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Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Judge not lest ye be judged: the quiz game.

City Hall Drama: Nick Licata battles Kshama Sawant aid Clay Showalter.

Jimmy Dore: Erick Erickson trashes his own mom to defend his racist lie Part I and Part II.

The Koch Brother’s Climate change deniers’ anthem.

Lee Camp: The truth about being a drone pilot.

Mental Floss: 25 facts about the science of music.

Islamophobia: Woman yells at and hits Muslim praying in California park.

The 2016 Clown Convention:

Stephen helps the cause of free speech in Turkey.

Harry Reid blasts Justice Scalia’s racist remark.

KPLU: A preview of the Inslee–Bryant gubernatorial race.

Jimmy Dore: What could Obama possibly say to appease the Republicans?

VSauce: Supertasks.

For the First Responders:

White House: West Wing Week.

Jimmy Dore: Jokes of the Week.

Pap and Farron Cousins: Congress critters own stock in the pharma companies that they (de)regulate.

David Pakman: Could a guaranteed basic income work?

Sam Seder: GOP terrifies people then argues policy should be formed around ‘feelings’.

How I feel right now as a Muslim in America.

The Week in Gunz:

Rent-An-Endorsement : hooks politicians up with celebrities!.

Congressional Hits and Misses of the week.

Jimmy Dore: Dick Cheney predicted the quagmire he later created.

Jay Pharoah and Michelle Obama: Go To College Music Video.

Sens. Al Franken and John McCain do some trash talkin’:

Mental Floss: Does cracking your knuckles cause arthritis?

Friday hot takes.

Seth Meyers does Hillary:

Stephen: How to defeat ISIS.

Pap and Farron Cousins: Texas is trying to redefine “personhood” to keep Blacks and Hispanics from voting

Jimmy Dore chats with John Boehner on life after Congress.

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

Chaos in the G.O.P.

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Throughout the 2012 presidential campaign season, I thought the G.O.P. primary was about as crazy as it could be. I mean, what can be crazier than a field that included Michele “HPV vaccine-retarded” Bachmann, Herman “9-9-9” Cain, Rick “Oops” Perry, Newt “Poor kids as school janitors” Gingrich, Rick “Ewwww” Santorum , and crazy ol’ Ron “Social Security is unconstitutional” Paul?

Boy…did I underestimate Republicans, and their God-given talents to indulge in The Crazy.

Trump in charge
I won’t rehash The Crazy to date—there’s been just too much. This week, though, The Crazy seems to have reached some kind of boiling point after Donald Trump proposed banning Muslims from entering the U.S. Since then, he has doubled down, and even had a spokesperson callously state, on national TV, “So what? They’re Muslim.” This arguably isn’t his craziest, his most racist or even his most outrageously unconstitutional proposal. But it combines elements of crazy, racist, and unconstitutional, and distills them down to a pseudo-policy proposal that is easy to understand. It’s done two things.

First, it has “legitimized” open expression of bigotry and racism for a big chunk of the G.O.P. Trump has “let down” the dog whistle and made it okay for many Republicans to unleash their inner-racist at full volume. Even Sen. Lindsey Graham admits that about 40% of the G.O.P. are racist. Trump’s liberation of closet racists in the G.O.P. has actually helped his poll numbers in some early primary states, and he maintains a sizable lead in the first national poll taken since the policy was announced.

Second, it has created a sense of panic among the G.O.P. establishment over a “nightmare scenario” of Trump or Cruz. Trump would, apparently, end the G.O.P. as we know it. So in the past 24 hours, there have been reports that the G.O.P. leadership is making contingency plans for a brokered convention. This has further fueled speculation that there is a secret plan to nominate Mitt Romney. Ben Carson is so outraged (and has so misunderstood the brokered convention plans), that he is threatening to leave the G.O.P. Crazy.


[I mean, things have gotten so freaking crazy that Sen. Ted Cruz has taken one last swallow, gotten off his knees and boldly (well…in a private meeting) questions Trump’s judgment. Trump, in turn, dares and then double-dares Cruz to take his best shot and orders him back to his knees.]

The Crazy has been working well for Trump (and Cruz and Carson to a lesser extent) in the primary. As a general election strategy, peddling fear and bigotry seems like a sure-losing strategy. It will take boatloads of money to help American’s forget this crazy primary before November. And even that may not be enough.

Republican Gubernatorial Candidate Bill Bryant Stakes Anti-Minimum Wage Claim, Because He’s a Terrible, Terrible Politician

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Bill Bryant

Terrible politician Bill Bryant opposes raising the minimum wage.

The high point of Dino Rossi’s 2008 gubernatorial redemption tour came in mid-September, in the days following the Republican National Convention. After months of trailing in the polls, Rossi had finally clawed ahead of Democratic incumbent Governor Christine Gregoire to claim a small but significant lead. Things were looking good for Republicans up and down the ticket. Rossi’s people were starting to sound downright cocky. Then the minimum wage debate happened.

At an Association of Washington Business sponsored debate in Blaine, Rossi came out against Washington’s minimum wage. And as Josh Feit first reported here on HA, that didn’t play too well with minimum wage workers:

Rossi took the opposite point of view. Touting his Washington Restaurant Association endorsement (the most adamant opponents of the minimum wage), he said:   “The minimum wage was not meant to be a family wage. It’s meant to be an entry level wage.”

The news pissed off [convenience store worker Garner] Palomata. “If he lowers it,” he said, “I don’t want to vote for him. I’d be cutting my head off. I don’t want to demote myself.”

The Gregoire campaign immediately seized the opportunity, running ads attacking Rossi for opposing the minimum wage. It worked. The Rossi bubble burst, and he quickly dropped in the polls. Rossi, who had managed a virtual tie just four years before, went on to lose by 6.5 points.

That’s a lesson you’d think Republican gubernatorial hopeful Bill Bryant might have learned before claiming the anti-minimum wage mantel:

Minimum wage is one economic issue where the two candidates diverge: Inslee supports a statewide minimum wage hike. Bryant does not, although he did back an $11.22 an hour wage at Sea-Tac airport.*

“Statewide level, the concern I have is that we can’t or we shouldn’t pin a minimum wage to the cost of living in King County,” Bryant said. “So I don’t think we can have a one-size-fits-all system.”

To be clear, Washington’s up-until-recently nation’s-highest minimum wage has proven both excellent policy and excellent politics, which is why raising the minimum wage remains exceptionally popular with voters. When workers have more money, businesses have more customers. And when businesses have more customers, they hire more workers. Our minimum wage is one of the reasons why our state economy is kicking ass.

So if the legislature fails to pass a minimum wage increase next year (and Bryant’s colleagues in the Republican-controlled senate won’t), a minimum wage initiative will be put on the state ballot and it will pass overwhelmingly. And you can be sure the Inslee campaign will make it clear to voters which candidate supports it and which doesn’t.

* Oh, and by the way, Bryant’s alleged support for an $11.22 an hour wage at Sea-Tac is bullshit. The port commission has obstructed the minimum wage struggle for years, first claiming that it had no authority to impose a minimum wage at the airport, and then suing that only it had the authority to do so after the SeaTac $15 initiative passed. Bryant only acceded to the $11.22 number after Alaska Airlines acceded to it first. Just sayin’.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottleIt’s only Tuesday morning but, man, what a crazy week we’ve had. On Monday, The Donald positioned himself even closer to the Birchers and neo-Nazis. Even Dick Cheney had to dissociate himself from Trump’s outrageous policy proposal. I’m sure there will be more about this throughout the day. Please join us tonight for conversation over drinks 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. Things start up at about 8:00 pm.




Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings happening this week. Tonight the Tri-Cities and Redmond chapters also meet. The Bremerton, Spokane, and Kent chapters meet on Thursday.

There are 186 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find—or start—a chapter near you.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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How to save the planet and money this holiday season.

Lee Camp: Labeling people.

Chris Hayes: The G.O.P.’s new War on Women™ to gut Roe v Wade.

Thom: The Good, the Bad & the Very, Very Inconditely Ugly!

White House: West Wing Week.

Larry Wilmore: Don’t mess with Tex books.

The 2016 Cavalcade of Crazy Conservative Clowns:

Trevor Noah: The fight against ISIS.

Congressional hits and misses of the week.

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about eyes.

David Pakman: Bush & Cheney freed ISIS leader because he was “harmless”.

The glory days of the TSA.

Mental Floss: 37 facts about fruit.

Jimmy Dore: CNN to check facts & why that makes Jake Tapper cringe.

This Week in Gun Violence:

Quantum physics made easy.

Red State Update: Unboxing a giant American flag.

Friday political hot takes.

Sam Seder: Star GOP tweenage boy done with conservativism.

Pelosi slams GOP budget proposal

The G.O.P. is full of climate change deniers.

Thom: The Good, the Bad & the Very, Very Claudicantly Ugly!

David Hawkings’ Whiteboard: Omnibus:

Jimmy Dore: Iraq war 2.0 is BACK, baby!

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

Holiday gift ideas

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It’s that time of year.

If you are Donald Trump, all you want for Christmas is another high profile mass shooting. If you do the math, we can expect about 30 or 31 more mass shootings this year. Trump ought to get a couple of high profile ones out of that.

Merry Christmas, Donald!

For the rest of us, here’s an idea for a unique gift that almost everyone on your holiday gift list can use.

Give the ones you love a bullet-proof vest, or other types of body armor.

Sure…if we all did this, everyone would receive a bunch of these things. That’s okay…several vests can be useful. Stash one in the basement, one upstairs. Keep one at work. Stash one in the car…and one in the other car. Use one for stinky stuff, like hiking or running. And maybe keep a few spare around for guests with whom you are sharing an intimate hostile fire situation.

Brilliant, no?

Oh…and if Ben Carson is on you holiday list, pick him up some fresh hummus and a shiny new foreign policy adviser.

Another Lunatic Fringe Right Wing theory shot to hell

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So…this is what Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was thinking about the other day:

When a reporter asked him at an Iowa campaign stop Sunday evening about suspect Robert Lewis Dear saying he was motivated by “no more baby parts,” Cruz countered that he’s also been reported to be a “transgendered [sic] leftist activist.”

Cruz explained, “We know that he was a man registered to vote as a woman.” This discrepancy on Dear’s voter registration was first reported by The Gateway Pundit, a self-described “right-of-center news website,” under the claim that he “identifies as [a] woman.” Conservatives have since run with the claim that Dear is transgender.

Yeah…that makes perfect sense. Because transgendered [sic] women always sport a full, scruffy beard and a mustache. You know, especially if they are “transgendered [sic] leftist activist[s].”

Reality turns out to be a bit more mundane:

Records show Dear traveled 65 miles to a Colorado Springs clerk and recorder’s office to obtain his driver’s license and his voter’s registration card, Parsell said.

Although Dear clearly identified himself as a man, the information was incorrectly logged into a computer, Parsell added.

“Our employee inadvertently clicked on ‘female’ and gave the confirmation to Mr. Dear to review,” he said. “He missed it and signed it.”

Thirteen days later, Dear received the erroneous driver’s license in the mail. Records show he traveled to a Department of Motor Vehicles office in Salida to report the error and request a corrected license, which he received, Parsell said.

To change his voter’s registration card, however, Dear would have had to mail a separate request to his local clerk and recorder’s office.

Crackpots of the week: Ted Cruz and the rest of the right wing “scruffy bearded transgendered woman” theorists.

Holy shit.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottlePlease join us tonight for drinks, conversation, and dinner 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. Things start up at about 8:00 pm.




Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings happening this week. The Long Beach, Tri-Cities and West Seattle chapters also meet tonight. The Lakewood chapter meets on Wednesday. On Thursday, the Tacoma chapter meets. And next Monday, the Yakima and South Bellevue chapters meet.

There are 185 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find—or start—a chapter near you.

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