HorsesAss.Org

– Maybe BP should, instead of buying elections, use the money to make sure they don’t have another Gulf disaster.

– The Seattle City Council wants an amendment to the Constitution to overturn Citizen’s United.

– Happy filing week

– John Stossel is going to do an anti-union hit piece at some point. I guess it’s a scandal that unions operate in buildings.

– DNC, WTF?

– No, Bubba Carpenter. Mississippi has NOT stopped abortion. You have only stopped SAFE abortion.

– Seattle just awarded grants for job training for immigrant and refugee youth and families.

– Seattle’s bike score: not great

Nick makes a good point about public transit being improved by smart phones.

They’ve made it more fun! When I worked at Microsoft ten years ago, you would occasionally see some twenty-something male bus rider with a Game Boy Advance. But no self-respecting person who’s not a twenty-something male geek would walk around with something like that. The [sic] will, however, walk around with an iPhone or Galaxy Nexus, which they can use to read news, play games, do crossword puzzles, or get some actual work done.

It has long puzzled me why The Seattle Times (for example, but it’s not the only daily paper where it’s true) is so hostile to public transit. I mean I usually write for HA on my laptop (like I’m doing now) when I’m on public transit. But people are always on their phones and reading newspapers and books.

Maybe it’s different for me because of the stories of my grandfather riding into New York City from Connecticut for decades. He started the day with The New York Times, and ended each day with the evening paper. Nowadays, my uncle takes the same route. He reads the paper every morning, and writes letters to his elected officials most evenings. You can’t really do that if you’re in traffic.

– I liked reading about social columns.

– Newsweek continues its tradition of brilliant, well thought out covers.

– How dare Obama campaign?

– I’m still having trouble — you know morally — wrapping my head around the GOP position on the Violence Against Women Act (h/t).

– I can get behind Bill Murray as FDR.

– The Austerions

Last week’s contest was won again by milwhcky. It was Springfield, MO.

Here’s this week’s contest, related to a TV show or a movie. Good luck!

Leviticus 11:5
And the rock badger, because it chews the cud but does not part the hoof, is unclean to you.

Discuss.

Roy Zimmerman with a Michigan edition of Vote Republican.

Thom: Why is FAUX News supporting the Christian Taliban?

The truth about the Recession.

Thomas Friedman is an enormous mustache.

Craig Pridemore is running for WA State Auditor.

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

Marriage Equality:

• Stephen on Obama’s rainbow button.
• Suzie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: Gay marriage.
• Jon on Obama’s big announcement.
• Ann Telnaes: North Carolina votes on gay marriage ban.
• Stephen on Obama’s announcement that he’s gay.
• Roy Zimmerman with a North Dakota edition of Vote Republican:
• Darcy Burner on President Obama’s support for marriage equality.
• Top Lines: Obama is gay…friendly.
• Alyona: Obama endorses gay marriage.
• Thom: Gay marriage rant — it’s NOT a state’s rights issue!
• Newsy: Obama endorses gay marriage.
• Mitt Romney: Backward on marriage equality.
• Young Turks: Bristol Palin gives Obama advice about parenting?!?
• Jen: The sound of history in the making.
• Jon on the gay marriaging of America.
• What can I say about this one but, “fucking INSANE”!
• Sam Seder: The bigots’ Last Hurrah in North Carolina.

ONN: In bipartisan spirit, Obama makes deal to get kicked in the balls.

Alyona’s Tool Time Award: McChrystal’s ‘off the record’ lectures at Yale.

Pap: Republicans are a threat to National Security.

Young Turks: Sheriff Joe Arpaio lawsuit.

Scott Walker:

• Scott Walker in early 2011: “Divide and conquer” the Unions.
• Thom: Walker is using taxpayer dollars to bribe voters.
• Sam Seder: Scott Walker ‘Divide and Conquer’ union strategy caught on tape.

White House: West Wing Week.

Bill Maher on Citizens United.

Nurses for Obama.

Ann Telnaes: Regime change in Russia.

Mitt Moments:

• Young Turks: Romney was a bully in High School.
• Jen: Bullygate memory problem or simple lying?
• Newsy: Romney accused of gay bullying as teen.
• Young Turks: Mitt is lying about not remembering.
• Mitt Romney: More severely conservative than Rick Santorum?
• Sam Seder: Mitt takes credit for Detroit auto bailout he opposed.
• Jen: ‘Romney bubble’ is separate from harsh realities many Americans.
• Buzz60: Romney was a high school bully.
• Romney versus Reality: Auto Bailouts
• Ed: “Let Detroit go bankrupt.”:

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

Alyona: Trayvon Hoodie target sells out.

Pap: Fear rules Republican minds..

Sam Seder: A Trayvon Martin gun range target sells out in 2 days.

The Republican War on Mothers™ (and other Women):

• The 7 dumbest things GOP politicians have said about abortion recently.
• Obama: We don’t need another fight about women’s reproductive health issues.
• Ann Telnaes: The best country for mothers.

Thom: High School student suing over global warming.

Mark Fiore: Assaulting Austerity.

ONN Week in Review.

Succeed: Obama for America.

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

Kathleen Drew is running for WA SOS.

Young Turks: Is Wall Street upset with Obama?

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

Someone brought this to market (h/t).

An unidentified entrepreneur admits he is trying to profit off Trayvon Martin’s death by selling gun range targets featuring the teen who’s death has sparked a nationwide controversy.

Although Martin’s face does not appear on the paper targets, they feature a hoodie with crosshairs aimed at the chest. A bag of Skittles is tucked in the pocket and a hand is holding a can resembling iced tea.

Seriously, fuck everything. Fuck this seller. Fuck the people who bought it, selling out in 2 days. 2 goddamn days. Fuck the people who think this is cute. Fuck the NRA and the gun nuts who brought us this stand your ground bullshit in the first place.

Fuck anyone who thinks we’re in a post racial country. No, racism still exists and it’s still ugly. Fuck the people who are so frightened of living in a multiracial society that they’re so terrified of children with Skittles. Fuck the people who think their gun rights trump the rights of a child to live.

Fuck it. There are no words.

They just installed a new light at the crosswalk at Yesler Way under the Viaduct. It seems to be a temporary thing until the Viaduct comes down.* So for now it’s a pain in the ass to cross. Previously, there was a crosswalk under the Viaduct, and then another one between the Viaduct and the waterfront.

The crosswalk under the Viaduct never had a light until now. This wouldn’t mean much if the lights were coordinated. But they are not. I’m sure it doesn’t actually add much time to the commute but it feels like forever.

This may be a bit of a problem as the days get nicer and more people who live and work in Pioneer Square want to walk to the waterfront. So hopefully it isn’t too long until they either get the Viaduct down or at least synch up the crosswalk lights.

And for the record, this isn’t an anti-viaduct post. I realize my preferred option (Surface/Transit/I-5) would have plenty of construction right now if it had been implemented.

[Read more…]

I really like this story in the LA Times about the opening of the Vashon Island branch of Puget Sound Cooperative Credit Union (h/t to Occupy Seattle’s Facebook).

The movement has spurred thousands of Americans to move their accounts out of mega-banks, but many have had to resort instead to big regional credit unions. Here, a group of hard-core Vashon activists, already seasoned in anticorporate campaigns, hit on the idea of merging with a small credit union to create a new branch on the island.

That office has managed, in its first year of operation, to enroll an astonishing 16% of the population and collect local deposits of almost $20 million.

“What surprised me about it was how rapidly the community embraced the credit union,” said Rob Harmon, a green economy pioneer who was part of the organizing committee. “We had wild dreams that in the first year $10 million would move. … And in the first year, $17.5 million moved. So we’re 70% above our wildest dreams.”

Last year, 1.3 million people across the U.S. joined credit unions, the lower-fee, not-for-profit alternative to commercial banks — double the rate from 2010. Once relegated to small offices at big companies, credit unions over the last 15 years have taken advantage of relaxed federal regulations to expand their membership.

…

Vashon organizers say the key to their success — a template they hope to share with other communities — was the decision to abandon the capital-intensive process of chartering their own credit union. Instead, they joined a small, existing credit union willing to cede substantial control in exchange for new members and deposits.

Harmon and Moyer were talking one day in 2009 about how to create a coal-free zone on the island. They needed to help people weatherize their homes, but none of the three Wall Street banks on the island wanted to make those kinds of loans except as home equity loans.

With the news of JP Morgan Chase losing $2 Billion in a way that shows they haven’t learned thing one, it’s quite timely.

Of course Obama has been planning his fundraiser for quite a while now. So there’s certainly a possibility that it’s just a coincidence that Washington was the first state he visited after announcing his support for marriage equality. Still, he could have made his announcement at any time. And Biden’s trial balloon came the weekend before the trip. So, maybe they looked at the calendar and decided Obama is going to be in Washington, so let’s make it happen.

It certainly seems to me that Washington is the right choice of venue for that. Of course there’s a good chance, depending on the signature gathering, that we’ll have this question on the ballot. Obama coming here probably spread the news a little more among people who like him that he thinks marriage equality is something worth pushing. Of course, this was big news anyway, but it probably got to a few more low information voters today.

That’s not to say his speech was all this one issue. As Paul Constant says:

What President Obama offered was basically his standard stump-speech. This doesn’t mean he ignored LGBT issues—when he listed his accomplishments, DADT repeal was high on the list; he said that no American, “black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled” should be discriminated against; and he did state that nobody should be denied rights because of who they love. (That mention of the freedom to love came early in the speech, and it got a raucous round of applause.) But marriage equality was just one of a series of issues he set out to contrast himself with Mitt Romney, who he referred to frequently by name. Romney, he said, “is a patriotic American,” and he congratulated him for the “success he’s had as the head of a large financial firm,” which earned derisive laughter from the crowd.

His was a fundraiser for his campaign, not a marriage equality rally. And there are lots of issues where he has to keep pushing. Still, I’m glad he was here.

It was sad to read Josh Feit’s announcement of the death of Publicola yesterday. Publicola has become a daily stop for me, and an important source for certain types of news. They filled a unique niche in the Pacific Northwest mediasphere.

It seems like the success of Publicola as media emerged from pure hard work–Erica and Josh appeared to be working their asses off. They hunted down political stories with enviable energy and tenacity, and presented it in their own style.

It took some time, but the mainstream media eventually warmed up to Publicola (indeed, folks at KUOW sounded like they had lost their best friend this morning). You can only break so many stories before your competitors have to sit up, pay attention, and consider you a peer.

The good news is that it looks like Crosscut will pick up Josh and Erica in some form or another–Publicola will live awhile longer under new management. (It’s almost like Crosscut wants to become relevant or something.) I hope the Publicola part of Crosscut can be as inspired as the independent Publicola.

An interesting and not so well known side story is Goldy’s role in the gestation and birth of Publicola. There is more behind that story for Goldy to divulge….

Finally, it is only fitting to point out that today is the 8th blogoversary of HorsesAss.

Goldy started this blog on May 10th, 2004 with this first post, with its first “fuck”, first commenter, and even the first fucking troll.

Eight years later, this is post number 10,222. We’ve had something over 511,000 comments, too many “fucks” and way too many fucking trolls to count.

Thanks to you, dear reader, we still have reason to be here because, like Publicola, our “financial model” certainly isn’t providing it.

– Publicola calls it quits.

– Who would have guessed Jonah Goldberg isn’t the most honest person ever?

– One of the NY GOP Senators who voted for marriage equality isn’t going to run for reelection because of a tough primary challenge.

– Sensible Washington is hoping people will show up in Kent to protect access to collective gardens.

– I’m pleasantly surprised that McKenna losing a talking point is gaining traction from Obama’s support of marriage equality.

– Even in the war on women, this is outlandish.

– Start worrying about children

– Bike Fashion Show

Now that Obama supports gay marriage, it will presumably be much easier to get a marriage equality plank into the platform. Still, I haven’t seen him support plank in the national platform (I haven’t seen one way or the other, but I’ve only done a cursory Google search). So hopefully he lends his support to it, and it’s not a fight. But for now, I’m still going to push people who support that plank at the next levels.

A day following passage of Amendment 1 in North Carolina, banning same-sex marriage in the state, Obama finally reaches the tipping point in his evolution toward support of same-sex marriage:

So what was the response “across the isle?”

RNC Chair Renee Blatherspoon (or whatever the fuck his name is): “…President Obama has played politics on this issue…”

Ahhh…Obama, who has been talking about his position “evolving” on this issue has, like an evil genius, picked THIS moment to capitalize on the issue for maximum political advantage!

And elsewhere:

Ralph Reed, a top organizer among religious conservatives, said Obama’s announcement was a “gift to the Romney campaign.” […] “The Obama campaign doesn’t have to worry about New York and California,” Reed said. “They have to worry about Ohio, Florida and Virginia and I don’t’ see evidence that it’s a winning issue in those states.”

and

“This decision may have made Barack Obama a one-term president,” Bob Vander Plaats the head of The Family Leader, a conservative faith group focused on politics in Iowa, said. This will stoke a part of the religious base even more against Obama, Vander Plaats said. “They were already fired up to get rid of Obama. This will only make them more on fire to get rid of Obama. And if I’m Romney today, I’m smiling,” he said.

In other words…this move was political suicide.

A politically shrewed move AND political suicide at the same time.

Clearly, Obama is Master of the Jedi mind trick….

I generally think it makes sense for Joni Balter to move to news. But the highlighted bit is strange.

In an email, Balter told PubliCola that her new title will be assistant political editor. “I have long wanted to try some editing,” Balter says. “I am taking the lead on the Politics Northwest blog, trying to give it a bigger presence on the site and make it a must read.”

More political reporting on the Politics Northwest blog sounds good. The best model would be Postman, but The Tacoma News Tribune’s political blog is pretty good, and has had more longevity than Postman. I hope she can pull it off, and as I’ve said, all in all, Balter moving to news is probably the right move for the paper, and hopefully for her.

Still, does Joni Balter not realize she has access to a blog now? She could have made some effort to make the Ed Cetera blog a must read. I’m sure the paper would have loved her to break some stories on that blog, instead of doing nothing with it for a while, and then giving it to an intern. And it seems that a breaking news blog would be more work than an opinion blog. Maybe it’s more different than I realize, but if the past is prologue, it’s not a good sign.