Election Day

[BlondeNess]

Don't forget to go out and vote today!

Also, don't miss the Cobert/Stewart special, Indecision 2008 on Comedy Central today! This should be a great tension-relief for election day

http://www.hollywood.com/feature/DO_IT_TODAY_Comedy_Centrals_Indecision_2008_Americas_Choice/5335588

[roniheels]

I just finished voting. The voting place was packed. Unbelievable turnout.

[Bubba136]

Same with me. Spent 4 hours waiting for my turn. The "Entitlement" crowd turned out in droves. Record numbers.

[shorty82]

And Barack Obama is the new President Elect.

[Trolldeg]

Congratulations America!

[t-strap lover]

Congratulations America!

.Now the USA can become a third world country with wide spread corruption like some of the others. I for one will not accept the new goverment. I have always had the US flag displayed in my yard. no more. I am one American that is no longer proud of this country. I'm not wanting to start anything with anyone. This is just the way I feel.

[ShockQueen]

This is how I feel, so please........no flame wars........ I am very, VERY proud of what our country has done this year. We have made history for our nation by electing Barack Obama. I believe that he will bring about the positive change this nation SO desperately needs. We broke a stereotype of what person can become president, and if we can do that, we really can do anything. This is my own bias, but a large portion of my friends are of the gay/lesbian community, and I know if McCain & Palin would have been elected, their rights would have been flushed down the toilet faster than you can say "Trent Lott". I am grateful that did not happen, and now we have a chance for real change in our country - to move in a new, and positive direction. Yes......I am VERY proud to be an American right now. GO USA!!!!

[t-strap lover]

This is how I feel, so please........no flame wars........

I am very, VERY proud of what our country has done this year. We have made history for our nation by electing Barack Obama. I believe that he will bring about the positive change this nation SO desperately needs. We broke a stereotype of what person can become president, and if we can do that, we really can do anything.

This is my own bias, but a large portion of my friends are of the gay/lesbian community, and I know if McCain & Palin would have been elected, their rights would have been flushed down the toilet faster than you can say "Trent Lott". I am grateful that did not happen, and now we have a chance for real change in our country - to move in a new, and positive direction.

Yes......I am VERY proud to be an American right now. GO USA!!!!

You have a right to feel that way, but I think your wrong.

[BobHH]

California has still voted it's bias against gay and lesbians, unfortunately. But it is time to be proud of the USA today after 8 years of shame under the current administration.

[radiodave]

.Now the USA can become a third world country with wide spread corruption like some of the others. I for one will not accept the new goverment. I have always had the US flag displayed in my yard. no more. I am one American that is no longer proud of this country. I'm not wanting to start anything with anyone. This is just the way I feel.

Care to enlighten us on what your problem is or how you arrived at that spectacular conclusion? Surely Mr. Obama can't get much worse than Mr. Bush. Sure, he's a little different from the last 43 presidents (he is #44, right?), but maybe change is good. Change is inevitable. It's too bad folks have to be so negative because they didn't get their way. Sounds like the ones who will help make it a third world country will be the ones who... Well, you said it yourself. Or, you could be positive, make lemonade out of your lemons, and do what you can to make your world a better place (hint: if you keep thinking we'll be a third world country, then maybe that's how you'll see it). Divided we fail!

Seriously though, what is so wrong? Even if McCain got elected, I'd still be optimistic that he can do better than Bush, even though I may not like all of his ideas or his running mate (at least she's cute). And I'd still fly my flag, and be glad that I don't live in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, or any number of places that aren't so great. There are things I don't like about Obama either, but I guess we'll just have to see how he does. Personally, I think he'll do all right. Maybe not up there with FDR, JFK, or Mr. Lincoln, but who knows?

[Histiletto]

There are many reasons why President-elect Obama is the choice to lead our country for the next four years. However, the main one that sticks in my mind is the Republican Party has done too many things shaking my trust in their overall leadership. From President Bush on down to the local party affiliations, things have happened making me ashamed to be associated among their ranks. It's too bad that a good person, with all the qualifications to be President, like Senator McCain, who tried to distance his ties with the Republican Party while staying in it membership, was the recipient of the whiplash due to the party's underhanded tactics and of its failure to be trustworthy. The handling of the war on terrorist, the refusal to deal with the immigration problem, the governmental process that was incorrectly sent to help the victims of the natural disasters, and then massive economic crisis were merely the icings on the top that caused the Republicans to loose their standing in the political areana. President-elect Obama may make mistakes in his quest to clean up the mess, and I will support him as long as he is honorable and keeps doing what he thinks is best for our country. It is going to take time to fix the damage. A simple bandaid may help it to start, but the wound is too deep and has effected many other areas that are also in need of fixing. Hopefully, we can be well into the recovery process before long. If oil prices will stay in an affordable range, the economic recovery has a better chance of happening sooner, but we have to some how become less dependent on oil, period.

[shorty82]

I work over 100 hours per week and make well over $100 per hour.

Over 100 hours a week at over $100.00 an hour? I find that very hard to believe. To work that much you'd have to work over 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. Nobody can work that much and keep their sanity, nobody. The human body just can't handle it for long. When do you sleep, when do you spend time with your family?

Also, I know of no job that pays $100.00 an hour. I'd love to know as I could work a lot less hours than I do now and be quite comfortable. I'd have my rent and all my bills paid in one or two 8 hour days and still have money left over

Before taxes the math is approximately $480,000 a year, or $ 40,000 a month, or $10,000 a week. If this is true then, sorry, but that does, IMHO, make you rich. Very, very, very, very few people pull down 6 figures like that.

[yozz]

Maybe he means 'billing hours'? I want to congratulate our US members on their choice. It is giving the whole world (with only few exceptions) a new hope. And the speech in which McCain congratulated Obama was a very good example of how a democracy should be. It is very hard to understand those people who are not willing to accept the result. On the one hand they try to tell the rest of the world they should be democratic and on the other hand they cannot accept the results of their own elections. According to an analysis I saw on TV one of the problems is less dialog between people. People live in neighborhoods of all likeminded people (probably add to that thay they only visit selected discussion forums) and never really discuss with people of other beliefs. In such an environment it is easy to look at others as being 'not real people'. I find the words 'entitlement crowd' needlessly offensive. But on the whole, we are all looking forward to a new future in which there will be more dialog between the nations. Y.

[kneehighs]

I don't know why people try and deny Bush's contribution to the mortgage crisis. Spend some time on Lexis and you can look up all the lawsuits filed by state attorney generals against sub prime lenders in 2003. The executive branch's Office of The Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) specifically invoked an obscure law from the 1800s preventing states from enforcing their laws/court orders against national banks, in effect allowing the seeds of the sub prime meltdown to grow unabated. While the court rulings and state legislations passed in 2003 would not have been sufficient in and of themselves to prevent the current mortgage crisis, there is no doubt their lack of enforcement due to the OCC was a necessary cause of it. Just saying...

[Bubba136]

Hey Guys! I'ts only been 2 days since the polls closed. Let's give the "new guy" a couple of weeks to see how he is going to handle things. Perhaps a lot of his talk of raising taxes and spreading the wealth are just campaign enticements. Then again, with all of the money going into the "bail outs," someone, somewhere is going to have to pay it back. So, the way I view things, it really doesn't matter who caused the market to crash; who is president; or what our congress chooses to do about importing tea from China, the national debt has to be paid, money has to be "earned" and the world must still rotate on it's axis. So, since this our Country, our Government and our "President," we'll all just have to jump in and try to "pilot" our ship of state together to the port with the best solutions. And, all of you Americans out there just remember. As mightly as the "little" countries want to deny it, this country, regardless of its condition at the moment, is still the country the rest of the world relys on for their prosperity - because, when our economy catches cold, the rest of the world sneezes. As they say where I live: "Save your Confederate money, boys.... The South's gonna rise Again!"

[Smitty55]

I certainly wish the president elect well and hope he can turn this country around from the disasterous course of the last six or seven years. The only thing I'm afraid of is we're going to get rid of one politician who leaned radically toward one side of the aisle and it seems like we're getting one who is going to lean radically toward the other side. Senator McCain would have been a better choice since his course was more toward the center of the aisle, but as it was pointed out--his republican roots and the antics of the last eight years of a Bush administration doomed his candidacy almost from the start. Don't try to kid us about Mr. Bush either--he went into office with an almost balanced budget and an economy that was at least holding its own, and eight years later we have the biggest deficit this country has ever seen and an economy in the dumpster. I just hope Congress can reign in Senator Obama's more radical ideas and stop them from coming into existance. On the other hand, I hope he won't be as soft on foreign leaders and governments as some people think he will. Only time will tell now--we'll know in a year or so.

[roniheels]

I am going to miss Tina Fey's Sara Palin inpersonation. When Tina was on David Letterman before the election, she said her 11 year old daughter walked into the room the night John McCain announced Sara Palin as his running mate. When Tina's daughter saw Palin on the TV, she said "mommy, is that you? When was that filmed?" The next day Loren Michaels, producer of Saturday Night Live, called Tina and said, "be here Thursday at 11:00 a.m. for wardrobe and make-up for the Sara Palin skit." Tina Fey reminded him that she was not on Saturday Night Live anymore (she's now on NBC's 30 Rock). Loren Michaels said, "...like I said, we'll see you Thursday at 11:00 a.m." The rest is history. Tina Fey said with the election over and the loss by McCain and Palin, she was going to retire her Sara Palin impersonation.She is a clever comedic actress.

[Guy N. Heels]

Heeltoe at 150 is pretty much On Target with his analysis. However, I must take exception; Geo. W. Bush DID create many of the problems that cost the Republicans the White House. But besides wrecking the Republican Party, George W. Bush did much to exascerbate our present situation. His failure to "rein-in" the big oil boys with their insatiable greed has, no doubt, fueled the present financial emergency and cost him what Bob Woodward called "the moral authority of the presidency". While it is both unfortunate and true that many of the problems were inherited by Geo. W. Bush, it also was his response, or lack thereof, that gave people the impression that the problems were of his making. While it may not actually be true, most Americans have the feeling of being "left out". Well there's an old saying in political circles: "When you forget about the voters, they'll forget about you!" Unfortunately, in this particular case the voters were so totally fed-up that the backlash was against everything Republican.

Obama will do no better with his policies but he may at least be able to make the American voters feel more included in the political arena.

[BlondeNess]

I am going to miss Tina Fey's Sara Palin inpersonation. When Tina was on David Letterman before the election, she said her 11 year old daughter walked into the room the night John McCain announced Sara Palin as his running mate. When Tina's daughter saw Palin on the TV, she said "mommy, is that you? When was that filmed?" The next day Loren Michaels, producer of Saturday Night Live, called Tina and said, "be here Thursday at 11:00 a.m. for wardrobe and make-up for the Sara Palin skit." Tina Fey reminded him that she was not on Saturday Night Live anymore (she's now on NBC's 30 Rock). Loren Michaels said, "...like I said, we'll see you Thursday at 11:00 a.m." The rest is history.

Tina Fey said with the election over and the loss by McCain and Palin, she was going to retire her Sara Palin impersonation.She is a clever comedic actress.

I am going to miss Tina Fey's impersonations too! She is such and incredibly talented comedian. Do you watch her show, 30 Rock?

[UpBy5]

Just stumbled across this thread. Its now Nov 3, 2010. The issues discussed below two years ago are still germain to the yesterday's election. Those who caused the problem that the Obama administration inherited are still at it. Would just like to say thanks for putting some 100% facts into a discussion composed largely of here-say and 4 - 50% facts with the rest largely politically motivated spin. (Just my opinion) As a slightly socially liberal leaning abandoned Republican, it pains me to say that, it was during the Clinton era that the Glass-Stegal act was shunted aside, opening the hen-house door to the foxes. Investment banks, retail banks, insurance companies and stock brokerages raced to aquire one-another for, among other reasons, to facilitate the creation and selling of the derivitives that brought the whole thing down. Anyone who is really interested in what happened, for real, would enjoy the book "Fools Gold" by Gillian Tett. The subtitle on the cover is "How the bold dream of a small tribe at J. P. Morgan was corrupted by Wall Street greed and unleashed a catastrophe". Fascinating....But then, I'm an accountant. As far as I can tell, every item in the book that's not a fact is so noted as an assumption or a deduction based on previous history. Best part: its extremely readable; even lighthearted in spots. The book was highly recommended by the Economist weekly newspaper/magazine. They do not put stamps of approval on anything lightly.

[Heelster]

Don't forget the community re-investment act. That pretty muched sealed the housing market failures we are seeing today.