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2010 Election Results Are In

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.

14 of 1,530 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Fear & Ignorance by nomadic · · Score: 0, Troll

    The weird thing is so many people conflate the economy and the national debt, as if there is a direct correlation between the two. The weirder thing is in response they vote in the party that has historically run up the deficit more often. The weirdest thing is the Republicans have said they won't touch social security, medicare, or military spending, which constitutes the bulk of this country's financial obligations; the rest is comparatively small, and if you eliminated everything else except spending on those things it wouldn't change too much.

  2. HUGE mandate! by SoupGuru · · Score: 0, Troll

    After all, the Republicans have gained the House of Representatives... let's just not remember that the Senate and Presidency is still Democratic.

    HUGE mandate.... of course knowing some Repubs, they're probably actually hoping for a "man date".

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    What doesn't kill you only delays the inevitable
  3. Re:Fear & Ignorance by ArcherB · · Score: 1, Troll

    According to many polls, the number one concern this election was the economy. Somehow in the minds of many, the economy is the fault of the Democrats, in spite of the fact that the 2008 candidates left the campaign trail to focus on the rapidly failing economy.

    The Republicans couldn't have timed it better. Pillage the economy, let it fail just before the Democrats take office, and two years later when the Dems have halted and begun reversal of the worst economic disaster of all time, the Republicans come in, blaming the Democrats.

    Somehow people buy that rhetoric. I guess angry shouting will beat out reasonable discourse nearly every time.

    Maybe it's because Democrats have held both houses of congress for past four years. In the past two, they've had the WH and a super-majority in Congress.The unemployment rate was less than 4.5% when the Dems took congress. What did the Republicans do as the minority party since 2007 to ruin the economy and raise the unemployment to over 10% at the end of 2009 (it's currently at 9.6%)?

    You can place the blame wherever you like, but the numbers don't lie. Nor do they change with respect to which party has the White House.

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  4. Re:Should be good for the economy by Lumpy · · Score: 0, Troll

    Obamacare is a good thing unless you get all your education from Glenn Beck.

    Have you actually READ the heathcare bill/law? Only a complete sociopath would be against most of what is in there.

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    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  5. Re:Not surprising by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 0, Troll

    No one seems to notice that they are taking home a few MORE dollars in there check do to change implemented by Obama and the democrats.

    Dollars that I will either have to pay back come April 15, or will come out of my tax refund. All the Dems did was change the way withholding was calculated, not actually cut taxes.

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    The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
  6. Re:OK Republicans, by geekoid · · Score: 0, Troll

    To keep it fair, the need to have everything fix... NOW. I mean, the Democrats didn't get two years. Within months people where bitching about the crisis brought on by the democrats.

    The republican policy of Obstruct everything, and blame the democrats, worked.

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  7. Re:Should be good for the economy by JackieBrown · · Score: 0, Troll

    Only a complete sociopath would be against most of what is in there.

    Extremest comments like this really help destroy the debate and bi-partisanship needed to have real improvements done for our healthcare.

  8. Re:Should be good for the economy by BStroms · · Score: 0, Troll

    There's no denying that banks played a major role in the collapse, largely due to not properly ensuring that borrowers were capable of repaying the loans. However, that's far from the only factor as there's an excess of blame to go around. It was laws such as the Community Reinvestment Act that encouraged banks to lend to low income consumers who were high credit risks to begin with. I think there's little doubt that fewer bad loans would have been made without pushing of these acts, ones that Republicans opposed.

    So the Republicans get part of the blame for failing to recognize that sometimes regulation is needed and not allowing it to be properly implemented. The Democrats also get part of the blame for pushing so hard for loans to be made to low income borrowers and making it out to be all but a right to own your own home (renting is a perfectly acceptable alternative.) You have the bankers who were too short-sighted and optimistic about how those loans would play out in some cases, and openly deceitful in passing off packaged securities to investors while understating their risks in others.

    The final piece of the blame puzzle of course goes to the American people. There is such a thing as personal responsibility. Americans shouldn't have tried so hard to get the best possible homes and realized when a something was simply more than they could afford. If there weren't any homes they could afford they should have stuck with renting. No matter how sleazy the salesman, you're at least partially to blame if you fall for a scam. Then there's all the people who made the situation worse by refusing to continue making mortgage payments they could easily afford simply because they owed more than the house was worth. I consider them every bit as greedy and immoral as most of the bankers we love to vilify.

  9. Re:Not surprising by LordLimecat · · Score: 0, Troll

    Yea, as we know unemployment was just awful for most of those years, and economy in general was doing pretty poorly.

    Wait, what? The market was good enough that I, as a fresh-out-of-college, immature, irresponsible 21 year old managed to get about 3 job offers in about 4 weeks following college. REAL terrible economy there.

  10. Re:Should be good for the economy by penguin_dance · · Score: 0, Troll

    Actually, the other way around. Democrats never mention the word "bipartisanship" until they're no longer in charge. Then they expect Republicans to agree to their terms. To them, compromise means agreeing with the democrats.

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  11. Re:OK Republicans, by Dan667 · · Score: 0, Troll

    GOP promised jobs, where are they?

  12. Re:Should be good for the economy by Culture20 · · Score: 0, Troll

    As Adam Smith said, those who benefit more from society should contribute proportionately more of their income to the running of society. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_of_nations#Book_IV:_Of_Systems_of_political_Economy

    The unemployed benefit proportionally more from society...

  13. Re:Cut spending on Vietghanistan by Totenglocke · · Score: 1, Troll

    Jesus christ, do you actually believe that shit? People make choices and those choices determine how your life turns out (with a bit of luck mixed in). If you drop out of school, you're not going to have a high paying job and that's purely on your shoulders for making a dumb choice - just like you choose to have kids, especially in this day where condoms, birth control pills, and abortions are a dime a dozen. Those "evil rich" you demonize for "exploiting" workers are the ones writing their paychecks. Why is it so hard for you to grasp that these people would otherwise be unemployed if those "evil rich" hadn't decided to give them a job? You would be unemployed if the "evil" company you work for hadn't decided to hire you. Think about how much you like getting a paycheck the next time you want to vilify businesses.

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    "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
  14. Re:Gridlock FTW by cain · · Score: 0, Troll

    Wow, you're an idiot. And now the whole world knows it. Congrats.