From the day he took office, millions of people were out to ruin him. The haters, the racists, the birthers. "I want him to fail," Rush Limbaugh proclaimed before he took office. The GOP leadership was on the same page. They indicated they'd do anything they could to make that happen.

President Barack Obama came into office in what was clearly the scariest national economy since the Great Depression. His first task was to prevent it from toppling into collapse. The auto industry was facing bankruptcy. Had Chrysler and General Motors shut down, Ford would have undoubtedly followed. Ann Arbor's Center for Automotive Research, or CAR, told me that could mean the loss of another 1 million to 3 million jobs, many of them in this part of the world.

Obama bailed 'em out — got the industry back in its feet, cleaned up General Motors and had Chrysler merge with Fiat. Today, they are all making billions. Most said the president should then have put his political muscle into a quick-fix jobs program. Instead, he opted to spend his capital to try to do something no other president had managed — universal health insurance.

Franklin D. Roosevelt wasn't able to do it. Harry Truman wasn't. Even Lyndon Johnson couldn't. But Barack Obama got the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed, though it cost Democrats control of the House of Representatives. He also did what George Bush failed to do for more than seven years: Find Osama bin Laden, and kill him.

Nevertheless, the Republicans thought he was toast. Unemployment was still maddeningly high — barely less than 8 percent. The deficit had skyrocketed out of control. They smelled victory. They nominated their best-looking candidate.

Mitt Romney promised to balance the budget, provide millions of new jobs, cut taxes (mainly for the wealthy), and — oh, yeah — reduce the deficit at the same time. He figured he was in.

He was so sure he was going to be the next president he had his transition website ready to go, and a huge display of fireworks ready to be shot off in Boston Harbor.

Romney bragged that he only had written a victory speech, not a concession statement. He spent Election Day dashing around the country.

President Obama hung out in Chicago, playing pickup basketball with his friends. Then the votes started coming in.

"We'll see who is on the correct side of the electorate," one right-winger from Ohio e-mailed me, just before the first numbers arrived. I never heard from him again.

Long before 11 p.m., stunned Republicans were watching CNN's John King standing in front of his famous election map, explaining he saw no way Romney could win Florida.

Everything was over well before midnight. The electoral vote was Obama 332, Romney 206. The popular vote was closer than last time, but when all the absentee ballots have been counted, that reviled Kenyan socialist will have defeated the boy from Bloomfield Hills by about 4 million votes.

That makes Barack Obama the first Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt to win a majority of the popular vote two elections in a row.

Early the next morning, I received a hysterical e-mail from a woman from the Toledo suburbs. WE ARE NOW A COMMUNIST COUNTRY RULED BY A MUSLIM, it said.

Inshallah, baby, and straighten that hammer and sickle on your burqa! Incredibly, the voters hadn't been fooled. They saw what the Republicans were offering, and they didn't like it.

Though the presidential election got the most attention, other results indicated a real repudiation of much of what the Republican Party stands for. For the first time, voters in three states — Washington, Minnesota and Maryland — voted to legalize gay marriage. Wisconsin elected an openly gay woman — Tammy Duckworth — to the U.S. Senate, defeating a popular former governor. That's the home state of GOP vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan, by the way. Wisconsin voters gave Obama an easy win, indicating they didn't want Pauly boy as veep.

Republicans also had two candidates for the U.S. Senate in deep red states who could have won easily — till they started showing their true colors and feelings about women. Todd Akin of Missouri said if a woman was the victim of "legitimate rape," she couldn't get pregnant. Richard Mourdock in Indiana said if a woman became pregnant as a result of rape, "that was something God intended to happen."

Fortunately, God evidently didn't intend for them to become senators. A year ago, it seemed an almost safe bet that the GOP would take control of the Senate.

It seemed completely safe to say that Republicans would gain seats. After all, 23 Democrats were up for re-election; only 10 Republicans. But when the votes were counted, the score was 25 Dems and independents who vote with them; 8 Republicans.

Thanks to expert gerrymandering by state legislatures, Republicans lost a few seats but kept solid control of the U.S. House of Representatives, probably by 235 to 200.

This, despite the fact that more people voted for Democrats. That means we are back to divided government.

Whether any sanity will prevail before we hit the "fiscal cliff" of deficit reduction, nobody can say. But we can say this:

That which both sides now call "Obamacare" will now go fully into effect, and will be so embedded in our fabric four years from now it will never be repealed.

We won't get any horrible Supreme Court justices for the next four years, which is tremendous. If Jesus should happen to call Antonin Scalia home, or Clarence Thomas leaves the court to open a video store, things may overwhelmingly change for the better.

And Republicans still don't have a clue. When the votes were in, the Tea Party news network put out a press release calling for a more extreme right-wing candidate for president next time. "The lesson the GOP and Americans need to learn is that weak-kneed Republicans do not get elected. Conservatives do," it said.

Just think. If the Republicans stick with those guys for 2016, next time we may all be able to go to bed on Election Night before the streetlights come on.

* * *
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/jack-lessenberry/46552/obama-s-win-and-what-it-signifies

And by the way it's Tammy Baldwin not Duckworth.

Media sold Hussein.

Johnson was more qualified.

10 more years and Hussein will still be without a clue.

You know what I like about that article? That even though it's clearly biased toward the Democrats, there is NO name-calling and very little dancing on the grave of the Tea Party. Just goes to show that it's possible to be both partisan AND respectful.

I'll tell you what a Obama win means. It means we are going to be the next Greece! You think the "Poor" are entitled now, just wait! Kiss income jobs for America goodbye. Government jobs do not make America money. Manufacture does. Selling Ag and all our resources for the cheap? Who the fuqq are we kidding. Do any of you liberals remember the greatest lesson of the Civil War? The North had all the Industry. The South had all the farmland. The SOUTH HAD TO IMPORT WEAPONS TO FIGHT THE NORTH, The SOUTH had the better rifles but that war and WWII proved two things most of you Libs just don't want to understand! And look back on Germany during WWII when a German general boasted that a Tiger tank was worth ten allied tanks. Rommel's replay was that we always seemed to have an eleventh tank! Like the Civil War's GREATEST LESSON YOU SEEM TO FORGET IS WITHOUT INDUSTRY AND THE CAPACITY TO MAKE STUFF FOR YOURSELF YOU ARE GOING TO LOOSE! PERIOD! The South had to buy French rifles and uniforms and other stuff because they had no industry. They had a lot of Tobacco and cotton but soldiers don't and cannot eat tobacco and Cotton! You cannot shoot with Cotton and Tobacco. You cannot defend yourself with either! Another lesson is the South got hammered economically. THEY TRULY COULD NOT AFFORD TO PAY FOR THE WEAPONS AND SUPPLIES THEY NEEDED AND FRANCE SURE WAS NOT SHOWING THEM ANY LOVE PRICE WISE FOR SUPPLYING THEM! the South was BROKE at the end of the Civil War! The North was in a depression thanks to it! Europe got RICH FROM IT!

Rifles trade more for wheat than wheat for rifles... So about our capacity to manufacture weapons... Who would we be buying weapons from otherwise if we didn't make our own? And that is just discussing the defense end of things! Now for our economy... Wall Street has taken completely over. We are screwed!

I just hope there is enough of America left after this disaster is over to get our ship back to port for repairs. Otherwise better find your a$$es a life boat now! I see things like the Titanic now. America is supposed to have an unsinkable economy. We just hit an Iceberg and our ship is listing! I bet Obama is first to the lifeboats!

Wow after reading all this I sure am glad Obama bailed out the auto industry.

Bush did the bail out. Obama just gave extra.

Well now, how about tech? We sure seem to be on the cutting edge these days. But does America make any TVs any more?

How about Medical? Why is it Stem Cell medical is being done in other countries yet here they STILL restrict SCR to DEATH! We are not even doing clinical trials here legally!

How much Furniture does America make these days?

Clothing?

BICYCLES?

APPLIANCES?

So shall I keep going on? Propping up a defunct industry that is so behind the times constitutes what? one small act of good does nothing when the scope of all his actions have done nothing to really save us from anything!

MANDATORY INSURANCE??? MANDATORY??? What was so wrong with Germany's model? Making insurance of all kinds and Health Care NOT FOR PROFIT over your head? please tell me why Germany's model doesn't fit or work here? A 3000 page Health Care insurance plan that does nothing to solve the issues of cost? We just force the costs on to everyone else who CAN AFFORD TO PAY?

Liberals have their heads too far up their a$$es to understand this is a total SHELL GAME!

This is Obama...



I guess it is easy to bend over when someone has their hand right up your BACKSIDE!

I wanted to say !!!

I didn't though...

You mean that it took until Obamas election for you to see everything you just posted? Did all that start four years ago? Or did you ignore it until now? What fool thinks that the fact that we dont make things anymore are the fault of a four year span. Outsourcing started decades ago for cheap labor. We can blame one man or liberals all you want, but to ignore greedy manufacterers who move industries overseas is foolish. You are right, we dont produce, we are consumers. That fault can go around many times over. All of a sudden you are aware of these facts. But it didnt seem to bother anyone under former presidents. In fact Reagan is a "god" to many, as is Clinton, however the conditions you discribe went on during and before them. Decline is just as much a process as progress is. We will blame anyone and everyone but ourselves. In 1979 it was the Japanese and their cheap productions, today we blame the Chinese. Our decline stem from lack of consciousness. Now we blame liberals, and select to ignore corporate banksters, wall st. crooks, multinational corporations, we blame liberals, yet there is plenty of blame to go around, start with all politicians and the vested interests they support by way of major corps.

Shame he used Romney's Mass. model, isn;t?

Barrack Obama's win signifies we as a nation are polarized.

We have to unpolarize ourselves and avoid the year end tax hikes.

From the time he went into office, Bush pretty much rammed this country's economy to the ground. It is going to take the next 200 years before we will get out of the mess that he helped put us in. I am dumbfounded at how conservatives are quick to throw our current leader into the cauldron, knowing well that eight years of having that goof of a president (Bush) in office is what kept us in this economic downfall in the first place.

K, You want facts????

You DARED to bring up Japanese cars. Allow me to illustrate why your thinking is so effing flawed here... bear with me...

1972, OPEC embargoed oil exports to America. Now ever since the 1930s cars in America got larger. Look it up. I know of a place that restores OLD Cadillacs (PRE 1940s ONLY!). The 1920 Caddies are smaller than the 1930s ones. I have seen three 1920s era and two 1930s era Caddilacs side by side and frankly a 1935 Cadillac Limousine is bigger all the way around than a HUM VEE! The point is all the way up until the Embargo American cars got bigger, heavier, and consumed a lot of gas! So all these a$4holes who laughed at the econobuckets japan was making just happily drove along when gas was about 35 cents a gallon! But then came the Embargo guess who was not laughing at the econobuckets any more as people like my parents had to sit it out in gas lines. Oh but this gets better. When gas prices went up people started looking at VWs and TOYOTAS AND DATSUNS more seriously when THEIR OWNERS SWORE BY THESE CARS. Why? Japan in the late 1950s made up their minds that they were not going to produce crap goods anymore. They adopted standards of quality we didn't! Japan successfully reinvented the wheel while we just went for size and style. WE FORGOT ECONOMY!

So now here we are in the Auto game and why did GM need to be bailed out? They are too far behind the times...

Now for outsourcing... Guess when that began... POST WWII! Your logic is so based on flawed information. What YOU are missing here is that GLOBAL BUSINESS HAS INFILTRATED OUR GOVERNMENT AND IS TRYING TO STRIP US DOWN OF OUR RIGHTS AND SOVEREIGNTY AS A NATION! Big banking is only part of this mess as is the MIC. Sadly the MIC is SUPPOSED to belong to America. Come on, who rebuilt Germany and Japan? Not the UN. Not England. Especially NOT RUSSIA! Not China either? Nixon (A REPUBLICAN) "opened China's door" to us. But WHO WAS PRESIDENT AFTER HIM? Eisenhower, the very man who warned us of the curse of the MIC. (Just in case MIC means Military Industrial Complex).

Now just after Eisenhower took office after Nixon's Impeachment for Watergate JIMMY CARTER CAME ONTO THE SCENE! A peanut farmer and a democrat. Remember the recession Iran caused our economy thanks to his handling of the situation there and our economy domestically? he tried to use government jobs and that lead to a screwed up welfare system and HUD shuttling people around in cities making nice neighborhoods into ghettos! I lived that one. Inglewood my geshniggie! that is where I grew up in the 1970s... I LIVED IN THE WOOD! You think a lot of businesses didn't start going to other nations like Taiwan eager to get a chunk of any industry they could get their hands on? Back then a lot of "Made in Taiwan" was more prevalent than "Made in Japan."

Now for the division of America. About those POOR people we keep hearing about. Who are they again? What makes then think they are entitled to a free hand out? What makes anyone think the world owes them a living? I sure in the hell ain't entitling these bastards to anything! POOR PEOPLE ARE MILKERS! THEY ARE WORTHLESS PEOPLE. Poor people make Ghettos and Slums. People make neighborhoods into Ghettos and Slums. Poor is a way of life and a way of thinking. You are not poor if you wish to work and when given the chance do so! Poor are those losers with signs that say "Homeless and hungry, will work for food." Um, THAT IS EXACTLY WHY I WORK! The thing with these looser is that when you offer them work they have every excuse in the world why they can't or they get mad and ask for money. Poor people are those a$$holes on the street hitting me up for fitty cents. They are always at bus stops and liquor stores here! And it is always "can you loan me..." or "can I borrow..." I just tell them NO and GET A JOB!

Now remember Bush Sr and Jr are OIL MOGULS! TEXAS OIL! Look at how behind the times our energy policy is and how hard we leaned towards the most dangerous possible power generation system possible. how many environmental time bombs do we have across this nation alone threatening to pollute America with something detergent will not get rid of? Radiation last millions of years my friend when uranium is involved! And guess what they have fortunes wrapped up in. Bush Sr was Navy back in WWII. Oil, Navy, Military connections... Come on. I can smell the god damn coffee!

Now for Regan. Please listen to this song so you know where I stand where Regan was concerned...

http://youtu.be/iQ2uSnQNO08

Now he was better than the other choice for sure and he did get Iran back in place kind of. BUT he sold out to the religious set way too much for my taste. The economy was artificially on the rise. Property in Los Angeles was appreciating in cost exponentially. But then came the crash in the late 1980s when all these greedy developers over extended themselves just like recently!

The real sell out was Clinton. Let's see, deregulation of lending...

Deregulation of Media... That happened under him too did it not?

So let us be fair here. The roots of this problem are deeper. Maybe you should verse yourself in the history of the East India Trading Company. You may see a lot of Parallels to the way global business is handled.

Now back to Obama. incompetent is incompetent and this man wrote a lot of checks WE HAVE TO CASH. NOT HIM.

not like Mitt was any better. I voted for Johnson. So what I threw my vote away! At least I got a clear Conscious and didn't sell out on vanity or ego! I voted for the man who made the most sense to me! It would have been vanity if I did toss my vote to Roseanne!

You seem to forget it is Wall Street America NEEDS TO FEAR JUST LIKE THE FEDERAL RESERVE! We also have need to fear the 534 circus chimps dicing this nation up and selling out from under us!

Like the Frank Zappa song the Meek Shall Inherit Nothing says...

Some people take the bible for what it's worth
where it says that the meek shall inherit the earth...
Well I heard that some Sheik has bought New Jersey last week,
AND YOU SUCKERS AIN'T GETTING NOTHING.

Come on. Are you calling me a Social Conservative and a Republican in the same sentence???

I'm a Fiscal Conservative and a Centrist Moderate! FUQQ both sides of the political fence! They are both lame and too focused on serving themselves LONG before they serve any of us!

Again, Frank Zappa the Meek Shall Inherit Nothing...

You say your lifes' a bum deal
and your against the wall
you ain't even got no deal at all
you know the sheet they be doing in Washing-ton
they just takes' care of #1,
and #1 ain't you!
you ain't even #2

so really

us and them again?



I am uninformed??? Maybe not as completely as I would like to be but more than enough to know when I smell poo poo and am smart enough to try not to step in it! I don't walk on water at least yet!

And I said it before. Obama is a TOOL!

you mean the UAW,don't you?
How come only Chrysler(as usual) and Government Motors!
How come Ford gave them the Finger?

.....that Churchill was right about the Average Voter!

And Lady Astor!

and what the hekl does this have to do with Obama, liberals and the topic of this thread?

Lol thats laughable. The economy was perfectly fine after the first 6 years. What happened after the 6th year? Well the Democrats took control of Congress and went on a spending spree and still are. How exactly does the president control the economy? The congress is in control of the Budget. Lets learn how the system works please.