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SmartMoney Magazine by Brigid McMenamin (Author Archive)
10 Things Your Congressperson Won't Say
Below is an excerpt from the book "1,001 Things They Won't Tell You," which was published in May 2009 and highlights popular columns from SmartMoney's long-running "10 Things" feature.
1. “I can’t lose.”
When members of the U.S. House of Representatives stand for reelection, for most it’s a formality: On average, more than 90 percent of House incumbents win, according to a 2005 report by the Cato Institute. What’s behind the incumbency advantage? Campaign financing, for one thing. We taxpayers pick up the tab for incumbents’ regular offices, staff, publicity, travel, and mailings, so they needn’t raise as much money to run. Challengers, on the other hand, must come up with a fortune— and do so in dribs and drabs, since Congress caps individual contributions at $2,000.
But the biggest factor is partisan gerrymandering. Since the Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that states must ensure that each congressman represents the same number of constituents, the process of redistricting after every census has been aggressively used by state party bosses to protect their incumbents. “Because of gerrymandering, almost 90 percent of Americans live in congressional districts where the outcome is so certain that their votes are irrelevant,” concludes the Cato report. And it’s bound to get worse: In June 2006 the Court ruled that states can redraw congressional districts as often as they please.
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cybercorrespondent
Please view this clip and decide for yourselves. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe2bpV1QlkE
Cybercorrespondent
http://cybercorrespondent.blogspot.com
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George Soros
· Multi-billionaire funder of leftwing causes and groups
· Founder of the Open Society Institute
· Stated that defeating President Bush in the 2004 election "is the central focus of my life"
George Soros was born on August 12, 1930 in Budapest, Hungary. His father, Teodoro Schwartz, was an Orthodox Jew who, in 1936, changed the family surname from Schwartz to Soros in order to enable his family to conceal its Jewish identity and thus to survive the Nazi Holocaust. In 1947 Soros' family relocated from Hungary to England. Five years later, George graduated from the London School of Economics. He subsequently worked for a London stockbroker.
In 1956 Soros, with meager personal assets, emigrated to the United States. He would go on to become one of the world's leading hedge fund investors and currency traders. In 1969 he started his enormously successful Quantum Fund, which, over the ensuing three decades, yielded its long-ter...(Read more of this comment)