Why Conspiracy theories are always wrong.

Conspiracy theorists make a lot of rather simple mistakes.

Here are a set list of the mistakes common to almost all conspiracy theories

1. They fail to take into account that in a free country, their are always intelligent, ethical people in government, the press, and most importantly the political party out of power.  They have huge motivations to expose the conspiracy.  And by intelligent, I mean more so than the conspiracy theorist.
2. They fail to take into account that conspiracies break down over time.  The longer the claimed conspiracy, the more likely someone will have discovered it and proven it to the public.   
3. They fail to understand that the more people in on the conspiracy, the more likely it will get exposed.
4. Bosses usually have motivations to expose conspiracies done by their subordinates, but hiding one from your boss is MUCH harder than it is to hide it from random people not in the organization.
5. They fail to realize that the conspirators know all of facts 1-4.

Lets start with some basic facts.  Few people will meet more than 100,000 in their entire lifetime.  One of those 100,000 people will be smarter than all the rest.

But the USA has over 300,000,000 people.  That means the smartest person you know, most likely has about 3,000 people smarter than them, in this country alone.   Quiet a few of them go into politics and some go into the press.

I guarantee you that there are people working for the government and for the press that are smarter than EVERYONE you have ever met.   That means if you can figure it out, they did before you did, and they probably predicted that you would.

Conspiracies break down over time.  First your opponent figures it out, and then they tell the world and the world believes them, because they get real, solid evidence (not bad video, not clearly faked documents, etc.)

In World War II there were several conspiracies.  The NAZI's tried to hide the fact that they were murdering Jews.  Hitler came into power on January 30, 1933, and the Soviets first started hearing about the Holocaust in June, 1941.   Eight years is all it took.   Yes, that's how long you can keep a major secret.   Note the Nazis were winning in June 1941.  The US did not enter World War II until Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, up until December of 1941, the Germans were crushing the Russians.  (source).    Multiple first person accounts were received describing exactly what happened

Similarly, the US began the Manhattan Project was first conceived in 1939.   The Soviets learned about it by December of 1944, eight months before the US drops the first A Bomb on Hiroshima.   They ended up with actual plans for the weapons, before the weapons were used.  Five years  is the max you can keep such a secret.

So, during wartime - when you can find patriots willing to die for their country by simply walking up to random people on the street corner - two of the most powerful countries in the world could not keep a secret for even a decade.

I absolutely assure you, that NO important secret that requires many people can be kept quiet for more than 20 years.  It will get out - and with solid irrefutable evidence.

So lets talk about bosses.  They have the ability to ask questions and fire the conspirators even without proof.  So if your boss (president, head of the IRS, whoever) doesn't know, you have to be so far above suspicion that there is ZERO chance that someone who is not your boss will suspect you.  That means the President of the USA must be in on any government conspiracy.  But he changes party.  Which means eventually he will not join it and expose it.  Then hold you up as the villain, blaming the entire other political party.

Lets talk about a non-government conspiracy.  Say for example Mrs. Obama decided that for some godforsaken reason, she wants her son to be President of the USA, even if failure means he gets thrown in prison for the rest of his life.   Keep in mind that being the son of an American, the ONLY benefit he gets is the right to be President - he would have been able to immigrate anyway and become a governor - just like Arnold Schwarnnegger.

At the very least, his mother must have been in on it.   Let's assume she also easily convinces Obamas father to be in on the secret (or maybe he wasn't present and she just tells him this.  So 42 years before I wrote this post, she falsely publishes a birth announcement in two Hawaii newspapers.  At some point, she also finds a way to add that info this Obama's father's immigration file.

She also gets one of her deer friends to confirm her lie.  She does all of this without telling Obama (why risk it?)   She then pays someone else to forge a fake short form birth certificate  (birthers claim this was a forgery).

But that isn't enough for her.  She must think so far ahead that she sees the birth certificate will be challenged.  So she pays off someone in the Hawaii's Health department to put in a real record of his birth in the records.   Then the Hawai Director of Health will confirm it as being real.

Somehow, this conspiracy genius, who has managed to get an old friend to lie about his birth, paid for a forged berth certificate, and also paid off the Hawaii government to get a real one, then FORGETS TO DESTROY THE FAKE BIRTH CERTIFICATE.   After all, if she has the real one, she doesn't need the forged one.

That is the minimum number of people.   It requires one friend, one criminal, and one member of the government to assist Mrs. Obama in the conspiracy.  And they all keep their mouths shut for decades.

All of this also requires that she gives birth alone, without anyone noticing it, Otherwise she has to hunt down the real birth certificate and destroy.

Also, there has to be some stupid reason preventing her from actually giving birth in the US.  It's not that hard to do it - illegal immigrants sneak into the USA every year to do it.  Not to mention wealthy Chinese people.

All for the minimal gain of having a black baby have the right to TRY to be president - back in the 60's when most black men have problem trying to vote.  She has no real motive to commit these major crimes.  The idea of her doing it is incredibly stupid.

OK, let's try this again - now, Obama himself decided to do it.  He has no motive until he becomes a senator.  Then, at that point, he finds that his mother, for no known reason happens to have given him a birth announcement in two newspaper that make it look like he is an American.  WHAT A LUCKY BREAK!  So Obama himself, a Senator who could easily and legally become Governor of a major state, decides to do the following:

1. First find someone to forge a birth certificate
2. Find an old teacher/family friend and convince them to lie about his birth.  
3. Pay someone to break into old immigration files and change his father's record to say Obama is an American born citizen
4. When the truth still comes out, he has to pay someone to alter the Hawaii records.  Let's assume this is the same guy for #1 and #3
5. He also has to hunt down and destroy any real birth record, not to mention pay off the doctor that delivered him..

As opposed to accepting a position as Hilary Clinton's Secretary of State, or some other similar position.

All of this has to be done by someone he trusts enough to commit multiple major felonies in his name. To be President of the USA, instead of the Secretary of State?  Worse, to be the first BLACK president of the USA?   The first one elected has to commit crimes to do it?  No way.   NO freaking way.   He would get caught, go to jail, and put back civil rights for decades.  No reasonable person that cares about this country would do it, and no one that doesn't care about this country would risk it.

Why not?  Because the person he pays to commit all these crimes will betray him..   In the first minute. Because the guy paid to do the crimes is either doing it for money or for political reasons.  If he is doing it for money, someone else (Trump) will offer more money.  If he is doing it for political reasons, the second he realizes Obama is willing to lie like that means he no longer believes in Obama - and betrays him.

The cost of the rime is all born by other people and it is physically IMPOSSIBLE for Obama to pay other people enough money to do the crime.

More importantly, he risks not just his career, but the future of the Democratic Party.   Hell, it makes more sense for a false-flag GOP non-citizen candidate to run for the Democratic primary than a real one.  

But it all comes down to risk vs reward.   For any small reward, usually the risk is worth it.  But the larger rewards always have risks that exceed them.   For a small reward, you can depend on anonymity, but not for the big ones.  You can easily still someone's wallet, but don't even think about breaking into the Federal Gold Reserve.  Why?  Because the security on your wallet would cost more than the wallet, but security for the Federal Reserve costs far less than it holds.

More importantly, Senators are smart enough to know that being the President's right hand man is almost as powerful.   Obama would have seen all the risks involved in this incredibly STUPID plan and instantly seen that being the President's Chief of Staff us far better,

But most importantly - all of this is done by the FIRST serious Black candidate for President.  No.   That title is too big for someone to try this stupid plan to get it.  The second black president, maybe.  But not the first.

And I assure the GOP would pay far more to uncover the issue than the DNC paid to cover it up.   Look at what they did in Benghazi when there was no cover-up.

Same thing for pretty much every other conspiracy theory.  People hiding aliens?  Not enough motive to do it.  Poisoning our water with fluoride?  Not enough reward for the risk.

President Bush causing 9/11?  Bullshit.   To much risk of impeachment for the relatively minor benefit.

Compare this with real scandals - the Fast and Furious gun running, the IRS scandal.  All of those are caused by INCOMPETENCE, with incompetent attempts to cover it up.

Never underestimate incompetence - and never think that your so called conspirators aren't just as incompetent.  

No, you CAN do these kinds of things in non-'free' countries.  China has no free press to investigate, nor any 'loyal opposition' party to complain and demand justice.  So who knows what goes on there.

But in the USA?  Not possible.  The Democrats or the Republicans would squeal on each other in an instant.

Treasonous Republicans have Failed.

I have repeatedly talked about treasonous Republican plans to rig electoral voting systems.

The good news is that those plans have failed.  We have defeated the greatest internal threat to Democracy in my generation.

I am not exaggerating.  In the past 40 years, no one else has actively attempted to abandon the basic principle of democracy:  "most votes wins". 

Note, they are still trying to rig votes, but have listened to reason and are not trying to move from Democracy to Oligarchy.

Specifically, what they are doing is trying to switch from "majority wins all votes" (also called Winner Take All) to proportionate voting in the liberal states that have republican state majorities.  All this of course while keeping "majority wins all votes" for the conservative states.  (source)

This is not a big concern.  Yes, it is cheating.  Yes, it is unfair.  But the unfairness is really the actions of the winner take all states.  The system they propose, if used in all states, would in fact be fairer then the current one.    Not as fair as moving to the straight national public vote, but fairer than the current version.

The election rigging is caused not by their change but by the systematic change of just the Left and not the Right states.


But their attempts at election rigging are doomed to failure.

Their system depends on holding state majorities via gerrymandering,  whose effect slowly vanishes, as the gerrymandering effect slowly decreases over time.

Worse, the more they depend on gerrymandering, the more they put forth radical candidates, the more they turn away the general population as opposed to gaining ground.  The GOP is in a state of decline, being reinforced by their own actions.   Eventually they will lose the state houses.

But even if they don't lose the state houses, it still can't beat the Democrat's Presidential candidates, assuming we put forth a half way decent one.  Why?  Because the GOP is in a state of decline being reinforced by their own actions.

In the last presidential election, Obama, during a recession, won every single state that he could have, except for North Carolina (see my earlier post here).    Any state that was not a dyed in the wool, shoot the liberals, conservative state, the Democrats won.

Because the GOP is losing so badly, no minor change in the electoral college is going to help them out.  They lost by 126 electoral votes.  That means they need to change 63 electoral votes to win an election.  Picking up a few extra votes from states they lose by just a little won't help them out.

In order to gain enough votes, they need to win the swing states.  <b>Guess which states they are trying to change to proportionate voting?</b>   Yes, those very same swing states.

The GOP is envisioning a world that works almost exactly like the last election - with the GOP doing just a little bit better and having proportional votes from the last few states they lost push them over the edge.

So lets envision a 2012 world where things were a bit closer.   That is , if the GOP had won Ohio and Florida  They still would lose to Obama.  

Then lets say that the next three states - Pennsylvania (20), Colorado (9) and Virgina (13) were all super close.  Not counting those states, the Democrats have 243 electoral votes.  To win we need 270.

Pennsylvania is the main state considering going proportionate, but Virginia might as well (as they were the state most seriously contemplating treasonous district based voting).

The GOP is fantasizing about losing Colorado (democrats have 252), winning Virginia, then losing Pennsylvania but getting a minority share of Pennsylvania's vote.  That would leave the Democrats with 252+11=263 votes, and the Republicans win the Presidency!  Cue the GOP celebration.  If Pennsylvania was still a winner take all then 252+20=272 and the Democrats win.

But look at what happens if Virginia ALSO went proportionate.  That would give the Democrats 252 +11 +6 = 269 votes, it's a tie (and the the House decides).   We won't know what the House is in 2016 - the Democrats could very well in it.   Unless of course, the Democrats, seeing the situation in Pennsylvania and Virginia, move some PA and VA money to  Ohio and win it.  


But lets say ONLY Pennsylvania goes proportionate.  The Democrats see this and stop spending cash in Pennsylvania, instead put it all in Virginia and win Virginia, but lose Pennsylvania - but still get the proportionate votes.

Now the vote is 252 + Virginia's 13 = 265 + 9 from Pennsylvania = 274, Democrats win - because Pennsylvania went proportionate. Cue the GOP recriminations.

Going proportionate could very well backfire for the GOP.   By itself it is no where near enough to win an election, and the Democrats will shift their efforts to deal with whatever the GOP does.

What's far more important is the actual national votes - specifically in Ohio, Florida and North Carolina.

The way things are going, the GOP will lose all three.

The basic problem for the GOP is not that the Democrats are winning by a small margin in swing states.  Instead it is that the Democrats have far more states firmly under their control and they are BIG states, then the GOP does.  The Republicans won only four with more than 10 electoral votes by a margin of at least 10%.  The Democrats won seven states with more than 10 electoral votes by a margin of over 10%.  The GOP's biggest electoral state is Texas with 38 votes - and if the Liberals get their Hispanic act together, Texas may be in play in 2016.  The Democrats biggest electoral state is California with 55 votes, quickly followed by New York at 29. 

Keep in mind that the Democrats have a secret weapon they can use.   Specifically we can put North Carolina's Kay Hagan on the 2016 ticket - as either President or Vice President.

If the Democrats win North Carolina, then the GOP is extremely unlikely to win the election - it is the most conservative of the swing states. and the only one Obama lost.  If the Democrats put a campaign together that can win North Carolina, they will most likely win every other swing state.  

Treason Proposed by Republicans - boycot the Electoral College

A lot of Republicans are upset that Obama won the election.

A few go are really upset - they feel the same the heart breaking pain the Democrats felt when Gore won the popular vote but lost the electoral vote.

But a select few have gone insane.  They are enough to commit treason and overthrow the lawful government of the United States of America.

Specifically, certain Tea Partiers (by which I mean Judson Phillips of the Tea Party Nation), want to have their electors boycott the Electoral College.  They thought that the 12th amendment of the Constitution said if at least 2/3 of the electoral college did not meet, then it would let the House of Representatives determine the next president.   (Source)

They are wrong.  Snopes.com found that the 2/3 requirement is for within the House, after the Electoral College has already failed to select a President.  It does not apply to the Electoral College at all.

But I am not going to talk about the legality of the theory,.  Snopes did a good job dismantling his argument.  Instead I am talking about the ethics of the theory. 

Because something can be legal and still be treasonous - if the traitor Judson Phillips were to invent an entirely new device that when activated causes all nuclear bombs within 100 miles to detonate, then selling that device to say say Syria, would be treason.  Yes it might be legal, as there are no clear laws against it, but it would still be treason.

First we need to dismiss his feeble attempt at justification.  He refereed to previous times state legislatures have boycotted state votes.   He fails to realize three things.

1. The people boycotting those state votes were not elected solely to do those state votes.  They were elected to govern the entire nation and specifically told to vote their own mind, not simple perform a direct function of voting as they ran.   That is, there were no laws requiring them to vote as they had promised. 
2. The matter in question had in fact never been mentioned in the elections that put the representatives there.   
3. Lastly, those were lower level matters.  What's OK to do for a law on union negotiations is not OK to do for deciding who the President of the US will be.

Next I need to remind people of the purpose of Democracy.  It isn't to get the best President.  We didn't rise up against England because we thought King George's younger brother would be a better king.  No, we rose up because we wanted a democracy - the ability to vote for who would lead us.  We rose up  against a fascist pig that ignores our desires, taking up weapons and killing the S.O.B. that tried to make us obey a government that ignored our desires.

At heart the reason democracy works is that it makes more sense to vote for who will lead with a ballot rather than with a bullet.  In other words to stop an armed insurrection because some asshole stole power.  And that's what Judson Philips was suggesting.  He thought that he had found a 'legal' way to steal an election from America and turn us into a Dictatorship run by a bunch of fascists telling us what to do, despite having lost an election.

That's all Judson Philips and his friends (see Tea Party Nation) are - a bunch of anti-American, anti-Democracy wanna be dictators.

By the way, that's why the GOP lost.  They ignored the needs and desires of black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and female Americans.  We realized that the Tea Party are not in favor of democracy.  They like to wrap themselves in the Flag and the Constitution, but:

1. Don't know what the Constitution really says (hence Snopes.com had to correct that wanna-be dictator about what the 12th amendment actually said)
2. Don't care about Democracy.  Which is why they came up with the twisted attempt to get the loser of the election - which he admitted he didn't like - to be President.
3. Doesn't care about right or wrong, he just wants to WIN.

 In the past I've talked about the advantages of Democracy.  Let me take a minute to refresh

The six reasons why Democracy is better than other forms of government are:

1. Ideas not people are what matter
2. More attentive leaders
3. Leaders with good social skills
4. It trains multiple people
5. We can thoroughly investigate candidates
6. It's your own damn fault if the wrong party wins

Well, here the Democrat Ideas won, and the traitor Judson Philips wants to ignore this..  He wants to make it about people, specifically "Mitt Romney was a terrible candidate, and he will not be a great president. But he will be infinitely better than Barack Obama."

The traitor Judson Philips wants to ignore what the people said (yes to Obama, yes to Healthcare, yes to higher taxes on the wealthy), rather than pay attention to it.

The traitor Judson Philips  wants to get a leader with admittedly bad social skills (see moronic "Gift Comments, by Romney - note the real "gifts" Obama gave to down trodden Americans were Respect, an ear to talk to a voice to speak for them).

At least the traitor Judson Philips was willing to keep the ability to train multiple people and investigate candidates.

But finally, the traitor Judson Philips was unwilling to admit IT'S HIS OWN DAMN FAULT ROMNEY LOST.  The GOP elected him as their candidate, in large part because Tea Party Traitors like Judson Philips prevented the smarter candidates like Huntsman from winning (anyone that thinks one the Tea Party's favorite candidates could have done better has been doing some pretty impressive drugs.)   Hell, their stupidity is almost certainly one of the reasons Chris Christie didn't run. (They yelled at him for 'standing too close to President Obama during the Hurricaine Sandy aftermath).

The Traitor Judson Philips need to go back to school.  He needs to study the Constitution of the United States.  He also needs to study the Civil War - about how horrible it was (and the fact that the South lost because the North had the better weapons even though the South had better trained people and more guns).  He also needs to learn more about the difference between legal and illegal, ethical and unethical.

But most importantly, the Traitor Judson Philips needs to know three things.

1. It is still legal in the US for citizens to own guns.  Lots of Liberals own them.
2. What do you think would have happened if Republicans had won the general election and the electoral electoral election, but a bunch of commie liberals had tried to do the kind of low down, treasonous coup you suggested the Republicans did?  There be gunfire in the streets and a bunch of dead liberals, that's what. 
3. Liberals are not soft.  Those guns you think we don't have?   We will use those guns against against any traitor that tries to steal our election.   The same way you would have shot us dead if we tried to pull the illegal coup you suggested.

Judson Philips, you are a traitor to the United States, a traitor to Democracy, a traitor to pretty much everything George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, FDR, Ronald Reagan and Clinton stood for.

Luckily for us, most conservatives (including most Republicans) are as horrified as I am at the vile evil thoughts in your head.  

And that my friend, is the real reason why you lost the election.  Frankly, you never had a chance.

The Lie of voter Fraud

Politifact did an interesting, though complicated piece about the lie of voter fraud.  You can read it here.

A synapses of it goes as follows:

• The 2010 census had 98,213 people over the age of 18 in Wood County, Ohio.
• The 2012 Voter Registrar lists 106,258 people as of Sept 17.  (Up to 108,014 as of the Politifact published date).
• A bunch of fools are insinuating that 106,258 people voted for Obama in Wood County in the 2012 election, being an obvious example of voter fraud.  This is an outright lie.
• The truth is that only 80,433 people are listed as 'active voters', and of those only 62,338 voted this November 6th.  
• Of the people that voted, only 31,596 voted for Obama.  The other 28,997 voted for Romney.

So, the idiots implying that there was massive, voter fraud are clearly trying to deceive people with the wrong numbers.  But let's talk about the right numbers.

Why are there 8,045 more people on the Voter Registrar list than in the census?

There are lots of reasons this happens.

1. Two years passed, and people aged.  Someone that was 16 in 2010 would not count in that 98,213 number. 
2. Some people moved into the county.
3. People that died did not get immediately removed from the list.
4. People that moved did not re-registrar to vote, removing themselves from the list.
5. College students may tell the Census that they 'live' with their parents, but register to vote in the the county they go to school.  (They may think that their parent's student financing need them to be claimed as a resident)

First, which way should we be cautious about.  Should we try to eliminate everyone we can from the voter registration list- preventing fraud?  Or should we be extra careful not to violate someone's voting rights by eliminate them unless we know that they are no longer an eligible voter?  Well, as there are practically no convictions or even arrests for voter fraud, we should obviously protect their voting rights - just as we protect our rights to own a gun or practice religion.   If on the other hand you can show significant numbers of arrests and convictions for voter fraud, then I could see changing those rules

College students are hard to measure, as are moves.  But birhts and deaths are public records easily looked at. 

In the US, about 0.839% of  people die every year.  (Source)

The birth rate is about 1.375% (4 million births/291 million people)

Not counting moves, that means there is a net increase of 0.536% of the population each year (on average.

So over two years, the actual number of people in the country probably grew from 98,213 to 99,268

That means that the Voter Registrar has an extra 6,990 people on it.Out of 99,268 that comes to an error rate of about 7%.

7% is fairly high number of non-people listed on a registrar.  But lets look at the number of people listed as 'active' but did not vote this election.

That would be 62338/80433 = 77.5% of the active voters voted, leaving 22.5% of 'active voters' not actually voting in one of the most contentious elections ever.

Given that almost 1/4 of people did not bother to vote, is it that surprising that 7% have moved away and did not re-registrar?  Or died and not been removed?

More importantly, those people SHOULD NOT have been removed during the past 9 months.  They should be removed NOW.   After the election.  Go through the 106,258-80,433 = 25,825 inactive voters and any that did not vote this year, becoming active again, telling them they will be removed from the voter lists and will not be able to vote again until they re-register.

That's how you do it - after the important election, not before.  That gives them two years to re-register for the congressional elections if we were mistaken, four years for the presidential one.

Update.

Congratulations to President Obama, who clearly won re-election.

The states I said to watch were:

Wisconsin, Nevada, Ohio, Iowa, Virginia, New Hampshire, Florida, Colorado

Obama was ahead in all of them but Florida and Colorado.  He clearly won all of them except for Florida, which has not yet counted it's votes?  Why?  Because they killed early voting and had huge lines.  Exit polls show Obama up by 46,039 votes, or about 1%.

The Justice department is said to be looking into the problems Florida and deciding if they were severe enough to violate federal voting rights.



While technically not all votes are in, Obama won by such a large margin of electoral votes and also by the popular vote.  His re-election is a done deal.

Note, many of the rest of the results below are PRELIMINARY.  They are projections, not final vote tallies and may change in the coming weeks.


SENATE

In the Senate, the two rape comment republicans (Akin from Missouri and Mourdock from Indiana) lost to McCaskill and Donnelly

The republicans picked up one senate seat in Nebraska, but lost three - Indiana (thank you Mourdock), Massachusetts and Connecticut.  That's a total of of +2 to the Democrats.

In addition,  two more senate seats are not finished counting.  Both were held by democrats last week.  The democrat Senator Tester of Montana seems to have kept his job with a 4% lead but only 81% of votes are in.  North Dakota was an empty seat, the old democrat retired, but Heidi Heitkamp has a slight lead of 2,994 with 93% of the votes in.

Worst case, the senate balance stays the same, but we might pick up two seats.

House of Representatives

After the 2010 election the House was 193 democrats, vs 242 republicans.  In 2010 this was a huge year for the republicans, they picked up 62 seats back then.


Not all the results are in, but it is good news for the Democrats.  The results are in for 191 Democrats and 231 Republicans, that leaves a total of 13 seats unclear as of now.  But the Democrats did not lose more than 2 seats, and could have gained all 13.  Honestly, I expect the Democrats to get about half of the remaining undeclared seats, which would give them a gain of +4 members of the house.  Not a huge move, nothing compared to the 62 seats from 2010, but it still going in the right direction.


Governor:

Democrats won 5 Governorships, vs four Republican wins.  Two are not yet decided (Montana and Washington - both of which have the Democrat ahead by a small amount)

Ballot Measures:

There were 18 ballot measures, for five main issues.  Here are some quick summaries (these are projected results).

• Obamacare: Alabama, Florida, Montana and Wyoming tried to limit Obama care.  Expect more court cases.
• Marijuana: Arkansas, Colorado, Massachusetts, Oregon and Washington passed pro Marijuana laws.  Montana voted to ban it.
  
• Taxes: California passed a tax increase supported by the governor, but not the one he opposed. 
• Abortion: Florida voted against public funds for abortion
• Same Sex Marriage: Maine, Maryland and Washington voted to allow same sex marriage (Minnesota voted against banning it - i.e. in favor of same sex marriage.)

Take aways:
 The larger the election, the more likely Democrats were to win.  The smaller an election, the more likely the Republicans won.
 
The Democrats need to work on winning the smaller elections.  Local politics is where it all starts, we need to find a way to get appeal to the more moderate republicans in conservative states and convince them to vote for us in off year (non-presidential) elections.

The Republicans need to find a way to moderate their extremists.  While it plays well in conservative counties, it gets you laughed at on the national stage.  (See Akin, Mourdock, et. al.)  It also prevents serious moderate candidates like John Huntsman from winning the primary, leaving it to radicals and people that say one thing in the primary and another in the general election (Romney).   Neither of them can win.

As for issues, I think Obamacare is pretty much a done deal.  The Supreme Court ruled on it and the states just look stupid and childish trying to violate the federal laws.   Of course, I truly hope that republicans continue to waster their time and money trying and failing to change that.

Marijuana and Same sex marriage are both gaining support.  Abortion continues to be divisive issue - while Florida voted against public funds for it, two Republicans lost their seats for being too stridently against it.

States to Watch

Come tomorrow, November 6th, the election will finally arrive.  As I have said earlier, it will be about turnout, not the undecided voters.  Which is why I am happy that the GOP went so negative.   Negative ads work great on undecided voters.  But in a turnout fight, they are much less effective because they push up turnout for both your own people AND for your opponents.

Most of the states we already know who is going to win. If anyone thinks Romney is going to win Delaware or New York, they are on drugs.  Similarly, Obama has no chance in Utah or Wyoming.

There are however, eight states that are close (less than 3% difference).

Here are the states to watch, in order of who is most likely to vote for Obama, followed by their number of electoral votes, then Obama support, and finally Romney Support.

Wisconsin	10	50%	47%
Nevada	6	50%	47%
Ohio	18	48%	46%
Iowa	6	49%	47%
Virginia	13	49%	48%
New Hampshire	4	49%	48%
Florida	29	47%	48%
Colorado	9	48%	49%

Minnesota is the next state that Obama has a great lead (5%), while Romney has a (4%) lead in North Carolina and Arizona.    They might go another way, but if that happens, then these states will also follow.

These are the states to watch.  They account for 95 electoral votes, out of the 270 you need to win.

First, note that if the polls are correct, than Obama should win.  He has a large lead in electoral votes of the 'spoken' for states and is also winning the swing states.  Granted the lead in the swing states is within the margin of error, but it applies to almost all of them.  Ignoring these swing states, Obama has 237 (including Minnesota) and Romney has 206 (including North Carolin and Arizona).  That's a 31 point lead in the spoken for states.

Assuming that only these swing states change hands, Obama needs to pick only 33 votes (Wisconsin, Nevada and Ohio give him 34) .  Note, if he somehow manages to get Virginia, and Iowa but not Ohio, Obama still wins.  Or even Virginia and New Hampshire without Ohio or Iowa, he still wins (by a bare 270).

Romney on the other hand needs 64 votes, He has to win almost all of the swing states, and he is losing in all but two.  He could however win Ohio, Iowa, Virginia, New Hampshire, Florida and Colorado, which would give him 79.  

Ohio is the 'tipping point state' - but only assuming no other state changes their relative 'order'.  Romney could also win with Wisconsin instead of Ohio.  But he can't win with Nevada instead of Ohio.  Frankly, if Obama wins, as I predict, then Ohio isn't that important.  He should get lots of extra votes.

But for Romney, Ohio is the almost the MINIMUM he needs to win (again assuming current polls have the order of the swing states correct).

So pay attention to these eight states.  If Obama wins three  or more of them, that pretty much means he wins the election.  If Romney wins six or more, then he wins.

Also, Colorado has one extra interesting fact about it.  The only reason it says that Romney has the lead by 1% is Rasmussen polls.  Without Rasmussen polls, it is a dead heat.   If Obama wins Colorado, it will be a pretty strong indictment against Rasmussen, demonstrating that they are in fact biased.


Finally, there is a slight chance of a tie 269 and 269.  If Obama wins Wisconsin, Ohio and New Hampshire, but loses all the rest then we get the tie.  In this case, the tie goes to the (new) House of Representatives, which means it will almost certainly go to Romney, as in a tie situation, that probably means the GOP retains control of the House.  Note the senate picks the VP in that situation, which could be... strange.   The really weird part is that Congress need not pick Romney or Obama.  They are allowed to pick the third highest electoral vote getter.  Granted, that won't happen, (I doubt if a third candidate will get even one vote this election).  But it is legal.  The Senate must pick from among the top two candidates, no third party victory here.

This is pretty unlikely, as Nevada, and Iowa like Obama more than New Hampshire does.  And Virginia likes him as much as New Hampshire does.

Oh, if you want to brush up on the rules for the electors, click here.

P.S.  Also don't forget to watch the two Republican Rape Candidates:   Missouri (Akin - "legitimate rape")  and Indiana (Mourdock - "God intended").

How did Hurricane Sandy affect the election.

The Hurricane has benefited Obama and hurt Romney.

Romney was behind in most of the swing states he needs to win.  He needed this time to attack the President and make up ground.  In addition, he specifically choose to spend less in the early campaign and blitz us with ads at the end.

But the Hurricane took over the news, locking him out of the coverage.  It disrupted his plan at the last minute.   People weren't talking or thinking about his ads, they were thinking about survival and their family.  Worse, in times of real crisis, people dislike partisan attacks.  So Romney had to tone down his talk.   Otherwise, he would have looked spiteful.


It also gave President Obama an opportunity to act Presidential.   He did a good job.   In particular he was praised by Republican Governor Chris Christie, who is a big Romney supporter.   Romney, who currently holds no political office, did not have that chance.

Some people have said this doesn't matter.  Ask President Bush about Katrina.  How the President

The election is still a few days away, but we have more than enough time to get power and transportation systems up and running.  This means that poor people will still be able to vote.

Obama would have won anyway, but this prevented a last minute October Surprise, as they say (last minute turn around in a political election)

Political Extortion.

I have heard some people argue in favor of voting for Romney as follows:

1) Romney and Obama are not that strikingly different.  Both are moderates, Obama is a shade more liberal, Romney is a shade more conservative.  In general, I agree with this point, in part because Romney, who during the primary claimed to be a far right zealous Republican, has during the general election, totally flip-flopped and claimed to be a moderate.

2) But the GOP has refused to compromise one bit, insisting on portraying Obama as a radical, making getting rid of him their "#1 job", etc. etc.  In general, I think this statement is also true.

3) Conclusion, as long as the GOP has the house (and it looks like they will retain a majority their, even if they lose a couple of seats), that it's best to have Romney as President in order to get things done.   

But I don't agree with their conclusion.

For the purpose of this argument, let's assume that both assumptions (#1 and #2) are correct  - the candidates are close and the GOP has actively refused to compromise (in reality, the DNC is also partially to blame - although much less so) .  Because if the blame resides on the Democrats as well as the Republicans, then their pro-Romney argument falls apart as the Democrats will be just as annoying and refusing to compromise (and via their Senate majority, just as much a roadblock).

There are several reasons to not bow down to their extortion.

1)  Those 'shades' they mentioned in step 1, are important.  Government/legal progress  is made by baby steps more often than by large steps.  (This is Legal change as opposed to Political change - political change tends to happen in large steps.)  It's the difference between accepting gays in the military and maintaining 'separate but equal'.  It's the difference between getting another more conservative Supreme Court Judge that might be a Roberts (or might be a Scalia) and getting an actual liberal on the Court.

2)  We don't give in to extortion.  If you do, you invite more extortion.  Better to get nothing done and train the the extortionist not to extort then it is to bow down to them and accept their demands.  We are free men, not slaves, and the price of freedom is sometimes high.   If this means we go through some pain now, then we gain far more in the future by having better leaders that have learned from their mistakes.

3)  You can't trust an extortionist. They won't pass reasonable laws even with Romney in charge. That is, first they demand X, when they get it, they then demand 2X.   Better to have nothing done than to have bad things done.

4) If the other party is in fact being that much of an extortionist, it opens up more objectionable actions by the president.  That is, the GOP is not the only one that can act unilaterally.    The president can and will do a lot without their help, particularly if they refuse to act.  A key example of this is the president's ruling on immigration.   When the GOP refused to act on immigration reform, he declared we won't enforce the law against certain people that are clearly not criminals.  (If your parents bring you hear when you are a minor, you have not broken the law, your parents have.)  This frees the executive branch to devote precious and limited resources to pursuing actual, dangerous criminals.

If the GOP never realizes that the Democrats can fight back, that just means the President will have an easier time defeating them.  If they do, they will stop trying to extort us and start compromising.

For these four reasons, it is a bad idea to vote for Romney if your only concern is to get things done.


As a side note, much of our political structure is designed to prevent things from getting done.  That is one of the reasons we have both a Senate and a House. So a stalemate is not quite as bad as people think it is.

Deficit Math

Every once in a while, someone tries to trot out a list of things the government spends money on.  They pick out things to cut - either entirely or merely reducing the amount spent.  They then pretend they have solved the problem by cutting fat, not muscle.  The thing is, they tend to lie - not about the numbers but how they present the numbers.  I thought I'd go through one such list to show you the lies and tricks they use.

I am looking at one attributed to VP Nominee Paul Ryan, but actually proposed by Representative Jim Jordan of  Ohio.  It is fairly typical, containing multiple deceptions.

1)  One off items.  The list in question contains some one off items.  I.E.  things that we can do only once, not every year, so while it might help with the national debt a little bit, it won't actually affect the deficit, which is the real problem.  It's like selling your old clothing.   It helps pay off the credit cards, but doesn't stop you from over-spending.   This list for example includes the idea of selling off 'excess' Federal Property.  Assuming that property in question really is 'excess' - i.e. commercial and not in use, a rather than park space, then we can only do it once.  This accounted for 15 billion dollars - the single highest number (aside from the grand total at the end).

That right there is a red flag, showing that the creator of the list is trying to deceive us. The single biggest cut you want to make should not be a one-off, not if your plan is actually intended to actually solve the problem, as opposed to just scoring some political points.

Which brings me to his next attempt to deceive the American People.  The last line is (underline added):

* Total Savings:  $2.5 Trillion over Ten Years.

2)  Multiple years analysis.


The budget is a yearly thing.  Among other things, it gets changed every year.  Why did Mr. Jordan total it up over ten years?  Because his numbers are so small that they don't do.  So he multiplied them by ten to make it seem like they were significant.  THEY AREN'T.


To further confuse the matter, some of the things he talked about were over ten years, but most were over one years.  The only reason to do this was to make small things look bigger.  As a result, all he did was confuse people.


The current US National Debt is over 16,182,000,000,000  That would be 16 Trillion dollars.   The US yearly Budget Deficit is about 1.1 trillion dollars.  We are adding tot he debt by about 6.25% a year. His 2.5 trillion sounds like a lot, but that's over ten years.  When you divide by 10, to get the yearly amount it comes out to only 0.25 trillion, or less than one quarter of what we need to cut. 

Not very impressive.  Not impressive at all. Lets bring those numbers down to something reasonable.  If you found that last year you overspent by $1000, and some idiot suggest you don't have to cut back, just stop wasting $250 a year, you would laugh at the guy and say "So you only want me to overspend by $750 a year?"

No.  We need to cut the budget deficit by the full $1.1 trillion.  Doing it by 1/4 doesn't make any sense. 

3)  Include tiny amounts.    Next, when you go over his list you see a whole bunch of tiny stuff.  Remember, we are trying to get rid of $1 trillion deficit.  Talking about millions is stupid.  A trillion is one thousand billion.  A billion is one thousand million.  A thousandth of a thousands is nothing.  If the deficit was $1,000, then the equivelent of millions, would be a tenth of a penny.  If it isn't at least 50 cents, don't talk about it.    Fifty cents out of $1,000 translates to $500 million in the US budget.Rep.  Jordan included things as low as $1 million annual savings (Mohair Subsidies).

Why did he did do this?  Because the small things often seem silly and the uninformed are impressed by the word 'million'.  They think it is a lot, but it isn't, not when we are talking about trillions.

Yes, Mohair is a silly thing to subsidies - that's why the liar Representative Jordan put it on the list.  But the amount of money is so small (less than 1/3 of one cents per American citizen), that it isn't worth talking about.  Cutting it doesn't do anything to the budget at all.   Why do we do fund it?  I am sure it was put in to get some congressman's vote on a major bill.  It's a single sprinkle to make something else more palatable. We spend more on each congressman's office.   As per this new story, 13 North Carolina Congressmen spent $4.3 million every 3 months, or about $16 million a year, or $1.23 million per congressman per year.

So that means Representative Jordan probably spent more more this year on his staff than we spent on Mohair.  At least the Mohair subsidy wasn't spent trying to deceive American citizens.


4)  List programs without telling us how much money.  Presumably because they are even less than one million.  Things like the HUD Ph.D Program  or the Deficit Reduction Check-Off Act.  If you can't be bothered to tell us how much it would save, then don't include it in the list. 


5)  Don't show the entire list or show your math.  By not showing the math, it means he is leaving out the important stuff.     Below is the list of just the expensive things (over $500 million) the artful Representative wanted to cut   They total to a mere 29 billion dollars a year.  Far short of the 250 billion he claimed as a total.  I know, some of you are thinking that if he has enough stuff less than 1/2 a billion, it might add up to the other things.  You are right.   But if everything else was exactly 1/2 a billion, then he would need another (250-29 = 231  / 0.5 = 462) 462 items.  But he didn't list 462 items. Why not?  Because most of the things he wrote about are important to people and we would laugh at him for trying to cut them.  

Program	Billions in savings >
Amtrack	1.565
"Duplicative Education"	1.3
Community Development	4.5
1/2 Federal Travel Budget	7.5
Federal Vehicle Budget by 20%	0.6
Department Energy Weatherization grants	0.53
New Starts Transit	2
Intercity High Speed Rail	2.5
National Community Services Act	1.15
Applied Research DOE	1.27
US Agency International Development	1.39
Davis Bacon Act	1
Cut IRS Budget by	1.8
Collection unpaid taxes by federal employees	1
ObamaCare Admin costs	0.9
Total of yearly savings:	29.005
Plus the one time stuff:
Federal Office space acquisition	0.864
Sell excess Federal Property	15	(one time)

The actual truth is you can't cut the deficit without cutting bone as well as fat. Because the amount of fat in the budget is relative low. The six main budget items are Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Defense, Interest on the debt, and Pensions.  You want to cut the deficit?  You need to cut something on that list. Compared to other developed countries, the US overspends on Defense, but not on any of the other stuff. It's not that hard to figure out what we need to cut.

We need to reduce Defense spending.  Start by cutting any program that Congress insists on funding even if the Defense Department says they don't want.  

The article linked above listed four programs:  Global Hawk Block 30 drone program, C-27J Spartan cargo aircraft, upgrades to the M1 Abrams tank, Air National Guard funding and the proposed East Coast missile defense system.   These programs don't cost a huge amount.  But they are an honest start.

To me, I think we need to look at each of the military branches.   The navy is relatively easy to pick on, because they tend to buy single big ticket items.  I will discuss them, but similar cost reductions should be done to the Army and the Air Force.   China and Russia each have only one Aircraft Carrier.  Spain and Italy each have two.  No other country has more than one.    Except the United States.  We have eleven.  Do we really need to have more than 5 times as much as any other single country?  More than five times greater than China and Russia combined?  Cut it down to 9. That lets us put two in the northern Pacific, two in the southern Pacific, one in North Atlantic, one in the South Atlantic,  one in the Indian ocean, one in the Mediterranean, and still have one back home being serviced.

More about Voter ID laws

Recently  a Pennsylvania judge delayed their Voter ID law till next year, because it was likely to suppress voter turnout.  S

Once again, I state that Voter ID laws are not necessarily evil, just the ones the GOP has pushed.  The GOP led laws are designed not to catch fraud, but instead to suppress Democrat votes.  Democrats are not against Voter ID laws per se, just the voter suppression versions the GOP has enacted.

For comparison purposes, lets look at the Voter ID law Rhode Island - a Democrat controlled state legislature - created.  (Source)

1)  The first year (i..e. this presidential election), they were more generous.  They let you use bank statements, utility statements, student IDs, etc. or even government issued documents without photos (such as birth certificates, social security cards), as ID.

2) Starting in 2014,, they will require photo IDS - but will continue to accept Government issued Medical cards and School IDs.

3)  If you don't have the ID, you get a provisional ballot which will be have the signature scrutinized.  If it is deemed a forgery, the ballot is rejected. If it is found to be valid, the ballot will be accepted. You don't have to show up or take any actions, they are just analyzing your signature, not your identity.  No forcing people without transportation to attend meetings, or costing them anything (time or money).


Compare this with Pennsylvania law:

• Pennsylvania lets you disqualify them if the name on the ID does not match the name on the voter registration (left unclear how exact it must be).  It never accepts medical cards, though it does accept certain student IDs (not all - they must have a photo and an expiration date).
• Starts right away, so no leniency for the first year.
• The person must appear at the county board with ID and submit affidavits.  This costs them time and either money or a lot of extra time and effort to prove they are poor.

Those differences matter.  No learning curve, harsher rules and harsher standards for rejection all work to prevent legitimate voters from voting?

Why?  Because the Rhode Island Democrats aren't trying to illegally suppress votes.  The Republicans on the other hand...

The Debate - Will it Affect the Vote?

My opinion has consistently been that the polls are correct, there are more Democrats out there that are committed to voting.  For this reason the undecided do not matter as much as they usually do.   The president is relying on a coalition of left leaning Democrats and moderates while actively presenting a sane, non-extreme platform to discourage republicans from voting.    It pretty much worked, in part because the GOP's candidate is Mormon, which by itself greatly undermines one of the GOP's large constituencies, the  radical religious right.

The president did absymially in the debate.  He was honest and thoughtful, but also boring, nerdy, and unsocial.  Nothing surprising there. 

Mitt Romney did well in the debate.  He lied about numbers, changed long standing opinions, but maintained good eye contact and otherwise played to the crowd.  Nothing very surprising there.

What they did was typical, but how extremely they did it was not expected.  The result was Romney dominated the social aspects of the debate and the population doesn't care all that much about the facts.

But given the President's election plan, it seems to be irrelevant.

The GOP does not need to convince the undecided to vote for them.  They don't matter that much in this election.

They need to convince the reluctant conservatives to vote for them.  Pedaling a softer, less conservative Romney (which they did) won't do that.

They need to convince Obama's Democrats that the GOP isn't that bad.  But the Democrats aren't voting against Romney, they are either voting:

1. Against the conservative anti: gay, abortion, racist agenda
2. Against the GOP's extreme 'no compromise' (not even $10 in program cuts for $1 in tax hikes)
3. For the first Black President
4. For the President that killed Bin Laden
5. For the President that got us out of Iraq
6. For ObamaCare

 None of that has changed.  Romney can't change any of it.  Not in a debate, not ever.

Romney can only win via a major, major setback for the President.   This isn't anywhere near bad enough.

Why the Polls Show So Many Democrats Voting

Right now, most non-partisan politics show Obama ahead.  Mainly because a larger than normal number of people called say they are Democrats and very likely to vote.  Certain Republicans refuse to accept this fact and ignore the actual responses they get.  Instead they use old data (excluding 2008 when lots of extra Democrats voted) to estimate how many democrats will actually vote. Normally they just accept people's statements about how likely they are to vote.  Yes, some people are wrong, but they tend to be just as many democrats mistaken about whether or not they actually are going to vote as republicans.


 So the question is why are there so many extra democrats claiming they will vote?

As I have written earlier,  there are four things politicians try to do.  To recap (in order of difficulty):

1. Get support from your base
2. Get support from the undecided
3. Get your opponent's base to not vote
4. Convert your opponent's base for you

Obama has a solid base of liberals.  Originally this was from a combination of good speaking skills and his skin color.  Then his successful implementation of a much desired health care reform bill, combined with the success overseas in both military and diplomatic issues (Yes, the GOP dislikes his success - just as much as us liberals disliked how the Conservatives ran foreign policy.  But even they can't deny killing Bin Laden is a success and a bigger one than George Bush ever had.)

Obama has failed to get the opponent's base to vote for him.  That is pretty clear.   In large part because of a rather strong anti-Obama campaign that the GOP has run, starting from the second he won the presidency.

But that campaign has cost them.  Specifically it turned off a lot of their own people.  The GOP pushed themselves to the far right at the local level but they then realized such an ultra-conservative party could not win the independents in a national election.  They tried to pick a moderate candidate to counter this, but this strategy failed.  It pissed off their new, smaller, ultra-conservative base, and the moderate candidate could not move far enough to the left to win over independents, or even the many conservative ex-Republicans.  Charlie Crist is the poster child for this.  If you kick out the well respected republican governor of a swing state that you absolutely need to win, and replace him with a more conservative person, it indicates you have a real problem.  At least if you want to win the presidency.

Combined with Obama's campaign, this resulted in two things.

First, Obama converted many of the 'undecided' to Obama supporters.   That is why in his original election he got so much higher turnout among Blacks and Young Adults.  Those people used to be undecided - that's why they didn't vote. This turnout failed to stay strong for the 2010 midterms, so the the GOP thought the Democrats had lost it.  They are wrong - the turnout was for Obama, not for the Democrats and Obama did not run in 2010.  He is running again this year, so the turnout will come back.

But wait, you say, the undecided voters this year are going for Romney. 

True.  That is because he converted many undecided to Obama Democrats.  When polled they call themselves Democrats because they are strong supporters of Obama.   But that's not all.  Then, the GOP kicked all the "RINO's"  out (Republican In Name Only).  See Charlie Crist above.   Most of these ex-republicans did not become Democrats, they became 'undecided'.  At least this time around.  Give them four more years and they may sign up with the DNC.  At least if the GOP continues it's campaign to push the moderates out.

(Numbers in this next paragraph are pulled out of my @$$ for illustrative purposes.)  So say Obama took about 3% of the undecided voters and converted them to Obama supporters.  Then suppose the GOP pushed away about 6% of their base into undecided.   So suddenly the 'undecided' are now 9% more likely to lean toward Romney and the GOP is happy.  The truth is the DNC gained a solid 3% and the GOP had 6% turn soft.  (Numbers corrected for bad math on my part - but they are still made up.)

It's not about who people lean towards who in the polls, it's who they actually vote for.

Obama has FAR more people heavily supporting him than past democrats have.  Romney has far less people moderately supporting him than past Republicans have.

This is why the polls show more democrats will be voting this year than in past years.  Certain Republicans (Rasmussen polls among them) fail to admit this is actually happening.   They look around among their friends and see that the far-right zealots that remain in their party hate Obama and strongly want to replace him.  But they ignore the fact that half their friends have left the party and become 'undecided' that weakly supports the GOP.

That weak support is worthless.  It doesn't vote.  It doesn't pay cash.  It just looks nice in the polls.

The GOP is looking at the small core base with strong support, and the wide spread weak support and confusing the two.   It doesn't matter how much your tiny core hates someone, it matters how many people agree with you.  And most of the conservatives people that dislike Obama are saying "I wish we had Reagan, do I have to vote for Romney?"  And the answer to that is no.  They don't have to vote for Romney.  They don't have to vote for Obama.  They can stay home.

Now, fervor for Obama has cooled a bit.  But nowhere near as much as as fervor for the GOP has cooled.  More importantly, there was NEVER fervor for Romney.   No one ever wanted him as badly as the Democrats wanted Obama in 2008.   Obama people are not saying "Do we have to vote for Obama?"  Instead we say "I wish Obama was doing better.  But I can't stand the GOP."


Part of the problem is the internet.  It makes all small group look a lot bigger than it actually is.  The GOP has fooled itself by looking through the lens of the internet.

The Democrats have the numbers, if not the fervor.  We will win 2012.  While the GOP will sit in disbelief saying "but but but Democrats don't vote!"

My Predictions for 2012 Elections

Here are my predictions for the 2012 elections.

Presidency: Obama will win re-election, most likely by a rather large number of electoral votes, but a relatively close popular vote.

House of Representatives.  All Representatives are up for re-election every two years, each has a two year term.  Republicans maintain control, but lose some seats.    Right now the numbers are 240 Republicans, 190 Democrats and 5 vacancies.  If I had to put actual numbers, I would say in 2013 it would start as 230 Republicans, 205 Democrats, no vacancies.   As always, all House seats are always up for grab, but Obama will probably lend some extra effort to the Democrats, along with the general hatred of the House that has developed over the past couple of years.

Senate:  One third of all Senators are up for re-election every 2 years, each has a six year term.  The Democrats will lose a couple of Senate seats, but maintain a bare majority, including the independents.  Currently the totals are 51 Democrats plus 2 independents, vs 47 Republicans.  But far more Democrats are up for re-election this cycle (21 Democrats + 2 independents vs 10 Republicans up for re-election).  This does not give the Democrats many chances to pick up an extra seat or two.  I expect that after the election we will have 50 Democrats plus 1 Independent vs 49 Republicans.    The same will happen in 2014 (20 Democrats vs 13 Republicans up for re-election)  But 2016 gives the Democrats a real chance to win back some seats (10 Democrats vs 24 Republicans up for re-election).

Most likely this will end with far more gridlock.   To end it we will either need real leadership among the Republicans (unlikely) or a greatly enhanced deal making by Obama.   Slight differences in numbers could tremendously affect the next administration.

The main advantage to the Democrats will be Supreme Court judge picks.   We can replace some aging liberal Judges, and, god-forbid, there is the chance one of the older conservative Judges will get ill and need to be replaced. 

Given the GOP's continued concentration on far right national politics, this could be the path for the foreseeable future.  The Democrats controlling the Presidency and sometimes the Senate, while the GOP controls Congress by putting forth moderate Republicans in moderate districts and zealots in the conservative districts.

If nothing changes, then eventually - they will turn off the moderates and lose the House.  This may cause them to rethink their strategy, but nothing short of losing the house will do this.   The other hope is that a true Republican leader emerges.  Someone that can go against the far right zealots that rule local politics and put forth a solid centrist platform that revitalizes the Republican Party.

What's wrong with Voter ID laws

It's not the fact that it's a solution to a non-existent problem.  There have been almost no prosecutions, let alone convictions for voting as someone else - the only kind of voter fraud this law could possibly prevent. 

It's not even the fact that a Republican admitted the law was written specifically to dis-enfranchise democrats (source).  This is evil,  and the reason why the laws are written so poorly, but the motive is not the problem.

It's not the fact that it does nothing at all to affect the actually dangerous voter fraud of stuffing ballot boxes and intentional miscounting. 

The problem is the laws don't stop voter fraud and are specifically written to ensure the real voter fraud continues, while at the same time stopping legitimate voters from voting.  They take affect immediately, with little warning, and no preparation.  No attempt to work the kinks out of a law that will affect who is president.

So, let's suppose you were in fact concerned about voter fraud.  How would you write the laws to fix it?

1. Ease into it.  Don't do it in a presidential election year, start with smaller stakes, and slowly build it up, over five or six years.  This lets you work out the kinks, as opposed to immediately affecting a national election.   You won't say "oops, we didn't know we were preventing all black people from voting".
2. Make it easier to get ID cards.  Right now it is both physically impossible for certain people to legitimately get an ID card, and at the same time, ridiculously easy for con men to do so fraudulently.
3. Build teeth into the law - that is, after the five/six year build up, if you attempt to vote without the ID card you don't simply get sent away, you get arrested and charged with Identity Theft.   If you win the legal case, the judge declares your identity and gives you official ID.  If you lose, you go to jail.

So lets look at these factors in depth.

One:  The right way to do Voter ID would be to ease into it.  First two years, you get asked to show ID and if you have it, fine.  If you don't, you are given paperwork - in your own language - telling you how to get ID, and what will happen next.   Third and fourth year you are given a provisional ballot and have to show up in court to get it counted.   Fifth and Sixth year you finally can't vote and (see rule #3) are arrested if you don't have ID. 

Two:  Our ID requirements now are fairly ridiculous, particularly for someone that lives in a different state than what they are born into, and/or if there were fires/other destruction of governmental ID.   For example, in South Carolina, their ID law lets people vote by declaring that they don't have and ID because they don't have transportation.  But then you have to show up at a hearing to prove it - which you can't easily do without transportation!  Ridiculous.  It's a trick.  Similarly, they let people vote with expired gun ID's but not with current college photo IDs.

Here are the four things you need to get an ID  in the United States.:

1. Proof of Citizenship.  In general you need a Birth Certificate - issued by a city.country, state, or Consular.  Or if you were not born a citizenship, you need a Naturalization Certificate or Certificate of Citizenship.  But ANYONE can get a birth certificate from the state by mail.   It just costs money, no proof needed beyond your personal word that you are that person (or that person's guardian).  You need to know their full name, where they were born, and the date of their birth.  Nothing more.  Birth Certificates prove that the person was born in the country, not that you are the person.
2. Social Security Card matching that citizenship. To get one of these without other government ID, you generally need Employ ID, School ID, Health Insurance Card.
3. Identification showing who you are.  Generally it it is a bunch of rather easily obtainable stuff such as Library Card, School ID cards, pay stubs, a witness who knew you for at least two years, Credit Card, Employee ID, bills, etc.   To get them you merely have to spend a couple of years living under that name.
4. Finally you need transportation and the time to wade through the bureaucracy.  The working poor have neither.  College students and senior citizens often don't have the transportation.

In other words, basically anyone can get these ID's rather easily, it just takes time and knowing the name, date and location of birth.

So why not make it easier?  It's easy to eliminate issue four, which doesn't affect security.  At every single Post Office, have  a direct virtual private network (computer speak for very secure) link to all 50 states Birth Records department, plus Consular Records, plus the Social Security Administration.   A single unified location to go in with your evidence and out with a photo ID.


I know, some of you are thinking "That will just make it easier to commit ID theft."

A centralized system makes it easier to catch the ID theft, not to do it.  If your the federal government takes you picture gets taken when you apply for the various ID cards, then they can compare it to a national database.  If your picture already exists or does not match the existing one, they look into it further and fix the problem.  We could even set it up as an optional system - you can use the regular method, or the 'expedited version' - which is free and quick, but involves fingerprinting and iris scanning.  We could also check all other information we have on the person to make sure that they aren't committing fraud and/or don't have arrest warrants out for them.  We can compare with existing photos.  For example, we could check death certificates as well as birth certificates (something we don't do now when you ask for a birth certificate).

 Centralized systems prevent fraud, at least if they are done correctly.

Three:  Finally, we should be trying to catch these voter frauds, not catch and release.  The very idea of simply stopping a criminal from voting as opposed to stopping them and arresting them is quite frankly vile and evil.   If someone is committing a crime we should arrest them, not look the other way.

The only reason the GOP doesn't already demand the arrest is that they know everyone they arrest would be innocent, costing the state millions, if not billions, and ending with the GOP being thrown out of office for wasting our time and money.

Well, we shouldn't let them waste the time and money of our legal, patriotic voters anymore than we should let them waste the time and money of our courts.

GOP 2012 Party Platform Translated.

You can read the full (and very long) GOP platform here.

1.  The economy.  (aka lower taxes)

Job Creation, Small Business, Tax Relief, American Competition, and Balancing the Budget are all translated as  Lower Taxes on the wealthy, cut social programs like medicare, medicaid and social security.

Inflation,Housing crisis, Infrastructure means regulation is bad, we need to cut it.  Oh, and they also want to create these other things that regulate the market - but only for the 'good things'.  In other words, they want to let Republicans regulate, not Democrats.

Re-education - close all 47 federal retraining programs and give the money to the states.  Because we all know that government is bad.  Too bad that small government (aka states) is always more suspectible to fraud and waste than large government.

"Freedom in the Workplace" means controlling labor unions.  Here they have some points, I see no reason why Labor Unions can't work with secret ballots.   But on the other hand, it is perfectly reasonable for the government to continue to insist on Union Labor to get things done.  You may get higher costs, but you also get higher quality.

2.   Constitutional Government (aka gays are evil)

They admit that discrimination is evil - bat least if it is based on sex, race, age, religion, creed, disability or national origin.   They conspicuously leave out sexual orientation - as in, they are quite happy discriminating against gays.  They also oppose the creation of any NEW race-based governments within the United States.  They are apparently fine with existing (presumably white) ones.


Restoration of Constitution - another insult that claims the constitution has been abandoned.  Note they are fine with amending the Constitution (specifically they are quite happy replacing the national Income Tax - 16th Amendment with a National Sales Tax.)

While the are for the restoration of the US Constitution, they are unhappy when US courts declare that under the US Constitution, marriage can include gays.    (See anti-gay discrimination above.)  They are frankly unhappy with what the US Courts says the Constition is.  In other words, they are all for the Constition, but only if they get to say what it means.  Note that they consistently object to the rulings of judges appointed by conservative presidents as well as those made by Democrats.  They don't trust their own people.

What's really going on here is that they personally want to re-write the Constitution to satisfy their particular political beliefs, and failing that, replace all the Judges with GOP die hards.  Specifically, they want to re-write it as a very strict Jeffersonian tradition, ignoring Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, George Washington and all the other Hamiltonian founders.

Their favorite amendment is the 10th:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

They also like the 2nd (bear arms).

But they really, truly HATE the following:  The 9th (the rights given are examples, not the limits, i.e. no strict interpretation), 14th ( equal protection clause), 15th (voting rights for race/color),  the 16th (taxes), the 19th (without female suffrage, the GOP would win the election),  the 24th (no poll taxes).  In general, they often seem to dislike parts of the 1st amendment (freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press).  Among other examples they dislike the freedom to disrespect our flag.

They like Voter ID but do not not want to disenfranchise military men.  This of course implies (and the courts later ruled that it is unconstitutional) that they do want to disenfranchise non-military voters. 

They are fine with having the government protect religious freedom of the churches, but not in favor of protecting the religious freedom of the lay people and non-religious people..  I quote:   'We condemn the hate campaigns, threats of violence, and vandalism by proponents of same-sex marriage against advocates of traditional marriage and call for a federal investigation into attempts to deny religious believers their civil rights"

But they make no mention at all of actual violence and vandalism against gays by the advocates of traditional marriage.  Again see the 'gays are evil' line for this section.

They also brought abortion into this section, trying to apply the constitutional protections to them. This is despite the fact that they are not yet American citizens (no birth certificate).

3.  Energy, and the Environment

They want more coal, the single most polluting, most expensive if it's cleaned up, cheapest if you leave it dirty energy source.  They want to ease the EPA's regulations on coal, despite the fact that the rules for coal are EASIER than any other energy source  Coal can dump their radioactive waste - uranium and thorium - anywhere (which they do) while nuclear power plants must expensively store it.

They want to build pipelines to let Canada ship natural gas through US ports and sell it to foreign countries as opposed to selling it to northern US states.  (Keystone).  They want to cut research and investment money on 'risky' renewable energy - despite the fact that money spent there has in general been a huge windfall for this country and the environment.

They want to save 'family farms', and to do so are quite willing to spend huge amounts of money.  Most of which goes to farm corporations.  They have the resources to investigate and participate in the bureaucratic process.  (Source).   They do want to end direct payments and increase crop insurance - a good idea.   They also want take our national forests and destroy them.  (ignore environmental rules and steal their water).     They want to turn food stamps into block grants to states 'to stop fraud and abuse', despite the fact that the states are FAR more likely to engage in fraud and abuse. 

Most importantly, they want to 'reign in the EPA'.   Aka let corporations try new things, and then clean up their mistakes instead of preventing them in the first place.


4. Reform Government.

When they say "Save Medicare and Medicaid" they mean replace their defined benefit with a defined contribution.  Translation:  stop saying what health issues the government will treat and instead say "here's x amount of money, once you hit it, you die."  But they don't want the blame for such an evil plan, so they want to hand it off to the states.   Such plans are fiscally sound, but ethically evil.   Defined contribution works great if you are talking about a supplemental or luxury, such as a personal retirement plan.  It sucks as your minimum government protection or last ditch backstop, such as social security.  

The also want to change regulations.  Specifically no new ones until the existing ones have passed muster.  But we have seen how the GOP works - they delay and filibuster and refuse to make progress (which is why Obama has to redo the EPA regulations that Bush refused to redo after the courts ordered him to do it.  This is just shorthand for "no new regulations, no matter how badly we need them."   If you want to review the old regulations, fine.  But there is no good reason to stop new ones.  If we can't be trusted to make new regulations, then we can't be trusted to review the old ones.

They want to declare that no business is too big to fail.   Well, I'm OK with that.  But that is actually code for "No INDUSTRY is too big to fail."  Which is an entirely different thing.  If an entire industry is failing, then we have bigger problems than just a single corporation going bankrupt.  We need to protect our key industries and not allow foreign corporations to take over our finances the way they took over our clothing manufacturing.

They want private industry to take over from the TSA.  This is a good idea.   The TSA, as I have discussed in the past, are the single least cost effective agency in the US government.

Immigration.  Not sure why this came under 'reform'.   Again they are in favor of a 'state' led approach, despite the obvious problems with that.   They are against amnesty, even for kids illegally brought in by their parents, who never knew they were not citizens.  They then bring up American Indians, because of course, every single person that is not an American Indian is in fact an illegal immigrant that invaded their lands.  They gave a bunch of platitudes and little facts.

DC.  They give several paragraphs about DC - all talking about how they have pushed republican programs on the state.  Then one sentence stating "We oppose statehood for the District of Columbia."  They give no explanation for this.  In truth they know that Washington DC as a state would give the Democrats two new Senators and one new Congressman.  It is just partisan politics, without any attempt to disguise it.  Surprisingly, later on they do support Puerto Rico becoming a state.  They do this based on the fact that Hispanics tend to be conservative.  But they don't realize that Hispanics, while conservative, vote Democrat.   This is because the GOP is no longer a conservative party, but is a far right reactionary party.

Civil Service.  They talk about the the civil service growing by 140,000, without discussing the fact that it has about 2 million people before this growth. (Source).  Seven percent growth during a recession is not unusual.  Then they complain that the number making $150,000 or more has doubled - without mentioning what it is.  If it were 20 people and now 40 people, that is not important.  By saying it next to 140,000 it implies that it is thousands.  But more importantly, the reason why the pay is that high is because we have outsource the cheap jobs and ONLY hire people directly for important jobs.

5. American  Values.
Pro- family is code for anti-gay.  They want to protect traditional marriage, while the DNC wants to protect marriage.  They like adoption and foster care, but have no plan for it (aside from ill defined tax claims).  Internet family friendly  means no gambling and to eliminate pornography.  They applaud effort to stop predators from seeking children - by private corporations, but don't want to spend have the government do more (aside from enforcing current laws).

Another big thing is anti-abortion.  They want the federal government to ban it, and failing that, to ban funding for it and for plans that cover it.

Repeal Obamacare.  Not sure why this is in American Values.    They want to replace it with  by 'fostering personal responsibility'.  Translation let them die, the smart ones will get healthcare.  Don't believe me?  They also say "To achieve a free market in healthcare..."  Free markets have winners and losers.  In healthcare, the losers are kept in a morgue.  They want Health Savings Accounts and similar financial services.   These in effect make health care tax free, but do not give you protection from the big-ticket stuff.  In other words, they are band aids for the booboos, but don't do anything at all for the nasty deadly stuff.

They are all for research, as long as it is not stem cell research.   They  are desperately in favor of protecting the political views of the health care providers, but not the lives of the patients.   Patients should come first.

They are all for parental rights, but not child rights.  They also like Embryo rights.  So if you are 17 and 2 months, they want the right to prevent you from getting an abortion.

They want to destroy the public school system by switching to a voucher program giving government money to religious schools. Schools that because they are religious, can object to teaching important scientific facts  (evolution, climate change, etc.) that are necessary for college.

In crime, they make unfounded statements such as "Liberals do not understand this simple axiom: criminals behind bars cannot harm the general public."  We do recognize that.  But we also recognize that most criminals do NOT repeat offend and that prison costs are skyrocketing out of control.  We simply can not afford to incarcerate so many people, particularly for minor offenses.  They talk about gang members, drug dealers, rapists, armed robbers and murders, not the drug users, petty thieves, joy riders, and public disorder (second biggest type of offense in federal prison).  They also want to prevent federal agencies from defining things as criminals.  As in, no more arrests for dumping uranium into your water supply, because that's an EPA thing, not a 'criminal thing'.


6.  American Exceptionalism.

This entire category is just plain strange.  Most of the earlier stuff talks about reducing the roll of American government, this is all about increasing it.    Strong military in particular.

They think to lead means to be arrogant and are mad that Obama has been polite as opposed to pissing off all of our allies, the way George Bush did.  They are all for reducing our budget - except when Obama reduced our military budget by less than $50 billion a year.  Now they are claim they are trying to avoid $500 billion from the sequestration process the GOP insisted on during the budget talks, as opposed to a fair balance of tax increases and budget reductions.  They refuse to take any responsibility for it, despite it clearly being the only compromise they were willing to do. 

They blame President Obama for leaks leaks in security,not even acknowledging that a high Bush official (Libby) gave out the name of top secret CIA agent for political purposes.  At the same time, they continue to lie about the President, claiming he is weak, despite the leaks they say were done to prove him strong.  You can't have it both ways.

They talk about the reductions Obama has advocated, ignoring the fact that the US has more than 40% of the entire world's military budget and spends more than four times as much as China does - and they are number 2, Russia is #3 and spends about 1/10th as much as we do. (source) It is the obvious place to cut, yet for all their demands to reduce spending, they refuse to cut it.

The military section is very long with lots of vague complaints - no evidence, just slander.  Among other things they repeat wild stories of attempts to ban bibles from the military, ignoring official complaints of soldiers forced to pray.  They talk about honoring veterans, while at the same time cutting entitlements to veterans.

When they mention Human Rights all they talk about is religious freedom.  They object to efforts to legalize abortion in foreign countries. When it comes to homosexual rights in Africa, they object that we spend money on it - despite the fact that in some countries they kill you for being gay.

------------

Net net, they have four main themes:

1. Lower taxes - even if we can't afford to do this and it makes the deficit go up.
2. Balance the Budget by cutting spending on things Democrat wants (but not GOP programs), and call the Democrat ideas 'over-regulation', while the GOP programs get labelled 'necessary and effective' (even when they are proven in-effective - see creationism)
3. They hate homosexuals.
4. Abortion is evil and should be treated like murder.

If you agree with these four themes, I suggest you vote Republican.

But most Americans do not believe them.  We recognize that you have to pay more taxes to keep the deficit under control, that most programs are demanded by the people, not wasteful, the homosexuals are good people and abortion is not murder.  If you agree with me, then:

Vote for Democrats.