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Welcome, Hanna Brooks Olsen, to Nick Hanauer’s Crass Menagerie

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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.

The Uterid

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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.

HA Bible Study: 1 Samuel 18:25-27

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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.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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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.

Lisa Herbold Likely to Win Seattle City Council District 1, While District 2 Is Still Too Close to Call

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Bruce Harrell

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.

Not just debate moderators, G.O.P. candidates cannot handle kids with strong language

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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.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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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.

Fuck You Up the Fucking Fuckhole, You Fucked-Up Fucking Fucktards

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Because, this:

Seattle Times, fucking idiots

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.

Open Thread 11/4/2015

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– 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.

Open Thread.?.

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– 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.

– This is creationism, or crime-fighting on a hunch. But creationism is a respected tradition in America, extending from “draeptomania” to “they’re raping our women” to “negro cocaine fiends,” to “crack babies,” to “super-predators,” to “wilding,” to “the knock-out game” and now to “the Ferguson Effect.” There is something of a trend here—the creationist-style of crime control takes a special and discriminating interest in black communities. This is our heritage.

– It’s really pretty striking how much the ACA has helped states that are willing to accept that help.

– Ben Carson Is Saying Stupid Things About Abortion—Again

– What do you do with those uneasy feelings?

GOP Debate Open Thread

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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.

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.

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.

Good question!

6:18: Carson is ALL for equal rights for same sex couples…but NO MARRIAGE!

6:27: The Donald goes after SuperPacs…is he running for Bernie’s VP?

6:30: Cruz, “Loose money”. For some reason David Vitter jumps to mind….

6:34: Mr. Huckabee, I’ve known gas bags and you are one gas bag.

6:52: Christie, “When I’m president, police will know it!” Yep. Overtime traffic jam duty pay.

7:10: Chris Christie’s run-on, repeated rant is the second “runaway blimp” story of the day!

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….

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).

openthread10262015ad

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– Seattle Bike Blog has endorsements.

– That’s important to remember as you’re filling out your ballot; even if you can’t vote in 3, you CAN vote in District 8 (where Burgess is running against Jon Grant, who does support Kshama/is not taking money from Republican PACs). You may also, depending on where you live, be able to vote for Tammy Morales, who spoke before Sawant at a rally on Monday about housing affordability.

– Over and over, members of the Republican elite express shock at the true nature of their party, as if they didn’t cultivate it to be precisely so, and Jeb Bush’s mystified temper tantrums about Donald Trump are just the latest iteration in this same tired tale.

– The process for selecting the next Federal judge from Idaho is strange [h/t].

– The Day the GOP Turned the Benghazi Tragedy Into a Farce

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Trevor Noah calls Wolf Blitzer a mean girl bully.

Larry Wilmore: Will the NRA suggest arming every toddler?

How gun advocates sound to normal people:

Young Turks: Lincoln Chafee drops out.

The 2016 Festival of Clowns:

White House: West Wing Week.

Red State Update: Political news of the week

BENGHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaZZZZZIIII!!!!!1!!11!!!

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Lutulently Ugly!

Farron Cousins: Republicans are paid to be stupid.

Texas Blues:

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about the Greek and Roman myths.

Farron Cousins: Nutjobber House Republicans are talking about impeaching Clinton when they lose

Trevor Noah: Canada’s hot new Prime Minister.

Ryan Eyes:

Ole Miss students want Mississippi state flag off campus.

Farron Cousins: Sen. David “DiaperBoy” Vitter got prostitute pregnant and told her to have an aborition.

Congressional hits and misses of the week.

Biden His Time:

Jon and Tracey Stewart on life after the Daily Show.

Mental Floss: 41 fascinating sports facts.

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

Fuck Dori

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I know, what can you expect? Gigantic asshole gonna gigantic asshole (I saw this on Facebook over the weekend, but I can’t find who linked to it now).

During his October 7 show on KIRO-FM, Dori myopically focused on a part of POC Yoga’s class description which put forth “white friends, allies, and partners are respectfully asked not to attend.” Despite on-air claims that he had “zero problems” with POC Yoga, was “perfectly fine” with the practice, and believed POC Yoga “should be free”—he also openly accused POC Yoga of being “racist,” “exclusionary,” and more than once (instead of calling the collective by its self-chosen name) referred to it as “no whites yoga class.” Dori gave no historical context, did not acknowledge whites disproportionate privilege in a white-dominated culture, and made no mention of the ongoing microaggressive to extreme racism people of color have faced in America for centuries.

Jesus. When I hear his show, he isn’t typically interested in, for example, making sure that Black kids aren’t gunned down by the police. Maybe I missed it. He’s on the air for like 500 hours a day. And, inexplicably, halftime in the Seahawks’ radio broadcast.

I guess, if he wanted to make a perfectly race neutral type argument, he would naturally spend time trying to figure out why there’s still a wage gap between the races. Again I haven’t seen it. You’d certainly think someone who wants to call out racism so much he’s worried about a yoga class wouldn’t be so quick to call George Zimmerman “a hero” and “a superhero” in the clip (not in the context of murdering a Black child, but still: Holy shit).

Anyway, that’s the argument qua the argument. But were there any consequences to his dumbassness?

Directly following Dori’s heated criticism, Teresa said hate calls and death threats started pouring in every five minutes. There were all together over 200 phone calls, and hundreds and hundreds of emails filled with hostility and hate. What had just been anger generated out of a Nextdoor post spiraled into a violent, racist fervor that swept the country and made its way onto inflammatory websites like Infowars and Drudge Report. She rushed out that day to get a security system for her home though she stayed with a friend that night for safety. From that point through the weekend POC Yoga and Rainier Beach Yoga (the studio where class was held) filed several police reports. On Monday they filed an FBI report.

“Those death threats alone illustrate exactly why people of color need safe spaces,” said Joe R. Feagin, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Texas A&M. Feagin is author of over 200 research articles and over 60 books on race, class, and gender. He has been studying patterns of white discrimination against people of color in the United States for 50 years and has reviewed hundreds of empirical studies. Feagin says the empirical data is clear. “Racism is still extraordinarily widespread in this country and does great harm to people of color,” he explained. “Therefore it is not only logical but necessary that people of color create safe spaces away from whites in which to deal with the stresses of racism and build up strategies to resist.”

Now Dori isn’t responsible for all the dumbassness that his dumbass listeners do. But maybe he’ll think a little next time.

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