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Mike McGinn has a post on his city blog where he thanks several companies for pitching in and helping to pay for the streetcar in South Lake Union.

Today we gathered in South Lake Union to thank four local employers who are investing $204,000 to increase service on the Seattle Streetcar. These employers – Group Health, Amazon.com, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and UW Medicine – know that more frequent service on this line is a good thing for their employees, and are stepping up to the plate to make a private investment in a public service.

Now to be clear, I’m glad they pitched in. And thanking them for it is perfectly appropriate. More frequent trips are good. And if this is the way you do it, well fine.

Fine, but not great. Because if we need more frequent trips, the city government should be able to figure out a way to pay for it that doesn’t rely on the generosity of a few large employers.

– The Bill of Reproductive Rights.

– I know Brad Owen is pretty shitty. But Democrats who don’t like him should have put some effort into a primary challenge instead of supporting a Republican.

– Romney Proudly Explains How He’s Turned Campaign Around ‘I’m Lying More,’ He Says

– The headline style of the Baptist Press, on the other hand calls for them to capitalize only the first word, followed by lying nonsense pretending that contraception and abortion are the same thing.

– Lord Player is now Archbishop Poopypants

– What could go wrong?

Please join us tonight for an evening of politics and conversation 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 and Vancouver, WA chapters meet. On Wednesday, the Bellingham chapter meets, and Thursday night Drinking Liberally Bremerton meets. And on Monday, the Yakima and Olympia chapters meet.

With 233 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.

That if you were reading The Seattle Times’ endorsement of Rob McKenna, and you came across this paragraph:

McKenna has an independent mind. He is willing to work with Democrats and he is willing on occasion to buck his party. He defended Washington’s top-two primary before the U.S. Supreme Court, despite pressure from his own party seeking to overturn it. And he won.

You might reasonably say to yourself that they got the bucking his own party bit out of the way, so it’s time for an example of him working with Democrats. The next paragraph will surely mention the vast amounts of working with Democrats he did.

No?

It’s just an awkward transition to complaining that Democrats have mentioned that he’s a Republican. OK then.

I can only think of two reasons that Reagan Dunn has decided to make an issue of the end of the free ride area a week after it ended and several months after the decision was made. First: he thinks it’ll be to some advantage in his AG race against Bob Ferguson. Second: poor people are now getting services in his district and it’s scaring his constituents.

I suppose you could make an argument that he’s doing it because he cares about the issue. If you decide to make that argument, you’ll have to explain why he’d start to push it now. Why he thinks there ought to be a discussion after the policy is a done deal, voted on, passed and implemented. Why previously his problem with the policy was that there wasn’t a vote on the car tabs part.

Sorry this is so late.

– The New Southpark bridge is more than half way done.

– Liberals, don’t panic after one debate.

– Jack Welsh proves no matter how good at business you are, you can still say dumb things.

– Why does anyone want to be a Boy Scout anymore?

– Walking and biking improvements in the city budget are starting to look like they may be in the final product.

– I really liked Elementary, so far, but I fear it’s going to be murder every week. One of the things I like about the original Holmes stories is that there was a mix of types of mysteries (it’s one reason to have him not be a police officer with a particular beat) and so far that hasn’t been the case.

Last week’s contest went unsolved was won by wes.in.wa yesterday! It was in Dundee, Scotland.

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

[HA Bible Study is on hiatus through the November election as we honor Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney by studying the scriptures of his Mormon religion.]

Doctrine and Covenants 132:61-63
If any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, and if he espouse the second, and they are virgins, and have vowed to no other man, then is he justified; he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else.

And if he have ten virgins given unto him by this law, he cannot commit adultery, for they belong to him, and they are given unto him; therefore is he justified.

But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed;

Discuss.

Liberal Viewer: Fox News lies about Libya attack response?

Thom: Right Wingers and the poll truthers.

Jonathan Mann: The Romney Shake It Up Song:

Thom and Pap: Koch front group seeks revenge against Florida Justices.

Debate:

• Ann Telnaes: Romney shapes up for the debate
• Jonathan Mann: Romney fires Big Bird:
• Mitt’s debate: Mostly fiction.
• Kay and Peele Luther on Obama’s first debate performance.
• Jimmy Fallon joins the debate
• Obama: Mitt was fact checked by his OWN CAMPAIGN! (via TalkingPointsMemo.)
• Young Turks: Advice for Obama’s next debate.
• Ann Telnaes: No mention of the 47% in first debate.
• MockitTV: Obama and Romney make America great again
• Young Turks: Why did Obama lose the first debate?
• Big Bird responds.
• Thom: Hey, Media, how can Romney lie all night and be “the winner?”
• Sam Seder and Ari Berman: Mitt lies his way to a debate victory.
• Mitt Romney: Protect big oil, fire Big Bird
• Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: Debate!
• Tweety and Louis Black: The day after the Denver debate
• Conan: Mr. Romney and Mr. Bird.
• The great Mitt Romney cheating conspiracy theory (multiple videos).
• Maddow: History favors the challenger in first debates
• Young Turks: Did Mitt cheat?
• Sam Seder: No mention on 47% in the debate.
• Stephen praises FAUX News for something important.
• Martin Bashir: The two faces of Mitt Romney and John Sununu’s ugly remarks
• Young Turks: Breaking down the debate.
• Health care: Out of luck.
• Ed and Pap: Republicans full of “Dog Hope” after debate
• Tweety unloads over Obama’s performance (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Lawrence O’Donnell: Nobody won!
• Young Turks: Some lies during the debate.
• Jon: The Debate (via Political Wire).

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

Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA):Evolution, Big Bang ‘Lies straight from The Pit Of Hell’

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

Romney flip flops on his 47% comment!?!

George Takei: “We’ve got to be actively involved in the electoral process.”.

G.O.P. Voter Suppression:

• Zina Saunders: Daryl Metcalfe Says You Don’t Deserve To Vote!.
• Maddow: US court forces Ohio to reinstate early voting
• Gavin Newsom with Rosario Dawson: Disenfranchised Latino vote is a major problem.
• Sam Seder: PA Judge blocks GOP voter ID law
• Maddow: Mixed messages on voter ID as Pa. slow to obey court
• Mark Fiore: Voting with Right Wing Ralphie.

Steve Martin, home crafts expert, makes an endorsement:

White House: West Wing Week.

Thom: Has the GOP/Right Wing Media Jumped the Shark?

TEH NEW TRUFERISM:

• The crackpot Jobs Numbers Truferism movement emerges. (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Maddow: Good jobs news drives right to delusion
• Young Turks: The unemployment rate ‘conspiracy’
• Romney campaign resists FAUX News’ Job Report Truferism (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Sam Seder: The Right Wing freak-out over jobs numbers.
• The politics behind the jobs numbers

Ann Telnaes: The Supremes begin a new term.

Sam Seder: Rick Santorum Rick Santorum wants to kill and eat Big Bird.

Mitt Romney’s Disdain For The Middle Class: He Said It, He Meant It.

Young Turks: Tucker Carlson makes a fool of himself over 2007 Obama speech.

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

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here (via TalkingPointsMemo).

Not to pick on Goldy since you can see the same sort of stats everywhere. But the No President Since FDR Has Won Reelection with Unemployment Above 7.2 Percent stat has always bugged me. So let’s break it down.

There have only been 3 presidents who lost reelection since FDR. Ford, Carter, and G H W Bush. In all three of those elections the unemployment rate was above 7.2 (in the first Bush’s case it was 7.3, and in the other cases it was lower than it is now, but higher than that, you can get the historical data here). I bet in at least 2 of FDR’s reelection victories, unemployment was well above that. So it’s only 3 for 5.

Really, what people are saying is the last 3 times the unemployment rate was above 7.2, presidents lost their reelection bids. Well, there are plenty of streaks in politics that are larger than 3 that probably don’t mean a whole lot.

Of course there’s an implied corollary: that presidents won when it was below 7.2. All right. That gives us Truman, Ike, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, and W Bush. That brings the streak up to a more respectable 9, if you’re willing to read more into what people are saying than they actually say. Still, I can’t imagine going up to too many political scientists and saying you have 9 data points (or actually more than 9, but don’t look back further than that) and having them take you seriously.

A 9 game winning streak doesn’t guarantee a win in the next match. That doesn’t mean the unemployment rate doesn’t matter. People who are unemployed, and people with unemployed friends and family, are going to vote based on that.

It’s not controversial to say high unemployment is probably a hindrance to a presidential reelection bid. But there are way too many other factors to assume that 7.2 is a magic number.

– The federal investment in public broadcasting equals about one one-hundredth of one percent of the federal budget. Elimination of funding would have virtually no impact on the nation’s debt. Yet the loss to the American public would be devastating.

– Romney Dominated Debate, Say Pundits Trying To Figure Out GOP Candidate’s Policies

– Rob McKenna wrote on Slog yesterday.

– Good jobs numbers. Also, it’s tough to find stories that don’t frame it as political (I understand why people frame it like that this close to the election, but still).

– In the choice between love and hate, choose love. Help stop bigotry against our Muslim neighbors.

– Bugs and poop are in our future.

I know you don’t come to HA for my opinions on a national issue. And the debate has been the main thing in the news all day. Still, there’s one thing that surprised me that hasn’t got much play. When I was listening to the debate, the thing that I thought was Romney’s biggest fuckup was his joke about wanting tax breaks to ship jobs overseas.

The second topic, which is you said you get a deduction for taking a plant overseas. Look, I’ve been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I maybe need to get a new accountant.

It’s funny because of all the lives he’s ruined.

Sure, chronicling all of Romney’s lies and figuring out the policy is probably more important than getting into this. And since people are saying Romney won the debate, pointing out that this is a pretty big gaff goes against the storyline. But still, it seems like the biggest fuckup of the night.

Now, I say it didn’t get much play. But one important person brought it up the next day, even if he soft peddled just how disgusting it was:

The Mitt Romney we all know invested in companies that were called pioneers of outsourcing jobs to other countries, but the guy on stage last night, he said that he doesn’t even know that there are such laws that encourage outsourcing. He’s never heard of them! Never heard of them. Never heard of tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. He said that if it’s true, he must need a new accountant. [laughter] Now, we know for sure it was not the real Mitt Romney because he seems to be doing just fine with his current accountant. [laughter]

That’s President Obama, who probably would have done better to say that on the stage, but nonetheless is saying it now. I know the difference between them on outsourcing isn’t as great as I would like. Obama still favors policies that will let too many of America’s jobs get outsourced. But at least he doesn’t want businesses who do that to be able to write it off as a business expense.

I left my home in Redmond at 6:00 pm yesterday for a trip to a destination a little outside of the little town of Carbonado, WA. The timing was pretty good for debate listening, as the traffic on I-405 meant I would hear most of the debate without a whole lot of interference from 60 MPH road noises. I caught just over an hour of the debate, as my aural sense was required for other tasks shortly after 7:00 pm.

Listening to the debate didn’t give me opportunity to see Obama’s “big crash”. Aurally, things simply did not come off all that negative for Obama. What stuck out for me was Mitt Romney doing two things:

1. Back-peddling, flip-flopping, and pivoting away from the “severe conservative” positions he held during the G.O.P. debates. For the six or so years Romney has been running for President, he has given Americans a portrait of his positions that, oddly, differ greatly from his positions while running for Senate and while running for and being Governor of Massachusetts. Last night, the Etch-A-Sketch moment happened—Romney shook up the slate. He erased that mix of conservative, ALEC, and teabag-inspired positions that got him through the primary. Obama was dumbfounded—he probably was thinking what I was saying: “What the fuck, Mitt?!?”
2. Lying. Romney repeatedly said things that are factually false—and did so with conviction and, well…swagger! Although Obama sometimes pointed out Romney’s “erroneous” statements, I think he was caught off guard by it a bit. He was probably thinking what I was saying, “What a FUCK, Mitt!”

When I turned off the radio shortly after 7:00 pm, my impression was that Obama came off as too timid, and should have been nailing Romney MUCH harder on his Etch-A-Sketching and untruthful statements. Timidity in a debate isn’t good unless your opponent is self destructing. And Romney wasn’t acutely self destructing.

But he was undergoing a chronic self-destruction. I mean, the media isn’t going to let him get away with lying and wholesale abandonment of the positions and policies he used to get through the primary, are they? In other words, after hearing the words each candidate was saying, I was pretty convinced that Romney had created some self-inflicted damage.

I didn’t get home until about Midnight, when I did a quick scan of the news feeds, only to learn that Obama got clobbered. Devastated. Destroyed.

Alas, I had a busy morning, so I didn’t look into it too much. Later, an Obama-supporting friend of mine on the East Coast emailed me a scathing critique of Obama, starting with an, apparently, disingenuous tribute to his and Michelle’s anniversary.

Huh! That opening bit sounded warm and genuine from the right lane of SR-520.

While eating lunch today, I spent a few minutes exploring the media reaction. I think David Frum helps me understand things:

Romney, the multimillionaire, arrived in a suit, shirt and tie that looked like they’d been purchased at Macy’s. I doubt he’ll ever wear them again, but for one night, he looked the way most non-zillionaires look when they dress for business. His manner was warm, engaged, and respectful. He looked at the president when the president spoke, and his expression revealed no asperity or disdain.

Oh shit! No wonder I couldn’t clearly see Mitt’s victory…I just couldn’t see his cheap suit, and where his eyes and Obama’s eyes were pointing. (I’ve mentioned during the G.O.P. debates about Mitt’s habit of staring attentively—almost artificially so—at his speaking opponent, so I can picture that.) Apparently, if I had watched the debate with the sound turned down, Mitt would be the hands-down winner.

The only problem: there were words spoken, as well. And while I agree that Obama didn’t attack Mitt nearly as effectively as he could have, that hardly compares to lying at Americans, right in their own living rooms—or cars. Or “disappearing” his long-held controversial positions, as if they’d never “happened.”

The problem for Romney is that a victory on style is ephemeral. The debate has left behind a record in the form of words. Going forward, he can lose the cheap suit, but will still be left with all those words…and they cheapen the whole package.