I can’t speak for Goldy, Darryl or anyone else here, but I’ve been running kind of slow since the election. This post is just a quick note that probably until January, I’m going to just do Monday-Wednesday-Friday open threads, but not much else. If there’s something major I want to talk about, I’ll probably have a longer bullet in an open thread.
Come January, I’ll probably be back. But for now, in case you’re wondering why there have been fewer Carl Ballard posts on HA, there’s why.
– (a) Uber seems nice, I’m glad the city caved to everything they want. (b) Seems like a solid arrangement, press.
– The Town Hall on Gender Pay Equity is happening December 2.
– It’s strange because every war is also the Cold War for the GOP.
– What Fair & Balanced Would Look Like
– How come Obama never cites scripture? How dare Obama cite scripture?
– Now that Obama is an emperor for doing something other presidents have done, how does it feel living in a not free society?
Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. It was Covington, KY.
This week’s contest is related to something in the news in November, good luck!
And sadly, next week’s contest will be the last one, at least for a while. There are several reasons for this, but one is that I’m considering a new weekly feature for 2015 related to current events once again, something I haven’t had time to do in the past few years. Huge thanks to everyone who comes by each week to solve these. I’m always amazed by how hard I have to make these to stump you.
1 Corinthians 14:34-35
Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church.
Discuss.
Mental Floss: Misconceptions about pets.
Sam Seder: Tommy Chong smokes FAUX News.
Executive Action:
Matt Binder: The KKK does some “rebranding”.
Lawrence O’Donnell: Why the 2014 election spells disaster for Republicans in 2016.
Stephen: Assholes for Freedom.
Sam Seder and Dahlia Lithwick: What’s ruining the Supreme Court.
Liberal Viewer: FAUX News politicizes ISIS beheading.
WaPo: Sentenced to death without all the evidence.
David Pakman: Libertarian “champion” Rand Paul helps kill NSA reform bill.
Lawmaker asks about a moat for the White House.
Sam Seder: Bill-O-The-Clown kicks off the 2014 War On Christmas Season for FAUX News.
Political Keystone:
Olbermann: Bill-O the Clown is BACK as Worst Person in the World!
Sam Seder: The funniest public service ad ever.
Puppet Nation: U.S. News of the Week:
White House: West Wing Week.
Lewis Black breaks down FAUX News’ relationship with Black Friday.
David Pakman: Court rejects challenge to contraception rules.
Stephen does Jon.
Chris Hayes: More deceptive FAUX News propaganda.
Neutrality Confusion:
Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.
Mental Floss: 62 last name meanings.
Maddow: What we want and who we elected to do it.
Jon: Who is Jonathan Gruber?
Thom: More Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
There have now been something like seven major investigations into BENGHAAAAAAAZZZZZZZZIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!1!11!!!
Today the GOP-controlled House “Intelligence” Committee released the results of their two year investigation into the “Worse-than-9-11” events. They did so without fanfare on a weekend that almost assures Americans will be preoccupied with anything but the report.
Here is a recap of findings. The committee found that
…the CIA and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees.
…[T]he investigation … determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, intelligence about who carried it out and why was contradictory, the report found. That led Susan Rice, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to inaccurately assert that the attack had evolved from a protest, when in fact there had been no protest. But it was intelligence analysts, not political appointees, who made the wrong call, the committee found. The report did not conclude that Rice or any other government official acted in bad faith or intentionally misled the American people.
There were a lot of crazy assholes spewing some bizarre theories about a lot of non-things.
And there was just plain lying…like the claim, easily debunked, that Obama never referred to the the incident as terrorism FOR 14 DAYS. Nope…he did the morning after in the Rose Garden and twice more in Colorado over the next two days. This line of Wingding bullshit bit them back is their own ass when presidential wannabe Mitt Romney made an ass of himself during a debate with Obama (priceless video). (Most non-crazy people wondered what difference it made whether it was called or not called “terrorism”, but I digress….)
Not one of the Benghazi theories have panned out for the Wingnuts. Yet, this should have been self-evident after the first investigation. And verified after the second, and double verified after the third….
By, say, the third report, the Republican wack-jobs still spewing BENGHAAAAZZZZZZIIIII!!!!1!1!! were just lying.
Or they are pitifully stupid and totally incapable of ordinary things like reading, evaluating evidence, and synthesis. The first few reviews were supposed to make that easy for them.
Or they’re just fucking crazy.
It’s tough to tell the difference with this bunch.
– Good on Councilwoman Sawant for getting arrested in protest of the $15 minimum wage.
– No nominee is above criticism, of course, but liberals shouldn’t be reflexively anti-Loretta Lynch.
– The more the merrier in primaries, I say. But I don’t think I’ll be supporting Jim Webb for President.
– Mr Cosby – you don’t have to talk. Maybe it’s time for women to talk instead.
– I’m a sucker for a good science story, and this one about finding out the cause of the Pacific Northwest starfish die off is pretty interesting.
There has been a lot of talk — including from me in the last Open Thread — about the Seattle City Council doing a lot of great things right now. The budget looks surprisingly good. The $15 minimum wage passed. They’ve also done more symbolic (but still important!) things like opposing the Hyde Amendment.
There are certainly a lot of reasons for this. In some ways it has been building to it for a while; They passed the sick leave/safe leave bill a few years ago; Both candidates for mayor supported the $15 minimum wage. Since the election of a Socialist city wide, the rest of the City Council has to watch their left flank; Sawant has also done a better job holding the line than some other lefty stalwarts on the council before her. Now that there are districts, a lot of the City Council members have a smaller, more accountable, constituency to appease.
But, also the fact that they’re all up for reelection at the same time means they’re all accountable RIGHT NOW. This is democracy working! So this may be a unique moment to get the entire council to follow a more populist agenda than at any time going forward.
There’s a myth that you can’t get anything done in an election year. Maybe that’s true in divided governments or in particularly polarized situations. But in Seattle it certainly hasn’t been the case. Maybe every seat should be up for reelection every 2 years going forward.
– You always hope for a speedy resolution to labor strife, but I support the Longshore workers.
– Slow down on Rainier Ave, pleez.
– This year’s Seattle city budget looks pretty good.
– Sidewalks should never be ‘closed’ for construction projects
– Astronomical Sexism: Rosetta #ShirtStorm and Everyday Sexism in STEM [h/t]
– Agreed that Santarchy is The Worst Fucking Night In The Bars
Please join us tonight for some political punditry and populist pontification over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.
We meet tonight and every Tuesday evening 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.
Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings this week. Tonight the Tri-Cities and Shelton chapters also meet. The Lakewood chapter meets on Wednesday. On Thursday, the Tacoma chapter meets.
With 202 chapters of Living Liberally, including sixteen in Washington state, four in Oregon and three in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting somewhere near you.
– I’m sold on Donna Edwards to head the DCCC
– Looks like Pronto is starting out pretty strong.
– Don’t deport parents of citizens. I know an executive order isn’t the perfect solution, but it’s the one that’s available. And yeah, let’s blame the right people.
– Go watch some of these bike movies.
– What a map of Africa might have looked like without European colonization
– I am 12 years old, but Mann’s Seed Store cracked me up. Also, the post itself is interesting. I haven’t lived in Olympia for a long time, but I feel like I should have been able to identify more buildings.
Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. It was Corpus Christi, Texas.
This week’s is a random location somewhere in the state of Kentucky, good luck!
Chronicles 15:13
All who would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, were to be put to death, whether small or great, man or woman.
Discuss.
Jon: The retirements of Shrub and Jimmy.
Climate Change and Pseudo-controversy:
Young Turks: Nobody showed up for the media Ebola orgy.
Chris Hayes: Outrageous FBI letter to Martin Luther King: “KILL yourself”:
SlateTV: How a crossword puzzle is created.
John Oliver: State Lotteries.
Election Aftermath:
John Oliver returns to the Daily Show to interview Jon.
Thom: The Good, The Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.
White House: West Wing Week.
Chris Hayes: KKK is ready for ‘war’ in Ferguson .
Mental Floss: Misconceptions about technology.
Stephen: Outraged at only two million?!?
Latest Health Care Pseudo-controversy:
Thom: George W. Bush killed Seattle resident Tomas Young.
PSA: It’s on Us…Don’t be a bystander.
Jon: List of innocent things black people do that look suspicious.
Young Turks: Undeniable proof that the media isn’t liberal, at all.
Maddow: Arizona votes to nullify federal law…and biology textbooks.
David Pakman: Veterans troll Sarah Palin on Veteran’s Day.
Thom: More Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.
Puppet Nation: U.S.A News of the week.
Net Nude Trail It Tea:
Jon explains his style of activism.
Pap: Bush’s real legacy—The 5th Circuit Court.
David Pakman: Democrats, NOT Republicans, are the party of freedom & liberty.
Maddow: Conservative media creates parallel universe:
On the Rhodes: An Update from Burma.
Michelle Obama’s greatest video hits.
Political Jesus:
Batman: Republican or Democrat?
Stephen: Breitbart’s “corrected” story.
Mental Floss: 25 things you might not know about Harry Potter.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
– I like most of these ideas for Revenue-Positive Policy Changes Made Politically Possible By Low-Income ORCA. I’m not sure about 4, although it would probably quicken up the tunnel.
– There is a long space between good and better than the Ferguson PD
– On the one hand, the airlines throwing everything against the wall and generally being assholes is pretty much par for the course. On the other hand, what a bunch of assholes.
– You can’t just arrest people for being dipshits who don’t understand the law they were opposed to.
– They haven’t even taken back the reigns of the Senate, and already the GOP can’t help but look at a government shutdown.
– Congrats to the European Space Agency.
– Kirk Cameron seems neat
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!