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This morning, public radio stations across the nation played a Marketplace piece about small businesses supporting the OWS family of protests.

And who did they feature in the story? Occupy Seattle and Big Mario’s New York Style Pizza:

Big Mario’s has made it cheap and easy to feed the protesters. As The Ave points out, even if you cannot join the crowds at Westlake Center or other occupied sites, you can still support the cause by sending food (or other essentials of life).

I could live the rest of my life on pizza alone, but that may not be true for all. The Ave article asks people to identify other places that support the protesters through discounts and deliver to Occupy Seattle. If you know of any, leave details in the comment thread, here or at The Ave.

It’s seems like an epidemic among Republicans these days. Earlier this week it was Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler (R-WA-3). Today we have ourselves another cowardly Republican on full display.

This time it’s Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA-7) cowering at the thought of appearing before an un-screened crowd:

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is abruptly pulling out of a scheduled Friday lecture on income equality at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School, according to the school.

[…] According to Cantor’s office, the Congressman pulled out after discovering that the speech would be open to the public and seeing reports that the university was allowing protestors to gather on the campus itself.

I cannot substantiate the rumor that instead of giving the speech, Cantor held a meeting with Herrera Beutler and Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA-8) to draft the bylaws of the G.O.P. Coward’s Club.

– As a liberal guy, I’ll say, this is fucked up (Also, wow) .

– The Abacus sign and a sign from Occupy Olympia.

– Handbills and posters for the weekend events at Occupy Seattle.

– During the 2008 Democratic primary, I was always quick to point out that it wasn’t particularly nasty as primary fights go. Certainly nobody was grabbing anybody.

– Of course, the title itself creates high hopes for Master Cantrall’s article, promising to fall right in line with the current wingnut weltanschauung that everything is socialist. Obama is a socialist. Public schools are socialist. Freeways are socialist. Stoplights are socialist. Glazed doughnuts are socialist. The 3-D version of “The Lion King” is socialist.

– It won’t get anywhere for now, but the GOP effort to ban discussion of abortion over the Internet is brazen even for Jim DeMint.

– When the machines take over, they won’t kill us outright. They’ll just program our GPS’s to make us drive around in circles.

When the Washington State Democrats hold their annual “Maggies” (Warren G. Magnuson Awards dinner/fundraiser) on Saturday, the keynote speaker will be former two-term Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak. In and of itself, that’s not particularly notable … the WA Dems bring in an out-of-stater every year. Last year it was Iowa’s Senator Tom Harkin, and previous speakers include Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean.

Joe Sestak is a different kind of politician. I refer not only to his biography — the highest-ranked military officer ever elected to Congress (he was a three-star Vice Admiral), commander of a carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, deputy to the Chief of Naval Operations, National Security Council liaison, director of a top-secret Navy counterterrorism unit — but to some unusual-for-a-politician attributes.

I’ve been a Sestak fan for quite some time. Not long after he first decided to run for Congress in 2006, he participated in the YearlyKos (now Netroots Nation) gathering in Las Vegas. In his post-YK diary post, I wrote the following comment:

thank you, Admiral

I knew very little about you before attending YK, but since returning home I’ve made a (very small, alas) contribution to your campaign through ActBlue.

I don’t want to sound like I’m dissing Eric Massa, your colleague on the panel at YK, because I appreciate his fire. But I found your quiet, measured, from-the-soul passion far more compelling than his fervor. I can imagine that in a debate against Curt Weldon’s delusional bombast, your approach will be all the more effective.

Your words carry immense authority. As a non-military person, I find myself reassessing my views on the military if a man with a style such as yours can so successfully command a carrier battle group.

I grew up across the Delaware, in Cherry Hill. So most of the towns and locations you mentioned are familiar to me. I wish you the best of luck in your campaign, and hope that I’ll be able to put together the funds to send along some additional tangible $upport.

At that YearlyKos panel, Massa strutted and shouted, even tearing off his dress shirt at one point to reveal some clever (he thought) t-shirt. Though I had no idea he’d turn out to be so wacky, it was readily apparent to me that he was hiding behind all the noise he made. On the other hand, Sestak spoke slowly and carefully, but it was evidently from the heart and deeply personal. The authority and passion of his presentation made it clear how such a soft-spoken man could have inspired sailors in a combat zone.

I made small contributions as well to Sestak’s 2008 re-election campaign and to his Senate campaign in 2010. In that one, he edged Republican Democratic incumbent Arlen Specter in the primary but lost narrowly to Club For Growth teahadist Pat Toomey in November.

As a longtime backer, I wasn’t particularly surprised when I received an email from Sestak a couple of weeks ago. After all, I get messages daily, from dozens and dozens of candidates, legislators, and interest groups. The content, however, was completely unexpected. Noting that he’d soon be here in Seattle (though he didn’t mention the reason for the visit), he invited me and his other Washington supporters to join him for coffee on Saturday so that he could thank us for our help. That was all … just to thank us, just to meet us. No request for a check or Paypal or credit card, not even to “retire his campaign debt”. There was no “ask” of any sort.

To say this action was unusual is a vast understatement. I don’t recall anything remotely like it in my years of political activities. Politicians don’t go out of their way to thank (or even notice) small donors like me. Hell, they don’t take a step from morning to night without pleading for cash. Yet here’s Joe Sestak, 3000 miles from home, who wants to spend an hour or so doing precisely the opposite.

Not to suggest a deeper meaning, I’m macabrely amused by the keynoter choices of the WA Dems and WA GOP at their big fundraisers. On Tuesday, the WSRP’s Fall Dinner featured political trickster/Plame unmasker/US Attorney firer/Dubya inventor/secret superPAC creator Karl Rove. The guy whose friend Dubya calls him Turd Blossom. The guy who, through his shadowy American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS organizations, funneled nearly $5,000,000 into last year’s Murray-Rossi race.

Make of the Sestak vs. Rove comparison what you will. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to shooting the shit with Joe on Saturday.

In the past 15 years, support/opposition for legalizing marijuana has skyrocketed from 25%/73% in 1996 to 50%/46% in 2011. Yet there’s still not a single elected official in the United States holding a statewide office (Senator or Governor) on record supporting it. Even some of the best on the issue, like Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin and Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy, have only gone as far as to advocate for decriminalization.

If anyone caught the wonderful Ken Burns documentary on alcohol prohibition earlier this month, they know the legacy of Wayne Wheeler, the main political leader behind the Anti-Saloon League (ASL). Wheeler made himself into one of the most powerful men in Washington by organizing prohibition supporters into large voting blocs capable of swinging elections. His incredible success at doing so led to a Congress in the 1910s where even members who privately enjoyed their liquor would publicly rail against it.

Wheeler didn’t need 50% of the people in his voting bloc. In fact, many times he didn’t. Yet he was able to turn elections his way time and time again. As Daniel Okrent explains in Last Call:

With the ASL’s decision to embark on the “next and final step”, Wheeler’s skill at manipulating majorities through the power of a minority became yet more crucial. The referendum and initiative movement, which drys had supported before they fully grasped how to control legislatures, turned out to be potentially ruinous to the ASL. When two candidates opposing each other in a popular election could be differentiated by isolating one issue out of many, Wheeler’s minority could carry the day; a candidate with, say, the support of 45 percent of the electorate could win with the added votes of the ASL bloc. But when voters were offered a simple yes-or-no, dry-or-wet choice on a ballot measure, a minority was only a minority. In a statewide popular vote on a dry law, wrote historian Jack S. Blocker Jr., the ASL “wielded no power greater than its actual numbers”; in legislative elections, the power of Wheeler’s minority could be measured in multiples.

In theory, the same should be true for marijuana today. Even if only 10% of those who support marijuana legalization (5% of the overall population) vote as a bloc against any candidate who fails to support it, it could function as the same wedge that Wheeler used to bring about alcohol prohibition. But that doesn’t seem likely to happen, and it didn’t play much of a role in the end of alcohol prohibition either.

Even in 1928, as the Democrats nominated prohibition opponent Al Smith in a country that had become mostly fed up with the failures of the Volstead Act, the nation voted for prohibition supporter Herbert Hoover. And Pauline Sabin, the prominent socialite whose support for ending alcohol prohibition was key to showing that women stood against it, was brushed aside by her fellow Republican Hoover, and left the party because of it. Neither Sabin, nor Smith, nor the powerful DuPonts (who thought that ending alcohol prohibition would lead to the reversal of the income tax) could exert the kind of singular political force wielded by Wayne Wheeler. Why?

The easy – and stupid – answer is that drunks and stoners don’t vote. And while there’s some truth to that in general, the 50% of Americans who support ending marijuana prohibition are comprised mostly of people who don’t use it – or use it moderately – but have a strong belief that the law is bad for any number of other reasons. The same was certainly true during alcohol prohibition. The potential voters are clearly out there today to do what Wheeler did.

What I think it comes down to though is that the drive to bring about prohibitions has such a fervent religious element to it that it allows for single-issue voting en masse in ways that hardly any other causes can duplicate. There may be large numbers of people who support the cause of ending prohibition, but few think it’s such a matter of divine importance that all other issues take a backseat. It’s seen as another institutional issue, alongside other serious institutional issues we face, like income inequality and the soaring costs of health care. The same wasn’t really true of those who made up Wayne Wheeler’s voting blocs. And it hasn’t been true of those in the past who’ve supported the drug war and reflexively voted for the candidates who they see as “tough on crime”. This imbalance is just a part of what keeps the drug war going, and it may be just as important as the prison lobby or the pharmaceutical industry or the anti-drug bureaucracies – the groups who often get the blame/credit for keeping politicians silent.

Freshman Rep. Jamie Herrera Beutler (R-WA-3) got a little attention today from the national press. And, um…it wasn’t exactly a profile in political courage.

The original story comes from The Columbian (my emphasis):

Who should be informed of the opportunity to meet with their elected officials? Who decides how that should happen? According to U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Camas, she does.
[…]

On Friday The Chronicle in Centralia received a phone call from Herrera Beutler staffer and Communications Director Casey Bowman informing the newspaper of the meeting. Bowman asked that a meeting announcement not be placed in the paper. However, he did invite the paper to cover the event.

The Chronicle refused his request and published an announcement in Saturday’s paper.

The reason for not publishing an advance notice of the meeting was the fear that people from outside the immediate area could come and “just yell” at the congresswoman “whatever’s on their minds,” Bowman said Friday.

Perhaps Herrera Beutler can get together with Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA-8) and charter a G.O.P. Coward’s Club.

Inevitably, when a bicyclist death by a car is in the news, asshole comments will try to figure out why the bicyclist is at fault. And maybe the bicyclist was acting stupidly. Maybe they were riding poorly, making themselves tough to see, etc. But the thing those comments miss is that drivers have a responsibility not to kill people.

And it’s not just cars and bikes. Anyone that’s a step up on size and safety has a special obligation not to hit something that’s a step down. I have friends who ride their motorcycles pretty dangerously. They ride ridiculously above the speed limit and ride between the lanes. They sometimes don’t wear helmets. Stupid, stupid; don’t do that. Still, if you’re a driver, have the wherewithal to not hit one, for Christ sake. Be aware of motorcycles long before they get to you, and check your fucking blind spots. Even if a motorcycle was driving poorly, if you want to be on the road, be a good enough driver that you don’t hit one.

Motorcycles and cars similarly have an obligation to be extra careful of bikes. Ideally, they’ll wear bright colors, have lights, and drive defensively. But even if they’re ninja riding the wrong way, you should be able to avoid them. Slow goddamn down, and chill the fuck out when you’re near one. If you hit one, after all, there’s a good chance they’ll die. And they aren’t even coming particularly fast.

And finally, cars, motorcycles, and bicycles have an obligation to avoid hitting pedestrians. While a car-pedestrian collision is more likely fatal than a bike-pedestrian one, in both cases, the driver and the bicyclist are moving faster than the pedestrian and will hit them with a hunk of metal. If you can’t avoid hitting a pedestrian, even one who’s jaywalking poorly. Even one obsessed with their phone, and not paying attention at all.

None of this is to say that motorcycles, bikes, and pedestrians shouldn’t look out for their safety, of course. Only that we’re sharing the space, and the larger modes have an obligation to the safety of the rest of the road.

– Mitt Romney is a terrible person.

– The Stranger’s endorsements.

– You guys, the anti car tabs people are totally grassroots.

– a dangerous, hypersexual, unhealthy, emotional, and enraged mass of unmarried drama.

– The New Yorker’s Occupy Wall Street cover.

– Milquetoasts

Robert Mac hosts a debate between incumbent King County Council member Jane Hague and her challenger Richard Mitchell:

Publicola has a brief recap but, man, it’s worth watching the whole thing.

Who do you think does better, and why?

I got to the Ale House a bit late, but here is the open thread….

5:18: Wow…the five minutes I’ve watched has been a big hatefest on Cain’s 999 tax plan. Funny how Republicans suddenly embrace reality when it gives them something to crush their opponent with.

5:20: Apples and oranges. Double-topping pizza for only $9.99: Feast of the top .999%

5:22: The Newtster still insists on being called, “Mr. Speaker”. What a putz!

5:23: Michele wants to “Go back to the miracle of Ronald Reagan’s plan”, “abolish the tax code”, “flatten taxes”. My god, is she an idiot!

5:26: Once again, Rick Perry is caught napping. He doesn’t have a rival tax plan. Instead he wants to talk unemployment. That’s sooooo last month.

5:29: Rick Santorum shouldn’t show his teeth like that. People’ll think he’s British…..

5:34: Michele Bachmann points out that the Obama administration is arguing with itself over the CLASS act. Not really. A good discussion of CLASS come from Ezra Klein.

5:39: Ron Paul is in fine babbly form this evening!

5:42: Rick Perry’s health care plan is to prosecute those who hire “illegals”?!? (Like Mitt Romney, apparently?) I’m feeling healthier already!

5:45: It pains me to say this, but Mitt made mincemeat of Rick Perry over the interruptions and also the “hiring illegals” business.

5:50: Perry had a strong “border” comeback after the “illegals fiasco”, but it was prepared. After Bachmann’s babblery, Perry babbles back.

5:52: Perry tries mining the “Mitt Hires Illegals” again. Less disastrous.

5:53: A Hispanic man just asked a question. Who will be first to ask if CNN checked his citizenship documents?

5:55: I have no idea what Ron Paul just spewed about putting people in groups and group mentality.

5:57: Bachmann: America has problems with magnets and anchor babies. Magnets and anchors can be quite unwieldy! So…good point.

6:03: The Mittster solution to nuclear waste: Let the states BID on it!

6:04: Rick Perry just said that the Government shouldn’t subsidize energy in any form. Wait…wasn’t that his entire fucking Jobs Plan?!?

6:08: Huh…Michele Bachmann is a mom?

6:12: Ron Paul just admitted he is incompetent.

6:18: Fuck…a group of noisy diners just sat down at the table behind me. I could barely hear the debate as it was. Fortunately, the closed caption text is on. Looking at the bright side…is’s good practice for old age!

6:21: Candidates are now going through their pre-prepared statements on “faith”. Fucking YAWWWWWWNNNNN. None of them are going to go there about Mormonism, obviously. I mean, it wouldn’t be fair with Huntsman not there….

6:22: Rick Perry talking about “the founding fathers” is like Mike Tyson talking about nuclear physics….

6:25: A “question from the audience” CLEARLY being read off of a screen. Sheesh. What bullshit!

6:28: Was it a Closed Caption error or was the Newtster talking about “illeteral politicians”???

6:31: Herman Cain: “Policy that we do not negotiate with terrorists”…but maybe we can send ’em some pizza and coke….

6:33: Let’s step back for a moment. Is it my imagination, or is Anderson Cooper, essentially, trying to simply drag the most controversy out of the “debaters”? Seriously…the substance is excessively thin, but the show ain’t half bad!

6:40: Damn…even Ronald Reagan’s movie roles are sacred to the Republicans. They are in a FUCKING REAGAN CULT!!!!!!

6:42: Okay…I’m outta here. I have to go to a birthday dinner a couple of doors down. It has been another enjoyable debate, watching Republicans presidential wannabes trying to out-crazy each other.

So far, it seems that Herman Cain has succeeded in not being destroyed. Perry is toast…very burnt toast that has been thrown into the kitchen sink only to get soggy. What a mess. Michele, “Mr. Speaker”, and Santorum (eeewwwww!) are where they started—amusing sideshows. Romney still comes off as the condescending prick he probably really is…and he continues to be the reluctant choice of Republicans. Oh, yeah. Ron Paul…still the fucking kook-job he has always been.

And that concludes another fascinating episode of “The GOP Primary Asylum Reality Show.” And may God HELP America!

If you have the chance this evening, do show up at the Reject Rove Rally and let Rob McKenna know what you think of him hanging out with one of the architects of Shrubs Great Big Military Adventure in Iraq, renditions, torture, etc.

And then join us for Drinking Liberally, Seattle for another evening of politics under the influence. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. at 8:00 pm. Some folks will probably be there earlier to watch the Republican Debate and have dinner.

Can’t make it? The Tri-Cities chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight beginning at 7:00pm. Drinking Liberally Tacoma meets this Thursday, 7:00pm at the Hub Restaurant. And the Everett chapter of Drinking Liberally meets at the Buzz Inn in Snohomish next Monday at 7:00 pm.

With 227 chapters of Living Liberally, chances are good there is one near you.

Karl Rove is in town tonight to raise money for Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna.

Apparently Rob McKenna is okay with receiving the help of a co-conspirator in the Iraq war, illegal renditions, and the U.S. policy of torturing prisoners adopted under the Bush administration.

Anything for power, huh Rob?

The Democrats are holding a Reject Rove Rally this evening:

We will be at the corner of Bellevue Way (NE 104th Ave). and 6th St. Important Note: 104th Ave. is better known as Bellevue Way. We’ll be on the southeast corner on the sidewalk, directly opposite the Bellevue Westin and in front of the Bellevue Arts Museum. The rally starts at 5:30 pm, but please show up a little earlier than that.

If you have the chance, show up and let Rob McKenna know what you think of him hanging out with a fucking war criminal.

I was reading this piece on the laws that are being used against the Occupy movement, and it occurred to me that there is a process to change any law that isn’t working. So while there’s a case to be made (one that I don’t agree with) that McGinn and other mayors across the country are just enforcing the law, there’s no case that the law needs to stay the way it is.

So, while I understand that the legislative process is necessarily slow and as such tough to deal with in reaction to fast moving events, the City Council could take up a law legalizing camping in Westlake. They could make it temporary (say 3 months) if they were worried about what happens afterwards. They could at the very least extend the park’s hours to keep it open all day. They could just do that in the South part of the park if they’re worried about what’s going to happen with the Christmas Carousel. The same for preparing hot food or any other complaint that they’re breaking the law. I assume the Parks & Seattle Center Committee could at least start the process, even if I wouldn’t expect it to go that far.

Goldy captures remarkable video that shows an interview and the subsequent arrest of a defiant protester at the Seattle Occupation.

The woman has the audacity of building an un-permitted “structure.” It has a sleeping bag foundation (likely not up to seismic or structural codes). Goldy tells me that, aside from asking her to move, they didn’t really take any action until she erected the top portion of the structure, consisting of umbrella-based roofing materials supported by her own arm (certainly not up to structural standards). The city had no choice but to eliminate the dangerous, illegal structure.

As it happens, it was the woman’s only home.

The police first “disarmed” the perpetrator of un-permitted housing construction by taking away a paper cup from her hand and the cigarette from her mouth. It wasn’t just a cup, though, as one cop found out when he pulled the lid off and became moistened by the coffee within.

Dominic Holden has a follow-up report (emphasis in original):

“The only people who we arrest with umbrellas are the people with umbrellas who take their cups of hot coffee and dump it on officers,” says Sergeant Sean Whitcomb. He says you can see in the video below, at about the 1:00 minute mark, the woman “take her hand and forcefully slosh the coffee on one of the officer’s legs.”
[…]

The Seattle Police Department is asking prosecutors to charge her with obstruction, resisting arrest, and misdemeanor assault (for the coffee thing). She was one of eight people arrested this morning, Whitcomb says.

A clear case of assault with “hot coffee.”

Except that, as Goldy’s video timestamp shows, the coffee was no less than 38 minutes old at the instant it was used to assault the officer (and it was possibly much older).

And, contrary to Sergeant Whitcomb statement, the moistening/flesh-scorching incident took place after the police had begun detaining her, not before.

In any case, we certainly wish the officer a speedy and full recovery from his coffee burns and a complete dehydration from the moistening. And thank god(s), that when he pulled the lit cigarette from her mouth, the pain of his first injuries didn’t cause him to plant his palm on the lit end of the cigarette.

Thankfully, the dangerous structure was torn down without additional injury to Seattle police officers or innocent bystanders.

Postscript:

As a non-resident of Seattle, I don’t typically have much to say about the Seattle Mayor—I simply don’t have a dog in that race. It seems to me, this video is the nail in the coffin of Mayor Mike McGinn’s reelection prospects. Simply put, his handling of the Occupy Seattle protest has come off as bipolar.

– Several cities have shifted to smart cards for transit purchases, so adding the ability to use your smart card to pay for parking would be fantastic.

– Every military operation we take on has legitimate criticism. Rush Limbaugh is clearly not the one to provide it though.

– Well, in news that will shock exactly no one, at least one of the images featured on Erickson’s tumblr is fake.

– Some signs from Westlake.

– How many galaxies are in the universe?