HorsesAss.Org

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Young Turks: Time for the GOP to shut down the government.

The Joe Biden reality show.

2012 in Hindsight:

Lawrence O’Donnell: Why the fiscal cliff deal is so awesome!

Thom: The battle for 2014 begins in the Senate.

The Republican War on Women:

Ed: Hypocrite-narcissist O’Reilly fails to quit after his taxes go up.

Young Turks: Why did Republicans block Sandy relief?

Sam Seder: Farewell Joe Lieberman. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass….

Orange and Weepy:

SlateTV: States pass laws prohibiting employers from asking for your social media passwords.

Sam Seder: “Conservative” ideology works until THEY are suffering.

Young Turks: Fake fiscal cliff drama.

Guns Don’t Kill Guns…People Kill Guns:

Sharpton: Birfer Republicans try to convince Justice Roberts to refuse to administer the oath of office to Obama.

White House: West Wing Week.

Young Turks: Wiretapping hypocrisy?

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly:

The Republican War on Kwanza™:

Bill Press flunks the G.O.P. on Hurricane Sandy relief and the fiscal cliff.

Pap: G.O.P. hate knows no bounds!

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

Eyman’s paradox

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As many readers know, this blog is named after Tim “Biggest Lie of My Life” Eyman, Washington state’s own professional initiative huckster and admitted liar. Today, that Horsesass submitted signatures for new initiative.

Initiative 517 is supposed to

[establish] protections for citizens exercising their First Amendment rights by participating in the initiative and referendum process

How does the initiative propose to protect First Amendment rights?

By preventing “non-participants” in the initiative and referendum process from exercising their first amendment rights.

Sure…there are a bunch of good things that would be prohibited by the initiative. It would change the RCW to make “pushing, shoving, touching, spitting, [and] throwing objects [at]” a signature gatherer or signer a disorderly conduct. Of course, these things are already assault, a rather more serious crime, so that’s pretty stupid.

Also in the laundry list of disorderly conduct includes: “yelling, screaming, being verbally abusive, blocking or intimidating, or other tumultuous conduct or maintaining an intimidating presence within twenty-five feet of any person gathering signatures or any person trying to sign any initiative or referendum petition.” Blocking, sure. And being “verbally abusive” is already in the RCW as disorderly conduct. But “other tumultuous conduct”? Or maintaining an intimidating presence within twenty-five feet. What the fuck?

In other words, if you come within 25 feet of a signature gatherer or signer, the law enacted by this initiative would pretty much prevent you from expressing anything negative about the initiative. No more arguing the merits. No more trying to persuade people to not signing a petition. Paid signature gathers could try to persuade people to sign the petition, and you can’t offer counterarguments, or protests, even if the petition is being misrepresented by the signature gatherer.

Because, you know, participating in a public debate about a public petition to our lawmakers, in public is a less important First Amendment right than a signature gatherer’s First Amendment right to ask, beg, plead, trick and coerce people into signing their petition(s).

In other words, “We will ENFORCE The People’s First Amendment rights by suppressing The People’s First Amendment rights! It’s Eyman’s paradox.

The initiative has two other marginally related sections (bringing up questions of multi-topic unconstitutionality, a recurring problem for Eyman initiatives). One section would give signature gathers six more months to collect signatures. This, obviously, reflects the fact that many of Eyman’s initiatives fail to qualify for the ballot because of an insufficient number of signatures.

The other marginally-related section tries to circumvent a court ruling that local governments can ignore petitions that can’t legitimately be put to a public vote under the RCW. Eyman simply cannot stand the fact that courts have told him to fuck off. So now he wants to change the law to force invalid initiatives onto the ballot.

Great use of public resources, huh?

Big fucking deal

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Boehner is SEEING ORANGE!

It was only a few days before the nation would go over the fiscal cliff, no bipartisan agreement was in sight, and Reid had just publicly accused Boehner of running a “dictatorship” in the House and caring more about holding onto his gavel than striking a deal.

“Go f[uck] yourself,” Boehner sniped as he pointed his finger at Reid, according to multiple sources present.

Reid, a bit startled, replied: “What are you talking about?”

Boehner repeated: “Go f[uck] yourself.”

You know…I’ll bet Joe Biden suggested Boehner do this—as a strategy to keep his speakership.

And I sure hope it works.

Footnote: Now I am concerned about speaker Boehner. The last time we heard that a powerful Republican told a powerful Democratic Senator to “go fuck yourself,” well…the poor bastard lost his heart!

Turning schools into a Battle Ground

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Perhaps she is going for a dark horse Fucking Idiot of the Year award?

Or maybe this is one of the emotional scars of having attended a school by the name of Battle Ground High School?

It’s Hard to say. But it’s truly idiotic. Washington state Representative Liz Pike (R-18):

…wants to bring up a bill that would let teachers carry concealed guns in the classroom.

Under Pike’s proposal, teachers at schools like Salmon Creek Elementary could volunteer to go through mental evaluations and week-long gun training at their own expense. They would also buy their own guns to bring into their classes and wear on a belt or in a holster – not in a purse or drawer.

A good way to protect students and teachers? Hmmmm.

You may have read, just last week, about an “incident” in a New Jersey police station:

A shootout broke out in a suburban New Jersey police station on Friday when a 39-year-old man who had been taken into custody attacked a police officer, stealing her gun and shooting her and two other officers before he was killed.

I’ve been told numerous similar stories from my father and step mother, who were both Chicago police officers for most of their working lives. Fortunately, the cops usually win these spontaneous altercations without losing control of their guns. But police officers are rigorously and recurrently trained in self defense, weapons handling, and dealing with aggressive persons.

Teachers? Not so much.

Additionally, teachers work, day in and day out, with a much higher proportion of crazy people than do the cops. By, “crazy people”, I mean most adolescent males who need at least a decade to learn how to handle the new phenomena of being constantly hepped up on sex hormones. And I’m just talking naturally produced stuff….

What we definitely don’t need in schools is to provide impulse-control challenged adolescent males new opportunities to exercise their testosterone-induced aggression instincts with the temptation of a loaded gun for victory! Doing so is a recipe for more gun-related deaths in schools—not fewer.

So, yes…Rep. Liz Pike does gets my vote for the 2012 Fucking Idiot of the Year award.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Young Turks: Republican Santa?!?

Rappin’ up 2012

Young Turks: Dick Armey’s armed teabagging coup:

Sam Seder on Social Security hater Alan Simpson.

Fiscalcliff-n-Debtceiling:

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

Young Turks: DUI for a dry politician?

Guns, God, Kids, and Schools:

White House: West Wing Week.

How Republicans will raise your milk prices (via Crooks and Liars).
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Recall Rodney Tom?

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In 2006, I worked my ass off to get Rodney Tom elected as my state senator. Representative Tom had just switched parties—from Republican to Democratic. His challenge was to beat Senator Luke Esser, a friendly, but solidly Republican, incumbent.

In Tom’s favor, the 48th LD district was increasingly turning blue.

Tom has now, essentially, switched back. And in doing so, he has shit upon the people who elected him.

Yes, I’ve heard Tom try to explain why he will caucus with the Republicans. “It’s bipartisan!,” he exclaims.

Bullshit. When you are elected under the label “Democrat,” it is not bipartisan to caucus with the Republicans and, in doing so, turn over control of the Senate to the Republicans. If the voters of the 48th wanted that, they would have elected a Republican.

“But, but, but, the voters have spoken on the issue of new revenue,” he proclaims.

How odd, then, that when the voters spoke directly by electing a Democratic senator, Rodney Tom forgot to listen! Yet somehow, based on “related” issues, Tom can divine that the voters want Republicans in charge and a zero revenue budget. Bull. Fucking. Shit.

In many states, Tom would be subject to a recall election simply for this betrayal of his constituents. In these states a recall election is a political act.

In Washington state, the Constitution specifies a higher bar and a different purpose for recalling a politician. From Article I Section 33 of the Washington State Constitution (my emphasis):

Every elective public officer of the state of Washington expect [except] judges of courts of record is subject to recall and discharge by the legal voters of the state, or of the political subdivision of the state, from which he was elected whenever a petition demanding his recall, reciting that such officer has committed some act or acts of malfeasance or misfeasance while in office, or who has violated his oath of office, stating the matters complained of, signed by the percentages of the qualified electors thereof, hereinafter provided, the percentage required to be computed from the total number of votes cast for all candidates for his said office to which he was elected at the preceding election, is filed with the officer with whom a petition for nomination, or certificate for nomination, to such office must be filed under the laws of this state, and the same officer shall call a special election as provided by the general election laws of this state, and the result determined as therein provided.

Man…that is one run-on sentence! But what does this mean? Is switching party, throwing control of the Senate to the other party an act of misfeasance or malfeasance? RCW 29A.56.110 defines the terms:

(1) “Misfeasance” or “malfeasance” in office means any wrongful conduct that affects, interrupts, or interferes with the performance of official duty;

(a) Additionally, “misfeasance” in office means the performance of a duty in an improper manner; and
(b) Additionally, “malfeasance” in office means the commission of an unlawful act;

(2) “Violation of the oath of office” means the neglect or knowing failure by an elective public officer to perform faithfully a duty imposed by law.

Additionally, RCW 29A.56.140 specifies that any petition must be reviewed in Superior Court for “(1) whether or not the acts stated in the charge satisfy the criteria for which a recall petition may be filed, and (2) the adequacy of the ballot synopsis” and that “[t]he court shall not consider the truth of the charges, but only their sufficiency.”

In practice, Superior Court judges have been reluctant to allow recall petitions to go forward unless clear violations of the law are involved. Some Wingnuts learned this the hard way in their 2005 attempt to recall Secretary of State Sam Reed. More recently, an attempt to recall Public Lands Commissioner, Peter Goldmark, suffered the same fate.

So, no. Short of some remarkable revelation of legal wrongdoing, Rodney Tom is not going to go through a recall election. But I note that my pessimism isn’t shared—it hasn’t stopped one of my activist neighbors from purchasing the domain RecallRodneyTom.com. I hope she uses it to bring attention to the “Tom issue.”

Tom has another fate. When he comes up for reelection in two years—if he bothers to run—he’ll lose.

The 48th LD is now solidly blue. No matter what party Tom claims to “prefer,” his actions are unambiguous. He’s a Republican now. And the 48th LD is most certainly NOT going to elect a Republican state senator.

Holiday open thread

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Whether you are celebrating Christmas, or Quanza, or Chinese Food Takeout Day, or Festivus, or engaging in The War on Christmas™, may your holidays/warfare be blessed with good cheer, loving family, best friends, good times, lots and lots of loot, plenty of vacation days, as well as sober, competent designated drivers….

Michelle Obama reads ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.

Canada says, “Merry Christmas America”: A Boxing Day Primer.

The War On Christmas™:

Christmas at the White House.

UCB Comedy: A Christmas message for parents.

Ann Telnaes: Happy Holidays from the Obamas.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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New Battles in The War on Christmas™:

Maddow: Mark Sanford to hike the campaign trail

It’s The End of The World As We Know It (unless you are reading this):

White House: West Wing Week.

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

Fiscal Something or the Other:

Thom with even more Good, Bad and Very, Very, Ugly.

SlateTV: Sarah Palin isn’t influential…says Sarah Palin.

Shooting Children:

Barney Frank goes after Newt Gingrich over “God” comments.

Thom with more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

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

Attempted break-in

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Just over two weeks ago, my cell phone buzzed while I was in the middle of an afternoon work meeting. Usually I would ignore the phone in that circumstance, but I didn’t this time. It was from Kathy, and she doesn’t call all that often.

When I answered, she told me she was hiding in one room of the house after someone tried breaking in. She didn’t know if he was in the house. The Redmond police were on the way.

It was a Monday, and Kathy was working from home that day. The door bell ran. She ignored it, figuring it was UPS dropping off a package. After a long pause, the doorbell rang a few more times, and then a bunch of times.

Kathy walked from her study to near the front door and started to yell, “who is it,” just as the decorative windowpane closest to the door knob was punched in. Kathy yelled something and ran to her hiding spot, grabbing her cell phone on the way. She called 9-11 and then me.

The would-be burglar apparently took off. She could see through the hole that it was a male wearing a dark blue jacket with light lettering, and the police found nobody matching that description hanging around.

The physical damage was minimal. But for Kathy, this episode was emotionally difficult. For the five minutes it took the police to arrive, her home had gone from being a place of safety and comfort to being a terrifying prison.

When the police left, she talked to our friends a couple of houses down. These people have young children, which means they are well connected in the neighborhood and beyond. They sent out word warning other neighbors. Later that night a neighbor down the street send us images of all the cars and pedestrians that had passed his security camera watching over is driveway. After that, we were forwarded an email from a neighbor who was likely a target of the same individuals.

He was on the second floor of his house when a car pulled into the driveway. A clean-cut white male in his late 20s or early 30s, wearing a dark blue shirt with light blue lettering, got out of the passenger side of a silver late model Kia Optima and rang the doorbell. The home owner answered from the second floor window, and the ensuing exchanged established that the visitors had the wrong house number. The police obtained a written statement about this incident, but they have not “solved” the case, as far as I know.

On this particular day, I had promised my students a 6:00-7:30 pm review session for their final exam, so I really had no time to catch a bus home and then make it back to work. When I went to The Ave for a quick dinner, I stopped at Radio Shack and picked up a few blinking LED assemblies. After fixing the hole that evening, I set up the blinking LED assemblies near all ground floor entrances to make them look like part of an alarm system. Out of my electronics junk box, I dug up a small keypad that used to be attached to a radio. I affixed it on a wall near the front door.

Kathy appreciated my faux alarm system, but wanted the real thing. “I don’t care what it costs. I want a real alarm system and some video cameras!”

Okay…I can deal with that. As it happens, good alarm systems are quite affordable and straightforward to install. In the bad old days, an alarm system with sensors on every door and window would be a pain the the ass, if only because one would run wires from each sensor back to the control unit. Modern alarm systems are entirely wireless, and can include door and window sensors, motion sensors, glass breakage sensors, water sensors, smoke detectors, heat detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, natural gas detectors and even remote panic buttons. The control unit can be programmed to call an alarm monitoring service if you chose; or, you can program it to call your own series of numbers. You can add a dedicated cell phone “line” to most alarms. Some can even utilize the internet to email messages.

So four days later, I had an alarm system in hand. An evening later I had installed a bunch of motion sensors and all the door sensors. It took another evening to put in all the window sensors. Piece of cake.

I also picked up a video surveillance system that can continuously monitor and record video from multiple cameras around the property. That was a bit trickier to install because even with wireless transmission of the video, you need to supply 5 volts to power the cameras. An interesting feature is the ability to monitor the cameras via the internet on computers or a cell phone.

So that’s what I’ve been working on for the last two weeks. I enjoy that kind of geeky tech work.

What I’m not quite comfortable with is this new security mentality around our house. It feels like I’ve enclosed our home in virtual barbed wire or something. What’s next, a metal detector at each entrance? I’m sure I’ll get used to it soon enough, but for now it feels a little icky.

What I’ve done, basically, is to make it undesirable for a common thief to burgle my house. The flashing lights, the cameras, the security decals in windows are all notices to a would-be thief that they would have a much easier time going somewhere else.

In other words…I’ve made it my neighbors’ problem.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottlePlease join us tonight our last meeting of the year at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally. The following two Tuesdays fall on Christmas day and New Year day.

We meet every Tuesday (except certain holidays…) at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier for Dinner.




Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter also meets. The Longview chapter and South Seattle chapter meet this Wednesday. The Spokane chapter and Drinking Liberally Tacoma meet this Thursday.

With 230 chapters of Living Liberally, including fourteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter that meets near you.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Sam Seder: New poll shows people hate Republicans more than ever.

Connecticut School Shooting:

S.E. Cupp’s: New Rules for her ‘troglodyte’ fellow Republicans.

Sam Seder: The G.O.P.’s asshole problem.

Young Turks: Dick Morris cashed in on bogus election prognostications

News from the G.O.P. War on Voters:

Liberal Viewer: FAUX News hates Gangnam Style.

Sarah Silverman: Be bro-choice:

SlateTV: Obama as an extinct lizzard.

Fiscal Cliff Notes:

White House: West Wing Week.

Young Turks: Mitt Romney finally wins something:

Red State Update: FAUX News fires Karl Rove and Dick Morris.

The G.O.P. War On Workers™:

Mark Fiore: High tech Christmas.

Ed: The GOP is running out of white voters.

Jon on Graham and Scalia’s remarks on gay marriage (via Crooks and Liars).

Pap: The MSM fails again in 2012.

Sam Seder: Michele Bachmann is back to Teh Crazy.

News from the Front Lines in the War on Christmas™:

Ann Telnaes: The collateral damage of drones.

NPR Is All Politics.

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

Guns don’t kill children, restrictive gun laws kill children

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Via the AP:

Twenty-seven people, including 18 children, have been killed in a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in suburban Connecticut…

Via ABC:

One shooter is described as 24-years-old, armed with four weapons and wearing a bullet-proof vest, sources tell ABC News.

Clearly, something isn’t working. Perhaps it’s time we listen to the gun rights activists. To paraphrase Portland gun advocate Kirby Ellis’ words in response to the recent Portland-area mall shooting:

“By allowing kids to carry firearms it actually gives them a chance to protect themselves in ways…if the police are not available, or they could be moments away”

“In light of the recent school shooting in Connecticut, not allowing kids to carry weapons only puts our children more at risk.”

“With the policies in place that don’t allow students to carry firearms in school, the only thing they really could do is try to seek cover and wait for the police to get there.”

So it’s clear, then…it’s absolutely the only conceivable thing that could be done to stop these tragedies….

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottlePlease join us tonight for an evening of politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We’ll begin the evening by giving all of our drinks, food and money the conservatives; and we’ll entrust ’em to share equally with us. It’s because, you know…we’re bipartisan. And handing over control to conservatives is just plain common sense bipartisanship! I mean, they’d do the same for us…right?

We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier for Dinner.




Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities and Vancouver, WA chapters meet. On Wednesday, the Bellingham chapter meets. On Thursday Drinking Liberally Bremerton meets. And next Monday, the Yakima chapter meets.

With 230 chapters of Living Liberally, including fourteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter that meets near you.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Thom: The G.O.P.’s plans for the 2016 election.

SlateTV: Cory Booker starts his food stamp odyssey.

Former Sen. Alan Simpson goes all Gangnam style.

Maddow: FreedomWorks loses it’s Dick Armey.

The War On Xmas™:

Sam Seder: Stoopid Republicans think the election was stolen by (the non-existent) ACORN.

Thom with The Good, The Bad and the Very Very Supercacaneously Ugly.

SlateTV: Hillary Clinton laughs off Presidential talk.

Red State Update: Romney and Obama have lunch.

Sam Seder: Teabaggers lose their Dick Armey.

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

Fiscal Cliff Notes:

Thom with The Good, The Bad and the Very Very Potomaniacly Ugly.

Washington State Issuing marriage licenses for same-sex couples (via Crooks and Liars).

Jon does Gov. Chris Christie.

Truth in advertising: Exxon hates your children (via Slog).

FAUX News sidelines Rove and Morris:

Thom and Pap: Teabaggers are the GOP’s “invasive species”.

Martin Bashir: Romney Surrogates using the same feckless & offensive talking points.

Lunatic Congressman Gohmert casts sole vote against striking “lunatic” from laws.

White House: West Wing Week.

Shitting upon the Disabled:

Ezra Klein: Republicans resume their War on Workers™.

Sharpton: Obama honors ‘living legends’ at the Kennedy Center.

SlateTV: Senator Ashley Judd?

O’Donnell: 51% of voters want Michelle Obama for Senator.

From Teabagger to Moneybagger:

Jon: Republicans haven’t learned a damn thing (via Slog).

Young Turks: Ed Asner’s anti-trickle down video.

Pap: Cut the Tea Party cancer out of USA.

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

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