Without doubt, Barack Obama will be re-elected to the office of President of the United States. He will take a majority of the popular vote, and will have the needed majority in electoral vote, too. 

Here are my state-by-state predictions in the map below:

These are minimums, please note. I'm giving much lenience to the Romney campaign in the states of Florida and North Carolina. Those could still easily flip to extend the margin of victory even further. I firmly believe that those states will be decided by less than three percent in margin, though. For example, I know that the Democratic Party registered another 250,000 voters in this state that Obama won by slight margin in 2008. 

Missouri will feature a less-than-six-percent margin, in my opinion, as will the state of Montana (and I know that will be a shocker in that very Republican and very white state). I also, just to play safe bettor, award those to Romney. 

Ohio, Virginia and Colorado will be close, but not enough to take them away from Obama. Ohio is already reporting voter difficulties and voter restraint, but the ballots from Cleveland will succeed in giving it to the incumbent. Colorado has flip-flopped back and forth over the last month in reputable polls, but has been on an Obama tide in the last couple of weeks. Virginia will go to Obama along with its support for Senate candidate Tim Kaine. 

My home state of South Carolina will go to Romney, I'm sure -- it won't be the same blow-out margin of other presidential elections, though. In 2008, Obama trailed by nine percent, which was the first time in three decades for a Dem candidate loss by less than 10 percent. In 2012, I predict that Obama will be less than eight percent under in South Carolina. Much of the reason will be that traditional GOP voters here don't want to support Romney, and predominately for religious reasons.  Those voters will select another candidate or will simply stay home on Election Day.

In my South Carolina county of Dorchester, I predict that Obama will do slightly better than he did in 2008. Instead of 41.6, he'll do slightly over 43. This gain is due to three reasons: weather (it'll be quite rainy on Election Day, which will restrict the older and traditional GOP voters); new residents (we were in the Top 20 fastest growing counties nationwide in the last decade, with most new residents coming from out of state); and GOP disinterest (due to the fact that the Republican Party in this county has greatly alienated its typical supporters as its become more and more evident that its officials and candidates aren't really Republicans [or Democrats, either], and are only self-serving, self-interested wannabes). 

Disagree with any of these predictions? Post your comments below, folks. 

On April 18, Rep. Leonard Lance (R-NJ) introduced H.R. 4395, the Cosmetic Safety Amendments Act of 2012, which would allow federal oversight on cosmetics and personal care products prior to their public distribution.

The bill was even supported the very next day by the Personal Care Products Council, a long-standing association of manufacturers who would be directly affected by the Act.

Just four weeks later, however, Rep. Tim Scott quietly introduced 28 bills that could limit the applicability of H.R. 4395 after it passes.

The bills filed by Scott on May 15 would suspend the duties on particular imported chemicals that are commonly used in cosmetic products.

Being duty-free, the chemicals could be purchased at lower rates. Because most laws restricting ingredients in consumer products aren’t applied to materials already in stock, companies could be allowed to continue use of those chemicals until inventory is depleted.

Scott’s bills, then, could allow companies to stock up on these chemicals before any new law goes into effect, and thus substantially delay the intended purposes of Lance’s bill. Worse, these bills – all 28 introduced at the same time – could extend hazards to the public.  

The chemicals specified in Scott’s bills are known to pose various dangers to humans, and many are restricted or even banned in Europe, Canada and/or parts of Asia.

Scott’s H.R. 5760, for example, wants to suspend temporarily the duty on Imidazolidinyl urea, a preservative derived from animal urine that’s used in cosmetics, shampoos and deodorants.

Known to be a toxicant to the human immune system and to the skin, the chemical also releases formaldehyde.

Its use in personal care products is very restricted in Europe and Japan, but it remains unwatched in the U.S. until the Cosmetic Safety Amendments Act goes into effect.

H.R. 5771 is “to suspend temporarily on modified phenolic resin in alkaline solution,” an additive used in sunscreen and hair colorings.

This chemical is already classed as a respiratory toxicant, according to Environmental Working Group, and is associated with cancer and damage to the nervous system.

Japan restricts its use in cosmetics to small amounts, and phenol is outright banned as a cosmetic ingredient in Canada.

While the Personal Care Products Council has publicly supported the Cosmetic Safety Amendments Act, it declined comment on these bills later introduced.

John Hurson, the Council’s executive vice president of government affairs, said he was not familiar with Scott’s bills, and could only say that the chemicals specified could also be used in non-cosmetic products.

In 2005, the Council reportedly spent $600,000 campaigning against a similar but more restrictive cosmetic safety act in California.  

If the bills were to pass, not only could they extend the dangers that the cosmetic industry itself now acknowledges, but they could also continue the pattern of trade imbalance.

For example, only 10 U.S. companies manufacture or distribute Imidazolidinyl urea, the chemical specified in Scott’s H.R. 5760. Of 150 producers worldwide, 136 are in China.

Twenty-one American companies produce the benotriazol specified in Scott’s H.R. 5752, but 677 Chinese companies make this chemical, which is used as a UV-stabilizer in cosmetics despite its known status as toxic to the organ system.

To remove the duties on these chemicals imported from other countries, then, could harm sales of the few U.S. companies that make them. It could also further extend the trade deficit with China.

Two of the 28 bills Scott filed that same day pertained to chemicals used in agricultural herbicides and fungicides; the 2, 2’-Dithiobisbenzothiazole chemical specified in H.R. 5766 is known to kill water life it may contact by runoff, and H.R. 5768’s Cyanuric chloride is banned from agricultural use throughout Europe due to its poisonous effects.

Currently, cosmetics and personal care products do not require any review or regulatory compliance. Lance’s Cosmetic Safety Amendments Act would allow the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to have authority over these products prior to their release, however.

(posted on youtube by TJUtube22)

Congressional candidate Tim Rice is sharply criticized by a former client in a new advertisement released on Tuesday. 

Paid for the state’s Working Families Party, the ad features Josephine Dollar, a Conway senior citizen who once hired the Republican attorney.

Dollar says she paid Rice to protect her in a battle with two estranged daughters over her personal property in an inheritance squabble.

When she returned to the home, though, Dollar found it empty. All furniture and even her clothing and personal possessions had been removed, she says.

“It cost me my home, my farm, my truck, my furniture. You can’t trust Tom Rice.”

The advertisement closes by noting WFP’s endorsement of Rice’s opponent in the 7th Congressional District race, Gloria Bromell Tinubu.

“Send someone to Congress we can trust,” the ad concludes.

The last poll for this new congressional district was conducted October 3 by Winthrop Univ. Rice led in the month-old survey 48.9 percent to Tinubu’s 36.2, but over 10 percent remained undecided at that time.

At a November 1 press conference that mentioned other questionable business activities by Rice,Tinubu told WBTW that the upcoming general election was the only poll that mattered at the moment.

In his current office of Horry County councilman, Rice’s active support for development deals with a company have been challenged as questionable and insider-favorable by other council members, and due to loopholes that could financially strain the county.

Final election results could be quite different due to this news that got more coverage after the early Winthrop poll, the Democratic candidate added at the press conference.

The Working Families Party’s support for middle-class interests, including organized labor, could be relevant to voters in this district, 26.7 percent of whom stated favorable opinions of labor unions in Winthrop’s survey. Only 3.9 percent of workers in South Carolina belong to unions, however, indicating favorability to organized labor in this district to be much higher than found in the state overall.

Tinubu will appear on the November 6 ballots twice in the same race as the candidate of both the Democratic and Working Families parties.

Want to practice your vote? Explain it, even? Or see why others are supporting particular candidates? Just use the ballot below. 

You can also use the direct site where you can select and even explain the reasons behind your choices.  To participate, you'll have to select "register to vote" e top-row menu (that's register to vote on the site, not actual voter registration, please note). 

Sponsored by League of Young Voters, New Era Colorado, Forward Montana, and the Bus Project, TheBallot.org lets you comment on the candidates, and even add smaller local races to its records, too. 

For Tuesday's presidential debate, the Charleston County Republican Party hosted a watch party complete with food, drinks and ... someone dressed in pimp garb who wore an Obama mask.

I find that personally disturbing, not just because I’m active with the competing party in the area, and not just because I find CCRP's welcoming of that attendee to be just as discriminatory, negatively-stereotyping and racist as his costume, either.

What offends me is the negative implications now placed upon my Republican friends and relatives.

The person who pulled this stunt made it clear that the Republican Party no longer represents the values of its voters. While party officials and representatives may talk about faith, families, limited government and other so-called conservative issues, their actions are completely different. And that unfairly paints a negative image upon voters who actually support those ideals.

We see this in Republican politicians and candidates very often.

Take, for example, the rhetoric regularly stated by our Republican congressman Tim Scott. He publicly complains about “big government,” but his record seems to indicate he’s in favor of “Big Brother.”

He voted to extend warrantless searches of your computer, for example – that allows government to directly access your computer, even your Internet history, at any time without any authorization or even established need. Scott also voted to allow your employer to force you to give up your passwords to social websites, such as facebook, so that your boss can keep a close eye on your private life. If your employer doesn’t like what he sees, or if you refuse to hand over your passwords? You can be fired.

How, then, is Scott supporting the traditional Republican tenets of freedom and smaller government?

From a more local perspective, consider Dorchester County's Councilman Bill Hearn and state house candidate Ed Carter. While both proclaim conservative values as foundations of their campaigns, both had their campaign websites designed and maintained by a company that also does “soft porn” sites.

So is this a double standard? Or isn’t this simply another example of how very many Republican officials don’t subscribe to actual Republican values, and maybe aren’t actual Republicans?

This hypocrisy is especially evident in Carter’s campaign platform. In a “Political Courage” survey he answered earlier this year, for example, Carter gave some classic conservative answers, calling for reductions in Medicaid benefits and absolutely no restrictions on the purchase or possession of weapons.

In 2000, though, and in response to a survey from this same Vote Smart organization, Carter said he supported an increase in Medicaid benefits, even for non-US citizens. And we should “maintain and strengthen” gun laws, he said. (See his 2000 “Political Courage” responses here.)

So to which party, then, does Carter actually align: Democrat or Republican?

Neither one. Carter apparently wouldn’t represent anyone other than himself.

My brother, for example, who’s a very conservative financial consultant, is quite fed up with the financial irresponsibility that the GOP keeps presenting in its budget proposals.

A neighbor and very good friend, who’s quite firm in his faith, has lost faith in the Republican Party because of the apparent double-standard its elected officials hold for themselves.

And I know that the Republican voters in our community aren’t childish with hints of racism, either, even though that seemed to be the projection at Tuesdays’s local GOP event.

To the actual, true Republican citizens in the Lowcountry, don’t worry – I won’t let that incident affect my perspectives of you and your values, and I’ll make sure local Democrats know that, too.

But you need to reclaim your party very quickly, or else just leave the GOP.

Until then, we all need to vote our values this November. And the only way to do that, apparently, is by voting Democrat, especially in these local races.

See Ed Carter's 2000 "Political Courage" test on another page of this site, and see his newer 2012 version on the questioning organization's site.

Read about Carter's campaign website, which was designed by a company that also does soft porn sites. 

Today a federal court upheld South Carolina’s contested “Voter ID” law, but said it can’t be enforced in this year’s elections.

“(G)iven the short time left before the 2012 election, and given the numerous steps necessary to properly implement the law…we do not grant pre-clearance for the 2012 elections,” Judge Brett Cavanaugh wrote in the ruling.

In November, voters can still use their voter registration cards and other non-state IDs in order to participate in the general election.

This allows the 239,000 affected voters in the state to cast ballots this year, but not in future elections unless they acquire an approved photo identification.

State legislature passed the law in May 2011, but the U.S. Dept. of Justice ruled against it later that year, stating the “Voter ID” requirement was restrictive and also discriminatory in application.

Using claims of votes cast in the names of deceased citizens, state Attorney Gen. Alan Wilson pursued the case, which wound up in D.C.’s U.S. District Court.

Response to the court’s ruling has been mixed. Republican officials who helped enter and pass the law in state legislature offer an expected praise for the decision, which Wilson calls “a major victory.”

The version approved by the three-judge panel is not the same as the original state law, however, as attorney J. Gerald Hebert, who represented those opposed to Voter ID, points out.

“Ultimately the law that the court has approved for 2013 and beyond is a huge departure from the bill enacted by the South Carolina Legislature,” Hebert said.

The original bill required voters to provide government-issued photo ID in order to cast ballots.

In the variation offered during the case by Wilson, voters without identification will still be allowed to vote after simply signing a form explaining why they do not have any of the five approved IDs at the time.

Without this accommodation, the court would not have ruled in favor of Voter ID, Judge Cavanaugh stated.

Many others aren’t satisfied with the variation, however, calling today’s court decision only a temporary victory that will expire next year.

“We’re glad that thousands of voters who faced being denied access to the polls will get to vote next month, but are concerned about what lies ahead,” said Nancy Abudu, an attorney with the ACLU.

Over 239,000 South Carolinians are registered to vote, but lack any of the required formats of photo ID.

Bobbie Rose, Democratic candidate for the 1st Congressional Dist., is also dissatisfied with the decision.

“While I’m glad the ruling won’t affect voters this year, it’s still deeply disturbing how much of an obstacle this creates for South Carolina voters in the future, especially seniors,” Rose says.

“Once you’re 65, you don’t need to renew a license after it expires unless you’re still driving. Banks and even courts still have to accept those IDs, too. Those seniors must now have their IDs renewed, though, and will even face costs of acquiring the documentation needed to prove their identity. That’s the equivalent of a poll tax.”

Rose says the law will disproportionately affect minorities, and will also affect young voters, too. “Less than two-thirds of 18-year-olds have a license,” Rose says, “and their student IDs won’t be acceptable when they want to vote or register to vote.”

The state Democratic Party “strongly disagrees with the court’s opinion,” as well, even alluding that today’s decision might not be final.

SCDP “is hopeful that the United States Supreme Court will resolve the differences between various Voter ID cases around the country,” party chair Dick Harpootlian said this afternoon.

The basis of a Republican’s endorsement of a Democratic president mirrors her own argument against Rep. Tim Scott, Bobbie Rose says.

The Democratic candidate for South Carolina’s 1st Congressional Dist., Rose faces Scott in the November 6 general election.

On Monday, retired Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) announced his backing of Pres. Barack Obama.

A primary reason for his party-switching endorsement was a personal one, he says in his October 8 editorial. A Vietnam War veteran, Pressler notes that Republican candidates “Romney and Ryan are pandering to election-year politics rather than focusing on pending cuts to military spending.” 

Approximately $11 billion in cuts to veterans’ benefits were included in the original Ryan Budget, which Rose points out was readily supported by Scott when introduced to congress earlier this year. 

In a recent Post & Courier article, Scott defended his stance on veterans funding, claiming it actually increased in the House budget.

However, “he was an advocate supporter (of the Ryan Budget),” Rose says, “even though those $11 billion in cuts included a $6 billion chop from Veterans Administration healthcare alone.”

Not only does this cut many thousands of veterans from benefits, but the Veterans Administration is already underfunded to care for our soldiers, too, she says, pointing out how veterans currently face a waiting time of eight months before claims are handled.

This delay directly affects thousands of recently-returned soldiers afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which Pressler also has, and which he acknowledges is part of the basis of his Obama endorsement.

Rose says this circumstance of veteran PTSD should have higher prominence to Scott due to the high presence of military veterans in the 1st Congressional Dist. – over 14 percent of the adult population in the area are veterans, as opposed to only 9.1 percent nationwide.

“The many local veterans with this prominent disorder will be neglected by Scott,” Rose argues. “He even said so himself.”

At a Town Hall meeting in North Charleston earlier this year, Scott told constituents he fully favored the proposed Defense budget even though he had “no doubt about” its inclusion of wasteful spending. 

He said he didn’t support veterans’ PTSD therapy, however, because he finds its costs to be “astronomical.”

“Pressler said ‘Romney and Ryan would be disastrous for America's service members, veterans and military families,’” Rose points out, “and so too would Scott’s reelection.” 

Pressler represented South Dakota in U.S. Congress from 1975 to 1997, with 18 of those 22 years as senator.  He also briefly campaigned for president in 1980. 

In 2000, he was a member of the steering committee for George W. Bush’s campaign, and was part of the Bush Transition Team after that election. 

Pressler also endorsed Obama in 2008, “the first time I ever voted for a Democrat,” he says.

Also see:
Scott gets 'F' on IPS Congressional Report Card
Tim Scott: Americans aren't supposed to be equal
Rose to Rep. Scott: Hit the road, Tim
Scott's vets event an insult to veterans, Rose says
Scott's first-year spending high, paid to endorsers