Mike Pence:

Some will argue that we lost our majority because of scandals at home and challenges abroad. I say, we did not just lose our majority, we lost our way.

While the scandals of the 109th Congress harmed our cause, the greatest scandal in Washington, D.C. is runaway federal spending.

After 1994, we were a majority committed to balanced federal budgets, entitlement reform and advancing the principles of limited government. In recent years, our majority voted to expand the federal government’s role in education, entitlements and pursued spending policies that created record deficits and national debt.

This was not in the Contract with America and Republican voters said, ‘enough is enough.

Our opponents will say that the American people rejected our Republican vision. I say the American people didn’t quit on the Contract with America, we did. And in so doing, we severed the bonds of trust between our party and millions of our most ardent supporters.

As the 110th Congress convenes next year, Republicans must cordially accept defeat and dedicate ourselves to advancing our cause as the loyal opposition knowing that the only way to retake our natural, governing majority, is to renew our commitment to limited government, national defense, traditional values and reform.

Unfortunately, it took an ass-whooping to get the point across.

In some ways, last night was wonderful: a firm repudiation of Republican war mongering and corruption. In others, it was disappointing. Anti-gay bigotry still wins at the ballot box, and marijuana still can’t catch a break. But even though Nevada, Colorado, and South Dakota voted against decriminalization and medical marijuana, Drug War Rant looks on the bright side.

Of particular note is the demographics of marijuana use and opposition. Older folks who have never tried marijuana tend to vote against legalization, and the vast majority of people over 65 have never tried marijuana. Among younger folks, marijuana use is much more prevalent. If you don’t smoke, surely you know somebody who does. And people who have direct experience with weed tend to support decriminalization. As the older folks get replaced by the younger ones, those ballot initiatives are going to start going the right way.

The AP:

Nine states approved eminent-domain measures barring the government from taking private property for a private use.

And hats off to Arizona for being the only state not afraid of gay cooties.

And good for the poker lobby for unseating 15 term congressmonkey Jim Leach. Otis says:

In a race that Republicans ignored because they didn’t think it could be lost, in a race the national media ignored because they didn’t see it as a potential pick-up for Democrats, in a race that even the candidate didn’t think he could lose, Rep. James Leach (R-IA) lost his seat to a guy named Loebsack.

Rustmeister says:

As the dust settles and the Dems take control of Congress, lotsa folks (myself included) feel there’s a new offensive brewing. Gun rights are once again in the crosshairs of those who would disarm us.

Not so fast.

There won’t be a big push for gun control for the next two years.

David Kopel has gun positions broken down by state. The Dems have been running their pro-gun and more conservative folks. I’m not scared. Yet.

For what it’s worth: Dem control of the congress could lead to a Republican maintaining the presidency in 08. I’d almost bet a beer on that but not yet. Speaking of betting beers, my beer post was deleted from Knoxviews. Or at least moved since the p-link still works. Lame. Update: It’s back.

That is a fast re-load. Mag in before the old one hits the ground. Heck, it’s in before it’s halfway to the ground.

Election smart assery.

The good news is that lots of people owe me beer. I bet Corker would win and was right. So far, I retain my 100% accuracy on political beer betting.

Tennesseans, by an overwhelming margin, are afraid of gay cooties.

Braisted on Ford:

As I’m watching MSNBC, they are already saying that Ford lost because of the “racist” Bimbo ad.

No…He…Didn’t

He lost because of his father and brother.
He lost because of things like “Democrats love the lord”
He lost because of ads which lied about his record.

A chart of votes by race.

The Campfield race wasn’t close.

Democrats get the House. And might get the Senate.

It took people 6 years to get as fed up with the Republicans as I was after four. Note to Republicans: You can reclaim some of the house seats some day by running on the principles you ran on in the 1990s. Only this time, you should mean it.

I predict Bush will now veto at least two bills.

The Democrats won largely by running (to use the media term) more conservative Democrats. The Uncle term is they ran the non-crazy ones.

Two frightening words: Speaker Pelosi. But I concur with Tam’s prediction of an uptick in gun sales.

So, now what?

Today, I received a fax from an employee. They went to a webpage, printed it, and faxed it to me. All this, as opposed to emailing a link. I guess we see why some folks can’t operate voting machines.

There won’t be one. I’ll do what I do every election night: I will not watch the yammering talking heads who have no idea what they’re talking about prove that they have no idea what they’re talking about. And I’ll get the full skinny in the morning without all the lame-ass commentary from people who have no idea what they’re talking about.

heh:

I just heard on CNN that Harold Ford, when pushed about the race issue, said that Black guys are undefeated in Tennessee.

Update: But that’s not as funny as this voter fraud.

The following is a column from award winning author Orson Scott Card. If you don’t read science fiction you may not recognise the name but those who do hold Orson Scott Card in the greatest esteem.

From the November 2nd column in the Greensboro Rhinoceros Times Newspaper:

Read the rest of this entry »

Is this guy from Florida:

WBIR producer Rob Lloyd says he didn’t get to cast his vote at the Farragut polling center this morning and he’s not happy about it.

He says he did cast his vote for the governor’s race, but then couldn’t figure out how to make the electronic machine move forward to the next race in which he wanted to vote. When Rob asked a campaign worker to help him move past the governor’s race to the Senate race, he was instructed to “push the red button.” But when he did this, he was informed he had finished casting his votes.

I wonder if problems like these account for the alleged voting machine problems?

Quite a few lefty blogs are reporting GOP voter suppression. I have yet to see as many incidents reported in the press.

Rove’s weather machine may be to blame.

Uncle summarizes the news:

Gamblers pick Corker; Republicans ban taking odds

Iraq: It’s going great.

Americans sympathetic to Michael J. Fox; still don’t care about the other 1.5M people with Parkinson’s Disease

Vote for [this guy] because he has [this initial] after his name.

Iraq: No, it’s not going that great.

Poll: Most want Republicans to lose; Most want Democrats to not win

Kim Jong-il: Hey, I know there’s an election going on but I’m still over here being crazy

Now that’s what I call hip.

Iraq: Is too!

Lieberman will win, still suck.

Blogger uses phrase Britney Spears Sex Tape in effort to draw traffic.

Iraq: Wait? There’s a Britney Spears sex tape?

We have computers that can:

Perform trillions of calculations per second

Render impressive graphics displays in more colors than the human mind can even pick up on.

Guide lasers for brain surgery

Run billions and billions and billions of business transactions with minimal error that result in financial statements that can be reasonably opined on

Get robots to Mars

Parallel park a car

But we can’t make fucking computers that can count with any level of confidence? Gimme a break.

Seriously, do they get anyone under the age of 80 to work at a voting location? They need that long-haired, fast kid who operates the cash register at Kroger in Alcoa. He’s fast.

I voted today. Some notes:

The line was long and slow-moving. At least 20 people came in to vote, saw the line, then turned around and left. What? You don’t expect busy people to wait around for the democratic process, do ya? Hopefully, they planned on coming back later.

Republicans were sleeping in. I got there at 8am and there were Bredesen signs and some old hippie holding signs for Harold Ford, Jr. at the parking lot entrance. Not a single Republican sign to be seen.

No exit polling.

I entertained myself in line by trying to guess who would vote for the constitutional ban on gay marriage.

The wife had asked me who I was voting for in the Senate. I told her I didn’t know and that I might write her name in. She said Please don’t. I’m busy.

How I voted:

No on the gay marriage ban.

No on special tax privileges for old people.

Governor: Phil Bredesen. Despite past reservations about a lame duck governor, I think he did a good job.

House: Jimmy Duncan

Senate: **drumroll** Bo Heyward. I did so not because I think Bo is a stellar candidate nor do I think my ideals line up with his (not even close). I did it because the Republicans fielded a terrible candidate. So, yeah, I threw my vote away to teach the stupid party a lesson.

I still bet one beer that Bob Corker will win this election. Offer not valid after 8pm.

David Hardy notes that the new ATF chief is Brian A. Benczkowski.

Sad. Via insty, who notes:

If you’re unwilling to crack down on criminals, cracking down on weapons will never reduce crime.

This week, it will be knives. Next week, golf club.s

So says Ron Paul:

Gun control may have faded as a political issue, but the mentality that Washington knows best– and that certain constitutional rights are anachronisms– is alive and well. Look for gun control advocates to bide their time and look for new ways to resurrect the issue in 2008 and beyond.

Via Joe.

I present to you the greatest metal band to come out in the last 5 years: All That Remains. I have both their albums. First one was great and I figured the second wouldn’t be (most bands suck on their second album). But their second is as good. See:

Via Ben, comes the carnival of taxes. Jeez, there’s a carnival for every thing. Soon, we’ll need a carnival of the carnivals.

Heh. Though I would add Please knock: the life you save may be your own.

On occasion, I’ll type the first few letters of a URL into the address bar to get to a favorite site figuring the history will kick in. When coming here to saysuncle.com, I some times just hit SA and then I wind up here. And I try to hit nashvilleistalking.com by typing NA and end up here.

Over at Tam’s:

Just like last year, to make it easier to do your part on National Ammo Day, bring a printed copy of this post into Coal Creek Armory on Sunday the 19th between noon and 5:00 PM, and receive 10% off your ammunition purchase.

Kinda odd how this year we got John McCain, Bill Clinton, Laura Bush, Barack Obama and others coming to our fair state pimping their guy. I mean, I get phone calls at home from Rudy Giuliani and Phil Bredesen. As opposed to the rest of the time, when they could give a fuck less about me.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership filed complaints with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, Nov. 1, asking the FEC to investigate whether the National Rifle Association and Gun Owners of America are in violation of Federal Election Commission regulations and Federal Election Campaign Laws.

The Second Amendment Foundation does the same thing to The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership.

The NRA ended a misleading advertising campaign by anti-gun American Hunters and Shooters Association:

The National Rifle Association (NRA) succeeded in ending a misleading and false advertising campaign in Missouri produced and/or paid for by the American Hunters and Shooters Association (“AHSA”) – an anti-gun group deceptively masking itself as a pro-hunting organization. The radio advertisements contained egregiously false and misleading statements regarding the NRA.

The Tennessean says that the race between Ford and Corker will be seen as racial milepost. They also state that Tennessee voters may find out whether their state is ready to send a black man to the U.S. Senate. When he loses, it’s because you’re a racist. Smarminess aside, for me, I don’t care about the color of the candidates but I have wondered if Tennessee is ready to elect a black guy. I tend to think Tennessee is because Ford, a candidate with a record that is not supportive of who he claims to be now, has pulled this race much closer than I thought he would.

A lot of people I know, who ordinarily vote Republican, have said the one thing that will cause them to either 1) not vote or 2) vote for Democrats is, believe it or not, the recently passed poker bill. Tom expressed the same thing a while back but I can’t find the post because the search feature is busted. Seriously. They don’t like nannies from either side of the aisle. Now, it looks like the poker lobby has set their sites on political races. Good.

Heh.

The Allen v. Webb battle of who is more gun-nutty continues. I liked Webb’s response to the questionnaire here as it’s good to see a politician not talk about guns and duck hunting. And Allen has a strong record on gun rights, as the only thing I could find is a statement that he opposes absolute right to gun ownership. But then, who doesn’t?

The moral, of course, is that gun rights are important to both parties.

Inmates have legal right to arm themselves:

Several weeks ago a memorably strange ruling came down from our Circuit Court bench. In a death penalty case involving the fatal stabbing of one prison inmate by another, Judge Pamela North instructed the jury that a person may arm himself “in reasonable anticipation of an attack.”