National politics

Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman, the bald, goateed, year-round shorts and hoodie-wearing guy who beat Mehmet Oz in last year's midterm election after suffering a stroke, is severely depressed. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who suffered a near-fatal stroke in the midst of his campaign last year, checked himself into the hospital on Wednesday evening to receive treatment for clinical depression, a remarkable disclosure from a politician about mental health. The senator voluntarily admitted himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington at the recommendation of the attending physician of Congress, Brian P. Monahan, who on Monday evaluated the…

Recently I heard from someone opposed to the war in Ukraine. Their reasons sounded screwy to me, so I decided to fact-check what they said. It just took me a few minutes of Googling to debunk virtually all of their objections to the Ukraine war, which in my opinion, is totally justified -- since it was Putin, the autocratic leader of Russia, who invaded Ukraine about a year ago for no good reason. The United States, the European Union, and other allies are strong backers of the democratically-elected government of Ukraine against Putin's attempt to rekindle the bad old days…

For supposedly being one of the world's smartest people, Elon Musk sure can be amazingly dumb at times.  I follow Musk on Twitter so I get to see both his interesting tweets about Space X, Tesla, and such, and his crazy tweets about things Musk obviously knows nothing about. Or does know about, and lies about them anyway. Like, the war in Ukraine. Today I was astounded to see that Musk had replied to an obviously false tweet by Russian Market where it was claimed that thousands of NATO troops had died in Ukraine. Yeah, Elon, it would indeed be…

Being a baby boomer (I was born in 1948), my life as an American liberal has featured several wars that I opposed.  Notably the Vietnam and Iraq wars, at least the second Iraq war. I was fine with us going into Afghanistan to take down Al Qaeda and the first Iraq war seemed justified. Then there's been U.S. involvement in a bunch of military actions. Can't remember much about them. So by and large I've been in favor of less military spending. Up to now, my generation, unlike the generation of my mother and father, hasn't experienced a truly just…

If there was any doubt that I'm a political junkie, I offer as evidence how much I enjoyed watching MSNBC last night as Republicans flamed out on a dramatic 14th attempt to elect Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House, finally succeeding on the 15th try after the last GOP rebels voted "present" rather than for another candidate. I loved watching a fight nearly break out between two House Republicans. The conflicts in Yellowstone (TV series) are entertaining, but fictional. This was real life, beamed nationwide by CSPAN. The most dramatic moment by far came near the end — during…

Today was supposed to be when Kevin McCarthy achieved his dream of becoming Speaker of the House, second in line for the presidency (an admittedly scary thought). He'd already had his stuff moved into the Speaker's office. But McCarthy not only failed to be elected speaker by the new Republican House majority on the first vote, losing 19 members of his own party when he could only afford to lose four, McCarthy went down in flames on the second and third votes also, with 20 defectors on the third vote. So it was a day of Republican chaos in the…

This isn't the cheeriest time in Oregon. It's cold. We're approaching the shortest day of the year, so it's dark a lot. But imagine that a malevolent foreign power who wants to make Oregon part of their country was attacking our electricity infrastructure with missiles and drones, causing our state to suffer massive electrical blackouts in winter. And those attacks keep happening. As soon as we make repairs and get the lights and heat on again, the foreign power strikes another time, plunging a large share of Oregon's population back into cold and darkness. Oh, and to make matters worse,…

Like most Democrats, and indeed most Americans, I'm a strong supporter of abortion rights. The recent Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case which ruled that the Constitution protects a woman's right to choose an abortion, deeply irritates me. So does the weak response of Democratic leaders in Washington, especially since the leaked draft Supreme Court decision gave Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer plenty of time to formulate plans for protecting abortion rights after the court gave a green light to about half the states banning abortion entirely. Telling people, vote in November, is pretty much useless…

Before Putin invaded Ukraine, my attitude toward Russia was one of rather detached disinterest. I knew that Russia wasn't our friend, Trump had some sort of fatal attraction toward the country, Putin was an authoritarian who killed dissidents/journalists he didn't like, and it had a lot of oil and gas. But in no way did I hate Russia. Now I do.  Not the Russian people. Just that portion of the Russian populace responsible for carrying out the invasion of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin. The oligarchs who support him. The Russian military. Anyone else in Russia who knows about the horrendous war…