I love that a UW student won gold at the Paralympic games:
Meg Fisher won gold in the women’s road race time trial at the London Paralympic Games earlier this month.
A Physical Therapy doctorate student at UW, Fisher hails from Missoula, Montana. She documents her athletic endeavors on her blog and on Twitter at @GoMegFisher.
Today, she is at the White House getting hugs from our nation’s leaders:
Yesterday Jim McDermott introduced a bill aimed at making sure America has enough primary care doctors in the future. From his press release:
Modeled after the successful ROTC program, RDOCS offers full scholarships to medical students in exchange for a 5-year service commitment in a medically underserved area. RDOCS will be administered by the states, which will send RDOCS scholars to their state-operated medical schools. RDOCS officers (as they are known after graduation) will then become licensed and serve as primary-care doctors in their state of residence. The program is authorized to start immediately and begin graduating its first additional 4,000 new primary-care doctors in 2020, and 20,000 new doctors by 2024.
McDermott added, “Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, we are going to get close to universal health coverage in the United States. But universal coverage will not be meaningful if we don’t have enough doctors to serve our population. I am optimistic that Congress can demonstrate leadership in restoring our doctor workforce for the next generation.”
Fantastic. This is yet another way we’re going to have to make sure the Affordable Care Act works. We’re going to have to make sure there are enough doctors in the country. But, of course, the Republicans control the House of Representatives, so Joel Connelly isn’t sure about its ability to pass.
McDermott is a senior member of the tax-writing House Ways & Means Committee. When Democrats held a majority, he co-authored (with Republican Rep. Jerry Weller of Illinois) legislation that enacted a sweeping overhaul of foster care in America.
The fate of RDOCs, in a polarized House, is less certain. The House is spending less than one-third of 2012 in session.
Sure, that too. I don’t have anything like a whip count, but it seems like a worthy thing.
I’ve been pretty critical of I-502, the initiative that legalizes possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for those 21 and over and regulates its production and sale. I’m not happy about the unscientific DUI provisions (which I think will be abused in order to continue the typical drug war harassment of minority youths and others), and I worry that the high taxes imposed within the supply chain – along with the continued ban on non-medical private growing – will continue to encourage a rogue “medical” marijuana industry, where sketchy doctors get paid to put recreational smokers on the path towards cheaper tax-free homegrown marijuana. If we’re going to be pioneers and establish a regulatory model that can serve as an example for other states, that makes me nervous.
Those problems aside, passing I-502 this November has the potential to be a massive game-changer in the history of drug prohibition in this country. The conventional wisdom is that any statewide vote to legalize marijuana will go as far as statewide efforts to legalize hemp farming (which is legal in several U.S. states, but still successfully pre-empted by federal law). On the other hand, we’ve seen statewide efforts to legalize medical marijuana successfully push back against the federal ban to the point where dispensaries have become public and even prominent.
Passing I-502 brings that conflict out in the open, and there’s good reason to believe that the dynamics would be similar to what’s happened with medical marijuana. As legalized medical marijuana became a reality in a number of states, it became clear to public officials that this legal market should be regulated, rather than continually driven underground. This led to greater and greater pushback from state and local governments. And even though both idiots running for governor this year oppose I-502, this reality will be clear to them if it passes and there are hundreds of thousands of law-abiding recreational marijuana users who constitute a very above-ground marketplace.
I’ve been disgusted at times by both sides in the I-502 debate. Pro I-502 voices have often been far too dismissive of the potential problems with the DUI provisions and have been far too prone to make things up about the folks in the medical marijuana community who oppose it. Opposition to I-502 in the medical marijuana community has very little to do with greed. It has far more to do with paranoia.
Folks who’ve been staring into the gun barrel of the drug war apparatus for years see the numerous aspects of I-502 that are meant to appeal to moderate voters and instead see loopholes that will allow the persecution of marijuana users to continue. As a result, the anti I-502 crowd has devolved into some grand delusions and have completely lost touch with the more nuanced reality of this initiative.
This initiative arguably isn’t crafted as well as it should have been, but it still has the potential to make important history this fall. In some ways it already has, by picking up the kinds of endorsements that these types of initiatives normally don’t receive. But a big win in November is the kind of endorsement that elected officials here and in D.C. won’t be able to ignore.
| Obama | Romney |
| 97.9% probability of winning | 2.1% probability of winning |
| Mean of 306 electoral votes | Mean of 232 electoral votes |
Now that both conventions have come and gone and the post-convention polls are coming out, it’s a good time to assess the “score” in the 2012 Presidential Election.
My previous Monte Carlo analysis of the race was posted ten days ago (between the two conventions) and showed President Barack Obama leading Governor Mitt Romney by a mean of 305 to 233 electoral votes. An election held then would be expected to end in Obama’s favor with a 97.2% probability. Romney had a 2.8% probability of winning.
Thirty two new state head-to-head polls covering 18 states have been released since then:
| start | end | sample | % | % | % | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| st | poll | date | date | size | MOE | O | R | diff |
| AZ | PPP | 07-Sep | 09-Sep | 993 | 3.1 | 44 | 53 | R+9 |
| CA | SurveyUSA | 09-Sep | 11-Sep | 524 | 4.3 | 57.4 | 34.9 | O+22.5 |
| CO | Keating | 10-Sep | 11-Sep | 503 | 4.4 | 49 | 44 | O+5 |
| CO | PPP | 31-Aug | 02-Sep | 1001 | 3.1 | 49 | 46 | O+3 |
| FL | Rasmussen | 12-Sep | 12-Sep | 500 | 4.5 | 48 | 46 | O+2 |
| FL | Marist | 09-Sep | 11-Sep | 980 | 3.1 | 49 | 44 | O+5 |
| FL | Mclaughlin & Assoc | 09-Sep | 10-Sep | 600 | 4.0 | 47 | 50 | R+3 |
| FL | SurveyUSA | 07-Sep | 09-Sep | 596 | 4.1 | 48.2 | 44.5 | O+3.7 |
| FL | Gravis Marketing | 02-Sep | 02-Sep | 1288 | 2.7 | 46.7 | 48.0 | R+1.3 |
| IL | WeAskAmerica | 05-Sep | 05-Sep | 1382 | 2.8 | 54 | 37 | O+17 |
| MI | EPIC/MRA | 08-Sep | 11-Sep | 600 | 4.5 | 47 | 37 | O+10 |
| MI | PPP | 31-Aug | 02-Sep | 1001 | 3.4 | 51 | 44 | O+7 |
| MN | PPP | 10-Sep | 11-Sep | 824 | 3.4 | 51 | 44 | O+7 |
| MN | SurveyUSA | 06-Sep | 09-Sep | 551 | 4.3 | 49.6 | 40.4 | O+9.3 |
| MO | Rasmussen | 11-Sep | 11-Sep | 500 | 4.5 | 45 | 48 | R+3 |
| MT | PPP | 10-Sep | 11-Sep | 656 | 3.8 | 45 | 50 | R+5 |
| NH | U NH | 04-Sep | 10-Sep | 592 | 4.0 | 45 | 40 | O+5 |
| NJ | Quinnipiac | 27-Aug | 02-Sep | 1471 | 2.6 | 51 | 44 | O+7 |
| NM | PPP | 07-Sep | 09-Sep | 1122 | 2.9 | 53 | 42 | O+11 |
| NM | Research & Polling | 03-Sep | 06-Sep | 667 | 3.8 | 45 | 40 | O+5 |
| NY | Quinnipiac | 04-Sep | 09-Sep | 1486 | 2.5 | 62 | 34 | O+28 |
| NC | PPP | 07-Sep | 09-Sep | 1087 | 3.0 | 49 | 48 | O+1 |
| NC | SurveyUSA | 04-Sep | 06-Sep | 500 | 4.5 | 43 | 53 | R+10 |
| OH | Rasmussen | 12-Sep | 12-Sep | 500 | 4.5 | 47 | 46 | O+1 |
| OH | PPP | 07-Sep | 09-Sep | 1072 | 3.0 | 50 | 45 | O+5 |
| OH | Gravis Marketing | 07-Sep | 08-Sep | 1548 | 2.7 | 47.3 | 43.2 | O+4.1 |
| OH | Gravis Marketing | 02-Sep | 02-Sep | 1381 | 2.9 | 43.7 | 46.8 | R+3.1 |
| TX | WPA | 09-Sep | 11-Sep | 1000 | 3.1 | 40 | 55 | R+15 |
| VA | Marist | 09-Sep | 11-Sep | 996 | 3.1 | 49 | 44 | O+5 |
| VA | Gravis Marketing | 08-Sep | 09-Sep | 2238 | 2.2 | 44.0 | 49.4 | R+5.4 |
| WA | PPP | 07-Sep | 09-Sep | 563 | — | 53 | 42 | O+11 |
| WA | SurveyUSA | 07-Sep | 09-Sep | 524 | 4.4 | 54.4 | 37.6 | O+16.8 |
I’ll only discuss a few states.
In Colorado, Obama takes both new polls, but by modest margins. Colorado seems to have settled for Obama by a small margin:
Five new polls from Florida ought to be enough to tell us who’s ahead. But, no: Obama takes three and Romney takes two. This gives us a total of 12 “current polls” (i.e. those taken in the past month), and in aggregate, Romney comes up with an advantage. In an election now, Romney would take Florida with about an 80% probability.
Obama takes both new Michigan polls by fairly nice margins. There are a total of seven “current polls” for the state—all but two go to Obama—and Obama won 94% of the simulated elections in the state.
Obama seems to have Minnesota pretty well locked up, with the new polls.
The new Missouri poll give Romney a small +3% lead over Obama. We have four other “current” Missouri polls from August. Romney takes all but one. Unless there is some kind of post convention second thoughts coming from the state’s voters, Romney looks likely to win the state.
Romney takes the latest Montana poll by just +5%. The previous poll, from mid-August had Romney up by +17%.
Obama turns in a weak +5% performance In New Hampshire, suggesting he only has an 81% chance of taking the state now.
In New Mexico, Obama is as strong as anywhere. The two new poll have him at +11% and +5%. The older current poll from mid-August is a +14%.
Two new North Carolina polls offer dissimilar pictures. The PPP poll offers Obama a +1% edge over Romney, but the Survey USA poll done for the Civitas Institute (a very right-wing state “think tank”) has Romney up by +10%. The Survey USA poll was taken during the convention and the PPP poll was taken after, so one could argue that there is a post-convention bounce for Obama. But the evidence to support that is vanishingly thin. The polling for the past month gives one poll to Obama, two ties, and four to Romney. Overall, the evidence still supports a good Romney advantage in the state. Here is all the polling in a nicepicture:
Four new Ohio polls split three to one for Obama. The three Obama polls are all post-convention. Romney’s poll is pre-convention. The nine polls taken over the past month go five for Obama, two for Romney and two ties. The evidence gives Obama a slightly stronger advantage in Ohio than Romney has in North Carolina.
The Virginia split, giving Obama a +5% in one and Romney a +5.4% in an even larger poll. The other three current polls go one for Obama, one for Romney and one tie. The state is still really, really, close, although Romney wins about 68% of the simulated elections.
Two Washington polls offer no surprises: Obama dominates with a double-digit lead. End of story.
With all those new polls, a Monte Carlo analysis of 100,000 simulated elections, gives Obama 97,854 wins and Romney 2,146 wins (including the 239 ties). Obama receives (on average) 306 (+1) to Romney’s 232 (-1) electoral votes. These results suggest that, for an election held now, Obama would have a 97.9% (+0.5%) probability of winning and Romney, a 2.1% (-0.5%) probability of winning.
In other words, little has changed in the past ten days. Obama still maintains a solid lead in the electoral college vote. It is interesting to note that the popular vote (as assessed by national polls) seems to be swinging in Obama’s direction now as well.
The long term trends in this race can be seen from a series of elections simulated every seven days using polls from 13 Sep 2011 to 13 Sep 2012, and including a one month polling window (FAQ).
Compared to 2008, this is not a very dynamic race.
Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
[Read more…]
I was not aware of the Washington Safe Routes to School program before today.
Washington’s Safe Routes to School program provides technical assistance and resources to cities, counties, schools, school districts and state agencies for improvements that get more children walking and bicycling to school safely, reduce congestion around schools, and improve air quality.
But as these things go far too often, I’m only hearing about this worthwhile program as it faces going away. Transportation for Washington are trying to save it, and they have a letter you can send to Governor Gregoire.
Right now, Governor Gregoire has a choice. She can slash funding that gives tens of thousands of children the opportunity to walk and bike to school. Or she can keep funding the state’s Safe Routes to School program that improves our children’s safety and health. The Governor must make her decision by October 1.
Yes, I know: there are so many great, so many worthy programs out there. And they’re all in trouble in the current economic climate, and bullshit way we raise revenue in this state slower than economic growth. But, this is a worthy program, and I think it deserves the fight too.
My advice, as always, when an activist group has a form letter is to make it your own. Especially the first line or two, because the intern or staffer who is getting a bunch of these has already read the letter as a form letter, and the more you just copy and paste, the less they’re inclined to read it again.
– Mitt Romney is a despicable person.
– And some of his supporters are even more out of touch than he is.
– I, for one, welcome our new rodent overloads.
– You take an anti-choice vote, you get opposition from NARAL. Not sure why anyone would be surprised by that.
– Drug Dealers (Not Just Users) Are Testing Their Cocaine for Levamisole
– I know Bible Study is the way HA generally deals with taking a verse out of context. But Fred Clark does a great job addressing the anti-gay clobber verses in these two posts.
Yesterday a new Survey USA poll (for KING 5) was released in the Washington state gubernatorial race. The poll of 524 likely voters (4.4 MOE), based on a mixed land line and cell phone sample, was taken from the 7th to the 9th of this month.
The poll shows Inslee leading McKenna by 49% to 44%.
A Monte Carlo analysis using a million simulated elections based on this polling finds that, if the election was today, Inslee would have an 80% probability of winning. Here is the distribution of simulated outcomes:
This is pretty good news for Jay Inslee and suggests that his campaign has “turned it around.” McKenna led Inslee for most of the polling before July, but Inslee has now led in three consecutive polls:
The previous poll, taken last month by Survey USA, had Inslee up by +3% points, and a 70% probability of winning then. We’ve had a primary since then. It is always risky to read too much into our top two primary results simply because the voting populations are different. Even so, the gubernatorial primary was practically a head-to-head election between McKenna and Inslee. Inslee received a +4% larger share of the votes than McKenna got.
There is one thing that stands out in the crosstabs. To the question, “Which candidate do you think is more likeable personally?” Inslee bests McKenna by 43% to 30%.
This race has been considered one of the most competitive gubernatorial races in the country. Maybe not so much anymore.
There are three other head-to-head races in the poll:
And, finally, there were a few other ballot measures polled as well:
It seems like for as long as I can remember, People For Puget Sound have been a part of the environmental community. Putting pressure and getting things done for the good. So it’ll be sad to see them go.
Despite these achievements, People For Puget Sound is at a crucial juncture. Recent and current economic realities have constrained our ability to raise necessary funds to keep the organization moving forward independently. In light of these difficult economic circumstances and the urgent need to continue our work, the board of directors has determined that the best course of action in service to our mission is to transition our programs to other organizations that embrace our commitment to Puget Sound. We are pleased to share that we are in the process of negotiating with two well-respected organizations that will enable our work to continue into the future.
We are planning to add our policy expertise, grassroots strength, advocacy, and education know-how to expand Washington Environmental Council’s work to protect Puget Sound. We are also in discussions about transitioning our restoration projects to EarthCorps, a long-term People For Puget Sound partner, which would enable them to expand their portfolio of projects in Puget Sound. Both of these venerable organizations are passionate about stopping the flow of polluted runoff into the Sound, restoring critical habitat, protecting shorelines, and preserving Puget Sound for generations to come. We are confident that they will be able to efficiently and effectively carry our mission forward.
Please join us tonight for an evening of politics and conversation over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.
We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier for Dinner.
Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities and Vancouver, WA chapters meet, and Thursday night Drinking Liberally Bremerton meets.
With 227 chapters of Living Liberally, including thirteen in Washington state four in Oregon and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter that meets near you.
– Remember how Bush kept us safe.
– The City Council will support the SoDo arena.
– The second picture has been linked to by both conservatives and liberals I know as proof of something, something Joe Biden.
– It’ll surely be in the next poll analysis, but Obama is up by 16 in Washington.
– As I said at the outset of the GOP convention, I think the conventions are still worthwhile. But there’s still room for improvement in the coverage.
Rob Mckenna’s campaign was asked about why they exclude The Stranger (and God Bless the reporter who asked it). It seems the fact that Dan Savage gave Jay Inslee’s campaign money and the fact Goldy is technically in charge of a PAC that hasn’t done anything in several years, that the whole paper should be considered biased against them.
Maybe. But if you’re a human, it’s impossible not to be biased. So one of The Stranger’s reporters wears, or several years ago wore, that on his sleeve. If he’s not fair on those calls or press conferences, well the rest of the media there will see that.
And look, I’m not sure how much news actually gets generated at press conferences and phone ins to the campaign staff, really. I mean this is the first time in a while I can remember something from one of these making the news.
Further, McKenna can run his campaign however he wants. It’s not his official office. But if he wants to run it like a whiny, pathetic baby, well, people are going to notice.
– It’s going to be a long season if the Seahawks can’t even win with a free timeout from the scab refs.
– It’s Time to Freak Out About Climate Change
– The Battle Cry of Freedom is a Republican song, but maybe it’s time for the Democrats to appropriate it.
– I wouldn’t say it’s time for a new party, but Democrats should embrace their urban ideals.
– A call for help putting up flags at the West Seattle Junction.
– I saw Samsara at Cinerama over the weekend, and it was quite spectacular.
Last week’s contest was won by wes.in.wa. It was Coeur d’Alene, ID.
This week’s is related to a TV show or a movie, good luck!
[HA Bible Study is on hiatus through the November election as we honor Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney by studying the scriptures of his Mormon religion.]
Pearl of Great Price, Abraham 3:9
And thus there shall be the reckoning of the time of one planet above another, until thou come nigh unto Kolob, which Kolob is after the reckoning of the Lord’s time; which Kolob is set nigh unto the throne of God, to govern all those planets which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.
Discuss.
White House: West Wing Week.
Roy Zimmerman: Citizens United:
Thom: Are Americans better off than 30 years ago when the the Reaganomics experiment started?
The Democratic National Convention:
Indicision’s attack ad against FOX News.
Thom with more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.
Rob McKenna’s supersleuths uncover a secret video of Jay Inslee bulldozing. Oh…that smarts!
Willard!
Ann Telnaes: Are Democrats the new G.O.P.?
Obama’s beer recipes revealed.
Red State Update: Jackie talks to Obama’s chair:
Pharmaceutical Ad: “Legitimate Rape”.
Palin Around With Terrorists:
Thom with The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.
Ann Telnaes: A conservative view of the American Worker.
Roy Zimmerman: Vote Republican, West Virginia edition.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!