What are your predictions for what will actually change in the next two years under the Republicans?

Pressing issues will continue to be ignored while Republicans will continue to froth at the mouth over wedge issues like guns, immigrants and voter IDs. Democrats will continue to be spineless. Mitch McConnell will continue to be an idiot.

My first thought was we survived two Bush presidencies, but then again, that hasn’t been answered for certain yet. With Casper B Milquetoast as president and the R’s in both houses they could do some serious damage.

Someone on fb asked a very good question. How could a congress with a 10% approval rating, get voted back in at 90%?

@Dutchess_III
Likely be the combined effect of democratic voters disillusioned about the Democratic Party, a.k.a. GOP light, radicalised and frenzied republican voters and republican voter suppression efforts.

Not very much.

Much of it will be full of republic infighting between the far right (TP types) and the merely right. I think that we can anticipate all sorts of intra-party wars for entertainment.

We’ll also get to enjoy the pre-2016-election republican candidate clowns (Cruz, Rubio, Bush III, and whatever other republican goofs come out of the woodwork. We’ll no doubt see all sorts of grandstanding and chest-beating which accomplish precisely nothing.

I doubt that it can be much worse than it has been.

@Dutchess_III – because the American electorate, as a whole, is stupid. Politicians count on that.

They still need the President’s signature, so I expect we’ll see more of the same. And I agree with @elbanditoroso‘s point about party infighting. Just as the Democrats had trouble wrangling their various constituencies, the Republicans are starting to have that same problem. So I think we’ll continue getting a lot more heat than light out of Congress.

@Dutchess_III One other factor is that the 10% disapproval rate is of Congress, not any specific member of Congress. Many people like their own Representatives and Senators while hating all of the others.

Nothing. Not one damn thing!

The big takeaway for me is that across the country the public is fed up with politicians, and really doesn’t care who is in office, but went ahead and approved commonsense initiatives:

Weed in Alaska, Oregon and DC.
Small gun control step in Washington
Prison reform in California
No fracking in Denton TX, a couple of other places
Defeat of the anti-abortion “personhood” initiatives.

I think I know, but just verifying…. What percent of Senators does it take to pass something thru the Senate? I’m thinking just having a majority as opposed to a super majority may not amount to much, hence, to answer the question, sigh, more of the same.

(A simple majority {51 of 100} passes the bill.)

But it takes 60 if there is a threat of a filibuster.

@janbb Which there always is now.

I am going to say it will be the same old gridlock, only this time, it will be the Democrats that block, obstruct and filibuster.

After the results of the 2014 mid-terms, when East Coast states vote for Republican governors, something is terribly wrong with the Democratic Party. It is time for the Democratic Party to do some in depth analysis of just what exactly went wrong.

@Katz22 Probably because the Dems no longer offer a clear alternative, they are trying too hard to be Republican light.

And like someone once said “Give the people a choice between Republican and a Republican and they will pick a Republican each time”.

I’m disappointed in Obama. He hasn’t accomplished much. He had the right ideas but just couldn’t carry the country with him. I think his major failing is that he is a very poor orator. When he talks he just doesn’t inspire. My predictions are for a Republican president in 2016.

I actually think having a Republican majority now increases the chance for a Dem to win in 2016.

@janbb You might be right, now the Republicans will be tested on their governing skills.

@janbb I hope you’re right but will they have a decent candidate?

@flutherother I don’t see any great prospects in either party right now although I would love to see a Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren ticket.

@janbb Wow, you are a liberal. Bernie is cool, but I have a better chance of carrying this snowball through hell.

@Dutchess_III “Someone on fb asked a very good question. How could a congress with a 10% approval rating, get voted back in at 90%?”

Because everyone likes their Representative. Their guy isn’t part of the problem. Everyone else’s guy is. Their guy is the only good one in Congress.

Many have argued that it isn’t that the Republicans won, but rather, that the Democrats have lost.

If you’re racing, you don’t have to be fast if your opponent blows their engine and gets a DNF. In context, Republicans didn’t perform better; the Democrats performed so poorly that the Republicans got victory handed to them. Any gains made by Republicans are largely because the Democrats failed to capitalize on their successes, failed to consolidate their base, failed.. well, just plain failed all over the place.

But I really predict more of the same. The Democrats will be as disorganized as ever, the Republicans will drift further to the right, and it will all be business as usual.

@janbb “I actually think having a Republican majority now increases the chance for a Dem to win in 2016.”

I started letting myself think this today… it’s a reach, though, isn’t it? What is needed is an organized effort to get people to the polls. The need is very great, but it simply isn’t being done.

Only the increase in Vetos.

They will slow Obama down and that’s good enough.

THANK GOD, I’m a Canadian!!!!!

@SQUEEKY2 As if it is any better here. How Harper was voted in twice in succession, I do not understand.

Harper is a twit, I will give ya that,and it shows that Canadian voters aint any smarter than our US counter parts.
BUT I am still gald I aint a yank.

Well, granted. ;)

@gondwanalon SLOW OBAMA DOWN???? You mean he hasn’t been stalled out for the past six years??? I hadn’t noticed much activity out of him.

@rojo Yeah, it’s not like the economy has improved, wars have ended, and a national health care has begun.

But what could he have accomplished had he been given the cooperation of a Congress that actually wanted things to get better instead of being intent on calling him a failure then doing all in their power to assure that what they said was true?

And, if what you say is true, why are the Democrats not trumpeting their successes from the mountaintops?!

The Republicans have been masters at controlling the narrative and the sheeple believe them..

You have two dozen types of peanut butter to choose from. Thirty two flavors of ice cream. Two hundred TV channels. A hundred brands of deodorant, dozens of flavors of soft drink and twenty brands of toilet paper. But when it comes to things that matter your choices are nearly non-existent. You get two choices in lawmaker and a handful of multinational corporations control 90% of the information.

@rojo Have heard of Obamacare (ACA)?

Not much, from anybody.

Isn’t it some kind of get-rich-quick, guaranteed income, welfare thing for insurance companies?

The obstructionists are now in charge of Congress, kind of like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. The past congressional session was the least productive. Maybe they will do worse next year. If they manage to get rid of the ACA, they might end up with a net negative amount of legislation.

On the other hand, if they dismantle it, maybe next time we WILL get a single payer system. And you are right, why would you elect someone to run your government who is so dead set against it? Government cannot work! Put us in charge and we will show you!

I heard Kentucky wants to get rid of the ACA on the federal level, but keep the reforms. Basically, they’re saying it’s a good thing, just like it was good when Romney did it, but they just want to spite Democrats. Not entirely sure of the details, but given that the GOP platform is to oppose Democrats at any cost, it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s exactly how it’s actually happening.

@jerv

Good ole’ KY. The state so shitty they named an anal lubricant after it.

My understanding, @rojo, is that the republican majority is planning to dismantle the current Obamacare system and replace it with a medical care system that works through religious institutions (churches, synagogues, mosques, etc.).

That way, the religious folks could decide what care people should get (catholics -> no birth control, jews -> free circumcisions, etc.). Atheists would have no automatic right to health care unless they converted to an accepted religion.

They even have a name for this replacement of the ACA with a religious based mechanism:

“Single Prayer Health Insurance”

The issue is not the quantity of legislation we pass but rather the quality of legislation. Obama has passed some major legislation, Health Care, increased taxes, trillion dollar stimulus, Financial reform (Dodd-Frank), to name a few. None of it has solved our economic woes nor created growth beyond 1 or 2% a year. If we can get our growth rate above 3 or 4% a year we have made major progress. It should not take a tsunami of legislation to create an environment of growth and eliminate the blame game we see in Washington that is a direct result of the lack of growth.

@Jaxk True as far as you go, but there is no “magic wand and pixie dust” solution to large problems like the ones we’ve had over the last few years. Expecting there to be one is foolish at best. But looking at the economies of various states within our nation, we can get a good idea of what works and what doesn’t.

Since you brought up quality of legislation, I think it fair to point out that things have gone better under Obama than under either Bush, and that far fewer Democrat laws have been struck down as unconstitutional. If you want better than what Democrats have historically given, you’re looking at mostly unproven third-party candidates.

The poor will definitely be getting poorer, and the rich will be getting richer you can count on that.

@jerv

You may be a bit short sighted. No magic required. Gas prices have been on the decline and the current national average is about $3/gal. That bodes well for the economy by leaving more money in everyone’s pocket. If we can keep the price low, our chances of recovery improve. The unemployment rate has dropped to 5.8% (I believe) but most of the jobs created over the past 5 years have been part time or minimum wage jobs. That has hurt us in the way of lower salaries. Approving the Keystone pipeline will create thousands of full time jobs and help to keep the gas prices low. Maybe it’s enough and maybe not but at minimum it’s a light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve seen what fracking can do in states like N. Dakota where the economy is booming. Keystone and a little loosening of federal leasing could expand that immensely.

It’s not magic, it’s economics.

The Keystone pipeline will not do a thing about lowering gas prices in the US (which, I’ll add, are already lower than most of the world thanks to hefty government subsidies the oil industry receives). That’s a pipe dream (pun half intended) that you’re being sold by those who have a vested interest in having the pipeline built. It’ll take oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico where it’ll be shipped overseas after being sold on the world market. The price you pay at the pump will not lower one cent because of it.

@Jaxk Looking at the job sector I’m in, it looks like there are plenty of decent-paying jobs; one’s that pay living wages or better rather than minimum wage. A bit surprising even to me since it’s manufacturing, but I know tons of people earning fair money ($18–20k/yr for untrained positions) even in retail/service sectors.

Look at the job creation in WA, or compare Costco to Walmart; there are many examples where paying better leads to more growth, with the only thing really suffering being the CEO salaries. I mean, if you’re a restaurant owner with 3 locations and have to open 2–3 more to meet diner demand, are you going to keep your headcount the same? No, you’d probably do a little hiring.

Maybe things are a bit different in your part of the world, but where I am and most places I read about are either doing it the “Socialist” way and succeeding, or doing it the “red state” way and doing less well in general. I will choose what works at least somewhat, and may actually try something new just to see it’s an improvement, but I still won’t choose something that doesn’t work. I’d like more options than what we have now, but if given a choice between mediocre and unsustainable, I will go with mediocrity.

@Darth_Algar – our exports are oil products not oil. That is petroleum, diesel, kerosene, stuff like that. Exports are good things, they help with our trade deficits which are huge. Keep in mind that the Keystone isn’t just helpful for Canadian oil but it can carry oil from places like N. Dakota much cheaper and more reliably than trucking it.

As for price, I have to go back to basic economics. When oil is plentiful prices go down. The Keystone provides a consistent supply of oil and will help to stabilize the price even if it doesn’t lower it any further. The fly in the ointment is OPEC. Oil prices at $75/barrel is already below the price they need to support their economies in the Middle East. OPEC will be doing everything they can to raise the price. Keystone is one advantage we have to keep that from happening.

@jerv – I’m happy for you. If I look at the median income in Washington State, it looks pretty flat to me. $57,858 in 2008 and $56,444 in 2012, maybe a slight decline. You keep making some point about red states and blue states but don’t give any detail or info to back up whatever it is you’re saying. I look at places like Texas and they have created about 75% of all the jobs that have been added since 2009.

I know you hate Walmart but whatever point your trying to make doesn’t affect what I’m saying. Go ahead and lobby to shut them or do all your shopping at Costco, it won’t make the economy grow. But if it makes you feel better go for it, with mediocraty as your goal, you have nothing to lose.

@Jaxk

We don’t have enough oil to meet our own needs for more than a handful of years. Whatever we might ship out from North Dakotah isn’t going to have a great impact on the worldwide market. As long as our society keeps its mouth attached to the oil tit we’ll be hopeless dependent on other countries to meet our demand.

@Darth_Algar – We have plenty of oil. Estimates of the shale in the Green river Valley are about 3 trillion barrels. That’s enough to last over 300 years at our current consumption and our consumption has been declining. As for selling the oil we produce, I don’t see a problem. We still use more than we produce. In fact we spend about $350 billion annually for imports. Since any oil we sell is sold on the same open market as the oil we buy, you can’t make any money by selling the oil we produce and buying oil at the same price.

There’s an old joke about two guys that decided to go into business buying apples in the country and selling them in the city. They go out and buy themselves a truck and buy apples at $10/bushel, load them into the truck and take them into the city for sale at $10/bushel. After about a week one guy says to the other, “we aren’t making any money and I don’t understand what’s wrong”. The other guy says “we should have bought a bigger truck”.

You are confusing the futures market with the oil market.

Do you know why oil shale isn’t a larger part of the oil industry? Because it’s significantly more expensive to extract. If you’re putting your hopes for low prices at the pump on shale then you’re going to be sorely disappointed. Then there’s the fact that extracting oil shale is even more environmentally devastating than drilling for crude. Also I think your figure may be off. As I recall worldwide estimates of oil shale is only around 5 trillion. I may be wrong, but I kinda doubt the majority of that is sitting in one single location.

@Darth_Algar – Yes it is more expensive to produce. If you compare it to middle east oil at about $15/barrel, it is much more expensive. Of course the selling price of oil has little to do with the cost of extraction. At $75/barrel (the current selling price) it is still profitable. When they talk about cost of extraction the numbers are all over the map and the cost of finding the oil comes to about half that cost. With shale we know where it is.

Obviously the cost of extraction isn’t the only factor in the selling price, just as the cost of manufacture isn’t the only factor in the price of goods you buy at the store. But a higher extraction cost will not equate to a cheaper selling price. Again, if a cheaper price at the pump is what you’re after (as indicated by one of your earlier posts in this thread) then shale ain’t the way to go.

@Darth_Algar – We are getting a bit off track here but the note about Shale was merely to counter your argument that we only had a few years of oil left. Trillions still in the ground, we have plenty of time. I expect we will have oil available long after we’ve stopped using it for transportation.

Something to think about. Gas has fluctuated from a low of $2/gal to a high of over $4/gal over the past six years. The cost of extraction has changed over that period, So why such dramatic fluctuations? Every time there is a ripple in the Middle East Oil prices shoot up on fears of a disruption to the supply. Except this time. ISIS is causing fits in the Middle East, yet oil has been dropping in price. We have trouble with Russia, Libya, Iraq, and Iran, yet oil has been declining. I wonder why. Oil production in the US has increased fairly significantly. With the Republicans poised to win the midterms, the odds for Keystone have improved. In other words, the the supply of oil has stabilized and the chances of a shortage have diminished. Ergo prices decline.

We don’t need cheaper methods of extraction, just a reasonable assurance that the supply will continue in order to have cheaper gas.

^^^ Sorry that should have been – The cost of extraction hasn’t changed over that period