Monday, March 26, 2012
RON PAUL WINS KEY VICTORIES IN MISSOURI CAUCUS ENDING TODAY
2012 Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul won today key parts of the Missouri caucuses that concluded this afternoon, demonstrating the effectiveness of his delegate-attainment strategy and the viability of his candidacy.
In the St. Louis City Caucus held today, the 12-term Congressman from Texas won 36 delegates and 36 alternate delegates to both the 1st Congressional District and to the Republican State Convention, meaning Dr. Paul cleanly swept this consequential part of the statewide nominating contest. In total, Missouri’s 1st Congressional District has 103 delegates and Ron Paul won 36 of them as a result of winning the entire St. Louis City Caucus. For comparison sake, in the St. Louis City Caucus, Ron Paul received 158 votes and the next-closest vote recipient Rick Santorum garnered just 74 votes, or less than half.
The larger Jackson County caucus also occurred today. In the 5th Congressional District, Ron Paul won 63 delegates, won all 144 alternate delegates, won 105 delegates to the Republican state convention, and won 144 alternates to the state convention. In the 6th Congressional District, Dr. Paul swept all 39 delegates, won all 39 delegates to the state convention, and won 144 alternates to the state convention.
The countywide totals for Dr. Paul include 246 Congressional delegates, more than double Mitt Romney’s 120, and 360 alternate delegates for Ron Paul, a clean sweep in that regard.
Santorum and Newt Gingrich won zero Congressional delegates and alternate delegates in Jackson County.
Kansas City is the county seat of Jackson County, which has a population of more than 674,000 according to 2009 U.S. Census Bureau estimates. Caucusing to determine the Republican nominee for the presidency began in The Show-Me State on Saturday, March 17th and concluded today, Saturday the 24th.
Tungsten-Filled 1 Kilo Gold Bar Found In The UK
The last time a story of Tungsten-filled gold appeared on the scene was just two years ago, and involved a 500 gram bar of gold full of tungsten, at the W.C. Heraeus foundry, the world’s largest metal refiner and fabricator. It also became known that said “gold” bar originated from an unnamed bank. It is now time to rekindle the Tungsten Spirits with a report from ABC Bullion of Australia, which provides photographic evidence of a new gold bar that has been drilled out and filled with tungsten rods, this time not in Germany but in an unnamed city in the UK, where it was intercepted by a scrap metals dealer, and was supplied with its original certificate. The reason the bar attracted attention is that it was 2 grams underweight. Upon cropping it was uncovered that about 30-40% of the bar weight was tungsten. So two documented incidents in two years: isolated? Or indication of the same phenomonenon of precious metal debasement that marked the declining phase of the Roman empire. Only then it was relatively public for anyone who cared to find out on their own. Now, with the bulk of popular physical gold held in top secret, private warehouses around the world, where it allegedly backs the balance sheets of the world’s central banks, yet nobody can confirm its existence, nor audit the actual gold content, it is understandable why increasingly more are wondering: just how much gold is there?
Friday, March 23, 2012
Florida judge rules red light cameras unconstitutional
A man from Pasco County, Fla., who got nabbed by a traffic camera to catch red light runners believes the camera was wrong — both in snapping his license plate and constitutionally. On the constitutional front, Thomas Filippone now has a county judge’s ruling to back him up.
The Tampa Bay Tribune reports that Filippone received a $158 traffic ticket, but he wasn’t about to pay up and be more careful with the reds next time:
“If they are going to prove I was driving the car, it’s their duty under the law to prove the identity of the driver,” said Filippone, 45, who maintains his 2002 Nissan Altima crossed the intersection a split second before the light turned red on April 15. “It unjustly shifts burden to me and makes me shoulder the burden of having to prove their case.”
New property tax appeals process could surprise homeowners
Thousands of Florida homeowners may soon be in for a rude awakening: appeals to reduce their property assessments will be automatically tossed out if they have not paid most of their property tax bill by March 31.
A new state law passed last year requires homeowners who challenge their property tax valuations to pay at least 75 percent of the disputed bill before the end of March. The penalty: automatic disqualification from the appeals process, which thousands of Floridians have used to save hundreds of dollars in taxes during the housing downturn.
Obamacare: The reckoning
Obamacare dominated the 2010 midterms, driving its Democratic authors to a historic electoral shellacking. But since then, the issue has slipped quietly underground.
Now it’s back, summoned to the national stage by the confluence of three disparate events: the release of new Congressional Budget Office cost estimates, the approach of Supreme Court hearings on the law’s constitutionality and the issuance of a compulsory contraception mandate.
Cost:
Obamacare was carefully constructed to manipulate the standard 10-year cost projections of the CBO. Because benefits would not fully kick in for four years, President Obama could trumpet 10-year gross costs of less than $1 trillion — $938 billion to be exact.
But now that the near-costless years 2010 and 2011 have elapsed, the true 10-year price tag comes into focus. From 2013 through 2022, the CBO reports, the costs of Obamacare come to $1.76 trillion — almost twice the phony original number.
It gets worse. Annual gross costs after 2021 are more than a quarter of $1 trillion every year — until the end of time. That, for a new entitlement in a country already drowning in $16 trillion of debt.
Constitutionality: