Pelosi bites the dust. Democrats lose the house.
 

I am still waiting for Oregon's election results. It looks like we may have a Republican governor, but it will probably be tomorrow before we know whether Dudley unseated Kitzhaber, a tried and true loser.

On the bright side, which makes me want to do a pee-pee dance..... Goodbye Nancy Pelosi. RNC Chairman Steele said ": "We're about to do the one thing the American people want done and that is to fire Nancy Pelosi".

I sure hope the door doesn't hit her on the ass on the way out. Unfortunately, Barney Frank remains, but he is no longer the majority leader. It looks like we are still stuck with Reid too. Bummer.

We didn't get rid of my "favorite" Oregon senatorial rodent Ron Wyden :( It looks like the Senate is now an even body. The house is solidly Republican. I would not expect Obama to survive 2012.

If you thought Bush was hated. I think it's really possible that Obama will not be the candidate in 2012. The Democrats might find someone who is actually competent and give Obama the boot.

Kitzhaber won by < 6000 votes. In a state as blue as Oregon, that's practically voter mutiny. I think Kitz had some good ads. "If Dudley gets elected, your kids won't have any schools!".

Oregon is projected to run a 3 billion dollar deficit. The last time Kitzhaber was the governor, he grew Oregon government 67%. He likes to spend a little more than he likes to tax.

He has some severe skeletons in his closet. One is Measure 11, which was meant to put violent criminals behind bars. It establishes a 72 month mandatory minimum sentence for some categories of crime. It doubled Oregons prison system. It has been applied cavalierly by prosecutors and courts. A lot of people have gotten the 7 year sentence in cases where an average person would think that 7 years is completely ridiculous. I know an innocent guy that took a plea bargain because the prosecutor was going to prosecute under Measure 11. The incident was self defense. He did a year in the county slammer just because he was afraid of what would happen in court if he were found guilty. He just didn't think any risk of 7 years was worth it. Every Measure 11 inmate costs the state more than $200K. These inmates are about 40% of the Oregon prison population. I know about a few cases where people got Measure 11 sentences. I don't know of any where a reasonable person would have thought the sentence was fair.

The Oregon Supreme Court has said "(Measure 11) is so disproportionate to the offense committed that it shocks the moral sense of reasonable people." It's remained now for 16 years.

Another Kitz skeleton is his mishandling of PERS, the state employee retirement fund. This mess nearly bankrupted the state and continues to be a fiscal nightmare.

Even the mighty Kitzcommie can't run a 3 billion dollar a year deficit for very long. If you bought the rhetoric that Dudley was gonna kill schools, you didn't recognize the inevitability of austerity.

If there were a magazine called Tax and Spend Liberal, Kitz would be the centerfold.

Apparently the legislature disagrees, as they have apparently not succeeded in rescinding this "Measure".

I think every one agrees that Measure 11 has seen it's share of abuse. They agree that DA's have used it to railroad innocent people into a plea bargain. This interferes with a right to a fair trial. I personally know one guy that is an example. I am absolutely certain he was acting in self defense when he kicked some ass. His "victim" had a rap sheet a mile long.

I think the main reason that it has not been rescinded is that you'd have to shut down several of our 14 prisons.

Money has become more important than justice. Incidentally, this is just about the same time traffic fines quadrupled. It doesn't seem to matter to our politicos that justice is not being served by a lot of this "anti-crime" nonsense that escapes reason.

Ostensibly, this town is supposed to have economic development from silicon farms. Scrape a little of the paint off, and it isn't too hard to figure out what the real industry is here. That would be the jail!

Oregon being one of the most extreme examples of that. Washington County Oregon being one of the most extreme example of that in extreme Oregon.

has become? what praytell gives you the incorrect assumption that any oregon law enforcement or detaining agency ever has or will give a fuck about justice? :weird: