The Peter Leeds Penny Stocks Project – an update

by Roland Hulme

In January, I began the Peter Leeds project – an impartial, in-depth analysis of the Penny Stocks service offered by much touted guru Peter Leeds. I had a comment the other day demanding to know where my latest report was – so here’s an update.

Is Peter Leeds worth the money?

It’s been just over four months since I paid the $195 subscription to Peter Leeds' penny stock services and the fact that I’m writing my Peter Leeds review from a desk in New York City and not a beach in the Caribbean is a good indication of just how successful I’ve been on it. 

I haven’t made my fortune thanks to Peter. In fact, I haven’t made a penny.

But first off, I should preface that by admitting my own financial participation in his stock recommendations has been limited. I picked one or two stocks he recommended and, as of this writing, have lost a little on both of them. Then again, he recommends one stock every week, so you’re kind of spinning a roulette wheel when you decide which one to go with.

On the whole, though, I haven’t come across thinking that there’s some kind of Peter Leeds scam going on. Peter Leeds does come across like a genuine, honest guy. He doesn’t make any wild or outlandish promises about becoming rich from penny stocks, and it seems his much touted “method” for picking solid stocks in cemented in cold, objective analysis.

The being said, the stocks he recommends are not all consistent performers.  

I analyzed his most recent stock picks and gave them a VERY generous assessment, looking at their performance to see if there was any point in which investors would have been able to make money. 

According to my figures, out of the past seven stocks he recommended, only three would have offered the opportunity to take a profit – and only one (at 40%) offered any significant increase.

The rest flunked – losing at their best between 7% and 17% from my calculations.

In his defense, these figures are based on a mere three months; and the economy has not been great for stocks no matter how low they’re priced. Yet when somebody invests money in a stock subscription service, they’re not paying for excuses – they’re paying for results.

No matter which way you cut the mustard, my impression so far from Peter Leeds Penny Stocks is that you’re NOT going to get an easy, convenient source of quickly performing penny stocks by subscribing; just some rational, ethical recommendations that would, theoretically, at least protect you against loses.

And if you’re in it for the long haul – who knows? One of Peter’s recommendations recently spiked by 75%; which is a nice little payday for those who bought into it.

But the issue is – with so many recommendations being made, how do you know which one is going to be “the one” that hits the big time? And, more importantly, when do you know when to sell?

And that’s really the big issue. In my admittedly unscientific calculations, I rated Peter Leeds’ stock picks on how much money you COULD have made if you’d sold at the right time. The fact is, you could have made less – or even a loss – at other points.

To Peter Leeds’ credit, the one recent stock pick that spiked at more than 40% from when he recommended it hit exactly on his short term sell recommendation. His others haven’t met that point yet – so while I argue about profits and loss, if you’d been listening to his recommendations you’d still be holding onto those stocks.

Ultimately, my verdict on Peter Leeds’ penny stocks service in the short term is that you will NOT make significant amounts of money on it, but it’s certainly not a scam, either.

Peter Leeds presents himself as an ethical guy, and he obviously does fulfill the research and analysis he promises before recommending stocks.

As a result, none of his picks have vanished, been frozen by the SEC or crashed to a fraction of their former worth – and anybody who’s been dabbling in penny stocks for a while will know that these misadventures are more commonly the rule than the exception.

Yet does this deliver sufficient value for the nearly $200 annual subscription? Given that his stock picks have had inconsistent performance in the time I’ve been looking at them, I’d be cautious about saying that it does. People invest in stock subscriptions to MAKE money; not simply fail to lose too much of it.

As of this point – nearly four months into my subscription – I would say don’t bother investing in the Peter Leeds Penny Stocks service. There’s no Peter Leeds scam, but I don’t think it genuinely offers sufficient value for money given what most penny stock investor’s expectations and investment budgets are.

But I will admit that of all the penny stock services out there, Peter Leeds’ is definitely the most transparent, and he comes across as the most ethical and genuine of the investment gurus people follow. I’d take him over Jim Kramer any day of the week.

And the final verdict isn’t in. I can’t claim a refund for my subscription, so I will be sending (nonspecific) updates on the performance of the stocks he recommends throughout the year* – plus all the other things you get for signing up.

If I change my mind about Peter Leed’s Penny Stocks, I’ll let you know.


* Because Peter Leeds created his penny stock site to make money, I will not be giving away any of the recommendations we subscribers have to pay for - just report on the general performance of his stock tips.

You Are Why You’re Poor

by Roland Hulme

Today gave me a beautiful illustration of what’s wrong with modern America.

As I emerged from Penn Station this morning, a group of people in red t-shirts were eagerly handing out dollar bills – all part of something called Fortune 500 Day (which I’d never heard of before.)

Some people, like myself, eagerly took the free money and then carried on to work.

Most people, however, stepped out of the path of the people handing out the cash, or raised their hand to dismiss them, or simply uttered a short, sharp bark of “No!”

And that, my friends, is about as perfect a metaphor for American life as you could possibly ask for.

What I’ve come to realize and love about this incredible country is that it really is “the land of opportunity” – and that there’s as much wealth and as many riches as you could possibly want, depending on how hard you’re willing to work to get them (or what you’re willing to sacrifice.)

I’m new to this attitude towards life, but it’s paid very rich dividends in the short amount of time  I've been living by it.

But a vast number of people don’t realize that this is how America works, and they’re miserable and bitter as a result. They see other people in this country with riches, wealth, comfort and security and then blame anybody but themselves for this inequality.

It’s a mentality best summed up by the Occupy movement – which lacks a clearly defined manifesto, but certainly seems to be based around the mindset of “you have more than me, so give me some.”

But that’s the conceit, and what people with the Occupy mindset don’t get: America is giving you “some.” In fact, it’s giving you as much as you’d fancy taking. Everything you want from this country – wealth, property, prosperity, fame and fortune – is waiting for you like ripe, juicy fruit ready to be picked.

But you still have to pick it.

That ripe fruit doesn’t get picked for you. You don’t have people taking your hands gently, turning them palm-upward and then placing the fruit in them for you. You actually have to reach, and stretch, and grip and pull and then pluck that reward from where it hangs.

Everything you want from America is being offered to you; but most people don’t bother taking it. And then they complain about other people having more than they do.

They blame anybody else for it – social injustice, economic privation, capitalism or socialism or whatever flawed economic model they believe America runs under – but they never take responsibility for it themselves – and they should.

Because in truth, the people represented by the Occupy movement are often like the people outside Penn Station today – the ones who turned their nose up at the free money being waved in their faces.

They live in the most incredible country in the world – where more people have more chances to become wealthy than in any other place on earth – and yet they still starve themselves in the midst of all this abundance.

It's time to stop making excuses for why you haven't got what you want out of life, and start taking action. The opportunities are there - you just need to seize them.

Need proof of how this works? Just look at the figures. In Occupy Wall Street language, 80% of the 1% started life as the 99% - and became this nation's richest none the less.

There's nothing - literally nothing - standing between you and those same incredible results.

Except yourself.

Why does Britain want to let the rich pay no tax?

by Roland Hulme

 

Cameron and Clegg are in the right by capping tax-free charitable donations

How the super-rich are manipulating the super-dumb British voters.

Out of all the European countries, Britain seems to be one of the only one successfully clawing itself out of the financial quagmire. This is almost entirely due to the combined leadership of the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives; who as a coalition government have made the tough and wildly unpopular decisions that desperately needed to be made.

Yet doing what needed to be done has not sat well with the press, or so-called “progressive” public opinion. 

The latest policy to hit a barrage of criticism is David Cameron’s call for a tax cap on charitable donations.

The system previously in place worked like this: You could write off the donations you made to charity against your tax obligations – so if you earned GBP 100,000 in a year and donated GPB 50,000 to charity in that same year, you would only have to pay tax on half of your income.

The rule was originally set in place to encourage charitable donations – but like all such systems, it quickly got manipulated by canny accountants. The reason Clegg and Cameron want to “cap” the amount that people can donate as a tax write-off is because very rich people were using this system to reduce their effective taxable income to almost nothing.

The rich folk who have taken advantage of this system are up in arms; and have pitched a sublimely convincing line of bullshit to the British public that such a “cap” would reduce charitable donations. As a result, the Guardian-reading committee and the Daily Mail crowd have combined outrage to demand that this cap be lifted.

But the fact is, Clegg and Cameron are right on by insisting on this charitable cap. If they didn’t, it would essentially mean that the richest segments of the community can bypass their tax responsibilities entirely.

Now, the Guardian-reading lot have framed the argument very effectively: It’s true that it currently costs the rich at least as much, if not more, to write off their money to charity as it would to actually pay their tax obligation – but anybody who’s spent any time working in the snake-oil business of registered charity knows that not all “worthy causes” are created equally.

For every incredibly worthy charity – like Brainstrust – there are a bunch of frankly sketchy ones (like the People for the EthicalTreatment of Animals.) Likewise, for every charity that uses its donations for good, there are many that simply serve as a tax-free source of helicopter trips, entertainment expenses and power networking events.

Let’s not pretend there aren’t considerable material benefits to hefty charitable donations; and many reasons why the rich would prefer to channel their money to those rather than the government.

Ultimately, the previous system allowed the super-rich to have the choice of paying the same tax you and I pay, or donating all that money to a cause of their own choice instead. That's what the issue is - and why it needs to be addressed. It’s all very well the Guardian-reading crowd arguing that “it goes to a worthy cause” – but why should the rich have the choice which “worthy cause” it goes to when the rest of us don’t?

The British taxpayer should instead be demanding: If the rich can choose who their tax money goes to, why can’t the rest of us?

And the fact is, the rich shouldn’t have that right. There should be benefits to donating to charity, certainly – but not at the expense of bypassing the same tax responsibilities the rest of the country have. The current system is a shell game; and there are unscrupulous folks manipulating the daftest Brits to let them keep playing it.

If you need proof, just look at the responses of those impacted by the bill: Many rich folks have argued that if Cameron and Clegg insist on a “cap” of charitable donations, they will stop donating – pretty much proving that they've always been in it for the tax write off, not to actually help anybody.

The fact is, the poor and middle class always have to hand over their hard-earned income to the British government.  It’s not fair and it’s not right that the richest Brits can choose to give their money to other people instead.

If you don’t understand this concept – or you don’t support Clegg and Cameron’s proposal – then frankly you’re an idiot. 

U.S. Law Needs Consistency on Defining Life

by Roland Hulme

The abortion issue is clouded by contradictory laws.

How can we seriously debate "personhood" and "the right to life" and "a woman's right to choose" when we have situations like the one below hitting the headlines:

Homicide Reports
Los Angeles Times, February 5, 2012
Baby Bao, a fetus, died Sunday, Feb. 5, in the 1000 block of South Ynez Avenue in Monterey Park, according to Los Angeles County coroner's records. 

My issue is wondering how a 3-month old fetus can be considered a homicide victim - after dying as a result of domestic violence committed against the mother who carried him - when fetuses of the same term length can still legally be aborted all across the country. 

I'm not saying the definition is right or wrong, in either example. Personally, I'm opposed to abortion (although is anybody really "pro" abortion?) but still support legal access to it because I think it would be devastating to American society if the safe, sane, regulated abortion industry as it is today was driven underground.

But there is a huge legal disconnect when a voluntary abortion is legal, and an involuntary one (as the "murder" of Baby Bao would technically be described) is defined as "homicide."

It's a problem that definitely plays into the hands of the pro-life crowd. For those who are pro-life, the only conclusion to draw from Bao's spontaneous abortion being treated as a homicide is that all unborn babies are "people" and an abortion is always considered "murder," whether it's performed in the sterile environment of a regulated abortion clinic, or as a result of the fists and boots of a violent husband.

For the "pro-choice" crowd, the response is either inconsistent or horrific. On one hand, you could argue that Bao's termination was "murder" because his mother considered her unborn baby her "child" and that losing him was as traumatic to her as losing one of her existing children (which, . By contrast, a woman who has an abortion does not want to carry her fetus to term, so does not consider it a "person."

But the problem there is trying to justify giving the power of life and death over an unborn baby to baby's mother; especially since the full force of the law supports that arbitrary decision and a man faces a lifetime in prison as a result. He will be charged with murder for causing Bao's spontaneous abortion. A doctor in a clinic, on the other hand, can do exactly the same thing day in and day out with no legal repercussions whatsoever.

From a pro-choice perspective, the only other way of looking at it is that fetuses aren't people under any circumstances - and Bao's father causing a miscarriage through violence wasn't "murder" but just an extension of his assault on the unborn baby's mother. That's a consistent argument; but a fairly inhuman one.

As a parent who is excited about a pregnancy, I know you start to consider your unborn babies as "people" weeks and months before they emerge, wailing, into this world. My wife and I experienced two miscarriages and I'll admit with both mourned for the loss of a potential "person" for a number of weeks as a result. Some legal definition saying that these unborn babies weren't "people" wouldn't stop many people considering them exactly that.

All these circles back to my official line on abortion - that defining "personhood" and defending a woman's "right to choose" is background noise that masks the real issue. Abortion is not a disease - it's the symptom of a disease. The real issue is that millions of American women have unplanned or unwanted pregnancies every year. In an age in which we have free and easy access to contraception that's 99% effective, such a statistic is unconscionable.

Republicans and Democrats alike should quite fighting over the right to have - or not have - an abortion and instead work together to create an America in which abortions are no longer necessary.

The Peter Leeds Penny Stocks Project

by Roland Hulme

The Exchange Coffee House was created in tribute of the 18th Century coffee houses of colonial America - where politics, business and finance were discussed and rowdily debated (most commonly over ale, rather than coffee.) So far, we've dedicated a lot of space towards political discussion - but none to financial matters. Today that changes, with the launch of the most ambitious project the Exchange Coffee House has ever embarked on: The Peter Leeds project.

Is Peter Leeds a scam, or the real deal?

For those of you who don't know who he is, Peter Leeds is touted at "the Penny Stock professional", author of Invest in Penny Stocks: A Guide to Profitable Trading and owner of PennyStocks.net; where he offers a subscription service promoting listed stocks that are trading for under $5.

Peter Leeds is wildly successful in this role - with over 30,000 subscribers to his website and a litany of media appearances under his belt, including regular spots on NBC, Fox News and CBS.

Perhaps most famously, he was invited by the American Stock Exchange to be a guest speaker; establishing him as a legitimate figure in the sometimes shady arena of penny stocks.


But as Jim Kramer, of Mad Money, is ample proof of - television appearances don't mean you know what you're talking about; nor that investors should listen to the advice you give.

Which led me to ask the question: Is the financial advice Peter Leeds gives any good?

To that end, I bought and read his book, Invest in Penny Stocks: A Guide to Profitable Trading. It's a quick read that gives the fledgling investor some great insight into the mechanics of trading stocks; and contains some very important advice.

Perhaps most importantly, he outlines that the "penny stocks" he recommends and trades are always listed stocks from the NASDAQ, AMEX or New York Stock Exchange.  He warns investors to stay well clear of anything sold on the OTCBB or Pink Sheets; as he feels the majority of those are penny stock scams (and if my experience trading is any indication, he's absolutely right.)

But I agreed with the most common criticism of his book - that Invest in Penny Stocks: A Guide to Profitable Trading reads like an advertisement for his penny stocks subscription service. Throughout the book, it tells you what you should be looking for in a potential stock purchase, but he doesn't give you the information most of us need to find such stocks. The answer, it is heavily implied, is to be found by investing in his subscription service.

Now this is where Peter Leeds becomes a victim of his own success. Running Google searches for Peter Leeds Review or Penny Stocks Review or even Peter Leeds Scam invariably drives one back to his ubiquitous website, Pennystocks.com, which means it's impossible to get an impartial, independent evaluation of whether the service he offers is worth the money or not.

Instead, you're always driven to his website; where you're given the dog and pony show about why you should sign up.

Aside from that, you're directed for forums where investors weigh in with a heavy-handed: "Never subscribe for stock picks" which might well be good advice; but since they're not enrolled with Peter Leeds they're not really qualified to say.

Hence the creation of the Peter Leeds Project on the Exchange Coffee House - a totally impartial, fair and balanced evaluation of the Peter Leeds Penny Stocks subscription service that will give people the information they're looking for; namely whether it's any good or not.

To this end, I will be subscribing to Peter Leed's penny stocks program and investing in some of the stock picks he makes. I will report here what my verdict of the service - and the stock picks - ultimately is.

Before I begin, though, I need to make some things very clear:

• I am not involved, affiliated, partnered or endorsed in any way by Peter Leeds or pennystocks.com. This is an entirely independent, impartial review of the service - and the verdict I render will be absolutely honest.
• I have purchased Invest in Penny Stocks: A Guide to Profitable Trading with my own money. I will subscribe to Peter Leeds penny stocks service with my own money. Any investment I make in stock Peter Leeds recommends will be with my own money (and in a very limited capacity.) 

Hopefully that establishes that I have no vested or financial interest in being anything other than scrupulously honest about Peter Leed's subscription program.

I will admit that I am hoping his program is legitimate, because then I will be able to make money off his recommendations. However, if it is not I will report so here.

In the interest of professionalism, I will be abiding to the followings rules while operating the Peter Leeds project:

• Peter Leeds makes his living by recommending stocks to paying subscribers. Therefore I will not be "giving away" his product by listing his recommendations here.
• Neither will I print specific stock prices or information that will enable them to be identified. I will refer to stocks only by the date on which he recommended them, and round up to within one or two percentage points how much they climb or sink.

Finally, I will answer the one question I've been asked ever since I envisioned the Peter Leeds project - "what's in it for me?"

The answer, my friends, is very simple: If the Peter Leeds Penny Stocks program is actually legitimate, I intend to make money by investing in his recommendations. If the program is not legitimate, I intend to let people know - and that this verdict was reached objectively and independently.

Why would I risk my own money by buying a subscription to his service - and possibly investing in his recommendations? Easy - I will see that money again.

The Exchange Coffee House sells advertising - and the traffic I anticipate getting by way of launching the Peter Leeds project should cover the costs of subscribing to the program at the very least. My intention is to ensure that I am not out of pocket no matter whether Peter Leed's penny stocks program turns out to be legitimate, or just what the people Googling Peter Leeds scam feared it would be.

Watch this space. The first update is coming soon.

A Reality Check for SOPA Opponents

by Roland Hulme

Today, sites like Wikipedia will be blacked out in protest of the proposed Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA.) 

I copied and pasted this picture without attribution.

This poorly written bill will give copyright holders the opportunity to sue websites that post copyrighted material - even if it's uploaded by users, and not the website owners themselves.

In addition, it can force search engines like Google to block links to sites that host copyrighted material overseas.

At its worst, the bill could even see kids who upload videos to YouTube of them singing cover versions of copyrighted songs face prosecution.

Nobody is going to argue that SOPA is a badly worded, draconian act - but let's just stop before we all jump on the "Bill Bad!" bandwagon.

SOPA may be a bad bill, but it exists for a legitimate reason. The Internet has made it ridiculously easy to steal, share, disseminate and distribute copyrighted material and the it's killing those of us who attempt to make a living by creating things.

I found this out first hand when I started to discover articles, blogs and columns I'd written appear in other places - copied and pasted and passed off as other people's work.

At a magazine I helped start, my colleagues found this out when pictures from their magazine (which was only available in printed format) started appearing on people's Tumblr feeds without prior approval.

Right now, thousands of people illegally download songs, music and video games through bittorrent and other peer-to-peer sharing services without giving thought to the fact that they are basically stealing them.

"Tube" sites give users the opportunity to upload entire episodes of TV shows, or complete films, that people can then watch without paying for a cable bill, DVD rental or download. Yes, it's forbidden - and the hosting site will eventually remove it when they discover it - but it goes on with such frequency that it's essentially impossible to police.

And the problem is, this all slowly erodes the ability for creative people to make a living through what they create. Artists expend time, money and effort to create something that others want to enjoy - and some of those people enjoy it so much that they pass it onto their friends for free; robbing the artists of the revenue they need to keep making what they make.

Even worse, the nature of the Internet has made piracy so ubiquitous that most people don't even think they're doing anything wrong. That's the real issue I have with opponents of SOPA. Too many of them don't seem to get the fact that you can't just take other people's stuff and do with it what you will.

And the Internet's to blame in other ways, as well. Just take Tumblr, for example. I have a particular issue with that website because it's essentially streamlined the theft and dissemination of copyrighted material.

People see pictures, videos or words that they like and can distribute them to thousands of people with just the click of a mouse button; often without attribution and almost always without payment.

And, even worse, they then pat themselves on the back for their creativity in doing so.

There are people who think that by creating a Tumblr page and copying and pasting other people's stuff onto it they're somehow "creating" something of their own. They're not. They're just parasites feeding off the creativity and originality of others.

Don't get me wrong - I've been as bad as the rest of them. I used to run a wildly successful blog called Renaissance Babes, which received hundreds or occasionally thousands of hits a day. All I did  was copy and paste other people's photos of girls in renaissance faire outfits.

I thought I was incredibly clever and important doing this; until other people started doing the same thing with photos from the magazine I wrote for - and I realized that what I was doing was essentially just stealing other people's stuff.

So I get it. People don't like SOPA. But if you really want to end the need for a Stop Online Piracy Act, it will take more than blacking out Google and Facebook for a day. You need to start here:

• Don't illegally download music
• Don't illegally download movies
• Don't illegally download software
• Don't copy your software DVDs and give them to your friends
• Don't copy and paste photos from other people's websites and post them on your own
• Don't copy and paste newspaper articles or blogs and post them without attribution

Essentially, it all boils down to this: If you don't want the movie studios, the record companies and the software execs to force restrictive legislation down your throats - don't steal their stuff.

We are as much to blame for the existence of SOPA and other anti-piracy bills as they are. It's about time we took ownership of that and adjusted our behavior in response.

Only Ron Paul can win the election for the Republicans

by Roland Hulme

The Republicans will lose the 2012 Presidential Election - unless they nominate Ron Paul.

Love him or hate him, only R. Paul can win.

Winning a presidential election is easy. You just need to win more votes in more states than your opponent.

For the GOP, a roadmap to victory is already in place. All they need to do is identify who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and try to draw those voters towards a Republican candidate.

A swing of just a few percentage points could make all the difference in November.

But despite the simplicity and transparancy of this formula, it seems the Republicans are eager to throw their chances of election victory away in 2012.

In Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, primary season has heated up; and it seems clear that the Republican old guard have already decided who their 2012 candidate will be regardless of what the Republican voters actually say.

They've decided to root for Mitt Romney; and in doing so have lost the election even before it begins.

Mitt Romney cannot stand convincingly against Barack Obama.

He cannot appeal to the grass roots movements like the Tea Party and the Occupy movement because he comes from such a privileged background and is so entrenched in the corrupt system Americans are losing patience with.

He cannot credibly argue for the repeal of the lauded "Obamacare" health care reform because it was modeled on a system he himself introduced while governor of Massachusetts.  

He cannot tout himself as a champion of cutting taxes, when he has a record for raising taxes by $300 million as governor; mostly through slyly redefining fees and tariffs.

Mitt Romney's campaign is dead in the water before it even begins.

The truth be told, every other potential Republican candidate faces the same issue. They might talk tough, but not one of them has the credentials to put together a serious campaign against Barack Obama - with one notable exception.

Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is the only candidate who could beat Barack Obama; and he could do it by a landslide.

Why? Because he's the only candidate who will draw Democratic and Independent voters away from Barack Obama and make them tick the GOP box on election day.

There's proof. Astonishing proof. The fact that Ron Paul placed 2nd in the Democratic primary in New Hampshire; with almost 20% of the vote.

Just in case you missed the significance of that statement, it means Ron Paul came in second place in both the Republican and Democratic primaries in the state.

The GOP elite and the mainstream media have tried every trick in the book to squish news of Ron Paul's powerful support - with CNN even claiming that Jon Huntsman was the "real" 2nd place victor in New Hampshire "once you took Ron Paul out of it."

But the fact is you can't "take Ron Paul out of it." That's not how democracy works.

From a personal perspective, I'm not even sure I'm that much of a fan of Ron Paul and his policies! But I do know that only he has the ammunition to bring 2012 home for the Republicans - and it seems they're terrified of acknowledging that fact.

Look at it this way - if Ron Paul won the Republican primary, most - if not all - Republicans would support him in preference to Barack Obama.

Then, if the New Hampshire democratic primary was even remotely representative of America as a whole (and even with a 75% margin of error in either direction) enough Democrats and Independents would support him to easily bring home victory.

Whether that would be a good thing or not remains to be seen - one of the reasons the Republican old guard are so terrified of Ron Paul is precisely why he's so popular with voters on both sides of the political spectrum - he's a threat to the status quo.

But that's the price victory comes at - which is precisely why the Republicans will do everything they can to ensure Ron Paul doesn't win the GOP primary - even if it costs them the election.

And that's important.

Registered Republicans need to understand that mindset. In years to come, and in future presidential elections, we all need to remember than when Republicans had the means to achieve almost certain victory, they threw it away.

Instead, they'll run mainstream muppet Mitt Romney. They'll run him on a campaign of "vote for Mitt, because he's not Obama." And they'll lose, just like the Democrats did in 2004 when they ran John Kerry under the campaign: "Vote for Kerry, because he's not Bush."

In 2004, I supported the reelection of George W. Bush for precisely that reason - and it's why I'll vote for Barack Obama in 2012 rather than swallow the bitter-tasting poison that the Republican party elite is trying to spoon-feed their core electorate.

"Know your enemy and know yourself, find naught in fear for 100 battles. Know yourself but not your enemy, find level of loss and victory. Know thy enemy but not yourself, wallow in defeat every time."

Sun Tzu, the Art of War