Please join us tonight for another lively evening of politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally. Today is the 10th anniversary of Colin Powell’s speech before the U.N. that carefully documented our reason for invading Iraq.
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’s DL tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter meets, and on Thursday Drinking Liberally Tacoma meets.
With over 200 chapters of Living Liberally, including fourteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and two more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter that meets near you.
The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2013 to 2023
As a result of those factors, revenues are projected to grow from 15.8 percent of GDP in 2012 to 19.1 percent of GDP in 2015—compared with an average of 17.9 percent of GDP over the past 40 years. Under current law, revenues will remain at roughly 19 percent of GDP from 2015 through 2023, CBO estimates.
http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43907
So, what’s the case for even higher revenues than are already anticipated to come in?
Well, here we are 9 Tuesdays since President Obama walloped his opponent and nearly every day Kap’n Kornflake – – Serial Reneger with fantasies of pedophilia – – posts his nonsense here.
Kap’n Kornflake has yet to meet his obligation of the wager he lost to me predicting Rmoney would win the election. 9 Tuesdays have come and gone since I won.
Please join me in hounding Kap’n Kornflake to write a check for $1,000 payable to Northwest Harvest and mail it to Darryl.
Thank-you for your liberal support of Northwest Harvest and against so called ‘conservative’ takers.
# 2: But didn’t you know that charities like Northwest Harvist are commie-socialist organizations bent on destroying America??? ;)
I remember a PBS special series on the Great Depression. A young teacher (at the time) was saying that the grocery distributors and large farm interests were hiring thugs to intimidate people setting up soup kitchens and, on occassion, knocking over the soup kettles (and knocking a few heads in the process). They felt that unless the farm workers were starving, they wouldn’t work for the pennies they were paid per day for working the fields.
“At Camp David we rock-climb all the time.”
http://bigstory.ap.org/article.....d-interior
Uh oh @4:
Prior to joining REI in 2000, Jewell worked in commercial banking and as an engineer for Mobil Oil Corporation
I can’t quite put my finger on all of the reasons why, but I’m not exactly devastated that Romney didn’t win. Pretty sure Dick Cheney cracked a bit of a smile when he checked this morning’s news.
So nice of Gov. Inslee to offer to help Massachusetts with some of its future unemployment claims this way:
Inslee team downplays earlier bid to lure wind-power firm
Gov. Jay Inslee’s “first act” as governor was an effort to lure a struggling Massachusetts wind-power company to Washington.
http://seattletimes.com/html/l.....erxml.html
Why not? Let them file their unemployment claims here instead of back East.
It’s not just Dick Cheney smiling at the ways in which Team Obama seems to be morphing into Team GWB43.
John Yoo’s had a few chuckles of late, as well:
“[The] analysis is now public and the American people can review and judge the legality of these operations … [but] the committee continues to seek the actual legal opinions by the Department of Justice that provide details not outlined in this particular white paper,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif) said in a statement Tuesday.
A bipartisan group of 11 senators, including Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.) and Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), sent a letter to the White House also requesting more information on targeted drone operations overseas, according to recent reports.
But White House Press Secretary Jay Carney fired back against those demands. He claimed the guidelines for targeting Americans in drone strikes are “fully consistent” with the Constitution.
Further, the White House has no intention of releasing “alleged memos regarding potentially classified matters” pertaining to counterterrorism operations involving armed drone strikes, Carney said in response to lawmakers’ demands.
The DOJ memo, which was distributed to select lawmakers last June but never intended for public release, was an attempt by the Obama administration to add transparency into the armed drone strategy, according to Carney.
Read more: http://thehill.com/blogs/defco.....z2K8TsqXg2
Remember, it was this kind of policy that Obama was scrambling to change, at one point last Fall, when it looked like there might be a different president after the election.
How toxic was Senator Menendez’ relationship with that Florida physician?
This toxic:
Bob Menendez Spent Up to 87 Percent of Wealth Paying Back Donor
http://www.nationaljournal.com.....s-20130205
Small wonder Menendez only paid those underage prostitutes $100 instead of the $500 he promised them. He doesn’t have the money to pay full fare.
Maybe Roger Rabbit can give Senator Menendez some investing tips.
It begins:
Find another leader for the Pentagon
The nation needs a defense secretary who is consistent, who is well-versed in defense planning and policy, and who will give frank and independent advice to the president about when and when not to project U.S. power. Hagel inspires no confidence on any of those counts.
…
A defense secretary who has enough credibility to muster support in Congress for a long-planned downsizing of the U.S. military to a smaller, less-expensive footprint. The Wall Street Journal had a wistful reminder on Tuesday of what might have been: an insightful op-ed on Pentagon spending cuts by Michele Flournoy, the former undersecretary of defense for policy who was passed over by Obama for the nomination.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/.....0112.story
Most of what I’m reading says Obama’s got the votes to get Hagel confirmed, and that a GOP filibuster would be necessary to prevent it.
This is the first ‘neutral’ opinion I’ve seen that might give them cover to do it.
# 8: Remind me again – who was that Senator from Lousianna who was in the D.C. Madam’s black book which documented some strange preferences, and what party does he belong too?
I’m sure the Republican Party, steeped in moral outrage, forced him to resign forthwith. What, they didn’t? And he’s still a Senator?
Adam Curtis writes another barn burner…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ada.....DIABOLICAL
I’ve read both good and bad about Curtis and his films but I’ve come to see nothing but good in light of his theory about how American power was brought to bear after WWII..
He talks about all the casualties of the American Empire ESPECIALLY those here at home.
I think he sees the big picture better than most.
Start with the strangest and most entertaining of his films “It Felt Like a Kiss”.. You can see it on YouTube. Then read the backstory on it. The one clip on the film where Doris Day closes her apartment door – look carefully.. It’s freaking brilliant.
Go on from there. He hasn’t released much in the way of film lately but he blogs semi-regularly (and powerfully) and I’m hoping he’s working on another mind blower.
You know how Republicans are always saying that the rich deserve low taxes because they take risks, invest in their education, are smarter and harder working than the average American?
Well, one of the nation’s newest billionares, Linsi Torres, will benefit from years of Republican tax schemes to benefit the wealthy. At age 30, she is now the CEO and owner of the In-and-Out hamburger chain.
How did she make her money, and what qualifies her for the CEO position? She never attended college. She has no managerial training. She’s been married three times in her relatively short life. But she is the heir of her grandparents, who founded the chain.
The Washington State Senate is considering a “training wage”, lower than the minimum wage, for young employees at small businesses.
I remember when we did that back in the early 1970’s. The federal minimum wage was something like $2.25 per hour, but most companies got away with paying only the state miniumum wage, which was less. The wage for workers under 18 was even lower.
So I worked for $1.65 per hour. As soon as workers turned 18, they were laid off, and replaced by another young worker. Obviously, it didn’t help the unemployment problem at all – it just transfered the work from adults to teenagers.
I really thought we had gotten well past that experiment.
12 – In-N-Out is BELOVED… It certainly has a fond spot in my California-bred heart..
The fries went downhill a bit but I hear you can order them extra done.
Why don’t they have them here in WA??? Bizarre…
I understand they used to be in Spokane..
# 14: I’m not criticizing the chain. I’ve heard some good things about it, but I’ve never been there.
I’m just pointing out that the Republican party’s excuses for favoring the rich have no basis in reality.
A PPP poll has found that Fox News’ credibility has dropped 9% in the eyes of American viewers over the past two years.
Fox News Credibility Reaches New Low
It seems that the percentages of those who trust or distrust Fox News pretty much parrallels the results in the last Presidential election.
15 – Never said you did… Her grandparents did the heavy lifting and she benefited big time..
Fortunate young lady. As Buffet would say, “she won the lucky sperm lottery”..
Nice work if you can get it.
16 – The same 2-3 million dumbasses tune in religiously day in, day out.
Heh. They’re getting older and fast expiring from the American way of life that is not negotiable.. Diabetes being a lifestyle hazard.
So I worked for $1.65 per hour. As soon as workers turned 18, they were laid off, and replaced by another young worker.
In California I worked for $2.15 per hour as a minor, at a Baskin-Robbins. After their 160 hours, young adults were paid $3.35 per hour. I earned less as an employee with some seniority than others who were still new but had surpassed the training stage.
The owner gave me a raise, to $2.20, after about four months. I gave my notice on the day he gave me that extra nickel.
@ 10
Vitter admitted to having placed a call to a house of prostitution, which might have been a misdemeanor, or perhaps not.
Menendez is accused of having sex with a minor in another country, a felony.
Menendez is chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
You really gonna go the moral equivalence route on this one?
It @ 9 continues:
What is unclear is whether this is a somewhat choreographed maneuver whereby the White House, the Senate and Hagel can all end this. Not unlike Harriet Miers, whose nomination to the Supreme Court ended when the White House could not provide documents covered under executive privilege, this gives all sides a chance to end what has been a disastrous nomination.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....postponed/
Remember Miguel Estrada? That vote which couldn’t happen because he wouldn’t produce drafts of work he produced for his boss when he was in the Executive Branch?
We might see something similar here.
@ 10
I sort of remember Vitter standing up at a podium with his wife by his side and admitting he had done wrong.
I certainly don’t remember behavior described as this:
…Menendez ran away from reporters at a Garden State delegation event on Friday…
Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/.....z2KBRfRzJp
Why do Democrats always run away? Texas Dems run to OK so they don’t have to vote on a redistricting. Wisconsin Dems run to Illinois so they don’t have to vote on a bill when they know they’ll lose.
@ 22
I knew I forgot something. Who could forget John Edwards running away from reporters in that Beverly Hills hotel when they had him dead to rights?
Senior NATIONAL ENQUIRER Reporter Alexander Hitchen asked Edwards why he was visiting Rielle and whether he was ready to confirm that he was the father of her baby.
Shocked to see a reporter, and without saying anything, Edwards ran up the stairs leading from the hotel basement to the lobby. But, spotting a photographer, he doubled back into the basement. As he emerged from the stairwell, reporter Butterfield questioned him about his hookup with Rielle.
Edwards did not answer and then ran into a nearby restroom. He stayed inside for about 15 minutes, refusing to answer questions from the NATIONAL ENQUIRER about what he was doing in the hotel. A group of hotel security men eventually escorted him from the men’s room, while preventing the NATIONAL ENQUIRER reporters from following him out of the hotel.
http://www.nationalenquirer.co.....love-child
Why do Democrats run away?
On the other hand, a lot of Dems have very good reasons for trying to run from their problems.
Case in point:
Sneed has learned a plea deal is now on the table between former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and federal authorities probing allegations of campaign fund misuse.
Sneed is told the plea deal includes Jackson serving time in federal prison.
“Significant jail time is now definitely a part of the deal,” said a top Sneed source close to the probe.
http://www.suntimes.com/180590.....-says.html
No idea who Sneed is or why he talks about himself like he’s Bob Dole or Smash Williams.
Maybe this is the real reason why Jesse Jackson, Sr. wanted Obama back in Chicago?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?f.....WRc4#t=49s
http://www.youtube.com/watch?f.....Rc4#t=137s
Moron…
Hint: Nov 6, 2012…
# 20: “Vitter admitted to having placed a call to a house of prostitution, which might have been a misdemeanor, or perhaps not.”
That’s funny! The D.C. Madam’s book contains a list of sexual preferences, including wearing diapers, etc., – all from one phone call!
There’s a big difference between what Vitter admitted to and what the evidence shows. But Republicans at the time were being held to a much lower standard than Democrats at the time, and the investigation – dissapeared.
Kind of like Anne Coulter registering and voting in a precinct in Florida where she wasn’t registered, a felony in Florida. The result? The friendly F.B.I. agent said “all good”, and the reporter making the claims was declared a “stalker” and put under surveilance.
@ 27
Yeah, all of those are just like a Senator feloniously having sex with a minor girl in a foreign country, then assuming the role of Chair of the Foreign Relations Committee.
Virtually identical. What was I thinking?
Thanks for setting me straight.
Penny Pritzker is a billionaire not just because she was born into money, but because she’s proved to be very successful at making it on her own. Doubters can consult her contribution to the Obama campaign in 2008, when she didn’t just donate money herself but raised record-breaking sums as Obama’s national finance chairwoman.
http://www.theatlanticwire.com.....rce/61885/
Is this what y’all were thinking when you pulled the lever for Obama?
I thought she was one of the subprime mavens y’all wanted to see jailed for contributing to the financial collapse in 2007-2008.
Serial masturbator welshes on bets made here, but expects people to take him seriously? When I see the name I just scroll….have no need to know the opinions of the morally deficient…or of physicians who have too much time on their hands, an amazing concept. I AM busier than that and I am retired 3 years.