10 Reasons for Reforming USA's Elections

Sun. August 19, 2012:          [Part ONE]


1.  GOP says Obama has no plan to pay for funding any of his programs.  "Does he hope to win the lottery?"  The Obama election campaign DOES need to clarify how it plans to pay for things, while also reducing deficits!
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/obama-bankruptcy_650106.html?page=2

2.  Representative Dennis Cardoza, a 5-term Blue Dog [i.e. conservative] Democrat from California,
had already announced that he would not run for re-election and would retire when his term ended.

But on Tuesday, he issued a statement that surprised many by saying he would step down immediately.
The resignation is unlikely to have much impact in the House, where little legislative action is expected during the rest of this session.  The chamber now has 5 vacant seats. 
Mr. Cardoza told The Sacramento Bee that the time was right, "in light of the fact that nothing is going to happen for the rest of the year" in Congress.

3.  The 2012 Election Cycle:  "Attack, Feign Outrage, Repeat"
WE CAN'T KEEP DOING ELECTIONS THIS WAY!
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/09/the-2012-cycle-attack-feign-outrage-repeat/

4.  "Overt Discrimination in Ohio:  Republican election officials curtain early voting in Democratic counties, but not in theirs."

5.  A Republican judge in Pennsylvania rules in favor of new GOP-led state law [which a leader openly boasted would "help Romney win the state"] which will require voter ID to vote.  Supposedly this is to prevent a voter from pretending to be someone else, yet evidence shows that this practice is almost totally nonexistent.  Folks most likely not to have a driver's licence or other acceptable ID?
Black & elderly voters, normally overwhelmingly Democratic.

6.  In a private message to GOP candidates, House Republican leaders instructed them how to respond to inquiries about Medicare:  choose their words carefully, emphasize "strengthen" and "protect" over phrases like "every option is on the table."

7.  If Romney & Ryan win, their big donors "will not be settling for sleepovers in the Lincoln Bedroom," says Bill Keller.  "Sheldon Adelson (casinos & Israel), Charlie & David Koch (petroleum and libertarian politics), and Bob Perry (home builder and bankroller of the Swift Boat slander) . . .
Don't expect to see a secretary of commerce or energy or a director of the EPA (if any of those positions still exist) or any other key regulator who does not pass muster with Romney's big investors, or does not take their phone calls."

8.  R. Glenn Hubbard, below, wearing glasses, in 2008 on GWB's Council of Economic Advisors:

Back in 2008, Columbia University's Glenn Hubbard, a top Romney economic advisor, endorsed the large Bush tax cuts, but the promised bonanza of jobs failed to materialize.  Hubbard also rationalized deregulation, which is now widely blamed for contributing to the housing and banking mess.  "Now," says Bill Keller, Hubbard "lends an expert gloss to the claim that Romney's sketchy economic plan will create 12 million jobs -- a claim I doubt would pass muster in a first-year Econ class at Columbia."


9.  Last week new GOP veep candidate left Iowa's drought-stricken farmers to meet with casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson in Las Vegas.  Ryan, winner of Americans for Prosperity's
"Defender of the American Dream" award for a Wisconsin chapter, has gotten tight with the
Koch brothers.

10.  Private sector hospital business, touted by Romney & Ryan:

HCA hospital chain is now making huge profits, by forcing its
Emergency Room doctors to send away patients if they don't look seriously ill, AND, by forcing its other doctors to order only tests for which HCA will get highest Medicare reimbursements!