The Most Important Take-away From This Election

[Wouldhe]

Originally Posted by Sapphire

Every vote was not counted. Romney was ahead for the first part, then they were neck and neck. The commentators were saying it's too close to call and we probably wont know anything until tomorrow. And some said there will be a recount for Florida.

I believe MORE than half the Nation got it right in voting for Romney.

And here's an article on media bias. Lets not forget that the media helped him win. If this was a fair fight, Romney would be our elected President now.

Five ways the mainstream media tipped the scales in favor of Obama

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/...#ixzz2BYwecGR1


Fox News and other media outlets have projected that President Obama has been reelected to a second term. If, in celebrating his victory Obama wanted to give credit where credit is due, he might want to think about calling some of America's top journalists, since their favorable approach almost certainly made the difference between victory and defeat.
Reviewing the 2012 presidential campaign, here are five ways the media elite tipped the public relations scales in favor of the liberal Obama and against the conservative challenger Mitt Romney:
1. The Media’s Biased Gaffe Patrol Hammered Romney: The media unfairly jumped on inconsequential mistakes — or even invented controversies — from Romney and hyped them in to multi-day media “earthquakes.” Case in point: the GOP candidate’s trip to Europe and Israel in late July. A Media Research Center analysis of all 21 ABC, CBS and NBC evening news stories about Romney’s trip found that virtually all of them (18, or 86%) emphasized “diplomatic blunders,” “gaffes” or “missteps.”
Conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer blasted the news coverage in an August 2 column, calling the trip “a major substantive success” that was wrapped “in a media narrative of surpassing triviality.”
Similarly, when the left-wing Mother Jones magazine in September put out a secretly-recorded video of Romney talking to donors about the 47% of Americans who don’t pay income taxes, the networks hyped it like a sensational sex scandal. Over three days, the broadcast network morning and evening shows churned out 42 stories on the tape, nearly 90 minutes of coverage. The tone was hyperbolic; ABC’s "Good Morning America" called it a “bombshell rocking the Mitt Romney campaign,” while ABC "World News" anchor Diane Sawyer declared it a “political earthquake.”
None of Obama’s gaffes garnered that level of coverage. After the president in a June 8 press conference declared that “the private sector is doing fine,” the ABC, CBS and NBC evening newscasts gave it just one night’s coverage, then basically dropped the story — nothing further on ABC’s "World News" or the "CBS Evening News" in the weeks that followed, and just two passing references on the "NBC Nightly News."
And, when Obama infamously declared, “You didn’t build that,” ABC, CBS, NBC didn’t report the politically damaging remark for four days — and then only after Romney made it the centerpiece of a campaign speech.
2. Pounding Romney With Partisan Fact Checking: There’s nothing wrong with holding politicians accountable for the honesty of their TV ads and stump speeches, but this year the self-appointed media fact-checkers attacked Republicans as liars for statements that were accurate.
For example, a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter writing for PolitiFact branded VP candidate Paul Ryan’s convention speech anecdote about the closing of the General Motors plant in his hometown as “false,” even though Ryan was correct in all of his details. The slanted review became TV reporters’ talking points; the next day on NBC, correspondent Chuck Todd grumped that while what Ryan said “was technically factual, by what he left out, [he] actually distorted the actual truth.” Matt Lauer greeted Ryan the following week in an interview on Today: “There are some people who are claiming that you played a little fast and loose with the truth....”
The same thing happened when Mitt Romney talked about Obama’s “apology tour” during the final presidential debate. While in 2009 Obama had, in fact, criticized the United States as “arrogant,” “derisive” and having “too often... set [our] principles aside,” the networks said to call it an “apology tour” was “false” because, as CNN’s John Berman tenuously insisted, “even if he was critical of past U.S. foreign policy, he issued no apologies.”
Writing in the New York Times August 31, correspondent Jackie Calmes scolded that “the number of falsehoods and misleading statements from the Romney campaign coming in for independent criticism has reached a level not typically seen.” That’s not true, either; Romney’s team was, at worst, guilty of highlighting those facts that best illustrated their points (something done by all politicians), and the Obama campaign certainly put out their share of tawdry TV ads and dubious campaign claims.
But with “truth cops” who mainly policed just the GOP side of the street, the media used “fact-checking” as another club to tilt the playing field in favor of the Democrats.
3. Those Biased Debate Moderators: Upset liberals scorned PBS’s Jim Lehrer for taking a hands-off approach in the first debate on October 3, with MSNBC analyst Howard Fineman slamming him as “practically useless” for not jumping into the debate on behalf of President Obama.
Such criticism may have encouraged the activist approach taken by ABC’s Martha Raddatz in the vice presidential debate October 11, and by CNN’s Candy Crowley in the October 16 town hall debate, as both of those journalists repeatedly interrupted the Republican candidate and larded the discussion with a predominantly liberal agenda.
Crowley earns extra demerits for taking the media’s penchant for faulty fact-checking to new heights when she jumped into the October 16 town hall-style debate to validate President Obama’s claim that he called the attack in Benghazi, Libya, “an act of terror” the very next morning. Crowley endorsed Obama’s story, telling Romney: “He did, in fact, sir, call it an act of terror.”
Not according to the transcript, which had Obama only speaking generically about how “no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this nation,” not assigning that label to the violence in Benghazi.
Wrong though she was, Crowley became a heroine to many in the liberal media; ABC's Matt Dowd, for example, cheered: “What Candy Crowley did, I actually thought, was laudable....I hope we get to do more of that in this discourse.”
Moderators are supposed to ensure both sides get a fair hearing, not pick sides. By leaping into the fray, Candy Crowley epitomized the media’s itch to tilt the scales this year — again, in Obama’s favor.
4. The Benghazi Blackout: Right after the September 11 attack in Libya, the networks proclaimed that the events would bolster President Obama — “reminding voters of his power as commander-in-chief,” as NBC’s Peter Alexander stated on the September 14 edition of "Today." But as a cascade of leaked information erased the portrait of Obama as a heroic commander, the broadcast networks shunted the Benghazi story to the sidelines.
News broke online in late September, for example, that Team Obama knew within 24 hours that the attack was likely the result of terrorism. That starkly contradicted claims from White House press secretary Jay Carney, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, and President Obama himself that the attack was a “spontaneous” reaction to an anti-Muslim video posted on YouTube. Yet, ABC took nearly two days to bring this story to viewers, while CBS and NBC held off for three days.
This was, shamefully, the broadcast networks’ pattern in October: New developments exposing the administration’s failure to provide adequate security, or contradictions in their public statements, were either given stingy coverage or buried completely. The puzzle pieces revealed a disturbing failure of Obama’s national security apparatus, but the networks flitted in and out of the story, never giving it any traction.
Instead of an “October Surprise,” the networks engineered an “October Suppression” — keeping a lid on the boiling Benghazi story until Election Day. Who knows how voters might have reacted if the media had covered this story as tenaciously as they did Romney’s “47% gaffe”?
5. Burying the Bad Economy: Pundits agreed that Obama’s weakness was the failure of the US economy to revive after his expensive stimulus and four years of $1 trillion deficits. But the major networks failed to offer the sustained, aggressive coverage of the economy that incumbent Republican President George H.W. Bush faced in 1992, or even that George W. Bush faced in 2004 — both years when the national economy was in better shape than it is now.
According to a study conducted that year by the Center for Media and Public Affairs, from January through September of 1992, the networks ran a whopping 1,289 stories on the economy, 88% of which painted it in a dismal, negative light. That fall, the unemployment rate was 7.6%, lower than today’s 7.9%, and economic growth in the third quarter was 2.7%, better than today’s 2.0%. Yet the media coverage hammered the idea of a terrible economy, and Bush lost re-election.
In 2004, the economy under George W. Bush was far better than it is today — higher growth, lower unemployment, smaller deficits and cheaper gasoline — yet network coverage that year was twice as hostile to Bush than it was towards Obama this year, according to a study by the Media Research Center’s Business and Media Institute.
When Republican presidents have faced reelection, network reporters made sure to spotlight economic “victims” — the homeless man, the woman without health insurance, the unemployed worker, the senior citizen who had to choose between medicine and food. But this year, with an economy as bad as any since the Great Depression, those sympathetic anecdotes have vanished from the airwaves — a huge favor to Obama and the Democrats.
Given Obama’s record, the Romney campaign could have overcome much of this media favoritism and still prevailed — indeed, they almost did. But taken together, these five trends took the media’s historical bias to new levels this year, and saved Obama’s presidency in the process.
Rich Noyes, is research director for the Media Research Center.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/...#ixzz2BYwuVO5I

Sappy, why can't you admit to the things that are obviously true? More than half did not get it right voting for Romney. If they did he would be president.

[hrdguera]

A month ago someone asked when the correction in the stock market was going to take place. Today it started.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/49728143

A few choice quotes ....

Investors 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.
.....
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.
"Economic prospects might not have been much different if Mitt Romney had won, especially as Congress remains divided. But the subsequent weakness in equities makes sense too," Julian Jessop, chief global economist at Capital Economics, said in a note to clients. "As we had anticipated, the focus has quickly moved on to the uncertainty over the 'fiscal cliff,' and perhaps back to the unsolved crisis in the euro-zone as well."
Getting the election over, in fact, was just one of the key obstacles facing the market. But at least with the Obama-Romney race, there was a clear winner.
The European and fiscal issues, as well as the nuclear conflict with Iran and other challenges, pose less certain outcomes that will stretch over months of not years.
"The re-election of President Obama removes one uncertainty that has been weighing on the markets over the last few months. But they are none the wiser about if, how and when Congress will deal with the colossal tightening in fiscal policy scheduled to occur early next year," Jessop said.
"And with Congress still split, President Obama will struggle to garner bipartisan support for a more comprehensive agreement that addresses the longer term issue of how to put the nation’s finances back on a sustainable path," he added.
Reacting to the list of uncertainties, traders slammed on the brakes and pushed major indexes more than 2 percent lower.

The market plunge was on pace for the fifth-worst day-after-election drop since 1900. The worst, a 5 percent slide, came in 2008, after voters awarded Obama his first term in office, according to Bespoke Investment Group.

How far and how long the downward momentum will last is uncertain, but the early signs aren't good. Immediate post-election declines have historically preceded another 1.7 percent drop in the market by the end of the year.
Tannanbaum said the effects of the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing debt-buying program will fade this year after helping boost equity performance throughout Obama's first term.
"The market has been propped up by these sugar highs," he said. "QE half-trillion a year is not sustainable in the long run. The sugar high is going to end because Barack Obama is going to raise revenue and cut entitlements. The combination of the two cannot be good for the economy."
Indeed, economists have been busy cutting numbers for future growth in the wake of Hurricane Sandy as well as the drag effects from whatever solutions are devised to avoid the fiscal cliff.

I moved my portfolio out and into Class A MMs about a month ago, after it had regained all its earlier losses and grew due to some good planning (not entirely due to my doing). I will re-enter after some reasonable agreement is reached to avoid what this article and others are calling the fiscal cliff. If no agreement is worked out between the two political parties then I will simply move it to foreign metal's markets, find a country that want investments, or invest it in durable good inventory that I know I can move myself. I have hopes but we will see. The other real danger is of course the Israeli-Iran coming exchange. I don't have a clue as to what that will do to world markets but I suspect it will not be good and it will create terrible swings. We all will have to wait and see what the next few weeks brings and whether a lame duck president is serious about fixing the troubles that appear to have gotten little serious attention during the last four years.

[NOLA]

Originally Posted by hrdguera

A month ago someone asked when the correction in the stock market was going to take place. Today it started.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/49728143

A few choice quotes ....

Investors 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.
.....
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.
"Economic prospects might not have been much different if Mitt Romney had won, especially as Congress remains divided. But the subsequent weakness in equities makes sense too," Julian Jessop, chief global economist at Capital Economics, said in a note to clients. "As we had anticipated, the focus has quickly moved on to the uncertainty over the 'fiscal cliff,' and perhaps back to the unsolved crisis in the euro-zone as well."
Getting the election over, in fact, was just one of the key obstacles facing the market. But at least with the Obama-Romney race, there was a clear winner.
The European and fiscal issues, as well as the nuclear conflict with Iran and other challenges, pose less certain outcomes that will stretch over months of not years.
"The re-election of President Obama removes one uncertainty that has been weighing on the markets over the last few months. But they are none the wiser about if, how and when Congress will deal with the colossal tightening in fiscal policy scheduled to occur early next year," Jessop said.
"And with Congress still split, President Obama will struggle to garner bipartisan support for a more comprehensive agreement that addresses the longer term issue of how to put the nation’s finances back on a sustainable path," he added.
Reacting to the list of uncertainties, traders slammed on the brakes and pushed major indexes more than 2 percent lower.

The market plunge was on pace for the fifth-worst day-after-election drop since 1900. The worst, a 5 percent slide, came in 2008, after voters awarded Obama his first term in office, according to Bespoke Investment Group.

How far and how long the downward momentum will last is uncertain, but the early signs aren't good. Immediate post-election declines have historically preceded another 1.7 percent drop in the market by the end of the year.
Tannanbaum said the effects of the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing debt-buying program will fade this year after helping boost equity performance throughout Obama's first term.
"The market has been propped up by these sugar highs," he said. "QE half-trillion a year is not sustainable in the long run. The sugar high is going to end because Barack Obama is going to raise revenue and cut entitlements. The combination of the two cannot be good for the economy."
Indeed, economists have been busy cutting numbers for future growth in the wake of Hurricane Sandy as well as the drag effects from whatever solutions are devised to avoid the fiscal cliff.

I moved my portfolio out and into Class A MMs about a month ago, after it had regained all its earlier losses and grew due to some good planning (not entirely due to my doing). I will re-enter after some reasonable agreement is reached to avoid what this article and others are calling the fiscal cliff. If no agreement is worked out between the two political parties then I will simply move it to foreign metal's markets, find a country that want investments, or invest it in durable good inventory that I know I can move myself. I have hopes but we will see. The other real danger is of course the Israeli-Iran coming exchange. I don't have a clue as to what that will do to world markets but I suspect it will not be good and it will create terrible swings. We all will have to wait and see what the next few weeks brings and whether a lame duck president is serious about fixing the troubles that appear to have gotten little serious attention during the last four years.

Henny Penny the market took a slide because of Europe.

[dumbass]

Originally Posted by hrdguera

A month ago someone asked when the correction in the stock market was going to take place. Today it started......................................

I moved my portfolio out and into Class A MMs about a month ago, after it had regained all its earlier losses and grew due to some good planning (not entirely due to my doing). I will re-enter after some reasonable agreement is reached to avoid what this article and others are calling the fiscal cliff. If no agreement is worked out between the two political parties then I will simply move it to foreign metal's markets, find a country that want investments, or invest it in durable good inventory that I know I can move myself. I have hopes but we will see. The other real danger is of course the Israeli-Iran coming exchange. I don't have a clue as to what that will do to world markets but I suspect it will not be good and it will create terrible swings. We all will have to wait and see what the next few weeks brings and whether a lame duck president is serious about fixing the troubles that appear to have gotten little serious attention during the last four years.

I believe that what you are doing is wise but I doubt that you need my advise.

I went to mostly cash in Oct. 2007 about 3 days after the DOW broke 14,000. I'd like to tell you how smart I was but it was a timing thing. I had an opportunity to do a major commercial real estate deal that was bank owned. It required a pile of cash but upon receiving the final documents and doing a final walk through several major things changed.
I unsuccessfully tried to negotiate the differences so I killed the deal. I've not returned that cash to the market but chose other vehicles that I control, ones with hard assets that are real, that I can actually touch, kick or spit on if I choose. I have not regretted that move to this day.

I have seen no reason to trust the markets. I believe that the current market recovery is unsustainable and will be short lived. There is no logical reason for it's highs nor is there any logical reason for the radical day to day 200 point swings. IMO that's just indicative of a bunch of unscrupulous traders making another commission. I believe it will fall like a rock sometime soon. For the sake of the country and peoples 401Ks etc., I hope you and I are both wrong but you may well have been right when you said "it started today". Time will tell.

[hrdguera]

Originally Posted by NOLA

Henny Penny the market took a slide because of Europe.

Funny. There was very little comment from me it was mostly from the financial article. The market was going to slide no matter the winner on Tuesday. If you had bothered to comprehend the referenced article you would have gotten that. I just figured that since it dropped majorly in 2008 that it was going to do it again especially if Obama won. It did. If it will continue is anyone's guess. Wait and see. I sincerely hope it doesn't because much wealth will be lost again if it does.

http://www.google.com/finance?client=ob&q=INDEXDJXJI

Go ahead be snide and be rude; it really doesn't matter to me. But for some of us that have worked six days a week for 40+ years; it matters. Maintaining what we have when a broken government is contemplating breaking its promises matters. If it isn't the self-serving Wall Street sharks on one side it is the incompetent self-serving "I want to get re-elected" politicians catering to their at liberty, disengaged, idle, jobless, unapplied , unengaged constituents on the other. Or as someone said yesterday ... "the 47% that seems to have hoodwinked enough to swell their own numbers."

So the question is how does the gainfully employed and somewhat secure maintain in a difficult economic situation? The article I offered had guidance from the knowledge of others as to how to hold on to what they have.
It is especially important now that our government has declared those of us with ambition and a modicum of success the new bad guys. Believe me, the years pass quickly as you have probably noticed lately yourself. Most of us are not where we thought we would be at this time in our lives. And it isn't going to be much different for our children either. One political party recognized that angst and used it to further their own agenda and it will probably be to the detriment of many of us in the long run. For instance, those of us with a fat 401(K) will soon be a target for a government looking for low hanging fruit. It has happened elsewhere and it might happen here too.

What I see as a possibility is a potential financial meltdown similar to what happened to the USSR if the "fiscal cliff" isn't avoided very soon. If it does happen you can judge for yourself what type of American "Putin" will eventually rise from the ashes here.

Like a good game of chess .... it is those that can successfully see at least five moves ahead that will eventually win. Game on.

[hrdguera]

Originally Posted by dumbass

I believe that what you are doing is wise but I doubt that you need my advise.

I went to mostly cash in Oct. 2007 about 3 days after the DOW broke 14,000. I'd like to tell you how smart I was but it was a timing thing. I had an opportunity to do a major commercial real estate deal that was bank owned. It required a pile of cash but upon receiving the final documents and doing a final walk through several major things changed.
I unsuccessfully tried to negotiate the differences so I killed the deal. I've not returned that cash to the market but chose other vehicles that I control, ones with hard assets that are real, that I can actually touch, kick or spit on if I choose. I have not regretted that move to this day.

I have seen no reason to trust the markets. I believe that the current market recovery is unsustainable and will be short lived. There is no logical reason for it's highs nor is there any logical reason for the radical day to day 200 point swings. IMO that's just indicative of a bunch of unscrupulous traders making another commission. I believe it will fall like a rock sometime soon. For the sake of the country and peoples 401Ks etc., I hope you and I are both wrong but you may well have been right when you said "it started today". Time will tell.

Hard Assets .... good move. Even real estate will not be immune to correction. Leveraged land will be foreclosed upon by the lenders (banks) before they too are closed.

I am hoping that Obama and Congress can come to an agreement. My big worry is about the ego of the "I, the President." He really has no huge mandate from Tuesday and he may see this crisis as his big chance to "level the playing field" for a long time. Truthfully, the collective Republican bruised leadership and that power-hungry squirrel Harry Reid are also two more major obstacles to an agreement. We are screwed from every angle.

[dumbass]

Originally Posted by hrdguera

................. We are screwed from every angle.

Agreed but there is still time for poeple to CYA but I wouldn't want to wait long.

[hrdguera]

Originally Posted by dumbass

Agreed but there is still time for poeple to CYA but I wouldn't want to wait long.

Big question ....how much time?

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editor...ve-buried-.htm

[hrdguera]

I got this item this morning.

What to expect now:
-from Neal Boortz

Higher taxes on productive Americans, of course. Exit polls showed that most voters want this. Obama’s class warfare tactics worked like a charm.
-
Labor unions will renew their push for card-check; unionization by intimidation.
-
Taxes on jobs producing small businessmen will almost certainly go up.
-
Obama will issue a call for another multi-billion dollar stimulus bill that will do nothing other than reward cronies and campaign contributors.
-
Doctors who have been in practice for many years will be closing up shop. they know what a nightmare ObamaCare is going to be for their patients, and they want no part of it.
-
The Second Amendment will come under immediate attack. The United Nations will be used as an excuse to limit our rights.
-
The EPA will unleash a flood of new “clean air” regulations that will all but destroy the coal industry and bring huge increases in the cost of energy.
-
Democrats will start talking about a scheme to levy a tax against retirement and pension funds on the premise that it is not fair that some people are going to have a comfortable retirement while others will have to shove shopping carts at customers entering Wal-Marts.
-
The push for ETIs will return. Economically Targeted Investments. This means that the government will tell you where you can and cannot invest your qualified retirement (401K, IRA) funds. The purpose will be to force you to invest these funds in “union-friendly” (i.e., unionized) companies.
-
Democrats will develop schemes to punish states with Right-To-Work laws in an attempt to force more Americans into joining unions in order to work.
-
Democrats will attack talk radio with community advisory boards and shorter license renewal periods. Syndicated talk radio may be a thing of the past in four years, except for Clark Howard, of course.
-
Did Romney loose because of Superstorm Sandy?
That may somewhat be the case, but that is not what ultimately cost Mitt Romney this election. Sandy or no Sandy, there is nothing more overwhelming than the moochers and the parasites voting for their “free” stuff. The damage from Sandy is widespread, but it is nothing compared to the damage that will be caused over the next four years with Barack Obama in the White House.

Neal A. Boortz, Jr. (born April 6, 1945) is an American radio host, author, and self-described libertarian[1] political commentator. His nationally syndicated talk show, The Neal Boortz Show, airs throughout the United States on Dial Global (formerly Jones Radio Networks). It is ranked seventh in overall listeners, with 4.25+ million per week.[2] The content of the show centers on politics, current events, social issues and miscellaneous topics of interest, which Boortz discusses with callers, correspondents and guests. Boortz touches on many controversial topics and refers to himself as an "equal opportunity offender."
Boortz has been involved in talk radio since the beginning of his career as a broadcaster in 1969, while a Journalism student at Texas A&M University, where he was an on-air personality at WTAW-AM. After attending A&M he moved to Atlanta and became a fan of WRNG-AM, Atlanta’s first talk radio station. Boortz was an avid listener and regular caller to the morning show, which was hosted by Herb Elfman. But the untimely passing of Elfman created an opening for a new morning show host and after a two-week “trial run,” Boortz was offered the permanent position.
Boortz has received many industry accolades including being named one of the “25 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts in America” by Talkers magazine, and one of “Georgia’s 100 Most Influential People” by Georgia Trend. Boortz was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2009, marking him as one of the most durable personalities in the field of talk radio.
Boortz's first book was The Commencement Speech You Need To Hear in 1997,[3] followed by The Terrible Truth About Liberals, in 1998.[4] In 2005, he co-wrote The FairTax Book with Congressman John Linder, proposing to implement a variant of a national retail sales tax in lieu of federal income taxes, payroll taxes, estate tax, etc. The FairTax incorporates a "pre-bate" of taxes up to those paid up to the poverty level. Due to his involvement with the FairTax, Boortz is featured in the documentary film An Inconvenient Tax.


I printed out a copy and I'll check off the ones that happen, if they happen. The Coal thing is already in the works from The EPA. The new stimulus thing is predictable. It will be either that or more Green Jobs money to his supporters that will end up bankrupt and the money flowing back into Dem coffers. I don't agree with all of these, or maybe they are just too scary for me to actually consider. But, if they completely legalize Pot, maybe they figure no one will care as long as they have their "soma."

[hrdguera]

I am headed out for a few days, business, not pleasure. So, you can post all your snide ruinous and nasty responses without concern. I received a letter yesterday from a friend of a friend in Massachusetts. It is being circulated widely. I re-post it here so you can understand the depths to which some people are going due to the election. Funny, Massachusetts chose Elizabeth Warren, that questionable Indian person (ha) over the most liberal of Republicans. What a strange world. BTW- today, at early today ... the DowJones index appears to be still sliding down. Hopefully it will rebound even though I do not expect it to do so for awhile.
Here it is.

An Open Letter to My Contacts and Friends

On November 6, 2012, America decided on the course they desire this country to take. They have opted to enable this president to achieve his seminal goal to transform America into a European social democracy. The nation of our Founding Fathers will cease to exist. Our constitutional system will be replaced by a corporatist superstate based on arbitrary, centralized power and the fusion of big government, big business, and big labor. Obama's re-election represents the final victory of the progressive movement – the creation of a liberal, socialist regime. Once Obamacare is fully implemented in 2014, it will be impossible to repeal. Government healthcare will become interwoven into the fabric of society as millions lose their employer-based coverage in exchange for public subsidies. Moreover, like in Europe, socialized medicine will fundamentally alter the relationship between the state and its citizens. The government essentially nationalizes your body.

Obama has, and will continue to forge a new redistributionist order. Tax consumers are devouring the wealth of taxpaying producers. In the process, he is breeding an army – a vast electoral pool – of government dependents. Soon, America will reach the tipping point at which the productive classes are outnumbered – and outvoted – by the nonproductive ones. Our decline will be inexorable and inevitable. We are a country on the verge of fiscal bankruptcy. We are the most indebted nation ever. Obama's soak-the-rich tax proposals are nothing more than cheap demagoguery. The most they can raise is $90 billion annually – a fraction of the mountain of debt slowly crushing us.

For Obama, that taxpayers will be left holding the bag is irrelevant. The objective has been reached. He has succeeded in bringing entire sectors under his heel. Goldman Sachs, the auto industry, big pharmaceutical companies – almost every sector of the economy is under the direct control and supervision of the regulatory state. He has shredded our system of free enterprise, states' rights, and limited government. He has governed not as the president of a republic, but a modern day emperor who views our Constitution as a meaningless piece of paper – a document to be trampled on in a reckless rush to erect a socialist empire.

Any attempt to even begin to describe the imminent danger to the security of Americans, globally and at home, exacerbated by the apologetic, openly encouraging propensity of this president toward radical Islam would require far more space than allowed here. Suffice it to say that the world at large is a far more dangerous place under the incompetent, if not seemingly deliberate auspices of this administration. He is now "more flexible" to embrace his kindred friends...Putin, Chavez, Ahmadinejad, Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. I would add that the complicit, treasonous mainstream media has played no small part in this deleterious course. They have been nothing more than the apostolic propaganda arm of this disingenuous president. The frustrating contradiction is that, although only 8% of the population considers them trustworthy, their subterfuge and shameless dishonesty have proven to be effective in this election.

Americans(?) have decided that this is their chosen path for their country. This is their vision for America...their choice – not mine. As such, I no longer consider myself an American or an integral part of the American system. I am fundamentally and philosophically stranded – shipwrecked as it were – on an uncharted island. My only interest and concern is for the survival of myself and my family – by any means I deem necessary. I shall never again discuss, nor be involved in politics or matters that concern government on any level. Any correspondence involving politics or matters regarding the condition, welfare, and affairs of municipal, state, or national interests will be disregarded and deleted. Effective immediately, I consider myself in, but not of, America.

Thank you in advance for respecting my position.