Archives for February 2014

Doc Hastings is retiring. In the article linked article, Joel Connelly also makes a point how awful his environmental record was. And that’s certainly a large part of his legacy. He also was about the first in line to excuse any wrongdoing from GOP leadership.

Still, ever the optimist, after reading, “Hastings beat one-term Democratic Rep. (now Gov.) Jay Inslee in 1994, withstood a tough 1996 challenge and has since coasted” I wondered if it might be possible to maybe run a Democrat and pick up the seat. I mean, I know it’s a GOP leaning seat, so it’ll be tough. But honestly I think every seat is a possibility. Yes, it would be a lot of work, and I don’t know who over there would run. A good candidate might not win (although, they might!), but could perhaps excite labor the Hispanic community in that area and have an effect on down ticket races.

– Turns out a $15 minimum wage is popular in Seattle.

– And maybe we can get a minimum wage for the Port? Maybe?

– Health Care And Ending The War Secure Obama’s Legacy, Nick Gillespie. Okay, Pot Would Be Nice Too

– 21 Things You Can’t Do While Black

– Not that I would in a million years be able to afford a Tesla, but boo!

– Looks like trouble in the Majority Coalition (TNT link). I mean other than their ideology, just generally.

– In fairness to Rand Paul, nobody likes Mitch McConnell.

– If men got the Titus 2 Treatment…

There’s a bill wending through the legislature that would allow vets who were honorably discharged, their spouses and their dependents to pay in state tuition at Washington State colleges and universities regardless of residency in the state. I’m not sure how many people this will affect: The GI Bill already covers college for vets.* Still, this is probably a good thing for their families, so it makes sense. This is a job that asks people to move around the country, and so it makes sense that if they land here, that we wave that requirement.

Still, a lot of the need for this sort of thing could be avoided if the state hadn’t bumped up tuition so much in the past few years. I suspect the state will be carving out exemptions and hopefully adding more financial aid as the economy improves, and we can pay for it a bit better.

If we’re going to be a high tuition state, then the more exemptions and the more financial aid the better. Sure, you had to move here because your spouse was sent to JBLM, you an go to the UW or Evergreen, or wherever at an in-state rate. Sure, you’re low income, take some financial aid. Sure, we’ll have the DREAM Act apply in state tuition to more people. I would prefer we weren’t a high tuition state, but a piecemeal approach is better than nothing.

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I didn’t realize this was even in the works as a possibility, but Jay Inslee has put a stop to the death penalty when he’s in office (Spokesman Review link). While I’d prefer him commuting people’s sentences or the legislature actually passing a ban on the death penalty, this is an important thing, and I’m glad he did it. Still the real work to make this permanent is ahead.

Inslee announced a moratorium today on capital punishment, saying he will issue a reprieve if any execution warrant comes to his desk. He’s not issuing a blanket commutation of sentences, and anyone who gets a reprieve from him could still be executed by a successor.

He expects the moratorium to spark a conversation about the death penalty in Washington.

There was a discussion in yesterday’s Open Thread about how much it means. I don’t know if there’s much of a chance to get something passed this session, but it might be worth letting your legislator know if you want the death penalty ended.

The Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally continues its city-wide Drinking Liberally tour, in search of a new home.

This evening we will converge upon the South Lake Union neighborhood for an evening of politics under the influence with an Irish theme at Paddy Coyne’s Irish Pub (at South Lake Union), 1190 Thomas St. Seattle. We meet at 8:00 pm, but some folks show up even earlier for dinner.

Can’t make it tonight? Check out another Washington state meeting of DL over the next week.

The Tri-Cities and Vancouver, WA chapters, and Washington’s newest DL, the Redmond chapter, also meets on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Bellingham chapter meets. On Thursday the Bremerton chapter meets. The Centralia chapter meets on Friday. And next Monday, the Aberdeen, Yakima and Olympia chapters meet.

With 215 chapters of Living Liberally, including nineteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting somewhere near you.

– Maria Cantwell is right that the DC Football team has the wrong name.

– If I were writing for The Seattle Times’ Ed Board, I wouldn’t oppose the minimum wage.

– State Senate Republicans set new date to finish negotiating with themselves on transportation plan they don’t have votes for

– I would hope Gillibrand’s military sexual assault bill would get a vote.

– The NFL Will Never Be ‘Ready’ for an Openly Gay Player

– So keep on bikini-ing, I guess, bikini baristas! And I’ll keep on driving the extra 10 minutes down Aurora to get to a Starbucks or something because all the hometown pride in the world isn’t going to get me to drink crotch-coffee.

It’s no surprise, but Patty Murray will be running for reelection in 2016 (Seattle Times Link). Good to know. Patty Murray has been a voice of reason in an increasingly dysfunctional Congress. She has brought decency and class to the Senate. While I don’t like a lot of the compromises she has had to make — most recently with the budget deal — I have no doubt but that they would have been worse without her there.

I suppose, this also dashes my hope that she would run for president. There was no reason to think she would run, but I had always sort of hoped that she might. I suppose with Hillary Clinton pretty close to a lock on the Democratic nomination if she wants it, that wouldn’t make much sense.

– In short, compared to other parts of the country, we don’t go to church that much. Not that we aren’t spiritual, we just as a region don’t go into churches. And, we haven’t for a very long time.

– Hey NFL, Seattle is Gay!

– I don’t know if Lee is going to have a larger piece but on Twitter he noted this piece about the legislature moving to make localities take marijuana businesses.

– The good news is that we haven’t yet seen any evidence that the US is doing this. On the other hand, we’re very good at outsourcing our dirty work when we need to, aren’t we?

– Whatever snow related fun we had over the weekend, I’m certainly glad not to be on the East Coast right now.

– GOP Congress Snake

Last week’s contest was won by wes.in.wa. It was Matamoros, Mexico.

This week’s is a random location using the Google Maps 45-degree views, good luck!

Psalm 137:9
Happy is the one who takes your babies and smashes them against the rocks!

Discuss.

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

Science v. Creationism:

• Ana Kasparian: Bill Nye, Ken Ham and debating the phony “science” of creationism.
• Young Turks: Creationist signs at the Nye–Ham debate.
• Sam Seder: Guess what side Pat Robertson takes.
• Young Turks: The Bill Nye—Ken Ham debate in a nutshell.

Mental Floss: 29 misconceptions about alcohol.

ONN: The Onion Week in Review.

White House: West Wing Week.

Political Olympics:

• Obama: Message for the athletes.
• Ann Telnaes: Putin’s grip on free speech.
• Alex Wagner: Sochi, snow leopards and Vladimir Putin’s Russia
• ONN: Russia applauds America’s efforts to exclude gay athletes from professional sports
• Sochi welcomes Homosexuals to the Olympics
• Five Olympians turned politician
• Stephen: Sochi Reporters need to buck up
• David Pakman: Violent LGBT attacks in Russia
• Young Turks: Russia arrests gay rights activists on DAY 1.

WaPo: When politicians lash out at reporters.

Young Turks: Republican birth control jokes probably won’t help them with the female vote.

The federal government legalizes hemp!

ObamaCare means Freedom:

• Sam Seder: ObamaCare equals FREEDOM.
• Chris Hayes: The latest FAUX News lie about ObamaCare debunked.
• Young Turks: Do Republicans secretly love ObamaCare?
• Sam Seder: CBO report bad news for ObamaCare dead-enders.
• Young Turks: Cathy McMorris Rodgers’ little white lie.:
• Colbert and Krugman on the CBO report (via Crooks and Liars).
• Chris Hayes: The new GOP lie is that ObamaCare kills jobs.
• Ed: Republicans twist CBO numbers for dishonest talking point.

Maddow debunks government weather manipulation conspiracy theory.

Mark Fiore: Wheels on the tech bus.

Stephen: America’s wealthy under siege.

Political Football:

• Best of political Superbowl ads
• Ana Kasparian: Why doesn’t the NFL pay taxes?
• Thom: How the NFL is ripping us off.
• Young Turks: Turns out THIS is the Superbowl ad that made Wingers flip their lid.
• Jon can’t deal with idiots mad about Coke’s ‘America The Beautiful’ Ad
• Sam Seder: Rightwingers go BONKERS over Superbowl ad.
• David Pakman: Conservatives are angry at Coca-Cola
• Young Turks: The dumbest reactions to the Superbowl ad.
• Thom: Doesn’t the Coke Superbowl ad bring out the worst on the Right?

Maddow: Tasers, and Smith & Wesson and Sturm Ruger announce they will no longer sell new semi-auto handguns in California”.

Rocky Anderson: The US’s imperialist history of undermining democracy.

Sharpton: Now Republicans want to execute a “lawless” Obama?!?

Laura Ingraham is a Bigger Idiot than Anyone Realized!!!

• David Pakman: Laura Ingraham question’s Sotomayor ‘allegiance’ to US because her parents are Puerto Rican
• Sam Seder: Laura Ingraham’s shockingly ignorant anti-immigration attack.

Sharpton: Why do Republicans freak out over contraception?:

The Bromance: Scott Walker on Paul Ryan.

Daily Show: Selling Koch to small towns.

The Christie Minstrel Show:

• Sam Seder: When will Chris Christie resign.
• Bridge-gate: How’d we get here?
• David Pakman: He lied? Chris Christie allegedly knew about bridge closure
• Sam Seder: More shoe drops on Chris Christie.
• Ed and Pap: Christie’s inner circle turn on one another
• Bridgegate: Could Christie be impeached?
• The Big Game
• Alex Wagner: The Chris Christie saga evolves into ‘high-school’ insults
• Sam Seder: Christie is a child….
• Ed: Subpoena’s flying in N.J.

Farron Cousins with Nancy Cohen: Republican War on Women™ still a losing strategy.

Young Turks: This is why people love Elizabeth Warren.

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

The Republican War on the Needy™:

• Sam Seder: The sociopaths in Congress slash food stamps.
• John Green: Should we raise the minimum wage?
• Sam Seder: Debunking the anti-minimum wage myths.
• Sharpton: Republicans block unemployment bill…again.
• Pap and Seder: Farm bill takes food from the needy
• Farron Cousins: The party of the 1%.
• Sam Seder: Republicans kill unemployment insurance (AGAIN!).
• Sharpton: Wingnut Republican says it is “immoral” extending unemployment?!?

Young Turks: What do the Republicans really think of Cathy McMorris Rodgers?

Chris Hayes: How the Koch brothers are trying to buy the Senate.

Fallon: Reads awful advice and channels Rob Ford on his last night of Late Night.

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

As you might have heard, this Wednesday there was a bit of a parade in Downtown Seattle. Given that the crowd was larger than the population of Seattle, getting to and from the event was no small task. Martin H. Duke at Seattle Transit Blog has the early info on how the systems did: Mostly pretty well but he also suggests room for improvement.

In all, a memorable day for transit. All transportation modes were overwhelmed beyond their capacity. Things might have been much worse had it not been for crowds of riders in good cheer, orderly, and forgiving of systems well beyond their design limits. Moreover, agencies showed uncommon agility in mobilizing for Wednesday on short notice, and the efforts of foot soldiers controlling crowds at Westlake station and other places were nothing short of heroic.

[…]

However well Wednesday made the point that Seattle’s transit capacity is valuable, there were certainly some suboptimal operations. In particular, joint tunnel operations are severely capacity-reducing when demand reaches these levels. Your humble correspondent arrived at Westlake a little before 5 pm; lines criscrossed the mezzanine as police limited access to the platform for safety reasons. These volumes compounded the usual bus friction, with restricted movement on the platform, Metro’ s insistence on adding congestion at the point of maximum stress, and the apparent breakdown of Metro’s sequencing system for southbound buses. It was clear that the surge of novice riders was largely waiting for the train, well in excess of the share of platform time granted Link.

Moreover, the consistent weakness of rider information arose once again. The tunnel message boards spouted useless platitudes. The crowd got restless as train headways widened, with no real-time information to satisfy them. Moreover, the instinct of a savvy rider, knowing that full trains will pass up riders further South, is to head to Westlake, which no doubt added to the overflow there. Sound Transit, in a brilliantly creative move, sent some trains “out of service” through Westlake to clear out the other crowds and ran some trains between Stadium and Seatac only. It might have relieved some of the pressure to let people know that taking relatively empty buses a few stops would not maroon them, and in fact might get them home sooner.

I don’t want to downplay the people who were stuck at stops but still and all, with only a couple days to prep the agencies — some that have faced severe budget cuts recently — got most people who wanted to be there downtown. It is a testament to the agencies and to the individuals who pulled it off.

Given some of the nightmares that came out of New Jersey after the game, it wasn’t a given that this would work. Of course people were able to come in slowly (the route was pretty well attended at 7:00 when I left for work) and were able to enjoy Seattle for a while rather than all going home at once. I don’t think there’s any way this could have run perfectly, but it did run pretty damn well.

Rodney Tom’s Senate — in their continuing effort to keep social issues off the table — have passed a parental notification bill though the Senate Law & Justice Committee. I realize this isn’t going to become law any time soon. I don’t know if it would even pass the state Senate, and if it did, it wouldn’t get the time of the day in the House and if it somehow managed to get through that, it would be vetoed. But it’s disturbing that it has gotten as far as it has.

Now don’t get me wrong: In an ideal world, minors who need abortions would talk to their parents, but there are reasons why minors wouldn’t tell their parents. And while the law proposed recognizes that in some cases, it’s cruel in the extreme to force a 15 year old trying to abort her father’s child to talk to a superior court judge before she can go forward. There are pregnant girls who have legit reasons to not want to have that conversation: Maybe they’re afraid that they’ll be disowned, or sent to one of those troubled teen camps, for example. Even if you want to push some bullshit narrative about those flighty children today, they are still the ones who would have to carry the child and live with it. In an ideal world a parent should help their children out in that situation.

But we aren’t in an ideal world, and ultimately it isn’t the parent’s decision. If a parent wants to be notified in that situation, they should spend the previous decade and a half or so proving that they’re worth the conversation, not having the state force it.

[h/t to WA NARAL who would like you to write your senator here]

Sometimes as a Seattle resident I’m disappointed that my legislators aren’t as full-force liberal as I’d like. But at least I can take comfort in not being represented by Matt Shea, because here’s what he’s telling his constituents.

Democrats aren’t stopping the assault against our freedom with tax increases. They also want every law abiding citizen who owns a gun to have a background check…. Initiative 594 would require background checks whenever a firearm is sold or transferred between licensed dealers or private parties, with few exceptions. Any sale or transfer of a firearm must be completed through a dealer. If you gave a firearm to your son, a brother or other family member, the proposed law would require them to have a background check or be in violation. It would criminalize law-abiding citizens people, such as Gonzaga University students Erik Fagan and Dan McIntosh, who used a gun last year to scare off a six-time convicted felon when he tried to break into their on-campus house for money.

Christ what an asshole. Hank at Shallow Cognitions takes care of most of the making fun of this. The fact that this was supposedly a bad bill of the week, but is an initiative, the fact that the initiative doesn’t apply to gifts to family (although, I’ll say don’t give a gun to your felon family members if you have any), the fact that the initiative doesn’t have fuck all to do with university rules about firearms. He also has a link to Matt Shea’s road rage incident, that somehow I hadn’t heard about.

That’s all correct, and worth talking about. But I’m curious about the politics? This is an incredibly popular idea. Background checks should be a no-brainer. They’re also super popular. I mean I get that in an off, off year recall in Colorado this can have some resonance. But as an initiative that will almost certainly go to the people and will probably pass, what the fuck? Does he realize he has to be on the same ballot as the thing a supermajority of gun owners support?

Even if you’re trying to just get favor from the gun lobby, this seems like a poor idea politically. I mean, speak at their rallies and answer questions, I suppose. But to announce it to constituents who almost certainly are majority on the other side seems unhelpful. It seems like even if he isn’t worried about reelection (he got 56% last time in a GOP year, but I don’t know about the quality of his opponent or the district more generally), it would make him less trustworthy.

– Seattle sure loves a parade.

– Liberals Need To Get Happy

– Not sure Bill Nye should have accepted a debate with Ken Ham given that it might give some people the impression that there’s an actual debate on the age of the earth. But I’m glad he handled it deftly.

– The Times has had this kind of stink coming off of it for years, and as long as its Beltway rot is allowed to continue, it will continue to gangrenize every other media institution it touches.

– Local school measures are coming up.

– Also, stay warm everybody.