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Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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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:

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:

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:

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.

Open Thread 12/27

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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

Today In Bullshit Links

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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.

[Read more…]

Troubled bridge over waters

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In recent Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganzas, I’ve posted a couple of videos discussing the growing scandal for G.O.P. “pretty boy”, Gov. Chris Christie. The scandal is about alleged political retribution that resulted in delays for, perhaps, hundreds of thousands of drivers by jamming up the George Washington Bridge.

The scandal that started out looking like “meh” (to me) seems to be getting worse by the day, and recently took another serious turn.

The question is whether this is Gov. Christie’s Katrina or merely Christie’s Benghazi. Either way, popcorn stocks should be trending upward for the foreseeable future.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Cillizza: Who do Americans blame for the economy?

Jon: Then…who is conservative enough?

Sharpton: The Wingnutosphere’s new punching bag—pajamaboy.

2013 Remembered:

Jon on John Boehner.

Thom: Here’s the Jim Jones Kool-Aid the GOP is Serving:

Stephen reads Sen. Ted Cruz’s coloring book.

Michael Brooks: Chris Christie is the biggest political gimmick in America.

Thom: Boeing vs. Machinists.

David Pakman: Marco Rubio signs up!

Steve Kornacki : Which U.S. President had the worst 5 years ever?

Stephen on Duck Dynasty stuff (via Crooks and Liars).

Spyin’

Why divest from fossil fuels?

Mark Fiore: Jesus rebranded.

Obama holds a presser.

Jon says goodbye to John.

Thom: Are Obama haters worse than Bush haters?

Maddow: FLASHBACK to when ‘Hoosier-Daddy’ Rep. Dan Burton claimed Clinton murdered WH aid.

Top 10 Races of 2014 (continued):

Pap and Ed: Republican voter fraud witch hunt continues.

Daily Show: Hunger USA.

American Minute: Selfies and handshakes.

David Pakman: Colin Powell calls for universal health care.

White House: West Wing Week.

Immigration advocates warn of political fallout.

Winter Holiday Themes:

Sam Seder and Digby: How blogging changed progressive politics.

Pap and Ed: Republicans fear the teachings of Jesus.

Young Turks: FAUX’s Duck Dynasty Hypocrisy.

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

Open Thread 12/20

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– The (Catholic High School) kids are all right.

– Linda Thomas’ goodbye to KIRO and Cienna Madrid’s goodbye to Stranger readers.

– I’m glad the city is looking into ways to not discourage marijuana tourism, but I find it a bit odd that it’s coming from the City Attorney’s office.

– Phil Robertson’s America

– Civilization doesn’t have to be a casino.

– At least it doesn’t have fucking video ads.

– I wold totally play about 8 of these, if given the chance.

– Holy shit were bus drivers awesomesauce this morning.

– I imagine my posting will be lighter than usual in the next few weeks, but really, your reading will be lighter, so it all balances out.

Snow

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We got a dusting of snow Downtown but not too much. And there’s more snow further North and less South.

Snow will is now peaking in the greater Puget Sound area and it will snow heavily for the next two hours or so then lighten and change to rain. Changeover to rain has already occured along the coast (as planned) and that changeover will gradually spread from southwest to northeast. We’re still thinking Seattle changeover to rain around 9 am or so.

Leave extra time to get to work as people might finally realize it’s OK to slow down a bit (and be one of those people if you drive) and public transit is extra crowded. I’m already regretting my decision to go back to work today, but I’m feeling OK, so I guess I should. Here’s a list of school closures/delays.

How is it in your neck of the woods?

FAUX News and voter fraud fraud

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FAUX News’ Eric Shawn engages in a bit of fraud about voter fraud yesterday in an article headlined Non-citizens caught voting in 2012 presidential election in key swing state.

The article points out that Ohio’s SOS found that “17 non-citizens illegally cast ballots in the 2012 presidential election,” and then claims that “[t]he alleged crime would be a notable case of voter fraud in a key swing state.”

Oooohhh…17 votes in a key swing state! That must be bad.

Or not. First, calling isolated cases of illegal votes by individuals “voter fraud” is bullshit.

The term “fraud” suggests an illegal act designed to ensure a particular election result. An individual has almost no chance of ever changing the outcome of an election with an illegal vote. Doing so requires: (1) a perfect 50-50 “legitimate” election outcome, (2) casting an illegal (and, therefore, decisive) vote, and (3) not getting caught. The first is exceedingly unlikely in any election, the last becomes decreasingly likely as the outcome approaches a tie—because of recounts and the scrutiny that comes with legal challenges to a close election.

The term “election fraud” should be limited to cases where multiple illegal votes are cast, and unless it is an election official manipulating the election machinery, election fraud by illegal votes would typically require cooperation among a fairly large group of people. With a large enough conspiracy, an election could, potentially, be swayed—but the chances of the conspiracy being uncovered also goes up with the number of people involved.

The FAUX News article goes on to state, “President Obama beat Mitt Romney in Ohio by just 2 percentage points in November 2012.” Oh. My. God. Clearly, those 17 votes were important.

Slate’s David Weigel points out the REAL fraud going on here:

Did you catch that, how Shawn pivoted from the number of total votes to the percentage of votes? Why would he do that? Without reading his mind, I’d guess it’s because the actual Ohio margin between Obama and Romney last year was 166,272 votes, and Shawn wants to keep his readers as ignorant as posssible. Seventeen votes represents 0.0003 percent of the total of ballots cast for either Obama or Romney in the state, and 0.01 percent of the margin.

Reporters who are brighter and less dishonest than Shawn have come away from the Husted data with a different take. There was, according to [Ohio SOS Jon] Husted, no plot to steal votes or fake votes in the 2012 election. The noncitizens who voted had driver’s licenses, so basic voter ID laws wouldn’t have stopped them.

The voter fraud illusion continues with a favorite slight of hand used by the voter fraud alarmists: a switch away from illegal or fraudulent votes to messiness in the voter rolls.

Husted also found that 274 non-citizens remain on the voting rolls.
[…]

As part of Ohio’s efforts to clean up the voting rolls, election officials discovered that more than 257,000 dead people were still listed as active voters.

In addition, election authorities note they have drastically reduced the number of duplicate registrations, from 340,000 in 2011 to just four this past November — and that more than 370,000 Ohio voters who have moved have been contacted to update their voting information.

It doesn’t seem like much of a conspiracy that 257,000 dead people have failed to remove themselves from the voter rolls. What about the duplicate registrations and the ones where voters have moved and not updated their registration?

Here is a relevant anecdote. Some of you may remember “Mr. Cynical” who dumped his little nuggets of wisdom in the HA comment threads for many years. Mr. Cynical was deeply “concerned” about voter fraud in Washington. I know who Mr. Cynical is and where he used to live in Washington state. Even two years ago—several years after he moved out of state—Mr. Cynical was still listed on the voter roll in the Washington county in which he no longer resided. Apparently HA’s own voter fraud concern troll was engaging in a little election FRAUD!!!11!1!!

Or maybe not. I used to check his registration periodically to see if he actually voted. He didn’t. It seems he simply forgot to cancel his registration in Washington until he became an “inactive voter” and was eventually purged.

I’m willing to bet that the vast majority of those duplicate and “moved” registrations result from the “nefarious” act of people forgetting to cancel their registration when moving.

If only there was some way of automating the process of transferring voter registration for voters who move. In fact, there is.

The National Voter Registration Act, enacted in 1993, has a provision that requires state’s license registration agencies to forward license address changes to county election boards in order to keep their voter roles clean. So, at least, moves within the state should be cleaned quickly.

Ohio was a bit sluggish in compliance with the law:

This month [May, 2013], the [Ohio] secretary of state’s office began distributing change of address information from driving records to county boards of elections at least twice a week. That information can then be used by the county boards to update addresses for registered voters.

Effectively sharing that data is a component of the voter registration act. Despite being law since 1993, Ohio was not in compliance with that requirement.

Much of the messiness in the Ohio voter roles is a consequence of taking 20 years to comply with the National Voter Registration Act.

Rather than pointing this out, FAUX News uses the numbers to insinuate a sense of chaos in our electoral process. To my mind, that make them co-conspirators in Karl Rove’s voter fraud fraud.

Drug Law Reform Denialism

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If you were online at all today, you probably saw a headline like this one from Reuters:

U.S. teens smoke more marijuana, but back off other drugs: survey

The article starts out with fingers pointed exactly where we’d expect them to be pointed:

U.S. teenagers are smoking more marijuana, but backing away from other harmful drugs and doing less binge drinking, according to a report from federal health researchers released Wednesday.

Easier access to marijuana provided by new state laws allowing the drug for medical treatment may be a factor, according to the report from the National Institutes of Health.

…

More teens are smoking marijuana in part because they see less risk from regular use, according to the “Monitoring the Future” survey.

There’s only one small problem. The data in the Monitoring the Future survey doesn’t really back this up at all. If you click to the survey here, they have excellent charts showing just how weak this claim is. Here’s the chart for those in 8th, 10th, and 12th grade who’ve reported using marijuana in the past year:

The percentage of teens reporting marijuana use has been relatively steady since the mid 1990s and still much lower than the late 1970s. The chart of those reporting daily use is a little closer to showing some kind of increase, but still well below use levels in the 1970s.

The purpose of all of this isn’t a mystery. Anti-drug groups are desperate to find ways to show how drug law reform is backfiring. They like to point to surveys that show that people perceive marijuana as being safer than they used to. Well, yeah, they probably should. Americans in general are learning more and more that marijuana is safer than we’ve been told. But that hasn’t translated into any big spikes in use among teens. Why? Probably because of this chart, which shows what percentage of 8th, 10th, and 12th graders say that marijuana is “fairly easy” or “very easy” to get:

That’s the real story here, that the gradual regulation of marijuana markets has the opposite effect on teen availability than what we’ve long been led to believe. But this chart and what it shows isn’t what makes the headlines. Instead, imaginary claims from government officials are uncritically passed along as news, and the important story is buried.

Bonus Open Thread!!!!!!!!!!

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I’m feeling like crap, so I’m heading to bed as soon as I get home. If I’m feeling better (or knowing me if I just can’t sleep) later on, I’ll post something. But otherwise, zzzzzzzzzz for me. Here are some topics:

– Christmas recipes

– Newtonmass recipes

– Carl is a dummy for walking to DL when he was already feeling a bit down.

– Carl should have taken his car, so it’s his own fault.

– How this won’t change Carl’s WARONCARZ stances, that are totally real.

– Something something Ed Murray

– Socialism!

– Communism!

– Is there a difference between the two?

– Obama

– Thanks Obama!

– #THANKSOBAMA!

– Oh, the Senate passed a shitty budget, but it’s probably better than the sequester budget.

– Get well soon, Carl*

– The State GOP. What, why?**

– How many pieces on this list before it feels like it’s just padding?

– Have we hit that already?

– Was it somewhere between “Here are some topics” and “Christmas recipes” or did it manage to be before that?

– Does Carl know his stupid lists are stupid, and even worse when he’s only going at 50% at the most?

– Whatever you want: you’re an adult

[Read more…]

$15

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The major issue next year in Seattle will be the push to get a $15 minimum wage either passed by the City Council or the voters. And I’m heartened to see that Council Member Elect Sawant is going to keep the pressure on.

Asked whether she’d be willing to wait until the end of mayor-elect Ed Murray’s first four-year term—Murray has said he wants to get to $15 an hour by the end of his first term in office—Sawant said no. “I think that’s too late, because working people … have to put food on the table today. They have to pay the rent every month. They can’t tell their landlord to wait four years.”

However, despite the emphasis on urgency, she struck a more conciliatory note on the specifics. “This is not something that we want to come up with unilaterally.” (Sawant has a habit of referring to herself in the plural).

I think that’s a bit of an unfair characterization given that she’s there with a large group of people, but whatever. The larger point that there will be a continued push from Murray’s, and the median council member’s, left probably bodes well for passing it.

I know Murray campaigned on passing it and I have no reason to doubt he wants to pass it for political as well as moral reasons. But I worry that he’s more concerned with irenic posturing to business interests than pressing ahead when there’s momentum. So hopefully this campaign will be a check on the people who are surely trying to process it to death.

If you’re interested in checking it out, there’s 15now.org. Looks like right now, they’re just trying to get your contact info. But there will presumably be more info once the push kicks into high gear.

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