Cliff Notes

This was a huge and stupid political gamble on the part of the republicans....and they have already lost. 

Every good outcome for them depended on winning the White House and control of the Senate ....and they didn't.
On the tax side, the President will let the Bush tax cuts expire, then propose a series of middle class tax cuts to replace them. If the republicans drag their feet, or attempt to obstruct those cuts, it will be suicide for them in the midterms and they know it.
On the automatic spending cuts that are supposed to take effect....those are across the board or not at all, and they include cuts in defense spending. The dems can hammer the house for cutting defense for months before any real damage is done, so they will have to vote to suspend those cuts..or risk the kind of showdown they lost when Clinton was in office.
Of course, all of this will play out in the most over dramatized slow motion clusterfuck imaginable...which could have some negative effects on the market...but again, those can be laid squarely at the feet of John Boner and Eric Cantor where they rightfully belong.
.....or the Repubs can take their medicine early and hope the bad taste washes out before 2014. They made this shit sandwich, now its just a question of when they are going to eat it, and how much.

or....if they really do want to pay down the debt.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

What Really Built This....

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  ... Obama only got 39% of the white vote, and the only time Obama has ever won the white vote ...was when he was running against another black candidate.
  I am sure I already knew this stat, but the implications for what it says about the american voter at large are really kind of heartbreaking. Of course, the fact that a candidate as good as Obama is, ran this close to a caricature like Romney...ugghh...just depressing.
  ...In any case it made me think of the only two things Republicans said to me this season when asked why they were voting for Romney, actually only one vague idea, with different words: Welfare and diversity.
  They see this country the way Romney described it in that video. They see a huge population of moochers (non white) as the core of our economic problems. 
  It is really a fairly amorphous vision too. When I pointed out that: welfare is an incredibly small component of federal expenditure (compared to say subsidies for oil companies, or farmers...ect) or that in fact, whites benefit far more from social programs than non-whites....it didn't really seem to make much difference to them, their eyes just sort of glazed over.
  Which brings us to the realization: The core thing that I see, studying the history and politics of this country, as making it "exceptional" or "the greatest country on earth"
  is the same thing they see as the source of all its problems and what will lead to its downfall: diversity.
  I see diversity as the main strength of the country, much in the same way it acts in nature. Closed societies exhibit all the same problems that inbreeding produces in the natural world. They become isolated, paranoid, create rigid caste systems and are generally unhealthy. Inbreeding produces diseases like hemophilia, scale that up to societal level...it produces world wars.
  I wont get in to just how dependent this country has been on immigrant or slave labor of one form or another to actually build and maintain itself. It is, however unintentional, the reason we are so diverse.
  It just seems strange to me, that this fundamental truth...that diversity is what built this country, is what maintains it, is what makes it great, is not only lost on such a huge part of the population........but is actually misinterpreted as it's biggest problem.
  You can almost take the one idea, and extrapolate it out, to encompass all of the problems we now face. 
  The irony cherry on top, as this election just showed: Diversity is what will eventually cure it.

Pizza Politcs

No Papa in my house....
The small town I live in had a Pizza Hut and Dominoes. Both had become so horrible (the Pizza Hut, in addition to taking an hour to deliver, once poisoned me)....and the Dominoes was...well Dominoes. Box tasted better than crust..was a real thing.
So I was actually glad when Papa Johns came. I remembered their pizza from years ago as being not too horrible...and I like their garlic butter and pepperoncini...
Anyway, after seeing Mr. Papa John hosting Mittens at his palatial country estate......I was pissed.......and then when he did his little health care rant...that was it.
Fortunately, I had just enough points to get one last free pizza...and it was nasty.
As an aside, I have since ordered two pizzas, one from Pizza Hut..and one from Dominoes. As it turns out, the Papa Johns coming in to the market, forced both competitors to up their game! 
I ordered the new pan pizza from Dominoes..and the crust was actually good....but I have since learned that Dominoes was sold to Bain Capitol by its previous anti-choice founder and owner....they are out.
I guess it's Pizza Hut for me. This last time, they delivered in 15 minutes, managed to not poison me...and although owned by a huge multinational conglomerate.....beat the hell out of the alternatives.
I really miss living in large cities that usually have their own local pizzerias with much better quality. ....and having Chinese food delivered...really miss that...Oh and I miss Old Chicago and Chicago Uno....."The Chicago Seven Calzone"..yumm
...but I mean business with this stuff. To those who think it is meaningless gesture, think of what would happen if all of the 62 million people who voted for Obama, decided to quit Papa Johns.....
"Better voters mean better pizza....and a healthier workforce..." 
Screw You Papa

From Election Night......so I can remember

Alas...a sad night....For the Confederacy!!! Hah!..Hah! Hah!! Eat it crackers!!
You servile, authoritarian, anti-intellectual dupes! You loose...again!! ...and you almost literally had all the money in the world to steal it away.
Sorry for the schadenfreude.....but holy shit...4 years of this crap. The most vile campaign tactics I have ever seen, coming from a group of people who claim to have a special relationship with God! People who claim to love this country.
I am so sick of the right ....sick and tired of having to fend off their relentless campaign to drag us back in to the dark ages. They disdain knowledge, compassion, community....they elevate ignorance to a high art...and they do it all while looking down their noses at the rest of us.
The last four years has been like turning over a rock, and being horrified at what scurried out from under it. I am about as cynical as they come...and thought I had seen it all, but this was just horrible.
 No one should have had to go through what this President had to go through, for the thankless task of making this place better for us all......ever.
 This just shouldn't have been this hard. I hope the President was right when he said it made him a better leader, that it would be all worth it. If he really believes that, then he is most certainly a better man than I. I just want them to shut up and go away.

He did what he said he would do....