HorsesAss.Org

So now that Seattle is going to have a mixed districts and at large City Council, I wonder how it’s going to shake out. I linked this morning to a piece in this morning’s Open Thread on some of the possible political ramifications of that vote. But I’m also curious about what this might mean for how the city is governed. Are there going to be committees that are chaired by at large or, specific districts?

Just looking at the list of committees, it seems like the Central Waterfront, Seawall, and Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Program, the South Lake Union, the SR 520 Project, the Town Hall, and the Yesler Terrace committees would be chaired by people who represented those specific geographic areas. You could also argue that there are some that might be downtown heavy like Public Safety, Civil Rights, and Technology and some that are less so like Parks and Neighborhoods, although obviously there is crime and are parks in all of the districts. There also might be some things that make more sense to be chaired by an at large person: Transportation, City Light Strategic Plan, or the Budget committee.

Also, I wonder how constituent services will work. Presumably most people will go to, or be directed to, their individual council member like happens in Congress or the legislature now. But will the at large members have constituent services related to their committees or just if people aren’t interested in going to the person who represents their district?

– I’m pretty amazed that the requirement in the health care law that men and women pay the same is the hill the GOP have decided to fight on.

– Congrats to Whatcom County on electing anti-coal export terminal candidates (Seattle Times link).

– I think the fallout from the district elections will be interesting. Erica C. Barnett teases out some of the political implications.

– I liked reading about Jeff Merkley’s role in ENDA.

– I think I knew the date that the Tacoma Narrows bridge collapsed, but 1940, on this date seems ludicrously recent in my mind.

– Flying is safe.

I’m pretty disappointed with the result of I-522. I’m not sure anyone has called anything yet, but after today’s 4:30 ballot drop, it’s still no at 54.33%. And yes, it still proves –as if further proof were needed — that rather depressingly, big money can buy elections in this state, at least initiatives. Still while the $22 million spent to get a victory can be thought of as dispiriting: breaking records of spending made a big difference in the end. Suck!

Still, I think there may be a small bit of hope in a staggeringly large number. First, given that only a tiny tiny ity bitty fraction was from in state, that’s money flowing in here. More important though is that they had to spend that much money. Sure, they won, but it might put some big money interests off in the future if they think they might have to spend that much on a campaign.

It may be a hollow victory in the face of an actual loss, but it’s better than nothing.

Boo.

Flanked by Boeing and union leaders, Gov. Jay Inslee on Tuesday announced a tentative deal to win assembly of the Boeing 777X in Washington state.

The deal hinges on a legislative special session to pass $8 billion in tax incentives for Boeing through 2040. Other elements of the plan are a long-stalled $10 billion, 10-year transportation package, fast permitting for manufacturers, and education for aerospace workers.

“The bottom line is that this is what Boeing and the Machinists need to compete in the global marketplace and build this airplane in our state, and for us to secure our economic future,” Inslee said, adding that he hopes the package will be passed in the next week.

Look, I know that politicians know that if they don’t offer these sorts of deals, and Boeing up and moves production elsewhere, they’ll get some blame. And they should do some things to make sure Boeing does stay. But man are these sweetheart deals annoying. And as Goldy points out, Boeing is a profitable company.

Hopefully, as long as they’re using the special session to give Boeing everything it wants, the legislature can find time to pass a decent transit package.

It’s election night. Please be sure to VOTE, and then join us for some electoral punditry and political prognostication over a pint at tonight’s Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday evening at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Our normal starting time is 8:00pm.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter also meets. The Lakewood chapter meets this Wednesday. For Thursday, the Spokane and Tacoma chapters meet. And on Friday, the Centralia chapter meets.

With 211 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

– Vote if you haven’t already. The Washington State Democrats want to make sure you do. Remember Seattle, if you don’t vote, the slightly worse candidate might be mayor.

– You don’t say, coal trains cause coal dust? Actually, in all seriousness, these sorts of studies are important, and even if the answer seems obvious, it’s important to have data.

– Construction starts in a few weeks on the seawall.

– Oh look Rachel Maddow mentioned the I-522 campaign:

$550 of the $22m raised against WA proposal to label GMO food comes from in-state. Not $550k, but $550: http://t.co/nJNuRFtlKu

— Rachel Maddow MSNBC (@maddow) November 4, 2013

– So how is it that the US government was caught flat-footed about foreclosuregate? How is it that the UK government was caught off guard by the London Whale and Libor Rate-Rigging scandal? How is it that ANY of the financial shenanigans of the past decade took place and yet there have been few, if any, prosecutions?

– The Parks Legacy Citizens Advisory Committee (PLCAC), appointed to consider Seattle Parks and Recreation’s future funding options, has released a first draft of 37 newly prioritized investment initiatives (funding recommendations) that are being considered for a possible ballot measure in August 2014.

– I’m not sure why zombies are so popular right now, but they can draw in cartography nerds.

I like Linda Thomas. I think she’s one of the smartest people doing radio, and I’ve linked positively to her on numerous occasions. But I think there’s a hook she has used in some of her pieces.

You might drive by public art and not realize you paid for it. The Ballard bridge, for example, has eight sculptures attached that represent fish nets, propellers and other aspects of the neighborhood’s history.

And

He walks with a limp along North 105th Street in Seattle at the intersection with Aurora Avenue. He asks motorists stopped at the traffic light, “Could you help me please?” His sign says he’s “severely disabled.” I’ve seen him talk on a cell phone. He often wears Seahawks clothing. That’s all I know about the man who carries a cardboard sign at the same spot every day.

You know, if you’re in a city, one of the nice things is that you can get places outside of your car. I mean maybe not 99 North, but for much of the city, you can walk past people and art. You can get a lot out of Seattle on a bike or on foot, that one of our smartest newspeople thinks it’s natural to miss. I hope for those of us who take advantage of it, being able to get around in non-car ways lets us appreciate the artistic, and natural beauty, as well as seeing more of the people around us.

And I will add that, obviously, I’m not telling anyone how to get from point A to point B in this town. If you want to drive, God bless. And as an able-bodied guy, it often is, or can be perceived to be, safer for me to be on the street than for other people. Still, being on ground level out of a car is a valuable part of city life.

– Shelter Beds or Westlake Park

– You know what, I’m sort of coming to the conclusion that I don’t like that Mitt Romney fellow all that much.

– Cascade Bikes is going to make a push for safe routes to parks in a levy in 2014. Here’s a change.org petition if you’re interested.

– The tea party has the same political effect that original Bircherism had — making good and necessary things harder to do. And it has the same human effect — ensnaring the gullible and the fearful in a miserable cocoon of falsehood, fright, indignation and baseless resentment.

– My biggest hope here is that Jay Inslee embarrasses Dori Monson on the basketball court half as much as Monson embarrasses the medium of radio on a daily basis.

Last week’s contest was won by Geoduck. It was City Hall in Newark, NJ, where now-Senator Cory Booker officiated some of the first gay marriages in New Jersey.

This week’s is a random location somewhere on earth, good luck!

Leviticus 19:19
Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.

Discuss.

Bill Maher with some new rules (via Crooks and Liars).

Maddow: The fight to keep Republicans from tainting scientific climate reports. Part I.
Maddow: The fight to keep Republicans from tainting scientific climate reports. Part II.

Spooky Times:

• Ann Telnaes: James Clapper insists spying was okay.
• Stephen: See no evil (via Crooks and Liars).
• Ann Telnaes: The NSA is watching you.
• Jon: Congress is shocked, SHOCKED, the NSA was doing bad things.
• Ann Telnaes: The scary face of surveillance.

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

Steve Kornacki: The history of Black Senators, Part I.
Steve Kornacki: The history of Black Senators, Part II.

Maddow: How you pay congress to do nothing!

Sharpton with Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA-7): Republicans will say anything about President Obama just to see him fail.

Cruz Mis-sell:

• Maddow: Harry Reid on a Ted Cruz nomination, “…end of the Republican party”.
• Bill Maher on Ted Cruz: GOP always been “masters” of “are you kidding me” candidates
• Thom politically corrects Ted Cruz.
• Lawrence O’Donnell: Ted Cruz surrenders….
• Sam Seder: Ted Cruz’s father goes all Birfer.
• Young Turks: Ted Cruz grilled by Univision host Jorge Ramos.
• Bashir: GOP 6 feet under as Ted Cruz’s dad wants to send Obama ‘back-to-Kenya’
• Sharpton: Cruz plays it loose with hate.

Sam Seder: Seattle’s socialist movement.

Jon has some words for the media: Go fuck yourself.

Thom: Why is the GOP trying to insert the Government into a woman’s uterus?

Liberal Viewer: FAUX News likes bank fraud?!?

The Audacity of Affordable Health Care for Everyone:

• Republicans admit they are living in Oz!
• Pap: Sorry GOP, ObamaCare is working.
• Stephen is heartbroken over missing Obamacare woman.
• Young Turks: But, but, but Obama said you could keep your health plan!!!
• White House: Affordable health care for $50/month.
• Mark Fiore: America’s Bestest Idea.
• Ed: Obama dispels GOP healthcare myths and lies
• Lawrence O’Donnell: The House GOP’s latest healthcare obsession in Oz.
• Young Turks: What a sexist libertarian thinks of women’s health insurance.
• Sam Seder: Dems call out Repubs on health care lies and obstruction.
• Republicans respond to HealthCare.gov:

Mental Floss: 32 superstition orgins.

Jonathan Mann: Mother Nature is motherfucking scary.

Sam Seder: Rick Santorum reveals that Hollywood is run by Satan!!!

Pap: Teabaggers don’t understand the economy.

Chris Cillizza: Is blocking judges and effective tactic for Republicans?.

Serial Plagerist Rand Paul:

• Maddow: Rand Paul is a serial plagiarizer.
• Stephen blasts Maddow over criticizing Rand Paul
• Bashir: The lifted lines of Rand Paul

White House: West Wing Week.

Stephen mocks GOP Senators who disapproved of their own previous debt ceiling vote.

Chris Cillizza: The very scary proposition of dead people on the voter roles:

Steve Kornacki: Fifth-year slumps, Obama versus Bush.

Thom: How climate change affects the oceans.

Stephen demands Nevada Assemblyman Jim Wheeler “punch himself in the balls” after slavery comments.

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

Tom Foley’s memorial service was today. I haven’t had the chance to watch it yet, but if you want you can see it here. I do love the phrase Titan of Democracy; I think that really sums him up.

Washington State Governor Jay Inslee (D) called Foley a “Titan of Democracy” during the service.

“He was a representative of the best the state of Washington had to offer,” added Gov. Inslee.

You can see President Obama’s speech at the DC memorial here. Darryl has already memorialized him here on HA.

In a sales tax reliant state where we recently voted privatize and tax the poop out of liquor sales, there are high taxes on hard alcohol. This PI piece seems to forget that we just taxed ourselves, not as punishment to boozehounds, but to replace the revenue that privatization cost the state. You can get booze at your grocery store, but you have to pay higher taxes. It wasn’t a deal that I was comfortable with, but the voters went ahead with it. So, fine.

I would like a little more context than just complaining:

And, when it comes to increasing taxes to fund said government, it’s easier to get people to agree to a sin tax. You know, we’re supposed to feel bad about doing it and thus willing to punish ourselves: Bad drinker! Bad drinker! Barkeep – pour me another one! Also … add in the extra tax burden placed on booze for these first few years of privatization, and you have a recipe for a winning statistic.

There’s a reasonable debate to be had about the level of alcohol taxes we have. I’m just not sure this contributes to that.

Obviously, as the economy improves, stimulus that was designed to get us out of a caving, crashing recession will have to be scaled back. And of course the things that were set to expire are going to expire, especially with a House of Representatives dead set on anything decent for the Republic. So I guess nobody should be surprised that the expanded SNAP benefits are going to be back to what they were before the stimulus starting tomorrow.

Extra funding for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, one of the most impactful elements of the 2009 economic stimulus, expires Friday, meaning poor families in all 50 states will immediately see steep cuts in government food aid.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provided a 13.6 percent funding increase to SNAP recipients beginning in April 2009, money the bill’s backers said would make its way quickly into the economy. But that extra funding ends Nov. 1. Every one of the 48 million SNAP recipients will see their benefits cut in their next checks.

Given the need, it seems early from a purely moral standpoint. The top earners are recovering nicely, and good for them and all, but the need for SNAP for people who aren’t earning that is still there.

SNAP benefits disproportionately help families with children. More than 21 million children — one in four children in the country today — live in households that participate in the program. More than two-thirds of the $5 billion the government saves will come from households that include children.

But instead of recognizing that the need is real, and that we should do more, we have a House of Representatives that last month voted for major cuts to the program. The GOP in the last election cycle ran candidate for President who doesn’t believe people are entitled to food, and they’re living up to that even though he lost.

– Happy Halloween

– Nevada Republican would allow slavery

– The Chamber of Commerce is the worst.

– One of the biggest challenges to gender parity in office is that women don’t run. According to a national study by the Center for American Women in Politics, women are much more likely to run if they’re recruited by others. Men don’t wait to be asked. (Trib link)

– I’m all for environmentalists working to make broad coalitions, but I’m not sure corporate interests and reactionaries will stop mocking them needlessly.

– Your guide to celebrating Dia de los Muertos