Has anyone noticed that the current voting machine rhetoric often speaks of a "coming catastrophe" even tho this article and this report show that the election catastrophe is already here now, and has been for decades.

The same goes for the Iraq debate now ongoing in the House. The neoCons in the republican party talk about "a catastrophe" if we leave ... seemingly oblivious to the actual and real catastrophe the US invasion and occupation already is now.

Hundreds of thousands of innocent folk dead, a nation destroyed, a region destabilized, and the US once again mired in a stupid conflict for stupid reasons.

Two catastrophe scenarios in full bloom while those within those two catastrophies wait for a catastrophe.

Mindless!!!

I think what's going on is that although it's reported the democrats gained the house and senate, the reality is that they gained the house, but NOT the senate. So, I assume we'll be seeing more of the same old dirty tricks. Obviously in this scenario, the real issues will be covered up in the same old garbage issues, that come up over and over and over. It's like it just drags the whole government to a stand still. While they all pretend to care about what's going on. They don't get a damn thing done.

Phil, they gained a majority in both senate and house. The proof of that is that the democrats chair each and every committee in the senate.

That is because under the senate rules the majority party appoints chairmen from their caucus to each committee, and the get the majority vote (majority number of members) on each committee too.

What confuses some is that the filibuster exists only in the senate. That gives power, by ancient design, to the minority party. Those are the senate rules.

The republicans have been willing to use the filibuster in this 110th congress even tho they condemned the practice when the democrats tried it in the 109th congress. They even threatened to use the "nuclear option" and remove the filibuster in the 109th. If they had they would be like the minority in the house ... no filibuster ... in the 110th.

The filibuster is a powerful tool specifically designed for the minority party in the senate. It is a way of letting the people put 60 members of one party in the majority if they want to spank the other party.

Watch that happen in '08. Until then, it will get to a crisis and the funding for the government, and the war, will run up against the filibuster again and again, and it will become, at some point, a game of chicken.

There are about 21 republican members up for election next year, so they will be watched and if they continue to use the filibuster as a de facto temper tantrum, the people will kick their ass and put ten more democrats in the senate and that will be the end of the filibuster ... the 111th senate will not have the filibuster as a republican temper tantrum.