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Archives for May 2016

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottleIt feels like Monday, but it really is Tuesday. So please join us tonight for an evening of politics and conversation over a pint 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. We start at 8:00pm.



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

There are 179 chapters of Living Liberally, including nineteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find, or go out and start, a chapter near you.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Seth Meyers with Gov. John Hickenlooper (D-CO): Coming around to pot legalization.

Samantha Bee saves your friendships.

First ever detailed view of worldwide falling rain and snow.

Thom: Does the GOP hate American government?

Mental Floss: 27 siblings of famous people.

Sam Bee: The religious right:

Jimmy Dore: Political jokes of the week.

Pharmaceutical Company Pfizer blocks drugs from being used in lethal injections.

Stephen: Political humor of the week.

The 2016 GOP Clown Show:

Samantha Bee: Feel the turn.

Seth Meyers: A closer look at Congressional dysfunction:

Stephen: A sneak peek at Charlie Daniels’ next NRA ad.

Young Turks: McCain’s own ad used against him.

Minute Physics: How long to fall through the earth?

Seven women of science who deserve greater recognition.

PsychoSuperMom: No ones gonna take away your friggen guns!

Kimmel: What the Drumpf-Sanders debate might have been.

Seth Meyers: A closer at Hillary’s emails.

David Hawkings’ Whiteboard: Senate elections landscape:

Stephen: The nation’s nuclear arsenal could use an upgrade.

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

Hmmmm

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So, back when she was First Lady, and considering a run for Senate, Hillary Clinton moved to New York. She told people that she enjoyed watching baseball and that even though she grew up a Cubs fan in Chicago, her American League team was the Yankees. I grew up in New York and as a Mets fan, this is probably my least favorite thing about her. Like, I know a lot of Yankee fans, and like and respect a lot of them: I consider it a character flaw in all of them. Even though there were no Mets when she was growing up, and anyway, she had a team on the Senior Circuit, I’m still disappointed.

But, the point here is that people thought they could audit her fandom. Sure, she used to wear a Yankee hat before she even became First Lady, and she talked about he Yankee fandom before anyone thought about her running for Senate. Anyway, so she’s a Yankee fan who and literally anyone who cares the least bit knows that.

So, you’ve probably heard about that David Brooks column that he has no idea what Clinton does in her spare time, therefore she’s not popular.

I would begin my explanation with this question: Can you tell me what Hillary Clinton does for fun? We know what Obama does for fun — golf, basketball, etc. We know, unfortunately, what Trump does for fun.*

So, yeah, Wonkette does a great job making fun of Brooks (at the link above). But I thought I’d add that if reporters weren’t trying to prove how unauthentic she is, they might be able to answer his bullshit question.

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No, Ezra, Uber Didn’t “Exploit Loopholes” in the Law; It Broke the Law

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Uber Logo

There’s a lot that’s right and a lot that’s wrong with Ezra Klein’s chapter-length post on productivity—“Technology is changing how we live, but it needs to change how we work”—and I hope to respond to his larger thesis as soon as I have the time. But I just have to take a quick moment to call out Klein for this almost-parenthetical assertion:

Uber’s great innovation wasn’t its software so much as its brazenness at exploiting loopholes in taxi regulations and then mobilizing satisfied customers to scare off powerful interest groups and angry local politicians.

Um… no. Uber’s great innovation wasn’t in brazenly “exploiting loopholes.” It was in brazenly breaking the law. In Seattle and in hundreds of other cities worldwide, it was unambiguously illegal to pick up paying passengers without a for-hire license. This wasn’t a “loophole” that UberX and Lyft drove through; it was the rule of law.

And that’s a very important distinction. “Exploiting a loophole,” implies some sort of clever, even sneaky, but technically legal circumvention of existing laws and regulations. But that’s not what Uber did. Rather, in city after city, Uber brazenly defied the law until lawmakers caved and changed it.

Uber wasn’t being clever. It was being anti-social.

Of course, you’ll rarely read such a blunt (and accurate) description of Uber’s practices in the corporate media (and yes, Vox too is a corporation), perhaps because Uber was equally brazen at threatening its critics in the press. But, well, the truth matters, and it’s always galled me to see Uber lionized as a great innovator when its greatest business innovation was arguably its utter disregard for the law.

Open Thread 5-25

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This week’s open thread’s are apparently random stuff related to me going to the Seattle Center. It’s kind of shameful to admit as a writer for HA, but I went to the Chihuly exhibit. I have always felt about it the same way I felt about Safeco and Century Link Field: I didn’t like how they were created, but now that they’re there, I’m not going to boycott them in protest or anything. I feel a similar way about some of the bars/restaurants/coffee shops whose owners were dicks about the $15 minimum wage or sick leave/safe leave.*

It’s quite impressive. I would certainly go again.

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Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottleIt is primary election night in Washington…technically. So get that ballot turned in and then stop by the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally for discussion over a daiquiri.

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. We start at 8:00pm, but some of us will show up earlier on election night.




Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings this week. Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter also meets. On Wednesday, the Burien and North Spokane chapters meet. Finally, the Kent and Woodinville chapters meet on Thursday.

There are 179 chapters of Living Liberally, including nineteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find, or go out and start, a chapter near you.

HA Bible Study: Malachi 2:2-3

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Malachi 2:2-3
If you do not listen, and if you do not resolve to honor my name,” says the LORD Almighty, “I will send a curse on you, and I will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not resolved to honor me.

“Because of you I will rebuke your descendants; I will smear on your faces the dung from your festival sacrifices, and you will be carried off with it.

Discuss.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Democrats hold mock hearing on Judge Garland.

Samantha Bee: The victims of SuperPACs.

What is behind the G.O.P’s elephant and the Democrat’s donkey.

Stephen: Hillary Clinton goes full ’90s nostalgia.

Mark Fiore: Cheap-Labor-For-You, Inc..

The 2016 GOP Clown Show:

Stephen: A man named Ralph Nader.

David Pakman: Why are the highly educated so liberal?

White House: Calling all kid scientists.

Daily Show: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau welcomes Syrian refugees to Canada.

Mental Floss: 25 facts about the Indy 500.

Stephen explains this election to kids.

Farron Cousins with Howard Nations: Republican obstruction is decimating our justice system.

Seth Meyers with A Closer Look: Democrats divided on Hillary and Bernie.

Nightly Show: The origins of America’s lead poisoning crisis.

State Sanctioned Discrimination:

VP candidate Kimmel discloses his personal finances.

Maddow: Alabama political clusterfuck. Will drag queen Ambrosia Starling rescue the state?

Stephen: Political week in review.

Sam Seder: Sorry Nutburgers…Trey Gowdy (R-GA) confirms that Hillary didn’t give a “stand-down” order over Benghazi.

White House: West Wing Week.

FAUX News anchor fights text on screen: misstating Supreme Court victory for religion.

What is the busiest airport in the world?

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

Open Thread 5-20

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Like all of us do from time to time, I was reading about the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. I know, I know: You’re all bored of me talking about the Trade Expansion Act of 1962. It’s pretty much what every liberal blog, and especially every one that deals with Washington State politics, is just obsessed with. I hear you, so just this one time, and then I’ll have to go find some other thing to write about.

Anyway, I was reading about the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and I was surprised to learn how pro-trade the Democrats were, and the Republicans weren’t, at least according to a few paragraphs in Once in a Great City, and then some Internet research.

Part of that is a strange bravado that Kennedy had with things when he said “A vital expanding economy in the free world is a strong counter to the threat of the world Communist movement. This act is, therefore, an important new weapon to advance the cause of freedom.” So sure, Democrats being cold warriors. OK. We kinda did that.

But I think part of it was an assumption that it’s pushing our values. At the time, the head of the UAW supported it. It was still an open question what post-war Europe would look like, and I think trading with us, with our then strong unions and democratic values would pass that on.

So, maybe for those of us who aren’t big on NAFTA and the WTO for labor and environmental reasons, there are lessons. Maybe we need to have those sort of protections in the trade deals. I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but if earlier liberals thought of trade as a way to improve things, we probably could too. I don’t know if that makes more sense than just rejecting them, and I don’t know what labor or environmental protections you could get 2/3 of the Senate to pass for the foreseeable future.

Anyway, how will I drag the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 into the next post is anyone’s guess.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottle

Please join us tonight for an evening of politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally. We’ll have the Kentucky and Oregon presidential primaries for our personal amusement, plus lots of local and regional stuff to discuss and debate.

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. We start at 8:00pm.





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

There are 179 chapters of Living Liberally, including nineteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find (or start!) a chapter near you.

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