Archives for November 2014

Please join us tonight for some political punditry and populist pontification over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday evening at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. The starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks show up before that for dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings this week. Tonight the Tri-Cities and Shelton chapters also meet. The Lakewood chapter meets on Wednesday. On Thursday, the Tacoma chapter meets.

With 202 chapters of Living Liberally, including sixteen in Washington state, four in Oregon and three in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting somewhere near you.

– I’m sold on Donna Edwards to head the DCCC

– RH Reality Check’s research has identified 14 people who have played an outsized role in creating and spreading key falsehoods about abortion. We have found that they are affiliated with a small number of key groups that give these bogus notions an official gloss but which are little more than vehicles for manufacturing doubt.

– Looks like Pronto is starting out pretty strong.

– Don’t deport parents of citizens. I know an executive order isn’t the perfect solution, but it’s the one that’s available. And yeah, let’s blame the right people.

– Go watch some of these bike movies.

– What a map of Africa might have looked like without European colonization

– I am 12 years old, but Mann’s Seed Store cracked me up. Also, the post itself is interesting. I haven’t lived in Olympia for a long time, but I feel like I should have been able to identify more buildings.

Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. It was Corpus Christi, Texas.

This week’s is a random location somewhere in the state of Kentucky, good luck!

Chronicles 15:13
All who would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman.

Discuss.

Jon: The retirements of Shrub and Jimmy.

Climate Change and Pseudo-controversy:

• Young Turks: US & China unite against global warming…and the GOP promises to ruin it.
• Sam Seder and Ben Adler: Why the U.S.—China climate deal is a game changer
• David Pakman: US & China reach climate deal.
• Thom: Prof. Michael Mann on historic climate deal.
• Sam Seder: “Climate change is a hoax!,” cries Nutbagger Inhofe, incoming Chair of Senate Environment Committee!!!
• Young Turks: Obama makes it rain for climate change victims

Young Turks: Nobody showed up for the media Ebola orgy.

Chris Hayes: Outrageous FBI letter to Martin Luther King: “KILL yourself”:

SlateTV: How a crossword puzzle is created.

John Oliver: State Lotteries.

Election Aftermath:

• Mark Fiore: The Screw You Strategy.
• Seth Meyers: Emails from Obama
• Young Turks: The quiet movement that’s saving democracy is about to explode
• Sam Seder and David Bender: The Congressional takeover Of Republican fanatics.
• Matt Binder: Lowest voter turnout since WWII
• Young Turks: Senator finds out the hard way that voters don’t like cowards.

John Oliver returns to the Daily Show to interview Jon.

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

White House: West Wing Week.

Chris Hayes: KKK is ready for ‘war’ in Ferguson .

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about technology.

Stephen: Outraged at only two million?!?

Latest Health Care Pseudo-controversy:

• Sam Seder: Angus King smacks down FAUX & Fiends for not wanting people to have health insurance.
• Stephen: About GruberGate.
• Young Turks: ‘Americans are too stupid for ObamaCare’ scandal is dumb Republican nonsense
• WaPo: Gruber’s controversial Obamacare comments explained.
• Sam Seder: What Jonathan Gruber is ACTUALLY saying about ObamaCare

Thom: George W. Bush killed Seattle resident Tomas Young.

PSA: It’s on Us…Don’t be a bystander.

Jon: List of innocent things black people do that look suspicious.

Young Turks: Undeniable proof that the media isn’t liberal, at all.

Maddow: Arizona votes to nullify federal law…and biology textbooks.

David Pakman: Veterans troll Sarah Palin on Veteran’s Day.

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

Puppet Nation: U.S.A News of the week.

Net Nude Trail It Tea:

• Funny or Die: Porn stars explain net neutrality.
• Thom politically corrects FAUX News Spokesidiot Andrew Napolitano
• Maddow: Net neutrality the next politicized policy
• Matt Binder: GOP Nutjob Ted Cruz is fighting against a free and open internet
• Sam Seder: Alex Jones’ insane net neutrality / Nazi meltdown
• Ann Telnaes: The high cost of losing net neutrality.
• Thom: Conservatives lie about net neutrality for big bucks

Jon explains his style of activism.

Pap: Bush’s real legacy—The 5th Circuit Court.

David Pakman: Democrats, NOT Republicans, are the party of freedom & liberty.

Maddow: Conservative media creates parallel universe:

On the Rhodes: An Update from Burma.

Michelle Obama’s greatest video hits.

Political Jesus:

• Thom: Would conservatives nail Jesus to a cross today?
• Young Turks: Would Jesus love or hate Republicans.

Batman: Republican or Democrat?

Stephen: Breitbart’s “corrected” story.

Mental Floss: 25 things you might not know about Harry Potter.

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

– I like most of these ideas for Revenue-Positive Policy Changes Made Politically Possible By Low-Income ORCA. I’m not sure about 4, although it would probably quicken up the tunnel.

– There is a long space between good and better than the Ferguson PD

– A gated democracy

– On the one hand, the airlines throwing everything against the wall and generally being assholes is pretty much par for the course. On the other hand, what a bunch of assholes.

– You can’t just arrest people for being dipshits who don’t understand the law they were opposed to.

– They haven’t even taken back the reigns of the Senate, and already the GOP can’t help but look at a government shutdown.

– Congrats to the European Space Agency.

– Kirk Cameron seems neat

– I hope you had a happy Veteran’s Day.

– Seriously, everybody, don’t be a vigilante.

– It’s tough to be nostalgic for the Clinton presidency when you were literally an impeachment manager.

– In fairness, Mike Fuckabee, was almost certainly his high school nickname, if I remember high school.

– This is the best correction since this.

Please join us tonight for a Veteran’s Day gathering of the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday evening at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. The starting time is 8:00 pm, but feel free to show up earlier to watch election returns.

Can’t make it to Seattle? Check out one of the other Washington state chapters of Drinking Liberally that meets over the next week. The Tri-Cities, Redmond, and Vancouver, WA chapters also meet on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Bellingham and Spokane chapters meet. The Bremerton chapter meets on Thursday. And next Monday, the Aberdeen and Olympia chapters meet.

With 202 chapters of Living Liberally, including seventeen in Washington state, three in Oregon and three in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting somewhere near you.

After any election loss, there is — or should be — a tendency to look at changing leadership. Since the election, it seems like there should be some consideration of who will lead the Democrats in the Senate (and the House, but we didn’t just lose it in the election). I haven’t seen much discussion of who it should be, so maybe the caucus will just keep Reid without much of a fight.

That would be fine, but since it’s as good a time as any in the foreseeable future, I’d like to see at least a good little fight for it. The fact that the Senate has been dysfunctional has largely been due to GOP obstruction. But Reid hasn’t been particularly able in his time in the Senate to get through that obstruction, at least when the Democrats didn’t have large majorities. The ACA and the stimulus were important, and we shouldn’t diminish them. But he wasn’t able to do much with Democrats’ majorities in the last election.

He is also more conservative than a lot of the caucus on some critical issues. The big one is that he’s anti-choice. It’s a problem making the full throttled argument against the GOP on reproductive rights issues when the leader of the Senate caucus isn’t even there on the issue. I’m sure there are some Red State senators who feel the opposite, and that we should look for ever more centrism. It’s a worthwhile argument to have.

My choice would be Patty Murray, because doy it is, but I could see several people who I’d prefer to have in the position instead of him. Do any of y’all have someone you’d like to see, or do you want to stay with him.

– Oh hey, it looks like the class size initiative is probably going to pass.

– I’m glad to read about the good work being done by the UW chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops [h/t]

– It’s a little late, but an immigration reform executive order sounds pretty OK.

– Chuck Todd is bad on policy even if he knows process.

– Welcome, Oregon to the you can get stoned at a gay wedding club.

– Oh man. The culture war is really heatingzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

– I know that light very well. The worst is then if the bridge is up.

Last week’s contest was won by Seventy2002. It was Tampere, Finland.

This week’s is another random location somewhere on earth, good luck!

Hosea 13:16
The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open.

Discuss.

Sam Seder: FAUX News contributor Ben Stein claims, “Obama is the Most Racist President in American History!”

Funny or Die: Republican Bruce Springsteen.

Sam Seder: FAUX News contributor pastor claims Starbucks puts semen in their coffee.

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about pregnancy.

Pot legalization: Which states are next?

What Election?

• Mark Fiore: The last campaign ad ever
• Jon: Who the fuck are you people?
• Young Turks: Guns, balls, and other crazy shit from the 2014 election
• Obama meets with Congressional leaders.
• Maddow: Compromise unlikely after GOP anti-Obama wins
• Ann Telnaes: Americans will be the ones squealing.
• Sam Seder: Liberal policies win big
• Young Turks: Nutjob new OK Sen. elect packs just one book for new job….
• David Pakman: Alaska & Oregon vote to legalize marijuana.
• Thom: Democrats were duped by the Caucus Room Conspiracy
• Farron Cousins: Midterm losses a teachable moment for progressives
• Jon: a shared message of horseshit
• David Allison: Billionaire for Idaho
• Liberal Viewer: Election wins show drug reform will sweep the nation.
• Sam Seder: The worst of the worst of the midterm elections.
• Jon interviews Chairman of RNC, and discusses his erection
• David Pakman: San Francisco votes in $15 minimum wage
• James Rustad: The Midterm Election Debacle Song
• Represent.us: First anti-corruption act in US history passes
• David Pakman: The GOOD of the 2014 election
• Young Turks: Science denier will be running Science Committee
• WaPo: The voters that fueled the “Republican wave”.
• Sam Seder and Cliff Schecter: How Democrats fucked up.
• David Pakman: 100% of newly elected Republican Senators campaigned on repealing ObamaCare
• Maddow: Obama calls GOP bluff on Ebola, ISIS.

• Sharpton goes upside down over election results
• CSPAN: Republican caller warns Republicans to not overreach, and that “the Republicans hate that nigger Obama.”
• Thom: The fatal flaw with democracy.
• Jon: The chickenshit gambit.
• Chris Cillizza: The three Senate races that surprised The Fix.

Barack Obama: Lame duck or cool duck?

Sam Seder and Cliff Schechter: #PointerGate!

White House: West Wing Week.

Young Turks: Crazy shit actual U.S. Senators believe.

Jimmy Kimmel: This week in Unnecessary Censorship.

Political Climate Change:

• Stephen: Calling out “I’m not a Scientist” Republicans.
• Alex Wagner: Jim Inhofe, rabid climate denier, to head Senate climate committee
• Greenman: What history tells us about sea level rise.
• Thom: Stark warnings from UN on climate change

Jon says NBC is confused for going to him about “Meet the Press”.

David Pakman: Boehner hires two lawyers to sue Obama…they both quit.

Maddow: AZ town censors biology…gives textbook an abortion.

Sam Seder: Does Jeb Bush seriously think he’ll become President?

Mental Floss: 23 money tips for any occasion.

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

Good for her:

Alison Holcomb, who has been called the architect of marijuana legalization in Washington state, and who is criminal justice director of ACLU Washington, has been named national director of the ACLU Campaign to End Mass Incarceration, according to a release from the American Civil Liberties Union.

Holcomb wrote Initiative 502, the measure that legalized recreational marijuana in Washington state, and led the successful campaign to pass it.

Holcomb had been publicly mulling a city council run against Socialist Alternative incumbent Kshama Sawant, but recent polling reveals Sawant to be in a much stronger position than the establishment types imagined. This new job is a much better fit for Holcomb, and if successful, more impactful:

“We’ve had 40 years of widening the criminal justice net too far and have relied too heavily on punishment to address social and health problems,” Holcomb said in the release. “We’ve drained coffers and cut people off from jobs, housing, and family stability – the very things they need to succeed in society.”

More than 2.2 million adults are in the nation’s jails and prisons, according to the ACLU. The organization says it hopes to cut the nation’s adult jail and prison population numbers in half by 2020.

Congratulations, Alison, and best of luck.

– I’m glad Godden and Murray are being serious about fixing the pay gap for city employees. Here’s hoping that it’s more than just words.

– Well, much of the rest of the country is going to shit, but it’s nice that the Northwest is still OK.

– Of all of the story lines to come out of this election, I think Mitch McConnell as an agent of change might be the dumbest.

– #DudesGreetingDudes

– Christie & Cuomo’s guide to Ebola