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A press release was just issued stating that Sen. Mary Margaret Haugen (D-10 LD) will support Senate Bill 6239, that will legalize same-sex marriage in Washngton state.

The Senate bill was introduced with 23 sponsoring senators. Last Thursday, Sen. Jim Kastama (D-25 LD) signed on.

And then there was 25.

Passage is all but certain in the House, which means same-sex marriage is coming to Washington.

Opponents have promised to put a referendum on the ballot. But, considering that a recent Washington Poll poll found 55% to 38% support for such a referendum, this pretty much works in favor of those supporting equal rights for same sex couples. Having the referendum on the ballot may well encourage disgruntled liberals to participate in other high-stakes elections.

Update: Within minutes of posting this, I received a robo-poll from the National Organization for Marriage seeking my opinion whether “marriage should be between one man and one woman only.” I said, “no”, and was then asked my sex and whether I was over 50 years old.

Their web site proclaims:

The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) today pledged to work with allies in Washington State to mount a referendum campaign to ensure that voters have the final say on the definition of marriage in Washington. Legislation, House Bill 2516 and Senate Bill 6239, has been introduced to abandon Washington’s historic definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman, thus imposing same-sex marriage on the state.

Just one more reason why the 2012 election will be extraordinary.

– Explains South Carolina as well as anything.

– Family Values

– When a politician declares the end of something, it’s almost always the beginning, not the end.

– Scenes from the class war

– Terrible tee shirts.

– Tumwater Falls

Gabrielle Giffords is going to step down from Congress this week. I certainly don’t want to tell her how to recover or what’s best for her. I wish her the best, and if this is what’s right for her, I support her doing it 100%. But surely Loughner got, if not what he wanted, a victory today. Surely whatever bounced around his twisted, anti-feminist, gun-fetishist, sick mind having her out of Congress was at the top of his list of his reasons to go on that shooting. And he got it today.

Last week’s contest was won by Poster Child. It was in Dash Point, just north of Tacoma.

This week’s contest is related to something in the news, good luck! (and no partial credit just for guessing the news item this time, it should be fairly obvious)

Leviticus 11:20
The only winged insects you may eat are locusts, grasshoppers, and crickets. All other winged insects that crawl are too disgusting for you to eat.

Discuss.

I’ll be live blogging the results. Because I’m blogging here at Horse’s Ass, I’ll probably do it as a mocking of the typical media style. So if a result doesn’t have a link, it’s probably just something I made up. Polls close at 7:00 SC time, but since I and most HA readers are on the West Coast, polls close at 4:00. All updates will be in West Coast time. It should be noted that I don’t have a TV box, so this might skew toward Internet results.

Update 4:02: Still no results in, but Gingrich is projected to win from the exit polls. Here are some sites I’ll be looking at. Kos NPR TPM The SC Election Commission.

Update 4:08: Newt Gingrich needed a win with the GOP’s critical jackass community. It looks like the jackasses pulled through. Still no actual results, but at the very least the jackasses who were willing to talk to exit pollsters liked the way he didn’t ever actually answer questions at the debates and the way he hates gay people. In addition to jackasses, douches, douche bags, and assholes have all broken strongly for Gingrich. Can he unite these disparate groups of Republicans going forward? We’ll see in Florida.

Update 4:17: Given how well Newt did right after revelations about an affair were brought to light, I think the other candidates should seriously consider leaving their wives for younger staffers. Does Santorum have time leave his wife before the Florida primary?

Update 4:24: Still no results, but CBS news has actual exit poll results.

Update 4:31: OK, real results, y’all. So far even though TPM is predicting Newt is the winner, Mittens has the most votes so far:

Mitt Romney…..1,857…….38.1%
Newt Gingrich…1,614…….33.1%
Rick Santorum…639………13.1%
Ron Paul………..454……….9.3%

Update 4:34: The SC Election Commission has even fewer numbers in and has Romney at 47%. You guys, either you shouldn’t trust small numbers from just a few precincts that just start to trickle in, or the exit polls are wrong. I have no way of knowing.

Update 4:54: An hour after the polls close, TPM has Newtron in the lead over Will.I.Ard:

Newt Gingrich…….7,149……36.5%
Mitt Romney………6,628……33.8%
Rick Santorum……2,958…….15.1%
Ron Paul…………..2,097……10.7%

Update 4:58: Among white voters, so far the results are:

Newt Gingrich…….7,149……36.5%
Mitt Romney………6,628……33.8%
Rick Santorum……2,958…….15.1%
Ron Paul…………..2,097……10.7%

I guess they haven’t counted Nikki Haley’s vote yet.

Update 5:03: Romney’s making a speech. He doesn’t like Obama.

Update 5:05: I think Romney thinks Gingrich is too much like Obama. He’s apparently made “a frontal assault on free enterprise” whatever the fuck that means.

Update 5:06: I won’t have the rest of the speech since NPR has cut it off.

Update 5:12: From Michael in the comments on Willard’s speech:

Romney’s clearly mistaken “free enterprise” with half the women in DC.

Update 5:18: With 94,442 votes in, Newtle is still up over Mittenz:

Newt Gingrich…….38,589……40.9%
Mitt Romney………25,525……27.0%
Rick Santorum……16,204……17.2%
Ron Paul…………..12,033……12.7%

Update 5:24: Joe Wilson is on NPR. He just said, “the health care takeover will destroy jobs.” You lie! It’s not a health care takeover and it won’t destroy jobs.

Update 5:37: All the news sources I see say Newter has won 17 delegates. I assume that’s all of them. Does anyone know if there are any delegates up for grabs?

Update 5:45: How many of the 2,353 so far votes for Herman Cain are for Cain and how many for Colbert? I’m going out on a limb and saying all of them are for Colbert. Every single one.

Update 5:52: Apparently Santorum is speaking and he’s still in it, but NPR isn’t breaking to it like they did for part of Romney’s. Here’s my guess: “I hate gay people. Boo women. Race baiting.”

Update 6:01: Looks like “Says You!” on KUOW.

Update 6:07: With 355,360 votes in Oven Mitt is still down to Out with the Old In With The Newt:

Newt Gingrich………….144,242……40.6%
Mitt Romney……………93,628…….26.3%
Rick Santorum…………63,475……17.9%
Ron Paul……………….47,712…….13.4%
Herman “Colbert” Cain…3,477……..1.0%

Update 6:13: I think we can all agree if you want to win an early primary it helps to have been an elected official from a neighboring state. So that bodes well for Newt in Florida.

Update 6:19: Does shutting down the government because you have a sad about seating assignments help you win a primary contest 12 years later? Answer: Maybe?!?

Update 6:22: I just found the NPR live feed and they said that Gingrich won 23 of 25 delegates. I assume Romney won the other 2, but I can’t find it anywhere.

Update 6:25: Newt Gingrich isn’t coming out to speak yet. 3 possibilities for why: 1) He knows coverage will stop after he’s done so he’s dragging it out. 2) He was surprised by the size of the victory and is rewriting his speech. 3) He’s having sex with future wife #4.

Update 6:27: OK, Newt is on stage now.

Update 6:32: Elites are trying to make us stop being American. What?

Update 6:34: The other candidates reflect the openness of the American system. Yes, 3 wealthy white Christian men show how anyone can run for president?

Update 6:35: Newt attacks New York and Washington. People chant “USA USA USA.” Um, New York and Washington are part of the USA.

Update 6:38: He’s making a TelePrompTer joke (as he’s reading off his script).

Update 6:39: Saul Alinsky. What?

Update 6:41: Now he’s talking about “anti-religious bigotry” as he defines opposition to Christian supremacy.

Update 6:44: Oh good, we’re back on food stamp president. Without food stamps a lot of the children of the working poor will starve, asshole. And make them janitors isn’t a fucking answer.

Update 6:45: The NPR feed just cut out the speech. Phew, now I can listen to E.J. Dionne and Matt Continetti. Thanks? NPR.

Update 7:04: OK, most of the votes are in, so this is the last update, probably:

Newt Gingrich……..209,218…….40.4%
Mitt Romney……….139,804…….27.0%
Rick Santorum………89,871…….17.4%
Ron Paul…………….69,360……..13.4%

I assume this means Newt has the lead in the delegate count (even assuming you can make up some guess for the Iowa delegate count). Hmm, I was more serious than I thought I’d be and left a lot of jokes on the table. Surprising given how it wasn’t even that close.

Now on to Florida.

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

Pap: How Republicans pack the courts.

White House: West Wing Week.

That political whorehouse that is Fox News is Worst Person in the World.

SOPA—PIPA:

• Sam Seder: Our SOPA blackout
• Alyona’s Tool Time Award: Three SOPA Power Players.
• Mark Fiore: SOPA–PIPA
• Thom: Blacked out over SOPA.
• Alyona’s Fireside Chat: SOPA blackout, future model for protest?
• Jon on the SOPA protests.
• About SOPA and PIPA.
• Rockbottomcookie: Stop SOPA.
• Sam Seder: SOPA & PIPA not the first time governments have messed with the web
• Keith and Markos: shocking victory over SOPA
• Alyona: PIPA/SOPA stopped for now.

Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) is Worst Person in the World.

Sam Seder: Arizona pretends Mexicans don’t exist.

Obama: Lunar New Year Message.

Maddow: Why Gov. Mitch Daniels is an embarrassing choice for GOP response to State of The Union .

ONN: Critics slam Obama for just standing there…during photo op.

Olbermann with Nancy Pelosi: Reflections on election 2012.

Stephen does retired justice John Paul Stevens.

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

The G.O.P. Primary Asylum:

• Sam Seder: Republican clown car just got roomier.
• SC debate redux:
  
  
• Bill Maher: Rick Perry’s secret PAC ad.
• Thom: 94 hamsters and Rick Perry’s brain.
• The Huntsman girls’ unseen anti-Romney ad.
• Alyona’s Tool Time Award: Huntsman scrubs web site of anti-Romney materials.
• Ed: Wildest day of the GOP campaign leaves Mitt ‘Cayman’ Romney reeling
• Mitt Romney dodges questions
• Mitt Romney is STILL dodging.
• Young Turks: Mr. 15%
• Pap: Public thinks Romney only cares for the wealthy
• Sharpton: Mitt Romney scrambles to hide Cayman Islands ‘loot’ .
• Mitt Romney throws Granny off a cliff.
• Mitt: Maybe.
• Mitt Romney goes to SNL
• Ad: Rich Kids for Romney:
  
  
• A taxing day for Mitt Romney.
• Mitt Romney, for laughs. (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Alyona’s Tool Time award: Mitt Romney “from the streets”
• Ed and Pap: Is Romney breaking the law with offshore bank accounts?
• Thom: Is Mitt Romney a serial killer?
• Mitt: Bain vs. Detroit
• Ann Telnaes: When $362,000 a year is “not very much”.
• Pro-Gingrich PAC imagines an Obama—Romney debate (via Political Wire).
• Actual Audio: Newt thinks he will win South Carolina.
• Stephen on Newt: He’s a Southern gentleman.
• Red State Update: Newt’s open marriage, Rick Perry drops out, Mitt’s rich….
• Newt Gingrich: Man of many wives.
• Ann Telnaes: GOP wants an open marriage with Mitt.
• Young Turks: Newt’s “Open Marriage” is worst example of family values.
• Jon mocks Newt over “open marriage” accusation.
• Thom: Crazy Alert—Rick Perry’s Tattoo

Sam Seder: A million signatures in Wisconsin.

Young Turks: Obama’s “Al Green” performance is a hit.

Alyona: Citizens United, two years later.

Jon with Fear Factory (via OneGoodMove).

Ann Telnaes: Stephen Colbert’s truthiness.

White House: David Plouffe on the State of the Union: The White House wants to hear from you:

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

Running for President of the United States of South Carolina:

• Jon is adrift in a sea of Colbert SuperPAC money.
• Colbert SuperPAC is definitely not coordinating with Stephen Colbert.
• Colbert SuperPAC: Vote Herman Cain, not Stephen Colbert.
• Stephen Colbert is attacked by Colbert SuperPAC.
• Stephen and Herman rally in South Carolina.

Ed with some Republican Psychotalk

Newt Gingrich sneers his way to Worst Person in the World.

Brave New Foundation: President Eisenhower warned us about Military-Industrial Complex and today’s war profiteers.

Thom: The Occupy Movement is mutating.

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

About an hour ago, PSE restored power to our house out here in Fairwood. We lost power at around 7:45am yesterday and our internet and cell phone service became unavailable at 2pm. This would have been a miserable experience for us had my father-in-law not set us up with a homemade generator he built this summer. He does this as a retirement hobby/business and I totally owe him some incoming traffic (at least) as it was so nice to be able to use our fridge, microwave, furnace, and even the TV while many of our neighbors headed out to hotels for the night.

I really dig the initiative by mayors across the country to support marriage equality (h/t). It pushes the issue forward and while it’s mostly symbolism, that’s all that they can do. Still, when I checked out the Washington entries on the list, I was a little disappointed.

Timothy Leavitt – Vancouver, WA
Mike McGinn – Seattle, WA
Marilyn Strickland – Tacoma, WA
Ava Frisinger – Issaquah, WA

That’s it. McGinn and Strickland are gimmies. I’m glad they signed on but it would be much more surprising if they didn’t than if they did, just based on the cities. But Everett isn’t on the list. No Olympia or Bellingham. No Bellevue and only one suburban King County city. No Spokane or any Eastern Washington cities.

Of course, gay people (and their allies) live outside those 4 cities. They live in Eastern Washington. I don’t know what the outreach there was to the mayors not on the list, but there’s more work to do.

In case you haven’t heard, SOPA and PIPA are dead:

SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said his committee won’t take up the bill as planned next month — and that he’d have to “wait until there is wider agreement on a solution” before moving forward.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, meanwhile, said he was calling off a cloture vote on PIPA he’d scheduled for Tuesday.

…or at least delayed:

Reid tried to put on a brave face, saying in a statement that he was optimistic that progress could be made in the coming weeks.

Memo to Harry Reid:

What the fuck?!?

– Are y’all digging yourselves out of the snow? I’m not generally a fan of Art Thiel, but I think this piece on Seattle snow driving is mostly right. But there are still some idiots who don’t know how to drive in snow.

– 6 years of tax returns seems like a plan for Mitt.

– Looks like we’re going to have a plastic bag ban for really. Get your canvas bags by July.

– This was my favorite SOPA protest (no offense to us).

– Dana Milbank gets it wrong on abortion and when the great recession started.

– Whoopsadoodle, Seattle Times.

– Emmett has a cautionary tale about the Hotel Olympia.

That’s right. There is another GOP primary debate tonight. This one is sponsored by CNN.

You might say that today was a really, really lousy day for Mitt Romney. First, he is dramatically slipping in the SC primary polls to Newt Gingrich. For the past week, Romney has led Gingrich in every SC primary poll. Just yesterday Romney was leading Gingrich 33% to 23% in a CNN/Time poll—the only poll for that race. Today there are five new polls in the race: A Marist poll for NBC has Romney leading 34% to 24%; a Politico poll has Romney up 37% to 30%; Rasmussen has Gingrich leading 33% to 31%; an Insider Advantage poll has Gingrich leading 32% to 29%, and a PPP poll has the Newtster leading the Mittster by a whopping 34% to 28%.

You might say the SC primary is very suddenly a toss-up. (I know the coverage of it has sometimes made me want to toss-up, but that’s different.)

Mitt also had a bad day because Rick Perry surrendered (“you won’t have Rick Perry to kick around anymore”) and Perry endorsed the Newster.

Finally…We learned today that Mitt really, probably, kind-a lost the Iowa caucus to Rick Santorum. The blow is only psychological, as there were no delegates directly at stake. Still….

What saved the day for Romney, however, is the ABC News with Marianne Gingrich (the second of Newt’s wife collection) in which she claims Newt asked her to make theirs an open marriage:

She said when Gingrich admitted to a six-year affair with a Congressional aide, he asked her if she would share him with the other woman, Callista, who is now married to Gingrich.

“And I just stared at him and he said, ‘Callista doesn’t care what I do,'” Marianne Gingrich told ABC News. “He wanted an open marriage and I refused.”

With that, we enter the last debate before a pivotal SC primary. Will Mitt finally debate like he is fighting for his life? Will Newt go for more kills against Mitt? Will Ron Paul get to say anything? Will Santorum go after Mitt, the rich boy with a sense of entitlement, or will he go after Newt the fornicator?

Folks…it’s Popcorn Time!

I’ll be providing comments as I can. However, my power is flickering and my UPS is dead. Oh, joy.
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Senate Bill 6239 would legalize same-sex marriage in Washngton state. The bill was recently introduced with 23 sponsoring senators. It needs 25 votes to pass.

Today it just got one vote closer to passage (via KIRO):

Sen. Jim Kastama of Puyallup announced his decision Thursday, becoming the 24th senator to commit their vote to the measure. The chamber now needs to just one more yes vote from a group of a half-dozen uncommitted votes that remain.

Earlier today, the Washington State Catholic Conference came out against same-sex marriage. The reason they give is laughable:

This same law also prohibits marriage to close-blood relations, a clear indication that the definition of marriage is related to bringing children into the world and the continuation of the human race. The legislation to redefine marriage, therefore, is not in the public interest.

Horseshit.

What the bill actually does (see Section 3) is modify the incest laws by striking phrases like “husband and wife” and replacing them with “spouses”. For example:

When the ((husband and wife)) spouses are nearer of kin to each other than second cousins…

and

It is unlawful for any ((man to marry his father’s sister, mother’s sister, daughter, sister, son’s daughter, daughter’s daughter, brother’s daughter or sister’s daughter; it is unlawful for any woman to marry her father’s brother, mother’s brother, son, brother, son’s son, daughter’s son, brother’s son or sister’s son)) person to marry his or her sibling, child, grandchild, aunt, uncle, niece, or nephew.

Update: I misinterpreted what was being claimed, and have marked up what follows:

Clearly, what the bill does is just the opposite of what the Washington State Catholic Conference claims. Rather than adding proscriptions against incest that may result in inbred children, the law modifies to modify extant incest laws to make them apply to same-sex marriages as well.

But do the laws on the book actually refer only to relationships that are for procreation? I don’t think so. The incest laws apply equally to incestuous marriages in which one partner is sterile or in which the female partner is of a post-reproductive age. If a brother and sister marriage is a “moral shock,” is it any less of a shock to learn that he had had a vasectomy?

What about a post-menopausal mother marrying her son or grandson? Remember the priest in Harold and Maude? “I would be remiss in my duty, if I did not tell you, that the idea of… intercourse – your firm, young… body… comingling with… withered flesh… sagging breasts… flabby b-b-buttocks… makes me want… to vomit.”

Shocking? Yes. About procreation? no.

Clearly, there is something about our laws against incest that goes beyond mere inbreeding avoidance.

What a bunch of lying uptight assholes!

This David Brooks column has been making the rounds for this thing he said.

I sometimes wonder if the Republican Party has become the receding roar of white America as it pines for a way of life that will never return.

I don’t know when he started covering politics, but his sentiment would have been true since at least Nixon and probably further back. This, as I say, has been well covered in the blogs the last few days. But what struck me most when reading it was this:

The other pleasure of covering campaigns is getting to play American Idol judge, evaluating the political performances.

Look, I’m someone who tries to make politics fun. And on the one hand, if that’s what you like about politics, well fine.

But on the other hand, go fuck yourself David Brooks. How in God’s name can anyone find pleasure in judging — what — the theater aspects of stump speeches and town halls? To actually get pleasure from complaining that George HW Bush looked at his watch, or that Al Gore sighed, or that Kerry was stilted, or Hillary Clinton whatever the press made up about her crying before NH?

That’s a pleasure? Pleasure. Not a chore. Not something you feel you should do to give voters an insight into whatever made up bullshit about why that’s more important to cover than actual issues. A pleasure. Like good sex or good food? The most awful, the shittiest what-the-fuck-are-they-doingist part of political coverage brings David Brooks pleasure? I guess what I’m saying is it’s bad enough when journalists do this sort of coverage, but can’t they at least pretend it’s their job, and not say how fun it is.

I mean I always thought it was laziness: It’s easier to say this or that candidate talks funny (or elegantly) than to report on what foreign policy will look like if they’re president. But to say it’s pleasurable is even worse.