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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:
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HA Bible Study: Luke 19:23-27

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Luke 19:23-27
Why didn’t you put my money in the bank? On my return, I could have had the money together with interest.”

Then he said to some other servants standing there, “Take the money away from him and give it to the servant who earned ten times as much.”

But they said, “Sir, he already has ten times as much!”

The king replied, “Those who have something will be given more. But everything will be taken away from those who don’t have anything. Now bring me the enemies who didn’t want me to be their king. Kill them while I watch!”

Discuss.

Poll Analysis: Clinton versus Bush

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Clinton
Bush
35.2% probability of winning
64.8% probability of winning
Mean of 263 electoral votes
Mean of 275 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 have only been something over a dozen new state head-to-head polls since the previous analysis of a general election match-up between Secretary Clinton and Gov. Bush. Previously, the race was, essentially, tied with Clinton having a slight edge. This month, the race is, well…tied. But now Bush has a slight advantage.

The trend can be seen from this graph created from a series of elections simulated every seven days using polls from 16 Oct 2014 to 16 Oct 2015, and including polls from the preceding month (FAQ).

In the month and a half since the previous analysis, the race has remained a tie, with a bounce in Bush’s favor followed by a bounce in Clinton’s favor. There isn’t much we can make of these bounces statistically. All of the data in the recent polls were collected before the Democratic debate, so we cannot even pretend the uptick in favor of Clinton is related to the debate. What is clear, however, is that this past summer, Clinton lost a significant edge she held over Bush.

For the most recent period, the 100,000 simulated elections, puts Clinton ahead 35,187 times and Bush ahead 64,813 times (including the 2,215 ties). Clinton received (on average) 263 to Bush’s 275 electoral votes. In an election held now, Clinton would have a 35.2% probability of winning and Bush would have a 64.8% probability of winning.

Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
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Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Red State Update meets Ann Coulter, James Carville, Paul Begala, “Edward Snowden” at Politicon.

Gulahallat Eatnamiin: We Speak Earth.

A Congress in Chaos:

Adam Ruins Everything: The real reason jaywalking is illegal.

Stephen Colbert and Jack Black: My Kind Of America:

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about hiccups.

The 2016 Clown Show:

Young Turks: FAUX News “terrorism expert” arrested for pretending to be CIA.

Tina Fey for President.

Alabama Disenfranchisement:

Larry Wilmore’s big gay ice cream sitdown with Nancy Pelosi.

Young Turks: Republican politician wants guns taken away from Black people.

Dems Debating:

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

Mental Floss: 22 Brian Facts.

David Pakman: Presidential predictions you can bet on.

Political Planned Parenthood:

Young Turks: One toddler shooting each week in 2015.

Chris Hayes: Seth Meyers and political comedy.

White House: West Wing Week.

Benghaaaaazzzzzzzzzziiiiiiii!!!!11!1!!

Seth Meyers: Jokes of the week

Congressional Hits and Misses: Best of Paul Ryan.

Back To The Future in actual 2015.

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

Open Thread 10.16

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– You may have heard of the Mother Jones – Frank VanderSloot lawsuit. Well, even though Mother Jones won, they could use your money.

– The gender-swapped Twilight sounds like it doesn’t do what it set out to do.

– I know Banks wants to win this election, but “you’re not from here” is so not OK.

– The GOP staffers on the Benghazi committee buying guns on taxpayer’s time is the most GOP story imaginable.

– I think there ware some 13th amendment issues.

– Lamar Odom is not a punchline. He’s someone who has lived in a state of self-medication as a means of self-preservation. Now he’s fighting just to live. Unless you are sending out prayers for his survival, please just shut the hell up. That goes for everyone from the bottom-feeding Piers Morgan to the random Twitter egg. Too many people are too destroyed by this to have to sense your bile. Be better than that for them. Be better than that for Lamar Odom. Be better than that for everyone who carries the weight of tragedy yet still makes others happy to be alive.

Did the $200,000 Anti-Jon Grant PAC Ever Intend to Spend $200,000?

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Civic Square rendering

Architectural rendering of Triad Development’s ironically named “Civic” Square.

When two independent expenditure campaigns were announced last week, one explicitly pro Seattle City Council president Tim Burgess (“United for Tim”) and one explicitly against Burgess’s challenger, former Tenant’s Union leader Jon Grant (“Seattle Needs Ethical Leaders”), I wasn’t the only one to read this as a sign that Seattle’s business establishment was very nervous about Burgess’s reelection prospects. Seattle Needs Ethical Leaders was on the record promising to spend about $200,000, while the insider buzz had United for Tim budgeting at least the same. That’s an awful lot of money to spend on an incumbent who is already outspending his challenger by six to one.

But now in the wake of the Triad shakedown scandal it appears we all may have been half-fooled: that “Seattle Needs Ethical Leaders” was never more than an unethical ruse.

Of course, the PAC’s threatened $200,000 war chest never appeared—and it never will appear—and while some might attribute this collapse to fallout from the shakedown scandal, it is reasonable to suspect if the committee’s sole purpose was to facilitate a shakedown in the first place. Think about it. The committee has its spokesperson go public with a $200,000 budget, while whispering that it would be accusing Grant of some sort of personal ethical lapse. Was the money ever real? Or was it just an elaborate political bluff created by those hoping to profit from a potentially lucrative real estate deal?

(Or even more conspiratorially, perhaps it was an effort to entrap Grant in an ethical lapse? Hmm. That might explain the otherwise inexplicable creation of a text message trail.)

To be clear, Burgess’s backers are clearly nervous. United for Tim has already raised $218,000, most of it from a Chamber of Commerce funded PAC. But that other $200,000? I wouldn’t be surprised if it was always a fiction. Which means this shakedown scandal could be a lot more scandalous than it first appears.

Open Thread 10-14

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– But there was not a single mention of the Duwamish people — by Mr. Williams or by the host — in the entire seven-minute interview. There was no talk of violence, greed, or racism, despite the fact that the rivers the Duwamish had used for sustenance and travel for thousands of years were either filled with dirt from the razed hills or poisoned by all of the rapid “progress.”

– I don’t know enough about the Export-Import bank to have much of an opinion. But this discharge petition story makes me think maybe we don’t need a Speaker of the House. Maybe we just do discharge petitions to get all legislation to the floor.

– What the crap is going on this City Council election cycle?

– I haven’t read them yet, but here are The Stranger’s endorsements.

First Democratic Debate Open Thread

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Have at it!

5:54: I’ll throw in some random stuff like…


You know…Vincent Foster.

6:00: Anderson is to Hillary as Megyn was to Donald?

6:06: Republican Debate: “Raise your hand if you believe in Evolution.
Democratic Debate: “Raise your hand if you believe in Capitalism.

6:25: Goldy: “She is better than anyone else in the room.”

Cyberwarfare? Really?

6:46 Back from intermission. Time for some emails.

6:48: “The American people are sick and tired of hearing about the damn emails!” An that was not Clinton…

6:49: Bernie just earned himself an Ambassadorship.

6:50: “Secretary Clinton, do you want to respond?” “No.” We have ourselves a WINNER!

6:52: ‘Black lives matter” question interrupted by a “Child Abduction Emergency”.

6:54: Where do the get the Atari computers to run those Amber Alert notices?!?

7:08: Chafee just had a slow motion “oops” moment trying to explain his vote.

New York Alki

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So, first there was this. And now, this:

Seattle City Council candidate Jon Grant claims the developer of a project across from City Hall tried to shake him down, and a text message sent to former Mayor Mike McGinn reveals some of what went on.

Grant says Brett Allen, a senior vice president at Triad Capital Partners, approached him at a Saturday campaign event and asked for help settling a lawsuit brought by Grant’s former employer.

Grant says he was told the payoff could be that a new political committee gearing up to spend heavily against him would go away.

On the one hand, I appreciate the way Seattle’s political establishment is attempting to make me—an expatriate of Philadelphia and New York’s corrupt political machines—feel right at home. But on the other hand, what the fuck?

It’s one thing to use the threat of a big independent expenditure campaign to intimidate a council candidate, but it’s another thing to preserve the details of that threat in a goddamn text message. That’s just incompetent. I mean, if Seattle’s cabal of downtown developers can’t even shake down a politician correctly, how can we trust them to properly develop downtown Seattle?

A Debate Edition of Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottle

This evening there will be a special Debate Edition of the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally. Please join us at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle, for a Democratic debate-watching party.

You’ll find us in the small room at the back of the tavern. Our normal starting time is 8:00 pm, but the debate “pre-game show” starts at 5:30 PDT, and the debate itself starts at 6:00 PDT. So join us early for this one.




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. On Wednesday, the Bellingham chapter meets. On Thursday, the Tacoma chapter meets. And next Monday, the Aberdeen and Yakima chapters meet.

There are 183 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.

Open Thread 10-12

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– Had a more interesting conversation about Mara Willaford and Marissa Johnson with my Real Change vendor than with like 90% of Bernie Sanders supporters.

– At a certain time, the GOP are going to have to find a new fake Clinton scandal. Maybe they can go back to crack pipe Christmastreegate.

– Yet, because the party has leaped so far to the right, they have been unable to perform basic functions of government, and have to end up relying on Democrats to keep them propped up, requiring that the fantasies they’ve promised base voters have to stay off the table to keep those votes.

– It’s too bad that Disability Rights Washington is suing Seattle, but sometimes those sorts of suits are necessary.

– Seattle radio gets a mention in Obama’s press pool report. Oh, also the President was in town.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Matthew Filipowicz: Wall Street reacts to TPP agreement.

Both sides of the Clinton email scandal make their case.

David Pakman: Alabama passes voter ID, then closes ID offices in black Counties

The 2016 Clown Festival:

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about the ocean.

Farron Cousins: Racist right wingers are the biggest threat to America today.

Vladimir Putin can do anything he wants to do.

Congressional hits and misses of the week.

Tom Hartman: California to vote on Citizens United.

The New (Anti-)McCarthyism:

Roy Zimmerman: Roy’s birthday AND the end of the world.

Young Turks: Brisol Palin needs to STFU about free birth control.

David Pakman: Legal group representing Kim Davis is declared a hate group.

Thom: ALEC’s 2016 agenda.

Matthew Filipowicz with Julianna Forlano: The problem with gerrymandering.

Honest Political Ads: Health Care costs.

Gunz:

Ann Telnaes: Which way will the Supreme Court swing this term?

Mental Floss: 24 ridiculous lawsuits.

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

openthread 10-9

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– So I got an abortion. Just that once. I’ve never regretted it. And I never will. NEVER. And I refuse to apologize for it. It was 110 percent the best thing to do at that time. Not that it was “easy.” Mom offered to go with me to the clinic, but that meant she’d have to make a 10-hour road trip. “No need,” I told her. I would be okay.

– If a mass shooting causes you to smile, you’re doing life wrong.

– I, for one, am looking forward do Lindsey Graham apologizing for his vote against Sandy relief any day now. Or at least providing an explanation.

– Thanks in large part to the effort of Belltown residents and pinball players, the Landmark Preservation Board voted last night to designate the Wayne Apartment Buildings on numerous criteria.

– In an open thread a while ago, I mentioned that a group was putting on several Brecht plays but I wasn’t interested because none of them were Mother Courage. Well, the 0 people who remember that, Seattle Shakespeare are putting on Mother Courage.

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