With GOP control of the Senate, I suspect much of the important work of the legislature will be pushed back another 2 years. There probably won’t be a transportation budget, again. There probably won’t be significant revenue increases (or tax restructuring in a way that will make taxes more fair), again.

On the plus side, maybe McCleary will actually force some action on education funding??? And they do have to pass a budget that in theory has to balance, so maybe that will force the issue on revenue. I’m not optimistic, but who knows?

Still, legislators will be responsible to their constituents, so we might as well say what we want.

– When I was lobbying with NARAL last session, one of the things they wanted was to try to make sure that any supplemental budget didn’t have family planning cuts. Now that the state is working on a 2-year budget, it’s probably something that has to be watched out for.

– As I said above, I don’t hold much hope that our tax structure will improved much, but we can hope.

– Barring that, Inslee’s carbon tax proposal (video loads automatically) is better than a sharp stick in the face, at least for transit funding.

– The social issue that will probably go nowhere that I’d like to see the most is the Reproductive Parity Act

– Maybe the background checks initiative passing will put a little bit more spine into legislators for other popular, common sense gun control measures.

If you’ve got something else you’d like to see, add it in the comments.

I’d also like to say that as the session gets going, I’ll probably be pushing y’all to write your legislators on various issues. I really hope you will consider taking the time to write your legislators, or key legislators, on issues. It really makes a difference. If you want to get started, you can contact your legislator here.

I’m also looking at my calendar at work, and may go down to Olympia at some point to do some actual reporting, or maybe just a bit more lobbying. Or nothing at all.

– So, it’s January, and you have to recycle your food waste. Are you ready (if you weren’t doing it already)?

– Sen Wyden and his staff handled a hands up protest about as well as one might expect, but I’m surprised it was organized without anyone on staff’s knowledge.

– Another reminder that the Supreme Court is not always going to do the right thing.

– Yawn + seethe = contempt

– Male Nerds Think They’re Victims Because They Have No Clue What Female Nerds Go Through [h/t]

– Man, I’ve been taking too much time off. I’m back in real life and, hopefully, here next week. So enjoy 2015, and I’ll see you there.

– Media Follies 2014! – Local

– Looks like last year was a banner year for hate crimes in King County.

– Headline ‘O the Day

– Oh hey, baby orca.

– Happy New Year!

– 1 Million bike trips across the Freemont Bridge this year!

– Emmett thinks that how Seattle and Portland handled Uber says a lot more about how the two cities handle competition more generally. I’m not sure I 100% buy it, but it was a fun read.

– Geez have the Metro drivers even heard of just holding it?

– Good on Nashville Police Chief Steve Anderson for being a decent person in response to a letter.

– Sounds like the appropriate response to 2014

– It’s strangely reassuring to read about Oregon’s unnecessary giveaways to Nike. Oh, that sort of garbage happens everywhere!

– The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a pretty lousy economic measure, but yeah.

– The Oil Train Industry is Putting Seattle at Risk

– Twitter doesn’t think these rape and death threats are harassment

– This piece by Digby on the asymmetry of politicians unhinged from reality is pretty much all you need the next time someone is like “but both sides” or whatever.

– This Modern World’s Year in Review Part 1 and Part 2.

– Lets keep up the marriage equality momentum from last year.

– Random Thoughts on Spreading the Blame for a Cop Killing

– The Northgate pedestrian bridge is in danger.

– Law enforcement people claiming that they’re going to half ass their job need to not be there.

– I had not wondered before now how Santa poops. Probably because he’s magic.

– FYI, I probably won’t have an Open Thread on Friday.

– Where to Get a Hot Meal for the Holidays

– Four Reasons To Be Hopeful for 2015

– You know what else? Every one of these fuckers who brings up The Great Dictator would, given the chance, have joined the red-baiters who kicked Chaplin out of America.

– I am digging Emmett’s Gross Happiness Index of Washington, and may have to play around with the data a bit.

– It seems both happy and sad that it’s 2014 and the President one time only calling on women in a press conference is news.

– Have you done all of your Christmas shopping? I should probably start mine (kidding, sorta).

Sorry, but my Internet is being wonky on my commute this morning. Here’s a thread to keep you company.

– On top of everything else, the idea of a 2/3 vote for raising taxes is such an arbitrary number. Why not pi/5? Why not 8/11? Why not 100%?

– Don’t be a seat hog.

– Something something our trolls are always saying Obama is sooooo weak on Russia.

– Looks like Governor Inslee’s budget might be surprisingly not terrible.

– Looks like Dick Cheney is still not surprisingly terrible.

– But Ron Wyden is a good counter to Dick Cheney being terrible.

– When is torture torture? A thought experiment

– Merry Christmas Jose Padilla

– How did your gun assholes rally go?*

– Top 10 Other No-longer-existing Groups House GOP Should Vote to Deny Federal Funding

– Poor Ark EncounterI think my feelings about The Santa Clause can best be summed by this (100% true) sentence: It took me literally an entire day to get through this 90-minute movie because I kept getting pleasantly distracted by YouTube videos of farmers lancing cow abscesses. Happy holidays.

* Also, putting those two stories next to each other really puts the lie to the gun asshole’s claims that their guns are for freedom. Because stockpiling guns sure as fuck didn’t prevent us from using torture. Seriously, where the fuck were these defenders of freedom when they could have made the tiniest bit of difference?

– I’m not the biggest Dianne Feinstein fan, but this is pretty great. Also, Ron Wyden continues to be good on torture, and Patty Murray hasn’t answered my question from the last open thread.

– I have no idea what to make of the Pioneer Squarecrack.

– Yet Another Study Shows HPV Vaccine Does Not Cause Promiscuity

– Someone with more knowledge of high-THC vs. high-CBD please weigh in, but Senator Kohl-Welles’s proposal for getting medical marijuana out of the grey area legal seems good to me.

– TNR billed itself as the magazine for iconoclasts. But its iconoclasm ended exactly where everyone else’s does—at 110th Street.

– President Obama and Jamie Dimon are besties again.

– The roots under the Burke-Gilman Trail at the UW are going to get cleaned up. Also, “root heave” is now my favorite phrase ever.

– Former Rep. Brian Sullivan has been killed in Alaska.

– Senator Murray’s statement on torture. It’s in the right direction, but it only talks vaguely about oversight instead of anything specific about Congress preventing it or holding anyone responsible. I’ve asked if she has any specific recommendations about holding people who did it accountable, and if her office responds, I’ll post something.

– Yes, police reform matters in Seattle

– Jim McDermott’s editorial: Time is now for a new force authorization

– I don’t know. If Don Benton wanted his picture on those inserts you just throw in the trash so badly, you’d think he’d pick a better picture.

– A Holiday in Volunteer Park

– If Martin Luther King were alive today, he’d be a white conservative.

– Even-the-liberal New Republic

– Happy Bertha-Day!

– There’s a Viaduct joke with multiple meanings of settling but I didn’t have it last night or this morning.

– Over a long enough time horizon the universe will loose all of its energy, but Ross Douthat will still be making ridiculous columns.

– The Obama Recovery Has Been Miles Better Than the Bush Recovery

– Hot fruit is disgusting. Case closed. (PS, I generally agree with Mike Schur but I make a great baked apple)

– The most confusing thing about this is that Dori Monson seems to think that crime is higher in Seattle now than it was when he was growing up.

– The Great National Whitewash Continues

– I support the Graduate Assistants at the University of Oregon.

– This stops today: Seeking strategies to end discriminatory policing

– SeaTac has charged Kshama Sawant with disorderly conduct. If you would like to complain to the City Attorney’s office — politely — you can do so here.

– Existing While Black

– We should probably integrate the monorail into ORCA, and the lease to operate it being up is as good a time as any. I actually use it for non-touristy stuff fairly frequently, and it would be pretty nice (usually I walk or bike it, but not always).

– Protections for free speech are awesome, but I don’t think they covers threatening to murder your estranged wife.

– It strikes me as strange that we didn’t know who would be the GOP leadership if they’d won the state Senate, but now we know.

– If you’re terrified of mostly-peaceful protesters, imagine what it’s like to be terrified of the police every day of your life.

– While I fully admit that I don’t understand all the technical issues, I would like quicker Internet in Seattle, pleez.

– As sad as the perpetual closing/almost closing of neat theaters in Seattle is, maybe it’s the market speaking?