A President’s Presidents Presidents’ day quiz.
The man behind the arena proposal.
Sen. Karen Keiser proposes holding a state garage sale to help fund financial aid for college students.
Are any of these gentleman your neighbor?
Moore’s law to the limit.
Air bags aren’t just for cars anymore.
Santorum surrogate on Obama’s, “Radical Islamic Policies”:
Thom: The Citizens United showdown in Montana.
Stephen: The Left’s pro-safety agenda.
Obama in Everett, WA: Promoting American manufacturing and exports:
Thom with some Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.
Newsy: MSNBC and Pat Buchanan part ways.
The Republican War on Women:
Thom with John Nichols: Uprising in Wisconsin.
White House: West Wing Week.
Alyona: Three signs you might be a terrorist.
Young Turks: Asian actress from Hoekstra commercial apologizes.
Roy Zimerman: Another “Vote Republican” verse.
Focus on FAUX:
Newsy: Colbert Report goes off the air.
Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.
Right-wing nut case Andrew Breitbart crazies his way to Worst Person in the World.
Jon: What. Congress did something wrong? (Via TalkingPointsMemo.)
Controversial racist Pete Hoekstra alternative advertisement.
Young Turks: Shit Erin Says’ about Iran—We’re not going to let you drive us into another.
Thom with The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.
The G.O.P. Comedy Show:
Again! Right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart falsifies, exaggerates, and distorts his way to Worst Person in the World.
Thom: When will the Grover Norquist bubble end?
Alyona: The voter fraud myth.
ONN week in review: Obama urges citizens to hide evidence of formerly prosperous lives from nation’s young children.
Roy Zimmerman: And another “Vote Republican” verse.
Jon: The conservative resonse to women soldiers.
Thom: Five Million people wiped off of voter rolls.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
We’ve come a long way, baby! Over the past decade, and particularly over the last couple of years, public opinion polls have increasingly found a majority of people in support of marriage equality. But nothing says, “the bigots will lose,” like this:
Dick Cheney is quietly lobbying at least one Maryland state lawmaker to back marriage equality, the Baltimore Sun reported on Thursday. Since leaving the vice president’s office, Cheney has been increasingly vocal in his support for same-sex marriage, but the extent of his engagement on the issue was not previously well known.
The man without a heartbeat finds his heart. Cheney’s change of heart (no pun intended) is, no doubt, about his daughter Mary Cheney.
In New Jersey, a marriage equality bill passed the New Jersey Assembly yesterday, and was sent to Gov. Chris Christie today. Christie has vowed to veto the bill.
Democrats who identified same-sex marriage as their No. 1 priority for the two-year legislative session that began in January have adopted a more long-term view. […]
…[T]hey plan to bide their time in hopes that support for gay marriage — 52 percent for gay marriage, 42 against it, in New Jersey, according to one recent voter poll — will continue to grow.
“We do have two years,” said Reed Gusciora, a Trenton Democrat who sponsored the bill in the Assembly and who is one of two openly gay state lawmakers. “We changed a lot of views in the last couple of weeks. Give us two years and we’re going to change a heck of a lot more.”
Here in Washington state, opponents of our new marriage equality bill have launched a campaign to collect 120,577 valid signatures to get Referendum on the ballot. If they succeed, the law will be put “on hold” so that voters can approve or reject it.
The new referendum drive is not unlike the 2009 signature drive that resulted in R-71, asking voters to approve or reject the state’s domestic partner registration law. The signature drive was successful, and voters ended up supported the “all but marriage” law by a healthy 53% to 47% margin.
There is one big difference between the 2009 signature drive and the current effort: we now know that petitions are public documents. That is, if you sign a petition to put a referendum on the ballot, you cannot hide the fact. The Supreme Court says so.
Just yesterday, a searchable database of those who signed R-71 went live at whosigned.org. You can search by names, streets, cities, zip codes, etc. One justification for the page is to assist in spotting fraud. Did someone sign a petition in your name? Go find out.
The other reason for putting the name on-line is so that you can learn about the bigots in your neighborhood. Got acquaintances who are closet homophobes? Check out whosigned.org.
Want to know who to NOT invite to your next Christmas party? Check out whosigned.org.
I looked up who signed from Redmond. I didn’t sign it. Few of the people in my immediate neighborhood signed. I couldn’t find any friends or acquaintances who signed it. Unsurprisingly, Redmond’s famous bigot, Ken Hutcherson, did sign—as did his wife Patricia and daughter Avery.
So…folks who sign petitions to put Washington’s marriage equality law on the ballot should know: we will know you signed. You won’t have to make crude fagot jokes for us to know you are a bigot. Your signature on that petition accomplishes the same thing.
We will put your name and address in an open, searchable web page.
We will encourage your friends, neighbors, and acquaintances to learn that you signed.
We WILL express our disappointment in you and our disapproval of your ignorance and bigotry.
And we will (when we can, legally) discriminate against you.
I’m not talking violence…I’m talking about stigmata: loss of reputation, public humiliation, and withdrawal of personal and social support.
You’ve been warned.
Another poll in Washington state gives us another sign that Washington state will have a Republican Governor come 2013.
Today SurveyUSA released a new poll that covers the gubernatorial race and some presidential match-ups in the state. The poll surveyed 572 registered Washington voters (MOE 4.2%) from 13 Feb. to 16 Feb. The survey used a mix of home phone and cell phone respondents.
First the presidential match-ups:
Man, 22%! Gingrich sure has has some debilitating negatives!
In the gubernatorial race, A.G. Rob McKenna (R) leads Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA-1) by 49% to 39% (+10).
A Monte Carlo analysis [FAQ] using a million simulated elections finds Inslee winning 34,472 times to McKenna’s 962,998 wins. This suggests that, in an election held now, McKenna would have a 96.5% probability of winning; Inslee, a 3.5% probability. Here is the distribution of electoral votes from the simulated elections:
The poll result is very similar to an Elway poll taken from 7 Feb. to 9 Feb. If we pool the samples from both of these polls and do the Monte Carlo analysis we find Inslee winning only 10,720 times to McKenna’s 988,657 wins. The evidence suggests that, at this point, McKenna would win with a 98.9% probability:
Denial is not an option for Inslee supporters. While there is plenty of time to turn it around, Inslee is definitely the underdog at this point in the race.
The most recent analysis for the Inslee—McKenna race can be found here.
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn and King County Executive Dow Constantine held a joint press conference this afternoon to announce…yet another new sports stadium for our region.
This one would draw both an NBA team (Basketball? Yyyyyyyyawn. More green Jell-o commercials? Wait…that’s right. I LOVE Jeremy Lin! I’m a HUGE fan…Always have been. This is GREAT!) and an NHL team (hey…that is cool!).
So…is this another fuck-the-tax-payers-for-wealthy-team-owners deal? Apparently not, at least if Goldy, normally a curmudgeon on such things, is to be believed:
Honestly, objectively, and not just because I’m a hockey fan itching for an NHL franchise, this really does look like a damn good deal for the region and taxpayers. Assuming it actually happens.
Goldy provides an overview of the deal:
Under the terms of the proposal…a private investment group led by Seattle-born Chris Hansen, would put up $290 million toward building a new sports arena just south of Safeco Field, matched by a joint city/county contribution capped at $200 million. The city/county would own the arena, with its debt service paid through a combination of taxes generated by the facility, and rent paid by both the teams and the facility operator. In years where revenue falls short of the debt obligation, the teams and operator would be required to pay additional rent to cover the difference.
The city/county would issue a 30-year bond to finance its portion of the construction costs, and the teams would sign a 30-year lease with a binding non-relocation clause.
If all the pieces come together, we get an arena, NBA and NHL teams, all with zero new public taxes. Sounds like a Lin-Lin deal.
Elway has released a new poll today of 405 registered Washington state voters interviewed from Feb 7-9. The poll offers several interesting head-to-head match-ups with Obama:
Here are the highlights:
Republicans are having troubles warming up to the Mittster.
Obama has maintained a solid lead over Romney in Washington state. He led by +8 (49% to 41%) in last November’s Survey USA poll. Before that, the October Washington Poll found Obama leading by +9.5% (50.2% to 40.7%):
Obama will be visiting Washington state on Friday where, among other things, he’ll visit a Boeing manufacturing plant in Everett.
[Update: An analysis using more recent polls can be found here.]
| Obama | Romney |
| 100.0% probability of winning | 0.0% probability of winning |
| Mean of 348 electoral votes | Mean of 190 electoral votes |
A handful of new state head-to-head polls, including two from swing states, have come out since the previous analysis. Obama leads in all five:
| start | end | sample | % | % | % | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| st | poll | date | date | size | MOE | O | R | diff |
| CA | SurveyUSA | 08-Feb | 10-Feb | 2088 | 2.1 | 60 | 31 | O+29 |
| FL | Rasmussen | 09-Feb | 09-Feb | 500 | 4.5 | 47 | 44 | O+3 |
| MA | WBUR | 06-Feb | 09-Feb | 503 | 4.4 | 55 | 34 | O+21 |
| NY | Quinnipiac | 08-Feb | 13-Feb | 1233 | 2.8 | 52 | 35 | O+17 |
| OH | Quinnipiac | 07-Feb | 12-Feb | 1421 | 2.6 | 46 | 44 | O+2 |
California has Obama crushing Romney by +29%. Massachusetts, a state Romney once governed, has Obama up by nearly as much (+21%). New York supports Obama over Romney by +17%.
In Ohio, the new poll gives Obama a slender +2% lead over Romney. Obama has led in all four Ohio polls taken this year. The polling suggests to me that Ohio may not be so much a swing state this year….
We now have our first February poll out of Florida. This one gives Obama a thin +3% lead over Romney. Obama leads in the two most recent Florida polls; Romney led in the two January polls before that.
Florida looks more like a swing state than does Ohio, but the recent trend looks favorable for Obama:
The previous analysis showed President Barack Obama leading Romney by 344 to 194 electoral votes and a probability of winning of 99.8%.
With the new polls included, after 100,000 simulated elections, Obama wins 99,989 times and Romney wins 11 times. If an election was held now, we expect Obama to win with nearly 100% probability. Obama’s average electoral vote total climbed by +4 to 348, whereas Romney’s average is now 190 electoral votes.
Elway released a new poll today for the Washington state gubernatorial race between A.G. Rob McKenna (R) and Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA-01). The poll surveyed 405 registered voters (M.O.E. 5%) and was conducted from the 7th to the 9th of February.
The poll found that, out of those 405 voters, McKenna leads Inslee 45% to 36%, with 20% undecided. Of the 328 “decided” voters, 55.5% selected McKenna and 44.5% selected Inslee.
A Monte Carlo analysis of a million simulated elections [FAQ] using the observed percentages gave McKenna 918,606 wins to Inslee’s 75,709 wins. The analysis suggests that, if the election had been held this past week, McKenna would have a 92.4% probability of winning, and Inslee a 7.6% probability of winning.
Here is the distribution of electoral outcomes from the simulated elections:
This makes the fifth poll in a row that McKenna has led Inslee—his lead can no longer be explained by chance. The previous poll, taken in mid-January, had McKenna leading Inslee 46% to 43% and with a 71.5% probability of beating Inslee. In fact, Inslee last led in a SurveyUSA poll taken last June.
The most recent analysis for the Inslee—McKenna race can be found here.
Just in time for Valentines Day, Gov. Christine Gregoire has signed the marriage equality bill. Help us celebrate on Tuesday. Grab your sweetheart and join us for a celebration of love and equality under the influence at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.
(Mercifully…there are no Republican debates or primary events to kill the mood….)
Drinking Liberally–Seattle meets every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Our starting time is 8:00 pm, but some of us show up a little earlier for dinner.
Presidential candidate Valentines day cards.
Roy Zimmerman with a new version of vote Republican:
Can’t make it to Seattle? There are also meetings on Tuesday night of the Tri-Cities, Bellingham, and Vancouver, WA chapters. The Tacoma chapter meets this Thursday. And next Monday there are meetings of the Woodinville the Olympia, the Yakima, and the Shelton chapters.
With 232 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.
Here are a few things that came out over the weekend (i.e. too late for the Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza).
WA Senate Democrat’s Week in Review podcast:
[audio:http://www.sdc.wa.gov/podcast/ITL_2012_7.mp3]
Obama’s Weekly Address: Extending the Payroll Tax Cut for the Middle Class:
Arianna Huffington talks women’s issues on SNL.
Bill Maher on Republican’s divided America:
What the Koch Brothers say on-line but won’t say under oath.
Bashir: With Congressional approval at 10%, Republicans intensify anti-Obama attacks.
It began five years ago today:
Jennifer Granholm: Michigan rebounds thanks to ‘active’ leadership.
Bill Maher: New Rules.
White House: Science fair.
The Delicious G.O.P. Primary
White House: West Wing Week.
Mark Fiore: The heart and mind-o-matic.
ONN: Panel analyzes Obama’s furious, profanity-filled rant at nation.
Thom: Are politicians now SuperPAC puppets?
The Week in Marriage Equality:
Newsy: Pelosi’s “stop Colbert” spoof ad goes viral.
Pap: How the GOP war on workers backfired.
Lobbyist poses as anti-union mechanic in Superbowl advertisement.
Maddow: The absurdity of GOP legislators rallying against ideas they previously supported:
Andrew Breitbart totally loses it at Occupy protesters.
Thom with the Good, the Bad and the Very, Very Ugly.
Contraceptive Choice:
An interview with Jay Inslee.
Alyona: Time for a national popular vote?
Hannity’s Bizarre Claim:
Lawrence O’Donnell: Buffoon Donald Trump thinks endorsing Romney guarantees him a position in Willard’s cabinet!.
Pres. Obama’s record on jobs:
Ed: Update on the Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) scandal.
The CPAC Funny Farm:
Sam Seder: State Sen. Constance Johnson (D-Oklahoma City) on he amendment to a Wingnut personhood bill .
Ann Telnaes: Russia and China reject U.N. resolution condemning Syria.
Obama and the marshmallow launcher.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
Obama announces “an accommodation” on the birth control issue:
The “accommodation” is reasonable, and The Catholic Health Association (which was considered subversive by some Bishops during the 2009 health care debate) is “very pleased with the White House announcement”.
The original issue is complete bullshit—yet another unholy liaison between religious extremists and right wing political opportunists. As MoJo’s Nick Baumann points out, much of the policy dates back to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruling back in December, 2000, that went entirely unchallenged by the Bush administration:
“It was, we thought at the time, a fairly straightforward application of Title VII principles,” a top former EEOC official who was involved in the decision told Mother Jones. “All of these plans covered Viagra immediately, without thinking, and they were still declining to cover prescription contraceptives. It’s a little bit jaw-dropping to see what is going on now…There was some press at the time but we issued guidances that were far, far more controversial.”
After the EEOC opinion was approved in 2000, reproductive rights groups and employees who wanted birth control access sued employers that refused to comply. The next year, in Erickson v. Bartell Drug Co., a federal court agreed with the EEOC’s reasoning.
So what changed? Almost nothing:
“We have used [the EEOC ruling] many times in negotiating with various employers,” says Judy Waxman, the vice president for health and reproductive rights at the National Women’s Law Center. “It has been in active use all this time. [President Obama’s] policy is only new in the sense that it covers employers with less than 15 employees and with no copay for the individual. The basic rule has been in place since 2000.”
The real issue at stake IS about religious freedom. It’s about whether an employer can impose its religious views on employees—and their bodies. It is whether individuals who work for religious-affiliated employers are required to accept their employer’s extremist views.
And, no mistake about it, a prohibition on contraception in America, in 2012, is an extremist view.
No. Individual rights to private matters of conscience—and matters of personal health—trump those of religious institutions.
The government is right to protect individuals from that institutional violence.
[Update: An analysis with more recent polling data can be found here.
I said in the previous analysis that a new poll was about to be released in South Carolina. It was. Unfortunately, they didn’t poll the presidential race. Too bad…now I’ll have to endure “I don’t believe the S.C. results” in comment threads and forums across the intertubes.
Folks, there was a recent very large (2100+ person) poll taken in South Carolina…and Obama led Romney. Maybe the pollster got unlucky; just maybe the lead was real. Either way, nobody will be surprised if the lead turns out to be transient.
With that off my chest, there are seven new polls released since the previous analysis:
| start | end | sample | % | % | % | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| st | poll | date | date | size | MOE | O | R | diff |
| CT | Yankee Institute | 01-Feb | 02-Feb | 500 | 4.5 | 50 | 37 | O+13 |
| IL | Tribune/WGN-TV | 02-Feb | 06-Feb | 600 | 4.0 | 56 | 35 | O+21 |
| MN | SurveyUSA | 31-Jan | 02-Feb | 542 | 4.3 | 48.8 | 36.1 | O+12.7 |
| NC | PPP | 03-Feb | 05-Feb | 1052 | 3.0 | 47 | 46 | O+1 |
| OH | Rasmussen | 08-Feb | 08-Feb | 500 | 4.5 | 45 | 41 | O+4 |
| PA | Susquehanna | 02-Feb | 06-Feb | 500 | 3.5 | 43 | 45 | R+2 |
| VA | Quinnipiac | 01-Feb | 06-Feb | 1544 | 2.5 | 47 | 43 | O+4 |
We cannot profess any surprise in Obama’s lead in the Connecticut (+13%), Illinois (+21%), and Minnesota (+12.7%) races.
Two swing states weight in. Ohio gives Obama a slender +4% lead. This means Obama has led in all three Ohio polls taken this year. And in Pennsylvania, Romney has a slenderer +2% lead. Nevertheless, a Keystone poll taken a couple of weeks ago had Obama leading 41% to 30%. Since both polls are considered “current” [FAQ], they are pooled and Obama ends up on top…for now.
The South turns in a couple of pleasant surprises for Team Obama. In Virginia, Obama is up by +4% over Romney. The only other Virginia poll taken this year also has Obama up (+1).
North Carolina seems to be leaning toward Obama (+1%). There are two other NC polls taken this year. A recent Civitas poll has Romney up +9. I should point out that Civitas is a conservative think tank, but their polls were okay in 2008. An early January PPP poll in NC had Obama up by +1. But only the two most recent polls are considered “current”, so Romney leads in North Carolina.
The previous analysis found Obama with a 99.6% probability of winning an election held then, and a mean of 335 electoral votes to Romney’s 203.
With the seven new polls included, a Monte Carlo analysis of 100,000 simulated elections gives Obama 99,804 wins and Romney 196 wins (including the 21 ties). That suggests Obama has a 99.8% probability of winning an election held now. On average, Obama gains nine additional electoral votes: 344 to Romney’s 194.
| Obama | Romney |
| 99.8% probability of winning | 0.2% probability of winning |
| Mean of 344 electoral votes | Mean of 194 electoral votes |
Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
[Read more…]
Today Horsesass.Org is participating in a Washington United for Marriage and Daily Kos blog swarm to help support the marriage equality campaign in Washington State. HA is joined by bloggers from Bilerico Project, Pam’s House Blend, Good As You, AMERICABlog Gay,the Prop 8 Trial Tracker, the Seattle Lesbian, The Bent Angle, on the-Ave, MadProfessah, HRC, Hella Bus, Step Forward, LGBT POV, FrontiersLA, the Left Shue, Peace Tree Farm and more.
This has been an incredible week! On Tuesday a three judge panel from the Ninth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals ruled Proposition 8 unconstitutional. In the majority opinion, the court wrote,”Prop 8 served no purpose, and had no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California.”
On Wednesday, the Washington State House passed a same-sex marriage bill, and now it the bill is headed to Governor Gregoire’s desk for her signature. She promised to sign the bill before Valentine’s Day!
Please click here to thank Governor Gregoire.
Governor Gregoire’s leadership was instrumental to the success of passing a marriage bill in Washington State. She not only supported the bill, but she introduced the bill. This is as much her legislation as it is our community’s legislation.
Please join us during this blog swarm to thank Governor Gregoire for her leadership and her friendship. There is little doubt our opponents will make their voices heard, but we know that together our voice for equality is so much stronger.
When our friends speak up for us, we need to speak up for our friends, so join us in thanking Governor Gregoire today!
Did you sign the thank you petition? Share it with your friends: http://wufm.it/4
Jerry Cornfield summarizes the likely trajectory of ESSB 6239, the same-sex marriage bill.
A vote should come this afternoon…watch it live on TVW.
There is something you can do before the debate and vote begins…call or email your Representatives encouraging them to support passage. Even if your Rep. already supports the legislation, a show of support is important—you can probably imagine the type of campaign opponents are undertaking right now.
You can very quickly find contact information for your Representatives here.
Update: As expected…it passed.
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!