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There’s a more fundamental challenge to third-party candidates, however. America’s winner-take-all or plurality vote elections—where the candidate with the largest number of votes in the race wins the seat, regardless of the proportion of the vote he or she won—favors just two parties, rather than three or more, a reality that’s known in political science as Duverger’s law after French sociologist Maurice Duverger. That’s because a party or candidate can win a sizable chunk of the vote in a given district or state and still walk away with nothing—no seats or delegates, depending on the race—because they didn’t win the most votes among the candidates. Proportional representation voting systems, which prevail in most democracies, awards a party a certain number of legislative seats proportional to the percentage of the vote they won nationally or within a given region. www.newsweek.com...
How the Republican Party Stole the Nomination from Ron Paul
If you follow mainstream election coverage, you might think Mitt Romney has coasted to an honest, easy, well-deserved Republican nomination. Unfortunately for Republican voters, nothing could be further from the truth. ...
Iowa: Days before the caucuses, Paul held a commanding lead in the polls and all the momentum, with every other candidate having peaked from favorable media coverage and then collapsed under the ensuing scrutiny. Establishment Republicans, like Iowa’s Representative Steve King (R), attempted to sabotage Paul’s campaign by spreading rumors he would lose to Obama if nominated. Even though the Iowa GOP platform reads like a Ron Paul speech, shortly before the caucuses, Iowa Governor Terry Barnstad told Politico , “[If Paul wins] people are going to look at who comes in second and who comes in third. If Romney comes in a strong second, it definitely helps him going into New Hampshire”. The message from the Governor to voters of his state was: a vote for Ron Paul was a wasted vote.
Huffington Post reported that Paul was ahead by one point over Romney and Rick Santorum in entrance polls conducted by Edison Media Research for the AP before the caucuses. For the first time ever, the Iowa GOP changed the final vote count to a secret location . After the caucus, results from 8 precincts (including those with colleges, in a state where Paul won 48% of the youth vote) went missing. Interestingly, these were all precincts Romney lost in 2008. In addition, GOP officials discovered inaccuracies in 131 precincts. Though polling in a comfortable first place, Paul finished third in this non-binding straw poll, behind Romney and Santorum.
15 Dirty Tricks The GOP Establishment Can Use to Stop Donald Trump
#1) Cruz, Rubio, Kasich and Romney will cooperate with each other to help block Trump outsiders at key County and State conventions.
#2) The RNC Rules Committee will likely change the rules back to a five state requirement needed to put a name in nomination at the Convention.
#3) Make sure that you have your own people chosen as delegates to the convention.
#4) The place of the caucus that selects the actual delegates who go to the district or state convention may suddenly change without your knowledge.
#5) The time of the meeting may suddenly change.
#6) The chairman may say “Ayes have it,” even if they don’t.
#7) Off duty police may arrest and detain your newly elected Donald Trump GOP officers.
#8) Precinct, County, State leaders may charge a last minute tax.
#9) If the Caucus Chairman is replaced or does not like the outcome of the vote they may suddenly declare the process invalid.
#10) State Conventions will prepare ballots misspelling Trump and then later discount them in the voting for those pledged delegates.
#11) Fake ballots will be distributed listing establishment names as the official Trump delegates, confusing the voters.
#12) Counting the ballots at the various conventions will be an exhausting business with delays, postponements until the next day, seals broken on the voting boxes, and all kinds of chicanery.
#13) They may cancel the voting due to weather in a key precinct that is heavily Trump, throwing the State.
#14) At convention you may find hotel rooms cancelled.
#15) When you leave the RNC don’t think it’s over.
Third Party Candidates Fight for Debate Inclusion
The Commission on Presidential Debates, a bipartisan private organization, has ruled that only candidates with at least 15 percent support in public opinion polls will be invited to participate in the commission’s three debates. Under those rules, currently only the two major party candidates — Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore — would be eligible. In most recent polls, Nader’s numbers are around 6 percent and Buchanan’s hover near 3 percent.
...
Buchanan has argued that the Republicans and Democrats who run the debate commission have an interest in blocking third party inclusion, and the 15 percent threshold is arbitrary.
In 1992, Reform Party candidate Ross Perot participated in the debates and won 19 percent of the vote in the elections. Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura, another third party candidate, saw his numbers double after participating in debates with his Democratic and Republican opponents.
Libertarian Party Gets Victory in Suit Aimed at the Partisanship of Commission on Presidential Debates
To quote from my previous reporting summing up what was at issue in the lawsuit, which while technically against the Federal Election Commission (FEC) is ultimately targeting the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) for locking out third parties while pretending to be nonpartisan, the L.P. and its co-plaintiffs claim that:
the CPD has always been a deliberate duopoly for the two major parties and has "been violating FECA and FEC regulations limiting debate-sponsoring organizations' ability to use corporate funds to finance their activities" since its efforts are not truly "nonpartisan."
The suit accuses the FEC of "refus[ing] to enforce the law and ignored virtually all of this evidence in conclusorily dismissing the complaints even though there is plainly reason to believe that the CPD is violating FECA....
The Court should...direct the FEC to do its job, which is to enforce the law and put an end to the CPD's biased, anti-democratic, and fundamentally corrupt and exclusionary polling rule.
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lawnewz.com...
Any PR pro worth their salt knows that getting ahead of the next story is a key goal to any campaign, but not always that easy. Often, the first one there has a chance to frame the conversation and in turn, reap the results. www.adweek.com...
Hillary's Leaky Campaign Trail
The Bernie Sanders Files
The Clinton Foundation / Clinton Global Initiative Files
The Character Witness & Ethics Files
The Collusion / Corruption / Election Rigging Files
The Email Scandals / State Secrets / Benghazi Files
The Al Qaeda / ISIS / Middle East Files
The Lapdog Media Files
The George Soros Files
The Economy & TPP Files
The Social inJustice Files
]
Neoconservative (Nazi) Mind Control was used by Bush
The best past example would be the way the Nazi's converged different social mindset biases into one solid construct. What they did was they turned the Nazi political party, German Nationalism, Race and Religion into one single concept / mindset. That meant, to question something about one level of social group was to question everything. For example, if you questioned the Nazi party itself it meant, in the minds of those who had been indoctrinated / brainwashed, that you were also questioning / attacking the Race and the Religion and the Nation and so on.
originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
So what the Neocons did was merge party with nationality with religion. If you criticized Bush or Republican Big Brother / war policies then that meant you were an anti-American Islamofascist. What I never got around to doing however, was how soon after Obama took office the Liberal Media started labeling anyone who didn't support his policies as being "racists". So right after Bush stepped out, the DNC crowd already started basically resorting to the Bush social psychology propaganda playbook, or rather the Nazi playbook of race politics, where the Neocons didn't actually use the race card overtly, and with Obama it was double-down race cards all up the sleeves. This was an early sign the SJW phenomenon we're seeing today, or perhaps better explained as the kind of Media policy that helped to create it.
originally posted by: SuicideKing33
Holy crap that's extensive. You just mapped out how the Fed gets outcomes it desires in a "free democracy"
What amazes me is Trump still won! Even with every media outlet backing Hillary.
My question is do you think Trump being elected is truly off the script or just a plan B?