HorsesAss.Org

Young Turks: Recreational pot causes long lines in CO .

The Horrors of Affordable Health Care for All:

• Ann Telnaes: Healthcare and freedom from religion.
• Kliff Notes: Obamacare dates to watch in 2014
• Chris Hayes: 9 Million Plus Served!
• Ed: ObamaCare marks a new era of security for Americans:
• Sam Seder: Debunking the right wing’s ObamaCare claims.
• Liberal Viewer: Really? Lie of the Year?
• Thom: Time to close the Red State doughnut hole:

Sam Seder: Did Chris Christie create massive traffic jams because of political feud?

Young Turks: Belief in evolution—Republicans versus Democrats.

Benghaaaaaaaaaaaaazzzzziiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!1!!11!

• David Pakman: Investigation finds no al Qaeda link in Benghazi.
• Chris Hayes: The New York Times Exposes GOP Benghazi lies.
• Joy Reid: New York Times punches holes in GOP’s Benghazi lies.

Pap and Thom: Oil industry wants to privatize profits, socialize risks.

Zina Saunders: The animated life and times of Ronald Reagan.

Young Turks: Billionaire warns the Pope.

Invasion of Privacy, Florida Style:

• Young Turks: Drug testing for welfare recipients is ruled unconstitutional.
• Sharpton: Judge strikes down Florida Gov. Rick Scotts’s racist drug testing plan.

David Pakman: Scott Walker makes WI #1…in jobless claims.

WaPo: How unemployment benefits could make a comeback.

Sam Seder: Is David Brooks high?!?

Young Turks: Charlie Christ “evolves” on gay marriage.

New Year:

• Mark Fiore: Little Suzie Newsykins remembers to forget for the new year.
• Lee Camp: The Most Jaw-Dropping Underreported Stories Of 2013
• Alex Wagner: America’s most colorful political characters in 2013:
• Young Turks: Was 2013 a good year?
• Joy Reid: Will 2014 be the year for liberals?
• David Pakman: 5 worst FAUX News moments of 2013
• Sen. Sherrod Brown’s New Year Resolution.
• Sen. Joe Manchin’s New Year’s Resolution.
• Sen. Tim Kaine’s New Year’s Resolution.
• Sen. Tom Harkin’s New Year’s Resolution.
• One minute news: Fun new laws for 2014.
• Mental Floss: 38 Bizarre items dropped on New Years.
• Ed: Ted Cruz is the 2013 “Pretender of The Year”
• White House: West Wing Week year in review.
• Young Turks: Best stories of 2013.

Maddow: Epic Koch brothers smackdown (via Crooks and Liars).

Sam Seder: Democrats will win with minimum wage in 2014.

David Pakman: Same-sex couples breaking records in Utah.

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

At 9:30 today, Seattle Mayor Ed Murray will hold a live web cast to “discuss next steps to raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour for all Seattle City employees”.

Watch it here:

Because we need another open thread.

– I Was An NFL Player Until I Was Fired By Two Cowards And A Bigot

– What the fuck, Border Patrol?

– Run Goldy.

– Hey, schools and other public institutions. Handle rape allegations better.

– Many of the people advocating this theory are religious leaders — church people who criticize government for not “allowing” the churches room to care for the poor and the jobless through private charity. Here’s their chance to put their money where their mouth is. Here’s their chance to prove they’ve been speaking truth and not just spouting hateful anti-poor garbage.

– The gun show loophole will almost certainly be on the ballot in November.

– I will have to stop using American idioms.

– OK, I’m going to be back to normal next week. I think it’ll still be Monday-Tuesday-Thursday open threads, but if you’d prefer Monday-Wednesday-Friday threads, let me know and I’ll consider it.

Today was “Green Wednesday” in Colorado, the first day of legal marijuana sales to all adults. Another great milestone in the dismantling of one of America’s most tragic and destructive policies. There’s not an exact date for when Washington’s stores will open, but it should be around May or June.

Here are my blogging resolutions for 2014:

• I’ll post more content than just “Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza” and “Drinking Liberally” this year.
• I’ll make every effort to avoid posts about Fibonacci sequences or Taylor series expansions.
• I’ll only blog professions of love to genuine offspring.
• I will not use the term “cephalonomancy” in a blog post this year. Period.
• I’ll scrap the draft about wetbacks with body parts the size of cantaloupes.
• I won’t blog about degrees of legitimacy regarding rape or about fecundability following rape.
• I’ll ALMOST shut down HorsesAss until Goldy agrees to getting lower internet connectivity, more limited resources, and crappier response time. Because FREEDOM!
• I’ll avoid uncomfortable sexual posts referring to unlubricated ass-fucking or the extra-plentiful quantity of pussy I have to eat at home.
• Oh…and I’ll avoid smoking anything while in a drunken stupor. Not even for the free munchies.
• I won’t write about a certain co-blogger’s pteronophobia
• I’ll refrain from commentary about dynasties, Dynasty, ducks, ducts of any sort, or even about about how to “die nasty.” Nuh-uh. Not gonna do it. Wouldn’t be prudent!
• I’ll eschew hackneyed clichés like “hackneyed clichés” and “Happy New Year!”

(Yup…it’s another open thread.)

1) Top 1 Top Lists of 2013 of 2013

(Feel free to use this as an open thread; no more of these unless I think of something even stupider.)

The last year end list wasn’t WA/Seattle oriented, like this blog ought to be. So here’s one for that.

In no particular order:

– General

– Primary

(seriously, feel free to use this as an open thread, and yes there’s more of this nonsense to come)

1-E
2-A
3-I, O (Tie)
5-U

(Feel free to use this as an open thread)

This is the Open Thread for the Bird’s Eye View Contest below. Please don’t leave any non-contest comments in that post. They WILL be deleted.

Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. It was the store in San Jose where one of the winning Mega Millions tickets was sold.

This week is the 5th week in December and last weekend of the year. As followers of this contest know, when I do the monthly news events, I try not to select news events that are particularly depressing. Sometimes I can’t avoid it because that’s what a lot of the news is, but for the most part, I’ve avoided selecting one of the many deadly shootings that occur in this country every damn day. So last year at this time, in order to highlight just how common these occur, I did a roundup of views that were related to mass shootings.

This year, I’m highlighting another horrible aspect of our nation’s ridiculous obsession with guns. All six locations below are related to a shooting where a child under the age of 5 was accidentally killed by a gun in 2013. As someone who has two kids under the age of 5, I can’t even fathom how stupid you have to be to allow something like this to happen to your own child, but it happens almost weekly. So again, forgive the morbidity of this week’s contest, but this is something that shouldn’t be so damn common.

Notes:
1 – All views are default orientation (up is north)
2 – The “no political comments” rule will be strictly enforced in this thread, there will be an Open Thread posted at 12:01pm that you may weigh in on the larger subject of gun control (or whatever else you want)

A

B

C

D

E

F

2 Kings 2:23-24

Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up the road, some youths came from the city and mocked him, and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead! Go up, you baldhead!”

So he turned around and looked at them, and pronounced a curse on them in the name of the LORD. And two female bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.

Discuss.

Young Turks: Edward Snowden declares, “Mission Accomplished”.

White House: Favorite GIFs of 2013.

Top ten things FAUX decided will lead to the “Wussification of America” in 2013 (via Media Matters).

Newsy: Poll finds 113th is the worst Congress ever.

Maddow: The Koch brothers now funding & “polluting” Florida State University:

Michael Brooks and Michelle Goldberg: The Right’s war on “White trash” the the poor.

Holiday Residual:

• Mark Fiore: Saint Ayn Rand visits the day after Christmas.
• Ann Telnaes: The real war on Christmas.
• Red State Update: Episode 58, A Duck Dynasty Butthole Christmas.

David Pakman: Obamacare signups soar.

The GOP’s most terrible Christmas gift.

Sam Seder: Why don’t we have universal health care?

Young Turks: Alan Turing is pardoned.

How the conservative media treated women in 2013 (via Media Matters).

Newsy: NSA phone metadata collection ruled unconstitutional and then ruled constitutional.

Women to watch for 2014.

Sharpton: Cartoon combatant Sarah Palin defends racist ‘Duck Dynasty’ star.

The Jibjab 2013 Year in Review.

Pontificating on the Pope:

• Young Turks: The Pope’s approval ratings, and why it matters.
• Sam Seder and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Republicans fear progressive Pope.
• Sam Seder: Why Pope Francis’ rhetoric is encouraging.

Sam Seder: The Tea Party is just the Republican base.

Why a “do nothing” congress? Republican nutjobbers blame Obama.

Photos found from photographer killed in Mt. St. Helens blast.

Lawrence O’Donnell: The “teaching moment” in Duck-Dynasty racism and homophobia.

Matt Binder: After children die in tornado, GOP still blocks tornado shelters by cutting taxes.

David Pakman: Congress ends least productive year in recent history.

Sharpton: The “bully bridge politics” of N.J. Gov. Chris Christie.

Climate Change Chump Change:

• Young Turks: Who funds climate change deniers?
• David Pakman: $1 Billion against climate change?

Lawrence O’Donnell: Debate about opting out of health insurance:

Sam Seder and Cliff Schecter: A trip to the Creation Museum.

Young Turks: Tea Party happily uses poster mocking them in popular video game.

Newsy: Obama looks ahead for 2014.

David Pakman: 13 states raising minimum wage in 2014.

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

I haven’t done an Open Thread in like a week. Rather than collecting links, I’ve been not doing that, but here goes:

– Too big to jail sounds like a facile little slogan but it appears to be completely accurate

– Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) Signups/Applications (h/t to my friend R)

– Cascadian politics and how we vote in a primary around here

– In a few years when gay marriage is just “marriage”, there’s going to be a reckoning.

– The White Center food bank needs volunteers.

– The Life’s Not Fair doctrine

Give Senator Don Benton this: He is an asshole. No, give him this: He was able to get a non-story into the news. Anyway start with his Christmas Eve press release

Senator Don Benton of Vancouver said he wants an audit of Planned Parenthood following accusations of fraudulent Medicaid billing.

Oh gosh. That sounds serious. “Accusations” must be a government office. What it couldn’t be — because it would be embarrassing even to the credibility challenged GOP — is a random group with the fake grassrootsiest name in the history of organizations.

He called for the investigation after a group called The Alliance Defending Freedom accused Planned Parenthood of over-billing Medicaid and the state of Washington at least 50,000 times, costing the state $337 million.

Oh. I’m not including Benton’s link to it here, but he links to the group, who are doing some year end fundraising. He doesn’t link to the “accusation” just to their front page fundraising page.* I just looked around the page, but this ostensible millions of dollars in fraud, this supposed bombshell, this major revelation of fraud, wasn’t easy to find. I’m sure it’s on their website, somewhere, but it wasn’t obvious to me. There is a lot of complaining about the war on Christmas, so there’s that.

So a group nobody has ever heard of makes inflammatory accusations, and they’re repeated by Senator Benton who demands an audit. This is a Senator who is so concerned with the public money that he took a make work job for his off time (Columbian link), so you know he’s serious.

Anyway, the press release ends with a link to what looks like a real news org picking it up. Jesus, your liberal media.

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