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Archives for November 2016

Op’n Thread

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In a lot of the open threads since Trump’s election, I’ve been harping on how Seattle and Washington State can push back against the worst of Trump’s policies. I’m glad to see I’m not the only person thinking about local resistance to these national issues (h/t). That leaves a lot of problems for people in a lot of places without much protection. And, frankly, I’m not sure how up to it, our local politicians are.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottleIt’s Tuesday. And that means the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally meets for an evening of politics over a pint. Please stop by!

We meet 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 beginning about 8pm.

Can’t make it to Seattle? Check out one of the other 189 chapters of Living Liberally, including twenty 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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Daily Show: R.I.P. Facts.

David Pakman: The truth about the alt-right.

Young Turks: The Emails Mike Pence doesn’t want you to see.

Adam ruins everything: The Shocking Way Private Prisons Make Money:

Common Ground: The game we can all agree on.

Jonathan Mann: Fight These Fucking Nazis Right Now.

The Serial Philanderer, Con Man, Putinophile, President Elect:

Farron Cousins: Glenn Beck attacks alt-right, forgetting he helped create it.

Trevor interviews Wesley Lowery, author of “They Can’t Kill Us All”.

Geologist’s nightmare.

Jonathan Mann: Recount!

PsychoSuperMom: I’m not a scientist:

Thom: How many Japanese sent to internment camps were US citizens?

Young Turks: Republican gerrymandering ruled unconstitutional

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

The “This could be the last Thanksgiving ever” open thread

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How to cook a Royal Thanksgiving turkey.

James Corden: Thanksgiving edition of Side Effects May Include.

Thanksgiving Classic: Sarah Palin’s Thanksgiving Massacre (with a side of word salad):

Stephen Colbert’s Turkey Tips, Part I.

Stephen Colbert’s Turkey Tips, Part II.

Late Night: What we are thankful for.

Turkeys try Thanksgiving food.

Obama pardoned the Turkey that killed my family. (Thanks, Obama!)

Late Show: How to draw a turkey by hand.

Congress talks turkey, turkey ham, and other food.

Daily Show: “U Name It” challenge for a stressful Thanksgiving:

James Corden: Friendsgiving—Thanksgiving with weed.

Stephen: The Late Show’s post-election Thanksgiving survival tips.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottlePlease join us Tuesday for an evening of politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally. This is the place to go for some post-election discussions of the future.

We meet 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 beginning about 8pm.




Can’t make it to Seattle? Check out one of the other 189 chapters of Living Liberally, including twenty 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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Can California form its own country?

Alex meets the President.

Adam Conover: The sinister reason weed is illegal:

David Pakman: Hillary Clinton leads Donald Трамп by more than one million votes.

Sam Seder: Can Obama make a Supreme Court recess appointment?

The Sexual Predator, Путин Puppet, President Elect:

David Pakman: NSA Chief, Russia hacked the 2016 election.

Mental Floss: 39 U.S. City Name origins.

Minute Physics: Is the moon held up by a spring? How perspective shapes reality.

David Packman: Racist assholes call Michelle Obama an “ape in heals”.:

Joe Biden: Building on a record of economic progress.

Kimmel: The week in unnecessary censorship.

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

Open Thread

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In Monday’s Open Thread, I mentioned that I’d like to keep a Washington State exchange. But the more I think about it, the more I would like Washington State to just set up a public option of our own and sell it across state lines. Maybe we can keep our exchange and sell the public option to Washington State residents at cost, but sell it to the rest of the country at a profit. Of course, we’d probably need a Democratic State Senate to make that happen, but it’s worth the push.

0pen Thread: November 16

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There may be a lot of internally displaced refugees in Trump’s America. If Kansas collapses under its own weight, it may be that nobody can save them. If ICE raids are as bad as we fear, people might move to sanctuary cities. If police aren’t even doing the basics to protect Black people, Latin Americans, or gay people, they might have to move to other parts of the country where they feel safer.

I say this as a warning for Seattle and Washington: We have to get our shit together. We have to solve our homeless problem because more people are coming (and because it was always the right thing to do). We have to make sure people still have health care here because healthy people in Washington are more productive, and more people coming are going to need it (also, because it’s the right thing to do). We have to get serious about police reform so people who come here aren’t afraid of them (also, it’s the right thing to do).

I generally push back against people who say people who don’t like policies in their state should move to a more liberal state. But if we want to be an option for people, we have to work on ourselves.

For the Good of the Nation President Obama Must Martyr Hillary Clinton, Not Pardon Her

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Jesus Christ, I just have to take a moment to remark on what is perhaps the stupidest fucking editorial ever from the Seattle Times, a newspaper that has turned stupid fucking editorials into a veritable art form:

PRESIDENT Obama should pre-emptively pardon Hillary Clinton to protect her and the United States from a vindictive, showboat prosecution by the incoming Trump administration.

No, NO, NO… President Obama should not pardon Hillary Clinton under any circumstance! A pardon would be understood by the vast majority of Americans both as an admission of guilt and as conclusive evidence of endemic corruption in the Democratic establishment! How fucking stupid can the Seattle Times be not to see the politics of the situation through to its logical conclusion?

While I understand and even agree with the editorial board’s impulses (“The danger to America is not Clinton’s freedom but in having a presidency that even threatens to use its power for vendettas and jailing opponents”), it is far too late for such democratic high-mindedness. The threat has already been made! And the American people (well, the Electoral College) rewarded Trump for it with the White House. Obama pardoning Clinton would only embolden and enrage the trumpenproletariate, while freeing Chancellor Trump from the responsibility of fulfilling one of his most disturbing campaign promises.

Rather, cold political calculus tells us that we must let Trump be Trump. We must not allow him to escape this defining moment. He must either demonstrate to his base the weakness that is at the vile heart of all tyrants, or demonstrate to the world how little he honors the rule of law, let alone our nation’s two-and-a-quarter centuries of peaceful transfer of power.

A Clinton show trial would no doubt be a shock to the American psyche and a permanent scar on our nation’s world standing. But so would the show trials of Clinton underlings that would no doubt ensue should the Trump regime be denied its promised revenge (a Clinton pardon should be a sign for Huma Abedin to flee the country). It may be too late to avoid this trauma. But at least it would finally and totally rip away the fiction that there is anything normal about the alt-right regime that has seized the White House.

If Trump prosecutes Clinton, he turns her into a martyr of the democratic resistance. But if President Obama pardons Clinton, he transforms the two of them into political villains against which the Republicans will effectively run for decades to come. It isn’t fair. It isn’t comforting. But that is the America in which we now all live.

It is also an America that newspapers like the Seattle Times helped create through their endless coverage of the trumped up email witch hunt, and a shameful campaign of false equivalency that now trivializes “go hang yourself” and “go back to India” as mere “complaints” while characterizing Breitbart’s obvious and indisputable white nationalism as a mere he-said/she-said allegation of “critics say“—the critics explicitly othered on the paper’s front page as “angry … Jewish and Muslim groups.”

Like most of the rest of media, the Trump-normalizing Seattle Times has surrendered the moral authority to even report the news, let alone comment upon it. It does not matter if the editorial board’s motives were good: their advice is more than just wrong, it is dangerous.

The sole purpose of a free press is to safeguard democracy. On this the Seattle Times and the rest of the old guard news media utterly failed. So please, Seattle Times, for the sake of our nation, shut the fuck up before you do more harm.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottle

The election is over, and one thing is clear: we have a lot of work to do! Please join us Tuesday evening at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally for a post-election debriefing and discussions about the future.

We meet 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 beginning about 8pm.




Can’t make it to Seattle on Tuesday night? Check out one of the other 189 chapters of Living Liberally, including twenty in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find, or go out and start, a chapter near you.

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