Not to make too big of deal about it, but the Iraq war ended today.
Thank God the world is finally safe from Saddam Hussein’s nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of mass destruction!
I mean, except for the nearly 5,000 U.S. soldiers and contractors killed in the conflict. And the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who died as a result of the U.S. invasion.
It isn’t official news yet, but the big announcement is likely coming on Thursday:
One month to the day after the start of the effort to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker from office, organizers have scheduled a Thursday press conference to provide a “special update” on how the effort is going.
And several liberal blogs and pro-recall Facebook pages said Wednesday that the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and United Wisconsin, the two groups spearheading the recall, already have collected more than enough signatures to force an election.
The effort to recall the Republican governor kicked off on Nov. 15, and organizers have until Jan. 17 to collect more than 540,000 valid signatures to force a spring recall election.
The blog New Dog Democrat reported Wednesday that more than 550,000 signatures have been collected and that organizers want to hit the 1 million mark before the deadline.
A million signatures?!? Just two weeks ago they were aiming for 750,000.
A million signatures would be, symbolically, a thermonuclear maelstrom. Even 540,000 valid signatures will be fucking huge!
Aside from likely derailing Walker’s harmful “stewardship”, and, you know…maximizing the possibility I can visit my family this summer, this is huge for Washington and other states.
The Walker episode sends a big shot across the bow of, what is almost certainly, a coordinated Republican Governor’s agenda.
For us here in Washington, what does this mean? It means Rob McKenna is put on notice. Walker made campaign promises that seemed quite moderate. Once elected, he turned to a radical Republican agenda. He cut education funding and betrayed public employees while giving out tax breaks to businesses, he did his damnedest to disenfranchise voters at the margins of society. And, in general, he steadfastly disregard the will of the people.
Would Rob McKenna really try pulling the ol’ switcheroo on Washingtonians the way Walker did to Wisconsinites? Well…if his decision to join the Republican AG lawsuit against the Health Care Reform law of 2009 is any indication…two years ago, I would have said, “absofuckinglutely!.” Now, with the events in Wisconsin, I think McKenna is forced to scale back on his agenda.
Should McKenna win next year, Washingtonians will owe Wisconsinites a huge debt of gratitude.
Update: They aren’t quite there, yet. The number of signatures gathered so far is 507,000, leaving a mere 33,000 more to gather. Practically, they will need something over 100,000 additional signatures to account for challenges and duplicates. Organizers have another month left to do that.
It’s Tuesday, and ’round here that means Drinking Liberally. So please join us tonight for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.
We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks will show up earlier for dinner.
News from the Republican reality show:
Can’t make it to Seattle? There are also meetings tonight of the Tri-Cities, Bellingham, and Vancouver, WA chapters. On Thursday, Drinking Liberally Tacoma meets. 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.
The bad news is that up to 5 million voters may be disenfranchised by new state voting laws according to a recent study by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The good news is that the Justice Department has noticed:
The Obama administration on Tuesday will wade into the increasingly divisive national debate over new voting laws in several states that could depress turnout among minorities and others who helped elect the president in 2008.
A dozen states this year tightened rules requiring voters to present state-issued photo identification at the polls, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Although Democratic governors vetoed four of the measures, liberal and civil rights groups have been raising alarms about the remaining laws, calling them an “assault on democracy” and an attempt to depress minority voter turnout.
In Wisconsin, new voter ID laws, and the specific ID requirements have resulted in numerous anecdotes of hurdles and disenfranchisement that will disproportionality affect people who lean Democratic: the young, the old, the poor, those without a drivers license, students, and minorities.
It’s legalized election fraud brought on by a systematic Republican effort to suppress Democratic voting blocks.
I’ll add my anecdote from Wisconsin, where most of my family lives.
My niece—let’s call her Maria Elaine Valdez Holman—recently turned 18. Because of a disability, Maria does not drive. So she recently got a ride to a Department of Motor Vehicles office from her occupational therapist, to get a state ID card, specifically with the intent of using it to vote. When her turn came, she showed her birth certificate and a high school photo ID as proof of her identification.
She was told she would need a Social Security card. Without it, she could not get an ID card.
She couldn’t find her Social Security card, so she used her birth certificate and high school ID card to get a replacement.
After another ride to the DMV and another wait in line, she shows them her high school photo ID, her birth certificate, and the temporary Social Security card that is issued on the spot. And she is told that the temporary Social Security card is not valid for getting an ID. Yeah…you can use it to get a job but, apparently, not an state ID. She would have to wait until her “permanent” Social Security card arrived and try again.
Her “permanent” Social Security card arrives, and she gets another ride to the DMV and waits her turn. She shows them her high school photo ID, her birth certificate, and her Social Security card. This time she is told she cannot be given an ID because…her birth certificate has her four names: Maria Elaine Valdez Holman listed, in that order, spelled correctly, but it does not clearly identify what name or names are her middle name(s) and surname(s). She is told she would have to apply for another birth certificate that clearly labels each part of her name.
At this point she requests a supervisor, who sheepishly agrees with his underling, that her birth certificate just won’t do. Never mind that it was fine for getting her Social Security card. Never mind that her mother used it to get a passport when Maria was a small child (the passport is now expired).
She argued fruitlessly to the point that she got quite angry, and finally screamed out, “What are you? Scott Walker’s cock suckers?” (Oh dear! My sweet, demure niece. Has she been reading HorsesAss.Org or something?)
Her friend spirited Maria away before she did something rash…like plunge her hands into their chests and withdrawing their beating hearts. Or twisting their testicles off.
When my sister conveyed this story to me, I suggested that Maria renew her passport, and then see if showing her high school photo ID, her “faulty” birth certificate, her “permanent” Social Security card, and her shiny new, high tech, hologram-bearing Passport would be enough to get a state ID.
I believe a passport would be sufficient to vote, but I hope she pursues a state ID anyway. It will be interesting to see just how far Walker’s cock suckers will go to suppress the vote of a young, non-car driving, disabled, female student with a Hispanic surname.
Or is that her middle name?
Update: The story continues here.
Thom with the Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.
Young Turks: Right-wing elementary school cuisine bizarre freak-out.
The War on Christmas:
Alyona: Mind blowing inequality figures.
Jon on the new go-to-jail-with-no-trial bill.
Corporate Personhood, Corporate Speech:
Young Turks: Blackwater asks for Sharia law?!?
White House: West Wing Week.
Greenman: It isn’t about the “hockey stick”:
Thom with some more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.
Obama speaks on the economy.
Rockbottomcookie: The gay homophobes.
The Republican Primary Asylum:
Sam Seder: Republicans to the unemployed, “Go pee in a cup”.
Thom with The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very ugly.
“Behind the scenes” at Moveon.org.
Sam Seder: George W. Bush cancels trip to Switzerland over fears of being arrested for torture charges.
Sharpton: Rep. Dennis Baxley, sponsor of strict FL voting law, admits no widespread fraud (via HuffPo).
Bill-O’s umbrella attack (via Slog).
Obama speaks on the economy.
America Occupied:
Hanukkah at the White House.
Thom with some Good, Bad, and some Very, Very Ugly.
Stephen on corporate personhood and the S.C. referendum.
Rick Santorum oozes his way to West Wing Week.
ref=’http://youtu.be/Vy5GTQNZeew’>Worst Person in the World.
Young Turks: No abortions for raped military women.
Roy Zimmerman’s buy war toys for Christmas:
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
Throughout the Republican debate season, former front-runner Mitt Romney has been long on platitudes, but less specific on his positions within the Republican weltanschauung. Romney has tended to verbalize adopted positions with near universal acceptance within the G.O.P. and then contrast himself with President Obama.
Now with Newt Gingrich surging in multiple G.O.P. primary polls, the Mitt Romney campaign is being forced to take concrete stances—offer some ideological nuance—in order to differentiate himself from Newt. Will Mitt tack to the left? Will he cut back to the right?
Apparently, it is that latter. Today, during the daily Romney for President press conference call, Mitt went right-wing extreme. Sen. Jim Talent and Gov. John Sununu took up the case for Mitt, spinning his previously wishy-washy stance on the Ryan plan for Medicare into something concrete.
The Ryan plan would eliminate Medicare as it exists now and replace it with a voucher system. The plan would, more or less, privatize Medicare.
Gov. Sununu starts out criticizing Newt:
For Newt Gingrich, in an effort of self-aggrandizement, to come out and throw a clever phrase that has no other purpose than to make him sound a little smarter than the conservative Republican leadership, to undercut Paul Ryan, is the most self-serving, anti-conservative thing one can imagine happening. He gave the liberals and the Democrats the ammunition they needed to moot, if you will, at least for the time being, Paul Ryan’s presentation.
He then asserts Mitt’s support for the plan:
Mitt Romney supports what Paul Ryan did. He endorsed what Paul Ryan did. Mitt Romney had his own package of entitlement reform, which Paul Ryan has praised. They both meshed together. They are both based on really understanding entitlement reform.
and later on:
Paul Ryan’s plan which Mitt Romney supported is the solid basis for moving forward on entitlement reform. And Newt Gingrich not only rejected it then, but he rejected repeatedly by saying I was right what I said that it was wrong and the fact is that Newt Gingrich to this day still continues to undermine Paul Ryan.
Okay…Mitt Romney, 8 Dec 2011, is pro-Ryan plan. That is, Mitt supports eliminating Medicare and replacing it with a voucher system.
Remember this, folks, because if Mitt wins the nomination, he’s got some major Mitt-flopping to do. The public overwhelmingly rejects this radical plan. Mitt owns it now.
I believe you can envision the simple modifications needed for this ad:
HA was down for a little over an hour this morning.
I called Goldy and caught him in front of the U.S. Capitol, on his way to John Boehner’s office. He was pretty sure he’d been paying the ISP bills.
There was no evidence of a denial-of-service attack. A few minutes after submitting a trouble ticket to the ISP, the site returned.
In absence of any other obvious cause, I blame Carl Ballard.
Update: Oops. I was going to post something this morning before the server issue distracted me. As SJ points out in the comment thread, there is an extraordinary opportunity tomorrow evening when Sen. Maria Cantwell and Elizabeth Warren headline a reception titled, Fighting for Main Street. Admission is $40 at the Paramount Theater.
Goldy engages in some gonzo-journalism in D.C., but finds…
…the police just stood by and watched. No riot gear. No pepper spray. No tear gas.
At least Goldy was able to stir up people’s anxieties by obsessively asking protesters about their prior arrest histories:
Fucking troublemaker!
There are only 19 days left in this year’s War on Christmas. So please join the fray by wielding a pint this evening at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.
We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks will show up earlier for dinner.
Bye, bye, Herb Herm…we are soooo going to miss you:
Can’t make it to Seattle? The Tri-Cities chapter of Drinking liberally meets every Tuesday night at 7:00pm, and Thursday night, Drinking Liberally Bremerton meets at 5:00pm.
With 231 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and five more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.
…and says things like:
“The guy’s got stamina.”
and
“Say what you like about Reichert (and I do), but at least he’s not a coward like Ryan.”
and
“And no, Reichert did not appear to be particularly brain-damaged…”
Obviously, Goldy is just there to parrot points from the other side.
Why did Dino Rossi lose his second gubernatorial bid and his only U.S. Senate bid? The way I see it, Rossi lost because voters recognized something unlikable in him. The public’s first big taste of the unlikable side of Rossi came in his 2005 “concession speech,” following the loss of a bitterly-fought legal contest at the end of his first gubernatorial fight:
With today’s decision, and because of the political makeup of the Washington state Supreme Court, which makes it almost impossible to overturn this ruling, I am ending the election contest.
It wasn’t a moment of statesmanship for Rossi. In his subsequent 2008 and 2010 statewide elections, Rossi frequently exhibited a similar peevishness that left a bad impression with voters. Maybe he was deeply bitter (2008), or maybe he was annoyed at being forced to run a hopeless campaign (2010). Either way, he was unlikable.
Fast forward to late 2011. We have one Rob McKenna running for Governor. This is a man who has been elected twice to Attorney General, the second time with 59% of the vote.
This time McKenna has a serious liability in his run for Governor: He comes off as a petulant asshole.
We can all look back with bemusement that McKenna kicked off his campaign by excluding Goldy in his role as a reporter for The Stranger. Confronted by uber-legitimate Stranger reporter Eli Sanders, McKenna impishly replied:
“I don’t think David Goldstein qualifies as a journalist,” a miffed McKenna told Eli. “He’s a hack. He’s a partisan hack. He’s just there to parrot points from the other side.”
More recently, McKenna has decided that all Stranger reporters are personae non gratae:
Gubernatorial wannabe and anti-health-care crusader Rob McKenna is holding a campaign kick-off breakfast tomorrow morning, but The Stranger, if you can believe it, is not allowed inside. After I emailed the campaign to RSVP, I got a call back from McKenna-protector Adam Faber explaining, “Tomorrow’s event is for invited press only, and we didn’t invite The Stranger.” […]
“This is very simple and it is all I intend to say,” Fabar intentionally said. “The Stranger’s editorial director has made a $500 donation to our opponent and political blogger, Mr. Goldstein, is listed on the PDC reports as the head of a political action committee called the No Rob PAC. I think that speaks for itself.”
Well, Adam, it’s actually called the No Reversing Our Benefits PAC.
Dan Savage donated $500 to Inslee. Ooooohhh. Goldy, before he was employed by The Stranger created a PAC called “No Reversing Our Benefits PAC,” with the amusing acronym “NoROB PAC”. It was a fucking joke…unless you are a peevish and, perhaps, paranoid gubernatorial wannabe.
McKenna made a peevish spectacle of himself again when a Democratic videographer showed up to video tape his talk in a openly-advertised public venue. After his attempts to intimidate the videographer failed, McKenna terminated the presentation and beat a retreat to the “cupcake table.”
And then there’s the episode where McKenna had fucked up its own campaign cash rollover and bitterly complained about Jay Inslee’s query to the PDC about rolling over his federal dollars into his state campaign.
Recently a special session of the state legislature was convened that, by law, prohibits state elected officials, like McKenna but not Inslee, from fundraising. The McKenna campaign wailed like a spoiled child:
“At what point does Congressman Inslee start acting like someone following Washington state rules, instead of someone following Washington D.C. rules?” [McKenna’s campaign manager Randy] Pepple said.
(If McKenna wants a level playing field, perhaps he would agree to commute to D.C. for the work week….)
McKenna’s most recent display of petulance was last Friday when, at the last minute, he cancelled an interview with the Washington Education Association:
WEA members were disappointed McKenna decided not to share his opinions on education with the group, Lindquist said.
“The teachers here wondered why he wasn’t here. They were speculating that he was afraid to meet with us,” or that education was not one of his priorities, Lindquist said.
McKenna’s campaign manager, Randy Pepple, said the attorney general decided not to attend the WEA endorsement interview because he didn’t expect to have a fair hearing with people who were interested in hearing his point of view.
“It became very apparent yesterday that the WEA was turning today into `celebrating the endorsement of Congressman Inslee Day,'” Pepple said Saturday.
Lindquist said the WEA changed the date of its candidate interviews after McKenna said he had a conflict with the original Nov. 12 date. His campaign called the union on Friday afternoon to cancel his interview with the WEA-PAC Board. The union said he also refused to answer written questions about public education.
McKenna thinks he cannot win, so takes his ball and goes home. Maybe he got a cupcake.
Dissing the teachers was a stupid—and revealing—unforced error on McKenna’s part. For one thing, McKenna fancies himself as big on education. Apparently, he’s not so “into” it that he can communicate with teachers.
And dissing a teachers’ union raises a big red flag for folks who aren’t quite convinced that a Governor McKenna would do for Washington state what Governor Scott Walker has done to Public Sector employees in Wisconsin. Over the past year, we have seen a systematic Republican War on Workers. Would a Gov. McKenna bring the war to Washington? You know…the same way he forced us to join the multistate lawsuit against the healthcare reform law?
A better McKenna would have engaged the teachers, recognize common ground, acknowledge differences and made his best case. Instead, McKenna ran from the fight and then whined about it. And what we know from recent elections…the voters just don’t go for petulant whiners.
Ann Telnaes: Grover Norquist on raising taxes.
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA): 10th anniversary of Enron:
Mark Fiore: Hard science.
Ann Telnaes: The most wonderful time of the year.
Thom with more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.
White House: West Wing Week.
America Occupied:
Thom reveals some Good, some Bad, and Some Very, Very Ugly.
Jon on Obama’s war on Thanksgiving.
Ann Telnaes: Detainee provision trashes the Constitution.
Jon on elections in Egypt.
WA and RI Governors want pot recognized for medical uses.
Young Turks: Republicans won’t tax the rich to offset payroll tax.
Thom: Are lies and sabotage the only hope for the WI GOP?
An interview with Rep. Roger Goodman (D-WA-45).
Rupert Murdoch hacks his way to Worst Person in the World.
Why we need to protect voter rights.
The Republican Primary Asylum
Sharpton: DNC’s Voter Protection Director discusses ProtectingtheVote.org.
Alyona’s Tool Time: Rick Scott cares.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) urges extension of payroll tax cut for middle class:
Sam Seder: The problem of Republican ignorance.
Thom with the Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.
USA Ammo shoots up to Worst Person in the World.
Actual Audio: Grover Norquist on Meet the Press.
Kimmel’s Week in Unnecessary Censorship (via Huffington Post).
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
Please join us tonight for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.
We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks will show up earlier for a quiet dinner.
Damnit! It looks like we won’t have Herman Cain to kick around anymore. Apparently, “conservatives” are telling him, “Nein, nein, nein.” So…enjoy whilst you can:
Can’t make it to Seattle? The Tri-Cities chapter of Drinking liberally meets every Tuesday night. Drinking Liberally Tacoma meets this Thursday. Also next Monday, there are meetings of the Olympia chapter, the Yakima chapter, and the South Bellevue chapter.
With 227 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.
I consider myself to be from Wisconsin. My family moved to Madison in 1970. They’re still there.
I skipped my usual summer trip back home this year. In fact, I haven’t been back to Wisconsin since right-wing nut-case Gov. Scott Walker took office on January 3 of 2010. And this past week, Kathy and I decided we would not head back to the Midwest for Christmas.
It isn’t, exactly, that I am boycotting the state (and definitely not boycotting my family). But when I go to Wisconsin, I do my Christmas shopping there, rent a car, go out to eat with friends and family, and buy lots of groceries and stuff—that is, I contribute to the economy of Wisconsin.
This year the revenue will go to Washington; because, with a nearly balancing set of trade-offs for and against a trip home, the Walker Factor has tipped the scale in favor of not going. It’s a protest more than a boycott—my small way of saying, “fuck you, Gov. Walker, for trying to turn Wisconsin into a Republican wasteland.”
It looks like my protest can come to a satisfactory end soon:
Activists pushing to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) announced on Monday evening that they have collected more than 300,000 signatures for the effort in just 12 days.
To trigger a recall election, Walker’s opponents—coordinated by the group United Wisconsin—need to collect 540,208 valid signatures by Jan. 17, which is 60 days after the campaign launched. Organizers said they are aiming for 600,000 to 700,000 signatures.
I sense some anger towards Walker.
How are Republicans responding? As you might expect. With violence. You know, vandalism, threats of vehicular assault, destroying petitions (here and here)…the usual. And the fun has just begun.
I’m already making plans for a summer trip back home.
Stephen: Supreme court tapes.
David Shuster with Janeane Garofalo The double standard of Republican rhetoric.
Young Turks: IAEA’s questionable report on Iran & nuclear weapons.
Thom: Who’s screwed now that the Supercommittee has failed.
America Occupied:
Red State Update: Michelle booed at NASCAR.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly are Worst Person in the World.
White House: West Wing Week.
Thom: The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.
Alyona: Black Friday gets headlines as the EU crumbles.
Young Turks: Citadel child sex scandal.
Stephen on The Media.
This Week’s Republican Primary Asylum:
Alyona’s Fireside chat: Millions go hungry in the U.S.A..
Thom: The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.
Young Turks: CIA gets outsmarted by Hezbollah.
Focus on FAUX:
Young Turks: Glenn Beck goes ballistic over Fallon’s dis of Michele Bachmann.
Alyona: Oregon puts death penalty on death row hold.
Jonathan Mann: Pizza is a vegetable.
Thom: How Wal-Mart killed “mom and pops”.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
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!