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– McMorris-Rogers wanting horror stories about Obamacare would have been a better political story if there were more actual horror stories about the ACA.

– Take Your Burning Rage from Yesterday’s Traffic Mess and Fire It Toward Olympia

– You’d like to believe Brockington’s story was going to be different. You’d like to believe that the recognition bestowed upon him from his school as homecoming king, an affirmation of his identity, meant they cared. You’d like to believe this would only bolster Brockington’s sense of self and provide the resolve needed to face the cruel aftermath of the public eye. We need to believe those things so we never have to actually lend our support.

– Some Christians opposed slavery. Some supported it. A lot were neutral. If you want to take credit for the ones who opposed it, you should also consider why the rest also made slavery possible for so long.

– If you’re going to call your article A modest proposal to restore local control of $40 million from No Child Left Behind waiver (Seattle Times link) the only proper body of the article should include eating children from under-performing schools.

Also, an Epidemic of Stupid

by Goldy — Thursday, 3/26/15, 8:46 pm

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence apparently believes a little bit of H.I.V. is okay.

I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures:

An outbreak of H.I.V. in a rural Indiana county prompted the state’s governor on Thursday to declare a public health emergency as officials worked to stop the spread of the virus that causes AIDS.

The 80 cases in Scott County, in the state’s southeast, were attributed to intravenous drug use. … Governor Pence, a Republican, said that he had long opposed needle exchanges, but that after meeting with federal advisers, he decided to allow a short-term program in Scott County.

So, Pence was opposed to needle exchanges because, whatever. But now that he’s been convinced that needle exchanges can help stem transmission of H.I.V., he’s allowing just a temporary program in one county, because, why? Needle exchanges are okay to help contain an epidemic, but not to prevent one?

Yet another example of conservative values getting in the way of good public policy.

The Economic Case for Immigration

by Paul Constant — Tuesday, 3/24/15, 11:59 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=768h3Tz4Qik

At my new job, I’ve been reading a lot about economics. Along with a bunch of articles and white papers, I’m working my way through Beinhocker’s (very readable) The Origin of Wealth, and after that I’ll finally tackle Piketty’s Capital, which I have only up ’til now experienced through the lens that is Charles Mudede’s genius.

Learning about economics, it turns out, is great fun. Most of the modern texts are entertaining as hell, the concepts are fairly easy to grasp, and economics influences and is influenced by everything on the planet, so it gives you a new framework with which to perceive the world.

Maybe the most surprising fact about this deep dive is that the stuff I’m learning delivers a positive message. Unlike the vicious world presented by Ayn Rand and her legions of acolytes, the economics I’ve been reading about is inclusive: if businesses pay their workers more money, for example, the workers will spend more money, thus growing the economy for everyone. If you don’t just focus your growth on a tiny portion of the economy—like, oh, the 1 percent, for example—the money circulates outward and upward and downward. If everyone does better, it’s better for everyone. See? Positive!

Today, the New York Times published a piece by Adam Davidson titled “Debunking the Myth of the Job-Stealing Immigrant.” It looks at immigration from an economic perspective, and it’s packed with good news: Davidson writes, “the economic benefits of immigration may be the most settled fact in economics.” But what about the conservative notion that immigrants are taking our jobs?

The chief logical mistake we make is something called the Lump of Labor Fallacy: the erroneous notion that there is only so much work to be done and that no one can get a job without taking one from someone else.

What’s the problem with this fallacy? Well, it’s, uh, false:

Immigrants don’t just increase the supply of labor, though; they simultaneously increase demand for it, using the wages they earn to rent apartments, eat food, get haircuts, buy cellphones. That means there are more jobs building apartments, selling food, giving haircuts and dispatching the trucks that move those phones.

The more people in the workforce, the bigger the workforce needs to be. So not only is the Republican fear-mongering against immigrants racist and hateful—it’s economically unsound, too. Go read the whole story.

Open Thread 3/23

by Carl Ballard — Monday, 3/23/15, 8:00 am

– Shell’s Battle for Seattle

– Take this SDOT survey

– These old photos of Black Seattle are pretty amazing.

– Bill Bryant seems neat.

– Weird

The Truth No Match for Local Lies on “Death Tax”

by Goldy — Monday, 3/23/15, 6:13 am

Good on Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat for expressing outrage over the way our conservative media transforms right-wing lies into conventional wisdom, “Local facts no match for national fiction on $15 minimum-wage issue“:

Now that the conservative media’s bogus story about the minimum wage killing off Seattle restaurants has been thoroughly debunked, it’s tempting to say the truth won out. That this time, anyway, facts trumped misinformation.

I don’t think so.

But too bad he didn’t express similar outrage when it was his own paper doubling-down on its own thoroughly debunked “death tax” lies—lies that, absent the outrage from respectable journalists like Westneat, are now being read unchallenged into the congressional record.

To be clear, it was great to see Bethany truth needle the $15 lies in the pages of the Seattle Times. But when it comes to fabricating facts to fit their policy agenda, the paper’s editorial board remains as deserving of ridicule and outrage as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. So until it retracts its bogus McBride “family farm” editorial, the paper as an institution really has no moral authority to lambast the national conservative media for playing the same game it plays locally.

0p3n Thr3ad

by Carl Ballard — Friday, 3/20/15, 4:04 pm

– Cisgender Women Aren’t the Only People Who Seek Abortions, and Activists’ Language Should Reflect That

– Mostly good answers from Inslee’s AMA, but weak sauce on Shell.

– Fiscal impact disclosures seem like a no brainer. No wonder Tim Eyman is opposed.

– James O’Keefe continues to James O’Keefe things up.

– Glad to see Cascade will still do advocacy.

– Well, Governor Inslee’s bracket didn’t last long.

Civil Liberties Roundup

by Lee — Friday, 3/20/15, 7:18 am

Recently, the Obama Administration announced that it was applying sanctions against high-ranking Venezuelan officials. Few people deny that Venezuela’s government has committed human rights violations, as I’ve documented some of them in these roundups, but the main outrage over this move comes because of the hyperbole and the hypocrisy that went along with this move:

But the main object of South American ire may be the language leading off Obama’s order. It describes the situation in Venezuela as constituting an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

…

The U.S. government hasn’t typically described Venezuela as a major security threat. The 2015 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community, released last month by the director of national intelligence, devotes two paragraphs to Venezuela, neither of which describe the country as a threat to the United States.

But a senior U.S. administration official told reporters last week that the use of “national security” language is standard when issuing an executive order to impose sanctions. “Most of the sanctions programs that we have, from Iran to Syria, Burma, across the board, rely on these same types of national emergency declarations,” the official said.

Adam Isacson, senior associate for regional security policy at the human rights nonprofit Washington Office on Latin America, explained that under U.S. law, the executive has to declare a national emergency that threatens national security in order to freeze a foreigner’s assets by executive order.

“It has to look like a big, special thing, if you’re going to do it,” Isacson told The Huffington Post. “That’s why it has that stupid language at the beginning. I think the sanctions themselves are pretty legitimate. The United States has the right to decide who gets to do business and own property here in our country, and we should be limiting the number of human rights abusers who get to do that.”

Isacson also suggested that more people were worthy of sanctions. “Just look at New York and all the condos that are owned by Russian oligarchs,” he said. He noted as well the prevalence of human rights abuses in Mexico and Colombia, countries with which the United States enjoys good diplomatic relations.

So why is Venezuela being singled out here? Why are we so willing to damage relations with the region over a country whose record on human rights isn’t any worse than many other countries we remain strongly allied with?

I think part of the answer comes from a phenomenon that’s really well explained in Lawrence Lessig’s recent book “Republic, Lost”. One of the central insights of that book is about understanding the true nature of corruption in this country. It’s not simply a matter of the wealthy writing big checks in order to get what they want out of our lawmakers and other leaders. It’s about a system that relies on campaign funding and essentially forces lawmakers and others running for office to focus their attention and their efforts on the interests of those who can reciprocate.

The end result is that politicians end up in a bubble where they only hear and understand the issues and concerns of those wealthy enough to gain access to the bubble. This is not a phenomenon limited to either party. Democrats can become as captive to their wealthy interests as Republicans.

But the unique thing about Venezuela is that, unlike many other rights-abusing nations in the world, the victims of Maduro’s left-wing regime are often businessmen. Within the bubble of wealthy interests that politicians reside, this becomes seen as a more serious threat than when a regime targets activists or minorities or the press. In this context, the wealthy view themselves and their interests as the interests of the nation – and politicians follow suit. In reality, Venezuela is no more of a threat to U.S. interests than Saudi Arabia, Israel, or Egypt, but gets treated as if it’s far more threatening.

More stories from the past two weeks…
[Read more…]

Sure! Where Do We Store The Waste?

by Carl Ballard — Thursday, 3/19/15, 7:22 pm

Senator Sharon Brown has a brand-new idea for power generation. Nuclear something something!

In an era when carbon emissions are becoming a major concern and clean energy is a popular cause, Washington is poised to become a center for the development of one of the greenest technologies around. Clean, safe, abundant, all it needs is a bit of encouragement from the state and a willingness to understand that today’s nuclear power is like nothing before.

First off, I’m glad to see some Republican is acknowledging that carbon emissions are a problem. We may disagree on many things, but at least we can agree that humans are causing global warming. Oh? What? She voted with all but one of her GOP colleagues that we aren’t sure if humans cause global warming.

Also, unless you have some uranium lying around, you’re going to have to mine it. And that isn’t exactly a zero emissions proposition.

Yes, nuclear power. We’ve come a long way since the days of tie-dyed T-shirts and no-nukes concerts and the reactor technology of the 1960s and ‘70s. The new generation of reactor design is safer, simpler and potentially cheaper than anything we have seen to date. Export potential is enormous, to a Third World now electrifying with coal. Washington is uniquely suited to become a center for the development, design and export of this small modular nuclear-reactor technology, and we have a small window of opportunity to establish leadership and make this industry our own.

Export potential? I feel like that’s something to explore a bit. But no. Instead we have more discussion of the fashion sense of the 1960’s than of how that would happen.

Anyway, you could get me on board with one minor amendment. I propose we store the waste in her district. Since it’s so clean or whatever, I’m sure she wouldn’t mind. Or maybe just ask the Feds to deal with it and everything will be fine.

I have sponsored a series of bills in the Legislature this year that demonstrate our interest in this most promising industry. Senate Bill 5113 would require the state Department of Commerce to coordinate and advance the siting and manufacturing of small modular reactors. SB 5093 would establish a nuclear-education program in our high schools. SB 5091 would declare nuclear power a form of alternative energy that qualifies under the state‘s voluntary Green Power program. For those concerned about storage of spent nuclear fuel, we have passed a memorial asking the federal government to develop a nuclear-waste repository, once and for all. These measures all cleared the Senate — some with broad bipartisan support.

Oh cool. The Federal Government through Democratic and Republican governments, for decades and decades hasn’t been able to come up with a good solution. But now we’re asking them to develop a repository and so that’s that solved. PS, can the repository be in Richland?

Small modular nuclear reactors are quite a bit different from the big-reactor designs of the ‘70s. Instead of using a single built-in-place reactor core, they utilize a series of interchangeable and replaceable small reactors. A dozen together might be half the size of one of the big reactors of old. These small reactors use a more modern design with fewer moving parts, reducing risk of failure. And when one reactor goes offline for regular maintenance or repair, other modular reactors at the same facility can take its place and keep up the flow of power.

OK, great. We haven’t exactly solved the waste issue yet.

There are many exciting technologies being proposed. Planning is under way for a first-of-its-kind modular reactor in Idaho that will begin serving the Utah power market within a decade — most likely at the Idaho National Laboratory, with support from Washington’s Energy Northwest. Technology isn’t the holdup — federal and state permitting procedures must be developed, and there is ramp-up time involved in developing facilities capable of producing the required components.

Look, we’ve literally asked the Federal government to do something about nuclear waste, so now we have to hurry.

Now imagine if those manufacturing facilities were located here. Imagine if the next reactor were located at Hanford – Washington’s own nuclear industrial site, adjacent to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the talent base in the Tri-Cities. It could power Hanford’s new glassification plant, where legacy high-level defense waste will be converted to solid-glass form – and that by itself could spare us the need to consume 45,000 gallons of diesel fuel every day.

Hanford: Where nuclear waste was never a problem.

On a national level the states of Oregon, Idaho and Utah are becoming players. Nowhere in that conversation is our state, yet we have the intellectual capital and the resources. It is easy to see the possibilities. Successful companies plan for how to get from point A to point B — Washington should do the same for energy. Nuclear power is poised for a resurgence for economic and environmental reasons, and the question is whether we will seize the opportunity or let it slip away for lack of vision. It is better to lead, instead of looking back 10 years from now saying “woulda, coulda, shoulda.”

Couldawouldashoulda had all that nuclear waste of our very own.

Open Thread (Some Joke)

by Carl Ballard — Wednesday, 3/18/15, 7:56 am

– I say let bikes and motorcycles run reds all the time.

– The first step of Seattle’s minimum wage hike is going into effect.

– Six things to know about Shell’s plan to base its Arctic fleet at the Port of Seattle

– In the real world moms carry their newborns around with them. It’s as natural as it gets. And it was charming.

– You guys, stop what you’re doing. They found Cervantes’ tomb! This is not a drill.

– Am I the only person here excited about Overthinking It’s Eurovision coverage? I am? Cool.

Dori Monson on Restaurant Closures: Lying or Illiterate?

by Goldy — Tuesday, 3/17/15, 4:43 pm

Gotta hand it to my former KIRO radio colleague Dori Monson—he’s never so sure of himself as when he’s absolutely wrong:

Seattle restaurants are closing because of the coming of $15 an hour. … Seattle Magazine had a story about this. Queen Anne’s Grub restaurant closed Feb. 14. Pioneer Square’s Little Uncle shut down Feb. 25. The Boat Street Cafe will close May 30.

The restaurant owners said certainly there are a lot of reasons, but they said that $15 an hour is a major factor in all of this.

Uh-huh. Except, if Dori had actually read the Seattle Magazine piece, he’d know that not a single one of these owners mentioned the minimum wage as a contributing factor toward their restaurant’s closure. Grub’s owner sold out to pursue “future opportunities in this wonderful industry;” a new restaurant will open in its place. Boat Street Cafe’s owner is closing to focus on her three other restaurants and the two new ones she’s opening, while the neighboring Boat Street Kitchen expands into the cafe’s space. And Little Uncle’s owners say they closed because their “Pioneer Square location ultimately does not fit into the goals of our professional life and personal life,”—and are planning to reopen in a new location.

“We did not close our Pioneer Square location due to the new minimum wage,” Little Uncle’s Poncharee Kounpungchart told PubliCola.

“That’s weird, ha. No, that’s not why I’m closing Boat Street,” owner Renee Erickson told the Seattle Times when asked if her closure had anything to do with the minimum wage. (Yay, Bethany!)

So why isn’t Seattle’s $15 minimum wage a factor? It could be because it hasn’t happened yet! Also, the first step of the phase-in will have very little impact on these restaurants’ bottom line.

Starting April 1, small businesses (and these are all small businesses) will be required to pay tipped workers a minimum wage of $10 an hour. But Washington State’s minimum wage is already $9.47 an hour, so that’s not much of a raise. The ordinance requires a “minimum compensation” of $11 an hour—wage plus tips plus benefits—but most back of house staff at full service restaurants in Seattle already earn more than that. Maybe a few dishwashers will get a small raise. This isn’t restaurant armageddon.

In fact, restaurants close all the time—about 17 percent a year in Washington State, according to the article Dori cited, but obviously didn’t bother to read. And there is no evidence that Seattle restaurants are closing any faster than they normally do.

In any case, correlation doesn’t equal causation. So why Dori, who denies climate science, would find a handful of restaurant closures to be irrefutable proof of the “real world consequences” of a higher minimum wage, seems strange. Unless, of course, Dori couldn’t actually give a shit about the truth.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

by Darryl — Friday, 3/13/15, 11:32 pm

Mental Floss: 23 bad business moves.

David Pakman: When did right-wing anti-intellectualism begin?

Pap: GOP is scamming its donors.

Young Turks: Megyn Kelly drops some reality sauce on Mike Huckabee’s head.

#47Traitors

Jon: On Republican Senators’ open letter to Iran
Thom: Iran sabotage…is the GOP committing treason?
Young Turks: Traitor Senator Tom Cotton is taking money from defense industry
Sam Seder: 47 Republican Senators may have broken the law
John Kerry hammers the Senators who sent the letter.
James Rustad: “My Senators Wrote Iran A Letter”
https://youtu.be/a9eA2tBFwtk
Young Turks: Senators face backlash over letter
Thom: Is it time to put Senators in jail yet?
Sam Seder: Just how dumb can the Republicans be?
Maddow: GOP Senators now claim letter was A JOKE?!?
Young Turks: Republicans blame Obama for the seditious letter to Iran
Michael Brooks and Cliff Schecter: GOP’s hysterical Iran letter
Chris Hayes: What if Obama secretly sold 1,500 missiles to Iran?

If Susan B. Anthony had a Vlog.

David Pakman: A President Lindsey Graham would deploy military against congress to reverse military cuts.

Sam Seder: The mainstream press fails Wisconsin Workers

SNL Weekend Update girl at a party on ISIS and Boko Haram.

Kerry spars with Rubio over ISIS

Anti-Vax Fever (with chills and light sneezing):

The anti-vax story the media doesn’t want you to hear:
SCTV: Kids settle the debate about vaccines

Jon mocks CNN’s Selma coverage of… a drone.

Thom: Why unions are the seeds of democracy.

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about your lawn.

John Oliver: U.S. Territories.

Wrong-email-address-ghazi!!!!!11!1!11!!!!

Sen. Reid: “I have no concerns about [Clinton’s emails].
Young Turks: Final Judgment on Clinton Emails

Amazon Prime for Women (because you deserve 78% satisfaction).

Jon questions Christie’s loyalty to NJ.

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

Mental Floss: Why do we get dark circles under our eyes.

Rep. Donna Edwards launches Senate bid.

Congressional hits and misses of the week.

Sam Seder and Cliff Schecter: Scott Walker butchers Wisconsin workers.

Racism in America:

Mark Fiore: Racist EZ Cash.
Richard Fowler: Ferguson police created a “toxic environment”
Maddow: Racist emails from Ferguson
Young Turks: Frat boy defends racist bros on Twitter
Sam Seder: Morning Joe blames racism on rap music
Young Turks: Morning Joe blames rap music for racist frat boys
Jon: SAE frat boys finally apologize.
Thom: Will the Voting Rights Act get fixed?
Sam Seder: Why Selma’s country club is still “Whites Only”

Kimmel: Obama reads mean tweets:
https://youtu.be/RDocnbkHjhI

Sam Seder: The legacy of Paul Wellstone.

White House: West Wing Week.

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

David Pakman: The Obama economy.

Sen. Patty Murray and other Democratic leaders cry foul over abortion language shamefully put into anti-human trafficking bill:

Vsauce: Human extinction.

ONN: Should unpaid interns be paid for fighting for their boss’ amusement?

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

Open Thread 3/13

by Carl Ballard — Friday, 3/13/15, 7:58 am

– Remembering Trailblazing Abortion Provider Mildred ‘Millie’ Hanson

– Since the state Senate isn’t sure that humans caused global warming, I’m just going to go ahead and blame it on the bears who want to end their hibernation early.

– One of the purposes of this blog has always been to, as I said, back in 2009, “present a way of life.” I hoped that it would encourage people to think differently and give them a window into a way of doing things they perhaps hadn’t considered. But these days, encouraging people to depend on transit seems naïve, even irresponsible.

– It’s interesting to think of downtown sub-components and hopefully how to better serve them with transit.

– As a former fetus myself, that guy is a jerk.

Election Endorsements Have Consequences

by Goldy — Thursday, 3/12/15, 8:26 pm

If the Seattle Times editorial board is so “depressed” about Republican science denial, perhaps they might want to stop endorsing Republicans?

THE state Senate this week had a brief but telling debate about climate change. It ended, depressingly, with a mostly party-line vote that very well could have taken place years earlier, with Republicans resisting the science on humankind’s clear role in reshaping our global climate.

Seriously… how many of these idiots has the Seattle Times endorsed?

The Jinxiest Statement Ever Made About Hillary Clinton’s Inevitability

by Paul Constant — Thursday, 3/12/15, 11:40 am

Republicans are excited about this Time cover because they think it makes Clinton look like she has devil horns. Seriously. Go check out National Review‘s blog if you don’t believe me.

If you are at all superstitious, this New York Times story by Nicholas Confessore, Jonathan Martin, and Maggie Haberman about the inevitability of Hillary Clinton ought to be triggering serious alarm bells for you. Get a load of this paragraph:

“Anytime you have all your eggs in one basket, it is a concern,” said Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, acknowledging the risk Democrats were running by deferring to Mrs. Clinton. “Although if you’re going to have them all in one, this basket is a good place to be.”

Talk about tempting fate! I’m an atheist, but just reading this quote makes me want to throw salt over my left shoulder while making the sign of the cross and bellowing the word “JINX” 137 times, because everyone knows that if you say “jinx” an even number of times it doesn’t work due to the law of double negatives. My mind is reeling with other things Governor Markell could have said:

“Anytime you try to kill the golden goose in hopes of figuring out how it makes the golden eggs, it is a concern,” said Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, acknowledging the risk Democrats were running by relying on Democratic voting demographics to turn out in 2016 for a candidate who will go through essentially no serious primary challenge. “Although if you’re going to murder your golden goose, this one certainly seems to be asking for it!”

“Anytime you try to count your chickens before they hatch, it is a concern,” said Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, acknowledging the risk Democrats were running by deferring to Mrs. Clinton. “Although if you’re going to count them before they hatch, these eggs sure do look awfully healthy, don’t they?”

“Anytime you ask what could possibly go wrong, it is a concern,” said Gov. Jack Markell of Delaware, acknowledging the risk Democrats were running by deferring to Mrs. Clinton. “Although, to be frank, what could possibly go wrong with a Hillary Clinton presidential campaign?”

Look. I think Hillary Clinton could be a very strong candidate. I don’t believe this e-mail imbroglio is really going to amount to much in the eyes of the general public, the same way Benghazi and Whitewater only matter to the conservative fringe. And as much as Republicans love to hate her, I believe Clinton would enjoy a tremendous groundswell of support among independents and even centrist Republicans in comparison to the unfettered (racist) vitriol that Obama has had to deal with.

But if we’re seriously looking at a race between Martin O’Malley, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton, I think this is a sign that the Democratic Party could be in for some lean years ahead. Where are our options? Why aren’t any young up-and-comers willing to give this a shot? Are they afraid of retribution from the Clintons? Is everybody just willing to sit this cycle out and politely wait their turn? This isn’t elementary school. It’s real life, and in real life, the unexpected happens. This is the reason why we have cliches about eggs in baskets and counting eggs and golden geese. For the sake of the party, will no young Democrat heed these very important pieces of bird-related advice?

Search Results for: ’

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

Open Thread 3.27.2015.AD…

Also, an Epidemic of Stupid

The Economic Case for Immigration

Open Thread 3/23

The Truth No Match for Local Lies on “Death Tax”

0p3n Thr3ad

Civil Liberties Roundup

Sure! Where Do We Store The Waste?

Open Thread (Some Joke)

Dori Monson on Restaurant Closures: Lying or Illiterate?

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

Open Thread 3/13

Election Endorsements Have Consequences

The Jinxiest Statement Ever Made About Hillary Clinton’s Inevitability

Can’t Bring Yourself to Type the Word “Ass”?

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