Poverty. I agree that this was a non-topic during the election

One of the reasons that poverty was not an issue is that poverty is generally associated with cities and the voters that the candidates were trying to attract lived in the suburbs, per In Debate on Domestic Policy, No Talk of Cities.  "Big cities typically vote Democratic, so national Republicans regard campaigning there as a waste of time, and Democrats feel they can take them for granted."

Poverty in the US and the world needs to be on the agenda.  Focus on the cities needs to be there as well.  Per CityMayorsStatistics "In 2008, the world reached an invisible but momentous milestone: For the first time in history, more than half its human population, 3.3 billion people, lived in urban areas. By 2030, this is expected to swell to more than five billion. Many of the new urbanites will be poor. Their future, the future of cities in developing countries, the future of humanity itself, all depend very much on decisions made now in preparation for this growth."

And

"Between now and 2030, the percentage of people living in urban areas will increase strongly in countries like Morocco, from 57 to 73 per cent; Indonesia, from 54 to 69 per cent; Nigeria, from 50 to 66 per cent; Bosnia, from 49 to 62 per cent; China, from 45 to 60 per cent; Sierra Leone, from 38 to 60 per cent; Pakistan from 37 to 50 per cent; Vietnam, from 29 to 42 per cent; Bangladesh, from 28 to 40 per cent and India, from 30 to 41 per cent.

Countries where more than 100 million people already live in urban areas include China (601 million), India (352 million), the USA (254 million), Brazil (169 million), Indonesia (129 million) and Russia (103 million)."


Per the CityMayorsStatistics, hunger and homelessness are the most pressing issues for US cities.  These problems will only increase if they are not addressed.

Country	1950 Urban population as percentage of total	2010 Urban population as percentage of total	2030 Urban population as percentage of total (Estimate)
Argentina	65.3	92.4	93.2
Australia	77.0	89.1	91.9
Bangladesh	4.2	28.1	39.9
Brazil	36.2	86.5	91.1
Canada	60.9	80.6	84.4
Chile	58.4	89.0	92.3
China	13.0	44.9	60.3
Egypt	31.9	42.8	53.9
Ethiopia	4.6	17.6	27.1
Finland	31.9	63.9	68.9
France	55.2	77.8	82.9
Germany	64.7	73.8	80.0
India	17.0	30.1	40.7
Indonesia	12.4	53.7	68.9
Iran	27.5	69.5	77.9
Israel	71.0	91.7	93.0
Italy	54.1	68.4	74.6
Kenya	5.6	22.2	33.0
South Korea	21.4	81.9	86.3
Malaysia	20.4	72.2	81.9
Mexico	42.7	77.8	82.8
Netherlands	56.1	82.9	88.6
Nigeria	11.6	49.8	66.0
Pakistan	17.5	37.0	49.8
Philippines	27.1	66.4	76.7
Poland	38.3	61.2	70.0
Portugal	31.2	60.7	71.4
Russia	44.2	72.8	75.7
Saudi Arabia	21.3	83.6	86.2
South Africa	42.2	61.7	71.3
Sweden	65.7	84.7	83.1
Switzerland	44.3	73.6	83.1
Syria	30.6	54.9	61.0
Thailand	16.5	34.0	45.8
Turkey	24.8	69.6	77.7
UK	79.0	90.1	92.2
USA	64.2	82.3	87.0
Venezuela	46.8	94.0	97.1
Vietnam	11.6	28.8	42.8

Gun Control, not a hot topic

Steven Barton, a shooting victim of last summer’s Aurora Colorado movie theater shooting, states that in the next presiden'ts term 48,000 people will be murdered with guns.  He appeared in an advertisement asking the presidental candidates to make gun control a national debate topic.




The candidates seem to agree in part in this brief discussion on gun control in the town hall debate.  The Fast and Furious scandal is brought up by Romney during the debate.  Interesting.
Obama earns three Pinocchios for his comments about Fast and Furious. His factual error sends a message that the previous administration is responsible for gun walking and Operation Fast and Furious.

A NYTimes blog states “The omission of guns might be shrugged off were it not for the fact that the debate took place in Denver, minutes by car from two of the worst massacres in modern American history — the shootings at Columbine High School in 1999 and at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., less than three months ago. To be in that corner of the country and make no mention of gun violence was somewhat like traveling to northern Japan and saying nothing about its nuclear crisis.”

 

Global Warming, "They don't see votes in it"

Global Warming- This is the first time since 1988 where this was not brought up during the debates.  The omission was noticed to a great extent and a website was set up to urge Obama and Romney to give Climate change the attention it had in in the 2008 election.

Articles offer various reasons why neither candidate was eager to bring up the subject.  The article US presidential debates' great unmentionable: climate change gives reasons for why Obama scaled back on his climate/green agenda and states it is due to anti-government conservatives pressuring Obama, leading to the administration downplaying the green agenda and delaying and weakening environmental regulations. It states that this also led to the adoption of what Obama called an "all of the above" energy strategy, which saw a role for expanded offshore oil drilling and domestic production, due to new techniques in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.

I enjoyed JonathanFranzen’s take on Obama and his presidency not being green. "I can understand your disappointment, but your hopes seem to me misplaced. I think he did the right thing in making the Affordable Care Act the centerpiece of his first term, and the economic catastrophe he inherited from George Bush made it simply impossible for him to take on climate change as well. But I do have some hope that he’ll do it in his second term."  He gives examples of what may have happened if Romney/Ryan had won.

What was the mass media’s role in the control of the discussion? After one debate CNN's Candy Crowley, the debate moderator,said that there had been questions from the audience about climate change, but she thought the economy was the priority.  "Climate change, I had that question," she was quoted as saying. "All you climate change people. We just, you know, again, we knew that the economy was still the main thing."

Many, like Candy, think climate change was trumped by the economy and jobs. Other believe it is now a special interest issue that need not be in the spotlight. This article lists Five Reasons to Talk Energy and Climate at the Foreign Policy Debate.  Shawn Otto, CEO of the non profit group ScienceDebate.org,which focuses on trying to inject discussions of science-based issues into presidential and other campaigns says "I've talked to political operatives, and they think science is a boutique issue, like changing to the metric system or something. They don't see votes in it."  And there lies the issue: no votes, no interest to the politicians.  Maybe those swing states aren't big climate change states.  You'd think Florida would be!

Democracy Now! hosted a debate between two third party candidates: Green Party's Jill Stein and Justice Party's Rocky Anderson.
They actually discussed the topics omitted from the Obama/Romney debates.  Rocky Anderson delivered a statement that many wanted to hear from the two major party candidates "The most important issue in terms of the long term impacts on the greatest number of people -- an absolute tragedy in the making -- is the climate crisis. And our nation -- although every science academy in the world agrees that this is a huge problem with horrendous consequences -- our government continues to abdicate its highest responsibility to provide international leadership on the climate crisis. And the most tragic part of this is the window of opportunity was very, very small the last 10 years to do anything about it, to save our children and later generations from experiencing the most catastrophic consequences of climate change."

And from Mother Jones Why No One Said the C-Word in the Debates

ScienceDebate.org persuaded the Obama and Romney campaigns to provide written answers to 14 science policy questions, carefully chosen by leaders of the scientific community to reflect their most pressing concerns.  There is one question focusing on climate.

I like this site..A selected history of political satire

And a question..."Satire has long been a tool of political criticism — but in a world where politics and faith are often intertwined should there be a limit to the freedom of expression?"

From Benjamin Franklin to Jon Stewart (some links do not work).

Oldest Political Satire & Political Satire used as protest

Per Wikipedia...

"The oldest example that has survived till today is Aristophanes. In his time satire targeted top politicians, like Cleon,^[1] and religion, at the time headed by Zeus. "Satire and derision progressively attacked even the fundamental and most sacred facts of faith," leading to an increased doubt towards religion by the general population.^[2] The Roman period, for example, gives us the satirical poems and epigrams of Martial while some social satire exists in the writings of Paul of Tarsus in the New Testament of the Bible.^{[citation needed]} Cynic philosophers often engaged in political satire."

"Political satire is a significant part of satire that specializes in gaining entertainment from politics; it has also been used with subversive intent where political speech and dissent are forbidden by a regime, as a method of advancing political arguments where such arguments are expressly forbidden.

Political satire is usually distinguished from political protest or political dissent, as it does not necessarily carry an agenda nor seek to influence the political process. While occasionally it may, it more commonly aims simply to provide entertainment. By its very nature, it rarely offers a constructive view in itself; when it is used as part of protest or dissent, it tends to simply establish the error of matters rather than provide solutions"

I like the comics!

Best of the year...THE GREAT ‘DOONESBURY’ ABORTION-STRIP ROUNDUP

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/comic-riffs/post/the-great-doonesbury-abortion-strip-roundup-from-animation-to-aberrations-heres-how-things-shook-out/2012/03/15/gIQAD0yUFS_blog.html

A web site of political cartoons http://townhall.com/political-cartoons/

Andy Cobb

I think Andy Cobb is funny!

I think I missed his bits during this election.