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Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottlePlease join us this evening for, yet, another “special session” of the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

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




Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out plethora of other DL meetings over the next week. Tonight there are also meetings of the Tri-Cities and Vancouver, WA chapters. On Wednesday, the Bellingham chapter meets.
On Friday, Washington’s newest chapter, the Centralia chapter of Drinking Liberally, meets. Finally, next Monday, the Yakima chapters meet.

With 205 chapters of Living Liberally, including seventeen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and two more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Zina Saunders: Hell rejects Margaret Thatcher.

John Fugelsang presents: ‘The Deeply Embarrasing Senator of the Week Award’.

Michele Quits:

Sam Seder: Mitt Romney thinks Hurricane Sandy was to blame.

Bill Maher with some new rules.

The Rob Ford crack-smoking video leaked.

Thom: Why California will be the new face of Obamacare.

Lawrence O’Donnell: The ‘rape’ men of the GOP.

Sam Seder: GW Bush uses Vets to relieve himself of guilt.

John Fugelsang: People who supported NSA Condoleezza Rice can’t criticize NSA Susan Rice:

Ann Telnaes: The military version of zero tolerance.

Surveillance Nation:

Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: Scandal! State of America.

Young Turks: When God saved Boehner.

Jonathan Mann: Ode to the NY Times legal force.

Kimmel: This week in unnecessary censorship.

Sam Seder: GOP Senator blames hormones for military sexual assaults.

Maddow: GOP’s & FAUX News’ History of Fake ‘Obama Smoking Guns’

Stephen on Superman.

Thom: Why are “We the People” subsidizing the Tea Party:

Sharpton: GOP tells ‘car thief’ Darrell Issa to ‘cool it’.

Mental Floss: 31 Strange Medical Conditions.

The week in Chris Christie:

Bill Maher: Pot is the new gay marriage.

O’Donnell: Incompetent Rudy Giuliani was an ‘unwitting accomplice’ of Al-Qaeda.

White House: West Wing Week.

ONN: Week in Review.

Jon says goodbye.

Young Turks: Is Roger Ailes insane?

Maddow: Not much for GOP to build on in outreach to women voters.

Ann Telnaes: More sexist nonsense from Republicans.

John Fugelsang and Dan Savage: Interrupting Michelle Obama.

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

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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With summer on full display, please join us this evening to quench your physiological and political thirsts at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

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

Here is Wall Street Journal editorial board member Dorothy Rabinowitz going off on the evils of bicycles and the evil bicycle sharing program recently launched in NYC. Note…this is NOT parody.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out another DL meeting over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter also meets. The Lakewood chapter meets on Wednesday. And on Thursday, the Spokane and Tacoma chapters meet.

With 204 chapters of Living Liberally, including sixteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and two more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Ann Telnaes: Justice Scalia limbers up for the busy June court schedule.

Taking Food out of the Mouths of the Poor:

White House: West Wing Week.

Alex Wagner: Sen. Ted Cruz & the new generation of GOP flamethrowers.

Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: The Bromance is back.

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Why can’t Obama go Bulworth?:

Mark Fiore: The Re-Obamulator.

Young Turks: Note to Republicans—it ISN’T “packing the court” when you are filling vacancies.

Pap: Exposing the climate criminals.

The FAUX View of Bread-winning and the Place of Women in the Household:

ONN: Week in review.

Liberal Viewer: Should schools suspend students for non-violent willful defiance?.

Mental Floss: 49 hoaxes people actually believed.

Young Turks: Who lies more…Republicans or Democrats?

Thom: Empirical proof that Republicans lie.

Bye, Bye, Bachmann:

Ann Telnaes: Congress takes a vacation.

Amy Tan performs at the White House.

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

Maverick McCain goes Rogue:

Maddow: A flashback to 1997.

Young Turks: Who’s trying to poison the President?

Christian Nutjob “historian” David Barton: “You Can’t Drink Starbucks and Be Biblically Right” (via Slog).

Ann Telnaes: Eric Holder’s strange remorse.

Lawrence O’Donnell: Tesla and electric cars—why Republicans are dead wrong to bet against Obama.

Pap: Barriers must be lifted for American voters.

David Schuster: Letterman rips GOP Senator a new one.

Obamacare:

Obama speaks on college affordability.

Young Turks: Bill-O the Clown and Alex Jones have a cat fight.

Lawrence O’Donnell: Republicans using ‘scandals’ to avoid positive economic news.

Town Square: Will we ever end the war on terror?

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

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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Start your summer right left! Please join us tonight for an evening of politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

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



Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out another nearby DL meeting over the next week. The Tri-Cities chapter also meets tonight. And next Monday, the Aberdeen, Yakima, South Bellevue and Olympia chapters meet.

With 204 chapters of Living Liberally, including sixteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and two more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

Sequester brings out Reagan Dunn’s inner socialist (again)

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In 2010, King County Council member Reagan Dunn was a conflicted man. Driven by his Inner Socialist, he huffed and puffed and took his ball and went home after the King County council considered sequestration cuts that would hit the Sheriff’s office. At the same time, his Inner Teabagger adamantly opposed new taxes, or even putting a tax measure on the ballot to let the voters decide.

In other words, “gimme my Gov’ment funded security, but keep your bloody hands off my money!”

Well now, thanks to sequestration cuts, Mr. Dunn’s inner Socialist has reared its ugly little head again:

“This airport is critically important to King County and the region,” said Dunn. “Congress must act and guarantee that the Renton Municipal Airport and others like it have the needed funding to operate fully and continue contributing to the local economy.”

Dunn joined his comrades, Council member Julia Patterson and King County Sheriff John Urquhart, in writing a letter to Congress stressing the importance of Big Government sponsored airport infrastructure, and its value to the local economy.

Wait…isn’t this a job for local governments? Aren’t they in a better position to understand the local needs? Or, better yet, can’t the Free Market fix this along with everything else it has on it’s To Do list? Surely the sequestration cuts will lead to a booming economy sowing magic beans that sprout into new private sector infrastructure to fill the void left by Shrinking Government, right?

Apparently not. Reagan wants his Big Government funded infrastructure. But don’t count out Reagan inner Teabagger just yet—we have yet to learn how Mr. Dunn wants the Feds to fund the Renton air traffic controllers….

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Sam Seder speaks with Katherine Harris about scandals.

The IRS/Tea Party Scandal:

Lawrence O’Donnell: Conceited Sen Ted Cruz vs. the Republican Party he ‘does Not trust’.

White House: West Wing Week.

Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: Happy Memorial Day.

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

The Daily Show catches up with Dylan Ratigan (via TalkingPointsMemo).

Obama’s War on War:

Jon does Bill-O the Clown.:

Young Turks: Jon pwns O’Reilly

Thom: The G.O.P. punks ABC News.

John Fugelsang: Barack Obama — Worst. Socialist. Ever.

Obama honors Carol King.

Young Turks: AZ Athiest lawmaker addresses House with his own prayer.

I5 Bridge Collapse:

Young Turks: Historic ban overturned.

Alyona: Saluteghazi!!!

Sam Seder: Glenn Beck sees “false flag” atheist conspiracy in Blitzer question.

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

Transparent President:

Sharpton: The G.O.P.’s rebranding FAIL, as outreach extended to white supremacists!.

Mental Floss: 50 Common Misquotations.

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

Jon on Peggy Noonan (via Political Wire).

The Republican War on Women™:

Thom: How electric cars save human lives.

John Fugelsang: Anthony Weiner is running for Mayor. Gentlemen, start your puns!

Maddow: Foolhardy budget cuts cripple government.

The Onion Week in Review.

Ann Telnaes: What the G.O.P. and the White House are NOT focused on.

Virginia is for Haters:

Bashir agrees with Ted Cruz on one thing.

Maddow: The GOP’s ‘Guantanamo closure’ road-block: .

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

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.

This week we will, of course, talk about scandals and conspiracies. You know…like Alex Jones’ theory that a government “weather weapon” caused the Oklahoma Tornado. (No doubt, ordered by Obama himself, with targeting by the IRS, as a way to distract from BENGHAAAAZZZZZZZZZZZZIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!11!!!1!!!)



And, NIXON….

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

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out another nearby DL meeting over the next week. The Tri-Cities chapter also meets tonight. On Wednesday, the Burien and Bellingham chapters meet. And on Thursday the Woodinville chapter meets.

With 204 chapters of Living Liberally, including sixteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and two more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Stephen takes on Heritage Foundation’s racist immigration study (via Crooks and Liars).

Viewpoint: Creationism in schools and the G.O.P. War on Science.

Chris Hayes: Dysfunctional House Republicans ignore remarkable shrinking deficit.

DOJ Scandal:

Robert Reich: The hollowing out of government.

Jon on 2016, 2016, 2016.

Ricin-laced letters: sent to Spokane Judge and Post Office.

Sam Seder: GOP Hispanic outreach director resigns, registers democrat.

Liberal Viewer: Can minorities be racist?

BENGHAZZZZZZZZZZZIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!1!11!!!:

Stephen does Rep. Gwen Moore.

Bashir: Is Darrell Issa qualified for “oversight” role?!?

Maddow: Republicans fall dead silent in face of historic Obama 2013 deficit success.

Thom: The real, G.O.P., scandal.

Sam Seder: Do these “scandals” weaken Obama?

Greenman: Weather Channel covers Dark Snow Project.

Stephen on 3-D gun makers.

New rules for pot distribution.

The Great IRS (non)Scandal:

Lawrence O’Donnell: Conservative editors warn Republicans.

Maddow: Investigators narrow cause for West, TX plant explosion.

White House: West Wing Week.

Roy Zimmerman: Oh frack, “The Faucet’s on Fire:

Sam Seder: Umbrellagate!!!!!11!!1!

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

Elizabeth Warren and the student debt crusade.

Sharpton: Insane House G.O.P. tries to repeal Obamacare for the 38th time.

Same Sex Marriage in MN:

David Schuster: Meghan McCain calls out G.O.P. hypocrisy.

Maddow: Media not unscathed by scandals.

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

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottle
It’s Tuesday. And that means the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally meets for an evening of politics over a pint.

We meet every Tuesday evening at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier than that 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, Lakewood, and South Seattle chapters meet this Wednesday. And for Thursday, the Spokane and Tacoma chapters meet. Next Monday, the Aberdeen, Yakima and Olympia chapters meet.

With 204 chapters of Living Liberally, including sixteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and two more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Geoff Tate: Fixing the economy.

Ann Telnaes: Life begins at conception.

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

Maddow: Heritage Foundation, “Low IQ immigrants are parasites & their ‘unborn’ children will be too!”.

White House: West Wing Week.

Heavyweight Governor:

Maddow: Obama’s IRS scandal in context.

Sam Seder: Judge slams Obama administration over their right wing Plan B stance.

ONN: The week in review.

Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: Another state falls to gay marriage.

Lush Rimbaugh:

The Point: Justice Sandra Day O’Connor regrets Bush v. Gore in 2000.

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

Maddow: Alarming ineptitude revealed in care of U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Jon on the Jodi Arias coverage.

Sam Seder: Republican warmongers beating the war drums.

South Carolina is Still Crazy:

Young Turks: Elizabeth Warren wants students to get bank rates on their loans.

Ann Telnaes: America the armed.

Maddow: G.O.P. war on student voters violates the law.

Mark Fiore: iEvade.

Thom: Should Obama send troops to Texas?

Benghazi Brouhaha:

Young Turks: Enron CEO to get reduced prison term.

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

Nine years of HA trolls

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Today is the 9th anniversary of HA. So I thought I would celebrate by remembering the top nine most memorable trolls who have lurked in the comment threads.

Any such list is necessarily subjective—trolls are memorable for may different reasons, sometimes rather personal ones. Some have invoked anger, some have provided “entertainment,” some were just very, very…VERY different. Okay…so here goes:

  1. Mr. Cynical was Goldy’s first real troll. He showed up during the Great Election Contest of 2005, and loudly and boldly tried telling us how things would come out. Cynical was largely a propagandist for Republicans, so his many, many prognostications almost always came out dead wrong. Cynical was so wrong over the Great Election Contest of 2005, that the took on the moniker, “Mr. Irrelevant after his side lost. At least he had a sense of humor. An example of a Cynical long term political prediction, from the summer of 2005:

    Santorum and Rice will win in 2008 and 2012….
    Then Rice will become the first African-America and first woman President of the United States in 2016 and 2020.

    Mr. Cynical occasionally returns to the comment thread to offer his opinions on important events, like presidential elections. During the 2012 election, Cynical came back as Ryanistheman, Jody, and likely other commenters. A little know fact is that Cynical was the first troll to really get under Goldy’s skin…until Goldy got toughened and jaded into the troll-aloof person we know and love day.

  2. Another of HA’s early trolls, JCH, was hell-bent on simply being disruptive. And he left lots of comments in attempts to disrupt. He was also a racist, spewing anti-Semitic slurs ad nauseum. It’s hard to know what drove him. He admitted that he lived in Hawaii, and I was able to deduce that he had previously lived in California, where he actively wrote letters to the editor of his local newspaper, pushing wingnut causes, of course.

    JCH has the distinction of being the first troll to be banned from HA. It was largely for his unwillingness to stop the barrage of anti-Semitic insults. And even his banning came after a long spell of having his comments moderated.

  3. Chardonnay was HA’s first “concern troll,” but really stood out for being an (apparent) female in a largely male-dominated field. Something else that stood out about Chardonnay: she was excessively stupid. Now, whether this was an act or real is hard to tell. But she specialized in taking Republican talking points and re-framing them as “concerns” that were promptly demolished by other commenters. Here is a fun Chardonnay comment that came during the Ron Sims, David Irons, Jr. King County Executive election:

    oh ya Ivan, King Ronny is toast he’s as wacked as algore if not more. ronny f’d up with his trumped up enviro BS. and his election dept debacle. stick a fork in him.

    I’ll tell ya what ivan, if ron wins I’ll donate money to Goldy’s beer fund. You ‘buddy’ get zip unless Goldy wants to share his beer with you. If David Irons wins you buy Goldy a beer.

    I cannot say whether she ever donated beer money to Goldy. Chardonnay disappeared (under that name, anyway) after that election in late 2005. She made one more appearance in 2007.

  4. Christmas Ghost is notable as another female commenter. She was much brighter than Chardonnay but, perhaps, crazier. A notable characteristic of her comments was an absence of upper case characters. Eventually, she moved to the Bay area and quit commenting on HA, but not before EFFin’ Unsound had some fun with her.

    Interesting, odd facts: She was a raging asshole to Goldy in the comment threads, but he reports that she was a nice and reasonable person in her emails to him. Goldy once posted a missing person piece on behalf of Christmasghost. The niece was eventually found, though I don’t know any of the details.

  5. Piper Scott makes this list, because no commenter was more full of himself than was Piper. He was seriously insufferable and really did take himself seriously. Everyone else…not so much. In fact, Lee started a series of posts about him called The Crackpiper Chronicles (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4).

    Part one highlighted one of my favorite protracted exchanges with any troll. It’s still a fun read that shows, in the end, underneath all the pretense, Piper was reacting emotionally like a very typical reality-challenged wingnut.

  6. Puddybud. Ahhhh, yes. What can we say about our beloved Puddybud. First, he gets kudos for longevity, having first posted back in 2005. Puddybud is a smorgasbord of illogical thoughts, nonsense, child-like arguments, illiteracy, hatred, bigotry, and right wing tripe, oddly mixed, on occasion, with pious religious fervor. And to add to it all, Puddybud has some deep insecurities as evidenced by his need for silly bragging. (Anyone remember the conversation about Puddybud serving in the military?)

    An interesting thing about Puddy is the he has actually engaged with some of us in person by coming to Drinking Liberally. In person, he is a friendly, articulate, and intelligent person—really, the antithesis of his online persona. How could this be? The answer is that Puddybud is a character. The person producing the character is engaging in performance art. This explains everything about Puddybud. Think about it…if your objective is to maximize disruption and “make liberal heads explode,” then debate using emotional arguments, use bad logic, be inflammatory while saying stuff that is barely comprehensible, misuse data. Hell…just blatantly lie—it’s the character Puddy, not the God-fearing person playing Puddy lying to you.

  7. Mark the Redneck is a typical, if once prolific, propagandist/troll. What puts Mark the Redneck on this list is an infamous bet he made with Goldy…and reneged on.
  8. Marvin Stamn was a prolific, nearly robotic troll. He had commenting down to an art:
    1. Open up Drudge and find an “outrage”
    2. Excerpt a quote from the piece
    3. Write just enough commentary so that it constitutes “fair use”.
    4. Go to 1

    Marvin eventually did himself in when he admitted to getting paid for his propaganda. It is hard to know if he was serious or joking, but since he lived in Southern California, commented for many hours a day, and had nothing to say about local politics, it seems more plausible than not. I don’t miss him.

  9. I had a hard time picking just one last troll to memorialize. I considered pbj, chuck, manoftruth, howcanyoubePROUDtobeanASS, Max, YO, josef, and so on. But I choose Klake. What I remember about Klake was his long, rambly, semi-coherent comments, with random parts of the text in bold. Like here and here. Classic stuff.

So those are my “top” nine. How about you? Who are the trolls you would memorialize and why?

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HA Commenting Policy

It may be hard to believe from the vile nature of the threads, but yes, we have a commenting policy. Comments containing libel, copyright violations, spam, blatant sock puppetry, and deliberate off-topic trolling are all strictly prohibited, and may be deleted on an entirely arbitrary, sporadic, and selective basis. And repeat offenders may be banned! This is my blog. Life isn’t fair.