HorsesAss.Org

I have been reading with interest about the so called zero option in Afghanistan. That is, after the end of the war to have 0 American troops in the country. I don’t know if it’s serious or an attempt to wring concessions out of Karzai or if there’s some other plan at work. But I hope you’ll use whatever space you have in the Senate to make the zero option more viable.

America’s longest war has gone on long enough. It’s time, frankly it’s well past time, to bring all of the troops home. They have done their jobs admirably, but the mission was never clear and has only managed to get more muddled with time. So I hope we leave that country a clean break.

Thank You
Carl Ballard
HorsesAss.org

You can write them about this or whatever you want here.

Please join us this evening for some politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet every Tuesday evening at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier than that for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out the plethora of other DL meetings over the next week. Tonight there are also meetings of the Tri-Cities and Vancouver, WA chapters. On Wednesday, the Bellingham chapter meets. On Thursday Drinking Liberally Bremerton meets. On Friday, the Centralia chapter meets. Finally, next Monday, the Yakima and Olympia chapters meet.

With 203 chapters of Living Liberally, including sixteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

– A swap of development rights from rural King County to South Lake Union.

– Rick Perry won’t run for another term as Texas governor. People are saying it frees him up for a presidential run, but I’m not sure it’s actually helpful.

– Unfortunately, he’s still the governor now.

– I want you to start asking why every salon doesn’t have at least one person who knows how to handle textured hair. Because the world is getting more and more diverse and your niece, your grandson, your daughter – they might have hair like mine.

– Jim McDermott’s article about what America’s relation to Iran should look like in the wake of Hassan Rouhani’s election.

– Anyone going to Bastille Day?

On this lazy Monday evening, I thought I’d mention some of the free things in and around Seattle, and hope that you add your own in the comments.

– First, art walk is first Thursdays most months, but the second Thursday this month since the 4th of July was a Thursday this year. And the neighborhood art walks are often lovely also.

– Also free and artsy fartsy, Seattle Shakespeare Company is doing outdoor productions in the Puget Sound area. I’ve never seen The Tempest, so I might stop by one of those productions.

– Those will be in some lovely city and county parks, and even if you’re not going for the Shakespeare, the parks are great. I should also make a pitch for Port of Seattle parks, just because they’re rad. A few weeks ago, I was at Jack Perry Park and a jazz band were practicing. I just read my paper and listened for a half hour or so with a view of the water. Jack Block has the best views of the Seattle skyline.

– Port of Seattle has some great trails, as well as those city and county parks. Obviously, the Burke-Gilman and Sammamish River trails are great. The Interurban trail is barely more than a bike lane in the City, but it opens up in North Seattle and in the suburbs. Seattle Bike Blog links to another blog making the case for the Iron Horse Trail.

– I’ve mentioned the Seattle library system recently, and I’ll put in another pitch for it here. I’ve recently decided to return books at some other branches. So far only ones in walking distance of me or on the light rail, but it gives a chance to see some of the rest of the city that I might be too lazy to go to very much otherwise.

So what do you like to do that you don’t have to pay for?

– How forced cutbacks will affect Madigan (TNT link)

– Sea Tac is maybe not a place bring your gun

– And leave it to the guy who invented “Crunchy Cons”, the non-existent group of conservatives who are also hippies, to dream up an old-age exception for despicable bigots.

– With Texas still pushing to move abortion back to the bad old days, it’s important to know what the bad old days looked like (NY Times link)

– Stop us before we are forced to commit journalism again!

Last week’s contest was won by Dan Robinson. It was the home in Cleveland where Ariel Castro held several women captive for years.

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

2 Samuel 13:10-15
And Tamar took the bread she had prepared and brought it to her brother Amnon in his bedroom. But when she took it to him to eat, he grabbed her and said, “Come to bed with me, my sister.”

“No, my brother!” she said to him. “Don’t force me! Such a thing should not be done in Israel! Don’t do this wicked thing. What about me? Where could I get rid of my disgrace? And what about you? You would be like one of the wicked fools in Israel. Please speak to the king; he will not keep me from being married to you.” But he refused to listen to her, and since he was stronger than she, he raped her.

Then Amnon hated her with intense hatred. In fact, he hated her more than he had loved her. Amnon said to her, “Get up and get out!”

Discuss.

Tweety: The G.O.P. “Demographic Death Spiral”.

Ed: Will the hateful house GOP ever pass an immigration bill?

Maddow: What happened with the Bolivian President’s flight?

Barack Obama’s alter ego on wire taps, Sallie Mae, 800 numbers, and the Kardashians.

Ann Telnaes: George W. Bush insists he’s protected civil liberties.

Gay Breakfast Cereal!!!!

• John Fugelsang: Your breakfast cereal is GAY:
• Cenk: Lucky Charms are openly gay!

Obama: Independence Day weekly address.

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

Mental Floss: 50 facts about 50 states.

Young Turks: Getting money out of politics.

Pink Tennis Shoes:

• Ed: Rick Perry attacks Wendy Davis.
• Michael Brooks: Wendy Davis pwns Rick Perry
• Ann Telnaes: Rick Perry’s condescending response to Wendy Davis’s filibuster.

White House: Fireworks from the White House.

Mark Fiore: Prop-8 personal injury.

Ann Telnaes: Trading freedom for security.

Barely Political: NSA Wiretapping revealed!

Nutjobber Sen. Ted Cruz sings ‘Amazing Grace’ to the tune of ‘Gilligan’s Island’ (via Crooks and Liars).

Young Turks: Lady Gaga vs Allen West in ‘defiling’ the National Anthem.

Maddow: Virginia’s “Governor Ultrasound” Bob McDonnel is asked to resign (via Crooks and Liars).

Sam Seder: Random Rush.

White House: West Wing Week.

SlateTV: Rush Limbaugh goes after FAUX News.

This Week in the G.O.P. War on Women™:

• Sam Seder: Surrounded by men, Ohio Governor signs law restricting women’s right to choose
• Young Turks: The Republican War on Women™ continues in Ohio
• Maddow: Republican ambush on abortion rights continues at full speed:
• Sam Seder: Texas lawmakers set to attack Texas women again
• Lawrence O’Donnell: The G.O.P. War on Women™ moves to North Carolina.
• Sam Seder: State “leaders” use anti-Sharia bill to attack women in North Carolina

Steve Kornacki: Inside the collapse of the IRS ‘scandal’ (a.k.a. The G.O.P. witch hunt).

SlateTV: Chick-fil-A President just couldn’t keep quiet on DOMA decision.

Marijuana retail rules released by Washington State Liquor Control Board.

Thom: The Koch brother’s new plan to destroy democracy and the world.

Young Turks: Conservatives exploding over Bert & Ernie???

Red State Update:Podcast 33.

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

Was Rodney Tom’s Republican coup a success? Goldy puts it in perspective:

After six months of grandstanding and hostage taking, two special sessions, and the very real threat of an economy-wrecking state government shutdown, the legislature passed a compromise budget on June 27 that was nearly identical to the budget Democrats pushed through the state house on June 6, apart from significantly less money for education. And from a spending perspective, even that June 6 budget wasn’t much different from the one house Democrats passed way back on April 12, in plenty of time to finish their job without a special session or two.

The catch is how Tom’s Republican coalition paid for it:

They blocked house Democratic efforts to raise $1.1 billion in new revenue by closing $475 million in unproductive tax exemptions and extending $600 million in expiring business taxes. “That was their central strategic priority,” says [House Finance Committee chair Reuven Carlyle (D-Seattle)], “to prevent new revenue at any cost.”

If they blocked the revenue, where did the Republicans get the money?

Instead of closing loopholes and extending business taxes, the compromise budget largely makes up the $1.1 billion difference by siphoning hundreds of millions of dollars away from the public works assistance account (a capital fund that helps local governments pay for critical public infrastructure), spending substantially less on K–12 schools, and relying on revised caseload and revenue forecasts to brighten the state’s fiscal future.

Goldy points out that all Tom’s Republican coalition succeeded in doing was to block a number of important social programs—things that Tom claims he supports—and a critical transportation funding package.

The net result of the session plus a pair of special sessions can only be described as second rate. That makes Tom’s experiment a failure. It might be good enough for an Alabama or Oklahoma, but I expect much better from those who represent me in Olympia.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

A few weeks ago when the US House of Representatives passed a bill to restrict abortion to 20 weeks, I wrote a post wondering if they’d forgotten their alleged commitment to state’s rights.

But of course the vote by Washington State Republicans in Congress to restrict abortion rights beyond what Washington State voters rejected puts the lie to the state’s rights claim. They don’t care about Washington’s rights to write our own abortion laws, they want the big mean Federal government to override it.

Well now it’s the Senate’s turn as Marco Rubio has introduced a companion bill in the Senate. And while I doubt very much that even if it makes it to the floor, that our Senators would vote for it, it doesn’t hurt to contact them to let them know you’ve got their back in opposing it.

I know this is a few days old, but CNN decided to have a segment N Word Vs ‘Cracker’: Which Is Worse? Presumably, there was a pitch meeting at some point.

Producer 1: Did you hear that Trayvon Martin may have called George Zimmerman a cracker?

Producer 2: Are you pitching me a segment?

Producer 1: Yeah. Let’s make it a debate between that and the N-word.

Producer 2: What?!

Producer 1: You know. We’ll have LeVar Burton, and we’ll ask him when it’s OK to use that word.

Producer 2: I’m sorry. I must have heard you wrong. I thought you just pitched me that we would have the actor who played Kunta Kinte on our news show and ask him if it’s OK to use the N-word.

Producer 1: Yeah, that’s a good idea. But we’ll make it a debate about if that is as bad as calling someone who is stalking you a cracker to your friend you’re on the phone with.

Producer 2: Well, does anyone think they’re equivalent?

Producer 1: Sure!

Producer 2: This is a terrible idea.

Producer 1: This is CNN. Can I do it?

Producer 2: Fine whatever. If you need me I’ll be drinking myself silly and then pissing almost as fast as we piss away any remaining credibility.

Protests aren’t only happening in Egypt. Some Puget Sound area grocery store employees are also picketing for a fair contract:

Grocery store employees at four major supermarket chains in King County will be picketing from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Wednesday.

The employees from Safeway, Albertsons, Fred Meyer and QFC are picketing to promote a fair contract for 30,000 Puget Sound union workers.

The previous three-year contract expired on May 4th, but was extended into July for further bargaining on a new contract. The workers and grocery store management have been negotiating since March.

Workers say grocery store management wants to:

• Eliminate health care coverage for thousands of workers
• Cut holiday pay
• Offer no wage increases
• Take away paid sick days for Seattle workers and forbid others in the region from getting them
• Cut the “10 cent above minimum wage” guarantee for lowest paid workers

Next time you go grocery shopping, tell a manager you support the members of the three unions involved: UFCW 21, UFCW 367 and Teamsters 38.

Please join us for a pre-Independence Day celebration the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet every Tuesday evening at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier than that for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out another DL meeting over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter also meets. The Bellingham and Lakewood chapters will meet on Wednesday. And for Thursday, the Spokane and Tacoma chapters meet.

With 203 chapters of Living Liberally, including sixteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

– It looks like Rodney Tom has fucked over transit in King County so badly, that he might as well put his dick in the tailpipe of a Metro bus at this point.

– To say nothing of the Columbia River Crossing.

– There might be a longer piece given the amount of time Lee and I dedicated to making fun of him, but Lou Guzzo has died.

– Congrats to UNITE HERE for their contract with Hilton.

– The metonymy of Olympia is especially galling

– Jean Godden is more confident than I am of the Tunnel Machine. Hope she’s right.

– The Teanaway is all things to Washington recreationists and wildlife lovers. Its North Fork road gives access to renowned trail destinations in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness and Wenatchee Mountains — Ingalls Pass-Ingalls Lake, Longs Pass, Van Epps Pass and remote Lake Ann. The river valley is in rain shadow, allowing car campers to enjoy sunshine when it’s drizzly west of the Cascade Crest. A wolf pack populates the river’s remote West Fork.

– Call your kids whatever you want, celebrities.