Oh, and Nate Silver got the Presidential race almost exactly, so all you folks calling him biased can go STFU, now.

Originally Posted by Odin

He must be bitter that his fellow Minnesotans rejected the Teabaggers at the polls last night.

No, I came to the conclusion that Democrats care more about their petty social issues than the fiscal strength of their state, their nation and their own economic futures. Good luck making a living working at Walmart or McDonalds.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

No, I came to the conclusion that Democrats care more about their petty social issues than the fiscal strength of their state, their nation and their own economic futures. Good luck making a living working at Walmart or McDonalds.

Where did the myth that Republicans are good for the economy come from?

Was it from living it up under the massive debts accumulated by Reagan & Bush, since they rushed off stage before the consequences arrived?

That would just be a simple case of misunderstanding the time-frames involved with political cause & effect...

Originally Posted by playwrite

It's pretty obvious you hate this country and pray for its failure. Why are you still here? Cowardliness perhaps?

I don't hate this country and when it eventually fails, I'll survive just fine. Obviously, you're not in the same position as someone like me.

Originally Posted by Odin

Oh, and Nate Silver got the Presidential race almost exactly, so all you folks calling him biased can go STFU, now.

Correct. But he made two huge Senate mistakes--both of them favoring Republicans. He had no idea that the Democrats could win in Montana and North Dakota and that appears to be exactly what they have done.

That said, I was desperately hoping that Obama would win so that things would not get much much worse. Today I'm depressed because they obviously are NOT going to get much much better and we will continue to live in the era defined by George W. Bush, grey champion.

Originally Posted by Odin

He must be bitter that his fellow Minnesotans rejected the Teabaggers at the polls last night.

At one level, Michelle Bachmann eking out a win was my big disappointment of the night (but very happy that Allen West’s ugliness will now be confined to some backwater in Florida - I pity those people).

However, on a deeper level, I’m glad Michelle is still around. She and the t-baggers' idiocy has been paying off like broken slot machines starting with the baggers forcing Arlen Specter to switch parties and make the ACA filibuster proof. And look what they did for us just last night in Indiana and Missouri, possible even a help in Virginia and Florida.

The world is filled with nothing but duality - we need "bad" to help point to "good." And, the baggers, are awfully bad - God love them.

Before David sinks too deeply into gloom, there's one point that should be borne in mind regarding this election outcome and what it means for next January.

What happens in January? Simply put, if Congress does nothing, all the Bush tax cuts sunset and income, payroll, estate and gift taxes all return to their Clinton-era levels. At which point, negotiations start in Congress to change that. The Democrats will be in a very nice position, because those are all HIGHER taxes than they want, which means they can get exactly the rates they want and all the moves that direction will involve tax CUTS.

Republicans can agree, or they can leave things WORSE from their perspective than what they could get by being agreeable.

Politically, they've already failed to make Obama a one-term president, so there's no more percentage in obstruction from that side. The Tea Party has melted down, and over the next 2-4 years the Republican Party will surely repudiate it and move to a more center-right, sane stance, which means that it will not circle the drains like the Whigs and Federalists did before them. Much simpler that way.

Taxes on the rich will go up and that will improve the revenue picture and reduce the deficit. This will give the government more room to do something to improve matters. The remaining features of Obamacare will go into effect, which will improve our health care situation even though Obamacare sucks compared to what we should have had.

All rosy so far, but I'm predicting that Obama's second term will be like FDR's first, a time of massive change and experimentation, driven by ongoing social movements and revolts. It's still a 4T and we're still in the early phases of it, although well into it now and the initial shock and denial are over. The issues of this Crisis have been laid out and the lines are drawn: the 1% and the 99%, climate change (y'all on the East Coast know all about that now, I think), the global economy, peace and war. There's plenty more drama and struggle to come, but this was a good outcome that prevents us from going down a dramatically wrong road as the Southern U.S. did in 1860 and Germany did in the early 1930s.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

...Obviously, you're not in the same position as someone like me.

... something I thank God for every night before bed!

How's that Mayan Calendar thingee working for ya?

Originally Posted by playwrite

At one level, Michelle Bachmann eking out a win was my big disappointment of the night (but very happy that Allen West’s ugliness will now be confined to some backwater in Florida - I pity those people).

However, on a deeper level, I’m glad Michelle is still around. She and the t-baggers' idiocy has been paying off like broken slot machines starting with the baggers forcing Arlen Specter to switch parties and make the ACA filibuster proof. And look what they did for us just last night in Indiana and Missouri, possible even a help in Virginia and Florida.

The world is filled with nothing but duality - we need "bad" to help point to "good." And, the baggers, are awfully bad - God love them.

Here, this might amuse you

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert...b_2086123.html

@comments:

These Republicans couldn’t govern a box of crayons, because they’re merely puppets parading as politicians, with people like the Koch brothers padding their pockets to govern like sniveling, whiny, immature children, plying them with cash like candy to shove their noses so far up the Gasholes of their crooked benefactors that it’s hard to know where the politician begins and where the crooked benefactor ends.

And Mitch McConnell is their paid poster child.

For a second, I thought you might have written that ...

Now that the jubilation has begun, here's a piece based in reality. Unless,of course, we stick our head in the sand, again.

Obama’s Re-Election: What His Campaign Slogan ‘Forward’ Really Meant & What It Means Now

The slogan of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign was “Forward.” As progressives and others celebrate his victory, they need to take a moment to soberly reflect on the reality that his second term will be marked by advancing policies that he helped institutionalize or allowed to become further entrenched—some of which picked up on expanding executive power where President George W. Bush left off in 2008.The institutionalization of kill lists, the normalization of targeted assassination and the gradual redefinition of due process by killing US citizens suspected of terrorism without judicial process is an unchecked and ghastly power, which Obama asserted during his first term.


The signing of the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012, which included an indefinite detention provision authorizing the military to detain US citizens indefinitely without charge if suspected of terrorism was a disconcerting act. Obama publicly suggested he had not wanted these powers and would not use them and there was no reason to be alarmed. When a group of individuals mounted a lawsuit and a federal judge issued a permanent injunction against the provision and declared it unconstitutional, the Obama administration had its lawyers file an appeal and a judge restored the new power.

The conversation needs to be about how we will keep him accountable this term instead of more excuses for why he had to expand the Bush policies. Otherwise, we are totally screwed.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Before David sinks too deeply into gloom, there's one point that should be borne in mind regarding this election outcome and what it means for next January.

What happens in January? Simply put, if Congress does nothing, all the Bush tax cuts sunset and income, payroll, estate and gift taxes all return to their Clinton-era levels. At which point, negotiations start in Congress to change that. The Democrats will be in a very nice position, because those are all HIGHER taxes than they want, which means they can get exactly the rates they want and all the moves that direction will involve tax CUTS.

Republicans can agree, or they can leave things WORSE from their perspective than what they could get by being agreeable.

Politically, they've already failed to make Obama a one-term president, so there's no more percentage in obstruction from that side. The Tea Party has melted down, and over the next 2-4 years the Republican Party will surely repudiate it and move to a more center-right, sane stance, which means that it will not circle the drains like the Whigs and Federalists did before them. Much simpler that way.

Taxes on the rich will go up and that will improve the revenue picture and reduce the deficit. This will give the government more room to do something to improve matters. The remaining features of Obamacare will go into effect, which will improve our health care situation even though Obamacare sucks compared to what we should have had.

All rosy so far, but I'm predicting that Obama's second term will be like FDR's first, a time of massive change and experimentation, driven by ongoing social movements and revolts. It's still a 4T and we're still in the early phases of it, although well into it now and the initial shock and denial are over. The issues of this Crisis have been laid out and the lines are drawn: the 1% and the 99%, climate change (y'all on the East Coast know all about that now, I think), the global economy, peace and war. There's plenty more drama and struggle to come, but this was a good outcome that prevents us from going down a dramatically wrong road as the Southern U.S. did in 1860 and Germany did in the early 1930s.

Well said particularly regarding the tax side of the coming "fiscal cliff."

Not so sure about the GOP's fate. We'll see.

I would add immigration to your list of challenges, particularly a challenge to the fate of the GOP as currently structured (is there a possible GOP candidate that can tell their bots that they are on the wrong side of gays/contraceptives/Hispanics? I'm not so sure.).

For me, the close-to-center issue of this 4T is the complete ignorance of federal debt and how our fiat currency system actually works and how to take advantage of that gift. Unfortunately that ignorance is shared by 99.9% of the population including nearly all elected officials and most economists.
However, peel back the onion one more layer and underneath is the issue of what it is govt is suppose to do. That issue has been made into a caricature by the idiocy that took root in 1980 with "govt is the problem" - a meme that has turned an entire generation of supposed pragmatists into highly-manipulated sheeple.

Originally Posted by The Rani

We're looking at an economic contraction, for sure.
What went up still has a long way to come down.

People that were looking for an economic savior in this election were going to be disappointed either way.

Originally Posted by Deb C

Now that the jubilation has begun, here's a piece based in reality. Unless,of course, we stick our head in the sand, again.

Obama’s Re-Election: What His Campaign Slogan ‘Forward’ Really Meant & What It Means Now


The conversation needs to be about how we will keep him accountable this term instead of more excuses for why he had to expand the Bush policies. Otherwise, we are totally screwed.

Yep, and from a body count alone, just Obama's re-election last night alone has made it likely we'll have achieved 99.99% of that goal by greatly reducing the probability of a nuclear attack on Iran.

So, let's roll up the sleeves and get that other 0.01% done!

Originally Posted by JDFP

It's absolutely nothing to fret about. The Republicans still control the House (and picked up a few seats at that). Absolutely nothing will be accomplished by this lame duck president over the next few years. And I seriously doubt anything will be "accomplished" (the word is used argumentatively) after 2014 because we will still hold control of Congress. So, let the liberals bask in their win tonight - John Boehner still holds the hands of Obama under police cuffs. Good luck to Obama on accomplishing anything he seeks to do in the further downfall of our nation. It won't happen. Not a bill put before Congress will pass before we have a chance to circumvent it for the betterment of our nation. In other words, absolutely nothing has changed tonight but a further attempt of the degradation of our nation. For the next two years, Obama will be as "effective" as the last two years. In other words - this nation is woefully locked.

We grow closer to the Civil War which I think will eventually take place - more so than ever now.

j.p.

Are you reading your own stuff? Are you OK with the opposite scenario in a future election?

Originally Posted by JustPassingThrough

Yeah, everything is falling exactly as the polls showed in terms of relative position, except Florida, which is much closer than the polls showed. OH, VA and FL are all mind-bogglingly narrow - less than a 1% margin in each state. A tiny shift in the overall popular vote would have given them all to Romney. What I have to wonder is what all those people who voted for Obama were thinking. I know for many of them it was just about race, and for the hard left it's just dogma. But for the ones who made the difference, I have no idea what was going through their mind. How is anything going to get better now?

Setting aside the racial comment, let's just look at the options.

1. Elect Obama and get more of the same.
2. Elect Romney and possibly get
   
   1. financial collapse,
   2. war with Iran,
   3. the social compact of the 1950s,
   4. the economic compact of the 1910s,
   5. all of the above.

This isn't really all that hard.

Originally Posted by Aramea

People that were looking for an economic savior in this election were going to be disappointed either way.

Unlike 2008 when many Obama supporters thought he was the Second Coming (the ones that quickly disowned him when that didn't work out for them (pssst, I voted for Hillary)), this time expectations are very low. That is going to be a big help to actually getting something done.

The other thing is that while the needle didn't move that much in Congress, there has been a change in the quality in the Senate and likely a tone change in the House – not so much that the baggers there almost went down but they are now certainly viewed as a big liability to the future of the GOP. And just to further note for the Senate, we now have more women (18) there than ever before – so much for any attempts by old grey men to try to control the “wild mysterious vaginas” (WMVs). And as noted in other posts, Obama now has the upper hand on taxes - he could very well use that to get some leverage on issues outside of the "fiscal cliff" as well. I don’t think he needs that leverage for immigration reform so there’s some other things he might be able to do with it.

Originally Posted by Aramea

People that were looking for an economic savior in this election were going to be disappointed either way.

Well said.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Setting aside the racial comment, let's just look at the options.

1. Elect Obama and get more of the same.
2. Elect Romney and possibly get
   
   1. financial collapse,
   2. war with Iran,
   3. the social compact of the 1950s,
   4. the economic compact of the 1910s,
   5. all of the above.

This isn't really all that hard.

Very well presented!

Originally Posted by JDFP

"We were left where we were as a country but probably a little worse off" - Charles Krauthammer. One of the most intelligent and wise men of our time. I agree with him 100%. But I will not espouse gloom and doom - because we still hold the House. Nothing at all will change over the next two years. "We are exactly where we are a year ago - and the country will slide because there will be no give." - Charles Krauthammer again.

j.p.

Krauthammer is a psychiatrist, and he thinks like one. No offense to our resident psychiatrist, but its not a profession well suited to calm rational analysis of abstract facts. Krauthammer never fails to sensationalize everything that draws his attention. He's also more than willing to send anyones children into the meat grinder, having been exempt himself and having no children.

He plays hyper-neocon to Rani's libertarian-vegetarianism. They would make an interesting pair at a party.

Originally Posted by The Rani

In case you guys missed this one on the other thread:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-865437.html

Wow! Just wow! Nothing like an objective observer to give us a dose of much needed reality medicine. Thanks.

I especially resonated with the following quotes from the article.

Germans see the US election as a battle between the good Obama and the evil Romney. But this is a mistake. Regardless of who wins the election on Tuesday, total capitalism is America's true ruler, and it has the power to destroy the country.

There are none so blind than those who will not see.

The downfall of the American empire has begun. It could be that the country's citizens wouldn't be able to stop it no matter how hard they tried. But they aren't even trying.

Originally Posted by playwrite

... something I thank God for every night before bed!

How's that Mayan Calendar thingee working for ya?

.......something I thank God for every night as well. I'm thankful that I wasn't born an airhead needy woman, a minority with an inferiority complex that dictates how they vote, a gay who wants to get married, a union worker who has no power to keep their jobs, a wealthy urban numbnut who has a financial stake in government debt and a financial stake in a market that requires regular government bailouts and injections of future tax dollars via government to compete or sustain itself, a government recipient who is reliant on the financial stabilty and capabilty of government or a public employee who is reliant on the system they just voted against. How much rope is needs to be fed to the Democrats to politically hang themselves? I'm content with feeding them as much rope as they need. Obama just bought himself four years of misery and earning the faith, sustaining the hope and retaining the support of dimwits and social pathetics.

Originally Posted by JDFP

The big distinction is that Reagan could work with Tip O'Neill. Reagan could converse with Tip O'Neill to accomplish things. O'Neill may have been woefully wrong on his ideology - but the man put the country before his politics. The distinction today is between Obama and Boehner which is a far greater rift from Reagan and O'Neill because O'Neill and Reagan were friends even if they disagreed (the old saying is that before 6PM they were bitter rivals but after 6PM they were friends). I can't picture Obama and Boehner going out for drinks and "hanging" out as friends. And this serves as a great detriment to this nation. If Obama wants to accomplish anything in his second term he must become a centrist as Clinton did in his second term. Otherwise, we will grow closer to the cold front of politics as we have had the last few years with not a damn thing accomplished. And that will serve as a major hindrance to our nation.

j.p.

It's hard to become what you aready are. If change is needed, start with your radical RW house members. They don't even live on this planet, but they want to to run the country. They are demonstrably irrational, yet you think of them as the "rational middle", which says a lot in itself.

Originally Posted by The Rani

In case you guys missed this one on the other thread:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-865437.html

Funny coming from Germany that practiced such extreme Mercantilism that it has nearly destroyed the economies of an entire continent.

Originally Posted by Deb C

Wow! Just wow! Nothing like an objective observer to give us a dose of much needed reality medicine. Thanks.

I especially resonated with the following quotes from the article.


There are none so blind than those who will not see.

Debs, people who say these things don't even have a working knowledge of the definition of "empire."

I can buy (and actually support) maybe hegemony in certain spheres or places, but "empire"??? That sort of discredits not only the writer but anyone who takes the time to post such horseshit.

Originally Posted by JDFP

To think the Republican controlled House or the president will change their ways is laughable. Obama is no Bill Clinton - Obama doesn't know how to reach across aisles like Clinton did to seek a better solution for our nation. I don't agree with Clinton's political ideology on most matters - but I will say the man was a master statesman. Obama? No. There will be no distinction over the next two years vs. the last two years. The vitriol and disgust on both sides will not only continue - but probably grow greater. The next two years will be worse than the last two years with deadlock.

j.p.

Except this time, we go over the cliff. We'll see how that plays.