– 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?

– Sally Clark should resign if that’s the attitude she takes after hitting a bike.

– I can’t even imagine wanting to follow protesters around with guns.

– My Vassar College Faculty ID Makes Everything OK

– Jeff Merkley is right about ending too big to jail as a concept.

– Instead of trying to fix this problem by telling our daughters what they can’t like, I think it might be better to work toward a society that accepts scientists, programmers, and CEOs that like unicorns and the color pink just as much as those that don’t.

– Reasonable complaints about women’s soccer in the UK.

– Happy Thanksgiving and Shopping Day.

– Shorter Cathy McMorris Rodgers: The President’s immigration executive order is the democratic process on the rocks. Not the last 4 years of House leadership that I’ve been a part of.

– Does sadness have levels? I guess so. I’m not sure what “more than sad” feels like so I keep quiet.

– The today’s Uber versus future Uber is an interesting lens for policy debates.

– Kids today…

– West Seattle scenes: Sea-star sighting, and a video review

I can’t speak for Goldy, Darryl or anyone else here, but I’ve been running kind of slow since the election. This post is just a quick note that probably until January, I’m going to just do Monday-Wednesday-Friday open threads, but not much else. If there’s something major I want to talk about, I’ll probably have a longer bullet in an open thread.

Come January, I’ll probably be back. But for now, in case you’re wondering why there have been fewer Carl Ballard posts on HA, there’s why.

– (a) Uber seems nice, I’m glad the city caved to everything they want. (b) Seems like a solid arrangement, press.

– The Town Hall on Gender Pay Equity is happening December 2.

– It’s strange because every war is also the Cold War for the GOP.

– What Fair & Balanced Would Look Like

– How come Obama never cites scripture? How dare Obama cite scripture?

– Just consider how many utterly wrong turns one has to take to arrive at the position in which a little girl comes to your Sunday school class and your first thought is “Do I need to turn her in?” That’s sick.

– Now that Obama is an emperor for doing something other presidents have done, how does it feel living in a not free society?

– Good on Councilwoman Sawant for getting arrested in protest of the $15 minimum wage.

– No nominee is above criticism, of course, but liberals shouldn’t be reflexively anti-Loretta Lynch.

– The more the merrier in primaries, I say. But I don’t think I’ll be supporting Jim Webb for President.

– Mr Cosby – you don’t have to talk. Maybe it’s time for women to talk instead.

– I’m a sucker for a good science story, and this one about finding out the cause of the Pacific Northwest starfish die off is pretty interesting.

There has been a lot of talk — including from me in the last Open Thread — about the Seattle City Council doing a lot of great things right now. The budget looks surprisingly good. The $15 minimum wage passed. They’ve also done more symbolic (but still important!) things like opposing the Hyde Amendment.

There are certainly a lot of reasons for this. In some ways it has been building to it for a while; They passed the sick leave/safe leave bill a few years ago; Both candidates for mayor supported the $15 minimum wage. Since the election of a Socialist city wide, the rest of the City Council has to watch their left flank; Sawant has also done a better job holding the line than some other lefty stalwarts on the council before her. Now that there are districts, a lot of the City Council members have a smaller, more accountable, constituency to appease.

But, also the fact that they’re all up for reelection at the same time means they’re all accountable RIGHT NOW. This is democracy working! So this may be a unique moment to get the entire council to follow a more populist agenda than at any time going forward.

There’s a myth that you can’t get anything done in an election year. Maybe that’s true in divided governments or in particularly polarized situations. But in Seattle it certainly hasn’t been the case. Maybe every seat should be up for reelection every 2 years going forward.

– You always hope for a speedy resolution to labor strife, but I support the Longshore workers.

– Slow down on Rainier Ave, pleez.

– This year’s Seattle city budget looks pretty good.

– Sidewalks should never be ‘closed’ for construction projects

– Astronomical Sexism: Rosetta #ShirtStorm and Everyday Sexism in STEM [h/t]

– Agreed that Santarchy is The Worst Fucking Night In The Bars

– I’m sold on Donna Edwards to head the DCCC

– RH Reality Check’s research has identified 14 people who have played an outsized role in creating and spreading key falsehoods about abortion. We have found that they are affiliated with a small number of key groups that give these bogus notions an official gloss but which are little more than vehicles for manufacturing doubt.

– Looks like Pronto is starting out pretty strong.

– Don’t deport parents of citizens. I know an executive order isn’t the perfect solution, but it’s the one that’s available. And yeah, let’s blame the right people.

– Go watch some of these bike movies.

– What a map of Africa might have looked like without European colonization

– I am 12 years old, but Mann’s Seed Store cracked me up. Also, the post itself is interesting. I haven’t lived in Olympia for a long time, but I feel like I should have been able to identify more buildings.

– I like most of these ideas for Revenue-Positive Policy Changes Made Politically Possible By Low-Income ORCA. I’m not sure about 4, although it would probably quicken up the tunnel.

– There is a long space between good and better than the Ferguson PD

– A gated democracy

– On the one hand, the airlines throwing everything against the wall and generally being assholes is pretty much par for the course. On the other hand, what a bunch of assholes.

– You can’t just arrest people for being dipshits who don’t understand the law they were opposed to.

– They haven’t even taken back the reigns of the Senate, and already the GOP can’t help but look at a government shutdown.

– Congrats to the European Space Agency.

– Kirk Cameron seems neat

– I hope you had a happy Veteran’s Day.

– Seriously, everybody, don’t be a vigilante.

– It’s tough to be nostalgic for the Clinton presidency when you were literally an impeachment manager.

– In fairness, Mike Fuckabee, was almost certainly his high school nickname, if I remember high school.

– This is the best correction since this.

After any election loss, there is — or should be — a tendency to look at changing leadership. Since the election, it seems like there should be some consideration of who will lead the Democrats in the Senate (and the House, but we didn’t just lose it in the election). I haven’t seen much discussion of who it should be, so maybe the caucus will just keep Reid without much of a fight.

That would be fine, but since it’s as good a time as any in the foreseeable future, I’d like to see at least a good little fight for it. The fact that the Senate has been dysfunctional has largely been due to GOP obstruction. But Reid hasn’t been particularly able in his time in the Senate to get through that obstruction, at least when the Democrats didn’t have large majorities. The ACA and the stimulus were important, and we shouldn’t diminish them. But he wasn’t able to do much with Democrats’ majorities in the last election.

He is also more conservative than a lot of the caucus on some critical issues. The big one is that he’s anti-choice. It’s a problem making the full throttled argument against the GOP on reproductive rights issues when the leader of the Senate caucus isn’t even there on the issue. I’m sure there are some Red State senators who feel the opposite, and that we should look for ever more centrism. It’s a worthwhile argument to have.

My choice would be Patty Murray, because doy it is, but I could see several people who I’d prefer to have in the position instead of him. Do any of y’all have someone you’d like to see, or do you want to stay with him.

– Oh hey, it looks like the class size initiative is probably going to pass.

– I’m glad to read about the good work being done by the UW chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops [h/t]

– It’s a little late, but an immigration reform executive order sounds pretty OK.

– Chuck Todd is bad on policy even if he knows process.

– Welcome, Oregon to the you can get stoned at a gay wedding club.

– Oh man. The culture war is really heatingzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

– I know that light very well. The worst is then if the bridge is up.

– I’m glad Godden and Murray are being serious about fixing the pay gap for city employees. Here’s hoping that it’s more than just words.

– Well, much of the rest of the country is going to shit, but it’s nice that the Northwest is still OK.

– Of all of the story lines to come out of this election, I think Mitch McConnell as an agent of change might be the dumbest.

– #DudesGreetingDudes

– Christie & Cuomo’s guide to Ebola

Other people have written more elegantly about last night’s election than I will. But I would like to tell a little story about the I-594 victory party: The results had already come in and the mood was pretty good. People mulled around a bit before a round of speechifying.

At some point in that time they played a video montage of various points in the campaign. Probably the toughest was Gabby Giffords’ testimony before the legislature. As it was playing I looked around the crowd and saw several people embrace. Maybe I’m wrong, but it sure looked more like holding one another up embraces than victory embraces. At that moment, I thought of how many people in that room were there because of gun violence. How many people this was personal for.

On top of the fact that this will make policy a bit better in the state, I think the win was good for the people in the room in a more personal way. That’s probably not the best reason to make laws, but I was glad to be a part of that.