June 2006 Archives

Level Headed View of 2006 Polls

David Shribman wrote one of the most honest and politically neutral reviews of current political polls I have read in years in an article entitled: Public Disgust With Congress May Show in Elections. Here is a quote:

Right now (considering the Vermont independents as Democrats for the purpose of this conversation), the Republicans have a 29-seat bulge in the House and a 10-seat bulge in the Senate. That is, to be sure, a fair amount of ground to make up. But it's not out of the question that we could look back in the fall and say that the groundwork for revolution on Capitol Hill had been prepared by the spring.

Continue reading "Level Headed View of 2006 Polls" »

Posted by David R. Remer at 6:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)(2007), ©

Line Item Veto: Legalizing Political Corruption !

Incumbents on both sides of the aisle are lining up behind the next titanic piece of legislation to corrupt our government and politics even further. The legislation is the Line Item Veto. Here is why it will corrupt our system further and why both sides are lining up behind it.

The grain of truth in the bill is that the President can strike unworthy spending from an appropriations bill (spending bill). But, think about it. Because a President can do a thing does not mean a President will do a thing.

Would a Republican President dare strike more than a token of pork spending for those in his own party. Pork spending is what politicians use to get votes for reelection. And by the same token, would a President have any other choice but to use the line item veto against the pork spending of his opponent's party? Thus insuring that the opponent's constituents grow dissatisfied with their representative's performance in bringing federal dollars to their district or state. In a nutshell, spending of the President's party will be "Necessary". Spending of the opposition party will be "Pork" to be cut with the line item veto.

Continue reading "Line Item Veto: Legalizing Political Corruption !" »

Posted by David R. Remer at 1:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)(2007), ©

Car Signs

A number of our supporters responded, overwhelmingly indicating their preference for removable car signs as opposed to permanent adhesive bumper stickers. After researching the matter, it turned out that static cling signs don't do well in outdoor climates and don't adhere well in temperature or humidity changing environments. However, we found window signs with a removable adhesive which allows the signs to be removed from the glass without leaving a mess on the glass.

We also discovered that interior window signs don't read well through tinted film car windows. Therefore, I decided to order White lettering on a transparent background removable signs which adhere to the exterior of car windows with a life span of two years. This will make applying, and removing them if need be, easy since you are working with the exterior glass with lots of elbow room as opposed to interior glass where space is cramped.

In order to keep the order within the $200 budget, it was necessary to eliminate 2 color printing and artwork. If however, these signs generate revenue for VOID, we can order multi-color signs with art work upon reorder. My thanks to all our supporters who responded to the inquiry regarding their preference.

I am putting the order in today. Below is how it will read: (remember it will be white letters on transparent background)

Posted by David R. Remer at 9:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)(2007), ©

Advertising VOID

VOID now has ads running in Google's AdWords program, and on the famous all-partisan political debate site, WatchBlog. These were paid for by in-kind donations for these specific purposes by VOID's President.

Posted by David R. Remer at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)(2007), ©

Political Courts blocking Democracy?

Examiner.Com covers: Court: Measure Can't Be on Colo. Ballot. Courts denied the people the right to put an amendment on the ballot for November's elections. Judicial activism is growing from both sides of the aisle, but, when it acts to block the people's democracy, we have gone many steps too far.

In a dissent, Justices Nathan Coats and Nancy Rice expressed concern that the court's majority decision was influenced by the motives of the measure's proponents and by its potential effects.

They said the court has inconsistently applied the single-subject requirement, giving justices "unfettered discretion to either approve or disapprove virtually any popularly initiated ballot measure at will."

Posted by David R. Remer at 9:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)(2007), ©

Old Dogs - New Tricks?

AP story at Examiner.Com reports a new challenger some will recognize in an article titled: Va. to Hold Primary Race for Senate Seat.
Republican-turned-Democrat James Webb, a former Reagan administration Navy secretary, is seeking the nomination for Senate on Tuesday in a bruising primary battle against a Democratic Party stalwart.

Posted by David R. Remer at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)(2007), ©

Coming Soon!

We are working on acquiring public signs for cars or windows. Be available in a few weeks.

Also, we are working on compiling a list of challengers and links if available for Congressional Races in each state.

If anyone has ideas on how to cheaply craft safe yard sign holders, either do it yourself or cheap commercial ones, please advise in the comments below.

A book about VOID is being discussed, more on this if it progresses.

Many other irons in the fire at this time, to be announced as progress is made. Stay tuned.

Posted by David R. Remer at 7:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)(2007), ©

6-6-2006 Minutes

Board Minutes for 6-6-06 8PM via conference call, all members present..

Old Business:
-Adoption of Minutes - Minutes for April's meeting were not available and will be adopted in July's meeting.

New Business:

Local VOID Groups
-After sending out the information about Local VOID Groups to potentially interested persons, we got zero response. Obviously, some revisions are needed. The Board discussed a to step process called unaffiliated and affiliated. Unaffiliated would be granting certain license to use VOID materials to generate interest and membership in a local group. The unaffiliated group would not however be affiliated with VOID and would not be permitted to use VOID's name or claim any connection to VOID.

Continue reading "6-6-2006 Minutes" »

Posted by David R. Remer at 4:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)(2007), ©

Economics will fuel anti-incumbency!

Fed Chairman Bernanke warned this week of a slowing economy. Fed Governor Poole warns inflation will continue through the slowing of the economy. This is raising great concerns on Wall Street as it hasn't been since the 1970's that Americans have had to be concerned a term coined back then called "Stagflation". Stagflation was a horrible period for Americans in which the economy remained stagnant failing to produce significant job growth, and failing to increase wages for Americans during a time when prices for daily living staples like food, gasoline and housing costs continued to rise eating up ever more of worker's paychecks. In other words, workers were getting poorer every year.

Many analysts on Wall Street are advising clients to get out of the stock markets until some clear sign on the future of staglfation is indicated. The reason is because the fear of stagflation is going to harm investors in highly volatile stock prices and very possibly a huge correction as much as 20%. Now is not the time for 401K investors to be in stocks, especially small caps, diversifieds, and growth stocks. Value and large cap stocks may fare better but in a market correction, all boats drop.

Posted by David R. Remer at 7:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)(2007), ©

Bribery Rampant on Capitol Hill

The Washington Post reports: Privately Funded Travel Adds Up on Capitol Hill. "During past 5 1/2 years, lawmakers accepted nearly $50 million in trips from groups seeking legislative favors, according to a comprehensive study." Some of it was illegal, most of it was legal. This is the corruption that pervades our Capitol. The incumbents have legalized bribery of their votes allowing for an average of $10,280.37 per Congress Person in free trips and vacations sponsored by lobbyist interests.

This is just the tip of the ice berg, and excludes campaign contributions and other perks and bribes, legal and illegal.

Posted by David R. Remer at 7:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)(2007), ©

CSM Now Calls for Iraq Pullout

The Christian Science Monitor (CSM) has written an article this week calling for the pull out of Iraq. Whether or not you believe we should pull out in an orderly way, it is significant that the CSM is changing its stance. This may portend the Iraq War playing heavily against incumbents in November's elections. To date, high profiled Christian publications have backed the war in Iraq. This marks a potentially significant change in a high profile Christian media position.

Posted by David R. Remer at 6:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)(2007), ©

8 States Primaries Say Little of Anti-Incumbency

This week saw 8 states run primaries. While it would have been great news if all incumbents lost to challengers, the fact that this did not occur says little about November's elections. The reasons are simple, few voters vote in primaries and those who do tend to be party loyalists. Republicans and Democrats are makiing hay of the results, but, its all fluff and little substance at this point.

Posted by David R. Remer at 6:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)(2007), ©

Voting

Voting in America is:

A) A choice

B) A duty

C) A priviledge

D) Answer not listed

Posted by Stephanie Crist at 1:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)(2007), ©

Mock Elections - Mock Democracy

Many Democrats and Republicans argue a democracy cannot lead to tyranny by definition. But, I would counter with the following current facts and reality demonstrating how wrong they are:

Elect means 'to choose'. Hence democratic elections MUST by definition provide voters with a choice. However, the reality is the voters in America have no choice in vastly increasing numbers of so called elections. Here is case in point. From the Boston Globe on Massachusett's coming elections:

Continue reading "Mock Elections - Mock Democracy" »

Posted by David R. Remer at 7:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)(2007), ©

Good News and Not so!

The good news is, we set a new record for visitors to this web site last month, 1,170, with nearly 2,800 page reads. Each week new folks sign up to stay informed. This brings our total site visits to a little over 7,056 and page reads to 20,000. VOID is drawing progressively more attention by folks who actually read what is written, month after month.

The bad news is we have no volunteers signing up to establish Local VOID Groups, yet. I have sent an email to all of our supporters including our How To guide for Local VOID Groups, and have asked for their ideas and feedback. We may have to take a different strategy on growing volunteer participation. We have quite a few folks who have indicated they want to volunteer, but, it appears establishing a Local VOID Group is more than they want to bite off.

We will review the feedback and post news on this topic in the coming days and weeks. Everything has been progressing so much more smoothly than I ever anticipated when this web site was set up, I was beginning to wonder when we were going to hit a bump in the road. We just did.

And now we will either improve the strategy or, scrap it for one that will work better to move VOID down the road of informing voters that they have a choice besides reelecting the same old politicians that got our nation into the crises we find ourselves in.

Posted by David R. Remer at 3:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)(2007), ©