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Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
11,974 posts, read 25,470,414 times
Reputation: 12187
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Quote:
Originally Posted by InLondon
Guess what genius? The Republicans did well nationwide. Not just in the South. Oh and there are Northern states that currently have or in the past have had Republican governor's, senators etc. You do realize that right??? Your post screams Democrat.
The NY Times has a great interactive US Congress map, showing changing over time and highlighting districts that shifted sides on Tuesday.
Arguably Kentucky was a win for Democrats because they lost neither Democrat held seat here - we still have a 2 R senate and a 4 R, 2 D house. We were one of only 8 states where the Democrats did NOT loose a seat they held (others: CA, OR, OK, UT, ME, MS, CT). The only seat that went from R to D was in DE
States with the greatest loses for Democrats were mostly Northern states
Top losers for D's
Ohio - 5
Pennsylvania - 5
Illinois - 4
New York - 3
Florida - 3
Texas - 3
You could make the case that Kentucky is actually trending leftward, or at least staying the same. In 2002 the house's urban districts (Louisville 3 & Lexington 6) were held by Republicans - that's nearly unthinkable today! (I know Barr/ Chandler was close, but that district will become even more Lexington centric after redistricting)
I love KY. Over the last three years we have visited six times. Our last trip was to near Bowling Green to pick up a couple farm dogs. The owner had to give them up because they lost their farm. Been to Lex, Louie, and Henderson for horse racing meets and Elizabettown for an over nighter. Never, ever has anyone been less than damn nice.
That's what's got me scathing my head. How you all could elect such a narrow minded dufous like Rand Paul for the US Senate?
Well, it's been less than a week and he's already reversed his position on earmarks. He's learning fast... it took him over a month to reverse his position on taking money from TARP politicians!
But after joining the GOP flock on Election Day, Paul is singing a different tune. In a Wall Street Journal profile this weekend, Paul signaled an about-face on his earmark position, committing to “fight for Kentucky’s share of earmarks and federal pork.” After all, he’s “not that crazy” of a libertarian:
Father and son, age 47, have different styles. Asked what he wanted to do in Washington in a Wednesday morning television interview, the senator-elect said that his kids were hoping to meet the Obama girls. He has made other concessions to the mainstream. He now avoids his dad’s talk of shuttering the Federal Reserve and abolishing the income tax. In a bigger shift from his campaign pledge to end earmarks, he tells me that they are a bad “symbol” of easy spending but that he will fight for Kentucky’s share of earmarks and federal pork, as long as it’s doled out transparently at the committee level and not parachuted in in the dead of night. “I will advocate for Kentucky’s interests,” he says.
So you’re not a crazy libertarian? “Not that crazy,” he cracks.
Finally, the irony of this economic mess, is that it was really created by the government - not banks, brokers or anyone else. This mess was created by both dems and reps and then Fed chair alan greenspan. They saw economic slowdown and fear in the markets after 9/11 and started out on initiatives for everyone to own a home. They left rates too low and subsidized homeownership that led to speculation and people using their home's as investments and credit cards.
You should read up on some of the deregulation measures... honestly, no one had to PUSH banks to loan to people, once Clinton and the Republican congress (true, politicians played a part!) deregulated the derivatives market at the end of his presidency, it opened up *huge* new avenues for profits in derivatives and credit default swaps. So in addition to making risky loans, banks could now make shady bets on these loans and make profits on top of profits on top of profits on the exact same bundle. As a result, they were driven to make as many loans as possible, expecting these exponential returns to continue forever. True, bush pushed home ownership, but pushing banks to make loans is like pushing americans to eat fast food. Sure advertising convinces us to eat it, but we'd eat that stuff anyway because we love it. You should look at how banks started in the 1980s to deregulate banking and began to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising alone just to convince people to take out more and more second mortgages and whatnot. They wanted it LONG before the gov ever helped them along, and in many instances paid lots of money lobbying the government to do just that. And why not, look at how many people made tens of millions of dollars leading these banks down such a dangerous road! The people who made the biggest risks got the biggest bonuses, so why wouldn't you take the risks?
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