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Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottle It’s Tuesday…and that’s Drinking Liberally night in Seattle. So please join us 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. at 8:00 pm. Stop by earlier for a quiet dinner.





Can’t make it? The Tri-Cities chapter of Drinking liberally meets every Tuesday night as well. And the Vancouver, WA chapter also meets tonight. On Thursday, Drinking Liberally Tacoma meets. And the Everett chapter of Drinking Liberally meets in Snohomish next Monday. With 226 chapters of Living Liberally, chances are good there is one near you.

Comments

  1. 1

    How is it that a protest against Wall Street criminality can be seen as a “transient encampment?”

    On the third day of occupation, protesters with Occupy Spokane were ordered to remove their tents. Police said their tent violated city’s codes against transient encampments. The group behind Occupy Seattle is now facing a similar order at their Westlake location.

    Seattle Police Chief John Diaz said he will order the group to move the tents before the end of the day. Diaz said he will not restrict them from peacefully protesting, but will not allow them to keep the tents on public property. – (Read more at KING 5)

    Early Tuesday evening, Occupy Seattle’s Facebook page said, “Cops are gathering around Westlake! We need your support! Come show your solidarity! If you don’t want to risk arrest coming down with a camera to document would be extremely helpful.”

    King 5 also reported that they have bout 50 tents set up at their Westlake location.

    In Spokane, the volume of protesters increase. Their Facebook page has surpassed 1,700 likes.
    http://downtownspokane.kxly.co.....tent-issue

  2. 2

    @1 Because Wall Street bankers took all the money and turned everyone else into a hobo.

  4. 4

    How is it that a protest against Wall Street criminality can be seen as a “transient encampment?”

    Easy. When the champagne swilling pigs are not longer amused, and it is necessary to clear out the dirty fucking hippies.

  5. 5

    Is it time get radical???

    At this point in time only radical solutions will work. That means radical: everything must go. Every institution in American society has failed. Every single one. They must all be shut down and the purposes they were meant to serve must be assigned to new institutions. You cannot save the Fed in its current form. You cannot save the banks. You cannot save the military or the police or the judiciary or the universities. And, most importantly, you cannot trust or do business with the elites who currently run society. They must be run out of power entirely, their riches taken away from them, and those who have committed crimes (virtually all of them) must be thrown in prison.

    Radical.

    The protestors are not radicals.

    http://www.ianwelsh.net/

    Even the Raygun administration managed to put away 1600 Savings and Loan fraudsters. But today only the ponzi schemers like Madoff who’ve bilked rich people see any prison time.

    I’m not sure if it’s wise to force the hand of the radical right elements in the U.S. military to attempt an authoritarian coup supporting the far right political class.. But even it came to that, that’d sure be a wakeup call for an awful lot of people.

    Anyway you look at it the present course is not sustainable.

  6. 6

    I hung out at Westlake today for a bit. Everyone there seemed pretty peaceable except for this angry, misguided young woman who was screaming at a couple protesters about the need for a flat tax so that everyone would be treated “the same.” I think I might just become a dirty, fucking hippie tomorrow (I’m generally on the edge of that most of the time anyway) and go hang out a bit more with the righteous Occupy Seattle folks.

  8. 8

    @7
    I’m a bit bothered by their use of police and protestor video rather than actual news video.

  9. 9

    Ummm, aren’t most of the Wall Street Firms no longer on Wall Street?
    And why aren’t they protesting at the White House?
    I listen to some of these people babble. Precious few gave a cogent, coherent reason for what they were doing and could articulate what they were hoping to accomplish.
    I’m no fan of Wall Street. A lot of the a$$holes should be in jail. But the protest is accomplishing nothing because of their lack of a clear message and goal.

  10. 10

    Michael,
    All in all, I thought the piece was fairly balanced. I hope this movement has some legs. It would be about time that the left stands up again. It’s only been about 40 years since the left hasn’t been on the run.

  11. 11

    @9

    And why aren’t they protesting at the White House

    Because the power’s at Wall Street, not the White House.

    They’re there for a whole bunch of different reasons and while it may be inconvenient you and me that they don’t have 1 spokesman with 1 message, they’ve decided that it is best for them to be defuse. It strikes me as a bit of a guerrilla war type strategy, pointing out problems and abuses, and just not shutting up and going away, forcing Wall Street and the politicals to come to them.

    I wish them luck!

  12. 12

    And why aren’t they protesting at the White House

    Because the power’s at Wall Street, not the White House.

    Has been since way back when McKinley was in the White House. Teddy R. tried to take it back and look what happened to him!

  13. 13

    @9 “And why aren’t they protesting at the White House?”

    Because that’s not where the problem is.

  14. 14

    Democrats Win W. Va. Special Election

    “Democrat Earl Ray Tomblin has won a special election for governor in West Virginia, overcoming Republican attempts to tie him to President Barack Obama and the health care plan. Tomblin has served as acting governor since Joe Manchin stepped down in November after he won a U.S. Senate seat. …

    “Republicans were upset Tomblin didn’t join a majority of other states who sued the Obama administration over the health care reform plan. Obama lost West Virginia in 2008 and is wildly unpopular here ….”

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44....._politics/

    Roger Rabbit Commentary: Hmmm … Republicans can’t win in a state where Obama is wildly unpopular against a candidate who refused to join McKenna’s bullshit lawsuit against Obamacare … that’s mighty interesting!

  16. 16

    Hell hath frozen over and I find myself partially agreeing with the “friendo” from Montana..

    The protester’s demands are rather mild and won’t solve the problems. As I noted above very strong to RADICAL measures are required..

    The protesters are mostly young and their student loan debt is unserviceable. They can’t find jobs that pay much above poverty wages. If they do get one of those jobs, they’re taking it from some other poor slob who’s not college material.

    Of course the friendo is ignorant about some things.

    Some protesters have been at the White House, been arrested even. They were protesting the pipeline from the tar sands in Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. A threat to the Ogallala aquifer if it broke like just about every pipeline does within its useful life.

    The gays have protested the White House and have been in Obama’s face about their concerns. Now the Federal Government does not enforce DOMA and DADT is a thing of the past.

    If people are sick and tired of the same old song and dance they have to get into the status quo’s face and make it really uncomfortable. These days there’s no alternative to that.

  18. 18

    @16 Here’s how Bill Gross, billionaire founder of the world’s largest bond fund, describes the U.S. economy:

    “Gross said there are three ‘structural hurricanes’ affecting the economy — globalization, which has hollowed out the labor market; technology, which has outdated entire industries; and an aging population that favors saving over spending.

    “Globalization is the most immediate problem, Gross told CNBC. ‘Policymakers may be killing their golden goose, in this case the American worker, whose household income … is the lowest in a decade’ …. Without the wage earner, Gross said, there is ‘very little … potential for consumer growth and economic growth going forward.'”

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/44775993

    Roger Rabbit Commentary: Gross is echoing what I’ve been saying all along, namely, when businesses outsource jobs and slash wages, they’re killing their own markets.

  23. 23

    when businesses outsource jobs and slash wages, they’re killing their own markets.

    But are they finding sustainable markets outside this country? Last I looked, in many cases, the answer is yes..

    Interesting times..

  24. 24

    So Tomblin wins by 3 points in a State that is 2-1 Democrat….and his campaign stayed far, far away from Obama. Didn’t even want Obama hear this election.

    With 96 percent of precincts reporting, Tomblin had 50 percent of the vote compared with Republican Bill Maloney’s 47 percent, according to unofficial results.

    Democrats outnumber the GOP by nearly 2-to-1 in West Virginia, but they are considered more conservative than their national counterparts on both social and fiscal issues, supporting gun rights and cutting taxes.

  26. 26

    Tomblin has to run again in 2012.
    If the economy languishes and he doesn’t fight ObamaCare, he will lose.
    And Michael, I’m glad you don’t like Obama.
    How about Herman Cain?
    If you don’t like him or Obama..you are definitely a racist.
    Hardy-har-har

  27. 27

    We may not like Obama but we still have to vote for him..

    For who’s more powerful than Obama?

    The Supremes baby..

    And Obama isn’t about to send another whacko to the SCOTUS.

  28. 28

    @26
    I’m working class left, while Obama hasn’t done much for me he’s still better than anyone on the right. The point being that just because people don’t like Obama it doesn’t necessarily mean anything good for the right.

    Romney might be able to win it, but the Republican base isn’t real excited about him and he’ll have an uphill fight to win it.

    I doubt anyone loses a race for supporting Obama Care.

  29. 29

    25
    I like Obama, a whole helluva lot. I won’t run from him an inch. He has had to govern in a time when his predecessor left him with an ungovernable country, his opponent party is nuts and intent on making things worse so that they can win in 2012 and drive this country into a totalitarian abyss, and the media expects him to be Jesus Christ. Given what he’s been up against, I think Obama has done quite alright.

  31. 31

    Maxie,
    Any chance that you pay any attention to what the markets and the rest of this world say about this country? We are totally out of whack; reason no longer plays any role in where we are going. This country, because of our government, once led the world. Now, you fucks on the far right claim our government is the problem. You fucks don’t understand what made this country great. As a result, we are headed toward Somalia. Bask in what you’ve created.

  32. 32

    @21 So, how do you get a goat to hold still that long? Do you kill it first, then have a taxidermist stuff it?

  33. 33

    @26 “If the economy languishes and he doesn’t fight ObamaCare, he will lose.”

    If that were true, he would have lost today, dumbass.

  34. 34

    @31 Well, we’re getting a good look at how Hooverism works in Greece. The Greek meltdown has begun:

    “Airliners were grounded, trains halted and tax offices shut on Wednesday as Greek state workers walked off the job to protest against austerity, defying a plea by the government to rally behind its effort to fend off national bankruptcy.”

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/44781788

    Roger Rabbit Commentary: Greece can’t possibly pay its debts and will default — the financial markets have been expecting it for months, although I doubt the reality is fully priced in yet.

  35. 35

    GOPers Backpedal On Taxes

    “Deficit-reduction talks in the U.S. Congress entered a potentially groundbreaking phase on Tuesday with Republicans signaling they could consider some revenue increases in exchange for Democrats embracing healthcare cuts, sources familiar with the discussions said.

    “‘Nearly all the Republican members on the super committee I have spoken to, and frankly the party leaders, have left the door open to revenues,’ a source with knowledge of the talks told Reuters. …

    “A Senate Republican aide said: ‘Revenues are being discussed,’ adding that both ‘closing loopholes and (tax) rate cuts’ could ultimately be included in a package. The aide added that the super committee members are trying to craft a package that goes a little beyond the $1.2 trillion minimum in savings. …

    “The potentially new openness to revenue increases came as some Republicans were distancing themselves from a powerful no-new-taxes force in Washington — Grover Norquist, the head of Americans For Tax Reform. In recent years, Norquist has been successful in getting most congressional Republicans to sign onto a ‘pledge’ against any new taxes. But one Republican congressional aide told Reuters, ‘People are ignoring Grover’ now.

    “Meanwhile, Republican Representative Frank Wolf delivered a speech on the House floor, saying that Norquist’s pledge is a ‘roadblock to realistically reforming our tax code’ and ‘everything must be on the table’ in efforts to get the U.S. fiscal house in order.”

    http://www.cnbc.com/id/44779961

  36. 36

    Support The Troops Dep’t

    Remember when Republicans shrilly screeched that if you didn’t “support the troops” you were “unpatriotic”? And by “support the troops” they meant, of course, supporting the GOP’s warmongering policies, not the troops themselves, as it’s well established that Republicans royally screwed over the troops they sent to fight their recreational war in Iraq:

    — Showers built by overpaid crony contractors that electrocuted the soldiers who used them;
    — Trying to eliminate combat pay for $15,000-a-year soldiers just a few weeks into a war that would drag on for years (while paying private mercenaries $150,000 a year with our tax money);
    — Housing wounded troops in moldy barracks;
    — Being so cheap about providing soldiers with combat gear that Cher had to hold a nationwide charity drive to raise money to buy helmets for our soldiers in Iraq;
    — Refusing to up-armor vehicles against IEDs because they preferred to spend the money on tax breaks for millionaires;
    — Even being stingy with medals for combat bravery.

    And all along, they told us the soldiers voted 100% Republican (even though there’s no proof of that, because federal law prohibits conducting political polls of military personnel or on military bases), and if you were a Democrat, well, you just weren’t patriotic or even American.

    Well, we now have a poll that tells us what IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN VETERANS think of the GOP’s wars.

    “As the United States marks 10 years of war, only a third of the veterans of the post-9/11 era say that the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq have both been worth fighting, according to a new Pew Research Center report.

    “While a majority of veterans are proud of their military service, about half say that relying too much on military might to defeat terrorist organizations fuels hatred and that only begets more terrorism. …

    “The findings resulted from two nationwide surveys the Pew Research Center conducted late this summer, as the 10th anniversary of the start of the war in Afghanistan approached.”

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44.....news-life/

    Roger Rabbit Commentary: Republicans wanted us to “support the troops” (which we did in the ways that really matter to our soldiers) but the troops, it seems, don’t support them. Should this coine as a shock to anyone?

  37. 37

    This survey is the final nail in the coffin lid on the GOP Big Lie that our soldiers support their warmongering.

  42. 42

    @40
    Link?
    I heard about one guy from Virginia doing this recently – but the analysis was that he was gonna get the big smack down.

  43. 43

    33. Roger Rabbit spews:

    @26 “If the economy languishes and he doesn’t fight ObamaCare, he will lose.”

    If that were true, he would have lost today, dumbass.

    I’m referring to another 12 months of economic languishing, and more of the impacts of ObamaCare are felt. Lots of working Democrats are running away from Obama. So are Blacks. Herman Cain is resonating. His personal life story is captivating to young people who have been told all their lives they aren’t good enough to succeed on their own and need Jackson/Sharpton/Obama in order to succeed.
    Fewer and fewer are buying that. And Herman Cain is the great example and educator.
    Progressivism had a very short half-life. And Obama’s inexperience and inability to lead effectively have brought it to it’s knees as was predictable.

  44. 44

    Herman Cain is resonating.

    Indeed he is. With one play of the race card he’s knocked your beloved Perry out.

    How dare he be “offended” at that inscription? No other right wing promoters of class “peace” making plans with Perry for waging “class peace” registered any offense at that landmark of local cultural history.

  45. 45

    Remember the old claim that a law prohibiting sleeping under bridges “applies to the rich as well as the poor”? Of course, it’s not a law which applies equally to all, since it effects only the poor.

    Why is this similar to the “Occupy Wall Street” protests? Because the corporate financial giants don’t need to occupy the streets to get their message told and to enfluence policy. They have more than enough money to pay the corporate media to tell their side of the story, and lobbyists to influence our nation’s lawmakers. (What was that statistic I heard – 33 lobbyists in D.C. who represent the financial industy for every member of Congress?

    So when the authorities decide that protesters can’t pitch tents on public streets and sidewalks, they are working to minimize the numbers of protesters (who can’t stay awake indefinately), and giving one more advantage to the financial industry who are trying to portray these protesters as a handful of radicals.

  46. 46

    Now, maybe if the authorities would evict the CEO’s of the financial industries from their boardrooms, expensive hotel suites, vacation homes and penthouses, and let them argue over the merits of the financial system on the streets with the protestors, then we would have an equal fight.

  47. 47

    BTW: I happened to be passing by a TV Monday night which was turned to Fox News – some program or another which airs on that station. They were interviewing Donald Trump on what he thought of the current GOP candidates.

    He was “sharing” about how he was sure they all wanted his endorsement, but that they were going to have to come to him and convince him that they were the right candidate before he would endorse him.

    What an arrogant, smug, SOB. After spending a couple of weeks as a “candidate”, only to drop out the moment his one issue (the “birther” postion) collapses, he now wants the candidates to come crawling up the steps to his throne, begging for his indulgence and blessing!

    What’s going to be fun is seeing how many of them actually do it.

  49. 49

    43. debonair spews:

    Progressivism had a very short half-life. And Obama’s inexperience and inability to lead effectively have brought it to it’s knees as was predictable.

    In your dreams fuckwit.

    Herman Cain is resonating. His personal life story is captivating to young people who have been told all their lives they aren’t good enough to succeed on their own and need Jackson/Sharpton/Obama in order to succeed.

    Yeah…resonates with you. You’re a WHITE male who lives in a WHITE part of the country, asshole. You know nothing!

  50. 50

    Tue May 31, 2011 at 01:30 PM PDT.

    The poor pay no taxes? That’s a big surprise to them

    by Meteor Bladesfor Daily Kos.

    Charts created by the
    Center for Budget and Policy Priorities

    A couple of months ago, Media Matters took note of yet another typical bit from the liars at Foxaganda:

    On the April 9 edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends, after co-host Gretchen Carlson stated that “yesterday we were reporting a story that 47 percent of all Americans don’t pay any taxes,” Fox Business host Stuart Varney stated: “Yes, 47 percent of households pay not a single dime in taxes. And some of those households actually make a profit from the Treasury.” Co-host Steve Doocy asked, “Is that fair.”

    The message was clear: They’re freeloaders. Just a new version of “welfare queen.”

    Chuck Marr and Brian Highsmith at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities demonstrate just how utterly bogus that claim is:

    The notion that “half of Americans don’t pay taxes” not only overstates the share of households that do not pay federal income taxes in a typical year. It also ignores the other taxes people pay, including federal payroll taxes and state and local taxes. …
    The reality is that the income tax is one of a number of types of taxes that individuals pay, both over the course of their lifetimes and in a given year, and it makes little sense to treat it as though it were the only one that matters. Some 86 percent of working households pay more in payroll taxes than in federal income taxes. In fact, low- and moderate-income people pay a much larger share of their incomes in federal payroll taxes than high-income people do: taxpayers in the bottom 20 percent of the income scale paid an average of 8.8 percent of their incomes in payroll taxes in 2007, compared to just 1.6 percent for taxpayers in the top 1 percent of the income distribution. …

    Low-income families also pay substantial state and local taxes. Most state and local taxes are regressive, meaning that low-income families pay a larger share of their incomes in these taxes than wealthier households do. The bottom fifth of taxpayers paid 12.3 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes in 2010, according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) model. That was well above the 7.9 percent average rate that the top 1 percent of households paid.

    Chopping taxes for the wealthy has been a going concern in America for half a century. In the latest installment, a majority of Representatives in the House of Representatives agreed this spring with Rep. Paul Ryan that the top tax rate for the top tier of American billionaires should be the same as it was 85 years ago, 25 percent. Because, you see, the tax burden is just too great on “job creators” and makes America uncompetitive with the rest of the world. In fact, the average tax rate in the countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in the latest year for which data are available, 2008, was 44.8 percent. In the United States, it was 26.1 percent.

    But, hey, please do not inject facts into the discussion.

    The claim that top income Americans are being crushed by their tax burden is bad enough. It’s made worse by the divide-and-conquer-at-the-polls claim that half the country is made up of low-income freeloaders getting a hand-out from the hard-working other half.

    But worst of all is that, at a time of spending cuts in programs for Americans with the toughest economic row to hoe, these demonizing claims are being deployed as persuasion for making the tax code ever less progressive. In the name of fairness. In the name of prosperity. In the name of those who prefer not to be named, and who, thanks to Citizens United, don’t have to be.

    .

    These right-wing blowhards are so fucking stupid.

  52. 52

    51. debonair spews:

    Rujax–
    Who wrote your cut-and-paste job?
    The least you could do is give credit to the cretin.

    10/05/2011 at 11:02 am

    Cynical must be too busy fucking goats to learn to read.

  53. 53

    @17 – amazing how one could criticize or point out that YLB (I assume this poster was referring to YLB) spends all day on the internet, when the idiot posts 7 minutes after YLB’s post #16. I guess to realize that YLB spends all the time here or on the internet must mean that that individual is spending the same amount of time here.

  54. 54

    @16 – I know you didn’t mean or intend to be malicious, but you can refer to The Gays as Gay People. I had to school my cousin on the same thing, when she said it. It would be like saying The Blacks or The Straights.

  55. 55

    @21 – you probably have to fuck all day because otherwise you would feel guilty about the thought of having a big dick in your mouth.

  58. 58

    53 – But the difference from his perspective is that he stalks people he hates in these comment threads while working as a jerk.

    54 – acknowledged.

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