Join us this evening for some hot political conversation over a cold, cold beer at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.
We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern. Our starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks stop by even earlier for dinner.
Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings this week. The Long Beach, Tri-Cities and West Seattle chapters also meet tonight. On Wednesday the Bellingham chapter meets. And the Bremerton, Spokane, and Kent chapters meet on Thursday.
There are 190 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, four in Oregon and two in Idaho. Chances are good there’s a chapter meeting near you.
http://m.fastcompany.com/30477.....-robot-age
An article about the impact of autonomous trucking
Our society better start planning for the unemployed.
Speaking for God,
“David Barton, a Tea Party activist and Oral Roberts University-educated historian who promotes the idea that the United States was founded by evangelical Christians, told a religious right broadcaster that God opposed retirement, reported Right Wing Watch.”
“Retirement is not a biblical concept,” Barton said during an appearance Monday on Kenneth Copeland’s “Believer’s Voice of Victory” television program.
“That is a pagan concept that comes from the Babylonian system,” Barton continued. “If you want to live in Egypt, you want to live in Babylon, great — retire. (For) God’s people that is not a model.”
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/0.....etirement/
Retirement is for pagans. Jesus fuck. Sign me up.
@ 2
David Barton already has a well-established reputation as a liar of the highest order. This is typical of the neo-christian fascist demographic. It isn’t that they even really believe the bullshit they spew, it’s about developing an alternative universe that they can rest comfortably in, knowing that they’re in control of the narrative no matter what the facts are. He’s been repeatedly chastised for, and had at least one book pulled off the shelves for plagiarism and outright fabrication of quotes or easily demonstrable falsehoods.
He’s such a terrible “historian” that whenever his name comes up in academic circles, it’s mostly as a punchline to a bad joke or a humorous ad-lib cultural reference to a specific concept that already has people rolling their eyes.
He’s just a liar. He’s a book-burner and and thief.
Thats really all anyone needs to know about him. That’s why the Christians love him so much.
Using the lens of coming automation, it’s like there is coordinated effort to use religion to to weaken anything that is tinged with socialism and might mean taxes on the 1% to support those without jobs.
@2 Should we be shocked that part of the rightwing agenda is working people to death?
CNN published a timeline of the Greek crisis this morning. Here are a few takeaways:
1. Greece’s deficits were concealed by a “center-right” government.
2. Building expensive sports arenas on the public dime (sound familiar?) and hosting the 2004 Olympics brought indebtedness, not prosperity.
3. Most of Greece’s debt was incurred beginning in 2010, and most of it is for bailout funding. Greece’s tax collection system collapsed at the same time. In other words, Greece’s deficits came from tax evasion by its wealthy capitalist class, and its crushing debts didn’t come from spending on wages and pensions, as is the corporate-lackey media has portrayed, but from a Hatched-In-America global recession.
4. Greece’s European neighbors didn’t lend that money to Greece out of the goodness of their hearts or to help Greeks, but because “the other eurozone countries, fearing … that, if Greece defaulted on its debts, other eurozone countries’ cost of borrowing would rise to unsustainable levels — felt they had no option but to give that help.”
5. Before electing their present socialist government, Greek voters tried an even more rightwing government that agreed to the EU’s austerity demands — and watched their country slide into a far deeper depression.
6. Conservative austerity policies weakened Greece’s economy and undermined its ability to pay its debts.
7. By this summer, “More money was needed — and realistically, debt relief as well,” but instead the EU demanded even more austerity. As a result, “In June, the negotiations broke off, with each side apparently daring the other to be the cause of a Greek exit from the eurozone.”
8. After Greeks refused on Sunday to go along with more austerity, which would literally leave some of them starving, the EU withheld the cash infusion needed to reopen Greek banks close left Greece dangling in the wind.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/07/06/.....index.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: It’s absolutely clear who the bad guys in this Greek tragedy are: Europe’s conservative politicians and their idiotic austerity policies. The lesson for Americans from this isn’t what Republicans and the conservative-controlled U.S. media would have you believe — that we need balanced budgets and austerity in our country too — but that this will happen to us, too, if Republicans get their way. As for Greece, if I were a Greek, what I’d be thinking right now is that with “friends” like the ones I presently have, I could hardly do worse by cozying up to the Russians and/or Chinese. All they want from me is military bases on my numerous Mediterranean islands. And the islands are already there; they don’t even have to be built, like the Chinese are doing in the South China Sea.
I see the Right wing is salavating today over Chipotle raising prices more in San Francisco to cover minimum wage increases. They’re playing to the rubes. They want you to think OMG that 14% is going to kill their customer base.
But everyone expected prices to rise. That was the point. And Chipotle where burritos started at over $7 before the wage increase is not a good model of how the working class people won’t be able to go there anymore, but I digress. There’s a demographic reason why Chipotle can be found mostly in affluent subburbs and heavy weekday traffic business centers and not in low-income neighborhoods. They need you to believe that a professional white-collar worker will stop going at $11 because $10 was their absolute limit.
In perspective the single most expensive menu item at Chipotle is a beef burrito with Guac. that now in San Francisco costs $11+tax. Prior to Chipotle raising prices that was 9.50+tax. So yep, the single most expensive thing they sell went up $1.50 Note that no credit is given to drought ridden California and the explosion in Avacodo prices. It’s all the result of the minimum wage according to Forbes et. al.
So while that 14% price raise the right is bleating about being all-your-fault if you can’t afford it anymore, it amounts to about $1-2 per order.
Extrapolate that to if all fast food raises prices 14%. A Double Quarter pounder with cheese meal goes up $0.95. A Double Double from IN-n-Out would go up less than $.50. A fiery Doritos Locos Taco would go up $0.19.
Surely people can’t afford that right? But hang on. San Francisco just raised everyone’s wage by $1.20. So at the end of an eight hour shift the worker has $9.60 more in pre-tax earnings than they had before the menu price changed. And we’re to believe that every single one of them will stop consuming fast-food because the thing the’ve been ordering since before the wage increase just went up by, let’s be generous $1.50.
Just for fun, let’s figure in a 40% state/local/sales tax burden,
$9.60 x .6 – $1.50 increase in menu price = $4.26
Interesting spin on things from the right. Eating the same thing now will result in still having $4.26 in one’s pocket now that the dreaded price increases have come to pass as one did before if one eats at McDonald’s on the way home from an eight hour shift. Yep, economics according to the right wing. Having more money to spend will somehow make people spend less. It’s “faith based” econ 101.
What will that $4.26 be spent on. How will that extra money flow into the econome. The right doesn’t know and can’t really address that issue.
The GOP is so doomed.
“Miss Universe, Paulina Vega, criticized me for telling the truth about illegal immigration, but then said she would keep the crown-Hypocrite,” wrote Trump on his Twitter account at 4:57 a.m. ET on Sunday.
Meanwhile in real news… http://dailycaller.com/2015/07.....ke-indian/
Puddy bets this woman is a DUMMOCRETIN!
Socialism runs strong in the DUMMOCRETIN Party… http://www.politico.com/story/.....19785.html
Maybe the teabaggin buttbusting BULLSHITTIUM buttbigot gorilla has hope here… http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/.....mic-state/
@10
Concern trolling.
The problem for the GOP is they screamed about the sky falling because of Socialist Barak Hussein Obama and now well into year seven he better get crackin’ if he’s going to run the country into the economic ground and then pledge allegiance to Nicholas Maduro.
Now when people like Bobby Jindal say things like socialism is radical and un’merkin voters know he’s full of shit.
More than 10% of the population of Portland ME came out to hear Bernie on a Monday night in July. Find me a Republican who draws 7500 people to any speach in any city. Jeb can’t draw 2000 in Miami if he tried. No one is clamoring to hear Ted Cruz’s message to the masses.
GOP should be terrified of Sanders. They paved the way by saying centrism is socialism and then when what they called socialism worked (you know, more people with health insurance, even the laughable U6 unemployment rate that the right bleats about is down almost 7%, Wall Street massively up over the last three years, Minimum wage increases passing and the sky not falling so that’s an issue for 2016) well now the GOP is left with, “See we told you that socialist Obama was going to ruin the coutry and now Bernie will ruin it more. What? You went for a physical for the first time in 20 years today. Well we’re going to take that from you. It’s socialism. I don’t care if your 401K is way up, Obama ruined the economy because we said so. Your home price rising is the direct result of Obama ruining the economy and if you want that on Steroids….vote for Bernie.”
OK, good luck with that.
Hey DUMMOCRETIN jackASSes… http://heyjackass.com/
Just another holiday weekend in a DUMMOCRETIN led city.
Nobody clicks those links, you know.
GOP should be terrified of Sanders.
We welcome Bernie Sanders. It makes Hillary go more to the left!
@8 If I were her, I’d box it up and have a delivery boy dump it on his desk.
@15 You’re not as dumb as we thought.
More lies from DUMMOCRETINS debunked… https://www.nraila.org/articles/20150701/another-gun-control-claim-bites-the-dust
@17,
You are more senile than first diagnosed… You forgot this… http://thinkprogress.org/elect.....ouncement/ From a DUMMOCRETIN rag really accepted by HA DUMMOCRETINS!
How can pulling Clinton to the left help the GOP?
Admittedly, Obama has governed from the center. Staffed his economic appointments with seasoned conservative finance industry veterans. Held down corporate taxes and regulations. Continued to pour billions into killing all the brown people on earth while spying on his allies and his own citizens.
And yet, for all that, he has continued to be targeted by hysterical claims from mainstream conservatives. He’s a traitor! He’s an Atheist! Etc. And even the most benign efforts to pass legislation to pull the economy out of the George Bush ditch have been met with unified GOP obstruction. And every single sign of progress in the lives of ordinary Americans over the last six years has been emphatically labeled a catastrophe by the GOP. New car in your driveway? Ruin! Kids home from war in the desert? Treason! Bigger paycheck? Class warfare! Low interest rates? Inflation! New jobs? Bubble!
So how then is it going to work? If Clinton is pulled to the left by Sanders, how does the GOP hope to exploit that? They have essentially repudiated every single accomplishment of centrist governing over the last six years in favor of articulating a vision of extremist right wing orthodoxy that everybody now sees does not work. It doesn’t work in Wisconsin. It doesn’t work in Texas. It doesn’t work in Florida.
Conventionally, moves by your opposition toward their ideological base was seen as an opportunity to occupy some of the vacated centrist territory. Does anybody really believe that the GOP primary voters are going to allow that? When doing so would essentially require GOP candidates to agree with the President?
@19 Do you have a point?
@20 “He’s a traitor! He’s a Muslim!”
Fixed.
You say that if it was a bad thing given that so polls say Americans agree with so much of Sanders on raising taxes on the wealthy, campaign finance reform, closing overseas tax loopholes, social security expansion, single payer health care….
Sanders pushing Hillary to the left will only help her if she does go on to be the nominee.
Meanwhile, the shit-show that is the GOP has double-down racists as front runners. The longer Trump stays in the more voters, especially young ones, will become life-long Democrats. Those dirty disease riddled brown people from countries with better vaccination rates than the USA are coming for you if you don’t stand and fight, Whitey!
Good luck with that.
We know the national political media (aside from Newscorp) dislike taking sides in policy debates, preferring instead to offer their audience a phony binary perspective occasionally supplemented with “expert” analysis. But one thing they never fail to jump on in a campaign season is a flip-flop. I guess it must feel more like “real” journalism, or whatever.
So I guess I just don’t see how GOP Presidential candidates, no matter how “mainstream”, have any room to maneuver to the center on economic and social issues, now or later. Every single one of these individuals have staked very emphatic ideological positions in opposition to the President since 2009. On every conceivable policy issue. Any move toward the center at this point is almost certain to trigger a violent reaction from the media and leave a lasting negative impression on potential general election voters.
@23 In many countries, people would be overjoyed to get vaccinations. In California, you need laws forcing them to, and some still resist, putting everyone in jeopardy. The rest of the world must think of us as a backwards and primitive country. We’re rapidly becoming one.
@ 24
That really is the rub isn’t it. The GOP stood up and openly stated the Party’s intention to actively oppose any and all of Obama’s policies, foreign and domestic. They spent the last six years doing everything legally, ( and illegally) they could to fuck his administration over and bragging about it.
Now it’s time to pay the piper. And you know what? Not a single one of them is intelligent enough to understand why they won’t get elected to that office. They’ll blame the Liberal Press or something for their failure instead of the basic fact of the Press merely repeating their own words. Quoting them exactly is lying, of course.
Party of Personal Responsibility, indeed.
@26,
Don’t get me wrong. I think there’s no question that taking a strong stand in opposition to the “African American Tyrant” paid off for the Teapublicans in the midterms. It just leaves them no room to maneuver ideologically now. I just can’t imagine a single one of these candidates taking the convention stage to give an acceptance speech articulating a big tent “compassionate conservative” vision a la “W” without it looking like red meat to the press and pundits. And without a convention bump, their GOTV campaign starts in the hole. Just like McCain. Just like Romney. I figure their best shot is with Rubio. The press is more likely to go soft with him. But can he really turn out the EIB audience of angry old white men? That might be giving them too much credit.
Another Responsible Gun Owner (TM)
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/of.....n-himself/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Why don’t these fuckers who are tired of living just kill themselves, and leave others out of it? Why do they always take innocent people with them? Oh, and btw, does anyone besides me think it’s too easy in this country for the wrong people to get guns?
Trump is a crappy boss, too.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/tr.....etirement/
PGA has joined the growing list of businesses boycotting Trump’s enterprises. His golf course is now persona non grata.
Go left or join the Circus.
http://upload.democraticunderg.....te-cut.jpg
Rachael raised an interesting point, the republican candidates who are serious about running,each will be trying to out do the pack, say any outrageous thing to get press coverage for the next three weeks to get to be one of the 10 on the debate stage
The list of shit that Wisconsin’s Republicans tried to slip into their budget at the last minute gives great insight into the mindset of these despicable people and their vision of a Wisconsin with seven day work-weeks for a proletarian class who would have even more powerful payday loan lenders preying on them, not to mention seeing their public disclosure laws gutted so Republicans can operate in secrecy, redefining “living wage” so that their seven days of work each week won’t allow one to live without public assistance, as well as making it harder yet for workers to organize.
http://host.madison.com/news/l.....fb9ac.html
@14,
That’s because viewing the truth is a scary thing for DUMMOCRETINS! Why view the failing sadministration of Deadfish Emanuel!
@21,
Yes, a very big point. Another post proving your lack of viable memory cells!
Admittedly, Obama has governed from the center.
Funniest comment of the day! Obummer first term economic team were DUMMOCRETIN perfessas. When the economy didn’t recover, making those 500,000 jobs each month per Joe BiteME, they quit.
The rest of the rant is worthless DUMMOCRETIN dribble.
ROTFLRHMBBAO!
The vomit producer provides a Politicususa poll biased with overpolling of DUMMOCRETINS? Politicususa is a left wrong libtard blog! Real Americans will trust that poll?
Puddy uses NBC, trusted by libtards as being biased for their purposes! http://www.nbcnews.com/politic.....ge-n388071
ROTFLRHMBBAO vomit producer! You provide comedy in each thread.
@25,
California… land of and led by DUMMOCRETINS. Now Mississippi has over 97% vaccination rate. Conservative land! No problem from parents getting their children vaccinated!
Now why is that early senile schismatic IDIOT Wabbit?
DUMMOCRETINS are primitive and libtardism is a mental disease!
That really is the rub isn’t it. The GOP stood up and openly stated the Party’s intention to actively oppose any and all of Obama’s policies,
DAYUM Funny vomit producer!
And the DUMMOCRETIN Party didn’t openly stand up and first called Bush an illegitimate president then openly opposed his policies IN 2001? Didn’t Schumer warn Bush on his judicial appointments? Didn’t Pelosi claim Bush economic policies in 2005 were wrong when the economy was booming? Didn’t Pelosi and Reid get in power and tank the economy in 2007-2008?
Nuff said sucka!
“Didn’t Pelosi and Reid get in power and tank the economy in 2007-2008?”
No.
Just because you believe Republican shit smells like bacon doesn’t mean you should eat it for breakfast every day.
Stupid Solution Steve stays stooooopid on his named solution… DUMMOCRETINS have used Forbes on this site for years…
http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/.....emint.html
Sux to be you Stupid Solution Steve! FACTS always make you look STUPID!
@39
Piddles and his fantasy world. How was the economy in 2005?
“Slowed Sharply”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01.....&_r=0
the Dow?
12/31/2004 – 10783.01
12/30/2005 – 10,717.50
Economic Growth 6.25% but then look at what Bush’s economic policies carrying forward did…..2006 5.12%, 2007, 4.40% 2008, -.92%
You were saying that Pelosi was wrong saying Bush’s economic policies were wrong? How so. How does taking a “booming” economy, your words not mine, and turning it bust in just three short years signify great economic policy? Please, let us know how that works in your world? I know, I know. You’ll say that Pelosi becoming speaker in 2007 did it.
“Because….something…Bush was a genius economist….Pelosi eats children….nope, didn’t fight two wars off books, didn’t, didn’t, didn’t….W. was the greatest….Harry Reid squashes puppies with his bare hands” Piddles, or words to that effect.
Here’s a fun experiment:
How many of the current passengers on the GOP Presidential Crazy Train are promising to restore the Presidential brilliance of “W”? How many of them will even mention those eight years in a stumper? His own brother?
Any public campaign appearances by the pretend Top Gun?
What’s the name of his super PAC again?
You need 31derful flavors of stupid to even suggest that the GOP can run on that record.
2006 5.12%, 2007, 4.40%
Some data for checkmate… http://www.statista.com/statis.....ince-1990/ Seems around 2% is A-OK for a DUMMOCRETIN president butt hated when a Republican president is in power!
Sux to be checkmate!