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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.

HA Bible Study: Exodus 21:22-25

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Exodus 21:22-25
Suppose a pregnant woman suffers a miscarriage as the result of an injury caused by someone who is fighting. If she isn’t badly hurt, the one who injured her must pay whatever fine her husband demands and the judges approve. But if she is seriously injured, the payment will be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, cut for cut, and bruise for bruise.

Discuss.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Lee Camp: Hell frozen over? A CEO is jailed!

PBS & NPR: Are pesticides to blame for the massive bee die-off?

The 2016 Clown Auditions:

Minute Physics: Why isn’t it faster to fly West?

Pap: Corporate media wants you to be stupid. Let’s fight back.

Mitch McConnell drinks.

Refugophobia:

Thom with Steven Gaffney: Really! How do you know a politician is lying?

Jimmy Dore: God refuses to apologize for Paris.

California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom (with Bill Maher): Why raise the minimum wage.

Redacted Tonight comedy special with Lee Camp.

Farron Cousins: Corporate media is hungering for a war.

Actual Terrorism That Happened in the U.S. This Week:

Congressional hits and misses: Thanksgiving leftovers edition.

John Oliver: Pennies.

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

David Pakman: World hunger is a social construction.

Young Turks: Koch brothers building their own CIA to spy on progressives.

Surviving the survivalist game.

Quagmire Happening:

Jimmy Dore: Not drunk Bill O’Reilly calls about Muslims, responsibility & Muslims:

David Pakman: More Mexicans are leaving U.S. than coming in to the U.S.

White House: West Wing Week.

Maddow: Origin of the “freakin’ Presidential turkey pardon”.

Thom: Why the Kochs really embrace criminal justice reform.

Stop war and start cuddling.

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

HA spoils your Thanksgiving

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Obama pardons Honest and Abe.

Family Fellowship:

Classic: Sarah Palin’s Thanksgiving massacre:

Red State Update: Happy Trumpsgiving.

Trevor’s Thanksgiving Thankstacular Round-Up.

Thanksgiving Stuffing:

Mental Floss: What’s the difference between American and Canadian Thanksgiving?

The Morning After:

Mark Fiore: Learn to draw Republican Turkeys.

Stephen calls the Butterball Turkey Talk Line:

The Coming Council Battle Over Parental Leave Will Tell Us Who Really Won the 2015 Election Cycle

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This afternoon, King County Elections will certify the November 3 results with Lisa Herbold holding a 30-something-vote lead in the closely contested District 1 race. There will be an automatic manual recount, but don’t expect the margin to change by more than a vote or two at most. KCE pre-inspects ballots, duplicating those it expects might have trouble scanning, and previous recounts have routinely shown little or no change from the first count.

Congratulations to Herbold, and my sympathies to Shannon Braddock for what must be a heartbreaking loss.

Back when Braddock had a comfortable election night lead and it was Kshama Sawant’s D3 race that looked uncomfortably close (she eventually won by 12-plus percent), there was a rush by some pundits and politicos to judge the election cycle as a loss for Sawant and her socialist/labor alliance. But with Herbold replacing her ultra-liberal boss Nick Licata on the council, the current 6-3 split on the council remains intact. At least.

For the question of who really won this cycle will be answered in the new year, when the issue of 12 weeks parental leave for city employees is inevitably again raised before the council. Yesterday, the proposal went down to defeat, with Sawant, Licata, Mike O’Brien, and Bruce Harrell voting for it. Sally Bagshaw, who voted yes in committee, switched her vote to no before the full council. I’ll leave it to others to speculate on her motives.

But next year, four newly elected council members will have the opportunity to weigh in. If the new council approves 12 weeks parental leave, that will indicate a further shift to left left. If the proposal fails by the same 4-5 margin, that will indicate status quo.

Every member of the council thinks of themselves as progressive. The truth will be in their votes.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottleThe past week in politics has been absolutely crazy. Conservatives have developed bladder control issues as they cower at the thought of refugees coming into the U.S. Some Washington State lawmakers joined right in on the public display of cowardice. A leading Presidential candidate has been spewing incredibly racist lies, apparently to stoke his base. And that just touches on the week’s wackiness.

Please join us for some sane political conversation over the beverage of your choice at tonight’s 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 chapter also meets. On Wednesday, the Burien chapter meets. And the Woodinville, Spokane, and Kent chapters meet on Thursday.

Welcome, Hanna Brooks Olsen, to Nick Hanauer’s Crass Menagerie

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Back in March, when I welcomed Paul Constant to our then-unnamed policy/messaging shop, I joked about our boss’s weird hobby:

Most 1 percenters just don’t know what to do with all their filthy lucre. Some rich people collect art. Other rich people collect cars or even houses. But Nick Hanauer, America’s premier self-loathing plutocrat, seems intent on ostentatiously collecting ex-Stranger writers.

Well, I’m happy to announce that Nick has recently added Hanna Brooks Olsen to his crass menagerie.

Hanna has a number of freelance bylines at The Stranger and elsewhere, though she’s certainly best known to local readers as one of the forces behind the popular tumblog, Seattlish. Mostly, Hanna will be heading up a top-secret internal Civic Ventures project, but she’ll also contribute regularly to our Civic Skunkworks blog. In fact, her first Skunkworks post just went live today: “It’s Too Soon to Tell if a Higher Minimum Wage is Eliminating Restaurant Jobs.” Give it a read, and then pretty much ignore just about every headline you see on the so-called “early” impact of Seattle’s minimum wage.

So welcome to Civic Ventures, Hanna. Now let’s all go out there and change the world… you know, hopefully for the better.

Vitter’s loss has huge implications

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Sen. Vitter reenactmentSen. David “Diaperman” Vitter (R-LA) has lost today’s runoff gubernatorial election in Louisiana. Vitter was defeated by Democratic state Rep. John Bel Edwards (LA-72), who has led in all recent polling for the race.

Vitter is infamous for a 2007 sex scandal when his phone number was among those found in the “D.C. Madam’s” phone book. Vitter responded to the scandal by offering an apology with his wife, Wendy, by his side, in what might be the most awkward political moment in history. And he refused to resign.

The moniker “Diaperman” is from reports that the Senator enjoyed diaper play with at least one prostitute.

Despite the scandal, Vitter was reelected to his U.S. Senate seat in 2010. This year he ran for Governor.

Vitter’s opponent, John Bel Edwards, made effective use of Vitter’s prostitution scandal.

This race has a number of implications. First, it means that the Democrats have won back a Governor’s seat. Bobby Jindal (R) has been the Governor since 2008, but must step down on account of term limits. Jindal ran for the G.O.P. presidential nomination for 2016, but dropped out this past week.

The second big implication has to do with Vitter’s Senate seat. Vitter can run for reelection to the U.S. Senate. But tonight Vitter announced he will not run for reelection. Furthermore, he said he will fulfill the last year of his Senate term.

The implications for this are huge. If Vitter resigned now, Jindal would be able to appoint a replacement who would, effectively, be an incumbent for 2016. But Vitter and Jindal hate each other, so Vitter will not give Jindal the opportunity to pick a successor. The result is that the U.S. Senate 3rd class seat for Louisiana will be an open race in 2016.

In my recent analysis of the Senate race, Democrats would most likely win 49 seats if the election was held now. That analysis assumed that (1) Vitter would lose the gubernatorial race, (2) Vitter would run as the incumbent for his seat, and (3) he would win with 100% certainty.

Now we know that will not happen. Instead there will be an open seat in Louisiana for 2016. It is too early to tell who the candidates will be. Both sides have potential strong candidates, but none have declared yet. We do know that the strongest candidates on each side, Bobby Jindal (R) and Mary Landrieu (D), have declined to run. Maybe they will reconsider.

I usually stay away from predictions, but I’ll offer a conditional prediction here. If the Democrats manage to reach at least 50 seats in 2016, it will be because Louisiana elected a Democrat to the Senate.

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