Archives for November 2012

Red State Update: Mad Obama won.

SlateTV: Ron Paul, “Secession is a deeply American principle”.

Martin Bashir: But wasn’t it Romney who was offering the most “free stuff”?

Sam Seder: Linda McMahon screws campaign staff with bounced checks (and condoms).

Thom and Pap: Is this the death of the GOP?

Touré: The GOP’s modern version of the Southern Strategy.

The Twinkie Blues:

• Hostess Love Song:
• Jonathan Mann: The Twinkie Kid and King Ding Dong are Dead.
• Ed: The vultures and the twinkies.
• SlateTV: No more Twinkies.
• Sam Seder: So long, Twinkies!

Ezra Klein: Some numerology with Mitt Romney’s 47..

SlateTV: Mitt Romney was right about the 47%…in a way.

Maddow: Misguided rich idiots try shaving Income to under $250,000 to ‘avoid taxes’:

Young Turks: Jon Stewart versus Bill-O the Clown.

Daily Show correspondents explain Constitutional amendments.

Sharpton: Allen West Finally Concedes.

McCain and Company:

• Maddow: Bitter, sputtering, and wrong…that would be John McCain.
• Sharpton: McCain and friends use ‘racist code words’ in attacking Amb. Susan Rice.
• Ed: Bosom buddies McCain & Graham won’t let go of Libya witch hunt.
• Maddow: The troubles with McCain.
• Ed: Are these racist “code words”?
• Maddow: McCain and the GOP’s basic lack of foreign policy incompetence. Part I
• Maddow: McCain and the GOP’s basic lack of foreign policy incompetence. Part II

Ed: Henry Winkler talks pro-Obama politics.

Ezra Klein: Are Republicans losing their fidelity and devotedness to Grover Norquist?

Liberal Viewer: Did Jesus die for Klingons?

Sam Seder: Marco Rubio on the age of the earth.

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

The G.O.P. Voter Suppression Programme:

• Young Turks: Many threats to voter’s rights remain!
• Ed: Ohio Republicans are already scheming to suppress the vote in 2016
• Maddow: Florida, Wisconsin, and Ohio’s War on Voting™.
• Sharpton: WI Gov. Scott Walker takes aim at voting laws
• Thom and Pap: Federalize voting standards now!

FAUX News’ Scariest Christmas Ever (via TalkingPointsMemo).

Red State Update: Time to secede!

Maddow: The spectacularly wrong clown from ‘Unskewed Polls’ thinks he’s onto massive ‘voter fraud’.

Ezra Klein: ObamaCare is here to stay.

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

Happy Thanksgiving, dear Reader. And thanks for all the unique IP hits, page views, and comments over the past year.

Here is a Thanksgiving-themed collection of media clips and open thread, best explored in a tryptophan stupor….

Larry David’s Thanksgiving special.

Suzie Sampson: Thanksgiving and post election sad:

Obama pardons turkeys.

SlateTV: PETA to Obama, “don’t bother with that pardon.”

When turkey’s attack!

BEST THANKSGIVING CLIP EVAR!!!: The Thanksgiving Massacre!:

Raw food Thanksgiving.

Jennifer Granholm: much to be thankful for!

Jimmy Fallon’s Thanksgiving Do Not Read list.

Mark Fiore: Thanks, Turkey!

Learn about Canadian Thanksgiving!

Jonathan Mann: Zombie Turkey:

Jimmy Fallon: Pros and cons of the Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade.

Sam Seder: Thanksgiving with your “independent” relatives.

It’s over now. Go wash the dishes….

Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) released a joint statement today:

“We commend Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders for the role they played in reaching today’s ceasefire. We also are encouraged by the responsible leadership role played by the President of Egypt and his government. President Morsi deserves credit for successfully bringing an end to the violence and preventing further loss of life on both sides.

So…Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been shuttling like mad between Jerusalem and Cairo to broker this agreement. What do the three Senators have to say for the Obama Administration’s efforts?

Above all, the recent fighting in Gaza underscores that this is a moment in history when the future of the Middle East has never been less certain – and when the actions or inaction of the United States will be critical to determining what path this vital region takes. …[W]hat happens in the Middle East will impact America’s vital national security interests for the foreseeable future, and stronger, smarter American leadership is desperately needed. There is no pivoting away from that fact.

Wait…so, they are praising leadership coming from Israel and Egypt, and they turn around and, essentially, apologize for the weak and dumb American leadership?

That’s, like…practically an apology tour!

Why do these three stooges hate America?

Goldy nails it:

Regardless of whether McKenna really is a different-kinda-Republican, the very fact that he relied on this image to pacify voters is a tacit admission that 21st century Republicanism remains outside the mainstream of Washington politics.

– Happy Thanksgiving.

– Nobody drive on 520.

– Bob Schieffer, Dana Milbank, and needless to say MoDo are trying to sell the pseudo-scandal. I rest my case.

– Good logic from Glenn Reynolds.

– Alan West really doesn’t want to give up being in Congress.

– Trail maps on a bike rack is a great idea.

– Please! Not in the voting booth!

Uh-oh. It looks like the looney-tune Wingnut brigade is going to have to find some other “thing” to call a White House “scandal” (source):

CBS News has learned that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) cut specific references to “al Qaeda” and “terrorism” from the unclassified talking points given to Ambassador Susan Rice on the Benghazi consulate attack – with the agreement of the CIA and FBI. The White House or State Department did not make those changes.

As Paul Waldman pointed out last week, the Republicans have a serious problem—Obama has nearly completed his first term, and their isn’t a real White House scandal anywhere in sight. Oh, sure, we had “beer summit-gate,” and then the moral fabric of our society was nearly put through the shredder by Biden’s “Big Fucking Deal!” But somehow the public responded with an amused or bemused smile and a vote for Obama—Biden.

This leaves the Republicans with a chronic case of scandal envy. (Oh…the humanity!) I mean, the Benghazi thing is, obviously, entirely vacuous. Suppose the White House had changed Ms. Rice’s qualified (and, in retrospect, partially wrong) assessment of the situation. Who gives a shit? What difference does it make? Waldman sums it up thusly:

If you’re looking at the Republican harumphing over Benghazi and asking yourself, “Why are we supposed to be so mad about this again?” you’re not alone. Let’s review: There was an attack on our consulate that killed four Americans, including our ambassador. Amid confusing and contradictory reports from the ground, President Obama waited too long to utter the magic incantation, “Terrorism, terrorists, terror!” that would have … well, it would have done something, but it turns out that he did say “terror,” so never mind that. But that’s not the real scandal! The real scandal is that Susan Rice went on television soon after and amid all kinds of “based on the best information we have”s and “we’ll have to see”s, said one thing that turned out not to be the case: that after the protests in Cairo, there was some kind of copycat protest in Benghazi, which was then “hijacked” by extremist elements using heavy weapons to stage an attack.

A sane person might say, OK, she was obviously given some incorrect information at that time, but it’s not a particularly meaningful deception. As people have been pointing out for weeks now, it’s not as though not using the word “terror” or saying there was a protest before the attack gave the White House some enormous political advantage. If you’re going to have a cover-up, there has to be something you’re covering up.

But the White House didn’t make the changes. It was at a number of stops through the intelligence screening process where the edits happened—on the road from a classified intelligence assessment to a public statement about something that was still under active investigation. The edits are even more comprehensible (well…to folks living in the reality based community, anyway) considering that the attack ended up at a CIA annex about a mile from the consulate. The existence of that CIA facility was a secret prior to the attacks.

So, our friends in the right-wing-nut-o-sphere are left without much of anything in the way of White House scandals, so far. But I’m thinkin’ that one of these days, some reporter is going to catch President Obama in an undisclosed smoke-free location with a coffin nail hangin’ from his lips.

“Impeach!!!!!”

Please join us tonight for a pint and some more post-election gloating thanksgiving 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 chapter also meets. The Longview and South Seattle chapters meet on Wednesday.

With 229 chapters of Living Liberally, including fourteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter that meets near you.

A few more items in the new world order:

1. Jonathan Martin writes about how the world of drug-testing job applicants remains largely unchanged by I-502. Marijuana may become legal on December 6, but a number of employers (especially ones who have no choice due to federal policy) will still be having potential employees pee in a cup before they can start. Thankfully, most of this area’s top companies are generally smart enough not to waste their money on this.

When I was hired by Boeing during my senior year in Ann Arbor, having to take a drug test caught me off-guard. At the time, head shops sold both pre-mixed drinks and un-mixed powders that you’d consume the morning of the test in order to pee clean. I’ve heard that drug testing firms have gotten better about detecting those, but at the time, it was rather simple to beat those tests. As the internet has grown, pre-employment drug screenings have often been referred to as “intelligence tests” since it only tests to make sure you’re smart enough to get on Google and find out how to beat them.

Being in the software/internet/IT world, I don’t have to worry about this any more. In fact, if I come across a company that actually wants me to take a drug test (and isn’t being forced by federal policy to do so), I’d take it as a sign there’s something wrong with the company. It’s like saying “we’re so dysfunctional, a person with a drug problem can pass the interview and work here unnoticed”. Almost no companies do it.

The state of Florida recently implemented a program to drug screen welfare recipients. Despite a lot of rhetoric about how this was a fiscally responsible decision, the program actually cost taxpayers more money. There’s little reason to believe that the dynamic is any different when it comes to pre-employment screening and is costing companies money that they could be spending elsewhere.

2. Joe Fryer from KING5 looks at Colorado’s strict regulations for medical marijuana dispensaries. It’s an informative piece, although I take slight exception with this wording:

Washington has been hesitant to regulate businesses that grow and sell medical marijuana because the federal government still considers it a Schedule 1 drug with no medical benefits.

It wasn’t “Washington” that was hesitant to regulate them. The voters of this state have long supported it, and the legislature passed a bill to have it done very similarly to how Colorado does it. The only one who was hesitant was Governor Gregoire, who vetoed those regulations and left us miles behind Colorado. Because of that blunder, Colorado will have a much easier transition into regulated sales than we will, although I’m starting to become more confident that Governor-Elect Inslee will be a little smarter on this subject.

3. Why is so hard for the Tacoma News Tribune to find someone who isn’t a complete moron when talking about the drug war? I don’t have time to dissect the whole thing, so let me quickly summarize the things that Brian O’Neill gets wrong:

– The relationship between the Mexican government’s concern for drug trafficking and the level of the violence is the exact opposite of what O’Neill assumes. Over the years, as the Mexican government has intensified its fight against the traffickers, the amount of violence in the country has gone way up, not down. If the reverse happens, and Mexico stops worrying about them, the violence would start going back down again.
– Mexican drug trafficking organizations have shown that regardless of what the Mexican government does, they can still make billions of dollars from American drug consumption. The total amount of money spent by Americans isn’t the main variable here. In other words, if the Mexican government eased up on its enforcement, the main thing that would likely happen is that prices in the U.S. might go down a bit, not that drug trafficking organizations would make that much more in profits.
– Regardless of what happens with marijuana policy in Mexico City, neither the Mexican nor American government has ever been able to stop cocaine, meth, or other drugs from being smuggled into the United States. The idea that it will become harder if Mexico stops trying to interdict just marijuana is absurd. If anything, it would make it easier, since it can focus on a smaller percentage of the overall drug trade.
– There’s some disagreement about the extent that I-502 (and Colorado’s measure) will impact Mexico’s drug trafficking organizations, but believing that it will lead to a more porous border and higher profits for illegal gangs is pure lunacy. The amount of money they make is a function of how much Americans spend in the black market. If laws (like Washington’s and Colorado’s) re-direct that consumer spending away from the black market, the gangs make less. It’s not rocket science, and the News Tribune should really try harder to get someone on their staff who understands it.

Downtown it’s down to a drizzle for now, but there’s still a ton of standing water, and everyone has forgotten how to drive worse than the usual rush hour. Much of the rest of the city isn’t faring as well.

So are you soaked to the bone, or have you managed to keep dry? Did you lose power? Is it back or are you using your dwindling battery in your cell phone to leave a comment?

– Political talk radio is a tough business model, but the loss of it in Seattle is tough. Maybe whoever tries to take up the mantle next can air some local content.

– Who would have predicted that Rupert Murdoch tweet horrible things?

– I wish I thought that using this technology to take down a mythic military icon and CIA chief would be startling enough to engender a reevaluation but I don’t.

– This crisis could use more butterscotch pudding.

– Who could have predicted that one of the nastier impeachment managers (and that’s saying something) would be horrible the next time a Democrat was in the White House?

– Unlike Leschi, Quiemuth was never tried or even officially charged with a capital offense, yet he was the first to die for his alleged crimes. After his murder, Quiemuth’s body was buried near Fort Nisqually, but in July 1895, together with Leschi, he was re-interred near the mouth of Muck Creek in a grove of prairie oak.

Last week’s contest was still unsolved as of Thursday night. It was Stockton, CA.

This week’s is somewhere in Washington state, good luck!

Leviticus 25:44-46
Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

Discuss.

SlateTV: The GOP’s mad rush to immigration reform.

Ed: Republicans try to reinvent themselves with minority voters.

The Losers Weepers:

• Maddow: Republicans begin their purge.
• Jonathan Mann: Karl Rove goes nuts.
• Ann Telnaes: Mitt blames gifts.
• Sam Seder: Mitt Romney blames loss on Obama’s “gifts.”
• Jon on Bill-O the Clown and the end of Traditional America.
• Thom: The Ryan excuse.
• Maddow: Leaderless…some Republicans learning 2012 lessons better than others
• SlateTV: Romney’s bitter excuses.
• Young Turks: Romney’s postmortem ‘gifts’ excuse.
• Republicans need to stop being the stupid party.
• The boy who couldn’t handle it.
• SlateTV: Secession Petitions of the disgruntled.
• Young Turks: ME GOP Chair, “Hundreds of Black people committed Voter Fraud!!!
• Letterman: Top ten Romney Scapegoats (via Crooks and Liars).
• Sam Seder: Maine G.O.P. chair on “dozens of Blacks” seen voting.
• Lawrence O’Donnell: What the G.O.P. needs from Romney.
• Thom: Mitt Romney couldn’t be Santa
• Buzz60: three signs Republicans haven’t learned from their losses….
• Maddow: Romney’s final insult to the American public.
• Jon: Look who’s still talking!
• Young Turks: the Obama ‘mind control’ conspiracy
• Liberal Viewer: Right wing crazies lost Romney the election.:
• Jon and Kristen Schaal married and single women voting their viginas
• Mitt Romney “explains” his loss (via Slog).

Kimmel: This week in unnecessary censorship.

Sam Seder: So long, Twinkies.

The five funniest campaign videos of 2012.

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

Mark Fiore: Newly frugal guy!

Young Turks: Rep. Allen West loses election & his grip with reality.

The Petraeus Surge:

• Jon: Never saw it coming
• SlateTV: Wikipedia entry mentions Broadwell-Petraeus affair in January
• Young Turks: Pat Robertson excuses the General.
• ONN: Petraeus is just a start.
• TV fail: All (up) In(my snatch)?!?
• Ann Telnaes: Your privacy.

Monika Eckhart goes to Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers’ Office.

Rush Limbaugh goes all apoplectic over a Twinkie joke petition!

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

Pap and Katrina Vanden Heuvel: Obama should get tough against GOP obstruction.

Super-duper-scandal of All Time:

• SlateTV: McCain snaps at reporter.
• Lawrence O’Donnell: tears into Graham and McCain for hypocrisy on Rice appointment:
• Anderson Cooper whumps Rep. Rohrabacher on Benghazi, “What you’re saying is factually not correct”
• Al Sharpton: What the hell is going on with John McCain??
• Ed: Bitter, hypocrite John McCain wants details, yet skips Benghazi briefing.

White House: West Wing Week.

Lawrence O’Donnell: Rewriting a blatant, malicious FAUX News conspiracy theory

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

I’m really confused why the first third or so of this Jean Godden piece was written. I like Godden’s writing for the most part, but this is both forced and unnecessary.

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd thinks the players in the Petraeus scandal are like Shakespeare’s MacBeth and Othello.

Every once in a while, Maureen Dowd’s editors will mention to her, “hey maybe don’t shoehorn quite so many references to the movie you just saw into a political analysis when you write your next column.” And rather than seeing that as a request to not shoehorn any piece of fiction into her column on current events, she decides it’s ol’ Shakespeare’s turn. I’ve mostly stopped reading her, but I remember it seemed for years that any mention of Hillary Clinton was accompanied by a Lady Macbeth reference.

A better analogy would be to another Shakespearean general: Coriolanus.

Even better would be to realize that this is a pointless effort and to either just write something about Petraeus, or to write about Seattle, since that’s what people go to Godden’s page for.

Shakespearean tragedies are defined by fatal character faults. MacBeth’s was envy; Othello’s was jealousy. Coriolanus, on the other hand, was driven by ambition. And that certainly seems to loom large in the Tragedy of Gen. David Petraeus: a man motivated, from the beginning, by ambition. He wowed them at West Point and climbed the social ladder by wedding the West Point Superintendent’s daughter. He climbed the ranks to earn his fourth star and embraced fame as a military idol.

I guess I should mention that there are spoilers for a play written in the early 1600’s coming up. I’d recommend the movie version of Coriolanus that came out last year if you haven’t seen it.

Anyway, OK, I see it now. When Caius Martius wins victory at Corioli it’s the same as when Petraeus married someone’s daughter. Oh, maybe it’s that his surge strategies in 2 countries killed a lot of people something something “this butterfly was a grub.” No! Here it is! Here it is: CIA drone strikes are when he teams up with Aufidius and, and, nope, I lost it. Shit.

He didn’t travel alone. He once arrived at a party (hosted by Tampa socialite Jill Kelley) at the head of a 28-car motorcade. He obviously liked having his attractive biographer Paula Broadwell hang on his every word. That he dallied with Broadwell is not too surprising given that she crafted a book that gushes with admiration.

You know what. Dude hooks up with someone too young for him. Nobody would approve, least of all their families. Lots of death follows the main character. For real, it’s a secret marriage and a couple suicides away from Romeo and Juliet. So that’s a better shoehorn! I win.

Um, I guess I should have had two spoiler alerts?

Anyway, then she gets away from the absurd comparison to describe life as a military brat her perception of military culture and says that too many people have died in Afghanistan. I have nothing against the former and agree with the later, so let’s end there.

– The religious right hucksters versus the true believers.

– Sorry Rainier Valley residents, 98178 is the 7th most diverse zip code.

– Getting Iraq wrong helped right winger’s careers. So I don’t see any reason why getting the election wrong would hurt them either.

– What the fuck Representative Scott DesJarlais? (h/t)

– Supporting Walmart workers on Black Friday by not shopping there then seems reasonable enough.

– Her name was Savita Halappanavar.

– Mayor Mike McGinn is opening Seattle City Hall’s gorgeous lobby to all couples who want to marry on December 9. Judges have volunteered to perform weddings for free and the Stranger is working with Jennifer Zeyl and Alicia Berger and other local scenic artists to create four tasteful pop-up wedding chapels in the lobby of City Hall.

– How to draw Doug may be my favorite Super Fun Pak Comix ever.