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GOP Debate Open Thread

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Well…I got a late start at it, but here is your open thread for the GOP debate…

I’ll add some snark and tweetery as the mood strikes.

So…one of the reasons I am so late is that I didn’t realize there was no livestream from CNBC. I ended up on some live-feed that includes a panel of wingnut pundits. Google infowars.com and livestream or something.

One pundit dude refers to “Paul Rino” and later says he doesn’t think Rubio is unqualified.

5:43: Issues? Issues anyone?

5:47: I agree with Cruz…let’s put some substance into this debate!

5:48: Of course, Cruz dodged a debt ceiling question in the process.

5:49: Awwwwww…that’s adorable. They let Rand talk.

5:50: Christie gets a turn. Christie claims the govt. lies to you about Social Security, and then goes on to make the amateurish mistake of calling it “an entitlement”. It isn’t. You paid in.

Good question!

6:18: Carson is ALL for equal rights for same sex couples…but NO MARRIAGE!

6:27: The Donald goes after SuperPacs…is he running for Bernie’s VP?

6:30: Cruz, “Loose money”. For some reason David Vitter jumps to mind….

6:34: Mr. Huckabee, I’ve known gas bags and you are one gas bag.

6:52: Christie, “When I’m president, police will know it!” Yep. Overtime traffic jam duty pay.

7:10: Chris Christie’s run-on, repeated rant is the second “runaway blimp” story of the day!

7:15: Christie repeatedly said he was “deadly serious” about changing things. Did he mean “dead serious”? In any case, brings to mind that bridge traffic jam….

Well…that was “a thing.” It was my first GOP debate this cycle (and I was mostly listening to the audio), and it was pretty much the vacuous puffery that I expected. The only surprise to me was Trump’s strong statements against PACs. Other than that, Trump was just a meaningless braggart. Rand Paul morphed into Ron Paul, and came off more fringy than ever. Christie spewed pre-prepared platitudes. Rubio sounded angry and whiny. The Huckster is still a nut. Carson said things, but I don’t really remember them. And there were some other people talking, too. The debate moderators were TERRIBLE (and I am sure that is a bipartisan sentiment).

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottle

Please join us this evening for a pre-Republican-debate-discussion-group edition of Drinking Liberally. The Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally meets 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. We start at 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 and Bellingham chapters meet. The Woodinville chapter meets on Thursday. And next Monday, the Yakima and South Bellevue chapters meet.

There are 184 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find—or start—a chapter near you.

openthread10262015ad

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– Seattle Bike Blog has endorsements.

– That’s important to remember as you’re filling out your ballot; even if you can’t vote in 3, you CAN vote in District 8 (where Burgess is running against Jon Grant, who does support Kshama/is not taking money from Republican PACs). You may also, depending on where you live, be able to vote for Tammy Morales, who spoke before Sawant at a rally on Monday about housing affordability.

– Over and over, members of the Republican elite express shock at the true nature of their party, as if they didn’t cultivate it to be precisely so, and Jeb Bush’s mystified temper tantrums about Donald Trump are just the latest iteration in this same tired tale.

– The process for selecting the next Federal judge from Idaho is strange [h/t].

– The Day the GOP Turned the Benghazi Tragedy Into a Farce

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Trevor Noah calls Wolf Blitzer a mean girl bully.

Larry Wilmore: Will the NRA suggest arming every toddler?

How gun advocates sound to normal people:

Young Turks: Lincoln Chafee drops out.

The 2016 Festival of Clowns:

White House: West Wing Week.

Red State Update: Political news of the week

BENGHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaZZZZZIIII!!!!!1!!11!!!

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Lutulently Ugly!

Farron Cousins: Republicans are paid to be stupid.

Texas Blues:

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about the Greek and Roman myths.

Farron Cousins: Nutjobber House Republicans are talking about impeaching Clinton when they lose

Trevor Noah: Canada’s hot new Prime Minister.

Ryan Eyes:

Ole Miss students want Mississippi state flag off campus.

Farron Cousins: Sen. David “DiaperBoy” Vitter got prostitute pregnant and told her to have an aborition.

Congressional hits and misses of the week.

Biden His Time:

Jon and Tracey Stewart on life after the Daily Show.

Mental Floss: 41 fascinating sports facts.

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

Like a Business

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I was reading about JEB! Bush’s campaign problems (h/t). This struck me in particular:

The campaign is removing some senior staff from the payroll, parting ways with some consultants, and downsizing its Miami headquarters to save more than $1 million per month and cut payroll by 40 percent this week, according to Bush campaign officials who requested anonymity to speak about internal changes. Senior leadership positions remain unchanged.

Republicans often tell us that they want to run the government more like a business. I didn’t realize they wanted to run their campaigns like a failing business: Cut payroll but keep everything “unchanged” at the top. No matter how much the senior leadership fucks up, they’re untouchable.

No, the problem isn’t that senior leadership managed to take the campaign all the way to single digits in the polls and money drying up! They still deserve what they get. I assume they’re mostly Bush family loyalists, so why should they suffer just because the campaign they’re leading is flailing?

To be clear, I’m not even saying you should count Bush out yet. A similar thing happened to McCain in the ’08 primary. And getting rid of at least the consultants makes sense. But keeping the same people at the top is pretty shit.

Open Thread 10/23

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– I’m sure this estimate of when Bertha will be back up and running, er digging, will be the accurate one.

– The people trying to prove how Planned Parenthood isn’t necessary are really proving how necessary it is.

– Who knew Benghazi would turn out to be a fake scandal about Hillary Clinton?

– This sums up Clinton’s response

– Conservatives should maybe take the we’re patrolling the border people as a loss.

Open Thread 10.21

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– Sorry this was so late. I had a bit of a work emergency.

– If you want to read the Democrats’ Bengazi report, here you go. It’s a 124 page PDF, so I have not.

– I wasn’t planning on voting for Biden if he ran for President, but I still always think more people running is better, so too bad he’s not running?

– Oh look, not everyone in Ballard is the absolute worst.

– Voter suppression funnies

Poll Analysis: Clinton versus Rubio

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Clinton
Rubio
92.4% probability of winning
7.6% probability of winning
Mean of 304 electoral votes
Mean of 234 electoral votes


Electoral College Map

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Lousiana Maine Maryland Massachusettes Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Electoral College Map

Georgia Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Delaware Connecticut Florida Mississippi Alabama Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

My previous analysis in this race showed Secretary Clinton just barely leading Sen. Rubio 65% to 35%. Rubio was second to Jeb Bush in performance against Clinton. In the intervening weeks, Rubio has started to crawl out of the mid-tier rankings in the G.O.P. primary. A week ago he placed third in SC, and today we see he is second in NH

Rubio’s primary “surge” hasn’t translated into general election gains. He seems to be losing ground to Clinton. Now after 100,000 simulated elections, Clinton wins 92,430 times and Rubio wins 7,570 times (including the 404 ties). Clinton received (on average) 304 to Rubio’s 234 electoral votes. In an election held now, Clinton would have a 92.4% probability of winning and Rubio would have a 7.6% probability of winning.

Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
[Read more…]

Fuck Dori

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I know, what can you expect? Gigantic asshole gonna gigantic asshole (I saw this on Facebook over the weekend, but I can’t find who linked to it now).

During his October 7 show on KIRO-FM, Dori myopically focused on a part of POC Yoga’s class description which put forth “white friends, allies, and partners are respectfully asked not to attend.” Despite on-air claims that he had “zero problems” with POC Yoga, was “perfectly fine” with the practice, and believed POC Yoga “should be free”—he also openly accused POC Yoga of being “racist,” “exclusionary,” and more than once (instead of calling the collective by its self-chosen name) referred to it as “no whites yoga class.” Dori gave no historical context, did not acknowledge whites disproportionate privilege in a white-dominated culture, and made no mention of the ongoing microaggressive to extreme racism people of color have faced in America for centuries.

Jesus. When I hear his show, he isn’t typically interested in, for example, making sure that Black kids aren’t gunned down by the police. Maybe I missed it. He’s on the air for like 500 hours a day. And, inexplicably, halftime in the Seahawks’ radio broadcast.

I guess, if he wanted to make a perfectly race neutral type argument, he would naturally spend time trying to figure out why there’s still a wage gap between the races. Again I haven’t seen it. You’d certainly think someone who wants to call out racism so much he’s worried about a yoga class wouldn’t be so quick to call George Zimmerman “a hero” and “a superhero” in the clip (not in the context of murdering a Black child, but still: Holy shit).

Anyway, that’s the argument qua the argument. But were there any consequences to his dumbassness?

Directly following Dori’s heated criticism, Teresa said hate calls and death threats started pouring in every five minutes. There were all together over 200 phone calls, and hundreds and hundreds of emails filled with hostility and hate. What had just been anger generated out of a Nextdoor post spiraled into a violent, racist fervor that swept the country and made its way onto inflammatory websites like Infowars and Drudge Report. She rushed out that day to get a security system for her home though she stayed with a friend that night for safety. From that point through the weekend POC Yoga and Rainier Beach Yoga (the studio where class was held) filed several police reports. On Monday they filed an FBI report.

“Those death threats alone illustrate exactly why people of color need safe spaces,” said Joe R. Feagin, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M. Feagin is author of over 200 research articles and over 60 books on race, class, and gender. He has been studying patterns of white discrimination against people of color in the United States for 50 years and has reviewed hundreds of empirical studies. Feagin says the empirical data is clear. “Racism is still extraordinarily widespread in this country and does great harm to people of color,” he explained. “Therefore it is not only logical but necessary that people of color create safe spaces away from whites in which to deal with the stresses of racism and build up strategies to resist.”

Now Dori isn’t responsible for all the dumbassness that his dumbass listeners do. But maybe he’ll think a little next time.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottleAn election is happening in Washington state, and by now you should have your ballot in hand. So pack up your political questions and opinions and let ’em loose over the beverage of your choice 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. We start at 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, Vancouver, WA, and Shelton chapters also meet. The Lakewood chapter meets on Wednesday. The Spokane, Kent, and Woodinville chapters meet on Thursday.

There are 183 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, three in Oregon and one in Idaho. Find—or start—a chapter near you.

Poll Analysis: Clinton versus Trump

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Clinton
Trump
96.6% probability of winning
3.4% probability of winning
Mean of 315 electoral votes
Mean of 223 electoral votes


Electoral College Map

Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Lousiana Maine Maryland Massachusettes Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Electoral College Map

Georgia Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Delaware Connecticut Florida Mississippi Alabama Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia D.C. Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

There still too many states that have yet to be polled for this match-up for this analysis to have teeth. I count 27 missing states (plus D.C.) and that number includes the possible swing states of Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Maine, New Mexico and more. We have no polls for Washington state yet, but I don’t think Washington is likely to swing in Trump’s direction.

So why do this analysis? Quite simply, because Clinton and Trump are in the undisputed position of leading in their respective primaries.

Even lacking many state polls, this analysis is instructive for the states we have, and for how Trump’s performance compares to the other candidates. A couple of days ago, a similar analysis of Clinton v. Bush showed Bush leading with a 65% chance of winning an election held now. Trump does significantly worse against Clinton than does Bush.

After 100,000 simulated elections, Clinton wins 96,573 times and Trump wins 3,427 times (including the 952 ties). Clinton received (on average) 315 to Trump’s 223 electoral votes. In an election held now, Clinton would have a 96.6% probability of winning and Trump would have a 3.4% probability of winning. In other words, Clinton would almost certainly win an election held right now.

There are a few surprises at the state level. Both Wisconsin and Virginia heavily lean toward Clinton in the two polls in each state conducted within the past month. Now compare those two states to their geographical and political neighbors Minnesota and North Carolina. There we see things nearly tied. In the “classic” swing states, Trump leads in Florida in four of five polls, but Clinton leads in both Ohio polls and in two of three polls in Pennsylvania. Clinton leads in Kentucky, too, but the poll is from way back in mid-June.

Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:

[Read more…]

Civil Liberties Roundup

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Ideologies tend to get caught in a pattern where whatever set of data points you conjure up, there’s always a way to tie it back to the underlying ideology. That was my thought after reading these two posts from Cato and NRO on Bernie Sanders and Denmark. In the posts, the authors point out that Denmark isn’t what you’d expect if you think of it as a socialist paradise. Sure, they have high taxes and a robust welfare system, but they’re freer than the U.S. when it comes to doing business, and they have roughly the same levels of overall economic freedom.

In this telling, the data is supposed to convey the point that Denmark’s high levels of economic freedom aren’t ideal for someone with a more socialist outlook. But the data is telling us something very different – that bigger government and high taxes don’t automatically lead to a less free environment for people to start and run businesses. There’s an underlying assumption that less economic freedom is somehow an actual goal of the left, rather than a consequence of poorly conceived policies. It would be similar to arguing that if more restaurants open in Seattle, the left should view the minimum rate hike as a failure (“Haha! It didn’t kill people’s economic freedom like you hoped it would, silly liberals!!”).

The main distinction that separates smarter libertarian thinking (which I do believe exists) from this nonsense is understanding that it’s silly to be concerned solely with the size of government instead of focusing on the specific types of powers we allow government to have. Government using taxpayer dollars to provide affordable health care, education, housing, or a high quality transportation system shouldn’t be seen as a threat to liberty in the same way as turning police into a standing army, funneling billions into a system of mass incarceration, or building up a gigantic infrastructure for public surveillance. All are “big government” in a way. The threat posed to our freedom – both economic and otherwise – by each of these things varies widely.

The success of Bernie Sanders’ campaign so far is a growing recognition that the relationship between big government and economic freedom is far more complex than the tired notion that higher taxes and a bigger government automatically leads to less freedom. Looking at someplace like Denmark is a confirmation of that.

News from the last two weeks:
[Read more…]

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