2012 Turnout Dramatically Lower than 2008

/5 Comments/in , /by

photo credit: KAZVorpalDespite all the talk about voter intensity surrounding the presidential election, 13 million fewer people voted in 2012 than in 2008.

131 million voters cast their ballots in the 2008 election in which Barack Obama defeated John McCain by a 53% to 46% margin. Obama received 69.4 million votes, while McCain received 59.9 million.

In 2012, Obama defeated Romney by a 50% to 48% margin. Obama received 59.8 million votes, and Romney received 57.1 million votes — 2.7 million fewer than Obama in 2012, but also 2.8 million fewer than McCain in 2008.

Surprisingly, President Obama’s 2012 vote total — 59.8 million — was 100,000 less than the 59.9 million John McCain received in 2008.

Even though President Obama received 10 million fewer votes in 2012 than he did in 2008, the Democrats were able to win where it mattered. Once again, they mounted a better ground game to turn out the vote on election day than Republicans managed to, especially in a dozen key swing states. A look at the final 2012 electoral college map shows that very little changed between 2008 and 2012. Only two states “switched” from one candidate to another: traditionally Republican Indiana, which Obama won in 2008, went for Romney in 2012, and North Carolina, a surprise win for Obama in 2008, also went to Romney in 2012. All the other key swing states — Virginia, Ohio, New Hampshire, Florida, Colorado, Nevada — went to Obama by narrow margins in 2012.

Read more from this story HERE.

Stock Market Repudiates Obama: Suffers its Worst Day in a Year

/0 Comments/in , /by

photo credit: kastiko2012Investors cast their own vote on the presidential race Wednesday, and the result was a landslide rout that could have lasting repercussions beyond Tuesday’s results.

A day after President Barack Obama stormed past Republican challenger Mitt Romney, the stock market sent a clear message: There’s still a lot more to do than win a campaign.

Market experts said a confluence of factors are poised to make for a difficult environment that could last well into 2013, which traditionally would be a slow year outside of all the present headwinds.

Theories abounded on why the market tumbled. They ranged from worries over the “fiscal cliff” of tax increases and spending cuts, as well as troubles in Europe, a slowdown in the U.S. and questions over the efficiency and effects of Federal Reserve policy.

More broadly, the aggressive sell-off came as little surprise considering the array of challenges Obama faces in his second term and the record of infighting between the White House and Congress.

Read more from this story HERE.

Kremlin Cheers Obama Election

/1 Comment/in /by

photo credit: OneManDifferenceMOSCOW – Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent a congratulatory note to President Obama after his re-election Tuesday, his spokesman said. The Kremlin says it will make the text public after the Americans have received it.

Putin is also expected to call Obama personally “in the near future.”

“In general, the Kremlin took the news about Barack Obama’s victory in the elections very positively,” spokesman Dmitri Peskov said, according to the Interfax news agency.

“We have the hope that positive initiatives in bilateral relations and in Russian-U.S. interaction on the international arena in the interests of international security and stability will be developed and improved,” he added.

It is perhaps not surprising that the Kremlin is pleased with the outcome of the election, especially since President Obama told then-President Dmitri Medvedev earlier this year that he would have more flexibility after the election to negotiate NATO plans to place components of a missile-defense shield in Eastern Europe.

Read more from this story HERE.

America Voted to Expand the Nanny State, But Who is Paying the Nanny?

/0 Comments/in /by

Last night’s elections’ results didn’t change the balance of power much in Washington. It is still headed in the direction of runaway spending, expanding entitlements with more and larger government services. Of course, this costs tremendous amounts of money.

Bill O’Reilly summed up the election results yesterday:

“There are fifty percent of the voting public who want stuff. They want things. Who is going to give them things? President Obama. He knows it and ran on it. … Twenty years ago, President Obama would have been roundly defeated by an establishment candidate like Mitt Romney.”

As I wrote in my October 21 piece, the left has capitalized on being the party of the government dependent entitlement society. This population has been mobilized to vote and has tipped the balance of power. They are immune from the effects of a bad economy the private sector is mired in. Why should they care if taxes are raised?

The national debt of 16 trillion doesn’t affect them either, future generations will be saddled with this burden. We ran out of our own money long ago and are now spending our children’s/grandchildren’s money to afford today’s entitlements.

But what is important to this base, is getting stuff today… President Obama and his party have done the best job of promising that. But nothing is free, everything comes with some sort of price tag. That price is monetary and a loss of freedom from more intrusive big government protecting you from yourself by imposing its policies on you.

Britain’s Prime Minster Margaret Thatcher said: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

America had an opportunity yesterday to change that direction, but failed to grasp it when an alternative for fiscal responsibility was offered by the Romney candidacy.

Many Americans will now get what they voted for: A bigger and more intrusive nanny state…paid for by someone else, until they run out of money.
___________________________________________
Ed Farnan is the conservative columnist at IrishCentral, where he has been writing on the need for energy independence, strong self defense, secure borders, 2nd amendment, smaller government and many other issues. His articles appear in many publications throughout the USA and world. He has been a guest on Fox News and a regular guest on radio stations in the US and Europe.

Kenyan Mother Gives Birth to “Barack Obama and Mitt Romney”; Kenyans Celebrate

/0 Comments/in /by

A Kenyan mother who gave birth to twin boys on Wednesday named her new-born children after the president re-elect and his defeated Republican rival.

Millicent Owuor, 20, delivered her twins, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, at a district hospital in the town of Siaya in southwest Kenya, according to Kenya’s The Standard newspaper.

Owuor told reporters that she had named her twins after the winning and losing presidential candidates in order to remember the day of the election.

Owuor gave birth to her two boys a short distance from the village of Kogelo, where President Obama’s father was born and where his 90-year-old step-grandmother, Sarah Obama, still lives.

Residents of Kogelo sang songs, danced and cheered “Obama, Obama, Obama!” after their candidate of choice dominated key states including Ohio and New Hampshire leading him to win another four years with his family in the White House.

Read more from this story HERE.

Welcome to the Divided States of America

/0 Comments/in /by

The GOP increased their majority in the House of Representatives. The “progressive” Democrats held on to a slim Senate majority. Barack Obama still occupies the White House.

With fifty three House members demanding that Obama answer questions about the lethal, ham handed disaster in Benghazi and the equally bungled cover-up, do not expect a sudden flowering of bipartisan harmony.

Especially since the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin have expressed happiness at Obama’s reelection. America will now find out what “more flexibility” means.

In the wake of Obama’s re-election, stocks nosedived across the board Wednesday morning, plunging over three hundred points. Worries about the pending “fiscal cliff” and fears that America will follow Europe over the precipice chilled investments. The Dow traded under 13,000. For the first time since early September the S&P 500 fell below 1,400.

Fears that Obama will introduce a carbon tax as a way to cut the U.S. budget deficit also frosted Wall Street. With the continuation of Obama’s hostile energy policies, perceptions that such a tax will have a major impact on America’s deficit are largely based on European style speculative wishful thinking.

Obama will attempt to reinstate Clinton-era tax rates on Americans who run small businesses; those described by Obama as “not paying their fair share”. Without the development of America’s domestic energy, a move that would create millions of jobs that could not possibly be shipped overseas, there is no reason to anticipate an economic boom in the United States. Without such a boom, Clinton-era tax rates will simply dampen investment, destroy small businesses and further damage the American economy.

The government’s $16 trillion debt and the looming $600 billion tax increase scheduled, along with mandatory spending cuts, otherwise known as the “fiscal cliff” further complicate the economic outlook.

Americans can fully expect that Obama’s second-term will lead to increased federal spending. As he did in his first term, Obama will expand government. Because he remains in the White House and “progressives” retain control of the Senate, obamacare will be fully implemented, yet another wet blanket on the economy, as well as a death sentence for aging Americans.

Welcome to the divided States of America.

While “progressives” celebrate a continuation of the downhill fundamental transformation of America from a Constitutional Republic into a run of the mill low growth high unemployment European style cradle to grave nanny state, half of the American population remain fully opposed to such plans.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska Election Results

/0 Comments/in /by

The races in Alaska held a number of surprises including the gap between President Obama and his challenger, Mitt Romney. With almost 99% of precincts reporting, Obama received a little over 41% of the vote and Romney, over 54%.

This 13 point gap is nowhere near the significant divide reflected in other red states such as Oklahoma where Romney took 67% of the vote, or Wyoming where he received 69% (Romney’s top percentage came from Utah where he received 73% of the vote). Gary Johnson received just 2.5% of Alaska’s vote.

In the lone house race, Don Young dominated, receiving over 64% of the vote, meaning a significant percentage of Obama voters also cast a vote for Young.

Mr. Sen Tan, the one judge where a concerted non-retention effort was made by the Alaska Family Council, was able to retain his seat with a 53/46 vote, the closest of any Alaskan judge up for retention this year.

For the remaining Alaskan results, including individual state house and senate races, please click HERE.

Erick Erickson: Status Quo Ante (+video)

/6 Comments/in , /by

Like when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, we now know what happens when a candidate so weak anybody can beat him meets a candidate so weak he cannot beat anybody. Americans vote for the status quo. $6 billion later, Americans voted for the status quo. Karl Rove, call your donors.

Republicans will keep the House. Democrats will keep the Senate. Obama will keep the White House.

It is what it is. The next two years are going to be some of the most fun and exciting years within the modern American conservative movement.

We know in American politics that nothing is permanent. The question we are going to have to assess is whether Barack Obama’s coalition is a Democratic coalition or a Barack Obama coalition. My personal opinion is that Barack Obama built a winning coalition for Barack Obama and it may not translate to a long term Democratic coalition. Just ask Minority Leader Pelosi and that now endangered creature known as the Democratic Governor.

As the jockeying for 2016 begins soon (and it will begin very soon) we will find out. Read more from this story HERE.

Here’s a prescient video with Erick Erickson, Joe Miller, and Rich Galen from earlier this year. If you don’t have time for the full video, skip forward to 5:45.

Dollar Falls As News of Obama’s Win Sinks In

/0 Comments/in , /by

The dollar fell against the yen on speculation Barack Obama’s re-election as president will boost chances the U.S. will maintain monetary stimulus policies that tend to weaken the greenback.

The euro erased gains as European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said the Europe’s crisis is affecting Germany. The U.S. currency was mixed versus its major peers as Obama defeated Republican challenger Mitt Romney, who disagreed with current Federal Reserve policy. Obama now faces the so-called fiscal cliff, $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts set to be implemented in 2013.

“The size of the victory was perhaps at the upper end of what people were expecting, so that may mean that his negotiations with the Republicans to stop us going over the fiscal cliff might be a bit easier,” said Paul Robson, a senior foreign-exchange strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London. “The idea of unchanged Fed policy is slightly supportive for equities, slightly weaker dollar, and I think that’s how people are playing it today.”

The U.S. currency depreciated 0.3 percent to 80.08 yen at 7:44 a.m. in New York after declining to 79.81 yen, the weakest level since Nov. 1. The dollar rose 0.4 percent to $1.2764 per euro after falling 0.1 percent yesterday. The euro slipped 0.8 percent to 102.20 yen…

“Monetary policy will remain loose under Obama so the dollar will be sold,” said Michiyoshi Kato, senior vice president of foreign-currency sales at Mizuho Corporate Bank Ltd. in Tokyo. “Dollar selling may not last that long as the U.S. faces the fiscal cliff.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Report: China Eyeing Strategic Atlantic Island Base to Threaten American Mainland

/1 Comment/in , /by

On June 27, a plane carrying Wen Jiabao made a “technical” stop on the island of Terceira, in the Azores. Following an official greeting by Alamo Meneses, the regional secretary of environment of the sea, the Chinese premier spent four hours touring the remote Portuguese outpost in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

Wen’s Terceira walkabout, which followed a four-nation visit to South America, largely escaped notice at the time, but alarm bells should have immediately gone off in Washington and in European capitals. For one thing, Wen’s last official stop on the trip was Santiago, the capital of Chile. Flights from Chile to China normally cross the Pacific, not the Atlantic, so there was no reason for his plane to be near the Azores. Moreover, those who visit the Azores generally favor other islands in the out-of-the-way chain.

Terceira, however, has one big attraction for Beijing: Air Base No. 4. Better known as Lajes Field, the facility where Premier Wen’s 747 landed in June is jointly operated by the U.S. Air Force and its Portuguese counterpart. If China controlled the base, the Atlantic would no longer be secure. From the 10,865-foot runway on the northeast edge of the island, Chinese planes could patrol the northern and central portions of the Atlantic and thereby cut air and sea traffic between the U.S. and Europe. Beijing would also be able to deny access to the nearby Mediterranean Sea.

And China could target the American homeland. Lajes is less than 2,300 miles from New York, shorter than the distance between Pearl Harbor and Los Angeles.

Lajes is certainly the reason Wen went out of his way to win friends in Terceira. For years his country has been trying to make inroads into the Azores and waiting for opportunities to pounce. There is nothing the Chinese can do if the U.S. stays, but Pentagon budget cutters, according to some observers, are planning to make Lajes a “ghost base.”

Read more from this story HERE.