I do think this was an election about defeating something and someone more than anything else - and I think that was true on both sides of the aisle; that doesn't say much for either side, does it?  

I guess that's why my overall feeling was one of relief, with an asterisk.  I'm glad Romney lost, and I'm glad we got more progressive voices elected to the Congress.  The asterisk, as I said earlier, is for the truth that Obama's not going to be someone else now - the best we can hope for is that he doesn't see winning over Republicans by being more like them as his personal Holy Grail; the worst we can expect is that he will make more of a right turn, dig in on the Grand Bargain, put someone like Bowles at Treasury, sic the DEA hard at states that legalized marijuana, double-down on national security issues, drone killings, the secrecy and non-accountability.  Will this more progressive Congress be a bulwark against those kinds of efforts?  I guess we'll find out soon enough.  Glenn Greenwald isn't optimistic - I'm so tired of being disappointed that I'm afraid to let myself feel too much of that optimism.

I have no expectation that I will be less appalled in Obama's second term than I was in the first; and just like with the first term, I will fervently hope to be proven wrong.  

There is a lot of work to do in this country, so many people in need, so many ways in which we have let a lot of our freedom slip away or be taken from us - it's enough to make anyone grumpy.

At the moment, I am convinced America is doomed beyond all hope of redemption, and any talk of the future fills me with dread and horror.

Where would you be most likely to find this quote this morning:

As a result other folks have provided you with quotes from those links. You won't read.the quotes either, instead continuing to sigh and shake your head in sorrow and confusion.

But today is the best. You've brought your own cross, a handful of nails, and the message that yesterday's election results were a sign of something sad, like kittens in the rain.

I think the answer both questions is yes. Especially since his one FDR-ish action (the auto bailout) probably gave him the election.

My secretary is in her early 60's, divorced with two grown sons and two grandchildren.  She doesn't vote - ("you don't?  Why not?"  "I don't like it."  "what do you mean, you don't like it?"  "I don't know, I just don't think it matters that much."  Okay then.) - and somehow has bought into 75% of what the GOP is selling.

Today, she was all about the "death panels" from Obamacare...I said, "there are no death panels."  Oh, but, but, there's that committee of unelected people who are going to be making decisions about what kind of care people can get!  I said, "aside from the fact that that's not what those people are going to do, do you think there isn't a 'panel' of unelected individuals at your health insurance company, deciding what kind of care they're willing to pay for?  And besides, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to privatize Medicare, and they would have used ending Obamacare to help them do it, since that would shorten Medicare's solvency by eight years."

Well, if I've learned nothing in her years with me, I have at least learned that she is stubborn as all get out, and there would be no changing her mind.

I wish I knew what it was about people that they continue to support candidates and a party that is not in their best interest; I really just do not get it.  Probably never will.

Of course, her "support" is one in theory only, because she doesn't "like" voting...

As an aside, the little tyrant in my office has been deathly quiet.  The only thing I've really heard him say today is "Does anyone have two fives for a ten," (he bet someone else in the office $5 that Romney/Ryan would win Wisconsin), and "it hurts too bad to cry."

It's pure primal wolf pack politics..

From the folks who don't believe in evolution..