Contact: Dave Levinthal, 202-354-0111

WASHINGTON — The priciest midterm election in U.S. history saw a Republican tide sweep numerous Democrats out of office, as voters anxious about the state of the economy ousted more House incumbents from office than any time since 1948. While several money-in-politics axioms held true, money was not a panacea for embattled politicians.

In only about 85 percent of House races did the candidate who spent the most experience victory on Election Day, a relative low in recent years, according to a preliminary analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics. Candidates’ spending correlated to success in 29 out of 35 Senate races — or 83 percent — that had been called as of Thursday morning.

By comparison, in 2008, the biggest spender was victorious in 93 percent of House races and n 86 percent of Senate races. In 2006, top spenders won 94 percent of House races and 73 percent of Senate races. And in 2004, 98 percent of House seats went to candidates who spent the most, as did 88 percent of Senate seats.

Moreover, most self-financing candidates again faltered this cycle. And significant investments from outside groups helped elect more than 200 federal candidates. In two-thirds of races where outside groups spent at least some money on advertisements and other political communications, the dollars spent supporting the winner, coupled with amounts spent opposing the loser, exceeded dollars spent supporting the loser or attacking the winner, according to the Center’s research.

“Those that went to the polls Tuesday showed enormous dissatisfaction with the status quo and voted, once again, for change,” said Sheila Krumholz, the Center’s executive director. “The money changed too, surging as much as 40 percent over 2006 levels to our predicted $4 billion by cycle’s end. Despite the competitive political climate and the lowest House reelection rate in 60 years, however, the vast majority of incumbents and candidates who spent the most were still reelected.”

Read OpenSecrets.org’s comprehensive post-election report by clicking here.

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ABOUT THE CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS

The Center for Responsive Politics is the nation’s premier research group tracking money in federal politics and its effect on elections and public policy. The nonpartisan, nonprofit Center aims to create a more educated voter, an involved citizenry and a more responsive government. CRP’s award-winning website, OpenSecrets.org, is the most comprehensive resource for federal campaign contributions, lobbying data and analysis available anywhere. CRP relies on support from a combination of foundation grants, individual contributions and income earned from custom research and licensing data for commercial use. The Center accepts no contributions from businesses, labor unions or trade associations.

Email from an officer stationed at Fort Hood

“What happened

“Since I don’t know when I’ll sleep (it’s 4 am now) I’ll write what happened (the abbreviated version…..the long one is already part of the investigation with more to come). I’ll not write about any part of the investigation that I’ve learned about since (as a witness I know more than I should since inevitably my JAG brothers and sisters are deeply involved in the investigation). Don’t assume that most of the current media accounts are very accurate. They’re not. They’ll improve with time. Only those of us who were there really know what went down. But as they collate our statements they’ll get it right.

“I did my SRP last week (Soldier Readiness Processing) but you’re supposed to come back a week later to have them look at the smallpox vaccination site (it’s this big itchy growth on your shoulder). I am probably alive because I pulled a ———- and entered the wrong building first (the main SRP building). The Medical SRP building is off to the side. Realizing my mistake I left the main building and walked down the sidewalk to the medical SRP building.

“As I’m walking up to it the gunshots start. Slow and methodical. But continuous. Two ambulatory wounded came out. Then two soldiers dragging a third who was covered in blood. Hearing the shots but not seeing the shooter, along with a couple other soldiers I stood in the street and yelled at everyone who came running that it was clear but to “RUN!”. I kept motioning people fast. About 6-10 minutes later (the shooting continuous), two cops ran up. One male, one female. We pointed in the direction of the shots. They headed that way (the medical SRP building was about 50 meters away). Then a lot more gunfire. A couple minutes later a balding man in ACU’s came around the building carrying a pistol and holding it tactically. He started shooting at us and we all dived back to the cars behind us. I don’t think he hit the couple other guys who were there. I did see the bullet holes later in the cars. First I went behind a tire and then looked under the body of the car. I’ve been trained how to respond to gunfire…but with my own weapon. To have no weapon I don’t know how to explain what that felt like. I hadn’t run away and stayed because I had thought about the consequences or anything like that. I wasn’t thinking anything through. Please understand, there was no intention. I was just staying there because I didn’t think about running. It never occurred to me that he might shoot me. Until he started shooting in my direction and I realized I was unarmed.

“Then the female cop comes around the corner. He shoots her. (according to the news accounts she got a round into him. I believe it, I just didn’t see it. He didn’t go down.) She goes down. He starts reloading. He’s fiddling with his mags. Weirdly he hasn’t dropped the one that was in his weapon. He’s holding the fresh one and the old one (you do that on the range when time is not of the essence but in combat you would just let the old mag go). I see the male cop around the left corner of the building. (I’m about 15-20 meters from the shooter.) I yell at the cop, “He’s reloading, he’s reloading. Shoot him! Shoot him!) You have to understand, everything was quiet at this point. The cop appears to hear me and comes around the corner and shoots the shooter.

“He goes down. The cop kicks his weapon further away. I sprint up to the downed female cop. Another captain (I think he was with me behind the cars) comes up as well. She’s bleeding profusely out of her thigh. We take our belts off and tourniquet her just like we’ve been trained (I hope we did it right…we didn’t have any CLS (combat lifesaver) bags with their awesome tourniquets on us, so we worked with what we had).

“Meanwhile, in the most bizarre moment of the day, a photographer was standing over us taking pictures. I suppose I’ll be seeing those tomorrow. Then a soldier came up and identified himself as a medic. I then realized her weapon was lying there unsecured (and on “fire”). I stood over it and when I saw a cop yelled for him to come over and secure her weapon (I would have done so but I was worried someone would mistake me for a bad guy). I then went over to the shooter. He was unconscious. A Lt Colonel was there and had secured his primary weapon for the time being. He also had a revolver.

“I couldn’t believe he was one of ours. I didn’t want to believe it. Then I saw his name and rank and realized this wasn’t just some specialist with mental issues. At this point there was a guy there from CID and I asked him if he knew he was the shooter and had him secured. He said he did. I then went over the slaughter house…the medical SRP building. No human should ever have to see what that looked like, and I won’t tell you. Just believe me. Please, there was nothing to be done there. Someone then said there was someone critically wounded around the corner. I ran around (while seeing this floor to ceiling window that someone had jumped through movie style) and saw a large African-American soldier lying on his back with two or three soldiers attending. I ran up and identified two entrance wounds on the right side of his stomach, one exit wound on the left side and one head wound. He was not bleeding externally from the stomach wounds (though almost certainly internally) but was bleeding from the head wound.

“A soldier was using a shirt to try and stop the head bleeding. He was conscious so I began talking to him to keep him so. He was 42, from North Carolina, he was named something Jr., his son was named something III and he had a daughter as well. His children lived with him. He was divorced. I told him the blubber on his stomach saved his life. He smiled. A young soldier in civvies showed up and identified himself as a combat medic. We debated whether to put him on the back of a pickup truck. A doctor (well, an audiologist) showed up and said you can’t move him, he has a head wound. We finally sat tight. I went back to the slaughterhouse. They weren’t letting anyone in there not even medics.

“Finally, after about 45 minutes had elapsed some cops showed up in tactical vests. Someone said the TBI building was unsecured. They headed into there. All of a sudden a couple more shots were fired. People shouted there was a second shooter. A half hour later the SWAT showed up. There was no second shooter, that had been an impetuous cop apparently. But that confused things for a while. Meanwhile, I went back to the shooter. The female cop had been taken away,and a medic was pumping plasma into the shooter. I’m not proud of this but I went up to her and said “this is the shooter, is there anyone else who needs attention…do them first”. She indicated everyone else living was attended to. I still hadn’t seen any EMTs or ambulances. I had so much blood on me that people kept asking me if I was ok. But that was all other people’s blood. Eventually, (an hour and a half to two hours after the shootings) they started landing choppers. They took out the big African American guy and the shooter. I guess the ambulatory wounded were all at the SRP building. Everyone else in my area was dead.

“I suppose the emergency responders were told there were multiple shooters. I heard that was the delay with the choppers (they were all civilian helicopters). They needed a secure LZ, but other than the initial cops who did everything right, I didnt’ see a lot of them for a while. I did see many a soldier rush out to help their fellows/sisters. There was one female soldier, I dont’ know her name or rank but I would recognize her anywhere who was everywhere helping people. A couple people, mainly civilians, were hysterical, but only a couple. One civilian freaked out when I tried to comfort her when she saw my uniform. I guess she had seen the shooter up close. A lot of soldiers were rushing out to help even when we thought there was another gunman out there. This Army is not broken no matter what the pundits say. Not the Army I saw.
and then they kept me for a long time to come. oh, and perhaps the most surreal thing, at 1500 (the end of the workday on Thursdays) when the bugle sounded we all came to attention and saluted the flag. in the middle of it all.

“This is what I saw. it can’t have been real. but this is my small corner of what happened.”

To require Congress to specify the source of authority under the United States Constitution for the enactment of laws, and for other purposes..

Michael Mitchell of Alaska compiled this list from Article I of the U.S. Constitution. These are all the powers that the Congress has.

1. Borrow money
2. Regulate commerce among the states
3. Regulate naturalization
4. Regulate bankruptcies
5. Coin money
6. Fix weights and standards
7. Punish counterfeiters
8. Establish post offices
9. Establish post roads
10. Record patents
11. Protect copyrights
12. Create federal courts
13. Punish pirates
14. Declare war
15. Raise an army
16. Provide a navy
17. Call up the militia
18. Organize the militia
19. Makes laws for Washington, DC
20. Make rules for the Army and Navy
21. Mitchell continues, “According to the 10th Amendment, all else is controlled by the states or the people.”

And Mitchell is basically right. However, there are two other Legislative Powers Congress possesses.

First, the Senate can impose virtually any regulation in the context of a Treaty, which makes treaty ratification a moment that requires considerable vigilance.

Second, with the dubious ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, Congress can impose a direct tax upon the American people. This was a dangerous, unwarranted power granted in 1913 which we, at DownsizeDC.org, staunchly oppose. The results have been nothing short of disastrous. 1913 also saw the creation of the Federal Reserve, which should be abolished, as well as the ratification of the 17th Amendment, which provided for the direct election of Senators and greater democracy, with all its attendant mob rule qualities.

In other words, these three radical changes removed not only virtually all impediments on the federal government’s power and ability to spend with reckless abandon, but it also created an incentive for wanton, deficit spending.

The 16th and 17th Amendments should be repealed, and the Federal Reserve should be abolished in favor of a Constitutional, “Honest Money” system.

http://www.c4strategies.com/ImpeachObama/impeachobama2.html

Articles of Impeachment

Resolved, that Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States, is impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, and that the following articles of impeachment be exhibited to the United States Senate:

Articles of impeachment exhibited by the House of Representatives of the United States of America in the name of itself and of the people of the United States of America, against Barack Hussein Obama, President of the United States of America, in maintenance and support of its impeachment against him for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Article I

In his conduct while President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has:

In doing this, Barack Hussein Obama has undermined the integrity of his office, has brought disrepute on the Presidency, has betrayed his trust as President, and has acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law and justice, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore, Barack Hussein Obama, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.

Article II

In his conduct while President of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice, and to that end, through his subordinates and agents, has:

In all of this, Barack Hussein Obama has undermined the integrity of his office, has brought disrepute on the Presidency, has betrayed his trust as President, and has acted in a manner subversive of the rule of law and justice, to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

Wherefore, Barack Hussein Obama, by such conduct, warrants impeachment and trial, and removal from office and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States.

I will continue to research all fifty states and post all that have been revoked as a follow–up to this post.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

American Grand Jury hands down Indictment of Fraud and Treason against Obama

May 9th, 2009

- Thomas Jefferson