Barack Obama swept to victory as the nation's first black president Tuesday night in an electoral college landslide that overcame racial barriers as old as America itself. "Change has come," he told a huge throng of cheering supporters.
The son of a black father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas, the Democratic senator from Illinois sealed his historic triumph by defeating Republican Sen. John McCain in a string of wins in hard-fought battleground states — Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Iowa and more.
On a night for Democrats to savor, they padded their majorities in the House and Senate, and come January will control both the White House and Congress for the first time since 1994.
In his first speech as president-elect, Obama catalogued the challenges ahead. "The greatest of a lifetime," he said, two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century."
Read More Here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081105/ap_on_el_pr/election_rdp
I’m sure we’ll all unite behind him and show him the due respect for his office that the left have shown towards President Bush.
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'I used to have compassion, but they taxed it and legislated it out of existence.'
Except, Darkseid, Bush lost his respect after an 8 year tenure in office. Barack Obama hasn't the time in office yet for you to not show him your respect and unity. In four years, if he hasn't lived up to his promises, then you're allowed to mudsling.
You're full of kool-aid, it started with Bush instantly, with a minor pause after 9/11. I notice by the way, you use the term 'mudslinging' when it's THE ONE (copyright Oprah Winfrey) getting any criticism. He was the media and the entertainment industries' hand-picked candidate. The best pres money can buy. And I don't HAVE to give him shit.
Bush Drangement Syndrome (and recall I never voted for him) whipped to a frenzy was a big reason for THE ONE coming to power, along with one sad fact: Over 50% of americans now want free things as long as someone else is made to pay for it, plus they want complete absolution of guilt from any bad decisions. Not a bad deal, I suppose.
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'I used to have compassion, but they taxed it and legislated it out of existence.'
Bush lost the popular vote and was made the President by the Supreme court...
Obama was elected over whelmingly...
Also can you think of a major initive other then Social Security that Bush didn't get through congress?
He got his war, his torture, his wire tapping, his tax breaks...
Bush got everything he wanted and what we are witnessing is the logical conclusion of Republican/Conservative rule...
Firstly, Bush didn't lose any vote. The Electoral College's structure allows a candidate to have fewer popular votes but to prevail in electoral votes. Bush fell behind in the popular vote, but he didn't "lose" there since the popular vote was not what determines the election.
Secondly, the SCOTUS did not make Bush the President. It merely said that SINCE Florida counties could not even follow their own electoral rules for recounts, that the recounts must be stopped and a final tally established. And that's what happened. And Bush won Florida's electoral votes by about 500 popular votes. END OF STORY.
If anyone has a problem with the Electoral College system, it's simple enough to petition the U.S. Congress to start the process to Amend the U.S. Constitution to get rid of it. You've had 8 years to do that, and I don't see much work being done in that regard.
Hardly a Landslide, a good win indeed, not a landslide.
Note well: "electoral college landslide". This site shows so far:
OBAMA
Popular Vote # and %: 63.2M / 52%
Electoral Votes: 349
McCAIN
Popular Vote # and %: 55.9M / 46%
Electoral Votes: 163
The victory in electoral votes is so heavy (2:1) that it isn't a stretch to call it a landslide. The popular vote margin certainly exceeds what Bush got over Kerry in 2004, and as we must recall, Bush claimed that gave him a "mandate".
I wouldn't call it a landslide.
OR maybe I would.
I don't know anyone who looks forward to a landslide--they wipe out everything in their path.
"Obama, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz......."
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'I used to have compassion, but they taxed it and legislated it out of existence.'
Obama never promised to buy us AUTOMOBILES!!!!
But I do have it on good authority that we will not have to "...worry about putting gas in them..." or have to worry about "...paying [our] mortgages."
(See youtube news clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz78T_kvqUU)
I humbly hope that counts for people who didn't vote for him!
Like Janis Jolin says in the third stanza of the song your post refers to I'd rather Obama buy me another round so that I can be comfortably numb at least until 2012.
Amen, Helen!
If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.
It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.
It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.
It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.
Read More Here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_pl135
for all of us.Massive unemployment due to crushing taxes to pay for more government folly.Long gasoline lines waiting to fill up due to MASSIVE regulations, NOT allowing us to get our own oil,leaving us to the whims of Middle-East murderers,a weakened military to pay for more Demonrat folly.Interest rates above Carters',21%,completely stalling our economy,etc.Yes,Toledo is a microcosm of National Socialism,ditto Detroit,Chicago,Cleveland,etc.,and in DOES NOT look good, at all!
Not allowing us to get our own oil? Bush only lifted his father's ban on domestic drilling (note both are Republicans) recently, but the ban imposed by the Congress is still in effect ... the Republican Congress of 2001-2006 didn't do anything about that one.
And considering the RUIN that cheap credit and low interest rates have put us into, it's long overdue to have high interest rates. STOP GAMBLING WITH HOUSES!
You Republican shills must have all the mirrors removed in your homes and offices, since you REFUSE to ever look at yourselves.
in Slick Willys' regime,changed credit policies in 1996 to have 1) welfare checks accepted as INCOME,2) have unemployment checks considered as income,3) alimony payments could also be considered as income,when applying for home loans! Now,welfare checks means you're a bum,unemployment checks means,you DO NOT work,alimony means you do not have two incomes and divorced folks have very iffy futures.ALL things that made home loans to the worst prospects AVAILABLE! AVAILABLE!!Along with 5 MILLION home loans to illegal aliens and you have what DEMONRATS did,to create this problem! There was a lady in St.Louis who made $1220/month,whose mortgage was $900/month...this idiot signed the papers stating she could swing the loan??! Leftists retards, give a bad name to actual retards...BIG TIME!!
From another blog, to focus your attention:
"Total value of all subprime loans was only several hundred billion dollars. Total value of DEFAULTED subprime loans is less than 60 billion dollars."
What was the latest tranche of bailout money? $700 BILLION.
The "subprime" part of the entire Credit Crisis is a problem, but that's NOT what's crashing the entire world's banking systems. WHAT'S DOING THAT IS ABSURDLY LEVERAGED FINANCIAL SPECULATION THAT THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND REPUBLICAN CONGRESS REFUSED TO REGULATE. The use of TRILLIONS in government credit to cover just the U.S. banks, is not from the excesses committed under the Community Reinvestment Act. No, it's from the excesses committed completely inside the so-called investment banks, as they played with valuations of EVERYTHING, passing papers around at ever furious paces.
Nearly 100% of the people doing THAT, we're about as White as a freshly starched bedsheet. I'm talking VERY WHITE. So your Republican-shill attempt to blame Liberals and minorities has once again FAILED ... since all it took was a simple relating of FACTS AND MATH. If you want to blame anyone with the most green blood on their hands, blame the Whitebread millionaires in the banks for this mess.
To sum it up, again from the same blog:
"The bankers are just trying to blame subprime to work the dumb cletuses into a froth and keep people from realizing the real source of the problem."
You say the offshore drilling "ban imposed by the Congress is still in effect".
That is not true. The offshore ban expired on September 24th. That is what has made the price of gas come down for the past few weeks as the price per barrel of oil has also dropped.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/24/congress.drilling.ban/index.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/24/uselections2008.environment
The reason for the drop in oil is two fold: 1) There was a speculative bubble that recently burst. 2) There has been a precipitous drop in demand due to higher prices and in the last two months a huge decrease in demand due to what appears to be a world wide recession - and in places where there is no recession, economic growth has slowed significantly.
Gasoline has dropped by $2 per gallon since summer because the ban on drilling expired 6 weeks ago? Oh come on, there is no way that the expiration of a ban on drilling would have the effect of halving gasoline prices in 3 months. Supply and demand along with a speculative bubble that raised the price of oil at least $30 - $40 above the price that would be expected based upon demand are responsible for the high price and the reduction of late.
Now legislation that would raise or lower taxes might be a component of any price increase or reduction, but that has not happened.
Here, for your convinence, is the US Energy Administration Office statistics on gasoline prices broken down by week.
And LOOK! Just 6 weeks ago, the price of one gallon of gas was $1.50 more than it is today!
Now look at the data in graph form.
Notice the graph started to fall the week of 9/12/2008?
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_home_page.html
It just must be a super,major concidence that the week the off-shore drilling ban expired is the exact same week that the price of gas started to fall so quickly.
It just goes to show you that you can always find some statistic that you believe proves your case, Lib.
You are trying to prove cause and effect when all you have shown is effect and it just happens to be a coincidence.
There is no way in h#** that you can drill a well and put it into production in 6 weeks. Could it have had some impact? Only psychologically, just as the price of oil was pushed up by the belief it could only go higher. As anyone with a brain will understand, you can't drill a well and get the oil to market in 6 weeks. Too bad we can't do a week by week of world economic data.
So if you want to claim the lifting of the ban was the cause to the effect, go ahead. But anyone with a brain will see it is just a coincidence. And even if it were a cause, how do you factor in less driving by Americans and a worldwide slowdown? Hmmm....
Now its time for the "hemline" theory. Are they the cause or effect? I must admit you are creative.
The week that the offshore ban expired is the week that prices started to drop drastically. That is proven by the government data I supplied in a previous link.
The price drop couldn't have been that the ability to compete with OPEC by being allowd to drill our own reserves opened the market and got rid of the oil monopoly that OPEC has had.
It couldn't have been that speculators, who were fat, dumb and happy about the OPEC monopoly had to bail out of the stock market quickly before the oil futures dropped beyond profitability.
THAT must have been the week that everyone in the entire world decided of their own accord to use less oil.
Link
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"Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually dirty kitchen, and
five times out of nine I'll show you an exceptional man." -Charles
Bukowski
It is a hard concept.
There is a finite amount of oil that can be recovered from all producing oil wells daily. Let's call that number 100 barrels a day for ease of this explanation.
Of that 100 barrels a day produced in the entire world, imagine this breakdown of purchasers and producers.
OPEC produces about 40 barrels a day.
NON-OPEC countries produce the remaining 60 barrels a day.
http://www.sindhtoday.net/business/3705.htm
America wants 25 of those barrels.
China wants 8 of those barrels
Japan wants 7 of those barrels
Germany wants 3 of those barrels
Russia wants 3 of those barrels
India wants 3 of those barrels
Canada wants 3 of those barrels
Remaining countries want the remaining 47 barrels
http://www.nationmaster.com/red/pie/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption
Since we do not get most of our oil from OPEC countries, that means our available daily supply is only 60% of world output. (since OPEC controls 40% as previously established)
Therefore, if the world supply of oil from non OPEC nations were to increase, say by drilling off of the coast of Florida, then the price per barrel paid by the United States would be impacted, along with the other world markets.
It's an incorrect concept.
Therefore, if the world supply of oil from non OPEC nations were to increase, say by drilling off of the coast of Florida, then the price per barrel paid by the United States would be impacted, along with the other world markets.
How many oil platforms went active off the coast of Florida in the last six weeks? I'm guessing that if the answer is more than 0, the new capacity isn't enough to cause a worldwide oil glut.
Steve is right. The reason gas has plummeted in price is because the price of oil wasn't reflecting reality and it corrected to a reasonable level. If you compare your charts with the timeline of the collapse of Wall Street, you'll see why the price of gas dropped by 50%. The price of oil was highly speculative and reliant on growing demand, but the impending recession is causing the oil bubble to burst. It's not going below $50, because at that point the Canadian extra heavy crude becomes unprofitable and the oil supply constricts.
But what do I know, I only called the implosion of the oil market.
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"Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually dirty kitchen, andfive times out of nine I'll show you an exceptional man." -CharlesBukowski
Gee! I filled my tank for $1.95 a gallon yesterday, FINALLY went below 2 bucks yesterday...although it took weeks....and today, ONE DAY AFTER THE ELECTION-POOF!! Nice while it lasted-it is now $2.20! WOW!! WHAT A COINCIDENCE!!
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'I used to have compassion, but they taxed it and legislated it out of existence.'
Oh. Well then I should have said "the ban which existed for all of the time during which Bush and his tame Republican Congress terrorized America and all of Mankind with war and huge energy prices". Now, THAT would have more made the point.
So, the Oil Barons have FINALLY let go of our fucking balls? The real crime is that we let the Oil Barons have such huge power in our government in the first place.
Maybe under Obama and a tame Democrat Congress, some funding MIGHT be freed up so that we can finally get REAL solar panels for our homes now at a price that doesn't break us. Our oil dependency is HUGE. We MUST change. Let's see if that "change" is the CHANGE much talked about recently.
I think the comment about the next Carter administration is probably the most accurate. President Carter had good intentions, good ideas and lots of opposition. That's probably what Obama will get from Congress - opposition.
On the bright side, we are well rid of a tyrant. King George II is dead. Long live the king!
will appease the Russians by allowing missiles in VENEZUELA and Cuba! He will appease the Muslim killers by allowing more shelling into Israel,which ,they are doing RIGHT NOW!He will wave the white flag in Iraq and Afganistan.And of course, to allow Chinese influence to make him blow in the wind.Surrender and appeasement,the Dim's foreign policy for centuries! This doper from Chicago will be so easy to intimidate that,it will make the twinks who supported him in this blog look Goliath like.
Ah, Sir, I see here that your FIP (fear in politics) license expired on Nov 4th of this year. I'm afraid that your using fear in political discourse has broached the law. You're going to have to come with me and clear all this up before the judge tomorrow morning.
I feel great about this election despite my presidential vote not being on the winning end. I feel this way for several reasons.
1. I see an end to the hateful partisianship that has plagued this country since the 2000 election. For the most part the candidates kept it civil and on the issues and didn't embrace those on the fringe of either side of the spectrum.
2. People on both sides voted out of hope. If there is one thing I could wish for it's that this happens in every election.
3. Racism and sexism were dealt strong blows. This election only validates my belief that anyone in this country can succeed if they are both smart and work hard.
Now the downfalls of this election. I see only one major one.
The lack of the media to act as watchdog. We should expect nothing less from a free and independent press. However it became blatantly obvious that they were wholly biased throughout this election. It's bad when our media becomes the weekly punchline for SNL skits. I'm not bitter. In fact if it were a McCain/Clinton race I have no doubt it would have happened only with McCain as the benefactor.
It's this type of Block Journalism that has pushed more more and more towards keeping the internet unregulated so that we can keep expanding the number of voices available to us so that the dissenting and minority views won't be silenced.
But all in all I wish President Obama good luck. This country has been on a tough road of mending for a while and we will need leadership to make it through.
MikeyA
To which I add: Post hoc ergo propter hoc, which is Latin for "after this, therefore because of this".
So, the Oil Barons have FINALLY let go of our fucking balls? I wouldn't put money on it. Those old boys have been making money by the dump truck load for years, and they won't give it up just because President Obama asks nicely. Even with his hat in his hand.
The real problem Obama will have to deal with involves three hundred million people (300,000,000) and thirteen trillion dollars of debt ($13,000,000,000,000). I can't imagine one trillion of anything, so I looked up the numbers.
One Hundred 10 to the 2nd 100
One Thousand 10 to the 3rd 1000
One Million 10 to the 6th 1000000
One Billion 10 to the 9th 1000000000
One Trillion 10 to the 12th 1000000000000
My ability to comprehend wealth stops at around ten million, which I can imagine as ten one million dollar homes.
President Elect Obama wants to fund health care and education for everyone who can't afford it. That's a real nice idea, but the money to make those ideas a reality has to come from somewhere. How do you suppose all that health care for the poor and disenfranchised will be paid for?
"How do you suppose all that health care for the poor and disenfranchised will be paid for?"
I dunno. Since every other industrialized nation does it for their own people, and since the USA has trillions to blow on stupid shit like war-for-the-Bush-Family and bailouts-for-banks, and since we have socialized medicine already (albeit delayed and dishonest), it only stands to reason that we can afford it.
I don't expect Obama to accomplish it except by invoking the "Masachusetts Model", which basically means tossing the working class into the coffers of the insurance companies.
It's disgusting to think we elected a leader who is willing to murder babies that have survived being aborted by their mothers. Barak Obama is a baby murderer,