You know that popular TV show “Flash Forward”

Well here it is:  the Presidental Flash Forward

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Now I personally was not very politically minded in the past, but once I started researching things my logical side kept tugging at me saying “this just is not right”.  What I am talking about is the election of the President and Vice President and how I feel that my individual vote does not always count.

According to the United States Constitution, a presidential election is to be held once every fourth year and the election process starts long before Election Day. Candidates first begin to raise money and campaign at least one year in advance of the election. In order to officially represent a political party, a candidate must be nominated by that party. The primary nomination process is a contest that officially begins with the first state primaries and caucuses, which usually occur in the month of February of the election year.  It is at these local events that voters are given their first chance to participate in electing the nation’s next President. At least that is what you are made to believe. There are many factors that influence who will ultimately become the candidate for a party, such as media reports, public opinion polls, candidate preference surveys, and advertising all of these things help determine the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the candidates in the months leading up to the caucuses and primaries.

The candidates campaign right up until Election Day, when the nation finally votes for its President.  Does the nation really have the final vote?  In this national presidential election, every citizen of legal age has an opportunity to vote.   However, the President is not chosen by direct popular vote. The Constitution requires that a process known as the Electoral College ultimately decides who will win the general election.  The Electoral College is a method of indirect election of the President of the United States.

The authors of the Constitution say they put this system in place so that careful and calm deliberation would lead to the selection of the best-qualified candidate. All voters in each state actually cast a vote for a block of electors who are pledged to vote for a particular candidate.   And this pledged voting where things can change.   These electors assemble, cast their ballots, and officially select the next President of the United States.  Legally, the electors may vote for someone other than the candidate for whom they were pledged to vote. This phenomenon is known as the “unfaithful” or “faithless” elector.

Once the votes are cast the candidate who has a majority in a state is awarded ALL of that state’s votes.  With 538 Electors, a candidate must receive at least 270 votes to be elected to the office.  Should no presidential candidate receive an absolute majority, the House of Representatives determines who the next president will be and similarly the Senate decides who the next Vice President.

Elections have been decided by Congress in the past. The House of Representatives elected Thomas Jefferson president in the election of 1800 when the Electoral College vote resulted in a tie. When the Electoral College vote was so split that none of the candidates received an absolute majority in the election of 1824 the House elected John Quincy Adams President. Richard Johnson was elected Vice President by the Senate when he failed to receive an absolute majority of electoral votes in the election of 1836.

So after all that process is done with all its indirect election methods, all the possibilities of unfaithful  electors, elections at times being decided by Congress and the House and even all the media hype, can you really say that you had the final vote in any election?  Could this also explain why our elected officials don’t seem to listen to us?  Could it be the party and it’s ideology is more important than the people?    I don’t know my fellow readers and friends, tell me what you think.

Still wondering what check washing has to do with politics? Well a fraud is a fraud and both of these cost you lots of money.

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Mr. President, you were amused and said we should be thanking you for cutting our taxes. Let me be amongst the first to thank you for allowing me to keep $13 dollars a month of my own money. It is going a long ways to making my life a lot easier. It has allowed me to purchase many of the things I have always wanted but could never afford. Why I can even purchase an extra 4.9 gallons of gas each and every month if the price doesn’t surpass $2.65 a gallon.
I am glad you are amused by the fact that you think we common people  don’t realize what a monetary boon this was for us. I know that when you make upwards of $5 million dollars a year you can appreciate how much a $13 dollars month means to most of us. You certainly relate well to how hard it is to get from month to month on such a small amount of income.

Actually I would also like to thank you and the Congressional leadership for quadrupling the national debt and increasing our deficit with all the helpful programs you are implementing to guide us through our lives. I don’t know how I got to be this old without all the guidance from my government. I am so glad that you and Congress passed the stimulus bill and have spent the money in such productive ways, it thrills me to see the weekly unemployment number at over 450k each and every week. That 10% unemployment number is just a testament to how well that program worked.

The size of our government and the control it exercises  just sends chills down my spine as I envision all the problems it is going to solve in the future. I admire all the forward thinking you and our leaders have put into taking control of our nations businesses and how well you are doing controlling the unions. Thank you for all of that. I cannot wait for the Cap and Trade, Finance Reform and all the other bills in the house to make it into law. This is going to increase our debt to levels that insure the success of our country,

Thank you so much.

RodZ

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I watched the entire health care bill summit yesterday. It was entertaining political theater at best. Joe Biden actually made the most intelligent statement of the day when he was giving his opening remarks. Our VP said he had no idea what the American people were thinking. This is a very telling statement that I think could be said of almost every politician in that room. I think the Democrats have no clue what the American people want and in the case of the health care bill I don’t think they care. The Republicans claimed to know and reduced what they think to, “scrap the bill and start over.”

I don’t know what the rest of America wants but I agree that they need to scrap that 2700 page monstrosity and look at true reform and cost reduction. I listened to both sides and could find valid arguments coming from both sides. It is evident that reform and cost reduction is really needed in this industry. One would think, with the resources available to the Congress, they could identify the cost drivers, government law and regulations that are driving the cost increases up and fix the problem. First they would have to set aside their ideological differences and work together. I think this is no longer possible in Washington.

The talking heads were interesting to watch as they analyzed they event. I watched Fox News and MSNBC. Chris Matthews was beside his self on how well the President and the Democrats controlled the meeting and seemed convinced that the bill will be passed. Fox folks seemed sure it was a set up to get public opinion on their side so they can take the reconciliation route and not get hammered in the 2010 mid-terms.

I don’t know what to think except that with a bill this size one has to know that a one day meeting after a year of contentious debate was not going to provide consensus. There is a big ideological difference between the two parties on this subject. I do know that we, the American people, will not have reform that will do what we need and it looks to me that we will have a bill that increases our costs, taxes and is mandatory. America is in trouble when the government tells us we have to buy something at prices they determine.

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Ok folks lets get real. We hear how the stimulus has saved 2 million jobs and yet once again the latest jobs report says we just lost another 500 thousand jobs. What a bunch of crap. If you look at the big stimulus bill you will find a bunch on non job producing spending period. High speed internet for rural areas does not create permanent jobs. Studies and research for green technology does not create jobs. I have detailed many such items in previous posts. Government spending does not create jobs. Government spending on these levels only creates deficits and debt.
I have had conversations with some of you about the benefits of these policies. Many of you tell me that by putting money in the hands of people through extending unemployment benefits puts money into the economy. It does and it helps the unemployed for a short time. In addition one reader provided a link to an analysis by Mark Zandi Chief Economist at Moody’s Economy.com, published in Jan of 2009. I have read this report and now a year later I still think he got it wrong. Here was one prediction that I think will not occur “The House stimulus plan will not reverse the current recession, but it will provide a vital boost to the flagging economy. With the stimulus, there will be 4 million more jobs and the jobless rate will be more than 2 percentage points lower by the end of 2010 than without any fiscal stimulus. Without stimulus, unemployment will rise well into the double digits by this time next year, and the economy will not return to full employment until 2014.”
The unemployment rate is growing and certainly not be a full 2 percentage points lower by the end of the year. Full employment is not achievable by 2014 considering we need thousands of jobs a year just to employ new people entering the job market for the first time. He is right in his assessment that the plan will not reverse the current recession in fact I believe it will extend it long term. The more money the government borrows means less money available for private investment and growth. Private investment creates new business, expansion of existing business and JOBS.
We are faced with increasing taxes. The President has stated he gave 95% percent of us a tax cut. I won’t argue this but I will say that cut will be offset by the expiring of the Bush tax cuts next year. If you look at all the legislation you will find some tax relief to business but you will also find enormous tax increases in these bills. The state and federal governments are increasing consumption taxes. They are in the health care bill they are in the form of fees and taxes at the local and state levels. everything you buy or use seems to have a tax buried in it.
I know that if we continue to spend at this rate without regard to the long term consequences we will have an economic crisis worse that what we are experiencing currently. This government needs to look at the entire federal budget and reduce the cost of these programs. I don’t mind paying taxes, I don’t like paying taxes for social agenda items that we cannot sustain because the money is always spent on other things. Pay Go is a good idea but I don’t believe it will work without spending cuts, extreme spending cuts.

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I watched the MSNBC screaming heads go crazy over the Tea Party folks and Sarah Palin. It is just funny to watch them spin the political impact of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party people. As you know they paint Sarah as dumb and the Tea party as an extreme right, out of control, bunch of stupid people. They are not any of those things.
Do I want Sarah Palin as President? Absolutely not, but not because I think she is dumb. I believe that like Obama, she does not have the knowledge, skills or experience to be the President of this country. We have seen the results of leadership based on an extreme ideological agenda coupled with inexperience. I don’t want a repeat of that even if it is coming from the right.
The majority of Tea Party people are every day folks like most of America, they want our government to work for us. It seems to me that responsible leadership can sit down together and compromise on important issues without bankrupting our country or forcing us to live with one sided legislation that benefits no one except the politicians and the special interest groups. I believe that the majority of Tea Party people want the same thing.
Is Sarah going to run for President? Who knows, I do know that she is driving the left crazy because they see her as less than intellectual and not in the same class as they are. The intellectual snobbery that the screaming heads put forward towards her is the same as they put forward towards Bush. Sarah is just like most Americans, plain spoken, hard working and knows that if presented an opportunity to enhance their life one should take advantage of it. So she wrote a book, so she gets paid for speaking, so what? If you look at all the “retired” politicians you’ll find them doing the same thing. More power to her for making a buck.
The Screaming heads are upset about her Face Book page, calling it juvenile, I guess they don’t realize she is reaching over a million people and the number is growing. Maybe they do realize that and that is what is upsetting them.
Say what you want about the Tea Party and Sarah, they speak to the people, not down to them and they are raising awareness of the lefts political agenda. The good news to me is that because of these actions the people of America are becoming more involved in the political process and their government.

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I have been watching the health care wars for sometime now and believe that we have an administration that is sending a mixed message to the American people. If you listen to the President and all the others telling you that we must do something to cut costs because we cannot sustain doing nothing, you begin to see that this statement really applies to the governments spending on health care. I believe that Medicare and the governments handling of this program has caused our entire medical industry to become more of a government run program and less or a free market enterprise.
The politicians have a way of spending tax receipts on everything but the programs the money was intended for. If the money withheld from our paychecks was really in a trust and not sold as treasuries and then reallocated back to the general fund the crisis we now face would at least have been far less expensive than it is currently.
If you really ask questions of your medical provider and get a truthful answer you would also find that Medicare cost fixing sets the baseline for what the insurance companies negotiate with the providers. In addition the monopoly enjoyed by the insurance companies, created by our government, further negates competition and does not provide the consumer with the benefits of a free market place.
My question is simply, why not fix Medicare and follow up on the promise to end the wast, fraud and abuse of that program? Why not end the monopolies and lower the overall cost of medical insurance through competition?
We are still not being listened to by this administration. The President is still pushing forward with health care reform and the Congress is now developing another stimulus bill in secret. This is simply not acceptable and we the people must continue to make our voices heard. We have already seen that votes do trump dollars, we must not stop telling our representatives what we want in loud clear terms.

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Well, the vacations over, I took some time off for my son’s wedding and now its time to look at the new direction the liberals in Congress and the President are taking after trying to figure out the message of the voters.
They still aren’t listening to us and as usual they are trying to move their agenda forward by lying to us.
They White House has proposed some interesting deficit reducing, take care of the middle class ideas, none of which will move the country out of debt, fix health care or help the middle class. As usual they throw us a bone in the form of increased child care credits and some tax relief for families. How about extending the so called Bush tax reductions, how about across the board tax reductions for everyone, small business, individuals and reducing the capital gains tax? No, they want to target tax relief and impose a “freeze” on government spending, only it is not a freeze. The $500B plus stimulus not yet spent, the $245B TARP money not yet spent and any money paid back to the government will be exempt and reallocated. In addition a new $175B stimulus is being proposed. I am not sure but that total seems to add up to what we owe China alone, why not pay them back?
They only folks who will see the freeze are the retirees, you know Social Security and government employees, their wages will be frozen for the next 3 years regardless of the coming inflation.
As usual the politicians are going to give up on fixing Medicare or the health care system because they did not get to have it all their way. It was interesting to see the shift from health care reform to insurance reform and then see the whole thing flame out. The problem still exists, soaring health care costs, broken Medicare system and no relief in sight because we no long are reasonable people, able to sit down and reach a compromise that benefits everyone.
What about the billions in Medicare fraud, waste and abuse? Why is that not a priority? Why are they not fixing that problem? All they did was tell us that fixing that would help pay for reform and reduce the deficit, is it no longer a problem because the bill is floundering?
The President has stated on an interview that he would rather be a great one term President that a mediocre two term President, when is he going to start? There is nothing great about him yet. He said that his job description is not to get re-elected but to do the peoples business. When is he going to start?
Even now the “blame Bush” game continues. Ok, Bush is gone and you have had a year, what have you done Mr. President? Saved or created how many jobs, stopped the economic disaster? Hell it was even Bushes fault the Democrats lost in Massachusetts. I guess the anger at Bush caused the Democrats to lose Kennedy’s seat.
The politicians get it but they will not let go of the ideological views that drive them, they continue to spin the peoples will to get re-elected and move their agenda forward.
I believe that as long as our politicians are so polarized and driven by these ideological views they will never be able to sit down and fix anything. They screaming talking heads on both sides are not helping solve any problems either. Come on Olbermann, Maddow, Schultz, Rush, Beck and all the rest, take a break and learn to speak to the real problems. I believe that no one listens when everyone is screaming, we need to talk to each other and solve our problems as American people not as divided ideological groups who hate each other.

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Being the President of the United States has to be the hardest job on the planet. When you take office you are briefed on world affairs and domestic affairs. It must be frightening considering every Presidents hair starts turning grey within months of taking office. The intelligence information the President receives is never known the the American public.

The President must deal with 425 congressmen/women and their agenda’s, he must deal with the American voter, he must deal with strong lobby influences and until he is in office he has no idea what this entails. It is always the President who gets the blame for whatever is going wrong at the time. The President never gets credit for anything until long after he is out of office. The President inherits many problems incurred from the previous administration and decades of programs, deals and world issues. Why anyone would want this job is beyond comprehension.

The President of the United States is the leader of this country and as such he will always get the blame or credit for whatever happens during his tenure. If we the american people were to look at who is really responsible for the many problems we now face we would probable vote out Congress and force the new members to throw out the large lobby groups and do the peoples business. There are just to many long standing deals.

The current President seems to have delegated healthcare reform and most other progressive agenda items to Pelosi, Reed and the extreme left. These folks are not concerned with the American people, I say this because they are not listening, they are forging ahead with every program they have ever envisioned while they now have the power to do so. The President should represent all of us and he should moderate these programs in a manner that brings us all together. He is the leader or is he? I don’t want to join the blame game but, isn’t he guilty of the same thing?

The real issue is the economy of this country, why in the hell are we burying ourselves in debt? Why are we focused on domestic social reform before we fix the banking industry?

I don’t know where you all stand but I know that this president and his current path are not good for this counties financial well being. The government cannot create jobs but it can create an environment where investment and jobs will not be created. It is the Presidents job to make sure a healthy economic environment exists and quit blaming Bush, it wasn’t just Bush. There is plenty of blame in the congress, Wall Street and even the American people to go around, now is the time to fix the problem not the blame.

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There was an e-mail that I was asked to forward but I decided instead of forwarding it I decided to print it here instead because I thought it was that good. It really makes you think about what is happening in today’s world and how our world is changing by what the politicians!

It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.

He did this because he said in words to this effect:

‘Get it all on record now – get the films – get the witnesses -because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened’

This week, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it ‘offends’ the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet.. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.

It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This post is in memory of the, 6 million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians, and 1,900 Catholic priests who were ‘murdered, raped, burned, starved, beat, experimented on and humiliated’ while the German people looked the other way!

Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be ‘a myth,’ it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.

How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center ..

‘NEVER HAPPENED’

because it offends some Muslim in the U.S. ???

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