Archives for December 2016

I go to West Seattle via bus quite frequently, and I never noticed any problem with the bus shelters Metro is removing (h/t). That shelter in particular has some very neat history on it. I always appreciated those plates. Hopefully they can at least go somewhere. Also, maybe my least favorite thing in Seattle is when it rains hard and too many people share too few bus shelters.

It’s free. It’s fun. And, no extreme vetting is involved! Please join us tonight for an evening of politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

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

Congrats to The Sounders! There will be a parade tomorrow and while good on the Sounders, I just hope it doesn’t screw up traffic too much.

Isaiah 34:7
And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.

Discuss.

Farron Cousins: Repealing ObamaCare could kill 36,000 people per year.

Kimmel: The Christmas Wall.

Slate: What dinosaurs really looked like.

PsychoSuperMom: If there’s a war on Christmas, Christmas is winning:

All-Wrong:

• Are the Alt-Right the new Nazis?
• Seth Meyers: A message to media normalizing the Alt-Right
• Stephen: Pizzagate is an alt-right fever dream.
• Full Frontal: Fake news, real consequences.
• Young Turks: Adult Swim cancels alt-right show

Stephen: Family meeting with Joe Biden.

White House: West Wing Week.

Samantha Bee: Eroding electoral confidence.

Mental Floss: 16 myths about blindness.

The Sexual Preditor, Sociopath, Racist President-Elect:

• Daily Show: Drumpf’s “thank-you” tour
• Late Show: How Time choose “Person of the Year”
• Young Turks: White supremacists super triggered by new Star Wars
• Michael Brooks: Was Drumpf’s call with Taiwan buffoonery or intentional provocation?
• Conan: More leaked calls between Donald Drumpf and Barack Obama:

• Conan: Donald Drumpf keeps calling Barack Obama.
• Farron Cousins: Drumpf picks climate change denier for EPA
• Four things you need to know about Drumpf EPA nominee, Scott Pruitt
• Seth Meyers: A closer look at Drumpf’s Carrier deal.
• Kimmel: Drunk Donald Drumpf on Desert Storm
• Thom: Trump on the couch with Dr. Justin Frank, MD
• Trevor: Donald Drumpf fakes a deal.
• Sam Seder with Rick Perlstein: Gen. Michael Flynn’s former coworker says he’s seriously unqualified to be National Security Advisor
• Samantha Bee: The big lie.
• Stephen: Nothing makes Drumpf happier than being angry.
• Olbermann: Let’s take a look at Drumpf’s cabinet of villains
• Sam Seder: Drumpf defends plutocratic cabinet to crowd of people who will likely lose everything they depend on.
• Lawrence O’Donnell: Local union President responds to Donald Drumpf’s tweet attack
• Seth Meyers: A closer look at Donald Drumpf’s false claims & “foreign policy”
• Mark Fiore: Exclusive audio of Drumpf phone calls.
• Kimmel: Drunk Donald Drumpf, “I’m asking you!”
• Stephen: Trump’s cabinet selections are making us queasy
• Young Turks: Greedy Drumpf won’t give up “The Apprentice”
• Jonathan Mann and Ben Carson: Facts Don’t Matter.
• Sam Seder: Al Gore meets with Ivanka and Ivanka’s dad about climate change
• Trevor: President Elect Dumb-Fuck talks to Taiwan.

Stephen: Will Joe Biden run in 2020?

Young Turks: Ohio destroys reproductive rights.

Trevor: Making sense of the Electoral College:

Sam Seder: Corey Lewandowski appears on Hannity propaganda vehicle to announces victory in fake war on X-mas.

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

When we get a little closer to the start of the legislative session, I’ll write my regular what do you want post. But for the legislative Republicans, they’ve already decided what they want. From being the worst to leaving and making their own state. They could chose to not be assholes instead of restricting abortion access, destroying the environment, and trying to make their own shitty state East of the Cascades.

I’m going to write a few letters to various state and local officials (and maybe my member of Congress and Senators). Mostly it’s urging them to do as best they can to resist Trump, but also other things maybe. Here’s the first one. I wrote the following to my city council members (at large and the one who represents me) and Mayor Murray and City Attorney Holmes. Murray’s has 2nd person language in the executive order section, but otherwise it’s the same.

I was heartened when Mayor Murray reaffirmed his commitment last month to make Seattle a sanctuary city. I hope you’ll do everything you can going forward to make that a reality.

I’m asking specifically that you use your power to have the city not to assist in deportations. People’s immigration status is not their value to the city. This is a moral issue in and of itself and it’s also a test for future issues.

Donald Trump has already threatened to do even worse. From Muslim bans to national stop and frisk. If you give in on the sanctuary city front, it will make it easier for him to do these other things.

Thank you,

Carl Ballard
horsesass.org

I don’t actually care about a temporary blip in Boeing stock. But I do care if Trump is trying to punish someone for saying they like trade. So here we are. Trump claims to want more manufacturing in the United States but is apparently prepared to lie about one of America’s biggest manufacturers out of spite.

Come in from the cold this evening, warm your hands at the wood burning stove, order the beverage of your choice, and then join us for discussions and merrymaking at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

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

More bike lanes. This time a 7th Avenue connector. It really looks like Seattle is really moving to a network of bike lanes and paths that connect as opposed to a few lanes in some places and some trails.

Revelation 19:17-18
I then saw an angel standing on the sun, and he shouted to all the birds flying in the sky, “Come and join in God’s great feast! You can eat the flesh of kings, rulers, leaders, horses, riders, free people, slaves, important people, and everyone else.”!

Discuss.

The world’s most polluted cities.

Mark Fiore: Pipeline Protector

Roll Call Decoder: How does new member orientation really work?

Trevor: The Dakota Access Pipeline’s reservation reroute.

Denying climate change is like living in a burning house:

Mental Floss: 27 amazing accomplishments of elderly people.

Farron Cousins: The fight for 15 has tens of thousands hitting the streets to fight for a living wage.

Facebook Live with President Obama.

Young Turks: Veterans deploy to Standing Rock #NoDAPL.

The Serial Philanderer, Con Man, Putin-loving, President Elect:

• Young Turks: Why Drumpf’s “landslide” mandate is nonsense
• Keith Olbermann: Can Donald Drumpf possibly believe what he’s saying?
• Jimmy Dore: Mitt Romney humiliates himself at Drumpf Tower.
• David Pakman: Drumpf now trails Clinton by 2.3 million votes
• Maddow: Drumpf does a pre-inauguration ‘Thank You’ tour.
• Thom: Did Carrier fleece both Drumpf & America?
• Stephen: Drumpf will soon acquire mass text capability
• Young Turks: Drumpf picks Sarah Palin to lead largest government agency
• David Pakman: Rumors about faithless Drumpf electors.
• Sam Seder: Romney forced to have intimate dinner of shame with Drumpf for SOS job.
• Roll Call: Who has Drumpf picked for his Cabinet
• PsychoSuperMom: Tweetin’ Donald:

• Trevor: President-elect Drumpf’s conflicts of interest
• Understanding real Drumpf voters.
• Maddow: Drumpf plans to privatize VA? Vets say “NO!”
• Jimmy Dore: Republicans target Medicare despite Drumpf’s promise to protect it
• Sam Seder and Ari Berman: Drumpf & the GOP are trying to destroy democracy
• James Corden: Donald Drumpf and Mitt Romney make nice over dinner.
• Drumpf could violate the Constitution on Day 1.
• More leaked taped calls between Drumpf and Obama:

• Young Turks: Drumpf Tweets out a huge lie about the election.
• Stephen: At dinner with Donald Drumpf, Mitt Romney ate crow.
• Maddow: Drumpf’s scary pick for Deputy National Security Adviser is clueless!
• Don’t freak out about Donald Drumpf! This country has always been run by questionable people.
• Trevor: Adapting to Donald Drumpf’s lies
• David Pakman: Donald Drumpf has been turning down intelligence briefings since winning election

Full Frontal game night.

Adam Ruins Everything: How prostitutes settled the wild west.

Conan: Celebrity survey.

David Pakman: Texas now requires funeral services for all abortions.

White House: West Wing Week.

Jimmy Dore: Low wage workers rise up to demand livable wage.

How to make fake news.

Olbermann: “Government-backed attackers” may have hacked my account.

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

It’s obviously horrendous that we’ve set up a system where you have to drive for hours if you want an abortion. I do wonder how much we as a state can do. If people are driving to Yakima, a city not on the border, maybe there are ways to encourage more clinics closer to Idaho and Oregon. It’s probably the part of the state that’s the most hostile to that sort of thing.