Congratulations on your win GOP

[arkirk]

I'm going to open a liquor store.
Pretty sure demand is going to go up.
Think I'll sell torches and pitchforks out back.

My feelings exactly. I see on CBS, NBC, CNN, NBR, etc the happy faces telling us this election will prove to be very helpful to the "energy sector." The first order of business is the Keystone XL Pipeline approval. That is something the Republican congress and Obama's invested cabinet can agree on. I actually heard this prediction from Suzy Garrels of NBR on PBS. Congrats...14 million red state voters can't be wrong. Anyway who gives a damn about the Maldives or Pelau, both of which are being submerged by rising sea levels anyway. We can wait a little longer till we have extended droughts and famine in larger areas before we start to act. Our country has a powerful military to protect our food horde. Congrats, Kochs!

 

[Earl IV]

I can see Keystone being a huge boondoggle.

It'll get passed and construction will begin just in time for the price of oil to drop below the profit threshold of shale extraction.

 

[arkirk]

The Dems don't need to filibuster as long as Obama has the power of veto, correct?

But they will. The GOP looks much better if they're continuously passing legislation that gets vetoed because they're making an attempt to govern but are stymied by Obama's intransigence and unwillingness to compromise. If they can't even get bills passed, then they look weak and ineffective and that puts them more at risk in the 2016 elections when there are more GOP seats at risk than there are Dem seats.

Governance should not be a dogfight over seats and power. It has to be humane and fair. It probably will not be working out that way, no matter what Obama does, no matter what Congress does. We have an automatic deadlock machine that keeps the fossils flowing into our tanks. Europe had a long period of no progress...about 1000 years...under the divine guidance of its churches. Our dark ages will have the lingering aroma of crude people pumping crude and will be decidedly shorter.

 

[untermensche]

The Republicans are about to become the party of new ideas..................again.

And these new ideas will look a lot like the same old ideas that work to keep all gains in wealth in the few right hands.

And more and more of that wealth is in the hands of people that didn't earn it, they inherited it.

A shining oligarchy for the world to see.

 

[Underseer]

Ok, time for predictions on what the new congress will actually move on.

My predictions:
Impeach Obama - starts within the first month
Tax 'Relief' for the american people (who make more than $200,000) - at least one submitted within the first 4 months

The House will vote for the 124th (more or less) time to repeal the ACA.

This time the Senate will take it up and send it to the President, who will veto it.

Thus proving that the Democrats are the real obstructionists!

 

[Tigers!]

Now that you've been given both houses of congress it's time to govern.

Is that an admission that what was before was not government?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Now that you've been given both houses of congress it's time to govern.

Is that an admission that what was before was not government?

Is there some definition of government that you're using to assume that it was?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Now that you've been given both houses of congress it's time to govern.

Is that an admission that what was before was not government?

No. Almost every the Republicans did in the past six years could not be considered governing.

 

[lpetrich]

Extremism wins, ideas lose: The irony of the spineless Democrats - Notes & Errata by Mark Morford

Nevertheless, everyone seems to agree: Democrats were destroyed, once again, by the party’s own infamous, downright astonishing ineptitude at executing (mostly) very good ideas. ...

And Republicans? Simple. They won (again) because of their utter mastery at hurling empty propaganda, and their utter hatred of President Obama.

It's like the Clinton Presidency all over again. Hatred by the Republicans combined with wimpiness by the President.

Obama did succeed where Clinton had failed, with his health-care reform, but it was a scheme developed by Republicans that the Republicans then decided to hate.

And it worked. It worked shockingly well. As with every mid-term, turnout was abysmal, young (liberal) voters stayed away, and those who did turn out were the Republican’s most favorite chattel of all: older, fear-addled white conservatives who lack much in the way of critical thinking skills. Bingo!

Can you pity, for a moment, the poor Democratic party? For the horribly ironic bind it finds itself in, over and over again?

See, the party’s most fatal flaw is also its most appealing trait: It lacks the murderous cruelty and savage bloodlust of the Republicans.

Birtherism, global-warming denial, willing to use racial stereotypes, you name it.

 

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Red team won, blue team lost. Rah rah Shish-Boom-Bah, go team go, fight fight fight.

If these last two years operate like much of Clinton's term, it should turn out for the best. Of the four combinations, red team holding the legislature and blue team holding the executive did work out rather well.

 

[ksen]

What I don't understand is how typically liberal issues on state ballots had a good election night but also the republicans. You'd think if you're going to vote for higher minimum wage, etc, that you'd go ahead and vote for the democrat while you were in there.

But they didn't.

Very confusing.

 

[KeepTalking]

What I don't understand is how typically liberal issues on state ballots had a good election night but also the republicans. You'd think if you're going to vote for higher minimum wage, etc, that you'd go ahead and vote for the democrat while you were in there.

But they didn't.

Very confusing.

It shows that the electorate is generally progressive, even in an off year, but the amount of cash the republicans throw into their negative ad blitzes has a big enough effect to sway and delude the masses about individual candidates.

 

[ksen]

I'm sure that accounts for some of it. But I'm having trouble picturing the person in voting booth thinking to themselves, "Ok, I'll vote to legalize marijuana, raise the minimum wage, and protect a woman's right to choose. Hmmm, now which politician that can actually vote for these things on the federal level should I vote for? Hmmmm . . . I know! The republican!"

Makes no sense.

 

[ideologyhunter]

But, surely, the Republicans aren't simply the party of the affluent, pampered, and already-provided-for. Beyond question they take positions that the millionaire class despises.
Now you tell one.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

But, surely, the Republicans aren't simply the party of the affluent, pampered, and already-provided-for. Beyond question they take positions that the millionaire class despises.
Now you tell one.

That is the oddity that is the Republicans. The really wealthy do split between the two parties. Where the Republicans have the greater advantage is amongst poor white people.

 

[lpetrich]

What I don't understand is how typically liberal issues on state ballots had a good election night but also the republicans. ...

2014 ballot measures - Ballotpedia
Local ballot measure elections in 2014 - Ballotpedia

• Alaska: 69%
• Arkansas: 66%
• Illinois: 66%
• Nebraska: 59%
• South Dakota: 55%
• San Francisco, CA: 77%
• Oakland, CA: 81%
• San Jose, CA: 60%
• Etc.

Alaska? Arkansas? Nebraska? South Dakota? There must be a lot of yellow-dog Republicans in those states. I say that because of the party's dislike of the minimum wage.

 

[maxparrish]

They know if they impeach they will have to face Iron Joe Biden. Worse. Than. Stalin.

Joe Biden is the reason that Obama will never have to worry about being assassinated.

 

[maxparrish]

But, surely, the Republicans aren't simply the party of the affluent, pampered, and already-provided-for. Beyond question they take positions that the millionaire class despises.
Now you tell one.

That is the oddity that is the Republicans. The really wealthy do split between the two parties. Where the Republicans have the greater advantage is amongst poor white people.

Actually Republicans tend to be more concentrated between those family incomes between 90K and 300K...the middle to upper-middle class that aspires to become a part of the truely rich. Those who have "made it" to the top ranks no longer have the same drive to protect savings and security, which is why the very rich liberal class love to pull up the ladder and whine and cry about the poor and the need for more taxes on the folks trying to make it into their ranks.

 

[maxparrish]

What I don't understand is how typically liberal issues on state ballots had a good election night but also the republicans. You'd think if you're going to vote for higher minimum wage, etc, that you'd go ahead and vote for the democrat while you were in there.

But they didn't.

Very confusing.

Obviously they think they are doing some kind of "free" altruistic act that won't cost the voter a dime, but they don't consider minimum wage a major issue in selecting the party's.

Most likely most who voted for the Democrat, voted for minimum wage. Then some much smaller portion (likely a minority) of Republicans also voted yes.

 

[maxparrish]

What I don't understand is how typically liberal issues on state ballots had a good election night but also the republicans. You'd think if you're going to vote for higher minimum wage, etc, that you'd go ahead and vote for the democrat while you were in there.

But they didn't.

Very confusing.

It shows that the electorate is generally progressive, even in an off year, but the amount of cash the republicans throw into their negative ad blitzes has a big enough effect to sway and delude the masses about individual candidates.

LOL...minimum wage has always been supported by the public. It has nothing to do with "being progressive", it is a populist issue that the economically ignorant think is an easy way to do good, will cost the taxpayer nothing, and a "nice thing to do" on someone elses dime. Minimum wage had majoritarian support even during the 60s and 70s when EVERY economic study showed it to be a bad idea. Back then it was a 100 percent consensus that minimum wage cause unemployment.

No matter, the bovine masses are driven by impulses that have nothing to do with ideology.