Archives for December 2012

Sam Seder: New poll shows people hate Republicans more than ever.

Connecticut School Shooting:

• Obama’s statement on the shooting.
• Thom: Can we talk gun control now?
• Young Turks: Cenk responds to Mike Huckabee’s idiotic statement
• Young Turks: Obama tearfully mourns children killed
• Sam Seder: The NRA is a domestic terrorist group.
• Young Turks: #CTShooting (Part I)
• Young Turks: #CTShooting (Part II)

S.E. Cupp’s: New Rules for her ‘troglodyte’ fellow Republicans.

Sam Seder: The G.O.P.’s asshole problem.

Young Turks: Dick Morris cashed in on bogus election prognostications

News from the G.O.P. War on Voters:

• Maddow: GOP’s political gerrymandering delivers disproportionate representation in states. Part I.
• Maddow: GOP’s political gerrymandering delivers disproportionate representation in states. Part II.
• Ed: Attorney General Eric Holder talks ‘national voting standards’
• Maddow: AG Eric Holder takes first steps toward eliminating GOP ‘election rigging’

Liberal Viewer: FAUX News hates Gangnam Style.

Sarah Silverman: Be bro-choice:

SlateTV: Obama as an extinct lizzard.

Fiscal Cliff Notes:

• Bashir: Today in fiscal cliff.
• Ann Telnaes: A chicken hawk plays chicken.
• Sam Seder: FAUX News asks for your prayers for Speaker Boehner
• Lawrence O’Donnell: Grover Norquist, “Bi-partisanship is another name for ‘date rape'”.
• Bill Press and friends: Republicans are taking America over the fiscal cliff.
• Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: Fiscal Cliff at Christmas
• Stephen: “Merry Cliffmas”
• O’Donnell: Rush is right about something!
• Ann Telnaes: Debt ceiling insanity.

White House: West Wing Week.

Young Turks: Mitt Romney finally wins something:

Red State Update: FAUX News fires Karl Rove and Dick Morris.

The G.O.P. War On Workers™:

• Jennifer Granholm: “Dear GOP, Ignore the will of the people and you will fail”
• Sam Seder: Michigan Republicans stage sneak attack on union rights
• Ed: Looking at Snyder’s lies.
• Thom: The history of “Right to Work” (for less).
• Ezra Klein: Republicans attack unions in Michigan.
• Bill Press: You’d think Republicans would be against freeloaders!
• Sam Seder: Worse than Wisconsin.
• Thom and Pap: The union war has just begun against Rick Snyder.

Mark Fiore: High tech Christmas.

Ed: The GOP is running out of white voters.

Jon on Graham and Scalia’s remarks on gay marriage (via Crooks and Liars).

Pap: The MSM fails again in 2012.

Sam Seder: Michele Bachmann is back to Teh Crazy.

News from the Front Lines in the War on Christmas™:

• Jon apologizes for poking fun at FAUX News over War on Christmas™ (via Crooks and Liars).
• Young Turks: Republicans go ape-shit over Bo Obama holiday card.
• Sharpton: Bill-O the Clown still pushing a fictitious War on Christmas™
• Lawrence O’Donnell: Santa is a Democrat.
• Young Turks: War on Christmas? Mom objects to church field trip.

Ann Telnaes: The collateral damage of drones.

NPR Is All Politics.

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

One of the cliches that the people who don’t want any gun control constantly repeat is that an armed society is a polite society. And while that’s always struck me as not something we need to achieve, we at least know what they mean. If you’re worried the stranger might be someone with a gun, you’re less likely to be rude to them.

But today puts the lie to the general premise. Whatever curt words and gestures were avoided by the possibility that guy might have a gun pale compared to today.

A society that can’t prevent someone from opening fire on an elementary school loses its right to be called polite.

A society where a Sikh temple or a Unitarian church have to deal with people murdering their congregants isn’t a polite society.

A society where people watching a movie have to run in horror because someone is shooting the place up isn’t a polite society.

Cafe Racer was a great place for society, until an act of horror levels beyond impolite shattered that for the people there that day.

No, there are a lot of things arms do to a society. Making it polite isn’t one of them.

Via the AP:

Twenty-seven people, including 18 children, have been killed in a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in suburban Connecticut…

Via ABC:

One shooter is described as 24-years-old, armed with four weapons and wearing a bullet-proof vest, sources tell ABC News.

Clearly, something isn’t working. Perhaps it’s time we listen to the gun rights activists. To paraphrase Portland gun advocate Kirby Ellis’ words in response to the recent Portland-area mall shooting:

“By allowing kids to carry firearms it actually gives them a chance to protect themselves in ways…if the police are not available, or they could be moments away”

“In light of the recent school shooting in Connecticut, not allowing kids to carry weapons only puts our children more at risk.”

“With the policies in place that don’t allow students to carry firearms in school, the only thing they really could do is try to seek cover and wait for the police to get there.”

So it’s clear, then…it’s absolutely the only conceivable thing that could be done to stop these tragedies….

– In response to video of a controversial SPD arrest at 23rd and Union was released late last month, the Seattle King County NAACP and the No New Jim Crow Coalition group are holding a rally Saturday against police brutality.

– Seattle has teamed up with Gigabit Squared, a startup that wants to invest $200 million in building gigabit broadband networks in six college towns around the country, to build a gigabit network.

– Lee will probably have more, but it looks like at least initially, the Obama administration won’t go after Washington and Colorado marijuana users.

– In the past year, fuelers, cabin cleaners, and passenger service workers have spoken up publicly and directly to their contractors and airlines about the lack of proper safety equipment and dangerous working conditions at our airport.

– The Global Washington conference looks like it was pretty amazing.

– West Seattle Food Bank.

– I don’t think building a death star is practical.

I wasn’t able to get off work early so I’m just heading down there now. In the mean time enjoy the NPI twitter feed. I’ll update this when I’m there. I’m sure all of the local big wigs have already had their say.

… You can watch it here if you’re inclined.

… OK. I’ve got here, so far every speaker has been opposed. Tribal people and environmentalists. There are two rooms, so I don’t know what’s going on in the other room. I think more or less the same. When I came here, there was someone who took numbers, and there were over two thousand people up the escalator they had directed us to, one of two.

… We had one person supporting the project, but it’s definitely quite heavily opposed. I forgot to mention it in the last update, but The Backbone people were out in force outside with a giant salmon.

… A lot of the people who speak in opposition live near the tracks. I don’t know if that’s a concerted effort, by the people organizing the opposition or if it’s just that those people are the ones most likely to testify.

… You can tell when people are ringers when they can’t pronounce things like the “Hiram M. Chittenden Locks” or “Salish Sea.”

… The young people speaking know that this is their future.

… In the comments Roger wonders if this is all just window dressing. Maybe, but the thing is that you don’t know what will make the difference. The room is quite full, and it looks like the other one is too.

… We’ve had Christians and now a Druid speaking out against the trains.

… The last comment was made. It was quite anti-train.

I’m glad that this story about bus bulbs was written. I’m not sure that OMG drivers Are UPSET!!!!!!!! is the best was to write it. I don’t particularly like being stuck behind a bus when I’m driving, so fine. But maybe this paragraph:

Metro says bus bulbs save five to 10 seconds per stop, and more than 20 seconds in peak traffic. Seconds add up on a bus route, and affect the overall schedule. Next year, a few bulbs will be added on Greenwood Avenue North, but Metro doesn’t plan them on Aurora Avenue North, for the new E Line. Instead, buses will stop in the far right lane, as the Swift buses do on Highway 99 in Snohomish County.

Could be put before what I assume are personal stories about being stuck behind a bus told in the third person about “some motorists.” And I don’t want to be too critical, there is some good information.

Nina Shapiro in the Seattle Weekly writes about Norm Stamper’s regrets about I-502:

“I now question whether Washington state’s initiative needed to be as restrictive as it is,” Stamper says.

One of the restrictions he’s referring to is the initiative’s dui provision, which establishes a so-called “per-se” standard that would result in a conviction for anyone found to have 5 nanograms of active THC (a compound found in marijuana). This provision was the subject of fierce controversy during the campaign, with some activists arguing that pot affects people differently, so it doesn’t make sense to set one standard for impairment. Medical marijuana activists also insisted that the provision would essentially render them unable to drive because of all the THC in their bloodstream from regular use.

One of my biggest concerns about the DUI provision wasn’t even so much the language itself, but the fact that it could serve as a foothold towards a “bi-partisan consensus” that our existing DUI laws aren’t sufficient and that stoned driving is some new and unique challenge that we have to deal with. It isn’t. But with the ONDCP sounding the alarm about it, it’s easier for them to point to drug law reform activists who’ve exaggerated the danger in order to open the door to even worse provisions. Seeing that Stamper (and Rep. Goodman) both recognize the need to fix the DUI provisions is a good sign that we might not slide down that slippery slope.

Shapiro makes another important point about the DUI provisions in I-502:

But here’s the thing: Colorodo’s successful legalization measure, Amendment 64, didn’t have any dui provision at all. It also allows limited home-grows (six plants, to be exact). And yet, Stamper points out, that amendment passed by a “very, very healthy” margin, with 55 percent of voters giving it the thumbs up–almost the exact same as Washington’s more restrictive initiative.

I’ve been very critical of New Approach Washington over this point, but I still have a ton of respect for the work they did to get this passed. With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that including the DUI provision was a mistake, but it was an understandable one. Only a fool expects perfection in any voter initiative. And now other states can learn from our experience and win the next battle.

– What the Seattle City Council members are doing with their surplus money from previous campaigns.

– There’s a lot going on at NPI.

– Everybody hates John Boehner.

– Right to Work isn’t a one way fight. It seems like if the GOP want to open that up, there are plenty of states where there are right to work laws that could be repealed.

– Wait. Nick Kristoff wants people who are on disability to join the military? I mean I’m sure there are some people who are on disability who would thrive there, but in general that seems problematic.

– Third Avenue is totally awesome and the Memorandum of Agreement looks like it will keep being awesome.

– If people just worked harder they wouldn’t need entitlements.

I hate that the Catholic Church in Western Washington is emphasizing that it won’t participate in marriage equality. I hate that they aren’t for it and I hate that they feel the need to reemphasize it.

Seattle Archbishop J. Peter Sartain has laid down Roman Catholic church law on same-sex marriages now allowed under Washington civil law: The church will have nothing to do with such “marriages” — apostrophes courtesy of the Archbishop.

I’m glad the law gives them that right. I wouldn’t want the state dictating to churches how to perform their sacraments. But that doesn’t put the churches that aren’t marrying gay folks on the right side of history.

I’m so sick of this shit.

An unidentified gunman, acting alone, fired up to 60 shots before killing himself. The original reports of two dead were confirmed as the only fatalities. One 15-year-old Portland girl was taken by ambulance to OHSU Hospital, where she was in serious condition Tuesday night.

Officials declined to identify the victims.

The gunman died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, Lt. James Rhodes, a Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office spokesman, said at a news conference. The gunman, reportedly 22, has been tentatively identified, but police did not release his name.

I don’t know what the answer is to these things, or if there is one.

– I haven’t written about local prospective high-end marijuana entrepreneur Jamen Shively, but in this article he says something interesting:

Shively said that under no circumstances would his company violate federal law.

“Let’s suppose tomorrow that Washington state issued licenses and said, ‘Go ahead, guys, have at it.’ We would say to the state of Washington respectfully, ‘Thanks, but no thanks, because we haven’t heard from the federal government.'”

I doubt the federal government is going to “back off” before the state starts issuing licenses. I tend to think that they’ll be too timid about the political repercussions to do anything at first, but they’ll eventually try some sort of crackdown once people start making real money. If that’s how it plays out, I’m not sure Shively’s move is a smart one. Cornering the high-end market for marijuana won’t be that hard once the market gets going (as we might see delivery services instead of storefronts until the fear of fed intervention dies down). In fact, with the ease in producing a legal product, “high-end” marijuana will likely cost close to what it does today. There will be a number of enterprises out there willing to work quietly and under the radar, and some of those will weather the storm of a fed crackdown.

– Dylan Matthews discusses what the Obama Administration could do from a rescheduling standpoint. Most scenarios discussed involved rescheduling rather than simply removing it as a controlled substance. But removing it entirely probably makes the most sense from a policy standpoint if we feel the proper approach is to treat it like alcohol.

– You’ve probably also seen that Frankie’s in Olympia is the first bar set up to legally allow the consumption of marijuana on its premises. They were able to do this because they fought to gain an exemption from the state’s anti-smoking laws years back. One thing I expect to see is a push for other establishments (bars, arcades, movie theaters) to come up with clever ways to welcome pot smokers (roof seating, outdoor patios, etc) even without resorting to a fight with the state.

Digby points to a horrible thing Ann Coulter said to show that the GOP’s problem with their hatred of the other.

The Republicans have a problem all right, but it isn’t racial demographics. It’s Ann Coulter and all the people who think like her. And I don’t know what they’re going to do about that.

Right. But it isn’t just the cultural elite of the Republican party. It’s the fact that the Coulters, and the Limbaughs and on and on have an audience of people who want to hear the sort of things they’re saying. If they were just shouting into the wind, they wouldn’t have careers.

The Republicans can’t keep their base unless they regularly spout ugly crap.

Please join us tonight for an evening of politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We’ll begin the evening by giving all of our drinks, food and money the conservatives; and we’ll entrust ’em to share equally with us. It’s because, you know…we’re bipartisan. And handing over control to conservatives is just plain common sense bipartisanship! I mean, they’d do the same for us…right?

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. On Wednesday, the Bellingham chapter meets. On Thursday Drinking Liberally Bremerton meets. And next Monday, the Yakima chapter meets.

With 230 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.

Rodney Tom and Tim Sheldon have decided to caucus with the Republicans even though they’re still claiming to be Democrats. I don’t know what it means to be a Democrat when you caucus with the Republicans and vote for their shitty budgets.

It isn’t a surprise, still with Tom, it’s a little bit of a sting. One of the best pieces on this blog was written in defense of him . And while he was never embraced fully by the party (because a lot of his policies were still shit) he was never primaried in that Democratic leaning district. Obviously, that’s probably going to happen now.

In the piece linked to in the first paragraph, Goldy wonders if there’s any way to salvage a Democratic majority. I guess the only way I can see would be to get one of them a job outside the legislature so they’ll have to resign. There would be a tie until their replacement was picked, and since they ran as Democrats, the Democrats would pick that replacement.

Of course something like that would be rewarding them for being assholes. Still, it’s less awful than the budgets and the hateful legislation we’re likely to see out of the state senate if the GOP is in charge. Inslee has a lot of positions to fill, and maybe there are some lobbying groups that they’ve been good on their issues, but would like to see a Democratic majority.

– Congrats to all of the couples who got married yesterday.

– Bikes galore on the Fremont Bridge.

– War on Catholics.

– Perhaps Michael Dunn would have told those kids to turn down their music, no matter what. But perhaps knowing that he had the ultimate power in his hands to annihilate all of them, gave him a little edge. Very few people, no matter how “responsible,” would be immune to such a feeling.

– I was just goofing on this Christmas card from the Obamas, and apparently it’s part of the war on Christmas.

– Modesty is bullshit

– You’ve clearly done something right as a team when you force the other team to apologize to their fans.