Archives for April 2013

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

We meet every Tuesday evening at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier than that for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week. The Tri-Cities chapter also meets tonight. On Wednesday, the Burien and Bellingham chapters meet. On Thursday the Woodinville chapter meets.

With 205 chapters of Living Liberally, including sixteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and two more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

– Federal Way something something because guns make us safer.

– The Republican leadership has spent considerable effort whipping up their conservative base into a frenzy over taxation. It has never really mattered to them that most federal tax rates are at their lowest levels in decades. Calculative politics to destroy the budget ability of the federal government to protect and assist working class families? To redistribute more of our country’s wealth to the already rich?

– Opposition to the coal trains.

– If it’s a day that ends in a “y” Tim Eyman proposes an initiative that looks unconstitutional.

– Members of Russell’s unit testified in 2009 that his behavior changed after his third tour in Iraq and he eventually sought help from the Camp Liberty clinic, where he received counseling and prescription medication.

– Is a little class too much to ask? Yes, yes it is.

– New rules for South Lake Union passed out of committee.

– Girls and Boys Go to Jupiter

There are many reasons why Latinos tend to shy away from supporting Republicans. First, it’s because Republican politicians are constantly telegraphing to Latinos that they are second class citizens. Never mind the blatantly racist crap we get from politicians like Sheriff Joe Arpaio. There is enough subtle stuff to last a political lifetime. You know, like nutjburger Sharron Angle defending before an auditorium of Latino student, her “illegal immigrant” ads portraying Mexican individuals as sinister:

I don’t know that all of you are Latino…Some of you look a little more Asian to me. I don’t know that.

“Mexican? Were they really Mexican?!?” Uh huh. Right.

Or Rep. Don Young (R-AK) casually throwing out the term “wetbacks” in referring to immigrant workers on his father’s farm.

Latinos also have plenty of good policy reasons to shy away from Republicans. Republicans aren’t particularly good about supporting policies that serve or protect relatively disadvantaged populations of any sort. They have become the party of preserving privilege for the privileged. Sadly, they aren’t going to be able to change their policies overnight. And, even then, the image problem will lag for years behind the policy change.

It will take Republicans years to decades to repair all of this self-inflicted damage. Immigration reform is one of those policies that offer Republicans…well, not exactly opportunity. But maybe something….

Politico’s Emily Schultheis points out the catch-22 that Republicans find themselves in over immigration reform. Essentially, blocking immigration reform will further alienate them, and hinder their image reform goals (see The Autopsy). For years to come.

Alternatively, by enacting immigration reform:

The immigration proposal pending in Congress would transform the nation’s political landscape for a generation or more — pumping as many as 11 million new Hispanic voters into the electorate a decade from now in ways that, if current trends hold, would produce an electoral bonanza for Democrats and cripple Republican prospects in many states they now win easily.

Theoretically, the Republicans could get some political advantage among current Latino voters by supporting immigration reform. That’s good for them in the short run. The real problem comes 13 years down the road:

Extrapolating 2012 voting trends to the 2028 presidential election — the first in which previously undocumented Hispanics could exercise their voting rights after a 13-year path to citizenship — is an inherently speculative exercise. But it is one that highlights the political sword hanging over Republicans as they consider immigration reform with a path to citizenship, an idea that is already deeply unpopular with many red-state constituencies.

To support the measure virtually guarantees millions of new Democratic voters.

What to do? I think the only reasonable thing for Republicans is the Hail Mary Pass. Passing immigration reform now at least gives them a fighting chance to win the “hearts and minds” of Latino voters. It’s a gamble, because they would have make huge progress in “image reform” by the time year 13 arrives. And, even then, it will most likely only allow them to minimize the damage.

The alternative—further pissing off the community—comes with an immediate hit that will only be compounded by the time the 13-year Gauntlet is run.

But it will also hurt like hell in 2020, when Republicans stand to lose their lopsided advantage from the 2010 gerrymandered congressional districts. That will set Republicans back, possibly for decades.

I hope Republicans do strongly back immigration reform. Not because I want them to have a shot at redemption with Latinos. Rather, because it is the proper policy that will improve the lives of millions of people, including a great many U.S. citizens—like U.S.-born children whose parents are undocumented.

What I see as the biggest threat to the future of the Republican party is the heightened xenophobia in the wake of the Boston bombing that may end up dominating their party. It threatens to foreclose on their Hail Mary option.

– Happy Earth Day.

– There was a lot that we missed last week as we focused on West and Boston. I didn’t even realize that CISPA was up for a vote.

– In other words, it looks like the Mormons might be getting the Glengarry leads and the Cadillac Eldorado, while the Catholics will be lucky to get the steak knives.

– By the way, Cardinal O’Malley, there IS violence and terrorism tied directly to abortion. The bombimg of abortion clinics, for example. Please make a note of it.

– McGilvra Place looks nice.

– I hate that background checks couldn’t get 60 votes in the Senate, but this narrative that Obama could just lean on some Democrats is ridiculous.

– The Week in #FAIL

Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. It was Miami Beach, FL.

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

Deuteronomy 14:18
You must not eat bats.

Discuss.

Liberal Viewer: FAUX News trumps up bugging charge against Mother Jones.

Stephen: Oopsie Daisy Homophobe:

Thom: GOP pats Exxon on the back for Arkansas oil spill.

Young Turks: Student v. abstinence only education.

DCCC: “He lied to us”.

Katie Compa: White liberal parents.

Ann Telnaes: The Perpetual War on Terror.

Young Turks: OK Rep, “Don’t Jew me down”.

Bill Maher: War and Peace.

Torture in OUR NAMES:

• Thom and Pap: Does torture nullify American exceptionalism?
• Sam Seder: Non-partisan report says U.S. tortured.
• Pap and Sam Seder: The MSM was complicit.

Chris Hayes: Last safety inspection of West plant was in 1985.

ONN: Week in Review.

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

Bill Maher with New Rules (via Crooks and Liars).

Sam Seder: Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX-1) thinks Muslim terrorists are pretending to be Hispanic.

Bombing in Boston:

• Mark Fiore: Boston Marathon
• Jon thanks Boston.
• Obama speaks on Boston:
• Sam Seder: CNN’s uberbotch
• The three minute version of CNN’s U-Turn on bombing arrests
• Maddow: Identifying suspects
• Young Turks: NY Post takes the trophy from CNN…for wrong.
• Sam Seder: The NY Post falsely accuses teens of being bombers.
• Maddow: Murdoch’s NY Post media failure.
• Chris Hayes: Internet vigilantism
• Stephen: Premature arrest report
• Jon: Exclusive…but completely fucking wrong!
• Sam Seder: Asswipe loon Alex Jones asks “false flag” question
• Young Turks: Father, “true angle”; Uncle, “losers”
• Glenn Beck: Government has until Monday to “come clean” about Benghazi-Boston bombing link.
• Young Turks: “Quiet, shy, like us”.

White House: West Wing Week.

Kimmel: This week in unnecessary censorship.

Young Turks: Hunger strike at Gitmo.

Thom: How to create a right-wing terrorist.

Jon: Barrier method.

Ann Telnaes: Tax day.

Young Turks: What happened in Texas?

U.S. Senate Republicans Puts Guns in the Hands of Terrorists!

• Stephen: Ted Cruz and background checks
• Jon: “We think killing our citizens is our job.”
• Sam Seder: Gun reform fails.
• Young Turks: Conspiracy theories kill gun control legislation
• Maddow: Obama shames spineless Senate Republicans
• Thom: “Shame on you, Congress”.
• John Fugelsang: If you’re against background checks, you’re against America
• Maddow: “Killer” Republicans filibuster…
• David Shuster and David Schecter: Congress hears cries of dead children.
• Young Turks: Gun-nut host tells Newtown victim families to ‘go to hell’

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

Robert Reich: Why our democracy is succeeding on social issues and failing on economic issues.

Maddow: Terrorism tools within reach of the dangerously deluded ‘patriot’ terrorists.

NASA awesome: What happens if you wring out a cloth in space?

Young Turks: Idiot Republican Rep. “Peter” Hansen calls women “vaginas”.

Slate: BSA lifts ban on Scouts, but not leaders.

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

The Senate can’t get 60 votes on background checks at gun shows, and I don’t even know what to write anymore. I mean honestly. This is a measure with 90% approval, and it’s so on the margin of what needs to be done to prevent the type of violence that’s been happening.

Background checks and limits to the amount of ammunition that can be fired before reloading are where the debate is. Maybe it’ll be a bit tougher for the worst people to get guns. Maybe the next killer will have to reload and maybe move on before he’s killed as many of the children in a room. Maybe only 10 or 15 kids will die in the next attack. Nothing to address handguns, or urban crime more generally. And that is too fucking much.

I don’t know what to say, except maybe thank God Gabby Giffords can still write.

I watch TV and read the papers like everyone else. We know what we’re going to hear: vague platitudes like “tough vote” and “complicated issue.” I was elected six times to represent southern Arizona, in the State Legislature and then in Congress. I know what a complicated issue is; I know what it feels like to take a tough vote. This was neither. These senators made their decision based on political fear and on cold calculations about the money of special interests like the National Rifle Association, which in the last election cycle spent around $25 million on contributions, lobbying and outside spending.

I don’t know what I can possibly add to her piece, except a determination to keep working. And of course fuck Instapundit.

Anna Minard, writing at The Stranger, has words for Sen. Rodney Tom (D R–WA-48):

So I’d just like to say this, and get it out of my system, so I can stop saying your fuckstick name over and over again: FUCK YOU, RODNEY TOM.

Amen.

I am a resident of the 48th. In 2006, I worked hard to help the recently converted Democrat defeat incumbent Sen. Luke Esser (R).

Nobody that I have supported and voted for has ever left me feeling so betrayed. Ever.

So, yeah…FUCK YOU, RODNEY TOM.

And read the rest of Ms. Minard’s measured essay here.

Wow…tons of news from the MA in the past 12 hours. I don’t usually do posts on news items, but this is a pretty extraordinary circumstance. I’m going to do a bit of live blogging in the short time I have available.

Please keep this comment thread on-topic of the bombing and the manhunt.

9:18: I frequently learn of breaking news quite quickly. For the Boston marathon bombings, I am among the 10% who heard the news 6 or more hours after it happened.

9:20: KUOW 94.9 FM has ongoing coverage. CNN has a livestream…but, you know, be careful what you believe (e.g.).

9:31: And for a political connection, we get some idiotic tweets from Ann Coultergeist.

9:34: Excellent current summary from Mother Jones.

9:41: I couldn’t embed the video mentioned by MikeBoyScout, but here, from another source, is the uncle of the suspects:

9:43: CNN reports that both suspects are naturalized U.S. citizens, as of September of last year.

9:46: Via SJ in the comment thread (and my correction to the link)…inside news on the location of the suspect.

10:30: I’ve heard it mentioned several times on CNN that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the 26 year-old suspect, was killed when he was run over by his younger brother. If true (and I’ve seen this reported elsewhere), it add another bizarre twist to this bizarre-iferous set of events. But I also have to wonder if this is psyops rather than truth. I mean, could this be a ruse designed to dispirit 19 year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?

11:12: The Family Research Council has figured out why tragedies like this occur (or, at least, what “compound[s] the problem”: “abortion, family breakdown, sexual liberalism, or religious hostility!” Oh,Gay Marriage, what Doom hast Thou wrought?

11:42: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev graduated from “Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, a public high school in Cambridge.” Holy shit…I think that is the same high school that HA comment thread personality (and typo-robot) SJ told me he graduated from! Now debating submitting an FBI tip….

4:56 pm: The suspect is, apparently, surrounded in a boat in someone’s backyard. This thing is likely to come to an end soon. Here is a live feed.

5:23 pm: Hmmm…it looks like Glenn Beck is working hard to become the King of the Boston Trufers: “They have until Monday and then The Blaze will expose it.” “It” being the involvement of a “Saudi national” You Go Glenn!

5:44 pm: On-site news reports are the suspect is in custody. An ambulance has arrived, presumably for the suspect.

This story is great.

A West Virginia high school student is filing an injunction against her principal, who she claims is threatening to punish her for speaking out against a factually inaccurate abstinence assembly at her school. Katelyn Campbell, who is the student body vice president at George Washington High School, alleges her principal threatened to call the college where she’s been accepted to report that she has “bad character.”

[…]

But it didn’t end with a simple difference of opinion among Campbell and her principal. The high school senior alleges that Aulenbacher threatened to call Wellesley College, where Campbell has been accepted to study in the fall, after she spoke to the press about her objections to the assembly. According to Campbell, her principal said, “How would you feel if I called your college and told them what bad character you have and what a backstabber you are?” Campbell alleges that Aulenbacher continued to berate her in his office, eventually driving her to tears. “He threatened me and my future in order to put forth his own personal agenda and make teachers and students feel they cant speak up because of fear of retaliation,” she said of the incident.

Despite being threatened, Campbell is not backing down. She hopes that filing this injunction will protect her freedom of speech to continue advocating for comprehensive sexual health resources for West Virginia’s youth. “West Virginia has the ninth highest pregnancy rate in the U.S.,” Campbell told the Gazette. “I should be able to be informed in my school what birth control is and how I can get it. With the policy at GW, under George Aulenbacher, information about birth control and sex education has been suppressed. Our nurse wasn’t allowed to talk about where you can get birth control for free in the city of Charleston.”

So, first and foremost, the kids are OK. Despite adults lying to them, they know what’s up. That’s true of sex. It’s true of drugs. It’s true of plenty of life. Lying to people you’re trying to educate can’t work out well.

But here, I want to say that even if you accept the principal’s and the assembly speaker’s notion that abstinence only education will lead to people waiting until marriage to have sex, and you think that’s a good thing that it’s not a good thing to teach.

Imagine someone who attended that assembly and waited until they were married to have sex because of it. Wouldn’t they still want to know how effective birth control was for real? If their partner had had sex before they married our hypothetical student and had got a disease, wouldn’t they want to know what was effective at preventing getting it? I mean this seems pretty basic. If you keep that sort of info from them until they’re married, it doesn’t just magically become available on their wedding night.

– This fucking week. A large explosion in Texas has killed dozens.

– It’s the deadline for bills not related to the budget came and went this week. Now marital rape is illegal in all cases and localities can set their own speed limits sometimes.

– There’s a lot to take in about the “children and vagina’s” guy. On top of the gendered fuckery that the piece mentions, there is also the fact that he tried to say I’m just smarter than all of you despite the fact that he used the possessive for no reason. (h/t)

– I know the straw poll of the 43rd district is meaningless, but McGinn beating Ed Murray who represents the district and everyone else is indicative of something.

– And in somewhat more meaningful polls, it looks like Rodney Tom is less popular with his constituents (pdf) than he once was.

– Blair Butterworth’s memorial service is this Sunday at Town Hall.

– I can’t find anything to quote in this Lindy West piece making fun of a list-of-women-men-don’t-want-to-marry piece without the rest of the context, but it’s amazing.

In the wake of the bombing in Boston, oddly enough I didn’t make the connection for a few days in my own mind that I’ve been to the finish of a marathon. I’ve had friends compete in the Rock ‘n’ Roll marathon in Seattle and followed their training in conversations with them and on social media. It’s a type of dedication that I can’t imagine, and that leaves me inspired.

A few years ago, a friend posted pretty much every day “only X days until the marathon” for a few months. I don’t mind: that’s what Facebook is for, and it’s pretty quick to scroll past it. By coincidence, I was on First Avenue that day and there were a bunch of people looking over the entrance to the Battery Street Tunnel cheering. I stopped by and looked for that friend, even though I had no idea when he’d be passing.

I didn’t see him, but I loved the energy and enthusiasm of the people cheering right there toward the end. I stayed and cheered for nobody and everybody for about 20 minutes until moving on. I went about doing other things and then went back an hour or so later, and new people were cheering on new runners. Other than the fact that the runners were obviously going slower, the scene was pretty much the same, so I cheered again for a while.

Since then I’ve done that again or been at the finish for the marathon. It’s absolutely wonderful. And even if there’s more security and an added danger this year, I can’t imagine anywhere else I’d rather be that day than watching the end of the race.

I’m just going to say it right now. This press release is the greatest thing in at least the English language, and probably other languages too. All words are obsolete once you read it.

It’s Benton 1, U.S. transportation secretary 0 in Columbia River Crossing debate at Capitol

I like so much about that title, that it’s tough to know what’s the best: Is it that he gave himself a score and then bragged about the score he gave himself as if it’s objective? Is it that even by his own reckoning, he only won the meeting by 1 point? Is it the fact that the title implies that this is the beginning, rather than the middle of a process that has been going on for years? Is it that the Federal government is offering to give his district money, and he’s complaining about it? Is it that he describes an ostensibly closed door meeting as a debate? Is it that Secretary LaHood probably didn’t even know that there was a game afoot?

Those are all good choices to be sure, but I think the best is that he never defines the scale that 1 to 0 is on or how one earns a point. So here is some speculation:

• Score half a point per guest you treat like a jerk
• The number of goats each brought to the meeting
• One point per person videotaping someone without their permission (more on that later in the piece)
• On a scale of 0 to 10 who Senator Benton likes the best
• A scale of 0 to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 and the numbers were pulled randomly
• A scale of -5 to 5 who polkas the best
• Whoever left the meeting with the most smug satisfaction gets a point
• 1/3 of a point each time you masturbate to your own press release
• Smallest penis gets a point
• One point if you’re scared of the idea of public transportation

Oh my God, we’re not even into the meat of the press release yet. Courage. Here we go.

Sen. Don Benton says there’s no question that the people of Clark County came out ahead this morning when he and members of the Senate Majority Coalition Caucus went toe-to-toe with U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood over the Columbia River Crossing project.

That’s a rather fancy way of saying I sat across a table with a guy who offered me a bunch of money to help build a bridge, but I wanted to build a different bridge, and probably more money. Also, no question? If you asked everyone in Clark County there would be 100% agreement on this opinion?

“I’ve been working hard to keep our coalition members informed about the many significant flaws in the CRC project, so we were ready with questions when Governor Inslee brought Secretary LaHood in to lobby our coalition this morning. As a result, it wasn’t even a fair fight. I’d say we schooled the transportation secretary in a way he couldn’t possibly have expected,” said Benton, R-Vancouver, noting LaHood’s visit is part of a CRC propaganda blitz at the Capitol today.

I should say here I don’t really have an opinion on the Columbia River Crossing. Still, imagine if a Seattle legislator acted this way to the Secretary of Transportation over, say, Highway 99. The outrage from the people who are perpetually outraged that Seattle exists would be amazing. I mean the meeting was of the Majority Caucus and not the GOP ostensibly in part because Seattle’s legislators are too arrogant.

“I guess the governor thought he could strong-arm the Senate Majority Coalition into rolling over by bringing the D.C. folks in to give us the same ‘this bridge or no bridge’ lecture he’s been delivering. Instead, the transportation secretary had his hat handed to him, and I have to believe I will find even more support now for my efforts to force a redesign of the CRC project.”

I guess they were hoping that saying, “we have a fuckton of money, here take it” would at least keep the Majority Coalition from whining like a bunch of little babies. That was obviously incorrect.

Benton said he and other coalition members let LaHood have it on the whole range of CRC concerns: how the bridge height would cost Clark County thousands of permanent jobs, how replacing the Interstate 5 bridge without addressing the corridor as a whole would fail to reduce commute times from Clark County to Portland by more than one minute, the financial liability that would go with including an extension of light rail from Portland, and more.

I have no idea, again, if those are valid concerns. But anyone who is opposing getting light rail in the same sentence he worries about commutes into Portland is an idiot. Light rail will obviously help Vancouver commuters.

Project supporters want the Legislature to authorize a $450 million allocation, which would serve as Washington’s share of the $3.5 billion CRC project; with less than three weeks to go in the 2013 legislative session, Benton said, the writing on the wall is becoming clearer.

There is literally no cliche that this press release won’t include.

“I was very proud of how our coalition joined me in standing up for the people of Clark County,” said Benton, who is the coalition’s deputy leader. “The governor and the CRC supporters are obviously getting more desperate by the day; they see how time is running out to get the Legislature to go along with this boondoggle.”

They’d like to spend money in your neck of the woods. You can disagree with if and how, but come the fuck on.

“The best thing the governor can do now, after seeing that his federal emissary couldn’t sell this boondoggle to our coalition, is to agree to a redesign of the project.”

Because a meeting went poorly (in that people who wanted to act like asses acted like asses) we have to start over. Obviously.

Anyway, I wasn’t the only person to notice that this is an embarrassment. Jim Camden of the Spokesman-Review has a great take on it (I think the S-R has a limited number of clicks, but I’ve never hit it). Really, sometimes you need to just write in disbelief like I’ve been doing for several paragraphs now, but sometimes the journalistic prose is the way to go.

When LaHood and Inslee stopped by the Senate Republican Caucus room to urge them to pass a transportation budget in it with money for the bridge, and thus allow the state to get its hands on lots of federal money, he was, to put it mildly, rebuffed by opponents like Sen. Don Benton of Vancouver. All while someone was videotaping the exchange.

Later that day Inslee and LaHood held a press conference in the governor’s conference room to make a public appeal for the Legislature to vote for money for the bridge. As soon as they left, Benton emerged from the back of the room to hold a counter press conference to say that it shouldn’t. The senator’s office later circulated a press release exclaiming he had “schooled” LaHood on the bridge and declared the score “Benton 1, transportation secretary 0”. the caucus sent out a link to a YouTube clip of their discussion in the caucus room.

This appalled Senate Democrats, who thought a cabinet secretary should be treated with a greater modicum of respect, and shouldn’t be taping conversations without his permission. Senate Republicans promptly took the video clip off YouTube, and Majority Leader Rodney Tom of Medina later teol [sic] the Seattle Times it had been inadvertently posted, although how it could be edited with an intro, sent to YouTube, a link created and connected to a tweet isn’t immediately clear.

And that’s what winning 1-0 looks like.

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

We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm, but people will show up earlier than that for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out another DL meeting over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter also meets. The Longview and South Seattle chapters meet this Wednesday. Also on Wednesday, the nation’s newest chapter, the Lakewood, Washington Drinking Liberally chapter, will meet. And for Thursday, the Spokane and Tacoma chapters meet.

With 207 chapters of Living Liberally, including sixteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and two more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.