November 28, 2012



Secretary of State Candidate Has a Major Financial Stake in Canadian Tar Sands






Susan Rice, the candidate believed to be favored by President Obama to become the next Secretary of State, holds significant investments in more than a dozen Canadian oil companies and banks that would stand to benefit from expansion of the North American tar sands industry and construction of the proposed $7 billion Keystone XL pipeline. If confirmed by the Senate, one of Rice’s first duties likely would be consideration, and potentially approval, of the controversial mega-project.
Rice's financial holdings could raise questions about her status as a neutral decision maker. The current U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Rice owns stock valued between $300,000 and $600,000 in TransCanada, the company seeking a federal permit to transport tar sands crude 1,700 miles to refineries on the Texas Gulf Coast, crossing fragile Midwest ecosystems and the largest freshwater aquifer in North America.
Beyond that, according to financial disclosure reports, about a third of Rice’s personal net worth is tied up in oil producers, pipeline operators, and related energy industries north of the 49th parallel -- including companies with poor environmental and safety records on both U.S. and Canadian soil. Rice and her husband own at least $1.25 million worth of stock in four of Canada’s eight leading oil producers, as ranked by Forbes magazine. That includes Enbridge, which spilled more than a million gallons of toxic bitumen into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River in 2010 -- the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history.
Rice also has smaller stakes in several other big Canadian energy firms, as well as the country’s transportation companies and coal-fired utilities. Another 20 percent or so of her personal wealth is derived from investments in five Canadian banks. These are some of the institutions that provide loans and financial backing to TransCanada and its competitors for tar sands extraction and major infrastructure projects, such as Keystone XL and Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, which would stretch 700 miles from Alberta to the Canadian coast.
In 2010, for instance, when Rice and her husband held at least $1.5 million in Royal Bank of Canada, the institution was labeled Canada's most environmentally irresponsible company by the Rainforest Action Network for its support of tar sands development. Public pressure from environmentalists and Canada’s First Nations tribes convinced the bank to stop funding tar sands projects earlier this year.
“It’s really amazing that they’re considering someone for Secretary of State who has millions invested in these companies,” said Bill McKibben, a writer and founder of the activist groups 350.org and Tar Sands Action, which have organized protests against the Keystone XL project. “The State Department has been rife with collusion with the Canadian pipeline builders, and it’s really distressing to have any sense that that might continue to go on.” Emails obtained by an environmental group last year show what critics call a “cozy and complicitous relationship” between State Department officials and a lobbyist for TransCanada, who was also a former deputy campaign director for current Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's failed 2008 presidential bid. The agency also assigned an environmental impact review of the Keystone project to a company with financial ties to TransCanada.
As ambassador to the United Nations, Rice has not been directly involved in the State Department’s Keystone XL review, which came to a head at the end of 2011. After initially indicating it would likely approve TransCanada’s application, the State Department ordered a review of alternate routes to avoid putting critical water sources in Nebraska at risk. The move, which officials said would likely push the approval process back to the first three months of 2013, was an attempt to spare the Obama administration a politically risky decision just before an election year.
Greenlighting the pipeline would have hurt the president with environmental advocates -- more than 1,200 people were arrested in anti-Keystone protests led by McKibben at the White House in Summer 2011. But denying it outright would have given Republicans an election year attack line, saying Obama had cost the nation much-needed jobs (although independent studies have shown that TransCanada’s job creation claims for the pipeline are greatly exaggerated). As it was, the president still received significant heat, and Mitt Romney pledged to approve the pipeline on Day 1 if he had won the election.
Were she to become Secretary of State, Rice would be in charge of the new environmental review process and would be in a position to decide whether to issue TransCanada a permit for sections of Keystone XL stretching from Oklahoma to the Canadian border. (The pipeline’s southernmost leg has already been approved and is under construction in Texas -- with protesters perching in trees and chaining themselves to construction equipment in an attempt to stop it.)
Rice is reportedly Obama’s favorite to take the helm at the State Department next year. Clinton has said repeatedly that she plans to step down shortly after Obama’s second inauguration in January. In addition to Rice, reportedly the president's lead candidate for the job, U.S. Senator John Kerry had also reportedly made it onto the president’s short list. Kerry, whose net worth of at least $232 million makes him far wealthier than Rice, does not own shares of TransCanada or Enbridge, the major tar sands pipeline companies, although he does have stock in some other Canadian energy interests.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Rice’s net worth sat somewhere between $23.5 million and $43.5 million in 2009, the latest year for which the center has done a full analysis of her finances. That makes her either the wealthiest person currently serving in the executive branch or a close second to Clinton. (The uncertainty surrounding these figures is due to the way officials are required to disclose their investments; instead of declaring the specific amount of stock they own, they are required by law only to declare a range.)
Other public officials have been criticized for pushing for the Keystone XL project while standing to benefit financially. The nonprofit Sunlight Foundation watchdog group reported in December 2011 that four members of Congress who own shares in TransCanada had pressed for the pipeline’s approval -- either by supporting bills that would have forced the State Department to issue a permit or by writing to Clinton or Obama, urging them to give the go-ahead. Rice’s ownership of TransCanada stock was noted by the Sunlight Foundation but not considered a conflict of interest at the time, because she had no direct role in the approval process.
Neither Rice’s office nor the White House returned OnEarth’s calls for comment about her financial holdings.
It’s unclear when Rice began investing in Canadian energy and banks, but the Stanford University graduate and Rhodes Scholar worked for the prestigious McKinsey & Company consulting firm’s Toronto office from 1990 to 1993, marrying Canadian-born TV producer Ian Cameron in 1992. She then joined the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton. (Financial disclosure forms aren’t available for Rice’s security council tenure; by law, they’re destroyed after six years.) Rice later became President Clinton’s assistant secretary of state for African affairs, then joined the nonprofit Brookings Institution think tank during the George W. Bush administration. She advised both the Kerry and Obama presidential campaigns on foreign policy.
According to the reports she filed in May 2012, Rice and her husband have a wide-ranging portfolio that includes more than 100 securities, such as IBM, Monsanto, Apple, BP, and McDonald’s. Dan Auble, a researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics who studies the personal finances of public officials, said it’s not unusual to see energy investments play a significant role in their financial portfolios, as they do with Rice and her husband. (Auble said the holdings of a public official’s spouse are included in financial disclosure reports because they have the same potential to create a conflict of interest.) In their case, however, nine of the 14 holdings they claimed that top $500,000 are Canadian energy interests or banks.
If Rice does get the Secretary of State job, federal ethics officials could recommend that she sell her stock in TransCanada and related companies before deciding on Keystone XL, Auble said. But that’s not a sure thing.
Leading Keystone opponents say they wouldn’t necessarily oppose Rice’s nomination -- but they would want someone else in charge of deciding the pipeline’s fate. “It would be one of the first decisions she would make, and she’s not qualified to make an unbiased decision,” said Jane Kleeb, the executive director of Bold Nebraska, a group that has fought to block the Keystone XL pipeline.
“It’s one more clear sign that the State Department should not be handling this,” added McKibben (who is also an OnEarth contributing editor). Both advocates believe the Environmental Protection Agency or the White House Council on Environmental Quality would be more qualified to assess the environmental impacts of Keystone XL. But an executive order issued by President George W. Bush in April 2004 makes the Secretary of State responsible for approving pipelines that cross the U.S. border. Kleeb suggested that Obama could change that order to shift the decision-making responsibility elsewhere.
Environmental advocates (including the Natural Resources Defense Council, which publishes OnEarth) have sought to block the Keystone XL pipeline and further development of the Alberta tar sands fields due to their climate impact and potential for pollution and dangerous oil spills. Extracting bitumen -- a heavy, viscous black oil -- requires intensive open-pit mining in the heart of Canada’s boreal forest. More dirty and corrosive than conventional crude, bitumen requires extensive refining to become useable fuel. The entire process uses vast amounts of energy and water and creates three times the global warming pollution of conventional fuel, while shipping the bitumen through pipelines means an additional risk of corrosion and leaks.
Despite the environmental risks, tar sands development has become a major focus of the Canadian government and pillar of the country’s economy, championed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose administration has denounced environmental advocates and First Nations tribes opposed to pipeline construction as extremists. Alberta's tar sands contain the world's third largest proven oil reserve, but they’re landlocked and remote -- hence the desire for more pipelines to provide Canadian energy companies with access to ports and refineries.
According to her most recent financial disclosure reports, along with her TransCanada investments, Rice and her husband own at least $1.5 million worth of stock in Enbridge (Canada’s No. 3 oil producer, according to Forbes), Cenovus (No. 7), and Encana (No. 8), as well as at least $1.25 million in Imperial (No. 2), $50,000 to $100,000 in Suncor (No. 1), and $15,000 to $50,000 in Canadian Natural (No. 6). (TransCanada is ranked at No. 5 by Forbes.) The couple has at least $1.25 million invested in Transalta, Alberta's largest coal-fired electricity power producer, and at least $1.5 million in Canadian Pacific Railway, which transports coal, oil, and gas and has been a major financial beneficiary of the North American energy boom.
On the banking side, Rice has investments totaling at least $5 million and up to $11.25 million in Bank of Montreal, Bank of Nova Scotia, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Royal Bank of Canada, and Toronto Dominion. A report by the Dutch consulting firm Profundo Economic Research says several of these same banks are largely responsible for underwriting the expansion of Canada’s tar sands industry. “Investment in tar sands infrastructure now surpasses that of manufacturing across all of Canada,” according to the report.
Which means that regardless of Keystone XL’s fate, Canadian companies will continue to seek ways to pump bitumen from northern Canada to coastal refineries and ports, where it can be shipped to Europe, China, and other overseas markets. NRDC and other environmental groups have presented evidence that Enbridge is making plans to reverse a pipeline that currently carries regular crude from the New England coast to Montreal, and use it to ship tar sands oil in the other direction instead.
Since it crosses the U.S.-Canadian border, that plan would also require State Department approval.
OnEarth editor-at-large Ted Genoways contributed to this report.
FLUKE IS NOT A SCREEN WRITER, ACTOR, HOST OR ANYTHING TO DO WITH HOLLYWOOD SO WHY DOES THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER EVEN KNOW WHO SHE?!?


THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER PICKS SANDRA FLUKE FOR WOMEN IN ENTERTAINMENT BREAKFAST

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Sandra Fluke's 15 minutes of fame aren't over quite yet.

The nation's foremost expert on free birth control will be part of The Hollywood Reporter's Women in Entertainment Breakfast to be held Dec. 5. Fluke, who became one of President Barack Obama's War on Women surrogates, will address a crowd to include fellow honored guests Mindy Kaling and Kerry Washington.
The breakfast, which will take place Dec. 5 at the Beverly Hills Hotel, will coincide with the launch of THR's annual list of the Top 100 Most Powerful Women in Entertainment, which hits stands the same day. Diane Keaton will also be on hand at the event to receive this year's Sherry Lansing Leadership Award, which recognizes a woman in the entertainment industry who is a pioneer, mentor and philanthropist.

November 18, 2012

For such a small part of our country why do we spend so much time and energy on them when we have life and death matters to save our Republic????


October 18, 2012

Special Report: 3.4% of U.S. Adults Identify as LGBT

Inaugural Gallup findings based on more than 120,000 interviews

by Gary J. Gates and Frank Newport
PRINCETON, NJ -- The inaugural results of a new Gallup question -- posed to more than 120,000 U.S. adults thus far -- shows that 3.4% say "yes" when asked if they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.
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These results are based on responses to the question, "Do you, personally, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender?" included in 121,290 Gallup Daily tracking interviews conducted between June 1 and Sept. 30, 2012. This is the largest single study of the distribution of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) population in the U.S. on record. By comparison, the General Social Survey, a project of NORC at the University of Chicago, asked a sexual orientation question in its 2008 and 2010 survey of about 2,000 adults in each year. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' National Survey of Family Growth asked a sexual orientation question of about 12,000 young adults aged 18 to 44 in 2002 and of more than 20,000 adults in its 2006-2010 survey. The 3.4% figure is similar to a 3.8% estimate made by one of the authors of this study (Gates), averaging a group of smaller U.S. surveys conducted from 2004 to 2008.
Exactly who makes up the LGBT community and how this group should be measured is a subject of some debate. Measuring sexual orientation and gender identity can be challenging since these concepts involve complex social and cultural patterns. As a group still subject to social stigma, many of those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender may not be forthcoming about this identity when asked about it in a survey. Therefore, it's likely that some Americans in what is commonly referred to as "the closet" would not be included in the estimates derived from the Gallup interviews. Thus, the 3.4% estimate can best be represented as adult Americans who publicly identify themselves as part of the LGBT community when asked in a survey context.
There are a number of ways to measure lesbian, gay, and bisexual orientation, and transgender status. Sexual orientation can be assessed by measuring identity as well as sexual behaviors and attractions. Transgender status can be an identity but can also include consideration of behaviors regarding gender nonconformity and an individual's internal sense of gender.
Gallup chose the broad measure of personal identification as LGBT because this grouping of four statuses is commonly used in current American discourse, and as a result has important cultural and political significance. One obvious limitation of this approach is that it is not possible to separately consider differences among lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, or transgender individuals. A second limitation is that this approach measures broad self-identity, and does not measure sexual or other behavior, either past or present.
The following sections review the percentage identifying as LGBT across specific subgroups of the U.S. population. Overall, the results from this analysis run counter to some media stereotypes that portray the LGBT community as predominantly white, highly educated, and very wealthy.
Nonwhite Individuals More Likely to Identify as LGBT
Nonwhites are more likely than white segments of the U.S. population to identify as LGBT. The survey results show that 4.6% of African-Americans identify as LGBT, along with 4.0% of Hispanics and 4.3% of Asians. The disproportionately higher representation of LGBT status among nonwhite population segments corresponds to the slightly below-average 3.2% of white Americans who identified as LGBT.
Do you, personally, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender? June 1-Sept. 30, 2012, results
Overall, a third of LGBT-identifiers are nonwhite (33%), compared with 27% of non-LGBT individuals.
Women Are More Likely to Identify as LGBT Than Are Men
Although the difference is not large, women are slightly more likely to identify as LGBT than are men (3.6% vs. 3.3%) -- a finding that is consistent with other surveys. Put differently, more than 53% of LGBT individuals are women.
Do you, personally, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender? June 1-Sept. 30, 2012, results
Younger Americans More Likely to Identify as LGBT
Adults aged 18 to 29 (6.4%) are more than three times as likely as seniors aged 65 and older (1.9%) to identify as LGBT. Among those aged 30 to 64, LGBT identity declines with age -- at 3.2% for 30- to 49-year-olds and 2.6% for 50- to 64-year-olds.
Consistent with other recent studies and with the gender gap identified earlier in this report, younger women are more likely to identify as LGBT than are younger men. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 8.3% of women identify as LGBT, compared with 4.6% of men the same age.
Do you, personally, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender? June 1-Sept. 30, 2012, results
It is possible that some of these age differences are due to a greater reluctance on the part of older Americans who may be LGBT to identify as such. In general, younger Americans are more accepting of equal rights and opportunities for gay men and lesbians.
LGBT Americans Tend to Have Lower Levels of Education and Income
Gallup's analysis shows that identification as LGBT is highest among Americans with the lowest levels of education -- contrary to what other, more limited, studies have shown. Among those with a high school education or less, 3.5% identify as LGBT, compared with 2.8% of those with a college degree and 3.2% of those with postgraduate education. LGBT identification is highest among those with some college education but not a college degree, at 4.0%.
Do you, personally, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender? June 1-Sept. 30, 2012, results
A similar pattern is found across income groups. More than 5% of those with incomes of less than $24,000 a year identify as LGBT, a higher proportion than among those with higher incomes -- including 2.8% of those making $60,000 a year or more.
Do you, personally, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender? June 1-Sept. 30, 2012, results
Among those who report income, about 16% of LGBT-identified individuals have incomes above $90,000 per year, compared with 21% of the overall adult population. Additionally, 35% of those who identify as LGBT report incomes of less than $24,000 a year, significantly higher than the 24% for the population in general. These findings are consistent with research showing that LGBT people are at a higher risk of poverty.
These data also explain why LGBT Americans are less satisfied with their standard of living than non-LGBT Americans. Nearly three-quarters of non-LGBT individuals (73%) say they are satisfied with their standard of living, compared with less than two-thirds (65%) of LGBT individuals.
While LGBT men and women may not be as happy with their current economic situation, they are more optimistic than their non-LGBT counterparts about the future. Nearly 59% of LGBT individuals say their standard of living is getting better, compared with less than half (49%) of non-LGBT men and women.
Those in Domestic Partnerships, or Never-Married Singles More Likely to Be LGBT
Nearly 13% of individuals in a domestic partnership or living with a partner identify as LGBT, making this one of the highest representations of LGBT status of any subgroup analyzed. Seven percent of single, never-married individuals identify as LGBT. The percentage of LGBT individuals among those who are currently married is lowest of any marital status group, at 1.3%.
The Gallup survey does not include questions asking about the gender of spouses or partners, so it is possible that some married LGBT people have same-sex spouses and is certainly more likely that some percentage of those in domestic partnerships could have a same-sex partner. It's also possible that bisexual individuals are married or living with a different-sex partner.
Do you, personally, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender? June 1-Sept. 30, 2012, results
In total, 20% of LGBT individuals indicate that they are married and an additional 18% are in a domestic partnership or living with a partner. Nearly half (48%) are single and have never married. Among non-LGBT Americans, 54% are married, 4% are living with a partner, and 23% are single and have never married.
LGBT Women as Likely as Non-LGBT Women to Be Raising Children
LGBT identification is lower among Americans with children under age 18 in their home (2.7%) than it is among those with no children younger than 18 in the home (3.9%). But this difference is largely due to fewer LGBT men reporting they have children in the home. Among women with children, 3.6% identify as LGBT (the same as the 3.6% among women not raising children). But among men with children, 1.8% identify as LGBT, compared with 4.2% of men who do not have children under 18 in the home.
Do you, personally, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender? June 1-Sept. 30, 2012, results
Looked at differently, the results show that about 32% of both non-LGBT women and LGBT women have children under 18 in the home. By contrast, there is a large difference in child status across the two groups of men, with LGBT men about half as likely as other men to have children in the home -- 16% vs. 31%, respectively.
Prior research suggests that within the LGBT population, child-rearing is much more common among racial and ethnic minorities, a finding that is substantiated by the current data. More than 41% of Hispanic and African-American LGBT women, along with 38% of Asian LGBT women, are raising children, compared with 28% of white LGBT women. Some of this reflects the younger average ages of racial and ethnic groups in the U.S.
Ten percent of LGBT white men are raising children, compared with 39% of Hispanic men, 31% of Asian men, and 14% of African-American men. Non-LGBT men are more likely to have children: 29% among whites, 34% of African-Americans, 44% of Hispanics, and 35% of Asians.
East and West Regions Are Home to More LGBT Identifiers
LGBT identification is slightly higher in the East (3.7%) and the West (3.6%) than in the Midwest (3.4%) and the South (3.2%). This slightly higher incidence on both coasts could be a product of two factors. More accepting regions may attract LGBT people to move there. But it may also be the case that social acceptance in the East and West means that LGBT people are more willing to self-identify, because they feel less stigmatized by their identity.
Do you, personally, identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender? June 1-Sept. 30, 2012, results
Implications
This report marks the first step in analyzing the largest population-based survey of LGBT Americans ever conducted. Upcoming reports on Gallup.com will analyze LGBT political attitudes and perspectives, and review the impact of self-reported LGBT identity on health and wellbeing. Gallup will continue to include the LGBT question in its Daily tracking survey, which will provide the ability to analyze trends and correlates of LGBT status in the U.S. across a wide variety of social, cultural, economic, and political indicators.
This initial analysis reveals new insights into the composition of the LGBT community in the U.S. In particular, the findings challenge both media and cultural stereotypes to reveal that the LGBT population is in a number of ways not that different from the broader U.S. population.
As courts, legislatures, and voters continue to debate issues like marriage for same-sex couples, child-rearing rights for LGBT people, and bans on workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, these data provide new and detailed information about the lives of LGBT Americans and their families. They offer an unprecedented resource for informing those debates with facts rather than stereotype or anecdote.
Gary J. Gates is the Williams Distinguished Scholar at the Williams Institute, UCLA School of Law. A national expert in LGBT demographics, he holds a PhD in Public Policy from the Heinz College, Carnegie Mellon University.
Survey Methods
Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of the Gallup Daily tracking survey June 1-Sept. 30, 2012, with a random sample of 121,290 adults, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, selected using random-digit-dial sampling.
For results based on the total sample of [national adults/registered voters], one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is <±1 percentage point.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each sample includes a minimum quota of 400 cell phone respondents and 600 landline respondents per 1,000 national adults, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents by region. Landline telephone numbers are chosen at random among listed telephone numbers. Cell phone numbers are selected using random-digit-dial methods. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.
Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, and phone status (cell phone only/landline only/both, cell phone mostly, and having an unlisted landline number). Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2011 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
For more details on Gallup's polling methodology, visit www.gallup.com.

November 15, 2012

THEY SHOULD GO OUT OF BUSINESS.

THE PEOPLE WHO WORK AT THE JENKINTOWN POST OFFICE SHOULD ALL LOSE THEIR JOBS. THEY ARE LAZY, FAT, OLD, SLOW, ARROGANT & IGNORANT PEOPLE.

WHEN I WAS A KID WE GOT OUR MAIL 2 TIMES A DAY. EARLY MORNING AND LATE AFTERNOON DURING THE HOLIDAY SEASONS.

OTHER TIMES OF THE YEAR WE GOT OUR MAIL BY 9 AM. CURRENTLY I GET MY MAIL AT 6 PM EVERYDAY.

U.S. Postal Service Suffers Record Loss in 2012… $15.9 Billion

November 15, 2012 by Administrator

Source: Jon Ogg
The U.S. Postal Service is supposed to be its own business outside of taxpayers. It even calls itself a self-supporting government enterprise. If it was a true business and not under the government, it would be out of business. For 2012, the Postal Service lost a record $15.9 billion. Even if this figure includes an $11.1 billion default to prefund the retiree health benefits, it is not exactly as though “non-GAAP” results matter here.
If you back out the $11.1 billion from the pension funding, then the loss was still close to $4.8 billion without the effects of rounding. If you look down at all of the extraordinary items, the Postal Service said that the sum of total short-term expenses outside of its control came to $13.4 billion. So on that basis it would have a “non-GAAP” loss of $2.5 billion without any rounding effects.
What is so sad is that its shipping and package business grew by 8.7% to almost $12 billion on a volume increase of 244 million pieces. Here is how that compares to the expected growth at for-profit shippers: FedEx Corporation (NYSE: FDX) is expected to post only 3% growth in 2012 to almost $44 billion and United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE: UPS) is expected to have only 1.7% sales growth to $54 billion in 2012 (Thomson Reuters figures).
The long and short of the matter is that the Postal Service is growing faster than the private sector, but it is doing it at massive losses. If that is not some serious food for thought, what is?
Now the USPS is calling for more legislative reform. It is asking to determine delivery frequency, meaning it wants to shorten its days of operation. It also wants to offer non-postal products and services. It wants to be able to have quicker pricing and product decisions.
Here is how much regular mail is declining: First-Class Mail revenue fell by $1.163 billion or 3.9%, and Standard Mail fell by $747 million or 4.3% compared to 2011. Total mail volume was 159.9 billion pieces in 2012 versus 168.3 billion pieces in 2011. The total operating revenue was down marginally to $65.2 billion versus $65.7 billion in 2011.
The Postal Service reached its statutory debt ceiling of $15 billion for the first time and it says that liquidity continues to be a major concern and underscores the need for passage of better legislation.
Are we really still supposed to believe that the U.S. Postal Service is an independent self-supporting company outside of taxpayer obligations?

November 13, 2012

EDUCATION

DID OBAMA WIN IN LANDSLIDE? BLUE STATE CREEP? 100 YEARS OF ELECTION MAPS WILL GIVE YOU SOME TRUE PERSPECTIVE

Everyone has a perspective on the 2012 election results and a theory about what Obama’s re-election means for both parties.  However, conservatives shouldn’t believe the dooms day assumption that the country has never seen such a liberal turn, and liberals shouldn’t buy the idea that Obama won in a landslide.   Both groups could gain some perspective.  One hundred years of voting history should do.
TheBlaze did some digging and found the county-by-county voting maps for every election since 1900.   We made a video of the results, end to end. The outcome is a fascinating display of our democratic past and gives necessary perspective for the countries unpredictable future.
Before you watch the video below, keep an eye out for some alarming and interesting trends like:

SWING STATE? HOW ABOUT SWING COUNTRY

How the country can change in just four years!  Below are the results of Herbert Hoover’s 1928 victory and the resulting shift to elect FDR just four years later


County By County Election Map of Last 100 Years

County By County Election Map of Last 100 Years


THE THIRD PARTY EFFECT

A third party has never won the presidency in modern American political history.  However, they did win 88 electoral votes and came in second place in the election of 1912.

County By County Election Map of Last 100 Years

Ross Perot caused some havoc in the more recent elections of 1992.  He did not receive any electoral votes, but he did siphon off 20 million private votes.  (Pink and green signifying counties carried by third parties):
County By County Election Map of Last 100 Years

 THE REAL MANDATE LANDSLIDE

With the last four elections won on the decisions of a handful of precious swing states, it is astonishing to think of the potential of a true American landslide presidential victory.  But it is possible, and actually quite common!
FDR had a few good ones (523 electoral college votes to 8):
County By County Election Map of Last 100 Years

So did Reagan (525 electoral votes to Mondale’s 13):
County By County Election Map of Last 100 Years

But Nixon takes the cake in the geographic landslide category (520 electoral college votes to McGovern’s 17):
County By County Election Map of Last 100 Years

Perhaps the moral is what goes around comes around in the American political tradition.  Nothing is a given and trends come and go.  What is most important is that democracy works.
Watch 112 years of American elections take place in two minutes below:

County Maps courtesy of Minnesota Population Center.
National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 2.0.
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota 2011
www.nhgis.org
Combined election data from:
WD Burnham: Presidential Ballots, 1836-1892 - EE Robinson: The Presidential Vote: 1896 to 1932 - RM Scammon: America at the Polls (1920-1964) - RM Scammon: America at the Polls (1968-1984 ) - RM Scammon / A. McGillivray: America Votes No. 18, 1988 , No. 20, 1992 , No. 22, 1996 , No. 24, 2000,  Election results by county and figures Bureau of the Census for 1880, 1920, 1960 and 2000
Generously mapped by geoelections.free.fr
Map referencing by presidency.ucsb.edu & fec.gov/general/library.shtml