2010 Election Results Are In 1530
The election results are in, and there are one trillion web pages now up helping you find out what happened. The short story is that the Republicans cleaned up, although the Democrats maintain a one-seat majority in the Senate. The GOP now has 239 seats in the house, giving them a huge lead over the Dems' 183.
Should be good for the economy (Score:5, Interesting)
Historically, the economy has always done well with a Republican congress and a Democrat president...
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/245/982/Divided_we_make_money:_Why_the_stock_market_wants_a_Republican_victory.html [beforeitsnews.com]
A more data-based representation:
http://cedarcomm.com/~stevelm1/usdebt.htm [cedarcomm.com]
Obama should just call for elections (Score:2, Interesting)
If the democrats had some guts, they would just quit. Hand the country over the tea-party. Then when it has all collapsed come back and demand the first son/daugher (according to sexual preference) of every republican family.
The tea baggers will cause one hell of a mess. Normal republicans are merely inept and corrupt. Most are not completly batshit insane.
But this is the ultimate failure of democracy. When people think they punish the PRESIDENT by voting for some nutters.... yeah, because Obama is NOW going to take the hint and FIX the economy after all that was ruined by the republicans because without a majority that makes that job a lot easier...
When voters start basing their vote to punish a leader for not doing fast enough what they want and then vote for people that are totally against what they want... just call it quits and get me a benign dictator (translation, any dictator whose deathlist I am not on).
Punish Obama for not pushing heathcare reform by voting for a tea bagger... maybe voting should require an IQ test. If you eat the piece of paper, you fail it.
Laser Precision (Score:3, Interesting)
in spite of the fact that the 2008 candidates left the campaign trail to focus on the rapidly failing economy
Focusing by sending a ton of money to banks? Or was it the focus later where they decided the best way to "improve" the economy was to scare businesses with massive changes to health care and insure business spending would pucker faster than a North Dakotan chewing on a raw lemon?
They had a laser like focus on the economy for sure. It shows in that the economy is now blind, staggering and badly burnt.
Doing what you wanted to do anyway and claiming it was to help the economy, is not ACTUALLY helping the economy. And it turns out the average voter is smart enough to see that (well, anywhere except for California).
One result that affects Slashdot... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Obama should just call for elections (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe you missed the memo - the majority of the country opposes the healthcare reform that got passed. Many of them are the people who just did they annual enrollment and discovered how much more their premiums went up because of it.
Take over at state level is more important (Score:5, Interesting)
The House take over, while expected, is not the big news. The major push Republicans made at the state level shows the strength of the move. Actually by not winning the Senate the Republicans may have preserved the ability to take the White House in 2012. Given that there are more Democratic Senators up for election in 12 than Republicans they have a near majority on many issues.
God, Gays, and Subpoena's, are about the best way for Republicans to knock themselves out of the House control in 12, as in, lean into any of those areas too far and the voters will show them the door.
Do I expect budget miracles, nope. I expect a whole lot of gridlock, preventing new large government programs from being implemented. That will do us nicely. The government has been on a binge of spending in the last four years and needs to be reigned in. Too much of the government spending is untouchable but if the line can be held, by gridlock or vote, to where spending does not go up by more than 2% per year the economy can grow us out of the deficit spending.
However, like I read elsewhere, the good news is the Democrats lost the House, the bad news is the Republicans won it. Like Rove and a few others mention, Washington doesn't care what the country thinks and the Senate is the worst of the lot. As in, Tea Party candidates, candidates of "change", or whatnot, are in for one rude surprise. The nice thing about the Senate however is that regardless of seniority or committee assignment anyone can submit new legislation
Was is a slap in the face of Democrats. Sure it was, just like 08 was us telling Republicans, no more of this crap; let alone don't expect us to vote for rights killers like McCain. Obama and Pelosi got told, there are no Kings and Queens in America, so quit acting like one.
Did anyone notice.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Should be good for the economy (Score:5, Interesting)
Ideologically pure? The man has offered so many concessions while in office that it's become ridiculous. He really thinks he can win over the paranoid right with his charisma, but he's just not really that charismatic.
Re:It's not a competition! (Score:3, Interesting)
Each representative should vote in a manner that is consistent with the best interests of their constituents.
And I voted for the representative whose conception of what is best for my district matches mine. For instance, one of the candidates believes that gun control was best in the best interests of our district, the other one believes that gun rights are best for the district. Neither of them came out and said "I have a policy on guns that is wrong for you!".
Meanwhile, there is another problem: both candidates believe that economic growth is best for our district (gasps from the audience) but one believes the best way to achieve that is by cutting taxes and the other believes the best way to achieve it is to fund a second round of stimulus spending. Neither of them came out and said "I have a policy on the economy that is going to wreck it!".
If we all agreed on (a) what constitutes the best interests of the district and (b) which policies are most likely to achieve those interests, then there wouldn't be much point in a political process at all. As it happens, we are pretty divided as a nation both on (b) but more fundamentally on (a) -- on what outcomes are normatively preferable. That can't be resolved by a "best interests of the constituents" test because the constituents themselves don't agree.
Some things that I can get behind that may happen (Score:2, Interesting)
2. A freeze on federal hiring (EVERY department could probably use a little attrition, and there's been a bit too many people getting on the federal dole/payroll as of late).
3. Extension of tax cuts, namely on estates and dividends.
4. Barney Frank not in charge of the House Financial Services committee (the main proponent/protector of Freddie and Fannie).
5. Crazy conservative ideas coming out of the house that Boehner can't control and the Senate will have to deal with.
6. Cleaning up the "Obamacare" deal (won't be repealed, but the mandate is probably gone).
Re:Should be good for the economy (Score:4, Interesting)
Ok genius, tell me how these price increases [market-ticker.org] aren't going to work their way through the supply chain and make the basic necessities of life cost more.
Re:Should be good for the economy (Score:3, Interesting)
Historically the world and the country has done really well when the house, senate and president are all split and fighting against each other. Less crap get's passed as the other party vetos or stops the others garbage from getting passed. So the bleeding heart liberal socialisim wont get passed easily nor the Whiney conservative Corporate welfare and deep tax cuts for the rich will get passed. The government will be stalemated and nothing will get done.
This is a VERY GOOD THING! And is exactly how the founding fathers designed it.
Re:Should be good for the economy (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually it's just that the Paranoid right is simply completely nuts.
I have met the man, you can not help but like him when you meet him and talk to him.
The real losers (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course the real losers in all of this are us: the idiots who keep voting for Democrats and Republicans while believing the platitudes pounded into our heads: This is democracy! The people have spoken! Let freedom ring! And other rubbish.
It isn't even a secret that the politicians work for the lobbyists and not for us: the "campaign contributions" are made one day, and the very next day the vote just so happens to go the way of the contributor. What a shock!
Reform from the inside seems hopeless, because the people charged with making that reform are the very people benefitting from keeping it the way it is. The few honest politicians who get into office get twisted and corrupted so quickly that they become indistinguishable from the most self-serving of the bunch.
If we want to ever break out of this complete rape of our selves by our lords and masters, there is only one option. No it is not revolution. That too is unrealistic both motivationally and militarily. Our only hope is to create an alternative, open-source-style government [metagovernment.org] and make the current system obsolete.
It is a long shot, and you can find a lot of problems with it. But do you have a better idea?
Re:Should be good for the economy (Score:3, Interesting)
Those laws were passed decades and centuries ago. New laws are not needed for that.
Re:Cut spending on Vietghanistan (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless you're suggesting that Israel ordered the US to invade Iraq and subsequently bolster of Iran in the region, and are attributing the cost of Iraq to Israel, in which case you might want to check your lips for crack pipe burns.
Re:Should be good for the economy (Score:5, Interesting)
It's a shame when people rewrite history so casually. The idea that you call the health care plan "Obamacare" when he didn't put it together and basically dropped the ball on it is completely absurd. Then, in an effort to work with Republicans the plan was whittled down to almost nothing, yet you still call it "Obamacare" and claim nobody talked to the Republicans.
Sorry, but I was paying attention, and I saw a perfectly reasonable and popular health care bill relentlessly torpedoed by the right, and that is the damaged bill we have now. Which, by the way, is still better than nothing and that will be obvious in 20 years as it is tweaked -- like every successful social policy of the past century. You know, the stuff that brought us to the top of the list of developed countries after WWII.
Your notion that this administration is the most partisan is merely a reflection of the fact that sometime since the early nineties when Newt shut down Congress, Republican leaders have simply decided "my way or the highway" on everything. Democrats under Bush were far more reasonable than the Republicans have been in decades now, which is why Bush was able to "work across the aisle".
It may be worth calling attention to the fact, which seems to slip your mind, that under Clinton's leadership we saw one of the greatest decades of growth this country has ever experienced. And under Bush we saw one of the worst. And under Obama we are slowly recovering. Doesn't any of those plain facts make you wonder about the Republican plan?
Diebold machine improvements (Score:2, Interesting)
I was glad to see this time around that the Diebold machines did a great job of allowing me to quadruple-check my vote, AND created a paper trail right before my eyes.
Looks like they finally got it right, at least in my precinct.
Re:Should be good for the economy (Score:4, Interesting)
They didn't want the borrowers to repay the loans. The whole thing was a scam [market-ticker.org] from day one.
The sold unpayable loans to generate more fees by forcing borrowers to refinance.
They sold the same mortgage more than once so that when it defaulted the investors would not realize that it had been pledged two, three or four times over and blame the default for their loss. (Think of the plot of The Producers)
The Republicans and Democrats both know this but neither one is willing to throw their benefactors in jail.
Re:ObamaCare (Score:2, Interesting)
Any propaganda you read about Republicans working to repeal ObamaCare is all hype. It can't be done unless they gain 12 seats in the Senate and take over the presidency in 2012. Until then, enjoy your premium increases.
Premium increase... LOL...
Just drop your coverage, take the token fine, and pay out of pocket for general doctor visits. This will save thousands of dollars per year. If you actually need the insurance, just sign up when you get really sick. The insurance companies will have to take you!!
And don't worry that enough people will eventually figure this out to bankrupt the entire industry, forcing President Pelosi in 2016 to socialize the entire healthcare industry. Couldn't happen...
Re:OK Republicans, (Score:3, Interesting)
They might get a "Guiliani pass." When he was elected mayor, crime rates had been dropping rapidly for about 2 years under the Dinkins? administration which had completely halted and reversed skyrocketing crime rates. You can find the stats out there on the internet and graph them yourself. This drop continued for a few more years and leveled out.
Right now, the bleeding has been stopped and the economy is slowly improving. I imagine the progress will continue unless the Republicans do something catastrophically stupid.
Re:Should be good for the economy (Score:3, Interesting)
Republican health care ideas might have lead to some savings in some areas, but they aren't going to fix the real problems.
A perspective (that happens to be mine) is that the only real problem is the cost.
I don't care about providing universal coverage for all. I don't care about mandating coverage. I care about my own healthcare costs. From this perspective, I expect my elected officials to champion my interests. The idea being that if you get 100 senators and 435 representatives all looking out for the expressed interests of their constituents you will eventually get a compromised piece of functioning legislation.
Instead, what we got was a self serving piece of garbage intended to leave a "Democratic Legacy" shrouded in some pseudo altruistic nonsense. We got a ridiculous amalgamation of pet projects and wishful thinking that commits American taxpayers to picking up the insurance and medical costs of the uninsured. I don't want that. And I want my elected officials to listen to me when I say that I don't want that.
This was my issue with the healthcare bill. Cost, and lack of consideration for the people that will be bearing the brunt of the increased costs.
Re:Should be good for the economy (Score:5, Interesting)
Actually, Ralph Nader said that, apart from foreign policy, the Democratic part is farther right than Richard Nixon.
I think he's right. Nixon's Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare was Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who was non-partisan but promoted a lot of ideas that we would consider liberal.
One Nixon/Moynihan proposal was the guaranteed annual income. We would fold the welfare system into the income tax system. If you earned over a certain amount, you would pay taxes. If you earned under a certain amount, you would get "negative taxes." It was a good idea, but to avoid negative incentives, it would have been expensive.
If the guaranteed annual income had gone through, we would have eliminated poverty. We would have had the economic distribution of Finland.
Re:Should be good for the economy (Score:1, Interesting)
I met GWB. In person, he's actually articulate, thoughtful. Contrasted to his TV persona, he's a completely different person. I've thought long and hard about that experience, and I have concluded this plainly observable difference can be explained in two plausible ways: 1) He's just not good at public speaking, might be camera shy. I'm the same way. 2) His public image is a carefully constructed ruse. An act.
#1 makes me wonder how we can elect a president who is a social clusterfuck
#2 gives me the willies.
Re:Should be good for the economy (Score:2, Interesting)
...and in other news, the chocolate ration has been increased from 30 grams per week to 20.
Re:Should be good for the economy (Score:3, Interesting)
NCLB was the main reason I moved my family. Both of my elementary school children hated school because they were so bored. The teachers taught to the minimums. They got bonuses if more kids passed the end of year tests. Guess what happened the last few weeks of school. 1. First end of year test. 2. Reteaching those who failed the test. 3. Second end of year test for those who failed the first test. Do you know what the kids who passed the first test did during the reteaching & retaking of tests? Nothing. For 2+ weeks. I mean my older kid was watching 2 movies a day in third grade during this time. We couldn't see anything on the weekends because he had seen everything.
Now, I pay more in taxes and it's worth it. MUCH better school system - teachers & students trying for the top, not the bottom. NCLB is nowhere in sight.
An extra does of ignorance on this one. (Score:3, Interesting)
Brilliant really.
And you're plus +4 insightful. Fantastic. Nothing like completely ignoring the consequences of your actions just to stoke the fire a little, eh?
So I guess the ancestor poster needs to append his list. It's fear, ignorance, and hate.
Re:New for nerds. Stuff that matters (Score:3, Interesting)
Rush D Holt, from New Jersey, is a former rocket scientist and generally a friend of geeks on issues like electronic voting.
Re:Some things that I can get behind that may happ (Score:3, Interesting)
Firstly... I can't moderate for some reason ( I have points but there is no "moderate" button right now).
Secondly.. I'm with you up to point 6.
6. The insurance mandate in the HEALTH CARE REFORM ACT was put there by the HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY. The HEALTH INSURANCE INDUSTRY complained to Obama that they could not insure sick people, it would cost them too much money, so they needed to have healthy people be forced to buy health insurance to offset their cost of insuring sick people.
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You understand the concept of "insurance" right?
100 people pay $1, the cost of a problem is $100, 1 person gets sick out of the 100 and is taken care of. If 2 people get sick then next year the premium is going to have to be $2.
Insurance is particularly susceptible to "adverse selection". Only sick people choose to pay for insurance.
If 100 sick people pay for insurance and 100 people get sick, then premiums have to be $100 to cover the cost (and probably $101 since the insurance plan becomes pure overhead at that point).
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Where this went wrong is using insurance at all. The government should have just flat out taken away the first $5,000 worth of health care and made it free for everyone and paid for it out of income tax and property tax.
That would include basic shots, basic broken limbs, basic physical exams. "Basic".
Then if we want to handle more serious stuff (cancer can run $1 million-- for me it was $132,000 back in 1993), then we need to first decide
a) HOW MUCH ARE WE WILLING TO PAY IN. 10%? 12%? Whatever the amount is- that results in a fixed amount of money. Then we have to use the Kansas system. Once we are out of money, people start dying. next year do we increase the premium or are do we feel the death rate is fair? Because clearly we are not going to spend $1 trillion dollars to save one person. There must be a life time limit, a triage level where we say, "sorry but it's not going to happen.".
It should not go through insurance companies. And costs should be balanced against mean income and compared to other countries ( which by the way have MUCH lower costs for better coverage so having the government do things can be much more efficient than private companies).
The biggest problem we have is that we have huge corporations which have gotten undue influence and captured the government. This is where we are basically screwed. I don't think we can fix that problem. I have a very dark view of the future around that problem.
Re:Fear & Ignorance (Score:3, Interesting)
The Tea party is just the Republican party's bait-and-switch tactics all over again. Look, they tried this after Nixon ruined the party too: they pretended to care about a whole host of things that real Americans care about (less government intrusion, more fiscal responsibility, economic stability, following the Constitution), but somehow when they get elected all those promises take a back seat to increased debt, lower taxes for the very rich, and big business-friendly/small business unfriendly laws.
I eagerly wait the exception, but I again have little faith that, this time, maybe the Republicans really mean to follow up on what they say they want.
Re:OK Republicans, (Score:2, Interesting)
Republican gerrymandering happened quite flagrantly ten years ago, prompting Rove and others to talk about a permanent conservative majority. It didn't happen. Gerrymandering is good at protecting incumbents from real opposition but it's bad at assigning districts to any particular party. Don't worry so much about gerrymandering, worry about certain SC decisions.
Re:Should be good for the economy (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll agree, with some qualifiers.
No President has ever decided they should be able to hold a US citizen without due process other than Abraham Lincoln and his situation was far, far different than Obama's. Lincoln was in the middle of an armed insurrection. Furthermore, no President has ever given himself the power to assassinate a US citizen. Let alone without any due process or without anything other than an accusation.
I haven't agreed with much the Republicans have done for years. They have become just as progressive as the Democrats with respect to tax and spend. They've grown government way too much. However, in with respect to Republican failings the Democrats have been Republicans on steroids.
We are at a point in our history where we must make a 180 degree turn and go back to what worked, or we will end up bankrupt and all our freedoms will be gone. We can't afford to keep on creating debt for our grandchildren and their children. Debt is slavery, and that's exactly what we've been doing to ourselves and our posterity. We're enslaving ourselves in the vain hope of getting something for nothing. It's unsustainable.
Our founding fathers did things right. Under their system we became a country in which even our poorest citizens were better off than a very large percentage of the world, and our country was fiscally sound. Now we are bankrupt, morally and financially.
Re:The real losers (Score:4, Interesting)
The current concentration of government in one location -- executive, legislative, and judicial -- provides too much ease of access with minimal expense/friction for the private sector to influence government. The current atmosphere in Washington DC is too concentrated and too caustic for real representative government to survive. If the private cost of influencing government was increased with a geographically dispersed House of Representatives, the people might actually have a chance to be heard.
Leave the technical details of securing the legislative process to the NSA -- give them some real work for a change.
An interesting observation on civilizations (Score:3, Interesting)
Last week when I was traveling an acquaintance who owns and runs a farm handed me this quote from the book "Somebody's Gotta Say It" (page 92) and I have to say that it is interesting.
I am not going to say whether or not I agree with it, nor what stage I think America is in right now, because I just want you to ponder it. What I will say is when I vote, I follow JFK's lead and vote where my conscience leads, with this principle: "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." I didn't vote for how I could possibly line my pocket, or from a sense of entitlement, but based on what the government is chartered to do as our founding fathers intended.
Here is the quote:
Right or wrong, it's a great quote to ponder.
Re:How to lie with statistics (Score:3, Interesting)
Again, 3rd party PAC spending for the GOP outspent the dems 4 to 1 or 2 to 1 DEPENDING ON THE RACE. Again, these are massive amounts of money unlocked by the CU ruling because companies feel more free to spend when they don't have to reveal who they are.
Again, Meg Whieman spent 145 million dollars. Linda McMahon 46 million and Johnson 8 million of their personal cash.
And your reply is "hollywood moguls and foreigners" bullshit? You're the one in the fantasy land.
Re:Fear & Ignorance (Score:3, Interesting)
That's absolute bullshit. They could have closed the bankrupt TBTF institutions and prosecuted every single responsible individual under RICO, releasing non-violent pot heads to make room in the prisons for all the white collar thugs.
Instead the rest of the economy is being bled dry to prop them up and cover for their theft.
I've heard this a few times now, and I'm curious what you think would have happened if the US decided to shut down, or allow to fail, some of the largest banks in the world.
Do you honestly believe everything would have turned up roses, or are you just venting? We have examples both in the US and worldwide of what happens when a government allows it's major banks to fail, and its not pretty.