I enjoy a good sex scandal as much as the next person. It is like watching a film or reading a novel, with a plot that is usually easy to follow, involving emotions and motivations that are easy to understand, and that can be viewed dispassionately because it does not affect one personally. What is surprising in real–life sex scandals is the amount of attention paid to the minutest details of something that usually has no serious consequences for anyone other than those actually involved. Of course, reasons will be trumped up (National security! Abuse of power! Need to uphold standards!) to give all this prurient probing a veneer of journalistic respectability. [Read more…]

The oligarchy is insatiable in its greed. Since 1980, they have enjoyed enormous gains in wealth at the expense of everyone else. In doing so, they were aided by both Republican and Democratic parties but in order to preserve any credibility with its base, the Democratic party had to oppose some of the more obvious money-grabs, such as more tax cuts for the rich or the gutting of regulatory agencies or the elimination of social safety nets such as health care, minimum wage laws, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. [Read more…]

How can it be that the US, with its long history of elections, its wealth, and technological prowess runs elections that many developing countries would be ashamed of and would result in their election officials being summarily fired? It is unconscionable that in a rich and advanced country like the US, the voting process is so incredibly clumsy and inefficient. [Read more…]

I understand the appeal of voting by mail. I did it once long ago when I was going to be out of town on election day. It was easy and relaxed but did not provide me with the same emotional satisfaction as actually going to the polls so I never repeated it. My polling place is within walking distance and voting on election day (at least in my area) is quick and easy, rarely taking more than fifteen minutes. [Read more…]

In the wake of the Republican defeat, the inevitable finger pointing has begun on the losing side to see who can be blamed and, even more importantly, to avoid blame. [Read more…]

While almost every election seems decisive and symptomatic of permanent changes, that is rarely the case. In recent elections, Democrats were thought to be dead after the 2004 election only to come roaring back to life in 2006 and 2008. It was the Republicans who were then thought to be dead and then the Tea Party brought them back in 2010. [Read more…]

I said that it became clear early on Tuesday evening that Barack Obama was going to win the election, from the way that certain states that were thought to be close (like Pennsylvania) were called early for Obama and those that were thought to be possibly trending to Romney were not called. [Read more…]