2012 NFL SEASON: WEEK 13

The Cowboys are dead to me.

You read that correctly. The Dallas Cowboys for the rest of the 2012 NFL Season are dead to me. I am tired of every game being an exercise in futility.

The season started rather promising with a win at the Giants on opening night. Maybe they finally got all those problems fixed with the penalties and the offensive line issues.

Nope. They showed up again in losses against the Seahawks, Bears, Ravens, Giants, and Falcons and the overtime win against THE BROWNS!!

Perhaps I was in denial. Maybe it was that loss to the Bears that should have been the wakeup call. There was virtually no home field advantage during that game. Am I sure that the Cowboys were playing at home for that game because I could have sworn I heard “Bear Down Chicago Bears” after every time Chicago scored.

The rough part of the schedule was over; 3-5 with 5 games at home and against teams at .500 or worse… that should have put Dallas in the driver’s seat for the post-season.

But alas, reality set in on Thanksgiving evening.

Quarterback Robert Griffin III, whose last appearance at Cowboys Stadium was playing for Baylor against Texas Tech, made the Cowboys secondary look like a college team. Dallas trailed 28-3 at the half. The Dunham and Miller radio show put it bluntly the Friday morning after this game: If you trail 28-3 at the half on Thanksgiving Day and you are the home team, you suck.

Dallas has never lost a Thanksgiving Day game against the Redskins. Tony Romo has never lost a Thanksgiving Day game. All of that changed last week.

Yeah, the Cowboys made a game out of it, but…. When they needed a defensive play at a key moment of the game, they never got it.

That seems to be the theme of the 2012 edition of the Dallas Cowboys: “Yeah, but.” Actually it seems to be a common theme of the Cowboys over the last several seasons.

Dallas is now 5-6 and they still could make the playoffs. They are in a three-way tie at 5-6 with Washington and New Orleans, which the Redskins are the better team having beat the Cowboys and Saints. The final wild card spot is also in a three-way tie between Tampa, Minnesota, and Seattle at 6-5. Seattle would claim that spot due to better conference record and they beat the Vikings.

Oh and Seattle beat Dallas.

Their best shot is to win the NFC East where they trail the Giants by two games. New York has a tough schedule down the stretch: at Redskins, host the Saints, at Falcons, at Ravens, and season finale at home against the Eagles. The Giants could finish with the same record like they did last season when they won the NFC East.

The Redskins final 5 games are: home against the Giants and Ravens, at Browns and Eagles, and close out at home against the Cowboys.

Dallas could leap over the Redskins, but leaping over the Giants would require both a collapse by the Giants and Dallas suddenly playing consistent football in their final five games.

The Cowboys final 5 are: home against the Eagles, on the road against the Bengals, their final two home games against the Steelers and Saints, and close out on the road at Washington.

I see the Cowboys defeating the Eagles this coming Sunday because they are worse off than the Cowboys. The Bengals… they might slide into 2^nd place in the AFC North because the Steelers are banged up.

Then their final two home games… I expect that the crowds for those games will be 60-40 in favor of the road team. The Steelers game will be heavily in favor of them because their fans travels well, while the Saints game might be 50-50… maybe 51-49 for the Saints.

Then the season finale at Washington…

In short, Dallas might be heading towards ANOTHER 8-8 season. With the amount of talent that they have, this should be a playoff team easily, but again key positions are what take this team down to mediocrity. The secondary can’t cover which was the problem last year. In 2010, Tony Romo was lost for the season due to a shoulder injury. This year it is the offensive line that can’t block and commit penalties at key moments of drives that should go for touchdowns but instead lead to field goals. The coach/coaches are not getting their players ready to play. As it was during the Wade Phillips Era it was the same idea of “Hey, we should’ve gone over this.”

And yet again, it all traces back to what Cowboys Fans have known since 1994…

“As the GM goes, so goes the Cowboys.”

Since Jerry Jones fired Jimmy Johnson at the end of the 1993 season, the Cowboys have won only one Super Bowl, but it is widely held belief that credit for that championship should go to Johnson as it was his players that won that title… plus there was some good luck to go along with that championship, Green Bay upset a very good 49ers team in the playoffs, Neil O’Donnell throwing two interceptions directly at Larry Brown.

Jerry the Owner has been good for the Cowboys. Since purchasing the team in 1989, the Cowboys have become one of the top franchises in the NFL. Jerry the GM… not so much. A long list of busted draft picks, poor free agency signings, and questionable coaching hires in the years between playoff wins. The furthest Dallas got in the playoffs since their last Super Bowl win was the divisional round of the playoffs. Only once did they start in that round and it was in 2007 when the eventual Super Bowl Champion Giants upset them at home.

Since Super Bowl XXX victory: 4 NFC East Titles, 2 playoff wins. In that era I went from middle school, to high school, to the Navy, and now my current state as a student at the University of North Texas.

Even Jerry Jones admits that his record as GM should cause instant termination.

That is not happening anytime soon.

So… it has come to this. For the rest of 2012 I am rooting for the Houston Texans. I stay in state. They have a good team and currently have the best record in the AFC at 10-1. I admit I am not a fan of the Houston Area itself, but oh well, it is what it is.

Will I be accused of bandwagoning and riding coat tails? You know, at this point, I don’t care anymore. The Cowboys just plain suck period.

Anyways… the picks.

Monica’s lead over me has now dropped to ONE game. Wasn’t it something like seven or eight at one point? It’s tightening up now. I think I might overtake her for the overall lead sometime in the final five weeks of the season.

WEEK 12:            10-6

TOTAL:        113-63-1

BREAKDOWN OF RECORD

	MONICA	NOON	3PM	NIGHT	HOME	AWAY	TV	≤ 8 PTS	OT
WK 12	8-8	6-3	2-2	2-1	3-2	7-4	5-3	6-4	2-0
TOTAL	114-62-1	65-32	23-18-1	25-13	66-27-1	47-36	52-24	53-41-1	11-5-1

The picks for Week 13 are below.

Kickoff Times are Central Time
Picks Indicated in BOLD
Sunday Day Games for the Dallas-Fort Worth Area are indicated with (DFW)

NFL 2012 Week 13 TV Distribution Map

THURSDAY NIGHT (11/29)

New Orleans Saints at Atlanta Falcons, 7:20 PM NFL

SUNDAY (12/2) CBS DOUBLEHEADER

NOON CBS

Houston Texans at Tennessee Titans (DFW)

Detroit Lions at Indianapolis Colts

Jacksonville Jaguars at Buffalo Bills

New England Patriots at Miami Dolphins

NOON FOX

Minnesota Vikings at Green Bay Packers (DFW)

Arizona Cardinals at New York Jets

Carolina Panthers at Kansas City Chiefs

San Francisco 49ers at St. Louis Rams

Seattle Seahawks at Chicago Bears

3PM CBS

Pittsburgh Steelers at Baltimore Ravens (DFW)

Cleveland Browns at Oakland Raiders

Cincinnati Bengals at San Diego Chargers

3PM FOX

Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Denver Broncos

SUNDAY NIGHT

Philadelphia Eagles at Dallas Cowboys, NBC 7:20 PM

MONDAY NIGHT (12/3)

New York Giants at Washington Redskins, 7:30 PM ESPN

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2012 NFL SEASON: WEEK 12

Thanksgiving is here and for the first time since 2001 a time honored tradition has returned. The Madden Turducken is BACK! NBC announced that their Thanksgiving Game MVP will be given this sacred award.

The best part of Thanksgiving is that this is when the push to the playoffs begins. 62.5% of the season is completed. Everyone has 6 games left to play.

While the best record is good metric to measure to determine who is the best team it has not lead to the eventual Super Bowl Champion in previous years.

The last team to claim both the best record and Super Bowl Title was the 2003 Patriots. Since then as shown by the chart below, the team that had the best record has not won that respective season’s Super Bowl.

SEASON	SEASON’S BEST RECORD	SUPER BOWL CHAMP
2004	Steelers (15-1)	Patriots (14-2)
2005	Colts (14-2)	Steelers (11-5)
2006	Chargers (14-2)	Colts (12-4)
2007	Patriots (16-0)	Giants (10-6)
2008	Titans (13-3)	Steelers (12-4)
2009	Colts (14-2)	Saints (13-3)
2010	Patriots (14-2)	Packers (10-6)
2011	Packers (15-1)	Giants (9-7)

In 2004 the Steelers (15-1) hosted the Patriots, who were the defending Super Bowl Champions, in the AFC Championship Game. The Steelers were the hot team having won 14 straight games and a playoff game but the play of rookie quarterback Ben Roethlisberger cost the Steelers a chance to play their instate rivals in the Super Bowl.

The following season the Steelers were 7-5 with 4 games left to play. Pittsburgh finished the season on a four game winning streak claiming the AFC #6 seed, then went on the road to defeat the AFC #3 seed at Cincinnati, followed by the upset of the AFC #1 seeded Colts, and dominating the #2 seeded Broncos in Denver. They capped off the journey in Detroit by beating the #1 NFC seed Seahawks 21-10. Interesting enough the Steelers were the designated home team for that game, but wore their white jerseys. The Steelers ended the 2005 season winning a combined eight regular season and playoff games and became the first 6-seed to win a Super Bowl.

The Packers repeated the Steelers feat in 2010 becoming the first NFC 6-seed to win a Super Bowl. Heading into the final two weeks of the 2010 season the Packers were 8-6. They won their final two games to claim the NFC’s last playoff spot, won three road playoff games, and defeated the Steelers in that season’s Super Bowl. They also won a playoff game in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area for the first time since the 1966 NFL Title Game when they defeated the Cowboys at the Cotton Bowl 34-27.

The team that has perfected the Hot Team Theory was the New York Football Giants. In 2007 the Giants were 10-6 and had lost their season finale to the Patriots who had clinched a perfect regular season. That loss sparked a playoff run for the Giants where they went to Tampa and crushed the Buccaneers, upset the #1 seeded Cowboys, took the Packers to overtime at a frigid Lambeau Field, and were matched up against the Patriots in Arizona in Super Bowl XLII. As the cliché goes, “The rest is history.” Manning to Tyree, 17-14 is the final score, Giants win, Eli Manning is the Super Bowl MVP.

In 2011, the Giants started the season 6-2, then lost 4 straight games including a 38-35 loss to the Giants that had feelings of that 2007 matchup against the Patriots in the regular season. The following week the Giants came back from 12 down to beat Dallas in dramatic fashion, then laid an egg against the woeful Redskins to pull their record at 7-7. Two games left, one road and one home both in New York. They beat the Jets on the road in New York, and then soundly defeat Dallas in the final game of the entire NFL season. In the playoffs the Giants dominated the Falcons at home and Packers on the road, and then another overtime game in the elements this time at San Francisco for the NFC Title. And another Super Bowl against the Patriots. And the Giants win the Super Bowl and Eli Manning is your game’s MVP.

Right now at this point of the season, the Falcons and the Texans are the league’s best teams in their respective conference. The last time we had an all #1 seed Super Bowl was Super Bowl XLIV between the Saints and Colts, but before that it was the Cowboys-Bills at the end of the 1993 season.

So, if I was a fan of either of these teams, do I make plans to be in New Orleans in early February?

No.

The Texans are in a conference with two Super Bowl winning quarterbacks: Tom Brady of the Patriots and Peyton Manning of the Broncos. Plus the Ravens could sneak into the Super Bowl talk mix. Yes, the Texans have defeated the Ravens and Broncos and they play the Patriots in the Week 14 Monday Night Game. Should the Texans complete the sweep, yeah, I could buy into the whole Texans are going to the Super Bowl talk.

Meanwhile the Falcons are 9-1 but probably the most under-the-radar 9-1 in recent memory. The 49ers just put a beat down on the Chicago Bears. Green Bay is sneaking up the ladder. The Giants are… well, the Giants. And the Saints at 5-5 could easily become the Giants of 2012.

Brace yourselves… the final 6 weeks are going to be a bumpy one.

Now to the picks: I have closed my gap with Monica down to three games with a spectacular 13-1 record. Missed perfection by picking the Rams over the Jets… dammitall!

Let’s go for perfection… or at least take down Monica again!

Hope everyone has a safe and fun Thanksgiving holiday.

WEEK 11:            13-1

TOTAL:        103-57-1

BREAKDOWN OF RECORD

	MONICA	NOON	3PM	NIGHT	HOME	AWAY	TV	≤ 8 PTS	OT
WK 11	12-2	7-1	3-0	3-0	8-1	5-0	6-0	8-0	3-0
TOTAL	106-54-1	59-29	21-16-1	23-12	63-25-1	40-32	47-21	47-37-1	9-5-1

The picks for Week 12 are below.

Kickoff Times are Central Time
Picks Indicated in BOLD
Sunday Day Games for the Dallas-Fort Worth Area are indicated with (DFW)

NFL 2012 Week 12 TV Distribution Map

THANKSGIVING (11/22)

Houston Texans at Detroit Lions, 11:30 AM CBS

Washington Redskins at Dallas Cowboys, 3:30 PM Fox

New England Patriots at New York Jets, 7:30 PM NBC

SUNDAY (11/25) FOX DOUBLEHEADER

NOON FOX

Minnesota Vikings at Chicago Bears (DFW)

Seattle Seahawks at Miami Dolphins

Atlanta Falcons at Tampa Bay Buccaneers

NOON CBS

Denver Broncos at Kansas City Chiefs (DFW)

Oakland Raiders at Cincinnati Bengals

Pittsburgh Steelers at Cleveland Browns

Buffalo Bills at Indianapolis Colts

Tennessee Titans at Jacksonville Jaguars

3PM FOX

San Francisco 49ers at New Orleans Saints (DFW)

St. Louis Rams at Arizona Cardinals

3PM CBS

Baltimore Ravens at San Diego Chargers

SUNDAY NIGHT

Green Bay Packers at New York Giants, NBC 7:20 PM

MONDAY NIGHT (11/26)

Carolina Panthers at Philadelphia Eagles, 7:30 PM ESPN

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ELECTION NIGHT IN AMERICA 2012 RECAP

I know it’s been about two weeks since Election Night but… What a night.

This is WHY I LOVE Election Night!

After all the polling, predictions, and punditry, we finally get hard numbers and ACTUAL projections are made.

MATH WON!

Here is the electoral map…

And here is Nate Silver’s map.

All that talk of Silver’s data was skewed or the polls oversampled Democrats was a load of bunk. I regularly was on fivethirtyeight.com to the point where I was refreshing the site hourly. Same with the Talking Points Memo and Real Clear Politics maps.

Nate Silver was correct to assume that Ohio would put Obama over the top as the networks at 10:12 PM (CT). However if you list the states in order from biggest Obama win all the way through towards biggest Romney win, Colorado was the tipping point state. Per the national popular vote, Obama won by 2.5 points. Colorado (9 EVs) went for Obama by 4.7 points; next was Virginia (13 EVs) with Obama +3.0.

When they finally called Florida for Obama days after Election Day, I was happy. Math won the 2012 Election.

Speaking of math…

THE RIGHT WING BUBBLE POPS

At 10:12 PM (CT) on 6 November 2012, all the major news networks projected Ohio to go into Barack Obama’s column thus putting him over the 270 Electoral Votes threshold to be re-elected President. There was ONE channel that had their doubts…

Just watch this 18-minute clip from Fox News that highlights Karl Rove’s breakdown as he descends into madness and disbelief…

The conservative media and conservative movement was in disbelief that Romney lost. Anyone see the pictures of the Romney Watch Party in Boston?

According to them, all of their polling showed that Romney was going to win: “The polls were skewed; let’s un-skew them. The media is biased towards Obama…”

Gallup once showed Romney +5. That should have been the first clue that something was off… If Gallup was showing Romney +5 then why were polls in individual states showing it to be a close race? That was my first tell that the Gallup poll was completely off. Candidate +5 should mean at least an Electoral College win of 350+ Electoral Votes (see 2008 Election).

Gallup is still a credible polling outfit, but I think for this election their methodology was a tad off. It wasn’t until Election Day that Gallup finally reflected the realities of the race. It was a close popular vote race that could have resulted in a split result where one candidate wins the Electoral Vote (which matters), but the other candidate wins the popular vote. It would be the second time in 12 years that a Presidential Election would produce that result.

On the Sunday before Election Day, George Will on ABC’s This Week made this prediction:

George Will (paraphrase): “Romney 321, Obama 217 with Minnesota going for Romney on the basis of Minnesota’s marriage referendum that will cause evangelicals to turn out.”

First… the last time Minnesota went for a Republican was 1972 when Nixon won in a landslide over George McGovern (520-17, MA and DC were the only areas McGovern won).

Second… maybe George Will didn’t get the memo that opinions on gays and lesbians in this country have changed in the last decade. Minnesota rejected the marriage referendum that would have super defined marriage as “one man, one woman” by a vote of 51-47.

Third… Minnesota went for Obama 54-44 in 2008. Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R, MN-6) was facing her toughest re-election bid. In 2012, Obama won the state by eight points and Bachmann was re-elected… just barely, 51-49. 4,000 votes was the difference in that race.

Again, George Will: great to go to a baseball game with; terrible at political predictions.

More on this later…

AVALANCHE ON BULLSHIT MOUNTAIN!!

Just watch "The Daily Show" from 7 November 2012 to see the commentary about the Fox News freakout over Obama's win.

BREAKDOWN OF WHO VOTED

2012 ELECTION POTUS	EVs	POPULAR VOTE	POPULAR VOTE %
OBAMA-BIDEN (DEM)	332	63,994,643	50.78
ROMNEY-RYAN (GOP)	206	59,916,183	47.55
OTHERS	0	2,102,237	1.67

*99% reported at the time of publishing

Here is the breakdown of the 2012 Electorate.

2012, GENDER	% ELECTORATE	OBAMA	ROMNEY
MALE	47	45	52
FEMALE	53	55	44

I don’t get it guys… you have daughters, wives, sisters, grandmothers, and nieces and nephews… wait, not nephews. You have a MOTHER. The GOP’s positions regarding women disgusts me not just as a man, but as a human being.

I was raised by a single mother who was a nurse and many of my aunts have careers outside the home. My sister has a daughter. I served under and with women while I was in the Navy. The last two Main Propulsion Assistants (that person was in charge of the two main machinery rooms on a Nimitz class aircraft carrier, generally a lieutenant commander billet) that I served under were women. During the deployment I went on in the first half of 2005, most of the propulsion plant watch officers were women. The women that I served with, some are still in and are now Chief Petty Officers.

Yeah, pay disparity between the genders piss me off and I have two different chromosomes.

In fact… watch this tape of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal ceremony again. Look at the person who is standing in between Vice President Biden and President Obama during the signature process. Red curly hair.

I had the honor and pleasure of meeting her when she came to Dallas in November 2011. Her name is Zoe Dunning, retired Navy Commander and one of the many advocates for DADT Repeal.

I may have been a blue shirt (enlisted sailor E-6 and below) and she was khaki (sailor E-7 and above) but do you notice the common thread? We were both sailors and we care about this country.

Simply put, I give a crap about women’s issues because they are my issues too because I know quite a few women in my life. Carol Hansich was right… “The Personal is POLITICAL.”

Anyways, back to the number crunching…

If you look at the swing states where Obama won:

STATE WOMEN VOTERS	OBAMA – ROMNEY = DIFFERENCE
FLORIDA	Obama +7
OHIO	Obama +11
VIRGINIA	Obama +9
PENNSYLVANIA	Obama +13
IOWA	Obama +19
NEW HAMPSHIRE	Obama +16
WISCONSIN	Obama +15
NEVADA	Obama +16
COLORADO	Obama +3

Women were one of many groups that won this election for Obama.

When it comes to the ladies, to frankly put it GOP, they just aren’t that into you.

Here is another telling statistic about the 2012 Electorate when broken down by race.

2012, RACE	% ELECTORATE	OBAMA	ROMNEY
WHITE	72	39	59
BLACK	13	93	6
HISPANIC	10	71	27

In 2008, the White Vote made up 74% of the electorate and McCain won that vote 55-43. In 2012, it dropped two points but Romney won the White Vote 59-39. One observation I caught from Election Night was Steve Schmidt who was the strategist for the McCain-Palin 2008 Campaign and a current contributor to MSNBC. It was seconds after the 10 PM (CT) poll closings (CA, WA, OR, HI, ID) and he made a statement about the demographics of the 2012 Electorate.

One of things that Chuck Todd talked about earlier, demographically, I think that if the polls are accurate, it’s highly likely that Mitt Romney is going to come in when the night is done with 60… 61% of the white vote. The last candidate who got 60, 61% of the white vote was George Herbert Walker Bush in 1988, 24 years ago, and that got him over 400 Electoral Votes.

And you look at the closeness of the race tonight, Mitt Romney can eke out a victory or if Mitt Romney loses it speaks just in stunning detail how the country has changed demographically and the catastrophe for Republicans with the Latino vote which was over 40% for George W. Bush just eight short years ago.

And now tonight it is going to be in the 20s and even if Mitt Romney is able to win this election tonight, this will be the last election that a Republican can possibly win as a national candidate with these types of numbers in the Latino community, with Women voters, and it’s really going to lead to some important moments of soul searching, I think, within the Republican Party if we’re to be a national party.

When Schmidt made this observation the current Electoral Vote count was Obama 243-188 with Ohio, Florida, Virginia, and Colorado in the “Too Close To Call” category. The Electoral Vote count started with Romney taking an early lead, then Obama picked up the likely blue states, then it was tied, and then Romney had a 184-172 lead before 10 PM (CT) poll closings (which strangely sounds like a scenario foretold by Michael Tomasky for “The Daily Beast” in August). Those poll closings gave Obama the lead once and for all.

Later on Schmidt points out that California was a reliably Republican state. From 1948-1988, California sent its Electoral Votes for a Democratic candidate twice: Truman in 1948 and LBJ in 1964. They liked Ike twice (1952 and 1956) and you had the native son factor in Nixon, who was a Senator from the Golden State before being added to the ticket with Eisenhower in 1952.

In Nixon’s presidential runs (1960, 1968, 1972), he won California each of those times. So did Ford in 1976 and former California governor Ronald Reagan in his 1980 and 1984 landslide victories. The last Republican to win California was George H.W. Bush. Since then Democrats have equaled the Republican winning streak from 1968-1988 with a Blue Streak of their own from 1992-2012.

Why has California become a reliable Blue State? Proposition 187 which passed in California in 1994 to establish a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibited undocumented persons from using health care, public education, and other social services provided by the government in the state. The law was later to be found unconstitutional, but the damage had been done as it was viewed by the immigrant community as an attack on them.

The same thing is happening as groups are viewing the Republican Party has come to embrace some radical positions concerning Immigration, Women’s Issues, and LGBT Issues. For instance during the Republican Primary debates that took place several political cycles ago, Romney ran to the (emphasis) RIGHT OF RICK PERRY on Immigration. I am sure that various communities have economic concerns that they agree with the Republican Party on… HOWEVER COMMA… the positions the GOP have taken when it comes to social issues is absolutely offensive to common and decent people.

If the Republican Party is be competitive at the national level again, they need to undergo a serious rebranding and purging of the extreme elements that have infiltrated their party over the last 30 years.

THE LOSING STREAK ENDS

Speaking of social issues…

Gay marriage initiatives were on the ballot in four states: Maryland, Maine, Minnesota, and Washington. Legislatures in Maryland and Washington already passed marriage equality bills, but voters launched a petition drive to put it onto the ballot for the November election. In 2009, Maine put it to a vote and it failed. So there was an effort to try again in 2012. Minnesota’s marriage initiative was aimed at defining marriage as “one man, one woman.” Minnesota already has it stated that marriage between two people of the same gender is not allowed; this initiative would have super banned it.

What happened?

Maryland, Maine, and Washington said YES. Minnesota said NO… and NO is a good thing.

Maryland, Maine, and Washington joined the growing list of states where there are marriage equality laws in place.

This is a reversal of Proposition 8 from four years ago and what happened eight years ago when the Republican Party used this as a boogey man.

Look, I don’t like having the rights of people put up to a popular vote. I think it is an asinine process to do it this way, but whatever… It is part of a multi-pronged attack the way I see it. Proposition 8 might get heard before the Supreme Court. An announcement will be made sometime later this month. Daily Kos has a list of states where Marriage Equality might happen next, so stay tuned to this topic.

IN THE END…

2012 ELECTION POTUS	EVs
OBAMA-BIDEN (DEM)	332
ROMNEY-RYAN (GOP)	206

2012 ELECTION SENATE 113TH CONGRESS	SEATS
DEM	53
IND	2
GOP	45

* Both Independents are caucusing with the Democrats

2012 ELECTION HOUSE 113TH CONGRESS	SEATS
GOP	234
DEM	201

“House of Representatives, Republicans. Senate, Democrats. Presidency, Barack Obama. 2 years, 3 billion dollars… and we are clearly in the same (expletive deleted) place we were when it started.”

– Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, 6 November 2012

Jon Stewart put it bluntly after Obama was re-elected. In the end after all the campaigning and truckloads upon truckloads of money spent... this was a status quo election. We’re probably going to be headed towards more obstruction with a House controlled by the Republicans over the next two years. If there is some relief, yes the Republicans control more seats… but Democratic candidates in all 435 US House races got more votes. In part it is due to redistricting that took place after the 2010 mid-terms and several state legislatures turned more Republican.

I wish the Democrats could have pulled off the upset in the House, but it didn’t happen. Oh well. I’d rather have this political makeup than President-elect Mitt Romney and a Republican controlled Senate (shudders…).

This should be a lesson to Democratic-Progressive-Liberal minded people. When we show up, we win! We need to remember this in 2014 when all 435 seats in the House are up for re-election. We got rid of Tea Baggers Joe “Deadbeat Dad” Walsh and Alan “should’ve gotten a bad conduct discharge from the Army” West. Michele Bachmann was barely re-elected, but she is vulnerable and all the crazy stuff that she said in her failed Presidential run and other times… they are still on youtube.

We also have quite a few Senate seats to defend in 2014. Oh and guess what else happens in 2014, Texas has several statewide elections. We have a gubernatorial AND a US Senate race. I will write up something about the 2014 Texas elections and the upcoming legislative session here shortly. After this post I am taking a brief break from commenting directly about politics. There will be some political posts, but probably not written by me; it’ll probably be a video I find that I think is important.

In closing, there is this about what the re-election of PRESIDENT Barack Obama means. Remember my post Rachel Maddow Mic Drop from the day after the election. Well consider this an addendum. Here is what she said before her speech. This election was about the status quo and we preserved it in the progress that was made under this President and his administration over what will be the last four years this coming 20 January.

We are not going to have a Supreme Court that will overturn Roe versus Wade. There will be no more Antonin Scalias and Samuel Alitos added to this court.

We’re not going to repeal health reform. Nobody is going to kill Medicare and make old people in this generation or any other generation fight it out on the open market to try to get themselves health insurance. We are not going to do that.

We are not going to give a 20 percent tax cut to millionaires and billionaires and expect programs like food stamps and kid’s insurance to cover the cost of that tax cut.

We’re not make you clear it with your boss if you want to get birth control under the insurance plan that you’re on.

We are not going to redefine rape.

We are not going to amend the United States Constitution to stop gay people from getting married.

We are not going to double Guantanamo.

We are not eliminating the Department of Energy or the Department of Education or housing at the federal level.

We are not going to spend $2 trillion on the military that the military does not want.

We are not scaling back on student loans, because the country’s new plan is that you should borrow money from your parents.

We are not vetoing the DREAM Act. We are not self-deporting.

We are not letting Detroit go bankrupt. We are not starting a trade war with China on Inauguration Day in January.

We are not going to have, as a president, a man who once led a mob of friends to run down a scared, gay kid, to hold him down and forcibly cut his hair off with a pair of scissors while that kid cried and screamed for help and there was no apology, not ever.

We are not going to have a Secretary of State John Bolton. We are not bringing Dick Cheney back. We are not going to have a foreign policy shop stocked with architects of the Iraq War. We are not going to do it.

We had the chance to do that if we wanted to do that, as a country. 

And we said no, last night, loudly.

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