HorsesAss.Org

Another round of the travel ban, another round of Bob Ferguson being like nope. If you have an injunction against your executive order, you can’t just take out some of it and say it’s a compromise. Jebus.

I know that I usually do local stuff, but goddamn the Jason Chaffetz iPhone garbage is super garbage. But as she often does, Imani Gandy has the best take.

So in case you’re wondering how, when it comes to health-care policy, Republicans are going to convince Trump voters that the shit sandwich the GOP is serving up is really a croque monsieur, they’ll continue to employ racial dog whistles that at this point are so loud and piercing one might best call them racial vuvuzelas.

Jason Rantz is being his regular ignorant bullshit spewing self about Sound Transit. I was just going to ignore it, or maybe just make fun of it on Twitter, but, well about half way through, see if you can spot what sets me off.

With no direct voter oversight, the Sound Transit Board of Directors is responsible for spending billions of dollars on transit expansion. That may change thanks to five Democrats teaming up with 24 Republicans in the Senate. Now, transit activists are apoplectic.

I mean ST3 was literally approved by the voters. It was put on the ballot by an elected legislature and governor. The board is made up of elected officials, including King, Pierce and Snohomish countywide elected execs. But when will we let the people have a say?

The lawmakers are pushing legislation that changes the makeup of the board. If passed, the ST board would be directly elected so that board members may face voter consequences for some of their actions (like bilking taxpayers out of car tab fees with an obscenely inaccurate formula). Further, it forces the board to create districts so that King County won’t be over-represented.

Any democratically drawn up district is going to favor the large population centers. King County has more people in ST’s region. There were 829,469 votes on ST3 from King County, 277,141 from Pierce, and 193,114 from Snohomish. If districts have an equal number of voters, there will be more than 60% of King County representatives to just be regular represented. There may be some population variations, but it’s a decent proxy.

Martin H. Duke, a blogger at Seattle Transit Blog, is not happy with these Democrats. In Duke’s world, no Republican supports high-quality transit and Democrats who see a problem with the current ST board structure must not care either.

“This bill is a transparent attempt to override the will of the voters in approving Sound Transit 3 by adding yet more veto points to the process,” Duke wrote.

That’s a great point! If the legislature is willing to give an ST board taxing authority so the region doesn’t have to go back to the legislature hat in hand every time we want to expand transit, that would be a compromise worth looking at. But that’s not the proposal.

He’s wrong. It doesn’t change the results of ST3. ST3 couldn’t be dismantled as a result of this bill. Instead, it’s an attempt to make sure the voters have a say in how their money is spent and that King County transit activists don’t get more money than they should. I am a big supporter of light rail but not happy with how it’s being approached. As a voter, I have no way to impact the decisions of unelected politicians when they waste my money.

Literally 1 of the 18 ST Board members is not elected. That’s the secretary of the Washington State Department of Transportation. You literally had the chance to vote on at least one of those people if you’re paying the taxes. Anyway, enough of this disagreeing about how to organize the ST Board bullshit, let’s call Martin Duke a communist in the jack-offiest way possible and for no reason:

Activists like Duke don’t want the board accountable to the voters because the voters don’t support some of the crazy ideas Duke and his “comrades” support. He speaks for a loud but small group of activists. Understandably, he’s upset that he’s about to lose his unearned power over Sound Transit.

Really, “comrades”? Comrades? I might even have ignored it if it wasn’t in quotes. But there’s no way that’s not wink wink nod nod calling Duke and other activists communists. Fuck off. Oh a person wants a different organizational structure for a subregional government agency and so they’re a communist. You know the scariest part of the Soviet Union is how they handled transportation governance in the Ural Oblast. Comrades? Fucking unbelievable.

One of the Democrats who supported the legislation is State Senator Guy Palumbo of the 1st district. He actually supports accountability where Sound Transit represents the voters, not special interests. I supported his efforts to defeat the disturbingly dishonest incumbent, Luis Moscoso.

The First District goes pretty far into King County. You think he should run on “King County won’t be over-represented” in ST next time he’s in a competitive race?

“I supported the bill because I believe that any government organization that manages $54 billion in tax dollars needs to be directly elected and accountable to the voters,” the Senator told me. “It’s a good governance thing for me, it has nothing to do with dismantling ST3.”

Is there a timeframe for that? Oh, it’s between now and 2041. Oh, and it’s in 2041 dollars, so less than that in today’s money and even less in when the voters voted on it dollars.

Senator Palumbo and his colleagues should be celebrated for breaking the Olympia gridlock. Instead, thanks to the reaction of militant transit activists, he’s getting harassed.

Did someone imply he was a communist?

He received an email where he was called a “bastard” with the sign off “Get cancer.” Shameful.

I mean, that sucks. The cancer thing. Bastard is something I’m guessing every elected official at every level has been called. Oh hey, remember when your colleague Dori Monson got people to harass Senator Kohl-Welles for changing state laws that say “fireman” to “firefighter”? I’m sure you were equally outraged about that, but I’m just having trouble finding it.*

“I understand they disagree about an elected board and reasonable people can disagree on policy,” Senator Palumbo told me. “However to paint it as me being anti-transit, or as wanting to roll back ST3 is patently false. I come from New York where there are real mass transit options, unlike the Seattle area. I am an open advocate for large new investments in infrastructure, far beyond what we have done in the Connecting Washington package and ST3.”

So take away another veto point in exchange. Give them the ability to raise an income tax and as much car tab as they want, and to not have to beg the legislature.

This is a common sense bill. It deserves some changes (Palumbo wants to make the board positions paid and I support that), but bully activists want to kill it. They’ve been getting a free ride on the backs of drivers for too long. Let’s change that and come up with policies that are truly supporting multi-modal transportation.

Oh God! The current proposal is to have the part time non experts not even be paid? Why are you going all out for that? Anyhoo, solid ending.

[Read more…]

It’s Tuesday! So please join us this evening for some politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet 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 beginning about 8pm.

Can’t make it to Seattle? Check out one of the other 215 chapters of Living Liberally, including nineteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find, or go out and start, a chapter near you.

The Freeattle myth is of course bullshit. Still and all, the media should maybe stop going out of their way to perpetuate it. It’s ridiculous that people would come in mass numbers to sleep outside in our cold wet winters. Seattle is one of the most expensive cities in the world, and the fact that we have the homeless problem we do is a disgrace.

Psalm 94:4-7
God, the wicked get away with murder—
how long will you let this go on?
They brag and boast
and crow about their crimes!
They walk all over your people, God,
exploit and abuse your precious people.
They take out anyone who gets in their way;
if they can’t use them, they kill them.
They think, “God isn’t looking,
Jacob’s God is out to lunch.”

Discuss.

Stephen: “O” Presidents.

Armchair Presidents: The CPAC Report.

The Trumputin Chronicles:

• Trevor: Media falls for Trumputin (again!).
• Olbermann: It’s time for a Grand Jury on Trumputin and Russia
• Young Turks: Fact-checking Trumputin’s speech
• Jimmy Fallon: Trumputin on his own speech.
• Kelly Conway is deeply sad.
• Stephen: Trumputin lays out his vision for moving forward
• Late Show: Waiting for Godot’s Obamacare replacement.
• Conan: Trumputin calls Obama to brag about his speech:

• Seth Meyers: Democrats call for Jeff Sessions’ resignation
• Trevor: Melania litmus test.
• Young Turks: Pence used private email and got hacked.
• Jonathan Mann: Sean Spicer Phone Check
• Olbermann: Why Trumputin is refusing to confront reality.
• PsychoSuperMom: If Trumputin’s lips are moving…
• David Pakman: Trumputin’s staff leaks story about Sean Spicer’s hunt for leakers
• Late Show: Jeff Sessions day planner
• Trevor: Sessions lied and must recuse himself from Russian probes.
• Seth Meyers: A closer look at the media fawning over Trumputin’s new tone
• Sam Seder: Jeff Sessions in 1999 tells us just what to do when a Lawmaker commits perjury
• Stephen: Jeff Sessions can’t recuse himself from the monologue
• Susie Sampson: Fake News; Real Dictatorship?
• Stephen: Late Show’s presidential leak-crets
• James Corden: Are we still applauding Donald Trumputin’s speech?
• Olbermann: Let’s be honest, Trumputin is banning Muslims and purging Hispanics.
• Watch Sessions lie to Congress.
• Stephen responds to Democrats responding to Trumputin.
• Young Turks: Trumputin lied about US steel for pipeline, everything
• Seth Meyers: A closer look at Jeff Sessions, Trumputin and Russia
• Conan: Trumputin calls Obama about Oscars and more.
• Jimmy Fallon Trumputin speaks
• Sam Seder: Trumputin announces “VOICE,” a Nazi-inspired way to persecute immigrants
• David Pakman: Trumputin told 51 lies in a 61 minute speech!
• Trumputin’s tremendous think about the Oscars.
• Trevor: Trumputin dresses up his act.
• James Corden: The secret behind Trumputin’s well done steaks.
• Stephen: After well-received speech, Trumputin’s team basks in the afterglow.

Jon Batiste and friends: Hey White people!

Trevor: The GOP versus constituents.

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

Hrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

It’s so frustrating that the legislature that only gave Sound Transit limited funding options is now trying to restructure them to make it less effective. I mean honestly. It’s bad enough that the Republicans are doing it, and that legislators outside of the boundary seem so excited about it. But Democrats in the ST boundary are particularly bad.

Recently if there’s Missing Link news, my reaction is something between “what a good plan to never be implemented” or just ignoring it. But this seems like it might actually come to pass.

Please join us this evening for our regular weekly meeting of the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally. Tonight Trump will give a fake State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress. (Really…it’s fake. Google it.) The fake-SOTU address begins at 6pm.

We meet 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 beginning about 8pm. If you wish, show up early to watch the fake-SOTU address.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other 213 chapters of Living Liberally, including nineteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find, or go out and start, a chapter near you.

East Link tunneling has got underway. It looks great. I’m excited about not having to take the bus or a car to Bellevue. I’d guess it gets used less than the Seattle stations but more than the buses.

After the desecration of a Jewish cemetery in St. Louis, the Trump Administration was finally prodded to make a public statement about rising anti-Semitism. Last month, they said next to nothing about a mosque shooting in Canada that killed six people. And this week, while the whole clown brigade has been talking about Sweden for who-knows-what fucking reason, they’ve barely said a thing about the shooting of two Indian-born engineers in Kansas, which has rattled one of our strongest allies. Trump, and a lot of the people he’s surrounded himself with, have taken the white ‘Christian’ persecution complex to a new level, to where it’s difficult for them even to acknowledge that other groups can be victims as well. This isn’t a white-supremacy worldview as much as an extreme white-victimhood one.

And while it’s not as if those two worldviews are separated by a wide gap, the distinction did play out at CPAC, where unabashed white supremacist Richard Spencer was shown the door while Wayne LaPierre ranted about ‘violent liberals‘ and attendees scooped up books warning of the dire threats of Islam and immigration. This is Trump conservatism, a belief that whites are under siege at home by an oppressive multiculturalism, while America is getting ripped off by a world that has swindled us into a myriad of unfair alliances and obligations. It’s a self-serving fantasyland that requires constant bullshit to fertilize the faithful.

One of those faithful, finding himself on the front lines of this dangerous war while watching basketball at a Kansas bar, shot and killed an Indian-born engineer and wounded his friend and another guy who tried to intervene. Somehow, this man with 51 years of life experiences behind him believed the men were ‘Middle Eastern’ and therefore acceptable to kill. He then drove about an hour or so into rural southwest Missouri and confessed to a bartender. We still don’t know whether this ignoramus just sobered up enough on the drive to confess his heinous act or if he thought the bartender would give him a fucking medal. The bartender called the police.

The widow of the killed engineer spoke about whether or not Indian-Americans belong here. As someone who’s worked in high-tech jobs for nearly 25 years alongside dozens of brilliant, wonderful Indian-born professionals, I’m paralyzed with frustration to hear this. It’s impossible to imagine an immigration bloc less threatening and more beneficial than the pipeline of talented people who come here from top Indian universities to help build so much of the technology we use every day. Even back before the election, I spoke with state Rep Roger Goodman, who represents large numbers of Indian-Americans in the 45th district. He was already hearing some of this wariness as he knocked on doors last summer and fall. And this was when most people didn’t even think Trump would win. This question becomes much harder to answer when you have a President who isn’t even moved to speak out about a tragedy unless it fits within the narrative of white Americans being under siege.

What remains to be seen is how this mentality of the Trump administration will fully play out on the world stage. So much of diplomacy is about being able to convince your counterparts that you and they can find common ground and interests. This becomes impossible to do if it’s on full display that you’re convinced that the rest of the world is taking advantage of you and that you’re owed something for it. This is how you delude yourself into thinking that Mexico will not only accept a border wall, but also pay for it. After all, Mexico should recognize how much they’ve been taking advantage of the poor downtrodden USA, right? Outside of America’s right-wing media bubble and their fringe European fellow travellers, portraying America and western culture as the world’s most aggrieved victim is a remarkable absurdity and there’s no path forward for the Trump Administration to act on any of it without it blowing up in our faces.

2 Samuel 13:10-15
And Tamar took the bread she had prepared and brought it to her brother Amnon in his bedroom. But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, “Come to bed with me, my sister.”

“No, my brother!” she said to him. “Don’t force me! Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing. What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you.” But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her.

Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, “Get up and get out!”

Discuss.

Kimmel: The week in unnecessary censorship.

Young Turks: Arizona’s fascist attempt to ban protests.

PsychoSuperMom: Hypocrisy, thy name is G.O.P..

Stephen: Senators Kid Rock and The Nuge

Young Turks: Bad news for Gov. Failed-trickle-downer.

President “Enemy of the People”:

• Stephen: One bathroom privilege Drumpr won’t take away—Toilet-Tweeting.
• Seth Meyers: A closer look at Drumpf’s wall and immigration policies
• Maddow: Drumpf admin spikes report that undercuts travel ban:

• Armchair Presidents: Last night in Sweden….
• Sam Seder: Drumpf gives us the inside track—a “nuclear holocaust would be like no other”
• Farron Cousins: Drumpf has spent more time golfing than attending security briefings.
• Stephen: Sorry, ISIS, you lost the title of ‘Enemy Of The American People’
• Young Turks: Drump gears up for a new war on weed.
• Jimmy Fallon: Worst president ever.
• Olbermann: He must go.
• James Corden: We should let President Drumpf play more golf.
• Seth Meyers: Hey, transgendered kids!
• Young Turks: Drumpf things the First Amendment is a joke
• Late Show: Bathroom signs have a message for Drumpf.
• Olbermann: The mistake Drumpf can’t ever walk back.
• David Pakman: Drumpf spends in one month what Obama spent on travel in 1 year
• Late Show: Donald Drumpf tries to say something bad about Russia
• Maddow: Drumpf administration’s litany of mistakes indicates malice or incompetence
• Armchair Presidents: Fine tuned machine.
• Sam Seder: The White House is in chaos.
• Jimmy Fallon: Drumpf goes to war with the press.
• Chris Hayes: Muslim adviser quits after 8 days of Drumpf administration
• Stephen: Drumpf bravely calls Slavery “Not good”.
• Young Turks: Idiot conservatives wave Russian flags at CPAC
• David Pakman: Americans increasingly think Drumpf is incompetent
• Late Night White House press conference.

A Special Four-Letter Tribute to Donald Drumpf:

• FDT:Garden State–The Shins
• FDT: Baby Groot dancing
• FDT: Love Actually cue card
• FDT: Dragonite and Charizard Dance
• FDT: Sid and the Science Kid
• FDT: How the Grinch Stole Christmas
• FDT: Winnie the Pooh dances
• FDT: American Beauty
• FDT: Guardians of the Gallaxy
• Jimmy Fallon: Drumpf has some Swedish confusion.
• Farron Cousins: Drumpf hasn’t gone a day as President without lying.
• Stephen: A reliable source for news Drumpf will like
• Maddow: GOP Intel chairs push media for Drumpf
• Seth Meyers: Drumpf makes Christie eat meatloaf & compares himself to Lincoln
• Michael Brooks: Stephen Miller’s whole career plan seems to be ushering in raging White Supremacy
• James Corden: Report says Drumpf lies.
• David Pakman: Drumpf is a hilariously weak President. Sad!
• Stephen: Drumpf goes on a field trip…
• Farron Cousins: Most Americans believe Drumpf doesn’t know how to do his.
• Late Night: The umbilical brothers grab Donald Drumpf by the pantomime
• Randy Rainbow: You’re making things up again Donald:

• Jimmy Fallon: Donald Drumpf unveils Drumpf News Network
• David Pakman: Drumpf staff admits to planting fake news to counter his Twitter meltdowns.
• Thom: Is Drumpf Anxiety Disorder the newest public health threat?
• Young Turks: Drumpf bans top media outlets from White House.
• Lawrence O’Donnell: Steve Bannon is the most powerful person in the Drumpf White House.
• Seth Meyers: Drumpf supporters hate the media
• Stephen takes a look at InfoWars and its carnival barker.

Late Show: No ObamaCare, no problem–try these GOP home remedies.

Young Turks: Statue of Liberty gets a sweet new sign.

Mental Floss: 28 facts about internet sensations

Stephen: Advice for avoiding campaign scandals–get it out there.

G.O.P. Snowflakes Find Now Town Hall Safe Spaces:

• Thom: Republican snowflakes are facing tough time at town halls….When they show up.
• Young Turks: Republicans were totally unprepared for the town hall backlash.
• Lawrence O’Donnell: G.O.P. are getting hammered in town halls.
• Late Show: GOP Town Halls devolved into angry mobs… and worse.
• Seth Meyers: Republicans face town hall protests, Drumpf golfs

Jordan Peele revives his Obama impression.

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

The no on I-1552 people are having a rally to oppose the administration’s repeal of the protections for transgender students. The link is to a page where they’ll get your name and email address. And if it gets on the ballot, presumably ask you for money. But the rally in Tacoma at noon on Saturday is a worthwhile thing to go to on its own.