Gosh…we have been deprived of Republican Reality TeeVee lately. Well…a debate started a few minutes ago. I’ll try live blogging it if I can find a stream on the intertubes or radio.

Go to town with your own commentary in the thread.

5:12: Got it…you can stream the debate here.

5:14: As I tune in, Romney and Santorum are doing the opening bickering shtick.

5:15: First words out of Newt’s mouth: “When I was speaker, we balanced the budget.”

5:17: Ron Paul earns the title Jedi Diphthong Master.

5:20: Rick: Just think what the teabaggers can do with Santorum!

5:25: Lost my feed while Mitt was talking about how conservative he was as MA Gov.

5:26: Rick Santorum puts on that “disgusted face”, usually reserved for sex-related matters, as he talks about Mitt Romney asking for and getting Olympics earmark money.

5:34: Pardon our brief live blogging interruption. My computer decided to die. All better now.

5:42: Yay for companies going bankrupt!!!!

5:46: The candidates and the audience tries to bully John. Newt Gingrich goes in to “indignant mode.” “Barack Obama voted to kill babies!”

5:51: Ron Paul: “The pill cannot be blamed for the immorality of our society.”

5:55: Newt: “Whenever the government provides services, they have the power of tyranny.” What the fuck?!?

5:57: Ron Paul goes into incoherent babble mode for a few seconds.

5:58: The audience is sure doing a lot of booing…not always clear who they are booing or why.

6:01: Mitt, if he becomes president, vows to throw tons of young people off their parent’s insurance, throw millions of poor people off of insurance, and make insurance unaffordable for millions of people with preexisting conditions. Nice.

6:31: *Snicker* Santorum said “feckless.”

6:34: Rick Santorum creates his own version of “the axis of evil”. The Santorum version is Syria and Iran.

6:36: Santorum: “A second Obama term will result in a cataclysm in the Middle East!!!!”

6:38: *Snicker* Mitt said “feckless.”

6:39: Mitt and Santorum are talking about the terrible news coming out of the Middle East. WTF? Nothing beats “bad news out of the Middle East” like, 4,000 dead U.S. soldiers, hundreds of thousands dead Iraqi’s, and zero weapons of mass destruction.

6:41: Santorum, “Politics is a team sport, folks.” Newt’s thinking, “marriage, too!”

6:55: Santorum implies that Mitt is “beating the tar out of him” with money. Ummm…Rick, that isn’t “tar.”

You won’t have Buddy to kick around any more:

Frustrated and largely ignored, Buddy Roemer is ending his bid for the Republican nomination and will instead seek the presidency on a third-party ticket.

Let’s get real…America is not prepared for a “President Buddy.”

Please join us tonight for an evening of Politics under the influence at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. We start at 8:00pm, but some of us show up even earlier.

Yesterday, SeattlePI.com’s Joel Connelly (who sometimes stops by DL) summarized the Republican war on women. The Partisans have their own take on it:

Can’t make it to Seattle? There is also a meeting tonight of the Tri-Cities chapter. And Wednesday evening, the Burien chapter meets.

With 227 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.

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:

• Alyona: Republicans waging “vajihad”
• Sam Seder: Sorry…but the data on contraception don’t lie.
• Jennifer Granholm: Virginia’s “vaginally invasive” law.
• Stephen: Obama’s Contraceptiageddon.
• Alyona’s Tool Time Award: Santorum defends buddy’s aspirin RX.
• Young Turks: Rush was caught with a bucketful of Viagra but still preaches on birth control.
• Ed and Pap: Republicans hope culture wars will energize base.
• Sam Seder: The Republican war on women.
• Olbermann with Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.): We will not be sent back to the dark ages.
• Jennifer Granholm: Why Dems walked out.
• Ann Telnaes: No women testifying?!?
• Sam Seder: GOP Virginia is for “unwanted vaginal penetration.”
• Young Turks: Sen. Hatch lies about Planned Parenthood.
• Alyona’s Tool Time Award: Sen. Grassley fights domestic abuse protections.
• Mark Fiore: The Gospel according to Bishops.
• Sam Seder: Darrell Issa’s all male contraception “expert” panel.
• Young Turks: Virginia’s war on women.
• Jon on the war for women’s baby makers

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:

• Thom: Is FAUX News moving left?
• Liberal Viewer: FAUX News racist crack comment just a joke?.

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:

• Mitt Romney’s Olympic bailout
• Jon on MI, Mitt, and Santorum (via TalkingPointsMemo):
  
• Lesson for Mitt: Don’t bet against America!
• Ed and Pap: Republican buyer’s remorse with presidential candidates.
• Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Support: focus on Santorum.
• Young Turks: Rick Santorum is the 1%
• Bill Maher: Romney ad.
• WTF?!? Santorum backer Friess suggests “aspirin between their knees” as contraception (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Young Turks: Romney’s “Son of Detroit” Op-Ed.
• Thom: Dogs against Romney.
• NBC: Dogs against Romney.
• Ann Telnaes: Mitt aims to win the hearts of the GOP.
• Acutal Audio: Rick Santorum on women in the military.
• Alyona: Santorum…working class millionaire.
• The Guardian gives us nine quirkies questions in the GOP debate..
• Ann Telnaes: Romney and Santorum Rev up for the Republican race.

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.

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:

• Obama is +11% against Romney, 49% to 38%
• Obama is +8% against a generic Republican, 50% to 42%
• Romney loses about 6% of Republican voters compared to a generic Republican candidate.
• When Ron Paul is added to the mix, 17% abandon Romney for Paul.

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.