2013 - - Better HairDresser, better Health

I bought this OLD BOOK at an estate sale...

The Clansman (the book and play upon which The Birth of a Nation is based).

I didn't know what it was about.... but being a 59-yr black woman.. I was simply pulled to explore this antique item! so.... I paid a dollar $$ or so for it....  After I watched Django this weekend.... I read in the ROOT, about Quentin Tarantino's Q&A session.....

And if you ever tried to read The Clansman [the book and play upon which The Birth of a Nation is based], it really can only stand next to Mein Kampf when it comes to just its ugly imagery.

Mein Kampf in English means "My Struggle". It's the title of Hitler's book, which he wrote while he was incarcerated for trying to over throw the German government in 1923.

Learning about Thomas DIxon!

Quinton Tarentino said . . .  THE BIRTH OF A NATION ......it gave rebirth to the Klan and all the blood that that was spilled throughout -- until the early '60s, practically. I think that both Rev. Thomas Dixon Jr. and D.W. Griffith, if they were held by Nuremberg Laws, they would be guilty of war crimes for making that movie because of what they created there.

American Racist: The Life and Films of Thomas Dixon [Hardcover]

Born:January 11, 1864 in Shelby, North Carolina, USA

Died:April 3, 1946 (age 82) in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

Thomas Dixon has a notorious reputation as the writer of the source material for D.W. Griffith's groundbreaking and controversial 1915 feature film The Birth of a Nation. Perhaps unfairly, Dixon has been branded an arch-conservative and a racist obsessed with what he viewed as "the Negro problem." As American Racist makes clear, however, Dixon was a complex, multitalented individual who, as well as writing some of the most popular novels of the early twentieth century, was involved in the production of some eighteen films.

Dixon used the motion picture as a propaganda tool for his often outrageous opinions on race, communism, socialism, and feminism. His most spectacular production, The Fall of a Nation (1916), argues for American preparedness in the face of war and boasts a musical score by Victor Herbert, making it the first American feature film to have an original score by a major composer. Like the majority of Dixon's films, The Fall of a Nation has been lost, but had it survived, it might well have taken its place alongside The Birth of a Nation as a masterwork of silent film. Anthony Slide examines each of Dixon's films and discusses the novels from which they were adapted. Slide chronicles Dixon's transformation from a major supporter of the original Ku Klux Klan in his early novels to an ardent critic of the modern Klan in his last film, Nation Aflame. American Racist is the first book to discuss Dixon's work outside of literature and provide a wide overview of the life and career of this highly controversial twentieth-century southern populist.

Talk about learning something new everyday.....

Talk about learning something new everyday.....


The Birth of a Nation(novel "The Clansman: An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan" / novel "The Leopard's Spots" / play "The Clansman")


Django is an opposite extreme of The Birth of a Nation. Did that play a conscious role in your mind? Reversing the depiction of slavery that The Birth of a Nation registered?

Enjoyed WInning/Payback attitude of DJANGO!

One person reviewed the movie as such..... (and I agree with her)

......People, it's a MOVIE. I saw it today and LOVED it.I also saw Lincoln and loved it. I am over 50 years old. There were African-Americans in the theater that loved it as well, two of whom were sitting next to me. It is rated R for a reason. The "n" word was used as it obviously was over 200 years ago in that particular setting I also loved "Inglorious Basterds", and I am Jewish. I didn't mind the derogatory Jewish terms that were used...it was representative of that portion of history. I go to the movies to be entertained...it is my choice

 

OH SO TRUE.... is this review of this move........"There's something here to offend everyone. Revenge fantasies don't leave much room for moral lessons. Django is out for blood. So is Tarantino, but he doesn't sacrifice his humanity or conscience to do it."

 

Critics have described the film as bold and original, but some reviews criticized the film for being ultra-violent, over-the-top and overly long

 

........ "Granted, there's something gleefully satisfying in watching evil people get what they have coming. But 'Django Unchained' is Tarantino at his most puerile and least inventive, the premise offering little more than cold, nasty revenge and barrels of squishing, squirting blood."

 

NEW WORD OF THE DAY is

tit·u·lar

( tíchələr )  adjective 1. existing or being such in title only; nominal; having the title but none of the associated duties, powers, etc.: the titular head of the company

 

..... the film's premise: Foxx's titular Django being freed by a bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz) who needs Django's help to track some baddies, and in exchange, promises to help Django free his wife from an evil plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio) ,,,, the movie has sparked debate about its depiction of slavery and ample use of the n-word .

 

 

ANOTHER WORD OF THE DAY

.....Tarantino injects the weighty material with so many jocular, startling and unexpected touches that it's constantly stimulating."

joc·u·lar

( jókyələr )

fond of joking: with a playful joking disposition

humorous: intended to be funny

 

we've become inured to the suffering and pain of slavery, that we've distanced ourselves enough from it, that people can't experience the terror, the horrible pain, the anxiety, the stress, et cetera, that came with the slave experience. I thought that in Django you really began to reinsert contemporary viewers into that pain, particularly through the scene when the dogs tear Candie's slave D'Artagnan apart

 

in·ure

[ in' your-ed ]

1. harden somebody to something: to make somebody used to something unpleasant over a period of time, so that he or she no longer is bothered or upset by it 
2. transitive verb: to accustom to accept something undesirable

Synonyms: fortify, indurate, harden, season, steel, strengthen, toughen

Antonyms: soften

 

Henry Louis Gates Jr.: You've targeted Nazis in Inglourious Basterds and slave owners in Django Unchained. What's next on the list of oppressors to off?  

 

BTW === ..original idea for Inglourious Basterds way back when was that this [would be] a huge story that included the [smaller] story that you saw in the film, but also followed a bunch of black troops, and they had been f--ked over by the American military and kind of go apes--t. They basically -- the way Lt. Aldo Raines (Brad Pitt) and the Basterds are having an "Apache resistance" -- [the] black troops go on an Apache warpath and kill a bunch of white soldiers and white officers on a military base and are just making a warpath to Switzerland.

 

Tarintino says) ...Hildy.....you've only seen her as a figment of Django's imagination. So the first time you meet her in the here and now, s--t's even worse than you thought..... ...... ...people in general have so put slavery at an arm's distance that ... just the information is enough for them -- it's just intellectual. They just want to keep it intellectual.    ..... I think America is one of the only countries that has not been forced, sometimes by the rest of the world, to look their own past sins completely in the face. And it's only by looking them in the face that you can possibly work past them. And it's not a case where the Turks don't want to acknowledge the Armenian holocaust, but the Armenians do.

 

Henry Louis Gates Jr. is the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African-American Research at Harvard University. He is also the editor-in-chief of The Root.

Another 4-19-1995, another 9-11 in America

At both funeral homes, as around the country, people wrestled with what steps could and should be taken to prevent something like the massacre from happening again.
"If people want to go hunting, a single-shot rifle does the job, and that does the job to protect your home, too. If you need more than that, I don't know what to say," Ray DiStephan said outside Noah's funeral.
He added: "I don't want to see my kids go to schools that become maximum-security fortresses. That's not the world I want to live in, and that's not the world I want to raise them in."

Meanwhile, the outlines of a national debate on gun control began to take shape. At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said curbing gun violence is a complex problem that will require a "comprehensive solution."
Carney did not offer specific proposals or a timeline. He said President Barack Obama will meet with law enforcement officials and mental health professionals in coming weeks.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, flanked by shooting survivors and relatives of victims of gunfire around the country, pressed Obama and Congress to toughen gun laws and tighten enforcement after the Newtown massacre.
"If this doesn't do it," he asked, "what is going to?"

Lanza is believed to have used a Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle, a civilian version of the military's M-16. It is similar to the weapon used in a recent shopping mall shooting in Oregon and other deadly attacks around the U.S. Versions of the AR-15 were outlawed in this country under the 1994 assault weapons ban, but the law expired in 2004.
At least one senator, Virginia Democrat Mark Warner, said Monday that the attack in Newtown has led him to rethink his opposition to the ban on assault weapons.
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat who is an avid hunter and lifelong member of the National Rifle Association, said it's time to move beyond the political rhetoric and begin an honest discussion about reasonable restrictions on guns.
"This is bigger than just about guns," he added. "It's about how we treat people with mental illness, how we intervene, how we get them the care they need, how we protect our schools. It's just so sad."
Authorities say Lanza shot his mother, Nancy Lanza, at their home and then took her car and some of her guns to the school, where he broke in and opened fire. A Connecticut official said the mother, a gun enthusiast who practiced at shooting ranges, was found dead in her pajamas in bed, shot four times in the head with a .22-caliber rifle. Lanza was wearing all black, with an olive-drag utility vest with lots of pockets, during the attack.

Investigators have found no letters or diaries that could explain the rampage.
Debora Seifert, a spokeswoman for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said both Lanza and his mother fired at shooting ranges, and also visited ranges together.
"We do not have any indication at this time that the shooter engaged in shooting activities in the past six months," Seifert told the AP

Person of the Year 2012

Runners-up were Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old Pakistani women's rights activist who survived after being shot in the head and neck by Taliban; Apple CEO Tim Cook; Egypt's Islamist President Mohamed Morsi; and scientist Fabiola Gianotti. In 2011, Time picked "The Protester."

The magazine unveiled its Person of the Year selection on the "Today" show on Wednesday.

The president's reelection in November showed "the Obama effect was not ephemeral anymore, no longer reducible to what had once been mocked as that 'hopey-changey stuff,'" Time's Michael Scherer wrote in the accompanying cover story. "It could be measured in wars stopped and started; industries saved, restructured or reregulated; tax cuts extended; debt levels inflated; terrorists killed; the health-insurance system reimagined; and gay service members who could walk in uniform with their partners. It could be seen in the new faces who waited hours to vote and in the new ways campaigns are run. America debated and decided this year: history would not record Obama’s presidency as a fluke."

The cover features a silver border--just the fourth time in Time's 89-year-history the magazine was published without its trademark red. Time.com also published a slideshow featuring "never-before-seen images of the Obama presidency" from Election Night to Newtown.

“It was easy to think that maybe 2008 was the anomaly," President Obama told Time in an interview. “And I think 2012 was an indication that, no, this is not an anomaly. We’ve gone through a very difficult time. The American people have rightly been frustrated at the pace of change, and the economy is still struggling, and this president we elected is imperfect. And yet despite all that, this is who we want to be. That’s a good thing.”

Felon disenfranchisement ... A new term for me !!

Gore argues that the efforts in Florida are similar to the ones that caused him to lose the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush.   He is correct in this assessment.

Al Gore says that the long lines are “un-American” and a disgrace.   He also says that it’s not an accident, but part of a strategy to keep certain people away from the polls.

“It is a strategy and it is a strategy that is a direct descendent of the racist Jim Crow tactics that were used in the wake of the Civil War to prevent black people from voting,” Gore said.

“It is more sophisticated now. It is dressed up in different kinds of language, but it is un-American, it is wrong, it is a disgrace to this country and there ought to be a bipartisan movement to say enough of this,” he said.

Now that Gore has dug up the scary concept of Jim Crow for the purpose of getting black people to vote for his party, let’s hope that he is also willing to use Jim Crow to take on the prison industrial complex.   If black voter disenfranchisement is problematic, then felon disenfranchisement is tantamount to a war crime against American citizens.

President Obama has won re-election, which could turn out to be a wonderful thing for the country.  I am extremely hopeful that the Democrats who showed up in every black church, community center and barbershop to get us to vote for them will be willing to go to those same locations to coordinate on strategies to end the prison industrial complex.   The prison system has destroyed millions of black families across America, and the degree to which Democrats pay attention to this issue will be a direct measure of whether or not they care about us as much as they expected us to care about them.

In the 2016 presidential election, the Dems will no longer have Barack Obama, their politicalMichael Jordan, to get black people out to the polls.  Rather than relying on politics of personality, they might actually have to do something to earn our vote.

Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition. He is also the creator of the Building Outstanding Men and Boys Family Empowerment Series. 

Al Gore is right about the mess at many of the polls. ROMNEY WAS SHOCKED that he did not win…BECAUSE HE KNEW THERE WAS A PLAN TO PUT HIM IN…LOTS OF FUNDS…LOTS OF LIES…LOTS OF BILLIONAIRES BACKING HIM. There was a planned effort by the GOP to do whatever they could to block votes, lower the number of Blacks and Latinos who vote…and make it more difficult to vote. They did all they could to keep Pres. Obama out of office…but they FAILED. Some of their plans caused the long lines — LONG BALLOTS that take 30 min. to read….filling out affidavits before being allowed to vote…only accepting certain forms of ID…and it goes on and on.

Great Demographics.... 2012

CNBC Agrees: Not Enough “Angry White Guys”

After President Obama’s win last night, right wing pundits mulling over what went wrong have all come to the same conclusions – demographics.

 CNBCput it bluntly by agreeing that the Republican party is mostly comprised of angry white men, and there simply aren’t enough of them

Republican senator Lindsey Graham’s remark that there weren’t enough “angry white guys” to bring Republicans to power seemed prophetic in the light of President Barack Obama’s victory 2012.

A decline in the number of white voters and a surge in voters from ethnic minorities and women helped Obama on election night. Ohio, one of the key battleground states, was captured in part through a rise in turnout among African-Americans, who voted overwhelmingly for Obama.

So what does this mean for the Tea Party, a segment of the GOP which traffics in racism and xenophobia? The base of the GOP seems to want its pound of flesh, meaning it expects GOP lawmakers to express hostility toward blacks and Hispanics as sort of a purity litmus test before getting elected. How does the GOP tamp down its base and reach out to minorities?

The difficulty of that task has Democrats all over America smiling right about now. 

The GOP has created a monster, and lost control of the reins. What happens from this point on is anyone’s guess.

Dr. Boyce: How to go to College and NOT End Up in Prison – The Darrell Williams Rape Case

Added by bowatkin on July 25, 2012.

Here are some quick tips to men who want to go to college and NOT get convicted or rape:

1) Avoid alcohol if you can or at least minimize your consumption of it: People do things when they’re drunk that they might not do otherwise.  It’s quite possible that reduced inhibitions led to Williams or some of his friends feeling that they could touch women without their permission.  People are flirting and everyone’s just hanging out, so it’s also quite possible that the women allowed themselves to be touched.  When everyone’s been drinking, almost no one has very much credibility in the court of law, because decision-making is horrifically flawed.

2) Don’t sleep with women you don’t know very well:  If a woman wants to sleep with you on the first date or after a night at the club, understand that you are putting your entire life and future in the hands of a complete stranger.  Rather than jumping for joy at the chance to have meaningless s*x, you might want to jump out of bed and run for the hills.  If you don’t believe me, just ask Kobe Bryant, the married man who decided to sleep with a woman he barely knew with no condom back in 2004.  She almost sent him to prison, took all his money, ruined his family and stole everything he’d worked for over his entire life.  No s*x is good enough to be worth that kind of risk, and Kobe should never have been there in the first place.

3) No means no, no exceptions:  There was a time where men and women could play the cat and mouse game – she plays hard to get and you consistently chip away at the barriers in order to get her to do the thing that you and she both know that she wants to do anyway.  Whatever man, that c**p is for the birds.  In the age of political correctness, “no” always means “no.”  I don’t care if her eyes are saying “yes,” and she’s entirely naked, licking her lips with her legs spread out.  If she says “no,” then you need to say “no thanks.”  Real women don’t play stupid games that might destroy your life.

I hope that Darrell Williams can recover after this incident.  Groping is wrong, we know that.  But it’s hard to say that he deserves to go to prison with evidence this sketchy.  The key point to keep in mind, however, is that it’s not simply a matter of Williams being sent to prison for a crime he did not commit.  Rather, its a matter of us understanding how to avoid these kinds of situations in the first place.  College is not a place for drunken parties, court cases, and a pile of broken dreams.  It’s a place to get an education and create  bright future for yourself.  All that other stuff is just a pile of meaningless distractions.

Come Together and Say Something Constructive

We must come together and SAY SOMETHING: 

1) Mass incarceration is destroying black families
2)

 Black unemployment is nearly double that of white Americans
3) Black youth are dying daily from guns being made readily available in an unregulated black market
4) 40% of all black children are being born into poverty
5) Many of our kids are forced to attend failing schools

If you care about black people, you will speak up on these issues. If you spend the next four years in the drunken celebration of unproductive symbolism, then you'll have to be left behind.

God bless the President of the United States, and God bless Black America.  

Dr. Boyce Watkins - The People's Schola

Women's Voice in Election 2012 - SENATE !

We gained 3 women in the U.S. Senate - from 17 to 20. All races have not been called in the House yet. 

The Democrats/Independents went from 53 to 55 seats in a year they were suppose to lose seats. Now let's 

make sure they continue to hear our voices and put forth legislation that takes us forward!

hmnnnn..... and these are the losers...... I'm just sayin.....

Harry Reid .... says.....

"I want to work together, but I also want everyone to also understand, you cannot push us around.  We want to work together."   There is a new game in town,   GOP,  it's called "You can't buy the USA." COOPERATE - Resistance is futile, the people will be back in 2014!!!!

. . . . ."And I want the rest of you cowboys to know something, there's a new sheriff in town…and his name 

is Reggie Hammonds. You all be cool…right on."   Movie: 48 Hours

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader  Harry Reid   (D-Nev.) pledged on Wednesday to change the rules of the Senate so that the minority party has fewer tools to obstruct legislative business.

In his first post-election press conference, the Nevada Democrat said he wouldn't go so far as to eliminate the filibuster, which requires 60 votes for the chamber to enter and exit the amendment and debate process. But in remarks meant to preview a more combative approach during the next session, he warned Republicans that obstructionism as a tactic won't be tolerated -- or as technically feasible.

Elated..... I just am..... all day long !!!!

Just a treasure trove of pics and sayings all over the web/fb !!

Anybody wanna see SOUR GRAPES...???

. . . . .The level of disrespect that radiates off of her (Mary Matlin) is astounding and yet not surprising at all. Could you possibly imagine Van Jones speaking to her in the same manner and not having the right-wing media setting him on fire?   ...reminds me of this ole' gal !!

 . . . . .and this is my response to her...

.

. . . .The Republican Party can't imagine a world in which they might be wrong. It's why they love to talk about America and taking it back. It's why they have no problem calling those who disagree with their ideology un-American. They believe the rest of us are twisted, idiotic moochers who seek only to destroy their society -- as if they own the very fabric that is America. They will cry, yell and place blame any and everywhere else they can.

However, America isn't being taken away or destroyed. America is doing what America is supposed to do: reflect the beliefs of its population. And America's population has a lot of pesky people of color, gays and women who all have a say in how things work.

Problematic, I know.  

http://www.theroot.com

This is a Y-Tube ---

Wolf Blitzer interview of Van Jones And Ms. Matlin   (she is James Carville's wife !!!.....  pretty stinky I'd say!!!   Something akin to a gracious winner and a sore loser!!!

• soi·ree

   [ swaa ráy ]   

  1. evening party: a party or gathering held in the evening, especially in somebody's home

  
  

  New word of the day...taken from a rich man's party notes in previous post....hahahahahah
  
  
  Now I did know SUAVE..... when I see it..... !!!
  

  

  It's just my post-election Elation... Celebration.... can't help myself!!!

  

  
  

  
  

  
  

Post Election Learning.... SUPER PACs

..........high-profile companies haven’t been afraid to jump into the partisan fray.
In mid-October, oil and gas giant Chevron donated $2.5 million to a super PAC close to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the Congressional Leadership Fund, which has aired a bevy of ads attacking Democratic House candidates.


Oxbow Carbon, the energy company owned by billionaire William Kock, the lesser-known brother of conservative industrialists David and Charles Koch, and Contran Corp., the business of Republican super donor Harold Simmons of Texas, have both steered significant sums to the coffers of super PACs.


Oxbow Carbon has donated $4.25 million to GOP super PACs, making it the No. 2 corporate donor to super PACs, while Contran, No. 3, has donated more than $3 million to Republican-aligned groups.

Another top corporate donor is a retirement community in central Florida known as The Villages — a Republican stronghold where Paul Ryan held his first campaign rally the day after GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney named him as his running mate.

Developer H. Gary Morse created The Villages more than 50 years ago, and this election cycle, more than a dozen companies connected to Morse and The Villages have collectively steered $1.6 million to GOP super PACs. That’s in addition to the $450,000 that Morse and his wife, Renee, have donated from their personal funds.
Notably, Morse is also the Florida co-chairman of the Romney campaign, and during the Republican National Convention, Morse’s Cayman Island-flagged yacht, named “Cracker Bay,” was the site of a soiree for some of Romney’s top donors and fundraisers.
Other high-profile corporate donors include:

• The Apollo Group, a for-profit education company, which gave $75,000 to the pro-Romney Restore Our Future and another $5,000 to JAN PAC, the super PAC of Arizona’s Republican Gov. Jan Brewer;
• Convenience store giant 7-Eleven, which donated $25,000 to Hoosiers for Jobs, a super PAC that supported Sen. Dick Lugar, R-Ind., during his failed primary campaign;
• Hamburger chain White Castle, which gave $25,000 to the Congressional Leadership Fund;
• Defense contractor B/E Aerospace, which gave $50,000 to Restore Our Future;
• Payday lender QC Holdings, which gave $25,000 to Restore Our Future; and
• Weaver Holdings, the parent company of the Indiana-popcorn company known for its brands “Pop Weaver” and “Trail’s End,” sold by Boy Scouts across the country, which has donated $2.4 million to American Crossroads, the super PAC founded by GOP strategists Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie

FreedomWorks produced numerous advertisements, including one that blasts Duckworth as a crony of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was impeached and sentenced to 14 years in federal prison following a corruption scandal.

FreedomWorks’ super PAC has spent more than $19 million on political advertising, including $1.7 million on Oct. 29 opposing Tammy Duckworth,   yippee... she won!!! a Democrat running for Congress in Illinois against Tea Party favorite Joe Walsh, a first-term incumbent.

..... is a double amputee and Iraq War veteran. She headed Illinois’ Department of Veteran Affairs and later served in President Barack Obama’s U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
FreedomWorks’ new ad features grainy footage of Duckworth and audio of her saying, “Gov. Blagojevich has charged me with the mission of taking care of my buddies, and that is what I’m doing.” But it leaves out the fact that when she said “buddies,” she was referring to other veterans and members of the military.

Tammy Duckworth on Wednesday became first Thai-American woman elected to US Congress after beating freshman Republican US Rep Joe Walsh in Illinois' 8th congressional district.

With 41 percent of the votes counted, Duckworth led Walsh 56.3 percent to 43.7 percent. The race was initially called by NBC. AP has also called the race for Duckworth.

Ladda or Tammy, 44, born to Thai mother and American father, has an exceptional life. She almost lost her life during an attack in Iraq in 2004. She has served as commander of a Blackhawk Helicopter Company

This might be my next screen-saver!!!

Enuf said...... Perservere....

He was despised .... is being despised and disrespected....   But let justice prevail!

A Nightmare for the Old Massa!!

Something about this picture (and Bill O'Rielley) just really reminds me of what I often imagine was in my GREAT - GRANDFATHER   ---  James A Anderson of South Carolina (b abt 1830 d. 1910 ? )

Cocky, ignorant... self-perpetuating..... proud...

Karl Rove was the political genius of the George W. Bush era -- the architect of the last Republican president's two electoral victories. But this week, he may have had the worst election night of anybody in American politics.

Not only did Rove insist on Fox News that Ohio was still winnable for Republican challenger Mitt Romney after all the TV networks had called it for President Barack Obama -- causing anchor Megyn Kelly to march down to the Fox "decision desk" mavens, who assured her on air that they were "99.9 percent" confident in their call -- but his trailblazing "independent" super PAC operation was virtually shut out on election night.

American Crossroads spent heavily, not just on Romney, but on attack ads on behalf of GOP Senate candidates in eight states -- thanks to mega contributions from conservative donors like metals magnate Harold Simmons ($19.5 million), Texas homebuilder Bob Perry ($7.5 million) and Omni hotel chief Robert Rowling ($5 million.)

The super donors didn't get much for their money. Six of the eight GOP Senate candidates that American Crossroads spent money to try to elect – Tommy Thompson in Wisconsin, George Allen in Virginia, Josh Mandel in Ohio, Richard Mourdock in Indiana, Denny Rehberg in Montana and Todd Akin in Missouri – lost their races, along with Romney. The group did, on the other hand, help to elect Deb Fischer in Nebraska and Dean Heller in Nevada.

(The Sunlight Foundation calculation of "return on investment" was based on the percentage of money it spent on individual races-- and since Crossroads spent the most on the races it lost on, the group earned its low 1 percent "return on investment" or ROI. 

Some in his own party also were unimpressed by the performance of Rove's Crossroads operation. Donald Trump posted a message on Twitter saying: “Congrats to @KarlRove on blowing $400 million cycle. Every race @CrossroadsGPS ran ads in, the Republicans lost. What a waste of money.” 

The American Crossroads debacle was only the most dramatic example of the limits of big money in this election, according to the Sunlight Foundation report. About $1.3 billion was spent by outside groups overall -- about two-thirds on the Republican side -- and for the most part their returns were equally low. The Chamber of Commerce, for example, spent $31 million-and had a 5 percent return, according to the Sunlight study. The conservative American Future Fund spent $23.9 million and also realized a 5 percent return. The National Rifle Association spent $11 million, and got shut out.

"It may mean people really don't like big money in politics," says Kathy Kiely, the Sunlight Foundation analyst who co-authored the study. "Maybe they prefer it be spent on something else." 

With votes counted in 75 percent of the nation's precincts, Obama held a narrow advantage in the popular vote, leading by about 25,000 out of more than 99 million cast (USA).

But the president's laserlike focus on the battleground states allowed him to run up a 303-206 margin in the competition for electoral votes, where the White House is won or lost. It took 270 to win. Obama captured

1. Ohio, 18 electoral votes
2. Wisconsin,  10 electoral votes
3. Iowa, 6 electoral votes
4. New Hampshire, 
5. Colorado  9 electoral votes 
6. Nevada   6 electoral votes
7. Pennsylvania  . .20 electoral votes . . .

seven of the nine states ....#8  Virginia with 13 electoral votes and #9  Florida with 29 electoral votes.....where the rivals and their allies poured nearly $1 billion into dueling television commercials.

Romney won only North Carolina among the battleground states. Four years ago, Obama had carried the state.


Here’s how it shaped up for the candidates.
Barack Obama won:Virginia, Nevada, Wisconsin, Oregon, Colorado, Iowa, New Mexico, California, Hawaii, Washington, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Michigan, Vermont, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Illinois .
Mitt Romney won:Missouri, Idaho, North Carolina, Arizona, Utah, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, Kentucky,  West Virginia, South Carolina, Indiana,  Oklahoma, Tennessee and Georgia.
The election emerged as a choice between two very different visions of government - whether it occupies a major, front-row place in American lives or is in the background as a less-obtrusive facilitator for private enterprise and entrepreneurship.
The economy was rated the top issue by about 60 percent of voters surveyed as they left their polling places. But more said former President George W. Bush bore responsibility for current circumstances than Obama did after nearly four years in office. That bode well for the president, who had worked to turn the election into a choice between his proposals and Romney's, rather than the simple referendum on the economy during his time in the White House.

Unemployment stood at 7.9 percent on election day, higher than when he took office. And despite signs of progress, the economy is still struggling after the worst recession in history.



Democrats held their narrow majority in the Senate on Tuesday, with 53 seats, grabbing GOP seats in Massachusetts and Indiana and turning aside Republican challenges in Virginia and Ohio. Republicans regained control of the House -- 232 seats to the Democrats' 191 seats -- ensuring that Congress will be divided at the start of President Barack Obama's second term in office.

Democrat Elizabeth Warren won in Massachusetts over Republican Sen. Scott Brown, who stunned the political world in January 2010 when he won Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's seat. Democrat Joe Donnelly won Indiana's Senate seat in a close-fought battle with tea-party backed state treasurer Richard Mourdock. Mourdock had been considered the favorite after knocking out six-term Sen. Richard Lugar in the GOP primary in May. But he damaged his chances when he said in a debate that pregnancy resulting from rape is "something God intended."
In Ohio, Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown survived an onslaught of outside spending, some $30 million, to defeat state treasurer Josh Mandel. In Pennsylvania, Democratic Sen. Bob Casey survived a late scare from businessman Tom Smith, who invested more than $17 million of his own money in the race.

Texas sent Tea Party-backed Ted Cruz to the Senate as the Republican won the seat held by retiring GOP Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Cruz will become the third Hispanic in the Senate, joining Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla.

In Florida, Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson triumphed in his bid for a third term, holding off a challenge from Republican Rep. Connie Mack. Republican groups had spent heavily against Nelson early in the race, but the moderate Democrat was a prolific fundraiser with wide appeal among Democrats and some Republicans in the Panhandle. 
In West Virginia, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin won a full term even though his state went heavily for Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.