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Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Mark Fiore: The Math of Democracy.

Stephen: Tips for potential VP candidates (not you, Carly)

Jimmy Kimmel: Wall of election results has a bad day.

Larry Wilmore: Cleaning up Utah’s porn.

The 2016 G.O.P. Self-immolation Comedy Show:

Stephen: The political week in review with the “Hungry for Power Games”.

Dark Night staring Sen. Patrick Leahy.

Sen. Franken: Obama’s Supreme Court nominee deserves a hearing.

Stephen: How are humans NOT the national mammal?

Daily Show: Felon voting rights.

Coach Convicted:

Can you get rich by running for President?

Seth Meyers: Trump’s and Hillary’s running mates.

John Oliver: Puerto Rico.

White House: West Wing Week.

Young Turks: How Hispanic voters will crush Republicans.

Greenman: Surveilling the scientists.

Amy Schumer: Dr. Congress.

State Sanctioned Discrimination:

Jimmy Dore: Political news of the week.

Sam Seder: Dennis Miller is still incredibly unfunny.

Seth Meyers: A closer look at the NE primary.

Mental Floss: 36 facts about tea.

Daily Show: Confused Islamophobes target American Sikhs.

Bernie Sanders: Bernie Sanders on the crisis of the middle class.

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

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Roy Zimmerman: Everybody is Everybody Else.

Bill Maher: Tax the churches.

How to fix America’s corrupt political system.

The White Jet Pro.

What people did with presidential candidate cut-outs.

Who’s it going to be? Donald Drumpf or Hillary?

Always After Me Lucky Charms:

White House: West Wing Week.

Young Turks: Gyrocopter pilot sentenced to prison.

Wicked: Denying Hillary.

The 2016 Crazy-Fest:

David Hawkings’ Whiteboard: Life in the Senate after running for President:

Kimmel: The week in unnecessary censorship.

Daily Show: The Carson twins debate….:

Stephen: Bernie said “do do”.

State Sanctioned Discrimination:

Reporter fail: Attempt to make #DemocracySpring look stupid backfires!

Deprogrammed political news of the week.

Thom: Can social media seize control of our elections?

Stephen: New York primaried hard.

Mental Floss: 27 facts about James Bond.

The $20 Makeover:

Mark Fiore: Islamophobic Air.

How to stop Ted Cruz.

Obama’s weekly address: Building a fairer and more effective criminal justice system.

PsychoSuperMom: Gerrymandering.

Stephen: Everyone is mad about campaign finance reform.

Break Free Pacific Northwest.

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

Systemic

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When liberals and conservatives have conversations about things like homelessness, it can be frustrating. Conservatives want individuals to take personal responsibility. And while liberals find individual responsibility important, we also understand that there are systemic problems that have to be dealt with. That it’s really tough to bootstrap yourself into a house if you’re homeless and there isn’t enough supply. So, sometimes we talk past each other. Jason Rantz tries to circle that square by showing how liberals being tolerant is the real systemic problem (h/t).

I’ve been meaning to do a longer piece for a while, but it keeps being nice out. After like 4 days, it’s still too nice of a day to do a metacommentary piece on the whole thing, but here are some highlights:

But why so many in this neighborhood? I’ve never seen as many until recently. As other neighborhoods are engaged in trying to help deal with the problem, Capitol Hill seems like they’re allowing it to develop unfettered. I think I know why: ideology.

Homelessness is everywhere. I don’t know what neighborhood doesn’t have homeless people. Including suburban and rural places in King County. Also, is Cap. Hill’s tolerance new? Because otherwise, it doesn’t really apply to this supposedly new problem. Also, too, I walked from the light rail station to Drinking Liberally last Tuesday, and back fairly late at night. It was after reading this piece, so I was on the lookout for homeless people. It didn’t seem like a whole lot, at least compared to other neighborhoods. Sure, I passed by some people sleeping in doorways, but I don’t think more than Downtown or Belltown. Certainly not more than, say, the Terminal 91 Bike Path or SoDo, if we’re trading anecdote for data.

Progressive ideologues like to preach how tolerant they are. You ask them and they’ll proudly tell you. Now, they don’t support ideological diversity, but they’re pro-LGBT, pro-people of color, pro-atheist, pro-multicultralism, pro-whatever. The only things they’re against seem to be capitalism and cisgendered white Christian Republican men. And to show how tolerant they are, they seek to ban microaggressions; they support college students who need “safe spaces” from opinions that make them uncomfortable. They like to declare themselves allies of any group they believe to be oppressed.

Atheism and multiculturalism are both ideologies. So that third sentence is self-refuting. Some progressive ideologues are against capitalism, but I think most aren’t. Also, I don’t know what against “cisgendered white Christian Republican men” even means. Like, don’t think they should dominate the conversation, sure. But progressives are not the ones trying to regulate where cis people can poop or poised to nominate someone who wants a travel ban on Christians. Anyway, I guess we should just be glad he learned the word cisgendered and this isn’t a rant about that.

Oh my God there was so much wrong with that paragraph. OK. Keep going.

Nobody is trying to ban microaggressions. Pointing out how harmful they are? Sure. You can go yell racial epithets (macroaggressions if you like) in the park, and nobody is going to ban you. But you think a ban on microaggressions is in the works? Also, safe spaces and being allies to the oppressed is pretty rad. Like everywhere should be unsafe in general and harmful to oppressed people? What the fuck even is that? In fairness, he walks that back a bit in the next couple paragraphs, that I’m skipping. But still.

I think some ideological activists won’t help the homeless because they subconsciously want to live around them. They can say that they don’t judge people based on their appearance or status as someone who lives on the street, and this gives them a sense of superiority to those of us who want to intervene.

This describes literally nobody. The solutions to homelessness include build more housing and make it affordable. It isn’t just tolerate it. The closest thing I can think of to being tolerant as a policy was housing for chronic public inebriates, but that has been a success story among King County’s mixed-at-best record.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Bernie and the Rabbi.

Samantha Bee: Why superdelegates are a good thing.

Sam Seder and Ari Berman: Voter suppression in 2016.

Young Turks: Planned Parenthood shooter’s crazy, creepy fantasy.

Jimmy Dore: Bill O’Reilly spews racist garbage, immediately says he’s “not a racist”.

Samantha Bee: Gun TV.

Matthew Filipowicz: Climate change and the war on clouds.

Daily Show: Sexual racism.

Minute Physics: Why are airplane engines so big.

The 2016 Clown Parade Marches On:

White House: West Wing Week.

How 112 people will determine where the GOP convention goes.

How to do your taxes.

Stephen and Hillary: America’s small issues.

Seth Meyers: A closer look at Goldman Sachs’ fines

Sam Seder: Public backlash puts the heat on in N.C..

VSauce: How to count past infinity.

Political ‘Captain America’ mashup.

House of Ruth: SCOTUS in the City

Samantha Bee: The NRA stands up for strict regulation…of its mascot costume!

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

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Seth Meyers: Bernie on why young people love him.

Thom: Exposing the diploma mills.

Panamonium:

Mental Floss: 38 facts about the internet.

Robert Yasumura: Republicans are a sausage party and you’re not invited:

Thom: Should the FBI be able to hack you?

Colbert: Political week in review.

Seth Meyers: A closer look at paid family leave.

The 2016 Clown Show:

Pap and Farron Cousins: GOP policies always lead to death and destruction

Young Turks: Feds raid anti-Planned Parenthood activist’s home.

Seth Meyers: Bernie on his cable access show and Hillary:
https://youtu.be/7YBQHXMfFhY

Republican’s Voter Suppression is Voting Fraud:

Jimmy Dore: Hero woman shouts Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) out of a Starbucks.

Obama: The U.S. economy.

What the Zika virus probably looks like.

Seth Meyers: “Ya Bernt” with Bernie Sanders.

Kimmel: The week in unnecessary censorship.

State Sanctioned Discrimination:

Mental Floss: Where did emojis come from?

White House: West Wing Week.

Stephen: The do-nothing Congress is about to do something magical:

McConnell is not taking calls.

Jimmy Dore: Political jokes of the week.

Palin’ Around with Terrorists:

Getting a grip on the Space Station.

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

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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North Carolina anti-gay tourism advertisement.

Jimmy Kimmel mansplains to Hillary.

Minute Physics: Are we looking in the wrong place for aliens?

Rosie the Riveter goes to Washington.

The 2016 Festival of Clowns:

Seth Meyers: Eric Holder explains why more Wall Street bankers aren’t in jail.

Greenman: How reliable are satellite temperatures? (Director’s Cut).

Proof of evolution in our bodies.

Larry Wilmore: Racist origins of Nixon’s War on Drugs.

Cuban Romance:

Mark Fiore: Thank You! Love, ISIS.

Food processing science (and weirdness).

Sarah Palin gets her own “Judge Judy” show.

Young Turks: The legacy of Rob Ford.

Thom: Portland, Oregon sues Monsanto.

Matthew Filipowicz: Who’s to blame for the five hour long voting lines in Arizona?.

GOP Obstruction of Justice:

Trump vs. Bernie in the First Ever @midnight Presidential Debate:

Hashtag Wars: Bernie v. Drumpf in #IfIWerePresident.

Farron Cousins: Sarah Palin to return with the dumbest TV show of all time.

Young Turks: Alabama Governor’s (R-Family Valuesville) phone sex with mistress released.

Kimmel: New Hillary Clinton campaign slogans.

Capitol Hill Kids on 2016.

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

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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LobbyWOW! It’s like a bribe, but 100% legal!

Mental Floss: 37 bizarre podcasts.

Jimmy Dore: Political news jokes of the week.

The 2016 Clown Debacle:

Inside the Capitol dome facelift.

White House: West Wing Week.

Seth Meyers: Voter ID laws…a closer look.

John Oliver: International Women’s Day.

Friday #hottakes.

PsychoSuperMom: The Religious Right is Neither.

GOP Obstruction of Justice:

Sam Seder: Dennis Miller isn’t funny.

TestTube News: How powerful is the Black vote?

Thom: How to reduce gun-related deaths in America by 80%.

Minute Physics: Transporters and quantum teleportation.

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

Nancy Reagan Is Dead. Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

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The_Reagans_waving_from_the_limousine_during_the_Inaugural_Parade_1981Of course, my sympathies go to the Reagan family on the death of their matriarch, Nancy. But as the national media gears up for another round of fawning eulogies and bullshit mythologizing, I’m reminded of the post I wrote 12 years ago on the death of her husband.

HA was less than a month old at the time, and I had very few readers. Which is a shame, because looking back on it, this was a damn good post. So I’m repeating it below:

I was never a Ronald Reagan supporter, and the benefit of hindsight has not mellowed my opinion of his Presidency. I remain confident that the judgment of history will more closely resemble mine than that of the fawning revisionists who, like the man they endlessly eulogize, seem prone to confusing his movie roles with the role he played in public life.

Thus I never thought Reagan’s death would touch my life so personally, until both PBS stations chose to preempt their morning children’s programming to show coverage of his memorial service.

Some things should stay inviolate: The Bill of Rights… my grandmother’s pinwheel cookie recipe… a seven-year-old’s morning routine.

Even on 9-11 and the days that followed, with the nation transfixed by the tragedy of those terrible attacks, our PBS affiliates wisely shielded our children from the horror, sticking to their familiar schedule of Sagwa and Dragon Tales and other god-awful-boring but thankfully commercial-free fare. Well the rest of us watched and re-watched the clips of planes flying into buildings and towers collapsing like some recurring, national nightmare, my daughter could obliviously munch her Cheerios as she watched for the umpteenth time as Arthur triumphed over his personal nightmare that he forgot his pants.

But not this morning. No, instead of watching Clifford once again help Emily Elizabeth make amends with that bitch Jenna, we found ourselves viewing a flag-draped coffin while somber announcers struggled to pretend that the death of the body of a 93-year-old man was somehow more tragic than the Alzheimer’s disease that years ago robbed him of his mind.

I watched for a few moments, imagining an enormous red dog rampaging through the National Cathedral, crushing dignitaries as he tossed the withered body of a dead president high into the air, like some rawhide chew toy.

But my cartoon fantasy was quickly interrupted by reality. Not the reality of a national media who buys and sells the spin that Ronald Reagan was a great leader simply because he happened to preside over the culmination of the Soviet Union’s decades-long collapse. No, it was the reality of a disgruntled seven-year-old, clearly suspicious that I had somehow conspired with PBS executives to rob her of her precious kid shows.

I slipped a tape into the VCR, and the image of a procession of mourners was quickly replaced by that of dancing cartoon cutlery, which struck me as no less illusory, no less scripted than the caricature of national grief that danced in unison across six local broadcast channels.

Of course I have sympathy for Reagan’s family and friends who watched a terrible disease slowly squeeze the humanity from his once vital body; and I hope these ceremonies can bring them closure.

But their grief is not my grief. And it certainly shouldn’t have been imposed on a seven-year-old girl who asked little from the world that morning, but a bowl of Cheerios and a brief diversion of talking dogs and dragons, before trudging off to a hard day of first grade.

As parents, we often try to protect our children from the realities of our adult world… a world where towers crumble and planes fall from the sky and the most powerful nation in history can crush another in retribution, on the whims of a single, ordinary man.

Yes, even presidents are ordinary men (some, more ordinary than others.) For all the eulogizing of our week-long national shiva, I think my daughter summed up Reagan’s legacy best, when staring briefly at his flag-draped coffin she eloquently pointed out: “There’s a dead person in there.”

Ronald Reagan is dead. And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Same goes for Nancy.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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How does money influence U.S. elections?

Nightly Show: Planning a plantation wedding.

Obama debunks GOP “alternate reality” on economy.

The 2016 Clown Slugfest:

Hillary Clinton’s Lena Dunham strategy.

Jon Connor and Keke Palmer: “Fresh Water for Flint”.

Mental Floss: 26 facts about the science of friendship.

White House: West Wing Week.

Seth Meyers: A close look at a Texas abortion case.

Thom and Farron Cousins: How can an entire party reject the reality of climate change?

Sam Seder: MI officials call for Gov. Rick Snyder to resign over Flint water disaster.

Super Tuesday!

Thom: The Good, the Bad & the Very, Very Coadunately Ugly!

Nightly Show: Keep it 100%–Black History Month edition.

David Pakman: Clanence Thomas speaks for first time in a decade.

Farron Cousins: Court agrees…Bill-O-The-Clown is a horrible person.

Does giving up privacy keep us safe from terrorism?

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

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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What are basic human rights?

How is this a thing? Whitewashing.

Jimmy Dore: Bizarre Don Quixote lie & why Richard Dreyfus was stunned

Thom: Why are Republicans so vexed over Gitmo?

The 2016 Clown Show:

Minute Physics: How do we know what air is like on other planets?

What is a rigged economy?

Obama is still trying to close Gitmo.

Seth Meyers: A closer look at Bernie Sander’s “Democratic Socalism”.

The Church for people who are “Spiritual, but not religious”.

Obstruction of Justice:

Seattle police release video of Che Taylor shooting.

Nikki & Dan Savage do politics.

Stephen’s wish list for Hillary.

John Oliver: Abortion laws.

For those who need help getting to the polls….

A moment with Triumph The Insult Comic Dog.

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

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Bernie and Hillary supporters kiss and make up.

Mental Floss: 37 ways you might be weird.

Stephen: Cory Booker talks what it means to be united.

What happens if the presidential election was a tie?

The 2016 Konservative Klown Kavalcade:

Stephen: Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is now an Incisive-Political-Humor Dog.

Buy food ethically unless it is too hard.

Why are so many Mexican journalists being murdered?

WaPo: Journalism in peril.

Obstructing Justice:

NASA: Celebrating African American History Month.

Bill Maher: For the love of bud.

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about sports.

Young Turks: Democratic town halls versus Republican town halls.

Jimmy Dore: Apple, Trump, Cruz and other bad apples.

FBI versus Apple:

White House: West Wing Week.

Does the President really need Air Force One?

David Hawkings’ Whiteboard: What is Regular Order?:

David Pakman: January was the warmest January on record.

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

3 Strikes

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I’m a big believer in parole over just locking people up. It incentivizes people to fix their shit in prison. And while it should be tough to get out of prison early for people who’ve committed serious crimes, it should be possible. I’m also not sure 3 strikes legislation, or in Washington’s case initiative, is a particularly helpful in reducing crime. It might make sense to go with something more grounded in crime prevention than sports metaphors. So, I’m glad that the Washington Sentencing Commission is proposing this, even if it has approximately 0 chance of passing the GOP Senate:

Three-strikes offenders serving life in prison without the possibility of parole should get a “second look.” That’s the position of Washington’s Sentencing Guidelines Commission.

It voted Friday to recommend a new review process for these prison inmates.

This is a non-binding proposal to the Washington Legislature. It basically says three-strikes inmates should be able to petition for early release after 20 years behind bars. Aggravated murderers would not qualify. A special “Second Look Review Board” would consider the petitions.

It has been over 2 decades since Washington passed the 3 strikes law. Even with the state becoming more liberal, I don’t imagine it would have much trouble passing again. Certainly, there will be victims who don’t want this sort of thing, and I’m not here to tell them how to feel.

Still, I hope the Legislature takes a good look at giving people another chance. It’s not even just for the criminals who should get another chance, or the cost of keeping reformed people behind bars. It’s as much about the kind of society we want to build. I’d like to build one where people can genuinely get out of prison.

Democratic Debate Open Thread

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I’m at the Roanoke Tavern this evening with a couple of friends to watch the debate (starts at 6pm local). Please join us if you wish. Otherwise, join the fun in the comment thread.

I’ll post some commentary, snark, and (mostly) other people’s excellent Tweets.

Enjoy!

5:59: I’ll be watching the debate on PBS rather than CNN. Just a personal choice (and a choice endorsed by the bar management).

6:03: Opening shot of the candidate’s backs…looking for the secret radio receivers strapped to Clinton’s back…

6:07: Sander’s opening statement “Yuuuge count”: 1

6:09: Shorter Hillary, “I’m just like him.”

6:21: Hillary is sure “we” will have the political capital to raise taxes on wealthy. Don’t think so, but probably better than Sanders.

6:43: Come’on, when is Bernie going to go all Christie on Hillary?

6:46: Will someone PLEASE ask the candidates about their position on waterboarding?!?

7:50: Man…Democrats SUCK at negative campaigning.

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