The missing Republicans of 2012 debunked

Since the 2012 election, many have believed that Mitt Romney lost the election because many Republicans, turned off by Romney’s status as a “Republican in name only,” stayed home and didn’t vote. As the theory goes, the Republicans could have won the election if only they had nominated a candidate who was more conservative and who would have motivated the Republican base to turn out. Who are these conservative Republicans who did not vote in 2012? The answer to the missing Republicans of 2012 can be found in exit polls and vote tallies.

The first thing to note is that Mitt Romney got more votes than John McCain did in 2008. The Federal Election Commission’s official tallies for 2008 show that McCain received 59,948,323 votes. The official 2012 results from the FEC show that Mitt Romney received 60,933,500 votes. Romney received almost a million votes more than McCain.

Read the full article on Elections Examiner

Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia

Beware of tax protest conspiracy theories

David Thornton/IRS

As we approach April 15, the deadline for filing federal income tax returns for most individual taxpayers, many people question whether Americans are really required to pay an income tax. Scores of Youtube videos featuring people such as former IRS agentJoseph Bannister claim that the federal income tax is illegal and that Americans cannot be forced to pay taxes to the IRS. In celebration of the Ides of April, let us once again don our tin foil hats and delve into the world of income tax protesters.

One claim made by tax protesters is that there is no law on the books that permits a federal income tax. It is true that the original incometax signed into law by Abraham Lincoln in 1861 was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1895. This problem was fixed with the ratification of the 16th Amendment in 1913. Some tax protesters argue that the 16th Amendment was never properly ratified. Professor Jonathan Siegel of the George Washington University Law School explains that the 16th Amendment had the same ratification process as other amendments and really is part of the Constitution.

Read the rest on Examiner.com:

 

http://www.examiner.com/article/tax-protester-conspiracy-theories-can-lead-to-jail-fines

Myths, lies and conspiracies about the Sandy Hook massacre

President Obama and Madeline Parker

Often after a violent event that leads to a dramatic shift in public opinion or government policy, conspiracy theories abound.  The Kennedy assassination, the moon landing, and the September 11 attacks all spawned numerous conspiracy theories.  Now the Sandy Hook school massacre in Newtown, Ct. is becoming fodder for the purveyors of conspiracies.

 

Second shooters and the man in camouflage

 

One of the first conspiracies about Sandy Hook is that there was a second shooter.  News coverage on the day of the murders showed a man in camouflage who had been arrested in the woods near the school.  Bystanders reported that the man said, “I didn’t do it,” but no information on the man’s identity was forthcoming.

 

Read the rest on Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/article/myths-lies-and-conspiracies-about-the-sandy-hook-massacre?cid=db_articles

The Occupy movement’s 99 percent myth

One of the pervasive myths of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that one percent of the population controls 99 percent of wealth. Conversely, the occupiers, who claim to be among the other 99 percent, are left with only one percent of the nation’s wealth. The truth is available in online datafrom the U.S. government.

According the IRS, there were 2,196 people with a net worth of more than $1.5 million each in 2004, the most recent year for which data was available. Their combined net worth was $9.7 trillion. According to the 2004 edition of the CIA World Fact Book, the GDP of the United States in 2004 was $10.9 trillion. This works out to only about 88% of the GDP for the top seven percent of the population (using a census estimate of 308,745,538 Americans in 2004). This is a far cry from one percent controlling nine percent of the total American wealth. This is even assuming that all of the wealth of the top seven percent is in the United States when in reality much of it is probably international.

 

Read the rest of this article on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/the-occupy-movement-s-one-percent-myth

Santa Claus: Fact or fiction?

Is Santa the product of a vast, Christmas conspiracy? (Debi Thornton)

In this edition, I examine what is reputed to be one of the world’s oldest and largest conspiracies. If true, this conspiracy would dwarf the Kennedy assassination, the Roswell incident, and the cover-ups of the September 11 attacks. This conspiracy would involve millions of people around the world over hundreds of years and reach all the way to the US military’s North American Air Defense Command (NORAD). It permeates the film and publishing industries as well as retail stores throughout the Western world. I speak, of course, of the Great Santa Claus Conspiracy.

To read the rest of this article, please click the link below:

Part 1:
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/santa-claus-fact-or-fiction

Part 2:
http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/santa-claus-fact-or-fiction-continued