The United States has, since its founding, been a land of hope for oppressed people throughout the world. And our immigration system has laws regulating how emigres are to be received. Unfortunately, current estimates of the number of foreigners illegally in our country range from 12 million to 18 million.
Continue reading "Illegal immigration is a critical issue in the USA" »
Third parties and independent candidates for federal office, as well as half of the eligible voters in this country, utterly fail to recognize the power they hold in the palms of their hands. The power of just a small number of them to radically alter American politics as well as substantially, and significantly, reform American government is right there in front of them. Yet, so far, they have refused to see it and seize it for their own. Some who do see it, recoil from it. Is power in politics such a frightening thing? Perhaps, but not for long.
We need your help to spread the word. We at VOID have been going out to political blogs and leaving comments on articles discussing problems which incumbents are responsible for and asking readers to visit here, and join our effort. Won't you help us spread the word? Following is a short memo that you can use as a template for your own blogging comments.
James Silver and Sue Ellis produced an outstanding program on the effects of Gerrymandering's erosion of the foundations of democracy. American RadioWorks has the program called Carving Up The Vote, with audio, but, you can read their excellent article, entitled, How Much Is Too Much, here.
Charley Reese, a journalist and former political campaign activist has a great article entitled, Incumbents Out, posted over at Bella Ciao. The man is singing our tune!
Happy Thanksgiving!
We have much to be thankful for; we are a great country, and it is because of our U.S. Constitution that we have freedom of speech!
In Illinois, about 40 percent of high school juniors failed to meet standards in reading this year, and 47 percent failed to meet standards in math. America is most likely, as a whole, close to those figures. The state of this country's education system is depressed.
Continue reading "Our education system has fallen behind other countries'" »
Since the Spring of 2003, we have been warring in Iraq; first it was against Hussein's regime, then it was against the country's insurgents. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars. We have lost thousands of lives. We still do not have a defined mission with goalposts.
Continue reading "Our war in Iraq has been lacking an exit strategy" »
The United States' negative trade balance with other countries reached over $60 billion in September, 2005 alone. The personal savings rate in the United States is negative. What is happening is the American consumer is purchasing a lot more than he/she is producing. This is not sustainable. As the US trade deficits accumulate over time, naturally the country will lose its credit standing with its foreign lenders; two of the largest purchasers of our Treasury securities are Japan and China. This comfortable convenience cannot be sustained.
Continue reading "The US trade imbalance is not sustainable!" »
AP Politics: SALT LAKE CITY - Five-term incumbent Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, will face a challenge from a distant member of his own family, Green Party candidate Julian Hatch, in the November 2006 election.
HARRISBURG, Pa. Nov 16, 2005 - ABC News/Associated Press reports: After bringing four months of abuse down on their heads, Pennsylvania lawmakers Wednesday repealed a pay raise they gave themselves in the middle of the night.
Update:
Here is a graph of our visitor and page read stats since going online Oct. 16. (click Continue Reading link below, for larger graph.)
Continue reading "VOIDnow.Org: 1 month old." »
So it appears that Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force did hold secret meetings with oil companies in 2001. Early into the Bush Administration's first term, Exxon met with task force staff members on Feb. 14, 2001. On March 21, the task force met with Conoco. On April 12, task force staff members met with Conoco and the U.S. Oil and Gas Association. On April 17, task force staff members met with Royal Dutch/Shell Group. On March 22, staff members met with British Petroleum.
Continue reading "Our political system is not accountable to the people!" »
This 4th week of VOID's existence has been an intensely busy one. Almost all of VOID's staff have been hitting the web reading and discussing topics of political interest on political blog sites, and of course, talking up the concept of Voting Out Incumbents for Democracy.
This VOID site is receiving a nice boost in visitor numbers and a huge boost in page read stats (the number of pages on the web site being read by each visitor.) This is a real shot in the arm for us here at VOID.
Many Congressional Republicans are trying to override their moderate Republican brethren, to pass tax cuts totalling $70 billion in the Budget Reconciliation bill. So far, they have worked out cost cuts in the same bill totalling $50 billion. If my second grade math is correct, our federal budget would net a loss of $20 billion! Surely, next year's incumbents realize that we have a national debt already of over $8 trillion! They are clearly sending the message to their constituents that our federal short-term and long-term fiscal condition in these United States is perfectly fine.
Continue reading "Congress is not serious with current budget bill" »
Our congressional Republicans, who have a majority of members in the U.S. House, have a low approval rating in most recent polls. In one poll, Democrats and Republicans in Congress approval is now at 31.8 percent, the direction of the country is at 61 percent negative and the Democrats' advantage on the generic Congressional vote number at 7.2 percent. If the public's esteem for President Bush and the Republican Congress remains as low as it is now, Democrats could win back control of the House -- barely.
Continue reading "Many incumbents abuse their power with gerrymandering" »
"Most Americans Want a New Member of Congress
An overlooked finding in the new WSJ/NBC poll:(PDF) For the first time since 1994, a majority of voters would like to see their individual member of Congress defeated for re-election.
Q. In the 2006 election for US Congress, do you feel that your representative deserves to be reelected, or do you think it is time to give a new person a chance?
Deserves to be reelected: 37%
Give new person a chance: 51%"
Higher oil prices and Americans' unquenchable thirst for imports of all kinds pushed the U.S. trade deficit to a record $66.1-billion in September.
The trade deficit included a record monthly gap with China (up 8.9 per cent to $20.1-billion), according to the U.S. Commerce Department; it was the largest imbalance the United States has ever recorded with a single country.
The trade deficit in the third quarter represented a record 5.7 per cent of U.S. gross domestic product.
Continue reading "U.S. trade deficits have been increasing far too long!" »
Reuters: Top News: "Michael Sessions, an 18-year-old student at Hillsdale High School, won by a mere two votes over 51-year-old incumbent Douglas Ingles, instead of the 64-vote victory initially reported. Hillsdale County officials declared the final tally of 670 to 668 on Thursday."
Often, people's decision on which party to support comes early in life. For others the decision does not come until well into adulthood. Sadly, I know people today who are still uncertain of their political affiliation; just "going with the flow" from election to election hoping for the best and longing for their candidate to be the one to accomplish as many of their "wish list" items as possible.
Continue reading "Conservative Dilemma With an Honorable Solution" »
In addition to state and federal candidate campaign contributions, state and federal advocacy group contributions, state and national party committee contributions, state and federal convention contributions, presidential inauguration contributions, leadership PAC contributions, lobbying, and legal defence fund contributions, national and international corporations, labor unions and wealthy individuals are more than happy to assist your public officials in travel expenses. For instance, Minnesota Senator Norman Coleman, who serves on the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, received a free jet trip to Pebble Beach, California, to speak at the Hormel Foods Annual Fall Board Retreat (Hormel Food Corp.) Senator Coleman's room cost for one night was $545 (at the corporate rate!) The thirty-five loyal Americans were gracious enough to the distinguished Senator by being host to the $8,598 Board banquet! Is this why the hard working people of Minnesota elected their own representative?
Continue reading "Supporting "good government"? I doubt it!" »
Nothing new in the concept of throwing irresponsible incumbents out of office. Failed before, why would VOID's attempt work today? Below are the mechanics of how and why VOID can reshape American politics.
First, there is already an anti-incumbent mood among eligible voters, and this accounts for why a huge number of the 55% of eligible voters who DO NOT VOTE, don't in non-presidential year elections. Voter participation has been dropping for decades with a few blip exceptions. At least half of the American public has lost faith in voting for Democrats and Republicans, incumbents or challengers, because things in government just don't get better. In fact, in many ways, our government just continues to worsen. 9/11 never should have happened. Our educational system never should have dropped from being the best in the world. Our poverty rate never should have increased since the 1970's, but, it has. And our national debt should never have reached 8 Trillion dollars threatening the taxed wages of our children's work lives.
This last week has been great at Vote Out Incumbents for Democracy! We voted on our new symbol logo as seen at the top of this VOID website. (Thank you Daniel Summars for the excellent design work). Stephanie Crist is organizing the reams of ideas and history of actions taken in our first few weeks of organization. A new staff member has joined us, Craig Aronow; welcome aboard Craig.
By 2002, the large tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush, combined with the effects of an economic slowdown and increased expenditures on national security following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and the U.S. invasion of Iraq, led to new deficits and an increase in the national debt.
Continue reading "National Debt: reason to vote out irresponsible incumbents." »
One of the reasons why America's third parties and independents have a difficult road toward representing we the people, is because the two major parties in power, the Democrats and Republicans, are of a corrupt system of money-changing. The constant flow of big money is most entrenched with incumbents.
Continue reading "Tom DeLay part of a corrupt two-party system" »
Elizabeth Wilner has this to say among other things:
Just as news of accounting scams and lavish perks toppled corporate titans, the slow drip of revelations about how special interests influence Congress could yet galvanize the electorate to blast some of the top wheeler-dealers out of their fortified luxury bunkers.
The Daily Kos has this to report about a possible anti-incumbent wave in 2006.
Stat of the Week
Hotline: "GOPers "have a vested interest in" Bush's "job approval ratings, as their jobs could be in jeopardy if his numbers don't climb back to near" 50% by 11/06. "From" '62 to '02, the pres.'s "party lost an average of 43 House seats in an off-year election whenever his approval rating dipped below" 50%."
Daily Kos has another great snippet at the same link above, on questions voters should be asking when considering what challenger to support if the incumbent must be booted, entitled: Newsie's Questions to Ask When Getting to Know Lesser Known Candidates.
Time is flying by here at VOID. Organizational efforts continue in the background, as we lay the ground work for moving into public view. David Weller, former press secretary for the Reform Party USA has joined our effort and will assist us in a similar capacity. Coordinators for various activities have been established.
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