore, blocking the Northwest Passage, and more than 20 yachts that had planned to sail it from the Atlantic to the Pacific have been left ice-bound.

Professor Anastasios Tsonis of the University of Wisconsin, who has investigated ocean cycles, said: "We are already in a cooling trend, which I think will continue for the next 15 years at least. There is no doubt the warming of the 1980s and 1990s has stopped."

The Mail article, which has been criticized and even dismissed by some global warming proponents, points to evidence that Arctic ice levels are cyclical. There was a massive melt in the 1920s and 1930s, followed by an intense re-freeze that did not end until 1979 — the year the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says the shrinking of Arctic ice began.

Maryland counties join movement to secede from largely Democrat-run state

A group of Maryland residents frustrated with its state’s liberal government is joining a recent movement across the country of regions trying to secede.
Western Maryland is made up of five counties whose residents largely vote Republican and feel under-represented at the state capitol, run by Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley and a Democrat-controlled legislature.
The movement began in July as a social-media effort, with activist Scott Strzelczyk starting a Facebook page titled the Western Maryland Initiative.
The movement, however, has since garnered significant media attention, with Strzelczyk talking to everybody from National Public Radio to The Washington Post.
“We are tired of this,” he said during an interview Thursday with Washington-area NPR affiliate WAMU. “We have had enough.”
Strzelczyk said the biggest concerns are increasing taxes, and the Democrat-controlled legislature gerrymander voting district so that the state’s big metropolitan areas have the most representation and tighter gun laws enacted this year, which he calls “the last straw.”
The movement is just one of several across the country that includes the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, Northern California and several conservative northern Colorado counties.
The Colorado effort is backed by the Tea Party movement and has gotten the issue put on the November ballot as a non-binding referendum. The movement was also driven in large part by state lawmakers passing tighter gun-control legislation this year that was signed by Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.
Todd Eberly, a political science professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, argues the movement goes beyond disgruntled conservatives, pointing out Democrats in South Florida and western Arizona counties want to break from their states, which they consider run by Republicans.
“This is about folks who just do not believe they are being represented, whether it's Democrats and Republicans,” he told WAMU.
Still, secession will not be easy, for a variety of reasons, including that many of these remote, rural regions rely on money generated in their state’s more commercial and populated cities. And secession leaders would need state and federal approval, which seems unlikely considering the last time a region broke off was 1863, when 50 western Virginia counties split to form West Virginia.
Strzelczyk acknowledges he is helping lead a longshot effort but says the movement will go forward with such efforts as starting policy committees, reaching out to lawmakers and forming a nonprofit 501 (c) (4) group that is allowed to engage in political activities.
“This is about popular support,” he said. “Ultimately, if the people of these five western counties do not support this effort, we’re not going to force them to leave.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/15/maryland-counties-join-movement-to-secede-from-largely-democrat-run-state/?intcmp=latestnews#ixzz2f2wAKwyi

Out of Control Government Armed EPA Agents!

The recent uproar over armed EPA agents descending on a tiny Alaska mining town is shedding light on the fact that 40 federal agencies – including nearly a dozen typically not associated with law enforcement -- have armed divisions.
The agencies employ about 120,000 full-time officers authorized to carry guns and make arrests, according to a June 2012 Justice Department report.
Though most Americans know agents within the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Federal Bureau of Prisons carry guns, agencies such as the Library of Congress and Federal Reserve Board employing armed officers might come as a surprise.
The incident that sparked the renewed interest and concern occurred in late August when a team of armed federal and state officials descended on the tiny Alaska gold mining town of Chicken, Alaska.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/14/armed-epa-agents-in-alaska-shed-light-on-70-fed-agencies-with-armed-divisions/?intcmp=trending#ixzz2exgKv7cx

Biden Slams House Conservatives as 'Neanderthals'

Vice President Joe Biden Thursday blamed conservative Republicans in the House for slowing down the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, calling them a "Neanderthal crowd" out of touch with the problems and realities that women have to confront in today's world.

"I'm going to say something outrageous," Biden said. "I think I understand the Senate better than any man or woman who's ever served in there, and I think I understand the House . . . I was surprised this last time . . . the idea we still had to fight? We had to fight to reauthorize?"

"Did you ever think we'd be fighting over, you know, 17, 18 years later to reauthorize this?" he asked an audience at an event celebrating the 19th anniversary of the original law passed in 1994. "Well, you know what? The thing they didn't like, they said we like it the way it is."

According to Politico, Biden applauded the new version of the bill passed in March, which added protections for Native American women, members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community, and immigrants.

The Huffington Post also reported that he told his audience he was "stunned" that House Republicans, whom he described as "this sort of Neanderthal crowd," had fought so hard against the reauthorization. He credited the work of women in the Senate for finally getting it through.

"It makes a difference with women in the Senate," he said to applause. "It does. It does, man . . . Because they go and look all the rest of those guys in the eye and say, 'Look. This is important to me.'"

"Nothing, nothing, nothing I've ever been engaged in matters to me more than what you've made real," he added.

Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/biden-gop-violence-women/2013/09/13/id/525536?ns_mail_uid=5689450&ns_mail_job=1537560_09142013&promo_code=14DFE-1#ixzz2es1Rc6sq
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Emails show IRS official Lerner involved in Tea Party screening

May 22, 2013: IRS official Lois Lerner is sworn in on Capitol Hill in Washington.AP

Embattled IRS official Lois Lerner appeared to be deeply involved in scrutinizing the applications of Tea Party groups for tax-exempt status, according to newly released emails that further challenge the claim the targeting was the work of rogue Ohio-based employees.
One curious February 2011 email from Lerner said, "Tea Party Matter very dangerous" -- before going on to warn that the "matter" could be used to go to court to test campaign spending limits.
Much of the email, released along with others by the House Ways and Means Committee, is redacted, so the full context is not clear.
But the same email warned that "Cincy" -- presumably a reference to the Cincinnati IRS office -- should "probably NOT have these cases." That and other emails show Lerner and other Washington, D.C., officials playing a big role in dealing with Tea Party cases.
The emails could raise more questions for Lerner, who refused to testify before Congress earlier this year in the Tea Party targeting scandal. While the case seemed to hit the backburner as Congress went on recess, and then returned to take up the debate over Syria, investigations are still ongoing.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., said there are "mountains of documents to go through."
"There is increasing and overwhelming evidence that Lois Lerner and high-level IRS employees in Washington were abusing their power to prevent conservative groups from organizing and carrying out their missions," he said in a statement. "It is clear the IRS is out of control and there will be consequences."
The emails show several D.C. officials involved in the screening process, despite early claims after the scandal broke that the Cincinnati office was to blame.
Another February 2011 email from IRS official Holly Paz said "no decisions are going out of Cincy" until the D.C. office goes through the process. Lerner wrote back giving further guidance.
More than a year later, Lerner was alerted via email that the inspector general's office was looking into how they were dealing with applications for tax-exempt status, and that they were taking a "skeptical tone."
"It is what it is," Lerner wrote back, while claiming that management tried to "change the process" and "better educate our staff" to get applications moving.
"We will get dinged, but we took steps before the 'dinging' to make things better," she wrote.
Another email from July 2012 also raises questions about Lerner's political leanings. After being forwarded an article about Democrats claiming anonymous donors were financing attack ads against them, Lerner wrote: "Perhaps the (Federal Election Commission) will save the day."
IRS officials, though, have said the screening program was not politically motivated. The inspector general's office has said it has no evidence to support such claims either.
The IRS said in a statement this week that while it cannot comment on "individual employee matters," newly appointed Acting Commissioner Danny Werfel "made a commitment to transparency and getting the facts out to Congress as well as fixing the underlying mismanagement in the IRS tax-exempt area."
The statement said the IRS is cooperating with Congress while taking "corrective actions," and supports a "complete review of these documents."
Lerner was put on administrative leave after the inspector general's office issued a scathing report claiming the IRS had subjected conservative groups to additional scrutiny as they applied for tax-exempt status. Lerner got ahead of the report's release and confirmed the practice during a Washington event.
While Congress investigates, Tea Party groups are still registering complaints. A Washington Times report said more than 50 applications were still pending or had been pulled as of July.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/13/emails-show-irs-official-lerner-involved-in-tea-party-screening/#ixzz2ep9buKXk

Republicans move to halt ObamaCare 'bailout' for angry unions

Capitol Hill Republicans are trying to stop the Obama administration from offering labor unions a sweetheart deal on ObamaCare, as the White House tries to quell a simmering rebellion from Big Labor over the health care law. 
President Obama and White House officials reportedly have called union leaders to try and persuade them to tone down their complaints, pledging an accommodation. The AFL-CIO, though, on Wednesday approved a resolution anyway calling the law "highly disruptive" to union plans.
But reports have surfaced on a plan that would give union workers -- and only union workers -- subsidies to help pay for health insurance even if they're covered through their job. The purported "carve-out" could soothe the simmering discontent within Big Labor. The loyal Democratic supporters and early champions of ObamaCare say they have been slighted by the act’s final regulations, which they say is pushing some employees into part-time work and threatens their health insurance plans.
At least three congressional Republicans are trying to stop any effort to give the unions special treatment, which could cost $200 billion over 10 years.
Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., on Monday introduced the "Union Bailout Prevention Act," which would stop the granting of subsidies to offset premium costs for the multi-employer plans held by many union members. Separately, the House voted on Thursday to stop all subsidies until the administration launches a system to verify recipients are eligible.
Big Labor argues that workers without additional subsidies will switch to less-expensive, major-insurer plans, creating a withering effect on the so-called Taft-Hartley plans.
Thune and others argue the plans are already government-subsidized and the workers’ contributions are already tax-exempt.
“A deal such as this by the administration for the union would be illegal,” Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch and Michigan Rep. Dave Camp said in a letter Tuesday to the Treasury Department. “Giving union workers exchange subsidies in addition to the income-tax exclusion would be double dipping.”
News reports about the plan have been circulating for days, including an early one by the Inside Washington news service. The Health and Human Services Department did not return calls or emails from FoxNews.com asking about the veracity of those reports.
Labor unions launched a multi-targeted attack this summer to force changes to ObamaCare, including one on the mandate for employers to offer insurance to full-time employees, which they say has resulted in more part-time jobs. Though that provision has been delayed, the concern is that employers are shaving the number of full-time employees in order to stay under the law's threshold for when they have to start offering coverage.
“Unless you and the Obama administration enact an equitable fix, the (Affordable Care Act) will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40-hour work week,” union leaders wrote in a letter this summer to congressional Democratic leaders.
The letter, co-signed by the Teamsters union, was sent to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada, and followed a resolution by a Nevada chapter of the AFL-CIO hammering on the same issues.
“The unintended consequences of the ACA will lead to the destruction of the 40-hour work week … and force union members onto more costly plans,” the resolution stated.
Labor unions also feel slighted because low-income Americans are eligible for subsidies to help them purchase insurance through exchanges or marketplaces created by ObamaCare, when enrollment begins Oct. 1.
“Other stakeholders have repeatedly received successful interpretations for their respective grievances,” the unions told Pelosi and Reid in the July letter.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/12/hill-republicans-launch-pre-emptive-strike-on-union-subsidies-for-obamacare/#ixzz2elNxVGVZ

Putin

School Tells Child She Can’t Write About God

By Todd Starnes
A Tennessee mom is looking for answers after her daughter’s teacher refused to let the child write about God for a school assignment.
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Erin Shead, a 10-year-old student at Lucy Elementary School in Millington, was assigned to write about someone she idolized. The girl, who is a Christian, decided to write about God.
“I look up to God,” she wrote. “I love him and Jesus, and Jesus is His earthly son. I also love Jesus.”
The youngster also said that God would “always be the #1 person I look up to.”

From WREG

“It was so cute and innocent,” Erica Shead told television station WREG. “She talked about how God created the Earth.”
But Shead said her daughter’s teacher objected to the choice and told her she could not use God as an idol for the assignment.
Erin told her mom that it had something to do with religion  - that God could not be her idol. The teacher then allegedly told the child that she had to take the paper about God home – because it could not remain on school property.
“How can you tell this baby – that’s a Christian – what she can say and what she can’t say?” Shead asked.
The teacher approved of Erin’s second choice — Michael Jackson.
Shead told WREG she met with the principal and still has questions about what happened.
“I told the principal this morning, would it be better if she wrote about Ellen Degeneres?” she said. “Of course there was no comment.”
Christian Ross, a spokesman for Shelby County Schools, told Fox News ”teachers are prohibited from promoting religious beliefs in the classroom.”
However he said the district does not have a policy that prohibits a student from expressing religious beliefs in class assignments.
If that’s the case, why was Erin Shead not allowed to write about God?
Ross did not provide an answer.
“This incident has been addressed at the school-level, and the principal has contacted parents of the student regarding their concerns,” he said. “Out of respect for and in order to protect the privacy of individual  students and staff, the district is not commenting further on this matter.”

Most Illegal Immigrant Families Collect Welfare

Surprise, surprise; Census Bureau data reveals that most U.S. families headed by illegal immigrants use taxpayer-funded welfare programs on behalf of their American-born anchor babies.Even before the recession, immigrant households with children used welfare programs at consistently higher rates than natives, according to the extensive census data collected and analyzed by a nonpartisan Washington D.C. group dedicated to researching legal and illegal immigration in the U.S. The results, published this month in a lengthy report, are hardly surprising.Basically, the majority of households across the country benefiting from publicly-funded welfare programs are headed by immigrants, both legal and illegal. States where immigrant households with children have the highest welfare use rates are Arizona (62%), Texas, California and New York with 61% each and Pennsylvania(59%).The study focused on eight major welfare programs that cost the government $517 billion the year they were examined. They include Supplemental Security Income (SIS) for the disabled, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF), a nutritional program known as Women, Infants and Children (WIC), food stamps, free/reduced school lunch, public housing and health insurance for the poor (Medicaid).Food assistance and Medicaid are the programs most commonly used by illegal immigrants, mainly on behalf of their American-born children who get automatic citizenship. On the other hand, legal immigrant households take advantage of every available welfare program, according to the study, which attributes it to low education level and resulting low income.The highest rate of welfare recipients come from the Dominican Republic (82 %), Mexico and Guatemala (75%) and Ecuador (70%), according to the report, which says welfare use tends to be high for both new arrivals and established residents.

Flip Flop

Colorado state senators recalled over gun control support

Two Democratic lawmakers in Colorado, including the president of the state senate, were recalled Tuesday in elections brought about by their support for tougher gun control laws. 
According to unofficial results, voters in Colorado Springs favored recalling state Sen. John Morse, the body's president, by 51 percent to 49 percent. With 100 percent of precincts reporting, state Sen. Angela Giron of Pueblo was defeated in her recall election, 56 percent to 44 percent.  
The Colorado Republican Party called the vote results "a loud and clear message to out-of-touch Democrats across the nation" in a statement released late Tuesday. Colorado's Democratic governor, John Hickenlooper, said he was "disappointed by the outcome of the recall elections" before calling on state residents to "refocus again on what unites Coloradans -- creating jobs, educating our children, creating a healthier state -- and on finding ways to keep Colorado moving forward."
"We as the Democratic party will continue to fight," Morse told supporters in Colorado Springs as he conceded the race. Republican Bernie Herpin, a former Colorado Springs city councilman, will replace him. Giron will be replaced by Republican George Rivera, a former deputy police chief in Pueblo.
"We will win in the end because we are on the right side," Giron said in her concession speech.
The votes marked the first time in Colorado history that a state lawmaker faced a recall effort and the biggest backlash in states that passed tougher gun-control laws following two mass shootings last year – at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater and a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.
Democratic-leaning Connecticut, Maryland, and New York also passed tougher gun laws without a recall effort making a state ballot.
The states’ effort came after President Obama’s unsuccessful attempt to get Congress to pass stricter federal laws – including tighter background checks and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity gun magazines.
In Colorado Springs, the majority of registered voters are Democrats, but many are conservative-leaning. 23 percent of them, in fact, signed the petition to recall Morse, according to The Denver Post.
The National Rifle Association and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg lined up on opposite sides of the recall effort, led by gun-rights advocates upset over the legislation and how the hearings were conducted.
Both state legislators voted for 15-round limits on ammunition magazines and for expanded background checks on private gun sales.
The legislation passed Colorado's Democrat-led legislature without any Republican support and was signed into law by Hickenlooper, who had initially rejected calls for stronger gun control laws.
Morse, a former police chief in suburban Colorado Springs, said Colorado's gun laws were commonsense ideas to reduce fatalities in mass shootings. He was first elected to the Colorado Senate in 2006.
Reported contributions to Morse and Giron totaled about $3 million, dwarfing the reported amount raised by gun activists who petitioned for the recall, though some independent groups didn't have to report spending. Both the NRA and Bloomberg contributed more than $300,000 to the pro- and anti-recall campaigns.
In addition, dozens of elected county sheriffs have sued to block the gun laws.
One of the Morse recall organizers, Timothy Knight, said supporters are upset that lawmakers limited debate on the gun legislation and seemed more inclined to take cues from the White House than their constituents.
"If the people had been listened to, these recalls wouldn't be happening," Knight said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/10/colorado-dems-face-historic-recall-over-gun-votes/?intcmp=HPBucket#ixzz2eZhXU6vg

House leadership pushes new legislative strategy to defund ObamaCare

House Republican leaders on Tuesday defended their proposal for a temporary spending bill that essentially puts the contentious issue of “defunding” ObamaCare in the hands of the Democrat-controlled Senate.
“The House has voted 40 times to defund, repeal and change ObamaCare,” House Speaker John Boehner said. “This strategy is intended not to really satisfy the House. We've already voted. It enforces the fight in the United States Senate. … Let's get the issue over there and force them to actually have a vote.”
His comments came as the House leadership proposed a legislative strategy to vote on the spending measure and defunding, then send the package to the Senate.
It follows a GOP-led cross-country, grass-roots effort to garner support to block funding to implement the Affordable Care Act before enrollment begins Oct. 1.
The strategy would essentially allow Republicans to say they voted to defund ObamaCare while keeping the government open.
Congress must agree on a temporary spending bill before Oct 1., when the government technically runs out of money, meaning there would be a temporary shutdown.
It was unclear late Tuesday whether the House gimmick would satisfy the chamber’s conservative caucus, whose members have pressed for a straight-up defund vote.
A spokesman for Arizona Republican Rep. Trent Franks, among the chamber’s most conservative members, told FoxNews.com that the congressman is going to reserve comment until the legislation is written and amendments are filed.
However, Heritage Action for America, which sponsored this summer’s defund town hall tour, opposed the plan.
“This is a legislative gimmick designed to provide political cover to those who are unwilling to fight to defund ObamaCare,” said Michael A. Needham, the group’s chief executive officer.“Any constituent who looks at this vote will know it is intended to look like a vote to defund ObamaCare while failing to do so.”
The plan must first go through the House Rules Committee, which if approved could get a vote as early as Thursday.
Though rank-and-file House Republicans might be upset with leadership’s strategy, Boehner and his team argued Tuesday they wanted to defund the law.
“We're going to continue to do everything we can to protect Americans from this harmful health care law,” Boehner said. “This is not good for the country. It's not good for the health care system. It will bankrupt and ruin the best health care delivery system the world has ever known.”
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said: “More and more people are struggling because they don't know where the price of their health care is going, all because ObamaCare is about to become fully implemented. And we're trying to everything we can to stave that possibility off.”
He also suggested House Republicans were going to push a bill by Tennessee Rep. Diane Black that requires the Obama administration to have in place a strict income-verification system before giving tax credits to help Americans pay for health insurance under the new law.
In the Senate, Arizona Republican Sen. Jeff Flake introduced a bill Tuesday to delay for one year all of ObamaCare’s provisions going into effect on January 1, 2014 or later.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/10/boehner-gimmick-tries-walking-fine-line-between-shutdown-and-defund/?test=latestnews#ixzz2eXHnKFjl

Transgender 6-Year-Olds in Potty Spurs California Repeal Drive

Californians jolted by the mental image of children sharing lavatories and locker rooms with opposite-sex classmates are campaigning to repeal the nation’s first law requiring schools to accommodate transgender pupils.
The law, which takes effect Jan. 1, requires all schools receiving state funds to let children choose between boys’ or girls’ bathrooms, for instance, and participate in sex- segregated sports teams based on their gender identity rather than their biological sex.
The drive to put a repeal on the ballot echoes a 2008 initiative, Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment passed by voters that banned same-sex unions. California resumed gay weddings in June following a Supreme Court ruling.
“It is just fundamentally wrong,” said Doug Boyd, a lawyer circulating petitions in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendora. “It’s against the laws of God and nature.”
Boyd, 60, said he can’t stomach the idea of his 6- and 7- year-old daughters sharing school bathrooms, showers or locker rooms with a boy who sees himself as a girl.
A coalition led by the Capitol Resource Institute, a Sacramento-based nonprofit group that promotes itself as a “watchdog for family values,” is seeking about 500,000 signatures to put a repeal on the 2014 ballot.
“This law just goes way too far,” said Karen England, executive director of the institute and a co-leader of the petition drive. “We need to protect the privacy of all students, not just some students.”
Opposite Sex
Transgender people are those who are born as one sex, yet behave and maintain an appearance consistent with the other sex. While Massachusetts, Connecticut, Washington and Colorado have policies on transgender schoolchildren, only California has incorporated them into its laws, according to Equality California, the state’s largest gay-rights group.
The law’s supporters, which include the California State PTA and Governor Jerry Brown, a 75-year-old Democrat, underestimated the public backlash, Boyd said. He said he expects to easily obtain signatures to overturn the law in his neighborhood and at his 5,000-member church, Calvary Chapel Chino Hills.
“I have a 6-year-old daughter and a 7-year-old daughter in public schools and I’ll be darned if there are boys in their bathrooms,” Boyd said. He said he’d put the girls in another school before making them share bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams with opposite-sex peers.
Accommodation Plan
Michelle Hunter, the Glendora Unified School District’s assistant superintendent for educational services, said officials at the 7,700-student system are awaiting policy guidance on the law from lobbyists for school boards in Sacramento. Hunter said she doesn’t anticipate any costs from the law, as Glendora already has some restrooms for individual students. Boyd said he’s unaware of any transgender students attending his children’s school in Glendora, about 30 miles (45 kilometers) northeast of downtown Los Angeles. Hunter said she couldn’t disclose any information on the number of such students.
In the Los Angeles Unified School District, about 0.5 percent of its 153,000 high-schoolers, or about 763, self- identified as transgender in a 2011 survey, said Judy Chiasson, program coordinator for human relations, diversity and equity.
The Los Angeles and San Francisco school districts already have policies allowing students to use facilities and join sports teams based on their gender identity. Los Angeles administrators have spent “negligible” time accommodating transgender students and there has been no expense to the district, Chiasson said.
Without Incident
In San Francisco, transgender students have used opposite- sex facilities for a decade without incident or cost to the district, said a spokeswoman, Gentle Blythe.
“Most students want privacy so we work out a way they can use the bathroom discreetly if that is what he or she prefers,” Blythe said by e-mail.
Neither school system tracks the number of students who have requested special accommodations, Chiasson and Blythe said.
Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, the San Francisco Democrat who wrote the law, described it as an “important victory” for the rights of transgender people and said it would help children express their true identities. He said he’s not worried by the petition drive.
“The referendum is to be expected,” he said in a statement. “I think it’s marginal, but we’ll watch it.”
The repeal effort faces long odds: Of 76 referendums that qualified for circulation in California since 1912, only 19, or one-fourth, have been passed by voters, according to Secretary of State Debra Bowen’s office.
Law Suspended
The repeal advocates have until Nov. 10 to submit their petition. If they gather enough valid signatures to qualify for the November 2014 ballot, the law would be suspended pending the outcome of the vote, according to Bowen’s office.
England said the campaign against the law stresses the loss of privacy for non-transgender students sharing restrooms, locker rooms and sports teams with peers of the opposite sex, rather than moral objections.
Opponents also are concerned that California may set a precedent for other states, she said.
“It’s going to center around the lack of privacy, the lack of safeguards and the lack of local control,” England said of the campaign. “We see this as common sense.”
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USDA Out of Control

Florida official tells Christian charity to choose between Jesus and cheese

A Florida ministry that feeds the poor said a state agriculture department official told them they would not be allowed to receive USDA food unless they removed portraits of Christ, the Ten Commandments, a banner that read “Jesus is Lord” and stopping giving Bibles to the needy.
“They told us they could no longer allow us to have any religious information where the USDA food is going to be,” said Kay Daly, executive director of the Christian Service Center.
So why did the government have an issue with the religious group’s religious decorations?
A spokesperson for the Florida Department of Agriculture told me they were following the guidelines written by the USDA.
“This program is a USDA-funded program and the requirements were outlined by the USDA,” spokesperson Amanda Bevis said. “This agency administers the program on the state level. Our staff did provide a briefing to CSC following turnover in leadership at CSC and did review the USDA requirements.”
Daly said they were told it was a matter of separation of church and state.
A USDA spokesperson told me that “under current law, organizations that receive USDA nutrition assistance can still engage in religious activities so long as the activity is not used to create a barrier to eligible individuals receiving food.”
The USDA referred to an Executive Order providing equal protection for faith-based organizations. That order guarantees those groups the right to provide assistance without “removing or altering religious art, icons, scriptures or other symbols from these facilities.”
For the past 31 years, the Christian ministry has been providing food to the hungry in Lake City, Fla. without any problems. But all that changed when they said a state government worker showed up to negotiate a new contract.
“The (person) told us there was a slight change in the contract,” Daly told me. “They said we could no longer have religious information where the USDA food is being distributed. They told us we had to take that stuff down.”
Daly said it’s no secret that the Christian Service Center is a Christian ministry.
“We’ve got pictures of Christ on more than one wall,” she said. “It’s very clear we are not social services. We are a Christian ministry.”
Daly and her staff sat in stunned disbelief as the government agents also informed them that the Christian Service Center could no longer pray or provide Bibles to those in need. The government contract also forbade any references to the ministry’s chapel.
“We asked if we had to change the name of the organization but that said we could leave that,” Daly said. “But we had to take our religious stuff down.”
Daly said they were told they could continue distributing USDA food so long as it was somewhere else on the property – away from anything that could be considered religious.
In other words – the Christian Service Center had a choice: choose God or the government cheese.
So in a spirit of Christian love and fellowship, Daly politely told the government what they could do with their cheese.
“We decided to eliminate the USDA food and we’re going to trust God to provide,” she told me. “If God can multiply fish and loaves for 10,000 people, he can certainly bring in food for our food pantry so we can continue to feed the hungry.”
In a nutshell, Daly said the Christian Service Center would not be compromising.
“We are a Christian ministry,” she said. “Our purpose is to help people in need and to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are going to pray with them. We are going to offer them a Bible. We are going to counsel them in Christian help. We are going to use our chapel.”
Churches across Lake City have stepped up to the challenge – filling the void left when the government took away their cheese.
“I’m called to do what the Lord tells me to do,” Daly said. “I’m not called to worry about it. I pray about it. The Lord answers our prayers and we move forward one day at a time, one person at a time.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/09/09/usda-tells-christian-charity-to-kick-jesus-to-curb/?test=latestnews#ixzz2eRFUs44N

Kerry

WH Chief of Staff: U.S. Has No Military Allies for Syria Strike

The United States has no military allies in its plan to launch missile attacks against Syria as punishment for the country's use of chemical weapons, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said Sunday.

McDonough conceded the fact on CNN's "State of the Union" after persistent questioning from host Candy Crowley, who asked him whether President Barack Obama has secured international military support for the strike — as opposed to moral support.

"Not at this point," he said. "But it is specific support for holding him [Syrian President Bashar Assad] to account, and it is a recognition that it happened. We feel very good about the support we have, and we’ll continue to build more."

McDonough said Obama, Congress and the rest of the world no longer doubt the fact Assad carried out such horrific crimes against his people.

"Nobody now debates the intelligence, which makes clear … that in August, the Assad regime used chemical weapons against its own people," he said. "The entire world believes that. Congress has the opportunity this week to answer a simple question: Should there be consequences for him for having used that material."

Obama, who will address the country Sept. 10 on the topic, has called for a targeted, limited, consequential-action campaign to deter Assad and degrade his capabilities for another chemical-weapons attack, McDonough said.

"This is not Iraq or Afghanistan," he said. "This is not Libya. This is not an extended air campaign."
On NBC's "Meet the Press," McDonough said stopping the Syrian government from moving chemical weapons out of hiding and onto the front lines is the goal of Obama's intended missile strikes.
If chemical weapons are moved to the front lines, it means a greater risk of them being proliferated, McDonough said.

"I hope that every member of Congress, before he or she decides how they'll cast their vote, will look at those pictures," McDonough said, referring to the video of an Aug. 21 attack showing adults and children suffering from the effects of sarin gas. The video also shows the bodies of dead children lined up across a room.

Although public sentiment and that of Congress is largely against U.S. military action, McDonough said that no one who has seen the intelligence on the attack doubts it.

"That means that everybody believes that Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people … killing nearly 1,500 on Aug. 21," McDonough said. "So the question for Congress this week is what are the consequences for his having done so?"

Congress' answer will be listened to not only in Syria, McDonough said, but also in Iran and the terrorist group Hezbollah. Iran, which is working on a nuclear weapons program, must be told that it does not have greater freedom to act, he said.

"They do not have greater operating space to pursue a nuclear weapon which would destabilize that entire region, threaten our friends and allies and ultimately threaten us."

© 2013 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

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Taj Maha Schools

Taj Maha Schools are being built all across America that are overshadowed by huge football stadiums, tennis courts, track fields, etc. with education taking a backseat. Most if not all are controlled by liberal teachers whose only purpose is to teach liberalism and spend, spend, spend. Below is one example of fed up:

One bill at a time: PA man pays school property tax — all $7,143 of it — in $1 bills

By Melissa Daniels | PA Independent
HARRISBURG —  One, two … 6,999, 7,000 …
An Easton, Pa. man, frustrated over property taxes, visited the local tax office and paid in dollar bills – all $7,143 of it.
One bill at a time.
Local news reports identify the man as Robert Fernandes of Forks Township.
The scene, posted on YouTube, has generated more than 15,600 views — in less than a week.
In the video, Fernandes carries a duffel bag filled with bundled bills, which he proceeds to stack on a counter. He brings doughnuts, offered to “anyone who is inconvenienced here today.”
The tax collector tells Fernandes his protest should probably be directed elsewhere, toward the school board, maybe, which is in charge of setting property tax rates.
“I’m not doing this to make anybody’s life more difficult,” Fernandes tells the collector. “Unfortunately, I wish the same could be said, you know, for me and many others whose lives are more difficult for having to pay property taxes.”
Fernandes wants the tax collector to count every dollar bill. As Fernandes opines, the collector accepts checks from people paying in a more traditional manner.
“In the land of the free, which is supposedly where we live, you would expect that property rights were respected here,” he says, “and obviously they’re not because we are never truly property owners in this country. We are merely renters.”
Fernandes said he wanted to create the visual so “people can actually see how money is being taken from me.” He makes it clear it’s not voluntary – Fernandes says he’s paying out of the fear someone will take his house. He said he homeschools his children and doesn’t use the school system.
The collector, rather than count each bill, asks that, together, they make a trip to the bank. To Fernandes and his video team, this seems ironic.
“They take money from people and they can’t even count it,” Fernandes said.
Fernandes said the point of the exercise was to get people to think, not about how tax rates, necessarily, but why property should be taxed in the first place.
Fernandes got a response, of sorts. In The Express-Times, a newspaper in the Lehigh Valley, the respective school superintendent said true reform should come from state lawmakers.
The discussion is a perennial one, and this fall legislative session will be no different.
A proposal from Rep. Seth Grove, R-York, would allow schools to decide whether they want to move away from property taxes and institute other taxes on income or businesses to make up the difference. Proposals such as the Property Tax Independence Act would create a statewide shift from school property taxes to increases in sales and income taxes.
The latter idea has widespread support among taxpayer advocates in Pennsylvania, who will head to the Capitol on Sept. 24 to rally for it.
Contact Melissa Daniels at melissa@paindependent.com
This file was originally posted Sept. 5 at 10:36 a .m.

Please, feel free to "steal our stuff"! Just remember to credit Watchdog.org. Find out more

Credibility

AP: Congress Voting 6 to 1 Against Strike

Suggesting an uphill fight for President Barack Obama, House members staking out positions are either opposed to or leaning against his plan for a U.S. military strike against Syria by more than a 6-1 margin, a survey by The Associated Press shows. The Senate is more evenly divided ahead of its vote next week.

Still, the situation is very fluid. Nearly half of the 433-member House and a third of the 100-member Senate remain undecided.

By their statements or those of aides, only 30 members of the Republican-led House support intervention or are leaning in favor of authorizing the president to use force against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government in response to a chemical weapons attack last month.

Some 192 House members outright oppose U.S. involvement or are leaning against authorization, according to the AP survey.

The situation in the Democrat-controlled Senate is better for Obama but hardly conclusive ahead of a potential vote next week. The AP survey showed those who support or are leaning in favor of military action holding a slight 34-32 advantage over those opposed or leaning against it.

Complicating the effort in the Senate is the possibility that a three-fifths majority may be required. Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky says he is going to filibuster.

Still, Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, predicted, "I think we’re going to get 60 votes,"

Speaking to reporters Friday after a summit of world leaders in St. Petersburg, Russia, Obama acknowledged the difficulties he faces in seeking support for action. He said he would address the nation on Tuesday.

"It’s conceivable at the end of the day I don’t persuade a majority of the American people that it’s the right thing to do," Obama said. But the president, who again would not say what he would do if Congress rebuffed him, expressed confidence that the people and their lawmakers would listen to his case.

"Failing to respond," he said, "would send a signal to rogue nations, authoritarian regimes and terrorist organizations that they can develop and use weapons of mass destruction and not pay a consequence."

Whatever Obama might decide, a rejection from Congress would have wide-ranging ramifications in the United States and abroad.

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New Generation of Genius

Helping your Enemies?

So many people are against any military action on Syria because it all comes back to biting the hand that feeds you. Every so call police action that America has been in since the Korea war has made the people of these nations resent, hate, and despise Americans. The average tax paying citizen is right now struggling to hold their heads above water. But once again we are being ask to give up more of our brave children and resources to a world who does not give a damn about us. Most of these people perceive our kindness for them as a weakness instead. Look at what we have given to Iraq, and did it really help any? Trying to help our enemy does not help make America stronger. It all comes down to just pissing into the wind.

Bad Teachers

The unforgettable moment of parental bonding in the delivery room deceives many parents. After all, in today’s society, mothers and fathers are encouraged to be there for their children from first breath, cutting the umbilical cord, cheering at soccer matches, and helping in the doctor’s office, where many a queasy parent is asked to assist with something that can make a grown man go weak in the knees.
Most parents diligently work to raise up a generation of strong, confident, intelligent people, who know how to use the potty.
Which leaves many of us incredulous when it comes to the 1950s flashback – like expectant fathers in a hospital waiting room from an episode of “Mad Men” – that occurs when we start to engage in our children’s education, as “experts” in our modern day school system block us at the door to keep our parental cooties outside.

Why is it that when we start to engage in our children’s education, “experts” in our modern day school system block us at the door to keep our parental cooties outside?

Suddenly, parents should be seen and not heard, while we keep the checks coming.
My four children attend public schools in one of US News & World Reports top 50 tiers, after living in the Washington, D.C. area with some of the best of private and public school in the nation.  We’ve been exposed to what is said to be the best in the land in terms of schools.
Therefore it astounds me, and many parents I know, that in most conversations about how my own children's schools could improve, the overall response from those in charge is a patronizing pat on the head and assurances that “we’re from the government and we’re here to help you … now go away.”
With a “mine is better than yours” tone, educators too often flash their degrees (forgetting that many of us have a resume of our own).
Consider standardized testing today, which has been deified as the center of our educational system, no matter if children may need counseling later.
In my own childrens’ schools, huge signs are posted warning kids to "BE POSITIVE," "TAKE YOUR TIME," "REVIEW YOUR WORK"... as your future depends on it.
In response to complaints that too much class time was spent preparing for a test that only earns teacher bonuses and school dollars, our superintendent decided to incorporate this moment of time into kids’ overall grades.
So, now children in our school district, beginning in third grade can sit for the bar, as it were, to pass this colossal test to earn money for the nervous adults in the room.
God help them if they suffer from test anxiety.
This ignores the reality that a good teacher might help failing kids reach “C” level work, or that a bad teacher can browbeat kids or perhaps cheat to raise kids’ test scores for the cash. A better system would be to let parents vote on who deserves a bonus.
The new Common Core educational standards seem meager at best, perhaps because so much educational class time is dust in the wind as my children watch movies, presentations and create "discussion trees" while contemplating the evils of bullying, only to be sent home with hours of homework.
But to call and ask about the time management of the classroom is to put your children in danger of retaliation by a blustering teacher who has essentially transferred the work of educating your child back to you.
In my children's school it seems crafts supersede contemplation. Book reports are rare, while my children create presentations of items collected that reminded them of books in a can or a box, through a costume, a poster or in a power point.
I’m afraid that this generation may not know that it is possible to write more words than can fit into a text.

Modern educators also seem held hostage to national standard of disputable value, ignoring real complexities – like differing opinions on WHY wars began or ended – to teach THE answer to life’s toughest questions for the test.
Some classes, like world history, require gray areas.
And then there is math, where my children have learned that if you get the right answer using your own methods you are wrong.
Really?
If you look at Facebook you can understand the battle so many parents find themselves in when it comes to teachers who need a different profession. A friend of mine excitedly posted that she had avoided all the dud teachers this year. Immediately a world of parents sent out a sympathetic “LIKE.”
Why is it that being bad at your job is not enough to get you fired as a teacher? While the rest of us must produce value for our employers – or else – being bad at your job with questionable moral judgment isn’t even a speed bump. But it’s the children who get run over.
It would be one thing if all this “expert” control meant better test scores and higher academic achievement.
It doesn’t.
To truly reform schools, empower parents who both pick up the tab for their local schools and pick up the pieces in their children’s lives when schools fail.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/09/04/common-core-and-more-why-dont-parents-get-to-have-say-in-their-kids-education/#ixzz2dvJd5Scu

Al Qaeda

Problems with the Electoral College

Many observers believe the Electoral College introduces complications and potential problems into our political system. These concerns include some of the following

Grossly unequal distribution of campaign resources

Unequal voting power depending on where you live
The Electoral College gives disproportionate voting power to states, favoring the smaller states with more electoral votes per person.
For instance, each individual vote in Wyoming counts nearly four times as much in the Electoral College as each individual vote in Texas. This is because Wyoming has three (3) electoral votes for a population of 532,668 citizens (as of 2008 Census Bureau estimates) and Texas has thirty-two (32) electoral votes for a population of almost 25 million. By dividing the population by electoral votes, we can see that Wyoming has one "elector" for every 177,556 people and Texas has one "elector" for about every 715,499. The difference between these two states of 537,943 is the largest in the Electoral College.

The small states were given additional power to prevent politicians from only focusing on issues which affect the larger states. The fear was that without this power, politicians would completely ignore small states and only focus on big population centers.

Ironically, there is a study that concludes that larger states are actually at an advantage in the Electoral College. Because almost all states give all of its electors to whichever candidate wins the most votes within that state, candidates must win whole states in order to win the presidency. Naturally, candidates tend to concentrate resources on the largest payoffs, the states which can provide the greatest number of electoral votes.
For a history of the development of the Electoral College, see William C. Kimberling's essay, A Brief History of the Electoral College. Kimberling was the Deputy Director of the FEC's Office of Election Administration.

Looking at the Numbers: Minority Rules
Just how many people elect the president of the United States? The answer may surprise you.
Consider the 2000 presidential elections. Even though more than 100 million people voted in the election, only a small portion of those votes in fact were decisive. Indeed, the results would have been exactly the same even if nearly 80 million of those voters would have stayed home.
Here's what we mean:

• Total number of votes cast nationwide in Presidential elections:
  • 105,396,641 in 2000
  • 131, 338,626 in 2008
• Total number of votes cast for the winner in their states won:
  • 26,353,058 in 30 states for George W. Bush
  • 39,908,351 in 29 states (including DC) for Barack Obama
• Total number of votes that did not factor in determining the winner of the president in their respective years:
  • To win the Electoral College in 2000, Bush needed only 21,835,615 votes out of a total of 105,396,641 votes.
  • To win the Electoral College in 2008, Obama needed only 39,908,351 votes out of a total of 131,338,626 votes.
• Percentage of votes that did not factor in determining the winner in their respective years:
  • 79.28% in 2000
  • 70.39% in 2008

The winner-take-all method of distributing electoral votes
The Electoral College favors the smaller states with disproportionate voting power. Advocates of the system say that this uneven power forces politicians to pay attention to smaller states, which would otherwise be ignored.
Despite its intentions, the Electoral College does not encourage politicians to campaign in every state.
Some states are still excluded from the campaign; these are not necessarily the small states, but rather they are states that are not viewed as competitive.
Since all but two states allocate their votes via a winner-take-all method, there is no reason for a candidate to campaign in a state that clearly favors one candidate. As an example, Democratic candidates have little incentive to spend time in solidly Republican states, like Texas, even if many Democrats live there. Conversely, Republican candidates have little incentive to campaign in solidly Democratic states, like Massachusetts, especially when they know that states like Florida and Michigan are toss-ups.
The winner-take-all rule also leads to lower voter turnout in states where one party is dominant, because each individual vote will be overwhelmed by the majority and will not, in effect, "count" if the winner takes all the electoral votes.

Unbound electors
There is no federal law that requires electors to vote as they have pledged, but 29 states and the District of Columbia have legal control over how their electors vote in the Electoral College. This means their electors are bound by state law and/or by state or party pledge to cast their vote for the candidate that wins the statewide popular vote. At the same time, this also means that there are 21 states in the union that have no requirements of, or legal control over, their electors. Therefore, despite the outcome of a state’s popular vote, the state’s electors are ultimately free to vote in whatever manner they please, including an abstention, with no legal repercussions. Even in the states that do have control, often the punishment or repercussion is slim or nothing (some states issue only minimal fines as punishment), although some states instigate criminal charges ranging from a simple misdemeanor to a fourth degree felony. The states with legal control over their electors are the following 29 and D.C.:

• Alabama (Code of Ala. §17-19-2)
• Alaska (Alaska Stat. §15.30.090)
• California (Election Code §6906)
• Colorado (CRS §1-4-304)
• Connecticut (Conn. Gen. Stat. §9-176)
• Delaware (15 Del C §4303)
• District of Columbia (§1-1312(g))
• Florida (Fla. Stat. §103.021(1))
• Hawaii (HRS §14-28)
• Maine (21-A MRS §805)
• Maryland (Md Ann Code art 33, §8-505)
• Massachusetts (MGL, ch. 53, §8)
• Michigan (MCL §168.47)
• Mississippi (Miss Code Ann §23-15-785)
• Montana (MCA §13-25-104)
• Nebraska (§32-714)
• Nevada (NRS §298.050)
• New Mexico (NM Stat Ann §1-15-9)
• North Carolina (NC Gen Stat §163-212)
• Ohio (ORC §248.355)
• South Carolina (SC Code Ann §7-19-80)
• Tennessee (Tenn Code Ann §2-15-104(c))
• Utah (Utah Code Ann §20A-13-304)
• Vermont (17 VSA §2732)
• Virginia (§24.2-203)
• Washington (RCW §29.71.020)
• Wisconsin (Wis Stat §7.75)
• Wyoming (Wyo Stat §22-19-108)

Most of these state laws generally assert that an elector shall cast his or her vote for the candidates who won a majority of the state's popular vote or for the candidate of the party that nominated the elector.
Over the years, however, despite legal oversight, a number of electors have violated their state's law binding them to their pledged vote. However, these violators often only face being charged with a misdemeanor or a small fine, usually $1,000. Many constitutional scholars agree that electors remain free agents despite state laws and that, if challenged, such laws would be ruled unconstitutional. Therefore, electors can decline to cast their vote for a specific candidate (the one that wins the popular vote of their state), either voting for an alternative candidate, or abstaining completely. In fact, in the 2000 election, Barbara Lett-Simmons, an elector for the District of Columbia, cast a blank ballot for president and vice president in protest of the District's unfair voting rights.
Indeed, when it comes down to it, electors are ultimately free to vote for whom they prersonally prefer, despite the general public's desire.
This inconsistency allows for discrepancies in our electoral system. The electors from nearly half of the states can vote however they wish, regardless of the popular will of the state.
In the founding of our nation, the Electoral College was established to prevent the people from making "uneducated" decisions. The founders feared uneducated public opinion and designed the Electoral College as a layer of insulation from the direct voice of the masses.
There is no reason, in this modern day, to assign this responsibility to a set of individual electors. Hundreds of thousands of votes can and have been violated by an individual elector, choosing to act on his or her own behalf instead of the behalf of the people.
As of the 2008 election, since the founding of the Electoral College, 157 electors have not cast their votes for the candidates who they were designated to represent.

House of Representatives can choose the president
If no candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes, the presidential vote is deferred to the House of Representatives and the vice presidential vote is deferred to the Senate. This could easily lead to a purely partisan battle, instead of an attempt to discover which candidate the citizens really prefer.
If the Senate and the House of Representatives reflect different majorities, meaning that they select members of opposing parties, the offices of president and vice president could be greatly damaged. This potential opposition in the presidential office would not be good for the stability of the country or the government.

Enforcement of a two-party system
Because of our two-party system, voters often find themselves voting for the "lesser of two evils," rather than a candidate they really feel would do the best job. The Electoral College inadvertently reinforces this two party system, where third parties cannot enter the race without being tagged as "spoilers."
Since most states distribute their electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis, the smaller party has no chance to gain support without seeming to take this support from one of the major parties. Few people will support a party that never wins, especially when they are supporting that party at the possible expense of their least favorite candidate taking power (as happened to Nader/Gore supporters in 2000 and Perot/Bush supporters in 1992).

Presidency can be won without a majority of the popular vote
As the 2000 election demonstrated, it is possible for a president to be elected without winning the popular vote. Nor was the Bush/Gore election the first time a presidential candidate has won the presidency while someone else claimed a plurality of the votes cast. Andrew Jackson and Samuel Tilden won the popular vote in 1824 and 1876 respectively, only to see someone else walk into the White House.
As an even more common occurrence is for a presidential candidate to win both the presidency and the popular vote without actually winning a majority of all ballots cast. This has happened 16 times since the founding of the Electoral College, most recently in 2000. In every one of the elections, more than half of the voters voted against the candidate who was elected.
With such a winner-take-all system, it is impossible to tell which candidate the people really prefer, especially in a close race.

These 11 States now have More People on Welfare than they do Employed.

Bailey Comment: This is a old chain email that has been going around forever. It maybe true or not. But if the government keeps on keeping on like their doing now this will probably happen!

These 11 States now have More People on Welfare than they do Employed.

 Last month, the Senate Budget Committee reports that in fiscal year 2012, between food stamps, housing support, child care, Medicaid and other benefits, the average U.S. Household below the poverty line received $168.00 a day in government support.

What’s the problem with that much support? Well, the median household income in America is just over $50,000, which averages out to $137.13 a day. 

 To put it another way, being on welfare now pays the equivalent of $30.00 an hour for a 40-hour week, while the average job pays $20.00 an hour.  

Assad's 11-Year-Old Son May Be Taunting Obama on Facebook

A Facebook post reportedly written by the 11-year-old son of Syrian President Bashar Assad challenges America to attack Syria and calls U.S. soldiers "cowards."

"No one has soldiers like the ones we do in Syria," the post, appearing on an account under the name Hafez Assad, read. "America doesn't have soldiers, what it has is some cowards with new technology who claim themselves liberators.

"I can expect that some people may comment that America is more powerful than us, my response is that first you don't know what we have, second maybe they are stronger, maybe they will destroy the army, but they will never destroy these remnants and little bits of resistance, it's who we are."

The declaration drew several "likes" and comments from people who appear to be the children or grandchildren of other members of Assad's government, and many of them had changed their profile pictures to photos of Assad or his father, the former leader also named Hafez who ruled for three decades before his death in 2000.

Among the commenters are accounts that apparently belong to two children of Deputy Vice President Mohammed Nassif Khierbek, Ali and Sally, and to three children of a former deputy defense minister, Assef Shawkat, who was killed in a bombing in July 2012, according to The New York Times.

"Like father like son! Well said future President!" one comment read.

The Facebook account has not been confirmed to be that of Assad's son, but there are some elements of the page that make it a plausible possibility. For example, the account lists the owner as a graduate of a Montessori school in Damascus, a detail revealed in a February 2011 Vogue profile of Asma Assad, the child's mother. The piece has since been removed from the magazine's website, but was reposted by blogger Joshua Landis, a well-known scholar of Syrian politics.

However, other details listed on the Facebook page seem suspicious. It also claims that the owner is a graduate of Oxford University and a player for a Barcelona soccer team, neither of which 11-year-old Hafez Assad is likely to have on his resume, the Times reported.

But if the Facebook page is, in fact, a hoax, it's a highly elaborate one built with the help of many other fake accounts purporting to be Assad's cousins and friends.

The author signed off by comparing a potential American missile attack to the 2006 war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, a close Syrian ally.

"I just want them to attack sooo much, because I want them to make this huge mistake of beginning something that they don't know the end of it," he wrote.

"What did Hezbollah have back then? Some street fighters and some small rockets and a pile of guns, but they had belief, In theirselves [sic] and in their country and that’s exactly what’s gonna happen to America if it chooses invasion because they don’t know our land like we do, no one does, victory is ours in the end no matter how much time it takes."




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Obama leaving door open to Syria strike, even if Congress votes no

President Obama apparently is leaving the door open to moving ahead with a military strike on Syria even if Congress votes against it, adding to the confusion over the president’s evolving position.
The president, in a surprise decision Saturday, announced he would seek a vote in Congress on launching a military attack against the Assad regime.
One senior State Department official, though, told Fox News that the president’s goal to take military action will indeed be carried out, regardless of whether Congress votes to approve the use of force.
Other senior administration officials said Obama is merely leaving the door open to that possibility. They say he would prefer that Congress approve a military attack on the Assad regime, in response to its alleged use of chemical weapons, and will wait to see what Congress does before making any final decisions on authorizing military force.
Yet the possibility that Obama would move ahead without the support of Congress is sure to stir confusion among lawmakers, who had – for the most part – applauded his decision to seek their input first, though others claimed he was “abdicating his responsibility” by punting to Congress. It would raise questions about why he decided to seek congressional input at all, after having moved military assets into position immediately, and then waited days and possibly weeks for a debate in Washington.
The senior State Department official told Fox News that every major player on the National Security Council – including the commander-in-chief – was in accord Friday night on the need for military action, and that the president’s decision to seek a congressional debate and vote was a surprise to most if not all of them.
However, the aide insisted the request for Congress to vote did not supplant the president’s earlier decision to use force in Syria, only delayed its implementation.
“That’s going to happen, anyway,” the source told Fox News, adding that that was why the president, in his Rose Garden remarks, was careful to establish that he believes he has the authority to launch such strikes even without congressional authorization.
Other senior administration officials, outside of the Department of State, would not confirm as much, telling reporters only that the door had been left open for the president to proceed without congressional authorization.
This was confided by way of seeking to refute suggestions that Secretary of State John Kerry “lost” to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey in the interagency process. “Absolutely untrue,” the Kerry aide said, adding that everything Kerry said in his dramatic remarks on Friday was after “fully consulting with the White House.”
The State Department official emphasized that all of the president’s national security advisers were in agreement as of Friday night on the need to proceed with strikes – and that the president ultimately will.
At the least, Obama’s remarks do appear to leave him wiggle room. In the Rose Garden, Obama stressed that he believes he does “have the authority” to carry out an attack without the support of Congress. He said, though, that “the country will be stronger” if Congress weighs in.
A White House statement released on Saturday, following a phone call between Obama and French President Francois Hollande, gave another indication as to the president’s intentions. The statement said the two leaders agree “that the international community must deliver a resolute message to the Assad regime” and that “those who violate this international norm will be held accountable by the world.”
Fox News’ James Rosen and Ed Henry contributed to this report.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/08/31/obama-leaving-door-open-to-syria-strike-even-if-congress-votes-no/#ixzz2ddB8LLoe