If you like the WYSIWYG you can always use that for normal posts but always switch to standard when you edit that one post with the links. I'm not sure this is actually a problem with the CK Editor itself. It may be in vBulletin's code that converts the WYSIWYG html output to bb code for storing in the database. I've worked with both WYSIWYG code and the vBulletin code for translating it and there are things I'm not quite happy with when it comes to line breaks. Personally I much prefer the standard editor but it's fun and challenging to write WYSIWYG code for the other users

thanks for your continued input and suggestions nerbert
I've split the contents of the post into two following posts and am beginning the reformatting.
after they are reformatted, and more fully updated for the 114th Congress, and as my health permits,
I'll explore combining them into one post, and do the remaining updates, while using the standard editor

thanks again for your help; I greatly appreciate it

just as a follow-up, I have it reformatted and broken into two pages http://bit.ly/1a2QiUB
rather than push my luck I'm going to leave it that way for now

thanks again for the help and suggestions