HorsesAss.Org

It’s not time to hit the panic button yet, but this is certainly a really bad sign.

PubliCola has learned that the Washington State Department of Transportation, which initially predicted it would be able to raise $400 million in toll revenues to pay to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct with a tunnel, now believes tolls will raise only $200 million, half the original projection.

The $200 million figure comes from WSDOT’s proposed tunnel budget (see page 9), which is currently being reviewed by the state legislature. The revised budget now assumes $702 million in funding from the federal government—$219 million more than the original assumption of $483 million.

As Erica C. Barnett says, so far federal money will pay for this. And if the economy picks up, some of the toll money is likely to recover. So it’s not a showdown between the city and state at this point. But it brings us closer to that point.

Can someone explain to me why the most recent editorial on the Seattle Times’ Ed Page is from February 24?

… And they’ve fixed it.

– Poor, poor Koch Brothers.

– If Rick Santorum had his way, I wouldn’t have been able to get that test, and she most likely would have died. Because according to him, tests that give parents vital information about the health of their unborn children are morally wrong. Though he has no medical training, and no business commenting on the medical decisions that women and their doctors make, he argues that such tests shouldn’t be provided, or that employers at least should be allowed to opt out of paying for them on “moral grounds.”

– Shaun has some more on the proposed marriage equality plank for the Democratic platform.

– If the Yes Men have corporate America so afraid, they must be doing something right.

– Nobody expects the vaginal inquisition.

– the female orgasm is a violation of religious liberty.

Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. It was in Mead, WA. Milwhcky was also able to get the location that I originally cropped but replaced because I thought it was too hard (it was in nearby Colbert).

This week’s contest is related to something in the news from February, good luck!

Exodus 22:31
You are to be my holy people. So do not eat the meat of an animal torn by wild beasts; throw it to the dogs.

Discuss.

Jimmy Fallon: Translates Obama’s Expressions (via Indecision Forever).

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

Jon does Russ Feingold.

White House: West Wing Week, 100 episode edition:

Ann Telnaes: SCOTUS grants stay in MT Supreme Court case.

Thom: Does SCOTUS now recognize that Citizens United was a mistake?

Young Turks: Stephen Colbert converts dead Mormons to Judaism.

The G.O.P. Games:

• Jon on the Arizona GOP debate.
• Young Turks: Romney’s Koch brothers connection.
• Stephen on Mitt and Donald in Michigan
• Mitt Romney: The GOPs most extreme candidate.
• 100 proof Mitt (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• What’s Mitt’s explaination?
• Stephen on Mitt’s debate performance.
• Young Turks: Are Mitt and Ron BFF?
• Eric Schwartz: STFU Newt Gingrich.
• Young Turks: Newt would ignore our U.S. military commanders.
• Testing Newt’s theory about gun racks in Volts. (h/t Michael.
• Bill Maher: On Newt.
• Ann Telnaes: Rick Sanoturm’s environmental beliefs.
• Actual Audio: Rick Santorum vs the French Revolution
• Bill Maher with some Rick Santorum tweets.
• Eric Schwartz: STFU Santorum.
• Bill Maher: On Santorum.
• Young Turks: Paul and Romney crushes Santorum.

Mark Fiore: Little Green Man.

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

Roy Zimmerman: Another verse for “Vote Republican”:

Stephen fires back at Nancy Pelosi’s attack ad.

Obama does Detroit.

First congressional district candidates speak to Watcom Democrats.

Sam Seder: Who wrote the drone legislation?

Jon: The terrifying prospects of a second Obama term.

ONN: Senate session interrupted by wailing of Ted Kennedy’s ghost.

Alyona: Nuclear fear mongering.

Virginia’s “State Rape” and Other Fronts in the Republican War on Women:

• Jon: Like a “TSA pat-down inside their vagina.” (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Young Turks: Abstinence for married couples.
• One Minute News: IN Republican refuses to honor Girl Scouts.
• Alyona: What are women for?
• Ann Telnaes: No longer the party of Lincoln.
• SNL: Really? Really! (via WaPo).
• Young Turks: Most Americans are pro-birth control.
• Alyona’s Tool Time Award: Radicalized Girl Scouts.
• Jon: an all male panel’s right to choose for a woman

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

Stephen does Nancy.

Comcast Newsmakers interviews Gov. Christine Gregoire.

Sam Seder: The Heartland Institute documents.

WI state Rep. Joel Kleefisch (R-38th) is Worst Person in the World.

Obama visits Boeing workers:

Shuster: Andrew Breitbart is a hypocrite for his silence on rape allegation against James O’Keefe.

Young Turks: David Koch admits buying Wisconsin.

Key & Peele onObama’s anger management.

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

Just in case we weren’t quit sure…Public Policy Polling has done a poll in the Senate race between Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and three potential opponents. The poll surveyed 1,264 Washington voters (2.8% MOE) from 16th to the 19th of February.

State Sen. Michael Baumgartner is Cantwell’s only declared opponent, but PPP also included match-ups between Cantwell and Seattle Port Commission President Bill Bryant and real estate salesman, former two-time gubernatorial and one-time senatorial candidate Dino Rossi. A possible entry into the race by Bryant has launched a minor feud within the state G.O.P.

Here are the PPP poll findings:

• Cantwell (D) 51% v. Baumgartner (R) 36%
• Cantwell (D) 50% v. Bryant (R) 36%
• Cantwell (D) 53% v. Rossi (R) 41%

For job performance, Cantwell receives 47% approval and 38% disapproval for a net of +9.

All three of Cantwell’s potential opponents are underwater in favorability. Nevertheless, the measure is meaningless for Baumgartner and Bryant who get “Not sure” from 78% and 85% of respondents respectively. Dino Rossi, for whom 88% of respondents have formed an opinion, receives 38% favorable to 50% unfavorable.

That’s right…Dino Rossi, the man who been the standard bearer of the Washington state Republican party torch since 2004 (and pitchfork since 2008) has a net favorability of -12.

I realize this is kind of old, but the house GOP Budget is called the “all-priorities budget.” I don’t need to go into the specifics: every out of power caucus presents an unrealistic budget that gets ignored. Then they run on, “our budget doesn’t cut education as drastically as their budget. Then never mention that they do that by ignoring all the things they would have had to put back in if they were trying to actually pass a budget. I’m not blaming them for that, if Democrats didn’t control the levers of democracy, their House budget would have tax increases that won’t actually pass, etc. Then not run on the tax increases bit.

But what interests me is the branding here. “All-priorities budget” seems like it was focus grouped to sound great. But here’s the thing: governing, especially in times of uncertainty and cuts, is about picking some priorities over others. The branding “all-priorities” implies that they think you can have it all.

Public Policy Polling has released a new poll on presidential politics taken in Washington state. The poll surveyed 1,264 voters (2.76% MOE) from 16th to the 19th of February.

Here are a few highlights. First the big four head-to-head match-ups. PPP writes:

Mitt Romney’s fortunes have really been sinking in PPP’s look ahead to the fall campaign, to the point where he routinely now performs worse against President Obama than the surging Rick Santorum does. Indeed, in Washington state, Romney not only trails Santorum with general election voters, but also Ron Paul.

• Obama 52%, Santorum 40%
• Obama 53%, Romney 38%
• Obama 55%, Gingrich 35%
• Obama 51%, Paul 38%

To put these numbers into context, Washington went for Kerry over Bush, 52.8% to 45.6% in 2004, and Obama over McCain, 57.7% to 40.5% in 2008.

Obama has a net positive job approval: 51% approve, 45% disapprove.

The four Republican candidates have terrible favorables:

• Santorum 36% favorable, 51% unfavorable
• Romney 27% favorable, 63% unfavorable
• Gingrich 19% favorable, 69% unfavorable
• Paul 31% favorable, 55% unfavorable

I think we can safely say that Washington isn’t turning red any time soon. I’ll be posting new poll analyses soon.

Seeing the first gubernatorial poll where Inslee isn’t behind is certainly heartening news. I don’t know if it’s an outlier at this point or if the race has tightened up recently. In any event, for the thousandth time, I’m going to point out that we’re not simply passive observers.

As people who’ve been reading this blog for a while know, I’m a big proponent of getting out and doing what you can for candidates. For citizens volunteering. Knocking on doors and having conversations will be more persuasive than whatever ads get TiVoed passed or mailings that go straight into the recycle bin. And calling people reminding them to vote will push the numbers up.

So, I know I’ll volunteer throughout the campaign. And I hope some of you do the same.

– Peter Gleick

– This is sort of a win? Maybe? The state can violate your bodily autonomy only on your abdomen and not in your vagina. Yay?

– 100% accurate Oscar picks.

– I think Social Security is stronger than its critics would have you believe, but I appreciate Chad’s take on what the payroll tax holiday might mean for the program.

– I’d also missed that the right wing is freaking out over the phrase freedom of worship.

You know that nut-job uncle of yours who keeps forwarding shit to your email about how Obama is a Muslim trying to take away our guns and hand America over to the UN? Yeah…that guy?

Now suppose you engaged in an economic game with him beginning in the early 1960s. You each would invest $1,000 in the stock market. But he would do so only during the terms of Republican Presidents. You would do so only during the terms of Democratic presidents. Who’d be ahead today?

Clearly your Uncle would be wiping your socialist ass with the help of Republican Presidents and their laissez-faire, free market, capitalist policies. Right?

Um…not so much:

Uncle Billy-Bob: $2,087
You: $10,920

(And Billy-Bob has almost five extra years of investment on you. )

Any questions?

This is the kind of activist judicial ruling that will cause Rick Santorum to foam at the…um, the caudal portion of his alimentary canal.

Moments ago, Judge Jeffery White of the District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause….

Clearly, the Republicans need to make a Big Fucking Deal about this and push a Constitutional amendment defining Marriage as between one Man and one Women.

Yeah…let’s hope so.

Gosh…we have been deprived of Republican Reality TeeVee lately. Well…a debate started a few minutes ago. I’ll try live blogging it if I can find a stream on the intertubes or radio.

Go to town with your own commentary in the thread.

5:12: Got it…you can stream the debate here.

5:14: As I tune in, Romney and Santorum are doing the opening bickering shtick.

5:15: First words out of Newt’s mouth: “When I was speaker, we balanced the budget.”

5:17: Ron Paul earns the title Jedi Diphthong Master.

5:20: Rick: Just think what the teabaggers can do with Santorum!

5:25: Lost my feed while Mitt was talking about how conservative he was as MA Gov.

5:26: Rick Santorum puts on that “disgusted face”, usually reserved for sex-related matters, as he talks about Mitt Romney asking for and getting Olympics earmark money.

5:34: Pardon our brief live blogging interruption. My computer decided to die. All better now.

5:42: Yay for companies going bankrupt!!!!

5:46: The candidates and the audience tries to bully John. Newt Gingrich goes in to “indignant mode.” “Barack Obama voted to kill babies!”

5:51: Ron Paul: “The pill cannot be blamed for the immorality of our society.”

5:55: Newt: “Whenever the government provides services, they have the power of tyranny.” What the fuck?!?

5:57: Ron Paul goes into incoherent babble mode for a few seconds.

5:58: The audience is sure doing a lot of booing…not always clear who they are booing or why.

6:01: Mitt, if he becomes president, vows to throw tons of young people off their parent’s insurance, throw millions of poor people off of insurance, and make insurance unaffordable for millions of people with preexisting conditions. Nice.

6:31: *Snicker* Santorum said “feckless.”

6:34: Rick Santorum creates his own version of “the axis of evil”. The Santorum version is Syria and Iran.

6:36: Santorum: “A second Obama term will result in a cataclysm in the Middle East!!!!”

6:38: *Snicker* Mitt said “feckless.”

6:39: Mitt and Santorum are talking about the terrible news coming out of the Middle East. WTF? Nothing beats “bad news out of the Middle East” like, 4,000 dead U.S. soldiers, hundreds of thousands dead Iraqi’s, and zero weapons of mass destruction.

6:41: Santorum, “Politics is a team sport, folks.” Newt’s thinking, “marriage, too!”

6:55: Santorum implies that Mitt is “beating the tar out of him” with money. Ummm…Rick, that isn’t “tar.”