Archives for May 2012

Thom: Can Romney win by lying?

Obama on protecting a woman’s right to choose.

Newsy: Catholic church is investigating girl scouts.

Thom with The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.

Mitt Romney: Hot problems:

Thom: The right’s obsession with female body parts (i.e. the Republican War on Women™).

Jen: Shadowy organizations work to suppress the vote.

Daily Show on Space.

Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) and Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D) team up to do comedy.

Stephanie Cutter: Get the facts on Karl Rove’s BS.

Hey, good luck getting laid, Wisconsin State Senator Glenn Grothman.

Liberal Viewer: FAUX News fucks up on “liberal intolerance”.

Romney economics and the Bankruptcy and bailouts at GST Steel.

ONN: Republicans stalling Obama’s agenda by speaking & moving in slow motion.

Daily Show: Energy.

The Bane of Romney’s existence.

The Partisans: ZOMBIE AYN RAND:

Jen with Reich: The odd case of Romney praising Clinton.

Obama: One item on the #CongressToDoList.

Mitt Romney: “I stand by what I said, whatever it was.”

Gay Politics:

• Young Turks: FAUX’s Dr. Ablow is “a moron” for gay adoption comments
• Young Turks: NC on gay marriage.
• Sam Seder: RI Governor issues executive order recognizing same sex marriages
• Mark Fiore: Dogboy and Mr. Dan on gay marriage.
• Ann Telnaes: Mitt devolving.
• Sam Seder: Lesbian couple denied a driver.

Obama’s accomplishments on Higher education.

Newsy: Minority births outnumber white births for first time in history.

The GOP primary candidate performances embodied as butt plugs:

Thom with more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

Ann Telnaes: Firing up Romney.

Sam Seder: Someone gives Teh Birfers a bone.

ONN: Alabama hosts first desegregated mass suicide.

Alyona’s Tool Time Award: Bill-O’s “Income inequality is bull”..

Ed and Pap: Obama campaign finally gets tough on Romney.

The Wright Stuff:

• Young Turks: Herman Cain says Rev. Wright Smears are ‘Fair Game’ on FAUX News.
• Thom: Wright vs. Mormonism ?!?
• Young Turks: Sean Hannity says Romney ‘made a mistake’ by not using Rev. Wright.
• Buzz 60: Race returns as an issue.
• Young Turks: The Wingnut plan to bring back failed Rev. Wright strategy.
• Glenn Beck (remember him?) offers $150,000 for Rev. Wright ‘Obama’ box

Maddow Show: Ugly echoes of 2008 encroach on Romney message.

Young Turks: ‘Professor Cenk’ breaks down Bain Capital’s buyout of GST.

The Daily Show on mobile devices.

Sam Seder: Mitt will “stand by” what he said.

Thom: Why Common Cause is suing the U.S. Senate.

Jonathan Mann: Mitt Romney’s Mirthless Laugh:

Actual Audio: Mitt Romney on his high school prank.

Sam Seder: DOJ says it is your Constitutional right to video tape the police.

Pap: Republicans are the losers in the War on Terror.

Thom: Even more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

White House: West Wing Week.

Maddow Show: Improving economy undermining Romney’s message.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

The Post Office should be run more like a business than a lot of government agencies. But it still has a need to serve everyone in a way business never would. The Tacoma News Tribune disagrees about any of that public service crap.

The world changes. Heaven forbid that the U.S. Postal Service should change with it.

You can go on the Internet and print stamps right now. You can then go over and schedule a pickup. Just like when Franklin made it! If only they would advance with the times.

The USPS is supposed to operate like a business – which includes adapting to the real world – but the U.S. Senate has again made certain that it operate as a vehicle for patronage and political pandering. It has just pressured the organization into abandoning an emergency-cost cutting plan to close hundreds of money-losing post offices and mail-sorting centers nationwide, including several offices in Pierce County and the processing center on Pine Street in Tacoma.

What business funds its pension obligations 75 years into the future? But, no, the post office doesn’t have to be run just like a business. If they were, they’d probably try to stop FedEx and UPS from using zip codes because they’re propriety. Stamps would probably be a significant amount more. And the Postmaster general would be paid in the 7 or 8 figures. The Post Office is a public good that’s very different from a business. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t hard choices: there are. It just means that the calculus is different than if it were a private business.

Result: The postal unions and the nation’s remaining snail mail fans are happy. And the Postal Service – which has been losing $25 million a DAY – will keep on running immense losses unless Congress permits it to restructure itself for the 21st century.

And a result of the bad economy. Businesses are shipping less to fewer locations. The Internet exists so people aren’t sending as much mail (although I still get plenty of mail, including junk mail and legit correspondence). I doubt other shipping interests are doing well either, but they don’t work in the public interest.

On hold, too, is the USPS plan to end Saturday mail delivery – another fossil from the age when snail mail was the only game in town. Ending that tradition would have saved the system – and ultimately the taxpayers – royal sums of money. It would also have antagonized the people who don’t the status quo to change, ever.

Fair enough, but there are real consequences if the post office doesn’t run on Saturdays. Also, does whoever wrote this think the taxpayers are on the hook for the Post Office? Because, that’s not how it works:

In 1982, U.S. postage stamps became “postal products,” rather than a form of taxation. Since then, The bulk of the cost of operating the postal system has been paid for by customers through the sale of “postal products” and services rather than taxes.

Each class of mail is also expected to cover its share of the costs, a requirement that causes the percentage rate adjustments to vary in different classes of mail, according the costs associated with the processing and delivery characteristics of each class.

So I guess the good news is that the Post Office is already run more like a business than this article calling for it to be run like a business thinks. Anyway, I’m getting bored, but I’ll give you a terrible metaphor.

Communities defend their post offices like Rottweilers, and they terrify members of Congress who otherwise wouldn’t spend a penny bailing out an archaic mail system.

Rottweilers are well known for defending post offices and terrifying members of Congress.

Congratulations on finding a typo from the middle of George Herbert Walker’s administration. I’m sure this this typo, that if it was human would be able to vote, stacks up against the state of Hawaii saying he was born in that state, and showing his records. It stacks up against the birth announcements and the recollections of people who were there. I’m sure in your mind this is incontrovertible proof that Obama was born in Kenya.

But here’s the thing: even if he was born in Kenya*, he’s still a natural born citizen. You see, because of the 14th amendment, everyone born in the United States is an American citizen. That is not the only way you are a citizen at birth though — if it were, nobody would have been a natural born citizen until after the Civil War. Having an American mother who still holds her passport is fine. Unless your next step is to prove that his mother wasn’t an American**, this whole thing is moot.

XXOO,

Carl Ballard

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Thanks to everyone who sent me well-wishes last month. Baby Ava is doing great and despite being incredibly busy, I’m enjoying every second of it. Here are a few items on my mind these days:

– I just finished reading Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow“, an incredibly well-researched and well-argued book that explains how the war on drugs has created a new form of racial segregation very similar to the original Jim Crow laws of the south. The racial separation in the drug war comes from having much higher levels of drug law enforcement in black communities along with differences in prosecutorial discretion and the inability of many black drug defendant to adequately defend themselves from even totally bogus charges. The end result is a mass incarceration crisis with hundreds of thousands of black Americans saddled with felony convictions for the kinds of small-time drug violations that whites are almost never charged with.

I had this in mind as I heard the news today that THC was found in Trayvon Martin’s system after he was murdered. For a 17-year-old to have THC in his system is far from unusual, about a quarter of all teenagers have used pot in the past month. But because Martin was a young black man using marijuana, the likelihood of him being saddled with a felony for making that choice is significantly higher than it is for a white teenager. And once you’re saddled with that felony, finding employment, housing, and education becomes nearly impossible for the rest of your life. As Alexander points out in her book, people in that situation have all the doors of opportunity closed on them and usually fall into a criminal lifestyle and return to prison. The reality that her book should make clear is that even if George Zimmerman hadn’t ended Trayvon Martin’s life that night, there’s a good likelihood the war on drugs would’ve done it a short time later.

– I don’t think the lawsuit against the liquor privatization initiative has much of a chance of succeeding, but if it did, it would be really bad news for I-502, which also appears to do the “two separate things” that the liquor privatization initiative does. And for good measure, I-502 does a third thing, establish new DUI per se limits for marijuana. But again, I don’t expect this lawsuit to be successful. And as for the DUI issue, the Colorado legislature once again failed to pass a bill that would establish a 5ng/ml limit because of concerns over its lack of scientific backing.

– Scott Morgan has been wondering whether or not Romney would be worse for medical marijuana than Obama has been. As bad as Obama has been (and he’s been terrible), I could certainly envision Romney being worse. Particularly when it comes to U.S. Attorney appointments. Jenny Durkan hasn’t been as aggressive as some of Obama’s other USA’s in going after state-sanctioned medical marijuana distribution. Under Romney, it’s possible we could find someone far less progressive in that post. But it’s also possible he’d tap a progressive Republican in the Dan Satterberg mold. For those of us who actually want the DOJ to respect state marijuana laws, Gary Johnson is likely our only hope.

Howie has a great clip of Joe Biden. You should go over there and take a look at it. But I’m not sure the phrase “goes nuclear” that MEDIAite (where he got it from) describes it is really an accurate description. I mean he says the wealthy “don’t get it,” but “are not bad.” It seems to me that our discourse is broken if you’re wrong, but you’re still a good person is considered going nuclear.

The Congressional District conventions are this Sunday. If you’re a delegate, and don’t know where yours is, check your email or your mailbox, because I suspect someone is trying to find you and asking you to support them. Or you could check here. Anyway, I’m going to try to get in, and since people are calling me (hi) I thought I’d share the draft of it here. I obviously need to flesh it out a bit.

Hi, I’m running for delegate to the national convention. I’ve been involved in Democratic politics since I can remember. It seems there were always mailers being stuffed or precincts being walked when I was growing up.

Since I could vote, I supported Bill Bradley, Wes Clark, Hillary Clinton, and now Barack Obama in precinct caucuses. This is my first Congressional District convention.

In January 2004, before most people had heard of blogs, I started one, pseudonymously as Carl Ballard, called The Washington State Political Report. That lasted for several years, and now I write for Horse’s Ass, one of the largest liberal blogs in the state. If I’m at the convention, I’ll write up the experience. I’ll be honest, if you vote for me, I’ll probably swear the most while writing about the convention of any delegate.

When I started trying to be a delegate, I was hoping to get to the convention to push a marriage equality plank in the platform. It looked like that would be a real fight, but fortunately, it got a lot easier since Obama now supports marriage equality. But I’m still hoping to do what I can to make the platform as liberal as possible.

Thank you for your consideration.

– I know Reichert is safe, but the 8th Congressional District’s right turn has prompted a challenge from the right.

– Dennis Kucinich won’t run for Congress, so now people covering the 1st district will have to cover the actual candidates in the race.

– Americans Elect isn’t working out so well.

– Big Fat Love

– Maybe after his book on economic growth, George W. Bush can write a book about not going to war in Iraq.

– Bad publicity is like kryptonite to big corporations

– This is embarrassing, Daddy. Aren’t you a sportswriter?

I know this has been a bad week for Executive Constantine with the media. And every week is a bad week for Mayor McGinn with the media. But does anyone think the city and the county would be getting this good of a deal on the potential NBA/NHL arena if their predecessors were still in office?

Honestly, Ron Sims is as responsible as anyone for the bad deals we got on Safeco and Seahawks Stadium* and Greg Nickles attempts to keep the Sonics were perfectly willing to overspend public money. Of course it helps to have a willing, honest partner, and nothing has actually finished yet. We’re also in a different era where the appetite for public spending in this economy is less than it was a decade ago. Still, the elected officials are deserve a lot of credit for not giving away a lot of public money and still moving forward.

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In most business, when a company loses $2 Billion as part of its core business model, we usually let the market take care of things. Maybe have regulators look into it if the loss was caused by deceptive practices. But generally speaking, the market effects of their decision are a good enough punishment for whatever business. If a company loses $2 Billion and has to go in front of Congress or regulators, the worst part is generally the loss of money.

But banks are different for a few reasons. First, their role in the economy is different than other companies. The financing they provide is not the same as what most companies do. So they should be treated differently.

But even if you don’t buy that, surely, given that they are covered by the FDIC and have been given a fuckton of free money as an industry means that the banks have a different responsibilities to the general good than a manufacturing firm or a tech startup (that I think also have some responsibility, but not as much). As long as banks have the taxpayers funneling money to them, and acting as a backstop, they should act as models of responsibility.

But they haven’t been responsible. JPMorgan Chase isn’t even bothering to make original fuckups.

So, a few heads should roll. I still don’t understand why no CEO’s lost their jobs. We should also make sure the regulations are as tight as possible. Or at the very least, we could stop giving free money to the people who will just gamble it away.

Please join us tonight for another evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally. Tonight we’ll go out of our way to ignore the Oregon primary, given that the presidential primaries are settled and there isn’t even a Senate or gubernatorial race happening. But there is plenty of local, regional and national politics to keep us engaged for the evening.

We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm, but a few folks show up earlier for dinner.

Notice: Transpartisan Alliance Monthly Salon for May is “Earth’s Natural Resources: Power Down, Power Up, Power Over or Power With?” It’s this Wednesday, May 16, 6:30-9:30 PM in the Conference Room, Intiman Theater, Seattle Center. Panelists are Derik Andreoli-Energy Transitions Northwest (ETNW), David Wright-BCRA Design/Co-Founder-Sustainable Ballard, Rick Forschler-SeaTac City Council, and Joe Tomlinson-Physicist/Independent Researcher.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? There are other DL meetings this week. The Tri-Cities chapter of Drinking liberally meets every Tuesday night. Drinking Liberally Tacoma meets this Thursday.

Next Monday there are meetings of the Olympia, Yakima, and Shelton chapters.

With 232 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s a chapter near you.

– Maybe BP should, instead of buying elections, use the money to make sure they don’t have another Gulf disaster.

– The Seattle City Council wants an amendment to the Constitution to overturn Citizen’s United.

– Happy filing week

– John Stossel is going to do an anti-union hit piece at some point. I guess it’s a scandal that unions operate in buildings.

– DNC, WTF?

– No, Bubba Carpenter. Mississippi has NOT stopped abortion. You have only stopped SAFE abortion.

– Seattle just awarded grants for job training for immigrant and refugee youth and families.

– Seattle’s bike score: not great

Nick makes a good point about public transit being improved by smart phones.

They’ve made it more fun! When I worked at Microsoft ten years ago, you would occasionally see some twenty-something male bus rider with a Game Boy Advance. But no self-respecting person who’s not a twenty-something male geek would walk around with something like that. The [sic] will, however, walk around with an iPhone or Galaxy Nexus, which they can use to read news, play games, do crossword puzzles, or get some actual work done.

It has long puzzled me why The Seattle Times (for example, but it’s not the only daily paper where it’s true) is so hostile to public transit. I mean I usually write for HA on my laptop (like I’m doing now) when I’m on public transit. But people are always on their phones and reading newspapers and books.

Maybe it’s different for me because of the stories of my grandfather riding into New York City from Connecticut for decades. He started the day with The New York Times, and ended each day with the evening paper. Nowadays, my uncle takes the same route. He reads the paper every morning, and writes letters to his elected officials most evenings. You can’t really do that if you’re in traffic.

– I liked reading about social columns.

– Newsweek continues its tradition of brilliant, well thought out covers.

– How dare Obama campaign?

– I’m still having trouble — you know morally — wrapping my head around the GOP position on the Violence Against Women Act (h/t).

– I can get behind Bill Murray as FDR.

– The Austerions

Last week’s contest was won again by milwhcky. It was Springfield, MO.

Here’s this week’s contest, related to a TV show or a movie. Good luck!