Vote Anti Incumbent

Today’s headline “Geithner’s New York Fed Told AIG to Limit Swaps Disclosure” should be no surprise to anyone.  The breaking story is that Geithner’s New York Fed Told AIG to Limit Swaps Disclosure to the public. So during the bailout Geithner wants to keep information from the public, that is you and I.

Obama has been criticized for saying he was going to change things, then he puts the same people back in his administration.  Just like George Bush putting Hank Paulson in charge of the Fed and asking him to investigate the banking crisis which he helped to create as head of Goldman Sachs.

Geithner has lied about this recovery and I would no more trust him than I would a bank robber.  The bank robber would probably have more integrity.

This revelation about Geithner while no surprise, shows President Obama is it on this also. Mr. Obama is a smart man, he would have to know Geithner is part of the problem.  This only lends credibility to the conspiracy ideas that seems to be true. Sad but true.

Is there anyone in America that still has faith in the Government?

I saw the movie Avatar at an IMAX 3D theater and really enjoyed it.  The 3D effects were really something and I plan to go back to see other 3D movies, like the upcoming Alice in Wonderland, for one.

Avatar is a high tech sci fiction movie but feels more realistic than sci fi maybe because the planet they visit is beautiful, natural and relaxing until the military comes to push them off their land to take their resources.  Gee, where have we seen this before..  But Avatar is worth seeing for sure and to get turned on to the 3D effects is amazing.

This Youtube video sums it up pretty good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y3wjSZ1yLg

The National Popular Vote bill would guarantee the Presidency to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and the District of Columbia).

The bill has been enacted by states possessing 61 electoral votes — 23% of the 270 necessary to activate the law (Hawaii, Washington, Illinois, New Jersey, and Maryland).

The bill has passed 29 legislative chambers in 19 states (Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington).

The National Popular Vote bill has been endorsed by 1,777 state legislators.

The shortcomings of the current system stem from the winner-take-all rule (i.e., awarding all of a state’s electoral votes to the candidate who receives the most popular votes in each state).

Because of the winner-take-all rule, a candidate can win the Presidency without winning the most popular votes nationwide. This has occurred in 4 of the nation’s 56 presidential elections (and 1 in 7 of the non-landslide elections). A shift of fewer than 60,000 votes in Ohio in 2004 would have defeated President Bush despite his nationwide lead of 3,500,000 votes.

Another shortcoming of the winner-take-all rule is that presidential candidates have no reason to poll, visit, advertise, or organize in states where they are comfortably ahead or hopelessly behind. In 2008, candidates concentrated over two-thirds of their campaign visits and ad money in just six closely divided “battleground” states. A total of 98% went to just 15 states. In other words, voters in two thirds of the states were essentially spectators to the election.

The U.S. Constitution gives the states exclusive and plenary control over the manner of awarding their electoral votes. The winner-take-all rule is not in the Constitution. It was not the Founder’s choice (having been used by only 3 states in the nation’s first presidential election in 1789). The fact that Maine and Nebraska award electoral votes by district is a reminder that a amendment to the U.S. Constitution is not required to change the way the President is elected.

Under the National Popular Vote bill, all the electoral votes from the enacting states would be awarded, as a bloc, to the presidential candidate who receives the most popular votes in all 50 states (and DC). The bill would take effect only when enacted by states possessing a majority of the electoral votes — that is, enough electoral votes to elect a President (270 of 538).

The bill has been endorsed by the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Sacramento Bee, Common Cause, and Fair Vote.

State polls (mostly taken in 2009) show strong support for a national popular vote (AR–80%, CA–70%, CO–68%, CT–73%, DE–75%, ID–77%, IA–75%, KY–80%, ME–77%, MA–73%, MI–73%, MS–77%, MO–70%, NH–69%, NE–74%, NV–72%, NM–76%, NY–79%, NC–74%, OH–70%, OK–81%, PA–78%, RI–74%, SD–75%, UT–70%, VT–75%, VA–74%, WA–77%, and WI–71%). Support is strong in every partisan and demographic group surveyed.

The National Advisory Board of National Popular Vote includes former congressmen John Anderson (R–Illinois and later independent presidential candidate), John Buchanan (R–Alabama), Tom Campbell (R–California), and Tom Downey (D–New York), and former Senators Birch Bayh (D–Indiana), David Durenberger (R–Minnesota), and Jake Garn (R–Utah).

Additional information is available in the book Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote and at www.NationalPopularVote.com.

They say most people never read another book in their whole lifes after they are out of school.   Hard to believe but that may explain some of the ignorance you see all around.

I lived watching C-Span, especially the Book TV programs where either they interview an author, an author gives a lecture about their book, or there is a book fair with a panel with several authors discussing a related subject.  I have obtained and read several books after hearing about them on Book TV.  Their web site is booktv.org and it is a great resource.  It lists the books you see on book.tv, has news about books, their programming, book fairs and even a video library.  They cover Nonfiction, my favorite type of books.
I am placing a link on this blog for future reference.

In an article titled “Are Americans a Broken People? Why We’ve Stopped Fighting Back Against the Forces of Oppression” author Bruce Levine raises some good points that can be observed these days but not much commented on.

He asks: Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not “set them free” but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States?

And goes on to imply the answer by asking another question:Do some totalitarians actually want us to hear how we have been screwed because they know that humiliating passivity in the face of obvious oppression will demoralize us even further?

It sure seems so. I do hear this myself, people frustrated with the daily disasters in Washington and Wall Street that keeps going and it seems to them there is nothing they can do about it.  And I see the despair and even the passive, dis-couraged situation people are in.  My friend asked me not to tell him any bad news at our scheduled lunch. I stopped doing that, so I am included. People don’t want to watch TV for more bad news.
The author goes on to imply that the government and those in control are actually doing this on purpose over and over again, in full view, so the population just gives up any resistance at all and would rather be illusioned and entertained rather than face their dire reality.

Well I do agree that the effects he described are present.  Not sure I agree on the causes are that calculated, but they could be. What do you think?

Just when I thought the Conservatives took over the Republican Party forever, I see many of them now are identifying themselves as Independents and Anti Incumbents.  My how times changes when the parties change. Well welcome on board brother. I say vote them all out. But we both know that is not going to happen.  Human nature says to vote out the other party, but not your own.

Sure I realize the Conservatives are disappointed in the spending and the fiscal irresponsibility of their Republican party. But are they really going to leave? I wouldn’t think so unless they get a Conservative like Sarah Palin to run on a third party ticket, call it the Conservative Party maybe.

You know how citizens get upset and want to vote out members of congress but yet still vote for their own representative.  I think something like that may be going on, but at the end of the day it will be interesting to see what happens. Now it really would be something useful if the American people actually did start voting out the incumbents every time for a while at least.

I just downloaded from my Netflix account the move Ralph Nader: An Unreasonable Man.  This movie was good.  It covered how hard it is for a third party candidate to get recognized and how the two parties control the presidential debates. The idea that the two parties that run the government are “a corporate snake with two heads”.  Well I guess Obama has proved that.

Nader’s life has been amazing to say the least.  General Motors had him trailed and harassed when after college he started looking in to car safety when a college friend was hurt badly in a car crash.  Nader stood up to GM and won over $400,000 in a suit against them for their harassment, and ironically that money help start his organization and to support his causes.

In the 2000 election he was denied entry to the presidential debates because he was not a factor, then when Gore lost, they blamed it on Nader.   He replies that if he was not big enough to be included in the debates, then why was he blamed for losing the election for the Democrats.  Good point.
Anyway you may want to take a look at this movie if you have ever wondered why there are not more third parties.  It was released in 2006 but just as relevant today.

Bloomberg reports an expert saying “A crisis of unprecedented proportions is approaching” in the U.S. commercial real-estate market.

I believe that is possible.  Commercial property for lease seems to be very high with ghost malls and entire stip mall vacant in my area of Atlanta.  Looking at the listing on the above site, shows Texas has many listings as well as most other states.  So vacancies are high, cash flow is impaired and they leaves not enough to pay commercial mortgage payments. Refinancing commercial mortgages are probably out of the question.  Unemployment is high and getting higher leaving consumers short of spendable cash, hurting retailers. It looks like a downward cycle to me.  The US Government is already propping up the commercial mortgage market, but they can only do that for some time.  We all know their was way too much building going on. Why did “they” have to let this get so over built to allow such a bust as is happening and hurting so many people.  Real estate has always gone through boom to bust cycles, so this too will pass.  But could be a long time, which is OK with me. I think their is quite enough commercial, retail and office space in my neck of the woods.

CNN’s Lou Dobbs stepped down from his controversial role as an advocacy anchor at the network at the end of his show Wednesday night after announcing plans to seek a more activist role.

He cited the growth of the middle class, the creation of jobs, health care, immigration policy, the environment, climate change and the U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as “the major issues of our time.”

Dobbs left the network in 1999 to found SPACE.com, a Web site devoted to space-related subjects. He returned to the network in 2001 as anchor and managing editor of CNN’s Moneyline News Hour, which became Lou Dobbs Tonight.

I wonder if Mr. Dobbs will be doing political blogging this time around. Mr Dobbs we have an opening at Anti-Incumbents for a blogger for Independents and I think you would be a fine fit.  Please contact me.

Today’s headlines:

GOP Nominee Endorses Democrat. New York Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava is endorsing the Democrat candidate since she was forced out by right wing republicans because she was not right wing enough for them.  Scozzafava was chosen to be the Republican Party nominee by state party officials for the special election scheduled for Tuesday, but her centrist views on a number of issues caused an immediate backlash from conservative activists and national organizations which rallied behind Hoffman’s candidacy.

Rush Limbaugh, leader of the Republican party, says President Obama is “over his head” and not up to the job.  Rush, do you mean like George Bush was?  Yes then, I know what you mean.  Not only is the President “over his head”, the whole US Government is over their head and the country is over their head.  I thought that was a given for a long time.  Apparently Mr. Rush is just realizing this situation.