HorsesAss.Org

– Sullivan To Readers: You Are All Mindless, Soulless Subhumans

– Oh Sally Clark and Larry Phillipszzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

– No, the religious right is not dead. They were just resting.

– Oh hey, Seattle has some brand-new *historic landmarks.

[Read more…]

One of the biggest stories over the past two weeks is the controversy over the newly passed religious freedom law in Indiana. The backlash caught a lot of people by surprise, partly because the purpose and significance of these laws has evolved a bit over the past 20 years since Bill Clinton signed a federal law with the same name in 1993, but also because of how much the political notion of “religious freedom” has changed in recent years. Garrett Epps and German Lopez write about this history and why this particular law is different and causing an uproar.

I also think it’s worth reading both Amanda Marcotte and Jacob Levy on this. Marcotte comes from a more liberal perspective and Levy from a more libertarian one. But I think Marcotte makes the key point for me here:

The backlash is kind of surprising, when you consider that it’s already legal to discriminate against LGBT people in Indiana without having to pull the Jesus card to do it. Pence’s maddening dishonesty might be fueling the rage: Lying plus bigotry is a toxic combination. But there’s another factor that’s helping push this past the tipping point of “another story about conservative bigotry” to national scandal. Liberals are getting fed up with this ridiculous conservative push to redefine “religious liberty” to mean its opposite, using it as a phrase to justify Christian conservatives forcing their religious beliefs on you and depriving you of basic religious freedom.

Marcotte goes on to cite the Hobby Lobby court decision, which defined this narrative more clearly for a lot of people. Hobby Lobby’s desire to keep their employees from having easier access to birth control through their health benefits isn’t a matter of corporate executives exercising their own religious freedom. It was an attempt by a powerful employer to impose their religious beliefs on their employees. The fact that Hobby Lobby won at the Supreme Court certainly has people on edge about how radical ideas of religious freedom could potentially be recognized and become accepted.

In the case of Indiana’s new law, a small business owner refusing to serve gay customers is the same dynamic. If a florist or a baker refused to provide their services for an interracial marriage, we wouldn’t consider that to be someone exercising some valid religious objection, we’d see that as just plain bigotry. It’s hard to understand how doing the same regarding a gay wedding is any different.

This is why we now see the backlash. It isn’t the actual severity of the law, it’s the fact that it’s furthering a particularly cynical notion of religious freedom, one that is clearly rooted in bigotry and bad faith. It’s about the fact that Indiana chose to go in this direction, rather than passing anti-discrimination protections for gays and lesbians. And it’s about making clear the political risks of continuing to pander to those who are in denial about the recent awakening we’ve had as a nation regarding the rights of LGBT people.

[Read more…]

I think I covered the important stuff about the Expedia move yesterday. But one other thing that’s maybe less relevant is are we still going to call the foot bridge the Amgen Bridge? I feel like we should. It’s shaped like a double helix and it was built by Amgen. So I’m going to keep calling it that.

But I’m the guy who still calls the Bus Tunnel the Bus Tunnel even though I don’t want it to have buses in it any more.

We can’t fund McCleary, we can’t provide proper care for our mentally ill, we can’t pave our roads or repair our bridges or pay for our public colleges and universities.

So what is Washington State’s problem? Money. We don’t have enough of it. Because we don’t have a tax system that is capable of growing revenue commensurate with our needs or our economy.

We can elect all the Democrats we want, but until we find a way to tax income, we will get the drown-govmint-in-a-bathtub Republican agenda default. There’s no way around it. It’s simple math.

Hey, remember how Rodney Tom (among a bunch of other Republicans) said that Seattle’s minimum wage and sick leave/safe leave laws were going to destroy the jobs in Seattle and send them to the suburbs. Well, maybe in the future, who can really tell? But when people cite this or that example: a store closing, a firm going out of business, or other things that happen to businesses everywhere, well, tell them Expedia thought it would be better to come to Seattle.

The campus, which is on Smith Cove in the Interbay neighborhood, measures 750,000 square feet. Expedia, which employs around 3,000 people in the region and nearly 15,000 worldwide, reportedly is looking for a new 700,000-square-foot headquarters. Real estate brokers said the company wanted a Seattle address and is looking to buy a facility. Amgen (Nasdaq: AMGN) is winding down operations in the Puget Sound region, and could sell the Seattle campus.

Earlier this year, Expedia CFO Mark Okerstrom said the company was considering relocating its corporate headquarters. He said the company was “not constraining ourselves to the downtown Bellevue area in terms of our search.”

Of course, there are plenty of reasons that a company moves to Seattle, and obviously just having a $15 minimum wage wasn’t why. But it also wasn’t a hindrance here. And to be clear: I hope the Bellevue finds a good replacement for Expedia. Losing that will be a hit. But there is a bit of schadenfreude seeing these things happening and thinking of the people saying these sorts of laws would destroy jobs in Seattle.

Maybe if Bellevue wants better jobs, they can do the types of things Seattle has done. Or they could do it because it’s the right thing for people working there.

– I don’t mean to alarm you, but today is known as Spy Wednesday

– In a previous open thread, I mentioned that Cathy McMorris Rodgers put a call out to her Facebook followers that they tell her about Obamacare, and most had nice things to say. Well, apparently that’s the haters hating.

– Welcome to the City Council race, James Keblas

– This is the tragic irony of the culture wars: The casualties tend to be the very people Jesus went out of his way to serve: the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the outcasts, the people ostracized and deemed “sinners” by the religious elite. And when the world sees Christians hurting rather than helping such people, in the name of political gain, our testimony is profoundly diminished

– The men behind of these efforts — one based in Arkansas, one in Florida — claim to be forming armed squads of militiamen to fly into ISIS hotspots in Iraq and Syria and combat the enemy on the ground. Neither, however, appear to be anything more than a fundraising operation built around pure fantasies.

– A Baseball Story

The Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight. Please join us for an evening of politics and conversation over a pint. It will be an evening to savoring on our last day before the Seattle economic apocalypse….

We meet every Tuesday evening at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. Our starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks stop by earlier for dinner.

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

There are 189 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, four in Oregon and two in Idaho. Chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting somewhere near you.

Today, the Seattle City Council will vote on a resolution expressing concern about the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement currently being negotiated, and the Seattle Times editorial board thinks that’s just plain silly:

The council’s ordinance sends a head-scratching message about the importance of trade. No American city, arguably, is more dependent on the import-export business than Seattle. The Port of Seattle is an engine of family-wage jobs. Overall, 30 percent of Washington’s exports — nearly $27 billion worth — went to countries participating in the TPP. Stronger U.S. trade ties with those 11 other countries would undoubtedly add to the total, especially in Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam and New Zealand.

Uh-huh. So, here’s the thing about “free trade” as defined by agreements like the TPP: it isn’t free. Sure, goods are free to cross borders, and financial capital is free to cross borders. And since goods-plus-capital equals jobs, the TPP frees more jobs to cross international borders.

But you know what’s not free to cross borders? Labor. And since jobs are mobile and labor isn’t, free trade agreements like TPP and NAFTA and all the rest end up distorting the economy in a way that advantages capital and disadvantages labor. I’m not making shit up here. The same neoclassical economic theories that argue for free trade will tell you that if capital is free but labor mobility remains constrained, then the labor market can never reach a state of natural equilibrium. Capital can (and will) arbitrage the price difference between various labor markets, artificially suppressing wages for all.*

Good for profits, not so good for workers.

Of course, that doesn’t mean we can’t have free trade. We could open our borders to all comers, and vice versa, allowing labor to move to where the good jobs are. We could actually allow the entire market to be free. But that’s not likely to happen. Or, we could all openly acknowledge that trade agreements disadvantage labor, and insist that they come with policies designed to ameliorate the harm and redistribute the profits more broadly. You know, if we actually gave a shit about workers.

But let’s not pretend that, on their own, free trade agreements are good for American workers. Because apart from those workers directly employed in import-export (and let’s be honest, mostly import), they’re not.

---

* Not to be construed as an actual endorsement of neoclassical economic theory.

– I Made a Joke About Guns and a Man Threatened to Assault Me

– The stuff happening in Indiana to push back against their bullshit anti-gay law is much more inspiring than people from lefty places tisk tisking.

– Take your stupid fucking studded tires off

– History really should be something we work toward knowing rather than some fantasy.

Leviticus 25:44-46
Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.

Discuss.

My boss Nick Hanauer is lighting up Twitter again, this time with a “quick” 19-tweet rant explaining the economic stupidity of Indiana’s new law permitting businesses to discriminate against gays. Except, the rant is not so quick, so I’ve reformatted it below for your reading pleasure:

1. A quick rant on the almost surreal stupidity of Indiana governor Mike Pence and his bill to legalize discrimination against LGBT people.
2. What’s really important to underscore is how totally clueless people in places like Indiana are about 21st century economies.
3. Growth in technological economies is all about innovation. The more innovation, the faster living standards improve.
4. But innovation is a combinatorial and cooperative process. Innovation happens when old things are combined in new and novel ways.
5. Innovation is an evolutionary process, and diversity is at the core of that process. It’s not how hard you try…..
6. It’s how many different ways you try that define success. Economic dynamism isn’t driven by sameness, but by differences.
7. Diversity does not hinder economic growth in technological economies. It super-charges it. Including more people is the key to growth.
8. This is why inclusive, diverse cities like SF, Seattle, New York, and Boston kick the shit out of exclusionary places like Indiana.
9. LGBT people are different. They are uncommonly creative, and innovative. Thus, they lead in many creative endeavors and industries.
10. That is why LGBT folks are packed into the most innovative and successful companies.
11. And why states like Indiana are increasingly becoming economic backwaters. Sad, forgotten places that smart people flee from.
12. Obviously, people who are different flee, but also, all of the smart people who know that differences are key, flee as well
13. Leaving behind a homogenized, narrow, and increasingly prejudiced population, who elect the same kind of leaders.
14. Who enact laws that chase more smart diverse people away, that creates a brain drain death spiral.
15. That in turn, consigns the economy to a backwater, or at a minimum, a low wage competitor to Bangladesh.
16. All of which is a terrible waste of real estate and capital improvements. But something that may in fact, be unavoidable and inevitable.
17. So, to all of you creative, innovative, different people in Indiana: The world faces tremendous challenges.
18. They will only be solved by people like you. Come to places like Seattle that will embrace you, and leverage your talents.
19. We need you. The world needs you. Indiana apparently, does not.

Many business leaders, particularly those in the tech industry, are expressing outrage over Indiana’s new anti-LGBT law, and an incipient boycott is already underway. For example, Salesforce.com CEO Mark Benioff has canceled all company events in the state, and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray announced today that he is barring city employees from using city money to travel to Indiana on business. But Nick’s invitation to LGBT Indianans to “come to places like Seattle that will embrace you and leverage your talents” suggests a much more lasting and effective economic sanction.

No doubt Nick is right that discriminatory laws like this result in a “brain drain” by driving talented workers out of state. But if the tech industry in Seattle, San Francisco, New York and elsewhere were to actively recruit LGBT workers and other Indianans who value diversity, that economic death spiral would quickly accelerate. And that would be an appropriately high price to pay for Indiana’s government sanctioned bigotry.

Ann Telnaes: Making executions easier.

SlateTV: The times we made animals into bombs.

Political fashion chat.

How teachers are funding gun companies against their will.

Young Turks: Why are Republican Governors so pro-prison rape?

See the earth change over the past 200 million years.

The 2016 Clown Parade:

• Mark Fiore: Imagine Republican Dough.
• WaPo: Ted Cruz in his own nutty words
• Sam Seder: Peter King pretends to not be Ted Cruz.
• Confronted by Dreamers…Ted Cruz is already on the run!
• The Ted Cruz honest presidential ad
• Young Turks: Ted Cruz forces Liberty University students to attend his speech
• Pap and Cliff Schecter: George W. Bush lowered the bar for Ted Cruz
• Chris Hayes: It’s True! Ted Cruz is going on ObamaCare
• Maddow: Ted Cruz launches his campaign for Vice President
• Bill Maher and friends: The puzzle of Ted Cruz (and his changed taste in music).
• Young Turks: Ted Cruz thinks non-Christians have too much power
• Jon: Ted Cruz’s kiss rehearsal
• David Pakman: Nutcase Ted Cruz signs up for ObamaCare after vowing to repeal ObamaCare.
• Matt Binder: Ted Cruz launches his presidential campaign at university founded by racist who blamed gays for 9/11
• Ted Cruz: Imagine!
• Larry Wilmore, Lewis Black and Friends: Ted
• Richard Fowler: Idiot Ted Cruz wants to repeal Federal legislation that does not exist
• David Pakman: Lying hypocrite Ted Cruz falsely claims he was required to sign up for ObamaCare
• Chris Hayes: Cruz is ‘the elite of the elite’ acting like he is ‘folksy’
• Michael Brooks: Gov. Jerry Brown lays the smack down on Ted Cruz’s climate denial
• Young Turks: The insane conspiracy theories that Ted Cruz actually believes
• Chris Cillizza: Ted Cruz and Barack Obama have more in common than you think
• Sam Seder: Ted Cruz claims 9/11 made him love country music
• Sam Seder: Donald Trump goes all Birfer on Ted Cruz
• Maddow: Dark money probe raises questions about Scott Walker donations

• Pap and Sam Seder: Jeb Bush’s shameful past
• Maddow: Bush/Cheney running again for President?
• Richard Fowler: Jeb Bush wants to eliminate the minimum wage
• David Pakman: Rick Santorum meets woman who is crazier than he is!
• Sam Seder: Louie Gohmert is running for President?!?

Sen. Nelson slams alleged ban on climate change speech.

Sam Sacks: ALEC is too toxic for BP.

John Oliver: John Oliver hits Netanyahu’s ‘Michael Jackson-level’ walking back on two-state solution.

Sam Seder: Media darling John McCain says media favors “wacko birds”.

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about the bible.

Maddow: The kids are alright.

Young Turks: Sean Hannity gets out-hannitied in his “War on Spring Break”.

The Duck Dynasty Child Rape–Murder Fantasy…for a Prayer Breakfast:

• Young Turks: Duck Dynasty patriarch paints bizarre rape & murder scenario “against atheism”
• Sam Seder: Duck Dynasty star Phil Robertson’s horrifying atheist rape-murder fantasy

SlateTV: Can animals be altruists?

Why every new Macbook uses a different goddamn charger.

Jon plugs his ears and pretends climate change doesn’t exist.

If anti-vaccine parents rode the Magic School Bus:

Some Congresscritters read mean tweets.

Young Turks: Traitor Republican Senators used Israeli spies against their own country.

Jon and Kristen: Pay equality for women.

ObamaCare at Five:

• Obama: Marking the 5th anniversary of the ACA
• Media Matters Minute: Five years later, conservative media’s worst predictions for ObamaCare never came to pass.
• John Green: Is Obamacare working? The Affordable Care Act five years later
• Media Matters Minute: FAUX cites anonymous “expert” to suggest ObamaCare enrollment numbers aren’t real.

Go Green and save the earth…if you have time.

Mental Floss: 16 shampoo facts.

Michael Brooks: John McCain throws a tantrum accusing Obama of throwing a tantrum.

Jon Jon catches FAUX News “jerking itself off”.

White House: West Wing Week.

Pap: SCOTUS gets one correct for voting rights

Indiana—The Crossroads of American Homophobia:

• Sam Seder: Indiana Governor admits no reason for vicious anti-gay law but signs it anway
• David Pakman: Gen Con Gamers will move their Convention out of Indiana
• Indiana: A great place to be…a bigot:

• Young Turks: Gay people not welcome in Christian businesses in Indiana

WaPo with some Congressional dos and don’ts.

President Obama: Take our daughters and sons to work day.

Aasif Mandvi mocks the media in brutal RTCA dinner speech.

David Pakman: CA AG goes to court to keep ‘Shoot the Gays’ initiative off the ballot.

Mitt Romney and Jimmy Fallon face off on the Tonight Show.

Sen. Reid Announces His Retirement:

• Young Turks: Kick Ass facts about Sen. Reid
• Sen. Harry Reid announces he will not run again.
• Young Turks: What will happen after Sen. Reid retires?

Mental Floss: Fourteen ways technology has improved our lives.

Jon: The daily show fixes the VA’s “crow problem”

Young Turks: Germanwings Flight 9525 right-wing conspiracy theories.

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

Reading this post by lefty Hoosier Melissa McEwan who has been working against the reprehensible you can discriminate against gay people for Jesus law in Indiana, I can’t help think of how different the attitude was here when there are problems. We can work here, but let’s just write off a whole state?

It strikes me as, ahem, interesting that some of the Seattle people I saw on Twitter yesterday with the #BoycottIndiana hashtag weren’t saying boycott Seattle when it came out that we had the worst of the largest 50 metro ares’ gender pay disparity. When that happened, we got to work. We organized. We pressured city and county government to work toward fixing that shit. We had commissions that you can debate how much they did, but it isn’t nothing. We had conversations, and many women shared their stories. But with Indiana, it’s just jump right to why don’t you move and to boycott.

And don’t get me wrong, there are times when a boycott of a state can be effective. The one that came to mind to me was a boycott of South Carolina probably helped get them to stop flying the Confederate flag. But the difference is that local people in South Carolina took the lead. If local Hoosier orgs start telling me they don’t want me to spend money on or in Indiana, I’ll take a serious look. But whatever happens has to come first and foremost from Indiana.

– McMorris-Rogers wanting horror stories about Obamacare would have been a better political story if there were more actual horror stories about the ACA.

– Take Your Burning Rage from Yesterday’s Traffic Mess and Fire It Toward Olympia

– You’d like to believe Brockington’s story was going to be different. You’d like to believe that the recognition bestowed upon him from his school as homecoming king, an affirmation of his identity, meant they cared. You’d like to believe this would only bolster Brockington’s sense of self and provide the resolve needed to face the cruel aftermath of the public eye. We need to believe those things so we never have to actually lend our support.

– Some Christians opposed slavery. Some supported it. A lot were neutral. If you want to take credit for the ones who opposed it, you should also consider why the rest also made slavery possible for so long.

– If you’re going to call your article A modest proposal to restore local control of $40 million from No Child Left Behind waiver (Seattle Times link) the only proper body of the article should include eating children from under-performing schools.

I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures:

An outbreak of H.I.V. in a rural Indiana county prompted the state’s governor on Thursday to declare a public health emergency as officials worked to stop the spread of the virus that causes AIDS.

The 80 cases in Scott County, in the state’s southeast, were attributed to intravenous drug use. … Governor Pence, a Republican, said that he had long opposed needle exchanges, but that after meeting with federal advisers, he decided to allow a short-term program in Scott County.

So, Pence was opposed to needle exchanges because, whatever. But now that he’s been convinced that needle exchanges can help stem transmission of H.I.V., he’s allowing just a temporary program in one county, because, why? Needle exchanges are okay to help contain an epidemic, but not to prevent one?

Yet another example of conservative values getting in the way of good public policy.