Exodus 21:22-25
Suppose a pregnant woman suffers a miscarriage as the result of an injury caused by someone who is fighting. If she isn’t badly hurt, the one who injured her must pay whatever fine her husband demands and the judges approve. But if she is seriously injured, the payment will be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, cut for cut, and bruise for bruise.
Discuss.
Lee Camp: Hell frozen over? A CEO is jailed!
PBS & NPR: Are pesticides to blame for the massive bee die-off?
The 2016 Clown Auditions:
Minute Physics: Why isn’t it faster to fly West?
Pap: Corporate media wants you to be stupid. Let’s fight back.
Mitch McConnell drinks.
Refugophobia:
Thom with Steven Gaffney: Really! How do you know a politician is lying?
Jimmy Dore: God refuses to apologize for Paris.
California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom (with Bill Maher): Why raise the minimum wage.
Redacted Tonight comedy special with Lee Camp.
Farron Cousins: Corporate media is hungering for a war.
Actual Terrorism That Happened in the U.S. This Week:
Congressional hits and misses: Thanksgiving leftovers edition.
John Oliver: Pennies.
Thom: The Good, the Bad & The Very, Very Gallionicly Ugly!
David Pakman: World hunger is a social construction.
Young Turks: Koch brothers building their own CIA to spy on progressives.
Surviving the survivalist game.
Quagmire Happening:
Jimmy Dore: Not drunk Bill O’Reilly calls about Muslims, responsibility & Muslims:
David Pakman: More Mexicans are leaving U.S. than coming in to the U.S.
White House: West Wing Week.
Maddow: Origin of the “freakin’ Presidential turkey pardon”.
Thom: Why the Kochs really embrace criminal justice reform.
Stop war and start cuddling.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
Back in March, when I welcomed Paul Constant to our then-unnamed policy/messaging shop, I joked about our boss’s weird hobby:
Most 1 percenters just don’t know what to do with all their filthy lucre. Some rich people collect art. Other rich people collect cars or even houses. But Nick Hanauer, America’s premier self-loathing plutocrat, seems intent on ostentatiously collecting ex-Stranger writers.
Well, I’m happy to announce that Nick has recently added Hanna Brooks Olsen to his crass menagerie.
Hanna has a number of freelance bylines at The Stranger and elsewhere, though she’s certainly best known to local readers as one of the forces behind the popular tumblog, Seattlish. Mostly, Hanna will be heading up a top-secret internal Civic Ventures project, but she’ll also contribute regularly to our Civic Skunkworks blog. In fact, her first Skunkworks post just went live today: “It’s Too Soon to Tell if a Higher Minimum Wage is Eliminating Restaurant Jobs.” Give it a read, and then pretty much ignore just about every headline you see on the so-called “early” impact of Seattle’s minimum wage.
So welcome to Civic Ventures, Hanna. Now let’s all go out there and change the world… you know, hopefully for the better.
Once upon a July day, Washington Republican leaders were haunted by thoughts of lady parts making baby parts with capitalist intent.
“We will investigate this outrage of endometrial entrepreneurship!”, they cried from the belfry.
The scrivener issued a clarifying scroll, “Yes, we believe in free markets, unless a uterus is involved. And then we demand Big Government Regulations”
So they hatched a bold plan to use Collective Action to get the job done:
Thirty-four Republican state representatives have asked state Attorney General Bob Ferguson to investigate whether Planned Parenthood affiliates in the state have illegally profited from the sale of fetal body parts.
The leaders waited as General Ferguson’s investigation underwent a months-long gestation. They would take the fruits borne of this disquisition, parade the findings before the masses, take them apart and serially disseminate them in pursuit of political contributions.
But the fruits were bitter and cruel to the union of uterine-overseers. There was no nourishment to be had for their War on Women™.
In a 48-page report, Attorney General Bob Ferguson rejected claims that Planned Parenthood has performed partial-birth abortions or that any of its clinics sell fetal tissue for profit “rather than simply recovering costs.”
“We found no indication that procedures performed by Planned Parenthood are anything other than performance of a legally authorized medical procedure,” Ferguson wrote in his report.
Ferguson’s findings are particularly important because Washington is one of only two states where a Planned Parenthood clinic allows women to donate fetal tissue to medical research. The report is a result of a four-month investigation, which was requested by state Republican leaders.
There was no endometrial entrepreneurship to be found in the lands. The report was barren and lifeless. Their plans to sew the seeds of discontent and grow their coffers would have to be aborted.
“Surely, the investigation has overlooked something.”
“We’ll keep looking and root out endometrial entrepreneurship yon.”
More than a dozen other states have also ended investigations of Planned Parenthood without finding any illegal or suspicious activity.
“Inconceivable”, some bellowed.
“Unbearable findings”, others howled.
“More investigation!,” one cried.
“Yes…More investigation!”, another.
And they satisfied themselves by repeating the chant in rhythm, until their distant leaders took their cause.
Congressional leaders have announced their own probe into the organization, which consists of about a dozen members from both parties.
They were, once again, filled with great hope of finding endometrial entrepreneurship, but only so that they could properly abhor it. And plant the seeds of fundraising.
And so it goes.
1 Samuel 18:25-27
“Say to David, ‘The king wants no other price for the bride than a hundred Philistine foreskins, to take revenge on his enemies.’” Saul’s plan was to have David fall by the hands of the Philistines.When the attendants told David these things, he was pleased to become the king’s son-in-law. So before the allotted time elapsed, David took his men with him and went out and killed two hundred Philistines and brought back their foreskins. They counted out the full number to the king so that David might become the king’s son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal in marriage.
Discuss.
How the Keystone victory was won.
Mental Floss: What causes motion sickness?
Tweety: GOP Sen. Vitter chose prostitutes over patriots.
Romance with a young Hillary Rodham.
The 2016 Festival of Clowns:
Minute Physics: How to go to space.
Mark Fiore: Climate Interuptus.
Maddow: $15/Hr nationwide strike by fast food workers.
Stephen: Senators McCaskill & Klobuchar explain how women get things done.
Trevor: The Myanmar Daily Show.
David Pakman: New jobs accelerate as unemployment keeps dropping.
Congressional hits and misses of the week.
Thom: The good, the bad, and the very, very osmagoguely ugly!.
Our generation our choice.
Daily Show: Solution for outdated voting machines.
Maddow: Arizona Republican’s border wall flops! Oops.
Sam Seder: Bill-O-the-Clown thinks all colleges are fascist training camps.
Honest Political Ads: Meet Mrs. Fullbright.
Dick Cheney is the GOP guest of “honor” this week.
Stephen: The next debate will feature Hillary, Bernie and Mumford & Sons (sp?).
War on Christmas Caffeine:
Young Hillary gets ready to party.
How to speak like a presidential candidate.
Mental Floss: 24 facts about GOP Candidate Whine wine.
Farron Cousins: Make voting day a national holiday.
How its built: Political scandals.
Young Turks: WA school football coach won’t stop leading prayers.
Adam Ruins Everything: The Electoral College:
David Pakman: FAUX News hosts confused about good jobs numbers.
Stephen: Climate change and coital frequency.
Young Turks: Good news in the battle for voter rights.
The Adventures of Young Hillary: Hillary in the stacks .
Harry Reid’s special relationship with Roll Call’s Niels Lesniewski.
John Oliver: Prisoner re-entry.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
Betcha Bruce isn’t smiling right about now.
So, on Election Day I predicted that “several races will be left officially undecided after tonight’s ballot drop,” a prediction I apologized for the very next day, writing: “Some will likely tighten up, but I will be awfully surprised if any of last night’s top-line winners end up losing.”
Well, I apologize for my apology.
Over the past few ballot drops the races in both Districts 1 and 2 have tightened to the point where they really are too close to call. No, wait. I take that back. For although Lisa Herbold still trails Shannon Braddock by a 104-vote, 0.56% margin, I’m calling this one for Herbold. And to understand my confidence, you need understand the way our all vote-by-mail ballot counting works.
It is both an over-simplification and a generalization, but ballots tend to be tallied in the order in which they arrive. Election night results include most of those ballots that arrived through Monday; these are the “early” ballots. Most of the subsequent tallies are of “late” ballots from voters who didn’t cast their ballots until Monday or Tuesday. And as we saw two years ago with Kshama Sawant’s stunning 8-point comeback from election night to the final tally, early voters and late voters can sometimes constitute dramatically different electorates.
On election night, Braddock led Herbold 52.92% to 46.48%, but since then the margin has flipped, with Herbold winning a progressively larger share of each day’s totals. Combined, Herbold has won 52.88% of all late ballots, and 57.25% of the Friday evening drop. Assuming about 3,350 votes left to count (and that’s a complicated and iffy assumption), Herbold needs only 51.55% of the remaining votes to win. Based on my experience tracking previous elections, there’s simply no good reason to expect Herbold to fall below that threshold. I would now be surprised if Herbold didn’t win this election.
Meanwhile, in D2, where incumbent Bruce Harrell held a seemingly invincible 10-point election night lead, we have seen an even bigger late ballot swing, with unheralded challenger Tammy Morales winning an impressive 53.44% of the late vote. But unfortunately for her, Morales may have had too large a deficit to overcome: my spreadsheet suggests Morales will need 57.3% of the remaining votes to take the lead, somewhat above the 55.15% she won in the most recent ballot drop. It’s not impossible. But at this point I’d have to put my money on Harrell squeaking out an embarrassingly narrow victory. But to be clear, had Morales benefited from a Sawant-like GOTV effort, Harrell would be out of a job come January.
In any case, it sure does look like all those post-election post-mortems were way premature. The final tally will tell a much different story than the spin we heard on election night.
Last week, Obama made a laughingstock of the Republican Candidates. He pointed out their words about how they would be so “tough” dealing with Putin, and then chided them for their insufferable whining over uncivil debate moderators.
Now they are whining about children expressing anger over Trump’s ugly racism in this ad:
The Donald doesn’t like it one bit.:
“I think it’s terrible, I think it’s just terrible,” the Republican presidential candidate said on Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria Bartiromo.”
Young kids speaking that way “is a disgrace,” he added….
…a disgrace to The Donald because, typically, when little brown kids talk to him that way, he fires their parents.
Marco Rubio is also outraged,
“People are looking at it and say, these people are grotesque. I mean these are little children. What kind of parent allows their children to go on a video like that and use that kind of profanity and what kind of parents allow a kid to do that?”
Rubio, born to two non-U.S. Citizen immigrant parents, might qualify as a non-citizen “Anchor Baby” in Donald Trump’s world.
So…apparently, children using four letter words is more threatening than an opponent who would strip him of his citizenship.
Congressional Hits and Misses: The essential John Boehner.
Stephen: Farewell whoever you were.
VSauce: Juvenoia.
Thom: Here’s what Democratic Socialism is:
Ending gun violence.
How to FOIA the NSA for data about you.
White House: West Wing Week.
Ryan Eyes:
Maddow: The Teabagger scandal that won’t die.
David Pakman: Teabaggers are at a record low.
Trevor Noah: My first American Health Care experience.
Mental Floss: Why does daylight saving time vary by country.
Thom: Un-Koch my campus.
Redskins vs. Reformed Whores: Let’s get it on!
Was MSNBC too easy on the Koch brothers?
Ann Telnes: More proof that SCOTUS is behind the times.
Chris Cillizza: Why Joe not running matters.
Congressional Hits and Misses of the week.
The 2016 Festival of Clowns:
Anonymous KKK Hack.
Sam Seder: FAUX News infotainters have difficulty understanding jobs numbers.
Thom: Will ObamaCare survive in Kentucky?
Obama on Keystone XL.
Nancy Pelosi: “The Republican Committee to Attack Women’s Health”.
Seven mistakes in Bill-O-The-Clown’s book about Ronald Reagan.
Simone Sebastian: If you oppose Black Lives Matter, you would’ve abhorred Martin Luther King.
Mental Floss: Misconceptions about famous composers.
David Hawkings’ Whiteboard: Wealth of Congress:
Red State Update: RIP Fred Thompson.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
Because, this:
THE most expensive race in state history for a seat in the state House might be tilting a politically divided Legislature even more toward the middle.
In the race to represent Federal Way’s 30th Legislative District, Republican Teri Hickel held an eight-point lead over Democratic Rep. Carol Gregory in Tuesday voting returns. If that lead holds in future vote counts, a win by Hickel would skinny the once-mighty Democratic majority in the House down to a 50-48 margin.
The consequences of this shift should be welcome to Washington voters seeking moderation in Olympia.
Right. Because it’s the Democrats who are immoderate and obstructionist, rather than the Republicans who have pledged not to ever raise taxes ever, for any reason, under any circumstance, no matter what. You know, the Republicans who also oppose marriage equality, reproductive rights, gun responsibility, reducing carbon emissions, teaching evolution, and just about everything else the editors claim to endorse. A Republican Party that is so bereft of ideas or intellect (or, let’s be honest, morality) that it has elevated trickle-down-regurgitating student-harassing child-bride-marrying Matt Manweller to the status of rising fucking star.
That is the party to which the wise editorial board members of our state’s paper of record look to bring “moderation” to Olympia.
Sigh. I try not to wish for the day the Seattle Times shuts down its presses. But honestly—fuck you.
– Hunger Strike at Texas Detention Center Swells Into the Hundreds
– Why I don’t encourage my patients to report sexual assault
– Well, the rest of the country had not so liberal an election night.
– Good old self-reliance
I mentioned on Monday, I’m going to be taking a bit of a break from writing. Probably just a couple weeks. I’ll still put up open threads, but they’ll be shorter than even this nonsense. See you in a few.
– I haven’t turned in my ballot in yet, so I sort of feel like Seattlish is yelling at me. I was going to vote Goodspaceguy to protest how Gregoire has been bad in the position. But now that the Seattle GOP endorsed him (and also he has terrible positions as opposed to blah blah space), I don’t want to send the wrong message. Should I leave it blank? Also, I usually just blindly support the tax advisory votes, because it’s dumb that they’re there, but I’m opposed to the marijuana one because it seems like it took a mess and made it messier in an attempt to clean it up. Also, Port of Seattle and Seattle School Board always feel like they’re close to turning a corner, but it never seems to actually get there. Also, why do we vote on judges? That’s kind of dumb.
– It’s really pretty striking how much the ACA has helped states that are willing to accept that help.
Well…I got a late start at it, but here is your open thread for the GOP debate…
I’ll add some snark and tweetery as the mood strikes.
So…one of the reasons I am so late is that I didn’t realize there was no livestream from CNBC. I ended up on some live-feed that includes a panel of wingnut pundits. Google infowars.com and livestream or something.
One pundit dude refers to “Paul Rino” and later says he doesn’t think Rubio is unqualified.
That Rubio-Jeb(!) exchange is like when your kid whips your ass in one-on-one for the 1st time.
— Chris Cillizza (@TheFix) October 29, 2015
5:43: Issues? Issues anyone?
5:47: I agree with Cruz…let’s put some substance into this debate!
5:48: Of course, Cruz dodged a debt ceiling question in the process.
I don't know if anybody else has noticed, but Carly Fiorina consistently comes of as a tad unlikeable. #GOPDebate
— Goldy (@GoldyHA) October 29, 2015
5:49: Awwwwww…that’s adorable. They let Rand talk.
5:50: Christie gets a turn. Christie claims the govt. lies to you about Social Security, and then goes on to make the amateurish mistake of calling it “an entitlement”. It isn’t. You paid in.
I don't know if anybody else has noticed, but Carly Fiorina consistently comes of as a tad unlikeable. #GOPDebate
— Goldy (@GoldyHA) October 29, 2015
Mike Huckabee to Ted Cruz: Keep your Big Government hands off my Social Security.
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) October 29, 2015
Remember how the RNC was going to keep GOP debates all civil and orderly this time?
— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) October 29, 2015
By the way, how come Rubio gets counted down for his youth and inexperience while Cruz, the same age and experience, gets a pass?
— David Horsey (@davidhorsey) October 29, 2015
Good question!
Are we at the "I was a poor kid and now I'm rich" part of the debate?
#WheresTheFastForwardButton? #GOPDebate #CNBCGOPDebate
— Left Out Loud (@LeftOutLoud) October 29, 2015
Cruz, "My dad was a single mom…."
— Darryl Holman (@hominidviews) October 29, 2015
So far, the moderators are doing the most damaging thing possible to @realDonaldTrump: ignoring him
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) October 29, 2015
6:18: Carson is ALL for equal rights for same sex couples…but NO MARRIAGE!
Actually, Ben Carson, believing that LGBT People should have fewer rights than straight people DOES in fact make you a homophobe #GOPDebate
— Will McLeod (@WillMcLeod99) October 29, 2015
Guys, I think Jeb Bush has to make out with Obama: https://t.co/gfDGjXHcJP pic.twitter.com/2c3xUD2QkJ
— igorvolsky (@igorvolsky) October 29, 2015
6:27: The Donald goes after SuperPacs…is he running for Bernie’s VP?
All night candidates have smelled blood, unfortunately for the moderators it's their own
— Joe St. George (@JoeStGeorge) October 29, 2015
6:30: Cruz, “Loose money”. For some reason David Vitter jumps to mind….
I’m still blown away that CNBC couldn’t cite the source on the Trump question. IT’S ON HIS WEBSITE. https://t.co/1cgzqASUYR
— daveweigel (@daveweigel) October 29, 2015
6:34: Mr. Huckabee, I’ve known gas bags and you are one gas bag.
The CNBC moderators seem like substitute teachers: not particularly competent and bullied by smart-alleck students
— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) October 29, 2015
Incompetent questioning yes, but this was the most important debate to date: it finished off the Bush campaign.
— David Frum (@davidfrum) October 29, 2015
Kasich: "Income inequality is driven by a lack of skills." Not true. Income inequality is driven by rules that are rigged in favor of the 1%
— Goldy (@GoldyHA) October 29, 2015
My guess: After this debate gets factored in only R’s over 5% in national poll average will be Trump, Carson, Rubio and Cruz.
— Samuel Minter (@abulsme) October 29, 2015
Trump clearly doesn't understand what somebody wrote in his immigration plan about H1-B visas. #CNBCGOPDebate
— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) October 29, 2015
Trump Once Said Of Guns: “Nothing I Like Better Than Nobody Has Them” https://t.co/sEx6df62bl
— Andrew Kaczynski (@BuzzFeedAndrew) October 29, 2015
So far, I think every candidate has had a moment worth touting or YouTubing… except Bush. #NBC2016
— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) October 29, 2015
6:52: Christie, “When I’m president, police will know it!” Yep. Overtime traffic jam duty pay.
Fiorina makes call for return to Lochner era, saying that there's no constitutional authority for the government to set min wage. #GOPDebate
— Goldy (@GoldyHA) October 29, 2015
Clearly, somebody is doing well in his fantasy football league (amirite, Gov Christie?) #GOPDebate
— Goldy (@GoldyHA) October 29, 2015
Christie just ate Bush's lunch! And probably others. Now this is the inning we have to get some runs!!
— Bill Maher (@billmaher) October 29, 2015
Were this an actual horse race, I'm pretty sure the entire field would be shot. #GOPDebate https://t.co/lD5KIbSCwq
— Goldy (@GoldyHA) October 29, 2015
Winners:
Rubio
Cruz
Christie
Losers:
Paul
Trump
CNBC
— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) October 29, 2015
Huckabee thinks it's easy to eradicate diseases because he knows they don't evolve. #GOPDebate
— Goldy (@GoldyHA) October 29, 2015
Fiorina: "The federal government should not be in a lot of things. The only things they should be in are marriages & women's private areas."
— Craig Rozniecki (@CraigRozniecki) October 29, 2015
7:10: Chris Christie’s run-on, repeated rant is the second “runaway blimp” story of the day!
Chris Christie using that "keep your hands on your wallet line again." (Though to be fair, whenever I'm in NJ I keep my hands on my wallet.)
— Goldy (@GoldyHA) October 29, 2015
7:15: Christie repeatedly said he was “deadly serious” about changing things. Did he mean “dead serious”? In any case, brings to mind that bridge traffic jam….
Rand Paul wants a government so small he can't see it. Like a GOP penis. #GOPDebate
— Wonkette (@Wonkette) October 29, 2015
Trump promises America a lifetime of shorter debates. pic.twitter.com/I7OGMHAICl
— Jim Roberts (@nycjim) October 29, 2015
#CNBCGOPDebate Shut up #MikeHuckabee You're there to sell your book.
— esd2000 (@esd2000) October 29, 2015
"I will change the culture in Washington," says the son and brother of two of the last four presidents. #GOPDebate
— Goldy (@GoldyHA) October 29, 2015
That concludes tonight's debate. We return to ongoing blimp coverage underway in Pennsylvania pic.twitter.com/L1eDPf1nph
— Tim Mak (@timkmak) October 29, 2015
@srjones66 I thought tonight's GOP debate was won by @BernieSanders and @HlLLARY split evenly
— ChuckTv (@Chucktv2) October 29, 2015
Well…that was “a thing.” It was my first GOP debate this cycle (and I was mostly listening to the audio), and it was pretty much the vacuous puffery that I expected. The only surprise to me was Trump’s strong statements against PACs. Other than that, Trump was just a meaningless braggart. Rand Paul morphed into Ron Paul, and came off more fringy than ever. Christie spewed pre-prepared platitudes. Rubio sounded angry and whiny. The Huckster is still a nut. Carson said things, but I don’t really remember them. And there were some other people talking, too. The debate moderators were TERRIBLE (and I am sure that is a bipartisan sentiment).
– Martian Law: Is Mark Watney Really a Space Pirate?
– Baby orcas you guys.
– Abby Wambach is retiring.
– Do conservatives have a different Constitution than the rest of us?
– Seattle Bike Blog has endorsements.
– The process for selecting the next Federal judge from Idaho is strange [h/t].
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!