Allow me to reintroduce myself.

[kthx]

Well it appears I am back on the forums now, fresh from my one month ban, oh what hell I have been through not being able to tell you all how idiotic you are, how stupid the ideas you have, and how ignorant you are in the situation what you all so lovingly participated in. 10000 views, I wonder how long it has been since a thread received as much attention as that on these forums, probaly never as far as I remember, and all of it for what, Sarien abusing his powers and *trying* to ban me forever. Anyhow now that I am back I will tell you how I feel about everything that has been going on without resorting to alternative methods.

First off I would like to congratulate Sarien on his moral victory on the forums. Never in my life have I seen so many people jump on a pointless bandwagon only to be shot down not only by forum staff, but by the person you wanted to be rehired as staff on the forums. Generally when I decide to follow someone, I know the situation and I know that he won't take a political dive in an attempt to curry favor with the people who are follow him, over representing the ideals that made people want to follow him in the first place. Of course I never expected anything better of him in the first place, what with being illegally banned forever and all. To set the records straight, I have only two warnings on the forums ever, once for thread bumping, and once for supposed racism. It seems like Troll Kings and Liquid Blue's biggest argument wasn't so much that I should be banned forever, in fact I think they said maybe Sarien did go to far, but it was that Dangergirl shouldn't have changed the ban without discussing everything in the first place. Of course they themselves are too dense to realize that Sarien also should have talked to Dangergirl and Zues before I was banned in the first place. In the end, Sarien showed his true colors, and in another month nobody will remember Sarien the forum moderator in all his glory, good riddance to bad rubbish, to anyone who decides he is all powerful and tries to silence disrespect to himself with the power he thinks he had.

[Noah]

hi wark!

[Heroin Bob]

Well it appears I am back on the forums now, fresh from my one month ban, oh what hell I have been through not being able to tell you all how idiotic you are, how stupid the ideas you have, and how ignorant you are in the situation what you all so lovingly participated in. 10000 views, I wonder how long it has been since a thread received as much attention as that on these forums, probaly never as far as I remember, and all of it for what, Sarien abusing his powers and *trying* to ban me forever. Anyhow now that I am back I will tell you how I feel about everything that has been going on without resorting to alternative methods.

First off I would like to congratulate Sarien on his moral victory on the forums. Never in my life have I seen so many people jump on a pointless bandwagon only to be shot down not only by forum staff, but by the person you wanted to be rehired as staff on the forums. Generally when I decide to follow someone, I know the situation and I know that he won't take a political dive in an attempt to curry favor with the people who are follow him, over representing the ideals that made people want to follow him in the first place. Of course I never expected anything better of him in the first place, what with being illegally banned forever and all. To set the records straight, I have only two warnings on the forums ever, once for thread bumping, and once for supposed racism. It seems like Troll Kings and Liquid Blue's biggest argument wasn't so much that I should be banned forever, in fact I think they said maybe Sarien did go to far, but it was that Dangergirl shouldn't have changed the ban without discussing everything in the first place. Of course they themselves are too dense to realize that Sarien also should have talked to Dangergirl and Zues before I was banned in the first place. In the end, Sarien showed his true colors, and in another month nobody will remember Sarien the forum moderator in all his glory, good riddance to bad rubbish, to anyone who decides he is all powerful and tries to silence disrespect to himself with the power he thinks he had.

wark for president. long live good hosting!:fear:

[Stompa]

wark for president. long live good hosting!:fear:

[Pummel]

hm

Welcome back, Kthx.

Image removed -Rudy

[Jerome Scuggs]

Sigh, I was going to live with Rhino_haha and then he backed out

btw if he's reading this, we found a new house!

oh, yeah, the topic at hand, who cares

[Subjugation]

Welcome back.

PS: You're still a delusional asshat.

[Rhino_haha]

Sigh, I was going to live with Rhino_haha and then he backed out

btw if he's reading this, we found a new house!

oh, yeah, the topic at hand, who cares

WTF I DIDNT BACK OUT, this lease is up in jan. so im homeless then

who's we!?, and where!?

[Money]

WASSSUP WARK


and why is stompa all up on rackas nutz?

[Ignominy]

You had your niche filled very poorly, some oranje kid came in trying to be cool and start shit but he was too dumb for the job. For anything, really.

[Clichy]

You had your niche filled very poorly, some oranje kid came in trying to be cool and start shit but he was too dumb for the job. For anything, really.

haha.

Welcome back Wark. (last post from me for this week)

[kthx]

Yeah, I saw some newbies causing trouble on the forums, but in a way I completely don't stand for. Atleast my shit talking is filled with wisdom, experience, and correct spelling and grammar. There is only one Wark.

[freddie]

And the saga begins.

[kthx]

It began a long long time ago, in a zone far far away phred, speaking of which, are you the newbie ZH who said I shouldn't have my name on the freezetag arena, lol? Who the fuck gave you any power of that type of thing anyways,

[genocidal]

WASHINGTON — The coalition that re-elected President Bush and bolstered Republican margins in Congress just two years ago fractured Tuesday under the weight of an unpopular war, economic unease and a series of scandals.

Fueled by dissatisfaction with Bush's leadership and the direction of the country, Democrats scored significant gains in the Senate and won control of the House for the first time since 1994.

Democrats also gained a majority of governorships for the first time in a dozen years, including in the mega-states of Ohio and New York.

"Remember that song, 'I feel the earth move under my feet?' " says Bernadette Budde of BIPAC, a business-oriented political action committee. She likens the midterm elections not to a tidal wave, with floodwaters that recede, but to an earthquake that permanently alters the political landscape.

Officials will find themselves "standing on a tectonic plate," she says.

Compared with the midterm election in 2002, Republicans lost significant support among independents and suburbanites — prime groups of swing voters that both parties pursue. Young people, voters with college degrees and secular voters also moved decisively to the Democrats.

Surveys of voters as they left polling places on Tuesday showed fissures among some groups the Republicans have long counted on and others they are trying to cultivate:

•Hispanics, a group Bush has reached out to since his days as governor of Texas, voted nearly 3-1 for Democrats. In 2004, Republicans won 44% of the votes cast by Hispanics, the nation's fastest-growing ethnic group. GOP candidates received just 29% of their votes Tuesday. That could reflect a reaction to efforts by Republicans, especially in the House, to crack down on illegal immigration. Last month, Bush signed legislation to build a 700-mile-long fence along the U.S.-Mexican border.

•White evangelical Christians remained a bulwark: Seven in 10 voted for Republicans. But the focus on issues important to the Christian Right, including banning same-sex marriage and embryonic stem cell research, apparently alienated less devout voters. Those who attend church only occasionally moved to the Democrats by 9 points, compared with 2004. Those who never attend church moved away from the GOP by 11 points.

•White men's support was crucial in the Republican sweep of Congress in 1994. On Tuesday, their margin for Republicans was cut in half from a 16-point edge in 2002. "They see themselves squeezed in this economy," Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg says of many white men and other voters who began shifting to the GOP in 1980. "They're ambitious and they work hard for their families, but they're watching jobs with fewer assured benefits, and there's great resentment about rising health care costs and energy costs. And all of this comes together with the war."

The election returns transformed the political landscape in Washington from one in which Republicans for most of the past six years have held all the levers of power. It was the worst setback for the GOP on Capitol Hill since the post-Watergate debacle in 1974.

The White House presumably will be forced to revamp its legislative strategy and learn to deal with a Democratic speaker, expected to be Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California. In the House, Bush is likely to face investigations into the lead-up to the Iraq war and Iraq's reconstruction. In the Senate, resistance to conservative judicial nominations probably will stiffen. The pressure to alter course in Iraq will surely intensify.

In the GOP, recriminations began even before the polls opened.

"There's going to be a lot of folks in the party who are going to want an assessment of who we are ... and what our priorities are," says Dick Armey, a former House majority leader and architect of the GOP's 1994 takeover of Congress. Armey and James Dobson have sparred publicly in recent days over whether the GOP's woes are due in part to excessive influence by Christian conservative groups like Dobson's Denver-based Focus on the Family.

The issues that mattered

Corruption was the top-ranked issue: 41% called it "extremely important." Six in 10 of those voters favored Democrats. Republicans lost the Florida district that had been represented by Mark Foley, who resigned in the wake of the congressional-page scandal. In Pennsylvania, Rep. Don Sherwood, accused by his former mistress of trying to strangle her, lost, too.

Terrorism, rated "extremely important" by 39%, worked to Republicans' advantage, but by just 7 points — not the slam-dunk that the White House envisioned. Bush repeatedly argued during the campaign that Democrats couldn't be trusted to keep the nation safe. On Tuesday, 29% of voters said that Republicans alone could protect the country from terrorism — only somewhat more than the 22% who said only the Democrats could.

In the end, views on the Iraq war correlated most closely with how people voted; 36% called the issue "extremely important." Eight in 10 of those who opposed the war voted for Democrats; eight in 10 of those who supported the war voted for Republicans.

And the economy?

The pocketbook issues that often shape elections were trumped by concern about the war. Two years ago, voters with a positive view of the economy heavily favored Republicans. This time, voters who thought the economy was good but opposed the war voted by nearly 2-1 for Democrats.

"There's no doubt that Iraq is a big piece of why people want change," says Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "The economy is also there. How Congress works is there. But Iraq is your first piece of evidence in the case you make for change."

For one thing, Democrats won in some congressional districts that were designed to be predominantly Republican. The GOP can "really go back very hard at those seats and cherry-pick them all back" in two years, vows Ken Khachigian, a Republican strategist in California.

For another, much of the electorate was driven to the Democrats by opposition to Bush, who will be on his way home to Texas after the 2008 election. A full 36% of voters said they cast ballots to express opposition to the president. Just 22% said they cast them to support him.

'A rough patch'

Some Republicans argue that weariness over the war and Bush, not some underlying weakness in the GOP coalition, darkened the party's prospects this year.

"This is sort of 2006-specific; it's sort of Iraq-specific," says Khachigian, a onetime adviser to President Reagan. "There's no question the guy's in a rough patch and it mainly revolves around the war," he says of Bush. But he argues that the party's underlying message and voter alliance are intact.

Sixteen percent of those who said they voted for Bush in 2004 supported Democrats on Tuesday.

Still, some Republicans see strains in the party coalition that go well beyond Bush. Ryan Sager, author of The Elephant in the Room: Evangelicals, Libertarians and the Battle to Control the Republican Party, published in August, sees a growing clash between Southern social conservatives who care most about moral values and Western libertarians who want a small government that leaves them alone.

Eroding support for Republican candidates in the West forced Bush and Vice President Cheney to stump in states including Montana, Colorado and Idaho. Sen. Conrad Burns in Montana was one of the nation's most vulnerable Republican incumbents. Democrat Bill Ritter won the governorship in Colorado, and races in Nevada and Idaho, where Republican candidates once were favored, went down to the wire.

"This could mark the beginning of the end" of the Reagan coalition, Sager says. "If Republicans are handed a pretty big loss on Tuesday, they're going to have to decide whether to get their act together and work things out, to use that marriage metaphor."

"The strains in the Republican Party, I would say, are definitely showing," says John Mark Hansen, a political scientist at the University of Chicago. He likens it to the fraying of the New Deal coalition that became apparent in the 1960s.

Some Democrats hope the Iraq war will define the parties for years, just as the GOP's faltering response to the Great Depression tainted it for a generation and President Johnson's Great Society branded Democrats as the party of big social programs and civil rights.

The proportion of Americans who call themselves Democrats has grown from 34.2% in 2004 to 36.3% now, a gain of more than 2 points. Independents, just 29.5% of the electorate in 2004, have now surpassed the GOP share, at 33.4% — an increase of nearly 4 points.

Dems aren't soaring

So far, though, the Democratic Party's favorable rating hasn't exactly soared. It is 52%, below its standing through the 1990s. Even Comedy Central's left-leaning The Daily Show with Jon Stewart mocked the Democratic message to voters this year as a 30-second TV ad that consisted of a blank screen with sounds of birds trilling in the background.

"To say the election is an affirmation of them instead of a rejection of Republicans would be a stretch for me," scoffs former Republican national chairman Rich Bond. "They just happen to be standing there when it happened."

William Galston, a former White House adviser to President Clinton, agrees. "Right now the American people see one party which has an agenda they believe doesn't work, and one party which they believe doesn't have an agenda."

This election "is quite properly a referendum election on Bush and not a referendum on Democrats," says Matt Bennett of centrist Third Way.

"The mandate is, 'Do something different, for God's sake,' " he says.

..