Now that it looks like the Tea Party and Republicans have successfully taken the House lets see what they do with it.  I will be content with two more years of no if that is what it takes to stop the spending drain.

If you think about it, it might be a good thing that the Republicans did not gain the Senate.  It will give the race in 2012 more meaning than if it was just a race for the presidency.  I also think that one party control of both the legislative and executive is not necessarily a good thing.  The major downside I see is that it is the Senate that confirms justices and I see Obama getting at least one more chance to nominate a Supreme Court justice and control of the Senate means he can pick another closet ultra-lib like Sotomayer.

Nuke RI and Mass ?  ;D

Just the 1st and 4th districts.

Rand Paul alone can stop anything from getting through the Senate.  He would filibuster anything he thought was detrimental to the country.  He can't be bought off just like his old man in the House.

Was this election a Second Great Awakening for the Religious Right?  I believe it was.  Most of the new Republicans are pro-life.

I don't think so - I think that it was an expression of frustration by the broader electorate.Many voters were naive enough to believe candidate Obama's campaign promises and middle of the road voters are disillusioned by certain political failures and falsehoods (extreme partisanship / Pelosi politics of not even making an appearance of consulting the minority party, GITMO remaining open [talk about a naive promise], NSA wiretaps not only still ongoing, but increasing [another naive promise], and excessive spending).  The majority of voters in America aren't as clueless as Washington tends to believe.I also believe that this frustation manifested itself in two forms - 1) there are angry voters who felt that Washington is out of touch and has largely gone too far, and 2) the majority of the folks that put the Democrats into power in Congress four years ago didn't vote.  Turn out was pretty low for those who voted Democratic four years ago (and two years ago) while turn out was up for folks that didn't vote four / two years ago.A re-awakening of the religious right?  Not so much as a lack of energy and apathy from the classic "swing" voters.(and just a personal rant / pet peeve -- prior to the election we kept hearing that Congress and the President inherited all these economic problems from President Bush - do they think that our insitutional memory is so short?  Didn't the Democrats have control of Congress for the last two years of the Bush presidency?  Didn't their partisan obstructionsim contribute to the current problems?  Don't many of these economic problems stem back to the unbridled growth of the 1990s?  Didn't we have the "dot com bust" in the late 1990s that was only eclipsed by 9-11?  The issue, in my mind, isn't solely a Republican issue.  It isn't solely a Democrat issue.  It is, in my very humble opinion, a partisan issue.  By that I mean that there are too many in politics who are placing the welfare and advancement of their party ahead of the welfare and advancement of our nation.  The last time that I truly beleive that politicians as whole put the nation first was in 1994 when both sides determined to work together to advance the welfare of the country.  Unfortunately that didn't last long and was largely sidetracked by a BJ under a desk.  I don't even think 9-11 bridged that divide for very long - we were united against a common foe (although a foe that we had trouble identifying) but that didn't necessarily mean that political partisanship disappeared for very long for any issues beyond foreign policy.  Anyway, rant over.  We'll have to wait and see, but I think that even with the new crowd coming to DC there will be continued partisanship on both sides.  I think that it will take an even larger political "bloodletting" in 2012 and probably 2014 before we start to see substantial change in the primacy of the political party over the national welfare.)

Ski – you're right, up to a point.  I don't think that this election result will have any lasting impact on our MSM.  Give them 30 days and it'll be back to “normal”.Any chance you saw the clips from Leno the other night?  Said "Repbulicans won in a mudslide" -- typical "stuff" -- the bias is too deeply ingrained.

Why's that?  At least as she is presenting it, the move would be done to avoid a raising of the debt ceiling.  Also, she's not the only one who's looked at this idea:  

Also, I checked out the comments made about what Bachmann said, and then I watched the part of the video where she said it.  The blogger took her comments out of context.  I do think she made some true but overly-broad generalizations (which might have made more sense if I watched the whole video) but she definitely does acknowledge slavery in her talk.  So the blogger who said "as a member of Congress, Michelle Bachmann has to grapple with policies dealing with the consequences of American racism, slavery, and genocide that still permeate our society today. Turning a blind eye to reality is bad history and makes for bad policymaking" was throwing around an accusation without merit.