Ocassional Thoughts of an Independent Progressive Atheistic Humanist
Being a swing state I am being bombarded by political ads as we get closer to the 2012 elections. But I saw one this week that actually caught my interest and concisely summed up why President Obama should be re-elected. It was no surprise that the speaker in the ad was President Bill Clinton, the king of political media.
Monday August 27th starts the US Political silly season with the Republican National Convention in Tampa, FL followed on September 3rd with the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC. I will be barely paying attention to them as to me they are nothing but an expensive pep rally before the final three months of the campaign. Conventions lost their usefulness years ago and the only solace I have is the broadcast networks won’t be having gavel-to-gavel coverage. I’ve got better things to do.
I rarely agree with David Frum but on this issue I do:
This past Friday website ThinkProgress posted an article that noted that some Ohio counties had set different hours where one could vote during the state’s early voting period. The curious thing is that counties that are heavily Democratic will have shorter hours than Republican counties. When Democrats and the ACLU complained, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted refused to intervene to fix it but he did intervene to set up the inequality. Why doesn’t Jon Husted want equal access to early voting?
One part of political debate I like is using images to make a point. Whether it is a chart or a quote image, these graphics hold on to the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. They are also easy to share in social media. However one still needs to be careful one isn’t sharing inaccurate information. Don’t post or share any graphic unless you can confirm the accuracy of the information.
Earlier this year this chart was making the rounds of the blogs I read:
Just like during the budget fight last December, the ruling oligarchy took it to the last moment to agree on a deal on raising the debt ceiling. “Good” for them. The deal though is a solution looking for a problem.
As I have written before, cutting the budget now is stupid. It was stupid when it was done back at the end of last year.