Current affairs

Thanks to a fellow Tai Chi student who didn't take Obama's groan-inducing performance (if you're a progressive) at the first 2012 presidential debate as seriously as I did, today I learned about a Taiwanese animation that takes a humorous view of the Romney-Obama bout. Have a look. And a read of the subtitles, unless your Chinese is a lot better than mine.   It was healing to smile my way out of the pain I've been feeling as, day by day, Obama's re-election chances take another downward tilt on Five Thirty Eight. He's down to 68%, a big drop from the…

Oh, great. Not! Just what I didn't want to read at the end of an otherwise splendid sunny warm rainless Oregon day. Nate Silver's overview of where the presidential race stands. Following another day of strong polling on Tuesday, Mitt Romney advanced into the best position in the FiveThirtyEight forecast since the party conventions.  ...The forecast model is not quite ready to jump on board with the notion that the race has become a literal toss-up; Mr. Romney will need to maintain his bounce for a few more days, or extend it into high-quality polls of swing states, before we…

On the slight chance that this blog rant will be read by a social media Democratic campaign fundraiser, here's some tips for you from a progressive who is getting irritated at your current tactics. My wife and I already have given quite a bit of money to Obama for America, the Congressional Democratic campaign committees, and some individual candidates like Elizabeth Warren. Plus, we've donated in support of Oregon Dems. We're more inclined to give when we feel that campaigns are doing the best they can, with energy and enthusiasm, to defeat Republican efforts to return us to the not-good-old…

After I finished watching a recording of the first Obama-Romney debate last night, I said to my wife (who saw it live at a friend's house), "I think Obama did fine." Then I watched the MSNBC commentary. Almost universally the liberal commentators, along with the conservative ones, said Obama's debate performance was a disaster. After listening to them for a while, I started to change my mind about how well he did. But with the light of a new day, and further pondering of what went on during the debate, I'm back to feeling good about Obama. Yes, he wasn't…

The Republican Party has a problem with reality: it denies it. I'm not saying that all Republicans do this. But G.O.P. leaders sure do, along with a much higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats. Evolution and global warming are prime examples of G.O.P. head-in-the-sand'ness. Now political polls can be added to the reality-denying list.  Nearly every national poll shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney. Gallup, Ipsos and Bloomberg all have the president up by six points. The RAND Corporation puts Mr. Obama up by seven and a half. Only Rasmussen has Mr. Romney up nationally among likely voters, by two points. Swing…

As of today... Gallup says Obama's job approval is 51% positive, 43% negative. Gallup says Obama is favored over Romney among registered voters by 50% to 44%. Five Thirty Eight says Obama has an 82% chance of winning the presidency, Romney 18%. Obama doesn't have a lock on the election. Romney could make a comeback. It's just increasingly difficult to see what could markedly change in Romney's favor between now and November. The debates? Good luck with that, Romney and Ryan. Obama and Biden are much more likely to extend their lead after the first few debates, in my decidedly optimistic progressive…

If you're an Oregonian who is unsure about how to vote on Measure 80, which would regulate, tax, and manage marijuana sales/use for adults 21 and over in our state, have a listen to this segment of OPB's "Think Out Loud." (click on the MP3 file link below)  Oregon Marijuana Legalization Yesterday Roy Kaufmann (spokesman for Measure 80) and John Trumbo (Umatilla County Sheriff) had an intelligent, respectful, thoughtful discussion about marijuana legalization. Kudos also to the moderator, Dave Miller. Great job educating the public by all three, plus those who phoned in with cogent comments. I support Measure 80.…

There's a good chance Washington state will legalize the sale and use of marijuana this November. A few weeks ago a poll showed Initiative I-502 with 57% "yes" and 34% "no" among likely voters. Measure 80 here in Oregon looks less likely to pass.  It takes a more liberal approach to marijuana legalization, which seems to be one reason large donors haven't chipped in money to support the measure as they have in Washington and Colorado. This November, voters in Oregon and Washington will decide whether to legalize marijuana. The Washington effort is backed by some deep-pocketed national donors. But…

Mitt Romney's chance of being elected president is steadily declining. Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy. Not only do Romney's policies make no sense (insofar as they've been explained), but he's a habitual shader of the truth. More bluntly put, a liar. So says PolitiFact about his newest falsehood: a claim that "redistribution" has "never been a characteristic of America." That lie gets him a Pants on Fire ruling. We wondered whether Romney was correct to say that "redistribution" has "never been a characteristic of America." So we checked with historians and economists. Most agreed that Romney was ignoring the…

For a supposedly religious guy, Mitt Romney is remarkably uncaring and uncompassionate. This has been evident throughout his public campaigning, but it became super obvious when remarks to a bunch of rich donors he thought would be private popped up on You Tube.   This is the heart of Romney's heartlessness: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who…

If there ever was any doubt that Mitt Romney is unfit to lead this nation, his ham-handed, lying, insensitive attempt to discredit Obama's response to the attacks on our consulates in Libya and Egypt proves it.  The gunfire at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, had barely ceased when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney seriously mischaracterized what had happened in a statement accusing President Barack Obama of "disgraceful" handling of violence there and at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. "The Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the…

Another day, another Mitt Romney falsehood. It turns out that, contrary to what he said on yesterday's Meet the Press interview, Romney doesn't want to preserve the Obamacare prohibition on denying people health insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions.  This is what Romney said: “Well, I’m not getting rid of all of health care reform,” Romney said on NBC’s  ”Meet the Press.”  ”Of course, there are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I’m going to put in place.  One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage.  But this isn't true. His campaign staff…

Falsehoods about the Chevy Volt just keep on coming. Earlier this year Fox News and Charles Krauthamer lied about non-existent fires in Volts. Now renewable energy haters, global warming deniers, and the anti-Obama crowd are crowing about a Reuters story that claims GM loses as much as $49,000 on each Chevy Volt it builds. Problem is, this isn't true. Reuters admits that it divided the billion dollars or so in development costs by the number of Volts sold through August. That's crazy. After someone sent me an email about this supposedly shocking news, I replied to him with: Somebody makes…

Oh, yeah, my progressive psyche is feeling much better now -- after watching the Republicans stumble through their convention while the Democrats soared in theirs.  Beforehand I'd worried that the G.O.P. could pull off a miracle: make Romney-Ryan appear both likable and sensible. Didn't happen. On Friday, a day after the Dem convention closed, a poll was released showing Obama crushing Romney on likability. Asked who was the more likable candidate, 52 percent of registered voters surveyed favored Obama compared to 29 percent for Romney. Among independents, Obama enjoyed a likability advantage of 50 percent to 22 percent for Romney. Obama…

This won't change many (if any) Republican minds, because mistrust of science has become a foundational G.O.P. position. Facts, after all, are inconvenient when unsupported assertions are the central presidential campaign strategy. Nonetheless, here's a passage that I came across this morning in Iain McGilchrist's fascinating book, "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World." McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, philosopher, and expert in how the human brain functions. Here he alludes to the impossibility of any man or woman being an island sufficient to him/herself. Or of building anything unaided, including a business. "You…