All Hail! Aqua Buddha

[sgreger1]

No worries, can only imagine what I'd have written if computers were around in my boozing days. Actually I'd rather not imagine it.

I'd agree about the death threats if my idea of political discourse was along the lines of George Lincoln Rockwell but it's not.

The country I do live in seems to be populated by many frightened people that keep placing war profiteers and war criminals in positions of power. This appears to me to be true for both political parties. Instead of war criminals being the scourge of the earth our society now venerates them and gives lucrative book or television contracts.

As for the Republicans taking over the House I will be interested in seeing what sort of economic triumph they can come up with. Weren't these the same folks that kept the budget deficit down by simply not including war spending in the budget, sort of Enron-style accounting? Now they're upset about spending??? "Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat" keeps playing in my mind. "That trick nevers works!"

The good news for Nancy Pelosi is that impeachment is BACK on the table.... Funny thing about these DLC "new" Democrats is that they gave all kinds of cover (i.e., never an investigation) to the war profiteers and never even got a t-shirt in return - just their asses handed to them in the midterms. No sympathies here.

Sorry but society killing guilty (or possibly innocent?) people in my name is not my thing. I do not wish to be a killer. If you ever get the chance to ride the Larkspur ferry you might notice there might be worse punishments than death.

Anyway, enjoy Santa Cruz, it is beautiful down there.

"The country I do live in seems to be populated by many frightened people that keep placing war profiteers and war criminals in positions of power. This appears to me to be true for both political parties. Instead of war criminals being the scourge of the earth our society now venerates them and gives lucrative book or television contracts. "

Yah well we've become a bit of an "imperial" force with how we conduct our foriegn police/defense industry. It's become a giant racket that is very lucrative as long as you know someone. Unfortunately this is all money that gets blown overseas and it costs the taxpayers unheard of amounts of cash. Plus it makes the world hate us. I mean, prolonged occupation of two countries is costly in the first place, but even if we win we get nothing in return. It's not like they will give us all of their oil for free or something. The whole defense industry has become a scam to divert taxpayer dollars into the hands of a select few, which seems to be the popular scam everywhere else in America as well.

As for the Republicans taking over the House I will be interested in seeing what sort of economic triumph they can come up with. Weren't these the same folks that kept the budget deficit down by simply not including war spending in the budget, sort of Enron-style accounting? Now they're upset about spending??? "

Oh that's easy to answer. Name me the last time republicans brought anything that could even be loosly defined as "economic triumph", and there's your answer. The reality is that they don't want to decrease spending, they just want to be in control of the spending. Spending never goes down in this country, ever. Whether it be the republicans not putting the wars "on the books" or clinton eliminated the entire deficit by changing it to intragovernmental holdings, it's all a big scam where they pretend they want to spend less, but all they really want is you to elect them into power so they can control where that money goes.



"

Anyway, enjoy Santa Cruz, it is beautiful down there. "

Yah it is nice. I just moved to Pleasanton though which is kind of next door to santa Cruz which is also very nice.


I didn't mean to come off like I was rooting for republicans to sweep back government and save us, because that is laughable. I am just saying I don't like when any 1 party has too much power and I was hoping they would yank it back away from the dems. I can't think of any legislation that I really could "get behind" that's been passed in the last decade, so to me the best thing is to just get them arguing in congress to the point of gridlock, which reduces the amount of crap spending bills they can vote on or wars they can start. But I am under no impression that republicans are going to do ever 1 single good thing to help the american public.

[Jwalker]

"I like that Jerry Brown song, California Uber Alles."
Thanks a lot tom now I've got that song on repeat now.

Oh man I'm a republican but I can't believe they re-elected murkowski, then again it's alaska she could just have exxon mobil give everyone a thousand dollars (oh wait we already do that you get over 2g if you live in alaska). Then again we were really close to having Ted Stevens win last time.

As for re-electing Brown that's ****ing unbelievable, I guess people thought hey let's elect someone who has experience, forgetting his main form of experience is raising taxes. Oh well california already screwed up all we need now is a big earthquake.

[Mr. Snuffleupagus]

I would have voted Brown over Whitman but I voted for all the libertarian candidates this time.

[sgreger1]

I would have voted Brown over Whitman but I voted for all the libertarian candidates this time.

Booyah baby, thats what im talking about. I voted for all the libertarian candidates too. Whitmans a billionare buying an election, and brown already proved that he would bring nothing but ruin to california. A protest vote from me. Im tired of having to vote for the lesser of two evils. Terrible candidates this year. Good job mr snuff!

[RobsanX]

I guess Whitman didn't make such a sound financial decision. It's probably better that she lost. At least she pumped a bunch of money into the economy.

[sgreger1]

I guess Whitman didn't make such a sound financial decision. It's probably better that she lost. At least she pumped a bunch of money into the economy.

She was trying to buy herself a job. You gotta wonder why billionares would even go through the trouble of working.

[justintempler]

Murkowski is well on her way to winning her write in:
Write-in count is slow going

Joe Miller's challenge is going nowhere
Judge denies injunction

[Roo]

I love The Economist. An outsider's point of view is exactly what this country needs. I was very impressed by this particular Leader, read it: http://www.economist.com/node/174177...ry_id=17417732

The Republicans ride in
Now they must prove that there is more to their cause than blind fury

Nov 4th 2010

ONLY four years after the voters sent them packing, handing both chambers of Congress to the Democrats at the 2006 mid-terms, the Republicans are back. Voters then (and again in 2008) decided that Republican policies had blown up the deficit with unaffordable tax cuts, let the banks run wild, dragged America into two costly wars and produced a wretched harvest of stagnant wages, rising job insecurity and soaring health-care costs. Now they seem to have decided that they like Barack Obama and the Democrats even less.

The mid-term elections on November 2nd saw the biggest swing to the Republicans for 72 years (see article). With a few results still to come, they have picked up over 60 seats in the House of Representatives, for a solid majority of at least 50. In the Senate they gained at least six seats, though they will fall short of control there.


From Barack to Boehner
Related items

* The mid-terms: The latest thumpingNov 4th 2010

For Mr Obama, the lesson is simple enough: sharpen up, and prepare for a tough two years. Yes, this was hardly an enthusiastic vote for his opponents, more a howl of rage against incumbents from citizens struggling after the worst slowdown since the 1930s. And he has a string of legislative achievements to his name. But plenty of centrists plainly fear that he has drifted too far to the left, that he dislikes business and that he does not understand middle America. He looks a far less competent figure than he did two years ago. With a hostile House and a gridlocked Senate, the chances of passing any big new laws are remote; and Republican victories in crucial swing states such as Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania will make the president’s re-election battle in 2012 a lot harder. If Mr Obama is to win again, he needs to move back to the pragmatic centre of what is still a pretty conservative country.

But so do the Republicans. If the road ahead for Mr Obama is filled with pot-holes, that in front of John Boehner, the next speaker of the House, is strewn with elephant traps. He has just inherited, along with Nancy Pelosi’s gavel, a trillion-dollar fiscal deficit coupled with a weak recovery that is generating hardly any new jobs. It is a Republican House that must now pass America’s budgets, decide whether to stimulate the stricken economy or tighten the purse strings, and figure out what to do about the government’s debt, which will soon bump up against the $14.3 trillion limit currently set for it by law. Whether Mr Boehner decides to work with Mr Obama or against him, voters will accord him a share of the blame if things continue to be miserable.

And what exactly does Mr Boehner head? It never pays to underestimate the American right. In the past two years of opposition, it has rediscovered one great strength, a belief in small government that George Bush foolishly shed. But this is clouded by three other things: fury, an absence of ideas and more than a little craziness. Much though the leaders of the tea-party movement claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan, they lack both the Gipper’s sunny optimism and his pragmatism.

Take for instance the thing the right affects to care about most: the deficit. To reduce America’s debt involves cutting spending, increasing taxes, or a combination of both. Tax rises are anathema. But Republicans are strangely silent about what spending they would like to cut, apart from those inadequate old standbys, earmarks and government waste. No red-blooded conservative will touch defence expenditure at a time when America’s troops are in combat and the country faces toner-wielding terrorists and a rising China. Reforming entitlements, which mostly means chopping away at Medicare, the health scheme for the elderly, is the obvious place to start. But tea-partiers, who tend to be elderly themselves, are rather keen on that bit of big government. (Of course, Mr Obama has no credible plan to deal with the deficit either. But at least by backing a stimulus now he has a cogent answer to the immediate problem of the stuttering recovery.)

Mr Boehner is from the more sensible end of his party. He is surely aware that American elections are won in the centre. The tea-partiers, for all their energy, threw away at least two Senate seats, in effect, by imposing unelectable oddballs (including a self-confessed ex-witch) in states where Republican victory had been assured. But he will be under pressure to keep his base happy. And there will be the additional distraction of various Republicans, including perhaps Sarah Palin, jockeying for their party’s presidential nomination.


Who wants to live in a town called Nope?

It is easy to tell Speaker Boehner what not to do. Impeaching Mr Obama, for instance, as some of his newer recruits are keen to do, would be a huge mistake: a pointless distraction from far more serious issues. Blocking everything in sight in the hope of denying Mr Obama re-election may work against the Republicans, just as shutting down the government hurt them in 1995 after their last congressional takeover, and helped Bill Clinton to re-election the next year. Sabotaging Mr Obama’s health-care plans, as Republican leaders say they plan to do, is risky as well: the reforms are unpopular, but creating chaos, which is all the Republicans will be able to manage thanks to Mr Obama’s veto pen, could prove even more so.

In theory, there could be room for some form of useful grand bargain on the economy. Mr Obama could extend more help to small businesses, offer tax reforms that would make commerce simpler and generally do more to show that he understands how wealth is created. The Bush tax cuts, due to expire at the end of this year, could be extended and a short-term stimulus agreed upon. Mr Boehner and Mr Obama could work together on a convincing medium-term plan for bringing down the deficit, one which included entitlement reform.

The danger is that the opposite may happen. A deficit deal will prove impossible. Deadlock over the Bush tax cuts will see them expire, letting taxes rise sharply by default. Without further help from the federal government, cash-strapped states will sack employees and cut benefits next year. It is in everybody’s interest that Sheriff Obama and the Republican posse work together. But a shoot-out seems more likely.

[Mordred]

This saddens me though:

Paul denounced the ad and replied that he was a good Christian who had Jesus in his heart.

Ayn Rand is spinning in her grave. I get how you have to be a "good Christian" to be win an election in the US, but if anybody could/should have tried to do it without hypocrisy, then it was Rand Paul.

[truthwolf1]

IN two years nothing will have changed because of bad decisions from the previous regime and bad solutions from the current regime and it will be time for a outsider to come in and clean up.
Who that is? I dont know but he better start campaigning by this coming summer before another puppet like Romney get's positioned. Keep your eye's on the bilderberger meetings of who they are grooming.

[sgreger1]

Obama folds, agrees to EXTEND BUSH TAX CUTS across all brackets. Dems are pissed.

Democrat Dennis Kucinich is going to force Congress to vote on withdrawing from Afghanistan after news that Obama will extend war to 2014