Erica C. Barnett reports on a new study on gendered disparities in public transit. And while the study didn’t apply to Puget Sound transit orgs, Barnett looks at their conclusions and at Sound Transit, finding them lacking in at least one area.

What are the implications? The Atlantic suggests that if transit agencies take women’s needs into account, they will provide easier boarding and wider aisles (for women with strollers or heavy bags) and more transit service in care-related sites, like parks, daycares, and schools. Additionally, transit agencies could include more women on their boards, the Atlantic suggests. Although Sound Transit, the regional transit agency for the Puget Sound, is led by a woman, Joni Earl, its 16-member board is dominated by men, with just four female members. (It’s all-white, too).

Also, the King County Council Transportation, Economy and Environment Committee that deals with public transportation is 2/3 men (the same makeup as the entire council) and that the chair and vice chair are both men.

– Reproductive Health and Rights Lobby Day

– Darryl noted the state senate passing the marriage equality bill. Andrew has more details including the roll call.

– And a couple bad bills fail to make it to the floor.

– In other states: Do not let the media silence fool you: Hoosiers are making noise.

– Republican Jesus supports Mitt Romney.

– Weaver ants (Oecophylla smaragdina) contend with a number of ant-like spiders that look similar enough to their favored food to avoid detection by the ant guards. They lurk around the ants’ trails, pretending to be ants and grabbing a meal when the opportunity arises.

I’d like to follow up on Darryl’s piece about Darcy Burner’s polling. Specifically going after the unelectable meme. That she’s “some kind of ultra-liberal Daily Kos Manchurian Candidate destined to be an also-ran.” Darryl does good work dispelling it.

Leaving aside the Kos thing, I think you have to say that the most important factor going forward in the first is whatever Democrat gets through is going to have to earn it. The district isn’t a gimmie for anyone; it’s rather large and neither party can hold a claim to it. So I think whoever works hardest and can present a compelling vision to the voters will win.

But here’s the interesting thing to me: All of that also applies to the newly created 10th district, and many of the people who are opposed to Darcy Burner because she lost a tough race don’t seem to have any problem with Denny Heck running again. Many of the same people criticizing Burner are calling the district centered around suburban-exurban Pierce and Thurston Counties the “Denny Heck District.”

Now, it’s probably a moderately Democratic district, and one Heck should be able to win if he works hard and presents the right message. Problem is, he’s already lost in a district like that, and unlike with Burner it wasn’t to an incumbent. To be clear, I think Heck can win the 10th and Burner or any Democrat can win the 1st. But I wonder why the narratives are so different between the two of them.

– The Florida Primary is today, and in an effort to continuously provide a counterweight to the insightful political prognostication on this website, here’s my prediction:

Mittenz: 39
Ging-rich: 35
Ricky S 14

These are pretty much just pulled outa my ass.

– The most shocking thing to me is the Starbucks.

– accommodating and promoting bicycling isn’t an urban or rural thing, an eastside or westside thing, a red state or blue state thing

– HA alum Goldy truth needles the Truth Needle

– Obama fist bumps.

– General Sherman

I’m not sure if this editorial in the Yakima Herald is pro or anti gay marriage. But the editorial is pro-having Reagan Dunn talk about the issue. Um, fine, I guess. That’s a pretty bold stance that candidates be allowed to express their opinion. But what the hell, this intro?

Reagan Dunn is a Republican trueblood. His first name comes directly from the president whose legacy still dominates the GOP almost a quarter-century after he left office. His mother, the late Jennifer Dunn, was a state party chair in the 1980s and in the 1990s represented the eastern Seattle suburbs as 8th District congresswoman.

Dunn, a King County councilman, would seem the natural party nominee in his bid to succeed fellow Republican Rob McKenna as state attorney general.

Why do things his mother did (including naming him!) count as political bona fides? The only thing that they mention about his time in office is his vote, eventually, for a pro-gay marriage resolution. A non binding resolution. Not the actual policies he’s advanced on the King County Council that might make him a worthwhile potential nominee. Not how he might shape the AG’s office if he got elected. His mother. Wow.

– I honestly don’t know what’s stranger, that this was written at all, or that it was written in late January.

– I’m not sure I’m comfortable calling this the Backpage.com bill since it’s hopefully aimed at them and at anyone else who might pop up.

– For people who think life is a gift from the heavens, though, they’re surprisingly cavalier with the lives of people providing reproductive health services

– An Immorality Tale in Three Acts

– OMG, Indiana.

– OMG Jan Brewer

– Damn you Hollywood values.

Here at HA, we’ve been pretty (and deservedly) tough on Rick Santorum. But there’s no animus, no political disagreement, no division that can bring any thing but sadness from this story (h/t).

The three-year-old daughter of Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum has been admitted to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and the candidate has cancelled his Sunday morning campaign events to be at her side.

Santorum campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley said Saturday night that the former Pennsylvania senator and his wife, Karen, were with Bella at CHOP. Gidley said Santorum planned to return to campaigning as soon as possible in Florida, where the Republican primary is Tuesday.

Bella Santorum has Trisomy 18, a genetic condition in which a child has a third copy of material from chromosome 18, instead of the usual two, causing a wide array of physical and mental problems.

Bella was not expected to survive until her first birthday – half of infants with Trisomy 18 do not survive their first week, according the National Institutes of Health. Some children have lived to their teenage years, but with significant medical and developmental issues.

I can’t imagine how difficult this is for his family. Here’s hoping Bella gets well enough soon enough that we can go back to making fun of her father’s horrible political positions shortly.

So, I know this is old news, but Rick Santorum is trying to ruin sweater vests. Oh sure, he’d say he’s just wearing them, sometimes. I’m sure he thinks he’s conveying a certain downhomieness, and campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire in winter, it makes sense to wear them. And who knows, he may genuinely like wearing them. But since they’re still fairly uncommon, if he goes far in the presidential nominating process, sweater vests may be associated with him. And that’s pretty terrible for those of us who wear them but don’t share his dipshit politics.

I am wearing one right now. I wear either a sweater vest or a sweater to work for most of the winter here in Seattle. Whoever the GOP nominates will be horrible on policy, but hopefully whoever they nominate doesn’t do to the sweater vest what Tucker Carlson did to bow ties.

– Jay Inslee’s piece on marriage equality in Washington State.

– Mitt’s Income vs. Your Income (h/t)

– It’s time to move from a cop hating anarchist dogma centered occupation to what the actual occupy wall street movement was really about, i.e., love, compassion, understanding, a new way of thinking, ending war, empathy, protecting the environment, truth, economic justice, election reform, HOPE.

– I’ve been really grateful for these pieces by Ta-Nehisi Coates debunking the notion that slaveholders could have been compensated before the civil war to end slavery.

– There’s still some off season left, but next season maybe isn’t looking great for Mariners fans.

– SOPA

– Rick Sntourm thinks being forced to carry a rapist’s child is a gift from God.

– While the title of this piece seems to imply that any gains for women are a loss for men, I think the overall the discussion of electing women in Washington, and across the nation, is worth having.

– That means I knock on one more door, I make that extra phone call, I nag my friends and family members to make sure their asses are registered and know where their polling place is…I volunteer, even though I’m tired…I stuff envelopes, even though I’d rather be [insert any of the many things I set aside during an election year].

– Thomas Friedman is full of shit.

– The Bikery

– The Oscar nominations. Some years I’ve seen none of the nominated movies; this year I saw Moneyball, so I guess I’ll root for that.

– Explains South Carolina as well as anything.

– Family Values

– When a politician declares the end of something, it’s almost always the beginning, not the end.

– Scenes from the class war

– Terrible tee shirts.

– Tumwater Falls

Gabrielle Giffords is going to step down from Congress this week. I certainly don’t want to tell her how to recover or what’s best for her. I wish her the best, and if this is what’s right for her, I support her doing it 100%. But surely Loughner got, if not what he wanted, a victory today. Surely whatever bounced around his twisted, anti-feminist, gun-fetishist, sick mind having her out of Congress was at the top of his list of his reasons to go on that shooting. And he got it today.

I’ll be live blogging the results. Because I’m blogging here at Horse’s Ass, I’ll probably do it as a mocking of the typical media style. So if a result doesn’t have a link, it’s probably just something I made up. Polls close at 7:00 SC time, but since I and most HA readers are on the West Coast, polls close at 4:00. All updates will be in West Coast time. It should be noted that I don’t have a TV box, so this might skew toward Internet results.

Update 4:02: Still no results in, but Gingrich is projected to win from the exit polls. Here are some sites I’ll be looking at. Kos NPR TPM The SC Election Commission.

Update 4:08: Newt Gingrich needed a win with the GOP’s critical jackass community. It looks like the jackasses pulled through. Still no actual results, but at the very least the jackasses who were willing to talk to exit pollsters liked the way he didn’t ever actually answer questions at the debates and the way he hates gay people. In addition to jackasses, douches, douche bags, and assholes have all broken strongly for Gingrich. Can he unite these disparate groups of Republicans going forward? We’ll see in Florida.

Update 4:17: Given how well Newt did right after revelations about an affair were brought to light, I think the other candidates should seriously consider leaving their wives for younger staffers. Does Santorum have time leave his wife before the Florida primary?

Update 4:24: Still no results, but CBS news has actual exit poll results.

Update 4:31: OK, real results, y’all. So far even though TPM is predicting Newt is the winner, Mittens has the most votes so far:

Mitt Romney…..1,857…….38.1%
Newt Gingrich…1,614…….33.1%
Rick Santorum…639………13.1%
Ron Paul………..454……….9.3%

Update 4:34: The SC Election Commission has even fewer numbers in and has Romney at 47%. You guys, either you shouldn’t trust small numbers from just a few precincts that just start to trickle in, or the exit polls are wrong. I have no way of knowing.

Update 4:54: An hour after the polls close, TPM has Newtron in the lead over Will.I.Ard:

Newt Gingrich…….7,149……36.5%
Mitt Romney………6,628……33.8%
Rick Santorum……2,958…….15.1%
Ron Paul…………..2,097……10.7%

Update 4:58: Among white voters, so far the results are:

Newt Gingrich…….7,149……36.5%
Mitt Romney………6,628……33.8%
Rick Santorum……2,958…….15.1%
Ron Paul…………..2,097……10.7%

I guess they haven’t counted Nikki Haley’s vote yet.

Update 5:03: Romney’s making a speech. He doesn’t like Obama.

Update 5:05: I think Romney thinks Gingrich is too much like Obama. He’s apparently made “a frontal assault on free enterprise” whatever the fuck that means.

Update 5:06: I won’t have the rest of the speech since NPR has cut it off.

Update 5:12: From Michael in the comments on Willard’s speech:

Romney’s clearly mistaken “free enterprise” with half the women in DC.

Update 5:18: With 94,442 votes in, Newtle is still up over Mittenz:

Newt Gingrich…….38,589……40.9%
Mitt Romney………25,525……27.0%
Rick Santorum……16,204……17.2%
Ron Paul…………..12,033……12.7%

Update 5:24: Joe Wilson is on NPR. He just said, “the health care takeover will destroy jobs.” You lie! It’s not a health care takeover and it won’t destroy jobs.

Update 5:37: All the news sources I see say Newter has won 17 delegates. I assume that’s all of them. Does anyone know if there are any delegates up for grabs?

Update 5:45: How many of the 2,353 so far votes for Herman Cain are for Cain and how many for Colbert? I’m going out on a limb and saying all of them are for Colbert. Every single one.

Update 5:52: Apparently Santorum is speaking and he’s still in it, but NPR isn’t breaking to it like they did for part of Romney’s. Here’s my guess: “I hate gay people. Boo women. Race baiting.”

Update 6:01: Looks like “Says You!” on KUOW.

Update 6:07: With 355,360 votes in Oven Mitt is still down to Out with the Old In With The Newt:

Newt Gingrich………….144,242……40.6%
Mitt Romney……………93,628…….26.3%
Rick Santorum…………63,475……17.9%
Ron Paul……………….47,712…….13.4%
Herman “Colbert” Cain…3,477……..1.0%

Update 6:13: I think we can all agree if you want to win an early primary it helps to have been an elected official from a neighboring state. So that bodes well for Newt in Florida.

Update 6:19: Does shutting down the government because you have a sad about seating assignments help you win a primary contest 12 years later? Answer: Maybe?!?

Update 6:22: I just found the NPR live feed and they said that Gingrich won 23 of 25 delegates. I assume Romney won the other 2, but I can’t find it anywhere.

Update 6:25: Newt Gingrich isn’t coming out to speak yet. 3 possibilities for why: 1) He knows coverage will stop after he’s done so he’s dragging it out. 2) He was surprised by the size of the victory and is rewriting his speech. 3) He’s having sex with future wife #4.

Update 6:27: OK, Newt is on stage now.

Update 6:32: Elites are trying to make us stop being American. What?

Update 6:34: The other candidates reflect the openness of the American system. Yes, 3 wealthy white Christian men show how anyone can run for president?

Update 6:35: Newt attacks New York and Washington. People chant “USA USA USA.” Um, New York and Washington are part of the USA.

Update 6:38: He’s making a TelePrompTer joke (as he’s reading off his script).

Update 6:39: Saul Alinsky. What?

Update 6:41: Now he’s talking about “anti-religious bigotry” as he defines opposition to Christian supremacy.

Update 6:44: Oh good, we’re back on food stamp president. Without food stamps a lot of the children of the working poor will starve, asshole. And make them janitors isn’t a fucking answer.

Update 6:45: The NPR feed just cut out the speech. Phew, now I can listen to E.J. Dionne and Matt Continetti. Thanks? NPR.

Update 7:04: OK, most of the votes are in, so this is the last update, probably:

Newt Gingrich……..209,218…….40.4%
Mitt Romney……….139,804…….27.0%
Rick Santorum………89,871…….17.4%
Ron Paul…………….69,360……..13.4%

I assume this means Newt has the lead in the delegate count (even assuming you can make up some guess for the Iowa delegate count). Hmm, I was more serious than I thought I’d be and left a lot of jokes on the table. Surprising given how it wasn’t even that close.

Now on to Florida.

I really dig the initiative by mayors across the country to support marriage equality (h/t). It pushes the issue forward and while it’s mostly symbolism, that’s all that they can do. Still, when I checked out the Washington entries on the list, I was a little disappointed.

Timothy Leavitt – Vancouver, WA
Mike McGinn – Seattle, WA
Marilyn Strickland – Tacoma, WA
Ava Frisinger – Issaquah, WA

That’s it. McGinn and Strickland are gimmies. I’m glad they signed on but it would be much more surprising if they didn’t than if they did, just based on the cities. But Everett isn’t on the list. No Olympia or Bellingham. No Bellevue and only one suburban King County city. No Spokane or any Eastern Washington cities.

Of course, gay people (and their allies) live outside those 4 cities. They live in Eastern Washington. I don’t know what the outreach there was to the mayors not on the list, but there’s more work to do.