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I don’t want to pick on the Spokesman-Review since this is a pretty wide spread phenomenon. Still, their Spin Control blog has a piece about bills that are getting a hearing that are “first world problems.” I’m not sure they’re either first world issues in general or, for that matter, problems.

For example: How many tasting rooms should Washington wineries have? Current law says two, a proposal before a Senate committee last week said that should be four, to better extol the goodness of the state’s fruit of the vine. Why four, asked Sen. Steve Conway, D-Tacoma. Well, Oregon wineries get three, he was told.

Expanding the number of tasting rooms seems like something they could do in a country in Sub-Saharan Africa, for instance. I’m not much of a wine drinker, but I just Googled “African wine” and the first hit was a pretty interesting Wikipedia article on South African wines. Seems like a long history, and something ripe for tasting rooms.

I’m also not sure how having 2 or expanding it to 4 is a problem. It seems like we’re having success with the tasting rooms we have and want to expand. Is it a problem because, 4 is still pretty small for the state? I honestly don’t know!

Or a bill recognizing the fourth Saturday in July the National Day of the Cowboy, which another Senate committee took up. The hearing revealed – maybe you knew; I sure didn’t – that cowboy is gender neutral and refers to both male and female cow-persons. Both deserve recognition because of their legendary integrity, said supporters, who brought honorary headgear for Government Operations Committee Chairwoman Pam Roach, R-Auburn.

Look, if there’s one thing we can agree about the first-world, it’s that we are the exclusive domain of people who recognize agricultural workers. Also, it seems like not a problem. It seems like kind of a neat thing to celebrate. Were they not getting celebrated before? I still don’t see a problem.

The House State Government Committee took up an issue that annoys a sizable chunk of us two days a year, the switch between Standard and Daylight Savings time. There’s a bill to keep the state on Standard time year-round, and a resolution aimed at keeping us on Savings Time.

Rep. Elizabeth Scott, R-Monroe, offered perhaps the quintessential First World Problems defense of her Standard Time bill, albeit with a smile: “It’s still a hassle to change all the clocks. . . It’s a hassle for pet owners whose pets wake them up an hour early. I hear that milk cows are particularly annoyed.”

This is the closest in that it mostly involves actual first world stuff, is stuff, kinda. And technically identifies a problem: I was kind of surprised, but if you look at the map of countries that use daylight savings, it’s primarily Europe and North America. But there are plenty of Middle Eastern, African, and South American countries that use it.

Also, I don’t think it’s a problem. We get somewhat more sun, but it doesn’t work for everyone, depending on your job and your temperament. Also, in the age before all your clocks automatically changed, it was slightly annoying to have to remember, I hear. It seems like on balance, it does more good than bad. Maybe we should only spring forward, and every year, we’ll move an hour ahead of everyone else.

In conclusion, they have clocks in Uruguay and Namibia.

Former Congressman reminisces on the start of email in Congress.

The 2016 Clown Parade:

• Sam Seder: Wait. What? Will Mitt get back in?
• Vaccine Trufer Rand Paul has some shushin’ and mansplaining to do
• Daily Show writers riff on the 2016 contenders
• Jon handicaps the 2016 presidential contenders
• Lawrence O’Donnell: Young potheads.
• Chris Hayes: Chris Christie caught receiving lavish gifts
• David Pakman: Mitt is out
• Pap and Sam Seder: Glasses won’t save Rick Perry from prison time

The Ash Carter conformation hearing highlight reel.

White House: West Wing Week.

The Flordo-Texico War of 2015:

• Jon knows who would win a war ‘twixt Texas and Florida
• Oh Nos! Florida Democrat calls the state of Texas “CRAZY” (and he calls his own state “crazy” too).

Mental Floss: More life hacks.

Sam Seder: You’ll never believe what Mitt Romney said to Obama.

Young Turks: FAUX News has a wargasm over King Abdullah in flight suit.

Vsauce: Did the past really happen?

Vaccine Trufers:

• Pap and Sam Seder: Republicans FAIL on the vaccination debate PART I
• Pap and Sam Seder: Republicans FAIL on the vaccination debate PART II
• Mark Fiore: How to avoid maiming and killing children.
• Maddow: Christie and Paul…the Vaccine Trufers:

• Young Turks: Measles killing kids is the new freedom
• Vax-trufer Glenn Beck: Anti-Vaxxers being persecuted like Galileo
• Sam Seder: Republican blames measles outbreak on “illegal aliens”
• WaPo: The politics of the vaccine conspiracy.
• David Pakman: Rand Paul falsely claims “profound Mental Disorders after vaccines”
• Sam Seder: Rand Paul demonstrates he is a genuine QUACK
• Young Turks: Rand Paul goes into Damage Control Mode
• David Pakman: Rand Paul also belonged to a fringe medical group that denied HIV caused AIDS.
• Young Turks: Where do the antivaxers get their information?
• Mitch McConnell is no vaccine trufer. Sort-of…
• Maddow: Anti-Vaxers are an extreme public health risk
• James Rustad: “She don’t use Vaccines”
• David Pakman: Right Winger, “I’m not going to vaccinate my kid so that some female won’t get cervical cancer…
• Sam Seder: Nutjob conservatives misunderstanding HPV vaccine

Greenman: Eric Rignot on Ice Sheet Retreat.

Thom: More Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

Ann Telnaes: Sotomayor and Kagan backtrack on allowing cameras at the Supreme Court.

The week in Congressional hits and misses:

Net Neutrality:

• Young Turks: Net Neutrality wins big.
• David Pakman: Wheeler wants FCC to regulate internet under title II
• Chris Hayes: FCC makes the internet a utility
• Sam Seder: The historic net neutrality decision.
• Young Turks: Orwellian “Department Of Internet” ad attacks net neutrality

Sen. Reid: Republicans are more afraid of Dreamers than ISIS (with a cameo by Sen. Murray).

Thom: Why do we need black history month.

Greenman: Elevator pitch for climate change.

Young Turks: Obama at Prayer Breakfast warns of religion twisted to justify war.

Liberal Viewer: Did someone threaten Henry Kissinger?

Sam Seder: Crazy Republican suggests getting rid of Citizen United would destroy the Bill of Rights.

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about crime.

Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.

The ISIS Propaganda Department….

• Young Turks: ISIS owes FAUX News a big thank you.
• Thom: FAUX News is the PR department for ISIS:

Pelosi: Republicans are “baying at the moon” with their 56th ObamaCare repeal vote.

Greenman: Ken Caldeira on what climate models have told us.

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

Oh God how I hate this meme:

Gov. Jay Inslee needs a win. After two years in Olympia, legislative victories on his proposals are sparse, and it’s not looking good this year either.

Instead, Inslee has been primarily a speechmaker-in-chief, and mostly about carbon reduction. In Associated Press style, he’d be Gov. Inslee, D-Climate Change, not D-Wash.

… Heading into his third year in office, Inslee needs a win. Voters in 2016 will want to know: Is Inslee an ideologue or a pragmatic executive?

Really? Jay Inslee is the ideologue here? Why? Because he accepts the overwhelming science of climate change? Because he believes it’s the responsibility of government to try to, you know, not destroy the fucking planet?

The problem with the sort of pragmatic, bipartisan, false-equivalentarianism the Seattle Times espouses is that in the current political environment, there is nothing pragmatic about it. True bipartisanship is only possible either when both sides are already in basic agreement (like when the allegedly “ideological” Inslee called a special session to ram the Boeing tax-break package down our throats), or when both sides are willing to compromise. But in the current political environment, the state senate Republican majority has absolutely zero will or incentive to give a nanometer.

First of all—and let’s be completely frank about this—a goodly chunk of the Republican caucus is filled with science-denying Christianist/Teahadist whack-jobs. Seriously. These people are fucking crazy. Do you really believe that the high-school-student-marrying minimum-wage-worker-hating Rep. Matt Manweller (R-Ellensburg) is even remotely capable of compromise? Do we really want that to be the measure of a “pragmatic executive”: the ability to find common ground with a vile, anti-labor, sexual predator?

Second, the whole notion that Inslee’s performance in office should be judged by his ability to push his agenda through the Republican senate is nothing less than a setup for failure. The Republicans want Inslee to fail! That is the whole of their agenda! Legislative gridlock is a win-win for them because A) preventing the government from doing stuff is exactly what their constituents sent them to Olympia to do, and B) Senate Ways & Means Committee chair Andy Hill is running for governor against Inslee in 2016! So even if this iteration of the Republican Party was capable of compromise (and it’s not), why on earth would it want to hand Inslee a legislative victory?

Sound familiar? It took six long years for President Obama to accept the fact that the entire congressional Republican agenda was: make President Obama fail. What did compromise get Obama in the meanwhile? A half-measure of a health care reform package whose repeal has become the rallying cry of the Republican Party.

“Team of rivals,” my ass.

Inslee at least has been a quicker study. He knew he didn’t have a snowball’s chance of getting either a carbon tax or a capital gains tax past the Republicans this session. He’s not stupid. So he’s using the power he has—the power of the bully pulpit—to help move the political conversation from where it is to where he thinks it needs to be. That doesn’t make him an ideologue. It makes him a leader.

Sure, compromise is great if both sides are willing to do it. And true bipartisanship is a lofty goal. But to score Inslee “an ideologue” for failing to push his proposals through this senate is to place the scorecard squarely in the hands of Republicans. It is a bullshit meme I hope nobody takes seriously, especially not Inslee.

My state representative, Eric Pettigrew (D-37), has been a vocal advocate for charter schools, arguing that traditional public schools are failing our children. Pettigrew is now also a prime sponsor of a bill in Olympia that would split the Seattle school district in two, arguing that distant administrators are failing our neighborhood public schools. And so given his obvious disdain for Seattle Public Schools, one would imagine that Pettigrew must have had a truly horrible experience sending his own children to school in the district:

Pettigrew said the district has gotten too remote to pay attention to all its schools. He sent his kids to Catholic school because he doesn’t trust the public ones in his area.

“When I looked at Seattle Public Schools, I wasn’t willing to take the risk,” Pettigrew told The Associated Press.

Oh. So Pettigrew doesn’t actually have any hands on experience at all as either a parent or a student in the Seattle Public Schools. Yet he just “wasn’t willing to take the risk” of sending his children to the same neighborhood school where I chose to send my daughter for seven years.* Which I suppose makes Pettigrew a much more loving and responsible parent than me. Either that, or it makes him a knee-jerk, fear-mongering elitist who thinks that his kids are too good for the schools where most of his constituents send their children.

Actually, here’s what I really think is going on here: Psychological projection. As an elected official, Rep. Pettigrew is understandably self-conscious of his decision to send his kids to private school—maybe even a little embarrassed. And so he is justifying his decision—at least to himself—by projecting a crisis upon a district whose schools he never even gave a chance.

* For the record, my daughter attends Mercer Island High School, where her mother now lives. Divorce is complicated. But we loved Graham Hill Elementary, and I’m pretty sure Eric’s kids would have been happy there too.

The editorial board of Vancouver’s Columbian—a paper so knee-jerk anti-labor that it makes the Seattle Times look the Union Record—has once again come out opposing the minimum wage, regurgitating the same blow chunks of trickle-down pablum. Literally the exact same sentence in three different editorials. But it’s fascinating to see how their preface has evolved over the past 18 months.

In our view: Skills the Key to Better Pay
Proposals to hike minimum wage to $15 will eliminate jobs – and opportunities
Published: September 8, 2013

… Realistically, the notion of a minimum wage is a job-killing philosophy. If forced, through legislation rather than market forces, to increase pay for unskilled workers, business owners are going to reduce their number of unskilled workers. They won’t reduce pay for their valuable employees; they won’t reduce profits; they won’t cut other expenses. No, they’ll eliminate the positions that are the most expendable.

 

In Our View: Minimum Wage Experiment
Here’s hoping Seattle’s gutsy move pays off — but it’s tough to not be skeptical
Published: May 6, 2014

… Seattle City Councilmember Nick Licata, who sat on the mayor’s Income Inequality Advisory Committee, said: “This is an awesome victory for the 100,000 workers earning less than $15 an hour in Seattle. They will see their lives dramatically improved.” That is, if they still have a job. As The Columbian has written editorially in the past: “If forced, through legislation rather than market forces, to increase pay for unskilled workers, business owners are going to reduce their number of unskilled workers. They won’t reduce pay for their valuable employees; they won’t reduce profits; they won’t cut other expenses. No, they’ll eliminate the positions that are the most expendable.”

 

In Our View: Raise Skills, not Base Pay
Minimum-wage workers’ concerns valid, but hike to $12 could cost them jobs
Published: February 2, 2015

… Yet there is a fine line between helping workers prosper and helping the businesses that employ them to prosper. The two ideas are not mutually exclusive, but they require some balance. As The Columbian has written editorially, “If forced, through legislation rather than market forces, to increase pay for unskilled workers, business owners are going to reduce their number of unskilled workers. They won’t reduce pay for their valuable employees; they won’t reduce profits; they won’t cut other expenses. No, they’ll eliminate the positions that are the most expendable.”

So in September, 2013 they categorically claim that the minimum wage is a “realistically… a job-killing philosophy,” in May, 2014 they allow a touch of doubt to seep in, warning it might improve workers’ lives “if they still have a job,” and now they’re willing to acknowledge that raising wages and helping businesses prosper “are not mutually exclusive.” The Columbian is still wrong to repeat their reality-denying zero sum game supply-side bullshit. But for them, this is progress!

It’ll be interesting to see where the editors are in another 18 months when Seattle and SeaTac are both prospering under their higher minimum wages, and Vancouver is still… well… Vancouver.

Sen. Sharon Brown has a press release about how she wants to modernize, ahem, what we call clean energy.* Some of it is fine (I think, but anyone with more knowledge of energy issues than me, please pipe in). Some of it is of the oh, let’s count the hydro power toward our clean energy requirements despite the initiative that people already voted on.

“By allowing some of the incremental electricity produced by efficiency improvements to hydro projects to qualify as an eligible renewable resource, we not only save consumers money, but we also help our employers free up the resources they need to hire more employees and give raises and better benefits to those already employed,” said Brown, R-Kennewick.

Efficiencies are awesome! But the good news is that there’s already an advantage to utilities to being efficient. It’s the market. The reason we have regulations like these are because we’re trying to accomplish things the market won’t do well. Also, is there ever a GOP program they can’t pretend is a jobs bill. We need to rely more on hydro than on energy sources with less downside because jobs. Also, didn’t we vote on this already?

Efficiency changes made to hydro projects allow more electricity to be produced from the same amount of water without any new diversions or impoundments. Currently, the I-937 law only recognizes hydro-efficiency improvements associated with projects owned by a qualified utility. Under Brown’s bill, this recognition would be extended to incremental electricity marketed by the federal Bonneville Power Administration.

Will of the people, and whatnot.

“As lawmakers heard from some of those who testified today, Washingtonians who have paid for these efficiency improvements to hydro projects should be able to see the benefits of those improvements,” said Brown. “Instead, Washington is sending its affordable hydropower to other states who consider it renewable, while our utilities are force to purchase costly power required to meet the state’s mandate.

Ignore the typos. This post can’t all just be me making fun of typos, and I’ve already done it once and will do it again. It’s just some intern, probably. Good for you for being here, and I hope you earn credits toward your middle school graduation.

Obviously, the thing to concentrate on here is that our standards for renewable should be rigorous. Our standards should be tough to hit because how we get our energy is valuable!

Also, not for nothing, but energy is incredibly cheap in Washington. For example, my apartment is pretty small, but I paid less than $15 for my December bill,** and that was with a fair amount of heat, what with it being December. A lot of that is, as Goldy has written, our socialist utility here in Seattle. So clearly socialism is a jobs program — QED — and I hope Senator Brown will lead a chorus of The Internationale. Unless she hates jobs.

“With so many families having to make the difficult choice between paying the light bill and putting food on the table, we have an obligation to look for ways to make energy more affordable. My bill would do just that by allowing our utilities to use clean, affordable incremental hydropower and pass any cost savings onto their customers.”

Right, so let’s take out the profit motive from things like utilities. Acknowledge that they make more sense as infrastructure and then everyone who uses the product will have more money. Brilliant! Oh, no, it’s just loosening regulation.

Anyway, one more typo to make fun of from a part of it that I’m basically fine with.

We really need to look at what we are going to use for baseload energy in the future. Wind power cannot replace wind power. Utilities have to balance every minute of our load with our resources and the power that our customers need.

Again, I’m not really one to make fun of typos, but this has been up for several days. And presumably it was a draft at some point. “Wind power cannot replace wind power” is like a riddle in a children’s book.

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– No charges for person who killed man walking his dog in a Kirkland crosswalk

– There are new rules for attending Seattle City Council meetings and after reading this Seattlish piece, I’m also interested to see if they’ll just be used on Zimmerman and Bellomio or if there will be a larger crackdown.

– Tim Eyman’s “analysis” of initiative-related bills and amendments isn’t to be trusted

– Always glad when someone changes their mind to become pro-choice, but yeah, the follow up is important.

– If you were actually worried about the quality of the new Ghostbusters movie and not just of girl cooties getting on a classic, I would think the addition of Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy would be the surest sign that it’s in good hands.

– But describing Wing Commander as unsophisticated sci-fi makes it too easy to write off as…unsophisticated sci-fi

– I’m always more willing to look at a candidate who Cascade endorses, and occasionally they’ve tipped the scale for me, so it would be sad to not have that any more.

– I don’t know how realistic the prospect of a $15 minimum wage would be for Oregon, but the fact that its opponents are into the scare tactics phase probably means something good for its chances.

– Chart of the Day: An uptick in threats against abortion providers

– I am not on a jury, and I didn’t contribute much here. Best of all possible worlds! I did get some reading done in the jury room. Pit? Juror dumping ground?

– My mustache is better than either the Senate Majority Leader’s or the Speaker’s. Also, I haven’t just had a mustache in like 5 years.

– Marshawn Lynch’s Quiet Riot [h/t]

Looks like SPD pepper sprayed the wrong skell. From his lawyer’s press release:

The James Bible Law Group will be filing a tort claim against the City of Seattle and the Seattle Police Department in relation to the senseless pepper spraying of a prominent Seattle School Teacher and activist shortly after his MLK day speech. Jesse Hagopian had finished giving a powerful speech about how black lives matter when he was sprayed with pepper spray by a Seattle Police Officer. He was on the phone with his mother and making plans to be at his two year old child’s birthday party when he was sprayed. It is notable that this irrational police action occurred while he was several feet onto a Seattle Sidewalk.

This incident was captured on video and we will be allowing the media to view it during tomorrow’s press statement.

Can’t wait to see the video. And I hope Hagopian and his lawyers take this case as far as they can possibly go.

UPDATE: Here is the video clip of an SPD officer assaulting Hagopian and other peaceful passersby:

Hard to see how anybody can defend this as responsible policing.

– The health care law does whatever the GOP says it does, even if they said it did other things in the past.

– If you’re not happy about unfunded mandates, you could fund the things the voters passed rather than have a crappy amendment to the state constitution.

– Another reason to eat at Tutta Bella

– Since we’re going to hear a lot of har-har-har Algore since there’s a storm in the Northeast in January, it might be a good time to remind your uncle on Facebook or the Superbowl party next week that we had record highs here. Also, neither of those proves nor disproves global warming so much as the overwhelming scientific evidence.

– Lindy West talking to one of her trolls on This American Life was maybe one of the most amazing things I’ve ever heard.

– Either the NFL is opposed to the Marshawn Lynch victory celebration or they try to make money off it. [h/t]

– Such exquisite concern-trolling hardly needs explaining but basically Hemingway thinks we can all agree it’s bad when the GOP trips over its dick because “if Republicans can’t pass wildly popular legislation protecting innocent unborn children, what’s going to happen when they face difficult legislative battles?”

– Youz guyz, I’m so sad that the Ark Park is probably going to have trouble finding an audience.

Eric Schwartz: Obama’s New Favorite Word.

Ann Telnaes: A bad taste in West Virginians’ mouths.

Jon calls out Mike Huckabee…to his face.

Mental Floss: 26 fascinating founding father facts:

Michael Brooks: Pope Francis, “Climate change is real.” Rush’s head explodes.

Maddow: Scalise, “Believe what I say, NOT what I DO.

David Pakman: Top 1% will own 50% of wealth by 2016.

Freedom Fries in Old Europe:

• Mark Fiore: The Muhammad Minute.
• Jon is shocked by FAUX News…again.

Larry Wilmore: Exactly what we’re going to get when we open up relations with Cuba .

Thom: FAUX News pushes faulty Gitmo numbers.

Maddow: Christian wackos & Gov. Jindal’s Presidential prayer rally???

Vsauce: Is all fair in love and war?

Roll Call: This Week’s Congressional Hits and Misses.

SOTU:

• President Obama’s 2015 SOTU.
• Boehner Clapping
• Cenk: Joni Ernst’s 2015 State of the Union response
• David Pakman: Obama drops epic burn on Republicans
• Sam Seder: Did Obama set a trap in his speech?
• Pap and Sam dissect Obama’s SOTU
• Young Turks: Obama jabs Republicans.
• Ed and Pap: About Joni
• David Pakman: Joni’s response.
• Joni Ernst castrates Obama’s SOTU speech
• Thom’s state of the union.
• Sam Seder: Talk Radio nutburger things Obama is sending subliminal Muslim messages during SOTU.
• Al Sharpton with some prompter tips for Ted Cruz.
• Mainstream media on the Youtube interviews of Obama
• Hank Green’s excellent Presidential interview adventure.
• Youtubers interview President Obama
• Obama’s SOTU before a ’90s sitcom audience
• Jon gives the ‘Implodey’ award for the worst responses
• Sam Seder: Joni and the SOTU non-response
• Obama’s 2014 SOTU address: What he got done, and what Congress blocked.
• Chris Hayes: The State Of Our Billionaires Address
• 31 times Republicans applauded
• Sam Seder: FAUX News host accidentally makes the case for free community college.

Jon: The Monsters of Money.

David Pakman: Mitt Romney’s new focus on poverty is hilarious.

Maddow: Koch brothers’ dirty money:

White House: West Wing Week.

Sam Seder and Michael Brooks: The 2016 Republican Clown Car has arrived.

Thom: Citizen’s United…five years later.

The Renewed Republican War on Women™:

• David Packman: Republican nutbags introduce 6 anti-abortion bills in first week.
• Chris Hayes: Republican women revolt against abortion ban.
• Maddow: GOP women reject abortion bill, end debate
• Young Turks: Antiabortion bill passes the G.O.P. House.
• Ann Telnaes: March for more government intrusion.

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about cleanliness and germs.

Ann Telnaes: Sochi Putin and the real Putin.

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

Institutional investors are pouring money into Seattle’s apartment rental market, according to the Seattle Times, not building apartment buildings, but buying them: $3.8 billion worth last year alone!

The Seattle region’s rising rents, stoked by strong job growth and low apartment-vacancy rates, have made apartments attractive to pension funds, real estate investment trusts and other investors.

Some apartment buyers have also said that given the price they paid for buildings, they need to raise the rents.

Investors have swarmed the Seattle area and bid up prices. Developers of new apartments and longtime owners of older apartment buildings have found it a good time to sell, but renters in those buildings often face much higher rents or even displacement due to massive renovations.

I mean, why invest in building affordable housing when you can make much more money by buying existing housing and making it unaffordable? Hooray for rational self-interest!

Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant gets ridiculed by the serious people for advocating for rent control. And yes, I know that poorly done, rent control risks unintended consequences, and that it is currently preempted by state statute. So it wouldn’t be easy either politically or in practice. But you gotta admit that rent control would put a damper on this sort of speculation and the skyrocketing rents it produces.

To bad we’re not allowed to have a serious conversation about rent control, because even talking about it is crazy or something.

I’ve never been all that enthusiastic about the city council’s move to district elections—I didn’t like the district boundaries, and thought it should have been 9-0 or 5-4 rather than this weird 7-2 district/at-large split. I’m also not convinced that it makes it easier to run a grassroots campaign, as big money now buys an even bigger advantage in these smaller districts. Public financing is the the more pressing reform. Or if you really want to fix what ails the council, their’s a much better and bolder reform than district elections: Proportional ranked choice voting.

But if you had hoped that the move to districts might shake up the composition of the council, forcing some of the old timers out, then you’ll be pleased with the news that council member Tom Rasmussen has decided not to run for re-election in Council District 1:

“I am profoundly grateful to have served the people of Seattle for more than 25 years, both as a member of the City Council, as Director of the Mayor’s Office for Senior Citizens and for former City Councilmember Jeanette Williams. I’ve sought to contribute to Seattle in ways that I hope will be meaningful for future generations.

“This wasn’t an easy decision but, it is the right one. It is now time to direct my efforts toward the same causes I have always been most passionate about — in exciting new ways.

Well, it probably wasn’t all that hard a decision. Rasmussen may have been the most vulnerable incumbent on the council, facing a credible challenger in community activist Chas Redmond, and a vocally dissatisfied constituency back home in West Seattle. Nobody wants to be conlined. Better to go out a winner.

As for what it means for city government, I dunno. Didn’t have much of a relationship with Rasmussen, who was good on some issues and not-so-good on others. Like I wrote earlier this week, Nick Licata and his passionate liberalism will be missed. But I never really thought of Rasmussen as standing for much of anything. So I’m happy to see somebody else get a chance.

So… is Jean Godden the next to go? She’s got a couple of credible challengers in District 4, and, well, let’s be honest: She’s very old. But Godden pretty much retired to the council, so it’s hard to see much motivation for her to retire from it.

While these roundups won’t focus directly on acts of terror, much of the debate regarding civil liberties stems from how we choose to respond to them. After the Charlie Hebdo attack, many were quick to point out that those supposedly standing up for the ideals of free expression don’t exactly have that ideal in all circumstances.

Shortly after the attacks, the French arrested comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala for writing that he sympathized with Jewish supermarket attacker Charlie Coulibaly. As disgusting as that sentiment is, it shouldn’t be a crime merely to have an unpopular opinion. And thankfully in the United States, it isn’t.

The allure of these laws is obvious – a desire to combat racism in general by trying to outlaw individual instances of it. But the failure of these laws isn’t just a matter of poor implementation. It’s simply impossible for any government to draw that line without a strong subjective bias. One person’s biting satire will always be another person’s offensive broadside. Trying to criminalize the latter without infringing upon the former is an impossible task. The logical end is a system where some extreme views are penalized while others are overlooked, a process that often exacerbates the underlying racial issues you’re trying to address in the first place.

Of course, the extremism exhibited by the Charlie Hebdo attackers is of a far more repugnant variety, one that doesn’t even make an attempt at pluralism. The idea that one’s religious beliefs give them the right to dictate everyone else’s speech and behavior is a far more toxic ideology than the state-based variety above. And the co-mingling of that type of religious decree and the unrestrained government power defines a number of the worst regimes around the world, who will be featured in these roundups a lot.

More recent news items…

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It’s no surprise really, but Seattle City Council member Nick Licata officially announced today that he will not seek reelection in November:

“I’ve been lucky to have an exciting life filled with challenges taken on voluntarily, not out of hardship.

“Perhaps the greatest challenge we all face is the need to improve the lives of Americans who are seeing their future increasingly impeded by the outrageous growing concentration of wealth, and I would add power, in this nation.

“No one city can resolve this problem. But Seattle has done much in attempting to do so. I would like to play more of an active role in that effort. And see what I can do to have Seattle’s accomplishments duplicated elsewhere.

“I hope after my current term ends this year that I may have that opportunity in some capacity. So, I will not seek re-election.

It’s a shame, really. Long the most liberal member of the council, Licata’s energy and influence had arguably faded in recent years, but Kshama Sawant’s election as an honest-to-godless socialist appeared to reinvigorate him. 2014 was a very good year for Licata and his issues. He’ll be missed.

If Licata’s retirement was making room for bringing some young blood to the council, I suppose I’d feel more sanguine about the prospect of replacing an old white guy. But it won’t play out that way. The move to district elections had put Licata in the position of running against another incumbent, either Mike O’Brien in District 6, or more likely Sally Clark in one of the two at-large seats. So Licata’s retirement just makes the other incumbents more secure, and the council as a whole more conservative by subtraction.