HorsesAss.Org

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Obama violates his own “head” rule.

Sam Seder: FAUX News affiliate smears and distorts an anti-Police brutality rally.

Young Turks: Darrell Issa turns up bupkis in IRS “scandal”.

Alex Wagner and friends: The race gap:

Pap: Republicans up a creek on immigration.

2014 in Review:

A holiday message for Congress.

WaPo: Can we buy Cuban cigars now?

Farron Cousins: What can you get when you buy a politician?

A Grimm Reality:

David Pakman: FCC ignored hundreds of thousands of net neutrality comments.

Michele Bachmann talks with God.

Young Turks: D.A. McCulloch knowingly put liar on the stand.

Sam Seder and Cliff Schecter: What led to the fracking ban in NY?

WaPo: Members recall their best and worst days in Congress.

David Pakman: More Chris Christie corruption?

Bang!

Lawrence O’Donnell: Putin v. Obama.

White House: West Wing Week.

David Pakman: Almost everything Republicans have said or predicted about Obama has turned out to be wrong.

Thom Hartman: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

Eric Schwartz and friends: MPG for Kim Jong-Un (NSFW):

Chris Hayes: GOP and FAUX News are WRONG again on Economy and Obamacare.

Thom: Where did Santa and the elves come from?

The Koch Dystopia:

Lawrence O’Donnell: Innocent 14 y.o. executed and exonerated 70 years too late.

Sam Seder and Cliff Schecter: Why would Jeb Bush run?

WaPo: Caught in the ocean during the 2004 tsunami.

What do Democrats and Republicans think of each other.

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

How the Kvetch Stole Chanukah

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Every Joo
Down in Joo-ville
Liked Chanukah as such…

But the Kvetch,
Who lived just north of Joo-ville,
… not so much.

The Kvetch hated Chanukah, the whole Chanukah season.
Now don’t ask me why. What? Should I know the reason?
It could be he wasn’t a mensch, that is all.
Or his petzel, perhaps, was two sizes too small.
Such meshug’as comes from one thing or another,
But like most Joo-ish boys, we should just blame his mother!

But,
The reason, whatever,
His mom or his putz,
The Kvetch hated Chanukah. Oy, what a yutz!
For he knew every Joo down in Joo-ville tonight
Was busy preparing menorahs to light.

“And they’re giving out gelt!” he sighed as he said
“I need waxy chocolate like holes in my head!”
Then he nervously whined as his fingers tapped horas,
“I MUST stop the Joos from igniting menorahs!”

For,
The Kvetch knew that soon…

… All the Joo girls and boys
Would say the baruch’ha, then unwrap their toys!
And then! Oh, the oys! Oh, the Oys! Oys! Oys! Oys!
If it’s not what they wanted, the OYS! OYS! OYS! OYS!

Then the Joos, young and old, would sit down for a nosh.
And they’d nosh! And they’d nosh!
And they’d NOSH! NOSH! NOSH! NOSH!
They would nosh on Joo-latkes, and Gefilte-Joo-Fish,
Which was surely the Kvetch’s least favorite dish!

And THEN
They’d do something
Which made the Kvetch plotz!
Every Joo down in Joo-ville, Bar Mitzvahed or not,
Would sit down together, their proud ponim’s grinning.
Then dreidels in hand, all the Joos would start spinning!

They’d spin! And they’d spin!
AND they’d SPIN! SPIN! SPIN! SPIN!
And the more the Kvetch thought of this Joo-Dreidel-Spin,
The more the Kvetch thought, “I can’t let this begin!
“Oy, for fifty-three years I’ve put up with it now!
“Chanukah, Schmanukah! Stop it!
… But HOW?”

Then he got an idea!
And the moment he had,
He said
“I’m no Einstein, but this… not half bad!”

“I know just what to do!” Then he donned an old sheet,
And dug up some sandals to wear on his feet.
“I’m the Prophet Elijiah! They’ve set me a plate!”
(For the Kvetch couldn’t keep Joo-ish holidays straight.)
“The Joos ‘ll oblige ol’ Elijiah, no doubt!
“I will simply walk in. Then I’ll clean the place out!”

“All I need is a camel…”
He looked far and near,
But this wasn’t the desert, and camels are dear.
Did that stop the old Kvetch…?
That pischer? No, never:
“If I can’t find a camel,” the Kvetch said, “…whatever.”
So he called his dog, Max. Then he took an old sack
And he tied a hump onto the front of his back.

THEN
He climbed on this
dog-dromedaryish mammal.
You never have seen
Such a schmuck on a camel.

Then the Kvetch cried “Oy vey!”
As old Max started down
Toward the homes, while the Joos
Where still schmoozing in town.

All their driveways were empty. Just SUV tracks.
All the Joos were out last-minute-shopping at Saks,
As he rode to a not-so-small house on old Max.
“It’s a good thing I brought” the old Prophet Kvetch thought,
“All these bags with to stuff all the stuff the Joos bought.”

Then he looked at the chimney. It seemed quite a stretch
That a fat goy like Santa could fit, thought the Kvetch,
“Still, the goyim believe stranger things, that’s for sure.”
Then the Kvetch shrugged his shoulders, and walked through the door
Where the little Joo dreidels were all strewn about.
“These dreidels,” he grinned, “are the first to go out!”

And he schvitzed, as he shlepped, with an odor unpleasant,
Around the whole house, as he took every present!
Barbie dolls! Mountain bikes! Brios! And blocks!
Pokemon! GameBoys! And all of that shlock!
And he stuffed them in bags. Then his arms spread akimbo,
He shlepped all the bags, one by one, out the wimbo!

Then he shlepped to the kitchen. He took every dish.
He took the Joo-latkes. The Gefilte-Joo-Fish.
He cleaned out the Sub-Zero so nimbly and neat,
Careful to separate dairy from meat.
Then he shlepped the Joo-nosh right out the front door-a.
“And NOW!” kvelled the Kvetch, “I will shlep the menorah!”

And he grabbed the menorah, and started to shlep on,
When he heard a whine, like a cat being stepped on.
He spun ‘round with shpilkes, and coming his way,
It was Ruth Levy-Joo, who was two, if a day.

The Kvetch had been caught by this small shaina maidel,
Who’d been watching TV on her big RCA’dle.
“The Prophet Elijiah?” she quizzed the old fool,
“You visit on Pesach, they taught us in shul.”

And although the old Kvetch was surprised and confused,
It’s not hard to lie to a girl in her twos.
“Bubbeleh… sweatheart…” he started his tale,
“Your dad paid full price, when this all was on sale!
“And like any good merchant, I just want to please ya.
“I’ll ring it up right, then I’ll refund your VISA.”

Then he patted her tush. Put a Barney tape in.
And she spaced-out as fast as the spindle could spin.
And as Ruth Levy-Joo watched her mauve dinosaura,
HE went to the door and shlepped out the menorah!

Then the match for the shamas
Was last to be filched!
Then he shlepped himself out to continue his pillage.
On the walls he left nothing at all. Bubkes. Zilch.
And the one speck of food
That he left in the house
Was a matzoh ball even too dense for a mouse.

Then
He did the same schtick
In the other Joo’s houses.

Leaving knaidlach
Too dense
For the other Joo’s mouses!

It was quarter to dusk…
All the Joos, still at Saks,
All the Joos, still a-shmooze
When he packed up old Max,
Packed him up with their presents! The gelt and the dreidels!
The chotchkes and latkes! The knish and the knaidels!

He hauled it all up to his condo in haste!
(A Grinch might have dumped it, but why go to waste?)
“Shtup you!” to the Joos, the Kvetch loudly cheered,
“They’re finding out Chanukah’s cancelled this year!
“They’re just coming home! I know just what they’ll say!
“They’ll ask their homeowners insurance to pay,
“Then the Joos down in Joo-ville will all cry OY VEY!”

“All those Oys,” kvelled the Kvetch,
“Now THIS I must hear!”
So he paused. And the Kvetch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising up from the shtetl.
It started to grow. Then the Kvetch grew unsettled…

Why the sound wasn’t sad,
It was more like the noise
Of a UPS trucker
Delivering toys!

He stared down at Joo-ville!
And then the Kvetch shook,
As truck after truck
Replaced all that he took!

Every Joo down in Joo-ville, the Golds and the Steins,
Re-ordered their presents by going online!

Chanukah HADN’T been cancelled!
IT CAME!
…On UPS trucks… but it came just the same!

Then the Kvetch, staring down at the gifts where they sat,
Stood kvitching and kvetching: “For this, I did that?
“It came without traffic! It came without tax!
“It came without shopping at Bloomie’s or Saks!”
And he kvetched on and on, til he started to shvitz,
Then the Kvetch thought of something which might make him rich!
“Maybe stores,” thought the Kvetch, “don’t need mortar and bricks.
“Maybe toys can be bought with a few well-placed clicks!”

And what happened then…?
Well… in Joo-ville they say
That the Kvetch raised
Ten million in venture that day!
And the minute his web site was ready to go,
He raised ten billion more on his new IPO!
He sold back the toys to the homes they came from!
And he…

… he the Kvetch…!
Founded YA-JOO.COM!

©2000 by David Goldstein
All rights reserved

[An HA holiday tradition (yeah, a couple days late this year), with apologies to the late, great Dr. Seuss—but not to the greedy, litigious bastards at Dr. Seuss Enterprises, LLC. So there. Happy Christmukah.]

Open Thread 12/24

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– Lets keep up the marriage equality momentum from last year.

– Random Thoughts on Spreading the Blame for a Cop Killing

– The Northgate pedestrian bridge is in danger.

– Law enforcement people claiming that they’re going to half ass their job need to not be there.

– I had not wondered before now how Santa poops. Probably because he’s magic.

– FYI, I probably won’t have an Open Thread on Friday.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottle Join us tonight for some pre-holiday cheer and some political catharsis over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday evening for friendly conversation at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. The starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks show up before that for dinner.



There are 177 chapters of Living Liberally, including fifteen in Washington state, four in Oregon and two in Idaho. Chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting somewhere near you.

Get a Goddamn Flu Shot

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I am attempting to write this post through the chills and sweats of a 101.7 degree fever and the massive 48-hours-and-counting headache that came with it. I have the flu. And it is awful. So consider this a public service announcement: Get a goddamn flu shot!

Yes, I know, this year’s vaccine doesn’t fully protect against one of the dominant strains this season. So maybe I would’ve caught the flu regardless. Or maybe not. Fifty percent effective is a helluva lot better than zero percent effective, so yeah, I was a fucking idiot for driving by all those drug stores with the “Get Your Flu Shot Now” signs, yet never stopping in.

Procrastination will likely kill me one day. But for now it has just made me totally fucking miserable. Get a flu shot.

Open Thread 12/22

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– Where to Get a Hot Meal for the Holidays

– Four Reasons To Be Hopeful for 2015

– You know what else? Every one of these fuckers who brings up The Great Dictator would, given the chance, have joined the red-baiters who kicked Chaplin out of America.

– I am digging Emmett’s Gross Happiness Index of Washington, and may have to play around with the data a bit.

– It seems both happy and sad that it’s 2014 and the President one time only calling on women in a press conference is news.

– Have you done all of your Christmas shopping? I should probably start mine (kidding, sorta).

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Thom: Politically correcting Bill-O on his crazy climate change statements.

Season’s Greetings:

James Rustad: Ted Cruz…a rebel without a clue.

Thom: You don’t frack with New York.

Jon hits Hannity over referring to Jay Z as a “crack dealer”

The Cuban Mingle Crisis:

Congressional Hits and Misses.

Ed and Pap: Another corrupt Bush seeking White House?

Young Turks: Andrew Hawkins has some powerful words:

Megyn Kelly: When things go weird with Obama.

Torture in our Name:

Larry Wilmore’s Nightly Show promo.

Sam Seder: Jeb Bush and the Republican clown car.

Obama talks about his own experience with racial profiling.

Thom: Is a climate disaster lurking off of the coast of Washington state?

Poison Pills:

White House: West Wing Week.

“Mom…you’re embarrassing us!”

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

Obama takes a swing at Keystone.

Sony and Kim-J:

Jimmy Dore: Ben Stein reveals his racist side talking about Ferguson.

Mental Floss: 13 inventions and innovations creating a better future for women.

Matt Binder: Ten Sandy Hook families sue gun maker.

Maddow: On Putin, GOP & FAUX News must eat their words:

Jimmy Kimmel: The YEAR in unnecessary censorship.

Does Stephen Commit Comicide?:

Thom: Is George Zimmerman right?

Sam Seder: Ted Cruz “own goals” the G.O.P..

Farron Cousins: Jeb Bush is the worst Republican traits on one package.

Not Mental Floss: 13 thing you think are true but aren’t.

Nutbag Republican state lawmaker proposes women have to ask men’s permission to have an abortion.

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

If Republicans Don’t Like Governor Inslee’s Tax Plans, the Onus Is on Them to Offer an Alternative

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If I were still working at The Stranger or free to blog full time here on HA, all I would be writing about right now is Governor Jay Inslee’s welcome new tax proposal. After years of stupidly austere all-cuts budgeting, Inslee has finally made the boldly responsible move to propose significant new revenue: $1.4 billion from new capital gains and carbon taxes in the next biennium. (And yes, it is an awful commentary on our political culture that I just strung together the phrase “boldly responsible.”)

Kudos Mr. Governor.

But of course, I’m not still Slogging or blogging full time, so I don’t have the time to go into the details. But what I will say is that as politically risky as a tax increase is traditionally presumed to be, Inslee’s proposal puts state Republicans in a much less enviable position than they might at first imagine.

As I have previously written, Washington State is on the verge of a constitutional crisis. It is simply mathematically impossible to meet the state Supreme Court’s McCleary mandate to fully fund K-12 education, without raising substantial new revenue. Can’t be done. There simply isn’t enough truly discretionary spending left in the general fund (let alone the mythical budget items waste, fraud, and abuse) to “reprioritize” to public schools. Inslee’s tax proposal is a recognition of that cold hard truth.

So when the Republican-controlled Senate rejects Inslee’s tax plan (and they will), what will they propose in its stead? Politically suicidal cuts like double-digit tuition hikes, emptying our state prisons, and eliminating health and human services? Or will they just defy the McCleary mandate, leaving the state in contempt of court?

Obviously, the latter.

To make matters worse for Republicans, how do they plan to pay for the twice deferred transportation funding package? Their own constituents are demanding long-promised road maintenance and expansion projects—projects Inslee’s carbon tax would fund. So if they reject the carbon tax, this leaves Republicans in the uncomfortable position of either opposing freeway expansion or championing an always unpopular gas tax! Pick your poison, GOPers.

No doubt Republicans thought they wanted to run against Inslee in 2016 as a tax-and-spender, but his budget puts them in a bit of quandary: Either they propose an alternative that finally names exactly which popular programs they seek to gut, or they risk branding themselves as obstructionists against funding roads and public schools—two programs that are broadly popular with voters, even their own tightfisted constituents.

Again, they’ll choose the latter, driving our state into a constitutional crisis and our roads and highways into further disrepair. And Inslee won’t just ask voters to reelect him in 2016, he’ll ask voters to give him the Democratic majority necessary to actually get shit done.

State Senator Doug Ericksen Is an Asshole

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Governor Jay Inslee proposed a politically ambitious cap-and-trade-ish plan on greenhouse gas emissions yesterday. No doubt a complex proposal on which there is plenty of room for policy analysis and political debate.  But this is how the Republicans responded:

Sen. Doug Ericksen, asshole

Sen. Doug Ericksen, asshole

State Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, who chairs Senate’s energy and environment committee, called Inslee’s cap-and-trade plan “an energy tax, which is really a tax on mobility — which is a tax on freedom.”

So, um, Senator Ericksen, I sincerely hope you take my criticism in the most constructive way possible, but you, sir, are an asshole.

Seriously. Governor Inslee proposes pricing carbon in a way similar to British Columbia, California, and a number of northeastern states—a modest and much studied market-based approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by forcing polluters to pick up just a small portion of the externalized costs—and you respond by accusing him of taxing our freedom? Because he hates our freedom, right? Just like Al Qaeda!

Of all the assholery an asshole could have devised, this has got to be the most assholic.

This is not a tax on freedom. If it is a tax, it is a tax on carbon emissions. Period. And only an asshole would equate carbon with freedom.

Please Help HA Blogger Emeritus Geov Parrish Get Back on His Feet

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Twenty years ago today Geov Parrish got a new lease on life when he became the rare recipient of a double organ transplant—pancreas and kidney. But that lease didn’t come cheap: Two decades of health care costs and crises have taken their toll. That, combined with a low-paid career in journalism and social justice activism, has left Geov virtually broke and homeless. As Geov explains in his pretty damn depressing holiday letter (pdf), it’s been a tough year:

I was getting sicker, and we discovered that I also was, after the stress and couch- surfing of the summer, suffering from dangerously high blood pressure. By the time I got that under control I was also dealing with a dental emergency – I finally got a tooth pulled and immediately started feeling a lot better. Best my guess is that I was suffering from an infection (via the tooth) that was doing a number on my health for two months. Welcome to America, where dental care isn’t considered health care. I’ve still got a lot of dental work pending that I cannot even remotely contemplate affording – $7,200 was the estimate two years ago.

While dealing with the tooth and the elevated blood pressure, it also emerged that my transplanted kidney was in trouble. A biopsy in September showed that about a third of my non-native kidney was permanently damaged, with scarring in progress on another sixth. I also had some sort of liver blockage. A surgery to remove the liver blockage in September cleared the way for a steroid treatment to attack a suspected kidney infection – but at that point my kidney function suddenly got better. It was probably a function of the tooth infection, not an infection of the kidney, but the long-term kidney damage is still real and worrisome. Usually, you’d expect my non-native pancreas to have problems first, but (knock wood) it’s doing great. The kidney prognosis is still unclear, though. I expect that in 2015 there’s a good chance I’ll be added to a transplant list for another kidney, to replace the one that’s done so well for so long.

If it sounds crazy that our health care system would pay to give Geov another kidney transplant, but not pay to provide the dental care that might have prevented the infection that damaged his first transplant, well, God bless America!

Whatever. At least Geov has friends. On Monday I asked HA readers, many of whom have enjoyed Geov’s writing here on this blog, in the Seattle Weekly, and in Eat the State, and your generosity has been heartening. The link has been making the rounds on Facebook, and Geov tells me that he received about $2,500 from about 40 different people over the first 24 hours. A big thanks to everybody who has given.

But I hope we can do more. So please give by clicking on the “Donate” button, or by sending a check:

Geov Parrish
PO Box 85541
Seattle WA 98145


Also, Geov and Revel are still looking for an affordable apartment that won’t set off her multiple chemical sensitivity disorder. If you’ve got a place for them to stay for a few weeks, it would be greatly appreciated. If you’ve got a lead on an apartment, let us know.

Geov has given a ton to the community over the past 20 years. Please give a little something back to help him get through this very difficult time.

Open Thread 12/17/2014

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– On top of everything else, the idea of a 2/3 vote for raising taxes is such an arbitrary number. Why not pi/5? Why not 8/11? Why not 100%?

– Don’t be a seat hog.

– Something something our trolls are always saying Obama is sooooo weak on Russia.

– Looks like Governor Inslee’s budget might be surprisingly not terrible.

– Looks like Dick Cheney is still not surprisingly terrible.

– But Ron Wyden is a good counter to Dick Cheney being terrible.

– When is torture torture? A thought experiment

Nominees for the Equine Posterior award

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As most of you know, the Horsesass in the title of this blog was inspired by Tim “Biggest Lie of My Life” Eyman. Specifically, Goldy purchased this domain name as part of his initiative that, if passed, would have declared Mr. Eyman a horse’s ass.

The fate of the initiative in qualifying for the ballot and, ultimately, succeeding at the ballot cannot be known, as the meddling state Attorney General sued Goldy to keep the initiative off the ballot. And, no, it wasn’t Rob McKenna—who certainly was an irrational Goldy-phobe. No…it was actually AG Christine Gregoire.

Goldy stuck with the Horsesass brand name, if only to give former FEMA Director Michael “Heck-of-a-Job-Brownie” Brown a little bit of irony in his life.

Goldy’s little local lefty blog has, apparently, inspired more than just McKenna and Brownie. People for the American Way who, among other things, have a project called Right Wing Watch, have an annual award that seems related to this blog:

The Equine Posterior Achievement Award has been created to honor that leader whose abilities to misrepresent an issue, manipulate his/her followers, brazenly disregard reality or pander to our baser instincts reach such ridiculous levels that we don’t know whether to laugh or cry. In other words, a genuine “horse’s patootie.”

Huh…it sounds like something Tim Eyman could qualify for…I mean, if he was actually a leader and had something approaching a national profile.

In any case, since you are reading a blog called Horsesass, might I interest you in voting for the most worthy recipient of the Equine Posterior Achievement Award?

This year’s nominees are Ted Cruz, the Benham Brothers, Gordon Klingenschmitt, Jody Hice, Texas State Board of Education, Glenn Beck, Pat Robertson, Ben Carson, Bryan Fischer, and Kevin Swanson. Them are some good nominees…but you can, instead, write-in your own favorite horse’s ass.

But don’t bother writing in Eyman. He’s no longer relevant.

Somebody Please Introduce the Seattle City Council to the Sunk Cost Fallacy

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Oy…

“The tunnel project is 70 percent completed, according to WSDOT, so there’s no turning back at this point,” [Seattle City Council President Tim Burgess] added. “It is city government policy that this project be completed. The governor agrees. The mayor agrees. We must move forward.”

Look, I’m not suggesting that now is necessarily the time to pull the plug on the deep bore tunnel (or more accurately, put a plug in it). I’m not privy to enough information to make that decision one way or the other. But we should at least be open to that possibility, regardless of how much money we’ve already spent on the project.

No doubt Burgess understands this. If the engineers were to estimate that it would cost an additional, say, $20 billion to “move forward” and complete the tunnel, I’m guessing Burgess would be more than willing to turn back at this point. But would he turn back if the cost of completion was another $1 to $2 billion? How about $4 billion? Or how about $10 billion?

The money we’ve already spent on the tunnel is a sunk cost (in more ways than one), and as such should have no impact on our future spending decisions. What matters from here on out, given the known cost overruns and risks, is whether we’re likely to get more for our taxpayer money completing the remaining 30 percent of the project, or whether it makes more sense to to turn back and pursue a different option. Our prior expenditure of both financial and political capital should in no way influence our decision.

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