December 14, 2013 -  Republican National Committee members have been meeting since summer with Chairman Reince Priebus to come up with a new method of nominating a presidential candidate following the 2012 primaries which is felt dragged on to long. Highlights of the proposed plan include compressing the nominating calendar,  punishing primary and caucus states that jump the set voting order and possibly move the party's national convention to  late June.

The last time that the Republicans held a convention in June, was when the RNC held their quadrennial gathering in June of 1948 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania and nominated New York Governor Thomas Dewey for President.

Republicans Party members have long complained that the 20 primary presidential debates held in 2012 was way to many. The plan now is to greatly reduce the number of deabtes. Any candidate that would violate the set upon number of would be stripped of one third of their delegates to the national convention.

The first four states in the nominating process would continue to be in the order of voting Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Those contests would be held in the month of February. Any state that tries to hold their contest before March 1st would see their total number of delegates slashed to just 9 people. For smaller states they would see their delegate total slashed to one third or which ever is smaller.

Delegates will be awarded proportionally for those states voting during the first two weeks of March. After March 15 states could continue to award the delegates proportional or make them winner take all contests. A late June date for the convention would mean that the primary season would end in May because RNC rules requires all delegate lists to be submitted 35 days before the convention.

The primary reason for moving the convention to late June, is so that the eventual nominee will have a full two extra months in order to have access to general election campaign funds. In 2012 Mitt Romney was not able draw upon his general election funds until after the RNC convention which was the last week in August. This is considered to one of the reasons for Romney's loss as he was outspent heavily during the summer by President Obama and the Democrats.

December 11, 2013 - Newspapers across the United States today featured pictures of President Barack Obama taking an apparent "selfie" with the Prime Minister of Denmark Helle Throning-Schmidt at Nelson Mandela's memorial service yesterday in South Africa.

The photos also showed a stern  Michelle Obama , as President Obama conversed with the attractive Danish Prime Minister.

A web site devoted to collecting and displaying  "selfies" taken at funerals , announced that the site would now be discontinued as apparently no one could ever top the President of the United States taking a "selfie" at a funeral related event.

In more bad news for Obama, a new poll out shows that 54% of Americans disapprove of the job the President is doing with only 43% approving.

December 7, 2013 - President Barack Obama along with former Presidents George W. Bush ,Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter will travel to South Africa to attend a memorial service for Nelson Mandala on December 10. Mandela who was President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999 died on December 5 at the age of 95.

An icon around the world, Mandela led the effort for decades to end the racial segregation policies of South Africa. In 1963 Mandela was convicted of trying to overthrow the government of South Africa and sentenced to life in prison. Mandela served 27 years in prison , experiencing particularly harsh conditions on Robben Island where he would spend 18 years before being moved to other prisons. Mandela would finally be released from Victor Verster Prison on February 11, 1990. His release from prison was broadcast around the world.

In 1993 Mandela and then South African President F.W. de Klerk would both be jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On April 27, 1994 with the "one person one vote" rule now the law of South Africa Nelson Mandela was elected South Africa's first black President.

President Obama will be accompanied  by his wife Michelle. Former President Clinton will be attending with his wife former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Former President George W. Bush will be attending with his wife Laura. President Obama also extended an invitation for former President George H.W. Bush to attend but due to his health at age 89 he was not up to making the long trip.

December 4, 2013 - President Barack Obama launched a new public relations effort yesterday to high light the benefits of the Affordable Care Act know popularly as Obamacare. Since the program rolled out in October the web site has been plagued by problems that have prevented people from signing up. Obamacare also sparked further controversy when it was revealed that several million people would not be able to keep their current health care plans as those plans did not meet the minimum standard of coverage required under Obamacare.

Speaking at the White House President Obama said “for too long, few things left working families more vulnerable to the anxieties and insecurities of today’s economy than a broken health care system,” he said. “So we took up the fight because we believe that, in America, nobody should have to worry about going broke just because somebody in their family or they get sick.”

“Now that the website is working for the vast majority of people,” Mr. Obama added, “we need to make sure that folks refocus on what’s at stake here, which is the capacity for you or your families to be able to have the security of decent health insurance at a reasonable cost through choice and competition on this marketplace, and tax credits that you may be eligible for that can save you hundreds of dollars in premium costs every month, potentially.”

President Obama new effort on Obamacare came following a recent effort to repair the glitches that users were experiencing when they were using the web site.