– You may have heard of the Mother Jones – Frank VanderSloot lawsuit. Well, even though Mother Jones won, they could use your money.

– The gender-swapped Twilight sounds like it doesn’t do what it set out to do.

– I know Banks wants to win this election, but “you’re not from here” is so not OK.

– The GOP staffers on the Benghazi committee buying guns on taxpayer’s time is the most GOP story imaginable.

– I think there ware some 13th amendment issues.

– Lamar Odom is not a punchline. He’s someone who has lived in a state of self-medication as a means of self-preservation. Now he’s fighting just to live. Unless you are sending out prayers for his survival, please just shut the hell up. That goes for everyone from the bottom-feeding Piers Morgan to the random Twitter egg. Too many people are too destroyed by this to have to sense your bile. Be better than that for them. Be better than that for Lamar Odom. Be better than that for everyone who carries the weight of tragedy yet still makes others happy to be alive.

– But there was not a single mention of the Duwamish people — by Mr. Williams or by the host — in the entire seven-minute interview. There was no talk of violence, greed, or racism, despite the fact that the rivers the Duwamish had used for sustenance and travel for thousands of years were either filled with dirt from the razed hills or poisoned by all of the rapid “progress.”

– I don’t know enough about the Export-Import bank to have much of an opinion. But this discharge petition story makes me think maybe we don’t need a Speaker of the House. Maybe we just do discharge petitions to get all legislation to the floor.

– What the crap is going on this City Council election cycle?

– I haven’t read them yet, but here are The Stranger’s endorsements.

– Had a more interesting conversation about Mara Willaford and Marissa Johnson with my Real Change vendor than with like 90% of Bernie Sanders supporters.

– At a certain time, the GOP are going to have to find a new fake Clinton scandal. Maybe they can go back to crack pipe Christmastreegate.

– Yet, because the party has leaped so far to the right, they have been unable to perform basic functions of government, and have to end up relying on Democrats to keep them propped up, requiring that the fantasies they’ve promised base voters have to stay off the table to keep those votes.

– It’s too bad that Disability Rights Washington is suing Seattle, but sometimes those sorts of suits are necessary.

– Seattle radio gets a mention in Obama’s press pool report. Oh, also the President was in town.

– So I got an abortion. Just that once. I’ve never regretted it. And I never will. NEVER. And I refuse to apologize for it. It was 110 percent the best thing to do at that time. Not that it was “easy.” Mom offered to go with me to the clinic, but that meant she’d have to make a 10-hour road trip. “No need,” I told her. I would be okay.

– If a mass shooting causes you to smile, you’re doing life wrong.

– I, for one, am looking forward do Lindsey Graham apologizing for his vote against Sandy relief any day now. Or at least providing an explanation.

– Thanks in large part to the effort of Belltown residents and pinball players, the Landmark Preservation Board voted last night to designate the Wayne Apartment Buildings on numerous criteria.

– In an open thread a while ago, I mentioned that a group was putting on several Brecht plays but I wasn’t interested because none of them were Mother Courage. Well, the 0 people who remember that, Seattle Shakespeare are putting on Mother Courage.

I’m feeling much better than Monday, but I’ve been mostly off the Internet, so no links. I’ll probably have a real Open Thread on Friday and hopefully a regular post or two in the rest of the week.

I know everyone has covered Jeb Bush saying “stuff happens” about shootings. Also, it’s a national story, and HA is primarily a Washington State blog. But this post has been rattling around in my mind for a few days. So maybe it’s the cough syrup talking, but I think the most offensive thing about it is that he used the minced oath.

He could have said “shit happens” because that’s the phrase that it’s meant to evoke, but he didn’t. He said stuff. He thought you and I and everyone who could hear him or listen to what he had to say would be offended if he had said “shit.” That him swearing would hurt him, so — as a politician — he had to treat everyone like a 10 year old.

Compare that to the context. He didn’t feel that he had to come up with a way to comfort the dead, let alone come up with a plan to prevent more deaths when he’s president. He didn’t think it would be offensive to just assume a future of regular mass shootings.

You’d hate to be a parent and have to explain that a presidential candidate thought saying “shit” was OK, but letting them know that they or their friends could die of a gunshot wound at any time while at school is easy? The contrast between a taboo on saying the word “shit” and being perfectly fine with flippancy about mass death and trauma is really striking.

And not for nothing, but mass shootings are shit. They’re shit no matter where they happen but they’re even more shit when they happen in schools.

I’m feeling a bit crappy (but better than the weekend), so today’s links are more abbreviated than usual.

– It’s sort of depressing that even when President Obama and Hillary Clinton are great on guns that it’s tough to see a way forward on the issue. Its easier to imagine the next mass shooting than to imagine the solution.

– Oh man Charon looks pretty amazing.

– Oh hey Orcas. Pretty rad.

I know this is a controversial position to take, but in the wake of yet another school shooting, it’s clear that there are too many schools in our society. Just think of how many school shootings we could have prevented if we had reasonable school control in this country.

Sure, in many countries after a shooting, they have moved forward restrictions on guns. But the US Constitution has a sentence about having a well regulated militia, so we can’t do that here. The meaning of that one sentence has been unchanging for literally the almost half a decade since McDonald v. City of Chicago was decided by one vote, so we can’t change it now. And we certainly can’t amend that sentence, even though the Constitution gives us the ability to. No, we’re stuck with that for ever.

But are we stuck with schools? No! The US Constitution mention schools at all! So obviously they aren’t as integral to freedom as owning murder weapons. QED. So ending schools is the only way we can end school shootings and remain free.

Sure, there will still be movie theaters, and churches, and workplaces, street corners, and restaurants. But maybe if shootings persist there, we can ban those too.

– If we only had more corporate criminals, just think of how much energy we could produce — JEB!, probably.

– Maybe the anti-gay, anti-birth control, head of an all male hierarchy that’s still protecting child rapists, who supported a dictatorship in his home country and came to the US specifically to canonize a man who set up missions that were just awful to the Native Americans might not be as progressive as we’d thought? #slatepitch

– When I was a kid I always hated having to get up so early for school, but as an adult, I assume it’s to do with parent’s schedules. So here’s hoping workplaces can also be accommodating.

– I had never noticed that the clocks downtown had IIII instead of IV, but at least there’s an apocryphal story to go with it.

… but I’m still supper excited about NWSL Championship tonight. The Reign are one of the most fun games in town. If you’re at all a sports person, I’d say do yourself a favor and watch the game tonight. The Reign have an official watch party.

– I would like to see some art on the Pier 86 grain silos.

– And honestly, even if they literally only gave abortions and changed their name to Abortions-R-Us, we would still support them because abortion is legal and legal abortions are safe abortions and fuck you for thinking you get to decide what I do with my fucking reproductive organs.

– I don’t really have much context for 700 units of workforce housing around transit centers but it sounds good if low to me.

– It’s nice that they are all talking about the issue of Syria and the crisis in the Middle east. It’s great that they are doing programming around something other than emails and Donald Trump. But do they have to frame it around around puerile notions of male social rivalry?

– This is definitely how science happens.

– I don’t know how long term a victory it is, but Shell is out of Arctic drilling for now.

– Tim Eyman not being willing to go on TV to talk about his latest shitty initiative warms my heart.

– It is time to get very afraid: Extremists, authoritarians now run the GOP — and no one can stop them

– My Grandfather And The Plane That Changed Seattle

– Right Wing Fantasy Obama: What Really Happened To John Boehner?

– I could watch that Richard Sherman punt return on a loop for ever.

– Well, John Boehner resigning is certainly a surprise.

– I’m glad the AG and the monitor think Seattle Police have turned the corner, even as I mostly see the work still ahead.

– How did you spend your bisexual awareness week?

– Kshama Sawant Presents Open Letter to Chinese President Xi

– The US has plenty of room for refugees, and should be taking more, no matter what Donald Trump says.

– <3 Welcome Back, Kam <3

Goldy, as seems to be his thing now, calls some bullshit on Mark J. Perry of American Enterprise Institute. You should go read the whole thing, but basically Perry uses bad numbers to claim that the Seattle minimum wage is bad for jobs because the rest of the state is adding restaurant jobs faster than Pierce County. Again, Goldy points out that he isn’t just using Seattle numbers and tries to figure out what the actual number is, go read it. I’ll wait.

Back? Great because I’m kind of interested in the rest of the state. Perry says in a tweet that [sic for the whole thing, but if you read my Twitter, or this blog, I’m really not one to throw stones]:

In Washington state outside Seattle MSA, restaurant jobs are booming, up +5,600 since January vs. Seattle MSA -100 ??

While Goldy rightly questions in the piece why January, I can think of one thing that happened in Washington state in January: the minimum wage increased (with inflation) to $9.47 an hour. Last week I had a post noting that there are a few counties in Washington with a minimum wage high enough and a cost of living low enough that there is a living wage, at least for single people without children. Those are the only counties in the country where anyone working full time on the minimum wage has a living wage. Those are the counties where “restaurant jobs are booming” according to the AEI economist.

So that seems like a data point in favor of at least a $9.47 minimum wage nationally. Maybe we can just round it up to $10.10, like President Obama is pushing. Maybe then it will cover families as well as just some single people.

A small step, to be sure, but the City Council voted 8-1 in favor of asking the state to let Seattle and other cities have rent control. I guess the next step would be some legislator from the city introducing it in the next session. Who would do that? Also, with a GOP state senate, I’m not sure what path that would take.

Still, this may be a thing to push Seattle (and non-Seattle, rent is high in a lot of places) elected officials further to the left. It’s a concrete thing if people support something in the legislature.

Also, remember when Judy Nicastro pushed for this sort of thing in the mind 90’s and all the political insider types just assumed nothing could ever happen? Fun times.