Archives for December 2015

It’s that time of year.

If you are Donald Trump, all you want for Christmas is another high profile mass shooting. If you do the math, we can expect about 30 or 31 more mass shootings this year. Trump ought to get a couple of high profile ones out of that.

Merry Christmas, Donald!

For the rest of us, here’s an idea for a unique gift that almost everyone on your holiday gift list can use.

Give the ones you love a bullet-proof vest, or other types of body armor.

Sure…if we all did this, everyone would receive a bunch of these things. That’s okay…several vests can be useful. Stash one in the basement, one upstairs. Keep one at work. Stash one in the car…and one in the other car. Use one for stinky stuff, like hiking or running. And maybe keep a few spare around for guests with whom you are sharing an intimate hostile fire situation.

Brilliant, no?

Oh…and if Ben Carson is on you holiday list, pick him up some fresh hummus and a shiny new foreign policy adviser.

Speak.

So…this is what Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was thinking about the other day:

When a reporter asked him at an Iowa campaign stop Sunday evening about suspect Robert Lewis Dear saying he was motivated by “no more baby parts,” Cruz countered that he’s also been reported to be a “transgendered [sic] leftist activist.”

Cruz explained, “We know that he was a man registered to vote as a woman.” This discrepancy on Dear’s voter registration was first reported by The Gateway Pundit, a self-described “right-of-center news website,” under the claim that he “identifies as [a] woman.” Conservatives have since run with the claim that Dear is transgender.

Yeah…that makes perfect sense. Because transgendered [sic] women always sport a full, scruffy beard and a mustache. You know, especially if they are “transgendered [sic] leftist activist[s].”

Reality turns out to be a bit more mundane:

Records show Dear traveled 65 miles to a Colorado Springs clerk and recorder’s office to obtain his driver’s license and his voter’s registration card, Parsell said.

Although Dear clearly identified himself as a man, the information was incorrectly logged into a computer, Parsell added.

“Our employee inadvertently clicked on ‘female’ and gave the confirmation to Mr. Dear to review,” he said. “He missed it and signed it.”

Thirteen days later, Dear received the erroneous driver’s license in the mail. Records show he traveled to a Department of Motor Vehicles office in Salida to report the error and request a corrected license, which he received, Parsell said.

To change his voter’s registration card, however, Dear would have had to mail a separate request to his local clerk and recorder’s office.

Crackpots of the week: Ted Cruz and the rest of the right wing “scruffy bearded transgendered woman” theorists.

Holy shit.

Please join us tonight for drinks, conversation, and dinner at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern. Things start up at about 8:00 pm.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings happening this week. The Long Beach, Tri-Cities and West Seattle chapters also meet tonight. The Lakewood chapter meets on Wednesday. On Thursday, the Tacoma chapter meets. And next Monday, the Yakima and South Bellevue chapters meet.

There are 185 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find—or start—a chapter near you.