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Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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AC: S&P–GOP largely responsible for downgrade.

Colorado Congressman Doug Lamborn is Worst Person in the World.

Young Turks: Romney SuperPac Scandal?

Andrew Breitbart penile gratitude:

Glenn Beck is back in the saddle as Worst Person in the World.

Liberal Viewer: FAUX News anti-Muslim, pro-Christian on Norway shooting?

Thom: The Teaparty takeover you don’t know about.

Pap: Karl Rove’s plan to win back the Whitehouse.

King 5 News: Republicans accuse Jay Inslee of illegally trying to move funds from congressional campaign.

Senator Joe Lieberman is Worst Person in the World.

Raising the Ceiling:

White House: West Wing Week.

Handy Handl emerges victorious as Worst Person in the World.

Sam Seder and Al Franken: Republican obstructionism.

Pap: The Republican assault on labor reaches new lows.

Hannity beats out Cantor, Boehner, and Gingrich for Worst Person in the World.

On Wisconsin:

Young Turks: Rent is Too Damn High eviction.

How would Congress screw in a light bulb?

Twelve ways to tell Michele Bachmann from Sarah Palin.

Pap: The religious right gear up for 2012.

Vote Connor Ratliff for President: He’s 35 years old:

Maddow: The suspicious birth of Barack Hussein Obama.

Thom: The good, the bad, and the very very ugly.

The Torture Chronicles:

Newsy: Congress ends FAA stalemate…for now.

Jon: Biracial Spiderman et al..

Young Turks: Renton police department try to criminalize cartoon.

For 2012: Boehner—Weiner

Pap: How Obama let Rove off the hook

Thom: Why the stock market plunged.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

al Qaeda must be proud of them

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When Bill Clinton left office in 2000, he left us with a roadmap to paying off the U.S. debt by 2009.

George W. Bush came into office and he decided to defer on paying off the debt. He proposed and got huge tax breaks. And we fell back into deficit spending.

Not only that, but Republicans went on an unprecedented spending spree. They started a couple of costly wars without doing the responsible thing and take in new revenues to cover the costs. They massively increased military spending. They passed an unfunded health care reform (the Medicare prescription drug benefit). Essentially, under Bush, Republicans spent like a pack of meth addicts with a pile of stolen credit cards.

By 2008, the Republicans had failed to follow Clinton’s roadmap toward a debt-free U.S. In fact they had added $4 trillion to the national debt. And the economy tanked.

Whether you believe the economic collapse was completely Bushes fault or not, the inability to implement a proper economic recovery was the fault of Republican policies during the Bush years. The $10 trillion debt that George Bush left us with placed severe constraints on, and even foreclosed upon, many possibilities for using our credit for a bold recovery effort.

Under Obama, the Republicans have done almost nothing beneficial for American. Their sole goal has been to obstruct Obama, even when their actions are terrible for America. Most recently, they held us all hostage, taking us to the brink of a debt default.

Republicans, through their recklessness, have failed to be good stewards of our country. They have placed Republican political gain ahead of America.

Today S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch from AAA to AA-plus. S&P cited a lack of faith in the political process as part of their downgrade decision.

Nice job Republicans! You fucked up the debt repayment, you spent us into the ground, you trashed the economy, and now you’ve fucked up the credit rating of the U.S.

al Qaeda must be proud of you!

So…why is it that Republicans are not considered enemies of the United States?

Washington’s Hispanic voter contingent

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Crosscut‘s Erik Neumann has in interesting piece on the importance of Washington’s growing Hispanic population for the next gubernatorial election:

At 755,790 people, Latinos are Washington’s largest and fastest growing minority, currently making up 11.2 percent of the state’s population, according to the 2010 Census. Some counties are predominantly Latino, with Adams County at 58 percent Latino and Franklin at 50 percent. (By comparison, King County is 8 percent Latino.)
[…]

According to [UW political science professor Matt] Barreto, Latinos typically favor Democrats 3-to-1 over Republicans. He adds, however, that there is an ideological split among Latinos to consider. “They tend to identify as conservative, but the vote tends to be Democratic.”

(As an aside, Neumann mostly uses the term Latino instead of Hispanic. The New York Times considered which term to use as part of their coverage of the confirmation hearings for Judge Sotomayor, and decided either is acceptable in most contexts. I tend to use Hispanic, unless discussing an individual or group with a known preference for Latino or Latina)

The most recent poll in the Washington gubernatorial race by SurveyUSA provides crosstabs by race/ethnicity. About 6% of all respondents were Hispanic, which seems about right considering that a chunk that 11.2% Hispanic population cannot vote, either because they lack citizenship or are under the age of 18. (As the Crosscut article points out, Washington’s Hispanic population is a young demographic).

The survey found that Hispanic respondents overwhelmingly choose Inslee over McKenna, 84% to 10%, with only 6% undecided. By contrast, the same survey found among the 8% of respondents identifying as Asian or “other”, 52% to 37% support for Inslee over McKenna, with 11% undecided.

Clearly, Washington’s growing Hispanic population will benefit Inslee and, more generally, Washington Democrats.

The implications for GOTV initiatives are clear.

Renton Police Department engages in adminstalking

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This is going to be interesting:

The Renton City Prosecutor wants to send a cartoonist to jail for mocking the police department in a series of animated Internet videos.

The “South-Park”-style animations parody everything from officers having sex on duty to certain personnel getting promoted without necessary qualifications. While the city wants to criminalize the cartoons, First Amendment rights advocates say the move is an “extreme abuse of power.”
[…]

KIRO Team 7 Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne holds a key document that really lays bare the city’s intent. The document was quietly filed in King County Superior Court last week. It’s a search warrant accusing an anonymous cartoon creator, going by the name of Mr. Fiddlesticks, of cyberstalking (RCW 9.61.260). The Renton Police Department and the local prosecutor got a judge to sign off as a way to uncover the name of whoever is behind the parodies.

KIRO found two of the nine or so cartoons, here and here.

Apparently, the cartoons never identify individuals, or even the name of the police department. Basically the satirist did a brilliant job playing on people’s insecurities, to the point of provoked them into seeking revenge. Nice.

The complaint suggests this the author has engaged in cyberstalking. What. The. Fuck.

Unless there is some forthcoming bizarre twist in this story, it simply will not stand up in court. The ACLU is already itching for a fight:

The cyberstalking law is designed to protect individuals from serious harassment by other individuals, not to protect government from parodies by employees. People have a right to speak anonymously on the Internet, and employer-employee issues involving YouTube satires should not be pursued as criminal matters. We would very much like to hear from the individual who posted the parodies so that we can know more about the facts of this matter.

Clearly, the Renton police department is using a bullshit argument to get a search warrant to “out” the author (who they suspect is an insider). The author won’t be convicted of cyberstalking, but then that isn’t really the point, is it? The point is to extract revenge.

In other words, the Renton police department is administalking a person exercising their first amendment rights.

I’m sure the courts will do their job and find the author not guilty of cyberstalking. With a bit of luck, they will also rule in favor of the author in the inevitable follow-up civil lawsuit.

Will the press do its job? Will the press allow the Renton police department to get away with this bullshit? If they really do their job, this incident will result in many embarrassing internal affairs revelations, findings of abuse of power, and whatnot. Sounds like they have a “problem of internal culture” in the Renton PD.

And if the blogosphere does its job, the Renton police department will become a target. There will be many more satirical cartoons. There will be essays ruthlessly mocking Renton Police Chief Milosevich (yeah…that’s his name!), and whoever the fuck else is involved in this stupidity.

I haven’t tried one of those “make your own animation” tools yet, but this sure has me tempted!

Road kill

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I guess I’m a bad liberal, ’cause I frequently drive when I travel from my home in Redmond to work at the University of Washington in Seattle. Depending on my teaching schedule, some quarters I manage to take the bus three out of five days, but mostly…well, ahhh, not so much.

A pleasant surprise of driving over the last couple of years has been the occasional sight of a bald eagle sitting on top of a light post on the SR-520 floating bridge. It just sits there on top of that lamp in full majesty with its head held high.

Sometimes it causes a traffic slowdown. And that’s okay.

When I see the eagle, I always wonder how it can stand the traffic noise. I mean, have you ever kayaked around the West end of the SR-520 bridge in that quasi-nature area? Yikes..I have, and it feels like a battle zone. Maybe it is a function of acclimation or something, but I find the experience disturbing.

An maybe the eagle does too. Because, from what I can tell, this describes nothing short of a suicide:

Metro spokeswoman Linda Thielke said the bus was in the middle of the bridge, moving at about 50 miles per hour when the eagle started to fly in the same direction as the bus.

“The bird very, very suddenly took a turn and smashed into the windshield,” cracking it, Thielke said.

I’m guessing it was the persistent assault of traffic.

But maybe he really hated that “big deal”—the debt ceiling “compromise.”

Either way…rest in peace pal.

Open thread

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Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottle Something on your mind these days? We’ll be raising the ceiling tonight at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally. Stop by…you know you need to talk about it.

There are unsubstantiated rumors that one or two Seattle City Council challengers will be dropping by, as well.

So please joins us for drinks, conversation and politics under the influence. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but a few folks show up earlier for dinner.


Can’t make it tonight? Drinking Liberally Tacoma meets this Thursday at the Hub Restaurant. Starting time is 7:00pm. And with 231 chapters of Living Liberally, including seven in Washington state and seven more in Oregon, chances are excellent there is a chapter near you.

Returned

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If there was any redeeming moment, any bright spot in this ugly terrorist/hostage situation that has unfolded in Washington D.C. over the past couple of months, this was it:

Drinking Liberally — South Bellevue

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DLBottle
Last week I forgot to mention in the Drinking Liberally post that tonight is the monthly meeting of Drinking Liberally South Bellevue.

They meet at 7:00 PM at the Mustard Seed Grill and Pub.

From their mailer:

The topic, of course, will be the debt ceiling. Tuesday is the deadline to raise the debt ceiling. Will we have a deal? If so, how bad will it be? What is the damage assessment?

Dictionary.com: Extortion : 2. the crime of obtaining money or some other thing of value by the abuse of one’s office or authority .

The debt ceiling extortion on behalf of the Tea-Party and House Republicans represents the most brazen and potentially destructive abuses of political power I can remember in my lifetime. In an attempt to achieve their political agenda, Congressional Republicans are threatening to blow up our economy and the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. Government. Many of them are, I’m afraid, actually too stupid to understand the implications of default. Lawrence O’Donnell yesterday characterized them as “uneducable”. Even the US Chamber of Commerce thinks they are nuts.

Some have called the endeavor “economic terrorism”and even”treason”. Ironically, it is being perpetrated by the group that fancies themselves as the most patriotic Americans.

Why are they doing this? To weaken the President, cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and shield the richest individuals and corporations from any shared sacrifice in the attempt to get our deficits under control.

Meanwhile, Congress has completely abandoned any and all efforts to create jobs.

This is truly a very low period in our political history. So lets have a beer or soda and commiserate.

Hope to see you Monday.

Can’t make to Bellevue tonight? The Seattle chapter meets tomorrow night and the Tacoma chapter meets on Thursday night. Essentially, with 230 chapters of Living Liberally, including seven in Washington state, chances are excellent there is a chapter near you.

Open thread

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The Undefeated appears to be defeated.

Breaking Crime News:

  • FBI is checking out a “promising lead” as a “routine part of our investigation” in the 1971 D.B. Cooper case
  • DNA evidence will be used to see if a 14-year-old Ted Bundy killed an 8-year-old Tacoma girl in 1961.

Read of the day: Getting bin Laden: What happened that night in Abbottabad.

Today in Debt the Ceiling Hostage Situation:

Time to vote

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Still have that ballot sitting on your kitchen table?

Fuse has produced their Progressive Voter’s Guide for this election.

Actually…they only have a voter’s guide for nine of Washington’s 39 counties, but if you are reading this, there is a good chance you live in one of those nine counties.

Do you vote in King County? Fuse recommends a yes vote on Prop. 1 that would renew a levy to fund some veterans & human services.

Oddly enough, the Seattle Times recommends a yes vote as well. Strange bedfellows. No, wait, that’s the other daily….

Whatever…just make sure you vote.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Congressman Deadbeat Dad:

Newsy: Register to vote…get free pot.

Ed: Voter suppression in Wisconsin.

Beck massacres Kilmeade and Ingraham to become Worst Person in the World.

The Media Responds to Norwegian Terrorist Attack:

Bill-O the Clown beats out Michele Bachman as Worst Person in the World.

Jon on the perpetual victims at FAUX News:

Lawrence O’Donnell: Teen suicide rate high in Bachmann’s bigoted Anoka-Hennepin County school district.

Sam Seder: Scumbag NewsCorpse gives mourning mother a phone and then hacks it.

Anthropogenic C****** C*****:

Jon on Twitterized newscasts.

Seattle city councilman Tim Burgess rapping (via Slog).

Rep. Billy Long defeats FAUX’s MacCallum, and Lush Rimbaugh for the title Worst Person in the World.

The Republican Primary Asylum:

Ralph Goneau, 79, and Richard Wilhelm, 87, waited 41 years to say “I Do”.

ONN: Social Security reform bill encourages Americans to live faster, die younger.

Ed: Florida voter suppression.

Young Turks: FAUX News infotainer says cut Medicare to fund wars.

Newt triumphs over Rep. Culberson and Glenn Beck Worst Person in the World.

New Fuel Efficiency Standards:

Lawrence O’Donnell: Right wing wackjobs let FAA funding expire.

Jon does an extended interview with Juan Williams.

Olbermann with Robert Reich on America widening wealth gap.

Newsy: Seven billion and counting.

Debtmageddon:

White House: West Wing Week.

Newsy: God’s 52% approval rating.

Olbermann wit Rep. Keith Ellison on (Peter) ‘King’-sized fearmongering .

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

McKenna doubles down on his funding fuck-up/PDC dispute with new whopper

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Earlier this week I offered Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna some solid advice:

[T]he sitting state Attorney General should NOT have his campaign stooges give uninformed legal babble opinion—it reflects badly on the legal prowess of the Attorney General.

But now, McKenna is doubling down on this sort of idiocy…by mailing out a fundraising letter built around a whopper of a lie, built on their fringe legal theory.

Publicola reports on McKenna’s letter that starts out:

The leading Democratic contender, Congressman Jay Inslee, has a war chest of over $1,000,000 in his re-election campaign for Congress. This week the media is reporting that he intends to illegally transfer that money to his state campaign for governor.

By “the media”, the McKenna campaign means this AP piece that was carried by numerous media sources.

A plain reading of the AP piece yields these facts (reordered):

  1. McKenna had $40,000 left over from his 2008 campaign
  2. McKenna didn’t segregate the money into a surplus account; rather, he rolled over those funds to his 2012 campaign
  3. The rolled-over funds commingled with new money and, therefore, are subject to campaign contribution limits
  4. Inslee has $1.2 million surplus from past campaigns squired away in a separate account.
  5. Inslee asked the PDC for permission to use the surplus, with donor consent, for his gubernatorial bid.
  6. About $1 million of Inslee’s money never commingled with new money so it would not be subject to campaign contribution limits
  7. The McKenna campaign characterized Inslee’s money as “illegal,” and claimed that Inslee was circumventing Washington state law
  8. The PDC disagrees with McKenna’s intrepertation; they agree that Inslee can, with donor consent, use about $1 million for his gubernatorial campaign without contribution limit issues
  9. The only challenge to the PDC’s interpretation of the law in the article comes from McKenna

This last point is important. It means McKenna’s fundraising letter is premised on a lie. It says:

This week the media is reporting that [Inslee] intends to illegally transfer that money to his state campaign for governor,

Not true. The media does not suggest the proposed transfer would be illegal. Here is what an honest McKenna could say:

This week the media is reporting that [Inslee] intends to transfer that money to his state campaign for governor. The PDC says this is legal. We disagree.

That would be an honest summary of the situation.

Instead this whole episode leaves us with a troubling picture of McKenna:

  • He (or his campaign) fucked-up their own cash roll-over, apparently through ignorance of the state’s campaign laws
  • He espouses a fringe legal theory about campaign cash roll-over, one that is contradicted by the PDC
  • He is willing to blatantly lie to his potential donors

The episode not only throws into doubt if he has the integrity to be Governor, it throws into doubt his competence as our state’s top lawyer.

A “credible” opponent for Cantwell?

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The Republicans are still trying to find a credible opponent for Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) in 2012. Former Bush Deputy White House spokesperson and Bush-Cheney ‘04 Press Secretary, Scott Stanzel is considering it.

But I said “credible.”

And now Seattle Weekly‘s Mike Seely writes:

…lately we’ve been hearing somewhat credible rumors that 8th District Congressman Dave Reichert might be up for abandoning his seat and challenging Cantwell. So is this chatter serious, or is there a stealthier factor at play here?

By “stealthier factor” he means that Reichert is using such rumors to leverage a more favorable redistricting outcome.

Seely ponders:

But what if Reichert’s motives are more pure? What would ensue would be a fascinating race between polar opposites: Cantwell, the wonkish brainiac who takes on issues of substance yet struggles with retail politics and staff retention, versus Reichert, the dull knife who gets by on Ken-doll looks, law-enforcement legend, and timely tacks to the center.

That would be fun! I like it. Reichert is, for sure, a stronger opponent for Cantwell than is Stanzel. But a Reichert challenge would accomplish two things. First, it opens up the Democratic-leaning 8th CD (which, of course, may be unrecognizable by 2012). Second, it means Republicans would dump lots of money into the race. Less so with Stanzel; Republicans would find more promising races upon which to spend their spoils.

This is Reichert’s big Window of Opportunity…but could he win?

In a statewide competition against an uberwonk, Reichert would not get away with his usual strategy of dodging all things substantive. He’ll have to speak in public and try to come off as intelligent and informed. No more “I’ve looked in a microscope and seen the heartbeat of a stem cell” moments; no more, “I don’t know enough about this issue, so I’ll pass on the question” answers like he gave in his 2006 debate against Darcy Burner. No more confessions of voting the way the leadership tells him to vote. The Cantwell campaign would eat him alive for such blunders.

So, no, he can’t. If Reichert sticks his head through that Window of Opportunity…he’ll get his freakin’ throat slit….

Dick and Jane

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The last time Jane Hague ran for re-election to King County Council (district no. 6), it was discovered that she had been hiding a DUI arrest, and was abusive of the arresting officers. We learned that she had lied about having a college degree. She also got hit with multiple PDC complaints. Alas, most of this came to light too late for a strong candidate to challenge her.

She has some serious electoral competition this year, with three challengers. One challenger, Richard Mitchell, is rated “Outstanding” by the King County Municipal League. Hague is rated “Good.”

And what does the Stranger have to say for this race?

Mitchell is the most accomplished and promising challenger to Jane Hague on the Metropolitan King County Council, and earns [our] endorsement. In our interviews with the four candidates for this seat, he stood out for his quick mind and grasp of detail.

[…] The County Council is nonpartisan, but when asked Mitchell said he is a Democrat because of that party’s identification with immigrants, civil rights and environmental justice. He describes his politics as “fiscally conservative and socially progressive.”

“Accomplished, ” “Quick mind,” “grasp of details”? Typical reality-based blather from a left-wing rag.

Oh wait…my mistake, that was the Seattle Times endorsing Mitchell over Hague.

I know, I know…the bland writing was a dead giveaway. Here’s another giveaway:

Our concern about Mitchell is that he might be too quick to raise taxes. That caveat noted, he is one of the most attractive new faces on the local scene, and we endorse him for the County Council.

Hmmm…somebody on the Seattle Times editorial board is rather aroused by this candidate….

Here is what The Stranger had to say:

The Stranger Election Control Board wants to have Richard Mitchell’s baby. Mitchell is intelligent, passionate, progressive, eloquent. We’d vote for Mitchell for anything. City council. School board. Legislature. Cruise director.

If there are issues on which Mitchell and the SECB disagree, we’re probably wrong. The man could dig a deep-bore tunnel that even the SECB could get behind.
[…]

Mitchell can walk on water. He can raise the dead. He can even manage to answer a reporter’s question directly, without a hint of equivocation, all the while remaining nuanced. That’s not meant as a slam against fellow challenger John Creighton, a pleasant surprise as a port commissioner, but a stereotypical waffler as a politician. Oh wait. We guess it is.

Mitchell is exactly the sort of smart politician everybody says they want, but who never seems to get elected.

Without hesitation, Mitchell said he would approve a $20 car tab to avert a devastating 17 percent cut in Metro bus service and believes in a minor sales tax bump to rescue the county’s underfunded criminal-justice system. Vote Mitchell.

I’ll take that as The Stranger’s endorsement with a medically-concerning extended duration erection.

Here’s his web site and an intro video:

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