– ACORN are still scary.
– Back to marrying couples for the first time since 2004.
– As a Hillary Clinton partisan in 2008, and probably one again if she runs, Joan Walsh’s note of skepticism is pretty much correct.
– It will surprise nobody that Patty Murray’s priorities for the debt negotiations are better than many of her colleagues.
– Lynwood missing link.
– Fuck you Boston and San Francisco.
Amanda Reiman writes about the tragic story of Michael Saffioti, the Lynnwood man who died in a Snohomish jail for doing something that will now finally be legal on Thursday.
The Tacoma News Tribune looked having any relevance at all in the future in the face, and decided fuck that noise.
When your subscription does renew, print subscribers will receive digital access on all platforms for an additional $2.50 a month (just over eight cents a day). Nonsubscribers who want to subscribe to The News Tribune only on a digital platform will pay $9.95 a month (about 33 cents a day).
Our digital offerings include our website (thenewstribune.com), our mobile apps available for both the iPhone and Android phones, and our digital replica edition of the printed News Tribune (available on the desktop, laptops and tablets). Digital subscribers will also get access to our archives and to databases not otherwise available to print subscribers. And we are working on other products that will become available to subscribers with digital access in coming months.
Now they’re going to go with the New York Times model and offer limited amounts of free views before it’s shut down.
Nonsubscribers will be able to access only a limited amount of digital content after Dec. 16. Access to the home page, the obituaries and classified advertising will not be restricted, but most other content will be limited to 15 page views a month.
Of course, The New York Times can get away with that because there is a group of people who will pay for access to The New York Times. I don’t know other than some government employees who would pay for The Tribune online.
So if I make less fun of their odd pre-defensiveness, or Lee only makes fun of 15 fucked up drug war editorials a month now you know why.
And look, I’d very much like the Tribune to survive. Their coverage of the Tacoma Teacher’s strike was great (the editorials about it, not so much). And they cover an important piece of the state that I don’t know how it’ll get replaced if they go away. So even with this I’m still pulling for them. But I think it’s a mistake.
Please join us tonight for an evening of politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.
We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier for Dinner.
Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter meets. And for Thursday, the Spokane chapter and Drinking Liberally Tacoma meet.
With 230 chapters of Living Liberally, including fourteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter that meets near you.
– Gene Johnson writes about how we got to this point.
– Based on Washington state data, a national market for regulated marijuana sales could be a nearly $50 billion a year market.
– In a letter to UW students, Eric Godfrey (Vice President and Vice Provost for Student Life) emphasizes that marijuana is still not allowed on University grounds. I’d imagine that’s probably true for alcohol as well, but hopefully someone can clarify in the comments. I’m curious to know if there’s a place on campus where alcohol is allowed, but marijuana would not be (for those over 21 of course).
– This Thursday at the Space Needle, people will gather to mark the milestone. Technically, using it outdoors is still illegal. But you only get to celebrate the end of prohibition once.
I don’t know how much the tip jar and the value of health care offset the low wages at Starbucks. But surely they can do better.
The National Employment Law Project analyzed large companies whose employees are making minimum wage, or barely above. Overall, their 2012 report found minimum wage today is worth 30 percent less than it was in 1968.
Most of the 12 largest employers studied are national restaurant chains, such as McDonald’s, Burger King, and Starbucks. The others are national retailers, such as Wal-Mart, Target, and Sears.
Starbucks ranks seventh on their list. With a workforce of 176,533 and 12,903 stores in the U.S., Starbucks had revenue of $13.3 billion and net income of $1.4 billion. CEO Howard Schultz earned $16.1 million in compensation.
Sigh.
– Democratic support is creeping East.
– The next four years are going to be awesome.
– There is nothing I don’t love about Kenny G’s manager yelling at The Stranger.
– Stay classy, rightwing media.
Last week’s contest was solved by Ted. It was a building on MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.
This week’s is random location somewhere on earth, good luck!
1 Timothy 5:23
Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake and thine often infirmities.
Discuss.
In my last job, I was a software test manager for a company that did most of its work out of Omaha. As a result, I developed some good friendships with the engineers there, and even after that job came to an end, I’ve been able to keep in touch with them over Facebook. About a month before the election, I saw a photo of one of my ex-co-workers, with a bunch of his buddies, sitting around the couch getting ready to watch the Cornhuskers take on Ohio State. There’s nothing unusual about that for someone living in Omaha, but what struck me was that he was born and raised in India, and the nearly 10 people in his living room were Indian-Americans as well.
It’s not news to anyone that America’s demographics continue to change. But when we talk about it in terms of politics, this trend can be hidden. Asian-Americans are now a significant voting bloc in this country, and they’ve been voting more and more Democratic in the past two decades.
Goldy posted recently about the post-mortem on Rob McKenna’s failed campaign. Republicans blame a lack of support from the national GOP, but Goldy points out that McKenna still had more money to work with. Jay Inslee just put his money towards more effective GOTV efforts rather than the silly ads that polluted the airwaves in October.
A lot of variables go into an electoral outcome, and Goldy’s certainly right that the Democrats in this state have a strong edge in GOTV and ground game. But I’m growing more and more convinced that the most significant event in this campaign was the incident in July involving a staff member with an anti-Asian tweet in her Twitter feed.
For a Republican like Rob McKenna to win in this state, he has to be completely invulnerable to being seen as a typical GOP extremist. For the most part, McKenna has always been very good at this. But finding out that a staffer had sent an offensive tweet and then taking a few days before forcing her resignation was his biggest blunder on that front.
This incident tied McKenna to one of the ugliest traits of the GOP in recent years – xenophobia – and it certainly resonated with the large Asian-American population in this state. Looking at the polling for this year, you can see that the polls abruptly shifted in Inslee’s direction right at the time that this incident occurred (week of July 16-20) and never went back.
Recently, Josh Marshall at TPM has been discussing this topic and received this note from an Indian-American in Iowa:
And as time went on, it became clear in other polling that PPP early on was on to more than just snarky telephone survey replies, there really is a disturbingly large percentage of Republicans who are openly hostile to Obama specifically because of his race, his national origin, and his partial religious ancestry. That GOP electeds from Boehner to McConnell to all the GOP Presidential candidates were unwilling to call out any of it just reinforced the point, since it established they were afraid because these people were a very large part of the GOP base. You don’t worry about calling out your own party’s cranks in public if they’re marginal figures whose votes you don’t need and don’t think you’ll lose because they have no other options…Republican candidates and electeds know that they can lose primaries for openly challenging racial and other bigoted hostility toward Obama. And all this is very personal to me. When I was a small child in Ames, Iowa, in my immigrant family, neighborhood teenagers assaulted our home regularly, pelting fruit and whatever else at our house. Several times my dad had the police come and lecture this group of kids. It was all about race, and these kids’ parents did nothing. So when Mitt Romney in a Michigan stump speech snarks that no one asked him for his birth certificate, and his GOP allies defend the racism as “just a joke,” when so many GOP federal and state electeds endorse or tacitly condone questioning of Obama’s citizenry and engage in other dog whistle racism, these are always personal attacks equally on me…if Obama is not an American and does not legitimately belong, then they’re saying the same about me. I imagine I’m not alone, that people of color across the board see what I see, and the election results confirm this.
There’s nothing more damaging to the GOP right now that the (well-earned) reputation that they’re beholden to an intolerant base, one that still defines American-ness through skin color, religion and ethnicity, not by culture and upbringing. And I’m convinced that a single intolerant thought from a brainless staffer dragged Rob McKenna too far into that cesspool.
Ann Telnaes: The flat earth candidate.
Jon: McCain’s anti-Rice agenda.
Red State Update: Elmo’s fall from grace.
Sam Seder: Bradley Manning speaks out on his abuse.
Liberal Viewer: FAUX News fake war on Christmas.
Maddow: Biden eats snacks at Costco!!!
SlateTV: Hillary Clinton says drug legalization wouldn’t stop violence.
Thom: Former FL GOP leader admits voter suppression.
Ann Telnaes: Mitch McConnell clings to hope, air
Young Turks: Nutjob Congressman says Obama is advised by Muslim Brotherhood.
General Petraeus’ sex tape leaked.
Mark Fiore: Pay attention!
Sam Seder: The teabagger’s insane idea to reverse the election.
Maddow: The War on Women—Mississippi’s lone abortion clinic faces closure.
Bashir: Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) and other right wing nut-cases.
Thom: The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.
The G.O.P. Good Ol’ Boy Club:
Thom: AZ joins the War on Women.
Glenn Beck’s Obama in Pee.
Maddow: Obama and Romney have a ‘turkey chili’ summit:
Pap: The GOP’s war on voters hasn’t ended.
White House: Bo Inspects the White House Christmas holiday decorations.
Red State Update: A farewell to Twinkies.
Al Gore gets autotuned.
Fiscal Cliff Notes:
Maddow: Congress still blocks closing of Gitmo.
White House: West Wing Week.
Young Turks: Mississippi’s only abortion clinic may close.
Thom: The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very, Ugly.
Stephen takes Boeing to task.
Ann Telnaes: Speaker Boehner’s good ol’ boy club.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
I forgot to link to this in this morning’s open thread, but this is sad. Glad she’s doing OK.
A woman was struck and dragged by a dump truck at Pike and Boren shortly after 9 a.m. Thursday morning. The 25-year-old was taken to Harborview in stable condition.
[…]
The woman appears to have no serious injuries or fractures, according to the Fire Department. EMTs arrived on the scene first and pulled her from under the truck.
She told firefighters she was hit and dragged by the dump truck. Medics then transported her to the hospital.
She’s doing well, and for this story, that’s obviously the most important thing. But these sorts of incidents are far too common. Sometimes reading Seattle Bike Blog is just a litany of horrible accidents.
– 6,000 speeders can’t be wrong.
– Your birthright is being one person ahead in this line.
– I wouldn’t have guessed the West Seattle Tool Library would be a hit, but clearly it’s doing something right.
– The Onion has the best explanation of our anti-tax moment yet.
– Glenn Beck does something ridiculous; day follows night.
– I’ve linked to the Seattle City Hall weddings for gay couples on the first day it’s available. but here’s some more information.
– It’s better not seeing what’s coming.
– Clearly the Tacoma Druggists is the greatest name for a baseball team ever.
I was never really sure if he was as paranoid and crazy as he seemed to be, or if he was just playing with me (he at various times described me as “unpatriotic,” a “treasonous fraud,” and “a clear and present danger to the security of the nation”), but I always respected his passion, his impact, and his willingness to engage. And so it was with some sadness that I just learned of the untimely death of Jim “The Orb” Walker, the proprietor of the local right-wing news portal Orbusmax.
At the peak of the local right-wing blogosphere, Orbusmax was a traffic redirecting monster. I was never really sure why, but it was. The Orb must’ve been doing something right. And that’s something to admire, even if his politics was nuts.
So while I don’t mourn the death of Orbusmax, my condolences to The Orb’s friends and family.
Howie has an interesting link to a piece on Obama and the drug war. Everybody go read it but please come back, because I’m going to nerd out on you about the graphic that illustrates it.
So, OK, there are 4 gears. But one of them, the CIA gear, isn’t part of what I’m getting at here. Just look at the bank gear, the prison gear, and the money gear. They’re interlocked. And you can’t have an odd number of interlocking gears.
Each gear turns the gear next to it the opposite way that it goes. So if the money gear is going clockwise, it will turn the bank gear counterclockwise that will turn the prison gear clockwise and it will go back and turn the money gear counterclockwise. So now that gear wants to go both clockwise and counterclockwise. So instead of a clockwork, it’s just a few unmoving gears.
Or maybe they’re not meant to be interlocking and they’re just meant to symbolize different gears in a larger machine. Then they should be further spaced out.
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!