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Open Thread the 24th of June

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– The embarrassment is not limited to the flag, itself. The fact that it still flies, that one must debate its meaning in 2015, reflects an incredible ignorance. A century and a half after Lincoln was killed, after 750,000 of our ancestors died, Americans still aren’t quite sure why.

– Good for gender neutral city bathrooms in Seattle.

– So wait, there’s a cost to inaction on climate change?

– Five Thousand Ladybugs of Highly Effective People

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Thom: Texas rejects a woman’s right to choose.

“Holy Encyclical, Batman!”

David Pakman: Paul Ryan falls apart (again) on FAUX News…has no plan to replace ObamaCare.

Congressional Hits and Misses of the week.

WTF? Another Right-Wing Extremist Mass Shooting?!?

Mental Floss: 14 facts about parasites.

Rep. Derek Kilmer (D-WA) gets a jump on Father’s Day

Young Turks: What woman should appear on the $10?.

Pap and Sam Seder: GOP trash economics sends Kansas back to the dust bowl.

VSauce: Dinosaurs.

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about famous stories.

The 2016 Clown Parade—“Even More Clowns” Edition:

Mental Floss: Why do we blush when embarassed.

Farron Cousins: The death of another Republican talking point.

Kimmel: This week in unnecessary censorship.

Thom: How big money is undermining voter rights.

Racial Identity Politics:

White House: West Wing Week.

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

WA Republican Anti-Taxers Have Lost the Editorial Boards on Capital Gains

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Our state’s editorial boards love to complain about the budget impasse in Olympia, but for many years they have played a key role in the obstruction, consistently opposing any substantive new tax—especially on income—as fervently as the most dyed-in-the-wool anti-tax Republican. Until now:

Pigs Fly!

Victor Habbick | FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A proposal in the Senate would apply a 7 percent capital-gains tax to 0.1 percent of the state’s residents, or about 7,500 residents. It would only apply to gains over $250,000 for individuals or $500,000 for couples.

Instead of punting to committees and next year’s Legislature, they should buckle down and make the choice to begin taxing capital gains.

That’s the Seattle Times editorial board making the case that a “capital-gains tax is best option to fund education.” Seriously. And while we’ve been seeing their position evolve over the past few months, it’s still pretty stunning to see them state their support for the tax so bluntly.

And then there’s this from today’s Olympian:

A key element of our state’s F grade for effort was the comparatively low percentage of the state’s economic output that Washington has invested through taxes into K-12 schools. Part of the problem is our over-reliance and regressive tax system that ignores a large share of economic activity including the sales of services and such income-producers as capital gains.

I sometimes joke that I’m the only non-lawmaker who still reads the editorial pages, but of course that’s not true. Editorial board endorsements may not be nearly as influential as they were even a decade ago, but they still play a role in shaping public opinion. Or at least, reinforcing it. And anti-tax legislators no longer have the “serious” people behind them in obstructing all efforts to tax income.

Washington’s tax structure is absurdly regressive. I’ve been saying that since my very first blog post, more than 11 years ago. There’s simply no arguing with that fact. And now the editorial boards have finally acknowledged that our revenue system is insufficient as well. Republican lawmakers should take note that they are on the wrong side of the editorial boards on this issue, and that if we fail to pass the additional revenue necessary to satisfy McCleary, the editorial boards won’t be shy about pointing out which lawmakers are to blame.

Given my fierce criticism over the years, you might think that I’d hate to give the editorial boards credit for finally advocating for responsible tax policy. Not at all. Responsible tax policy is all I ever really wanted. And it’s great to see the Seattle Times on board.

[Cross-posted at Civic Skunkworks]

o-p-e-n! t-h-r-e-a-d? 6/15/’15

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– Pro-Choice and Pregnant? Yeah, It’s Really Real

– Increasingly it looks like this whole P.C. boo-hoo is just a weaponized version of Those Were The Days.

– Being a GOP presidential candidate gets you the opportunity to scam the elderly out of their homes, eventually.

– Wow, Councilmember O’Brien.

– The legislature should pass a resolution saying they don’t know if longer fire seasons caused by global warming are real.

– WHY WERE YOU MUTED?

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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SlateTV: Spiders falling from the sky.

Ann Telnaes: The elusive G.O.P. ObamaCare replacement.

Obama: Health Care in America:

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

The 2016 Clown Procession:

Jon: Awkward moments between CNN’s Chris Cuomo and NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Farron Cousins: Sarah Palin—The candidate the GOP deserves.

Richard Fowler: Ben and Jerry’s delicious environmental mission.

Here is what you need to know about MERS.

Pelosi announces opposition to trade bill.

Forgotten Assholes of History: Money hungry witch hunter.

David Pakman: Glenn Beck quits America.

Pap: Mitch McConnell’s anti-American journey to spite Obama.

Thom: Kansas’s reagonomic disaster and Minnesota’s economic miracle.

Obama sometimes responds to letters that call him an idiot.

VSauce: The Moon Terminator Illusion:

SlateTV: What are the chances of getting hit by asteroid?

Officer Friendly:

Young Turks: Why Dems (w/ GOP help) torpedoed Obama’s big evil trade deal.

Reid: GOP governing ‘crisis by crisis’.

Kimmel: This week in unnecessary censorship.

Thom: Listen when Greenpeace says “Shell NO”.

Mental Floss: Does hitting the snooze button help?

Pap and Sam Seder: Red states are screwed if Obamacare is repealed.

PsychoSuperMom: Voter fraud is (still) a fraud.

Farron Cousins: The Republican War on the Poor™ continues.

Thom: The Good, The bad, and the very very bathetically ugly.

Maddow: NH Republicans reject FAUX News as debate moderator.

Songify the News: Of murder and catfish.

WaPo: Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, phase I.

Is this Cig-ghazi?

Rummy Raises His Ugly Head:

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about the weather.

White House: West Wing Week.

Young Turks: Hastert’s pedophile obsession proves gross hypocrisy.

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

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

Civil Liberties Roundup

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Last week, Congress passed the USA Freedom Act, a very modest reform of the NSA’s surveillance capabilities, still leaving much of what they can do intact.

The main reform is the end of the bulk collection of metadata under Section 215, which has been ruled illegal in multiple courts since Edward Snowden fully disclosed its existence two years ago. In its place will be a system where telecoms archive their data and NSA can only pull metadata after going through the FISA Court that will have a privacy advocate overseeing the proceedings. Although there’s a provision that could allow for a six month “transition period” to this new protocol.

In looking at these changes, Bill Scher argues that civil libertarians lost:

In an interview with Democracy Now just before passage, Edward Snowden confidant Glenn Greenwald triumphantly declared “the only reason why the Patriot Act is going to be reformed is because one person was courageous enough, in an act of conscience, to come forward.” But minutes later, Greenwald conceded that “it leaves overwhelmingly undisturbed the vast bulk of what the NSA does, and it’s very unlikely that there will be another reform bill, which means that the NSA’s core mission and core activities will remain unreformed and unchanged.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who opposed the USA Freedom Act as too tough on the NSA, thundered on the floor before the vote that the bill amounted to a “resounding victory for Edward Snowden.” But the civil libertarian two-stepping exposes the truth: Snowden lost.

As one former intelligence official told the Daily Beast, “What no one wants to say out loud is that this is a big win for the NSA, and a huge nothing-burger for the privacy community.” Turns out one of the main reform planks – having telecommunications companies instead of the NSA collect personal metadata in bulk – is a logistical efficiency, not a restraint on surveillance. “It’s very expensive and very cumbersome,” said the official. “Good! Let them take them. I’m tired of holding on to this,” said another.

What this reminds me of is the debate in the wake of Obamacare’s passage. In many ways, Obamacare fell way short of the ideal health care legislation. Obama conceded significant reforms in order to get something passed, making deals that left significant inefficiencies and profiteering in the health care industry intact.

But the passage of Obamacare was a victory in some real ways. It was a baby step in the right direction and it put to rest the idea that health care reform of any kind was impossible. The passage of the USA Freedom Act is a victory in the same way. It changes the longstanding dynamic towards giving government agencies greater leeway in national security matters and it put the defenders of an unrestrained national security apparatus on the defensive for the first time in many years.

The “former intelligence official” quoted above seems not to understand the significance of the reform as well. The main problem with the Section 215 collection of metadata wasn’t simply the existence of the metadata itself. It was the potential for that information to be abused. The changes implemented make it harder for NSA to cross that line. That’s a victory, even if it’s a small one in a giant box of other needed reforms.

News items from the last two weeks…
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openthread612

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– Trans* Women Are Women

– Getting names is making East Link really feel concrete

– There is literally no problem on earth that lowering taxes on business people will not solve.

– Polish your lenses, oil your tripods, search your archives – the seventh Panda’s Thumb photography contest, begins – now!

– Ping pong tables in parks is kind of fun, but I don’t know why we have to ruin it with pretending it’s going to stop crimes.

If “Property-Tax Bill” Was a Living Human Being He Could Sue the Seattle Times for Libel

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It’s maybe not the most shockingly dishonest thing the Seattle Times editorial board has ever printed—that would be this. But in terms of sheer disrespect for the intelligence of their readers, it’s hard to sink any lower than this unapologetic libel of Mayor Ed Murray’s proposed Move Seattle levy:

The size of Move Seattle is breathtaking. The property-tax bill for a $450,000 house would nearly double, to about $275 a year. That won’t help rapidly escalating rents or middle-class homeowners dealing with rising home values.

And you know what else won’t help rapidly escalating housing costs? Lying.

To be clear, Move Seattle would not double your property-tax bill. It wouldn’t even come close. It would double the amount you’re paying on the expiring Bridging the Gap levy, but that amounts to only a $145 increase on a $450,000 home—just 3.3 percent of the total property-tax bill (and a mere .03 percent of the value of your home)—not the 100 percent increase that the editors imply. Big difference.

To understand how breathtaking this lie is, imagine if “Property-Tax” Bill was an actual living, breathing human being. The editors’ assertion is so clearly erroneous, misleading, and defamatory that Bill could easily sue the paper for libel, and win big!

No doubt the proposed levy deserves careful scrutiny; all levies do. But so does the editors’ larger implication that Seattle homeowners are overtaxed: “Seattle is the city that doesn’t say no to taxes,” the editors emphasize in a pull-quote.

And yet according to the tax records on my own median-value home, my property-tax rate has actually gone down over the past decade, from 1.06 percent of assessed value in 2004 to only 0.96 percent in 2014! Compared to a lot of other cities, that’s a bargain, especially considering that we don’t even have an income tax. Despite rising property values, in raw dollars, my property-tax bill has barely outpaced inflation.

Yes, we pass a lot of levies here in Seattle, and we tend to pass them with ease. But these levies are constantly expiring. So while it may feel like we’re always being asked to raise our own taxes, our effective property-tax rate is actually quite low, and has remained low over time. In fact, tack on this allegedly “breathtaking” Move Seattle levy, and my property-tax rate would still be less than it was back in 2004.

Not that you’d ever know this from reading the blatantly misleading op-ed pages of the Seattle Times.

Danny Westneat Thinks Republicans Are “Moderate” (No, Really!)

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I’ve been meaning to tear into Danny Westneat for his credulous puff piece on the state senate Republican majority, but haven’t had the time. Fortunately, Bill Lyne at the United Faculty of Washington State blog has done it for me:

On [higher education], he’s convinced that “the Republicans blew the Democrats out of the water. The GOP,” he tells us, “is proposing to slash tuition but at the same time send tens of millions of dollars to the universities to make up the difference.”  Representative Hunter said the same thing about this that we here at the blog tried to say to Westneat the last time he slobbered over the Republican tuition proposal: It’s not true.  The Republicans say they provide enough money to cover the tuition cut, but the cold, hard numbers in their budget say they do not.  Go read it, Danny.  Better yet, call the university budget offices and see what they say.  The Republican rhetoric on tuition sounds great, but the gap between that rhetoric and the reality of their budget would leave lots of students actually paying more in tuition because it would take them longer to get their degrees.

Read the whole thing. It’s worth it.

As for Westneat, well, sigh. I know he likes to think of himself as an independent voice adrift in a sea of partisan bickering—an equal opportunity eye-roller, or something. But more often than not, he’s just part of the problem, cynically working to erode the public’s faith in government rather than working to offer and advance creative solutions.

Which is a shame, because Westneat has both the talent and the platform to make a difference.

What Olympia Needs Is a Two-Thirds Compromise

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If you want to know why the Washington State legislature can’t seem to pass a budget, it’s because Republicans have forgotten how to do math.

Oh, I’m not talking about budget math; Republicans have never been very good at that. I’m talking about electoral math. The Democrats control the state house. The Democrats control the governor’s mansion (and have for over 30 years). The Democrats control both US senate seats, six of ten US house seats, and seven of eight statewide executive offices. The Democratic nominee has won Washington State in seven straight presidential elections.

Washington is a Democratic state.

Yet weirdly, Republicans believe their three-seat majority in the state senate somehow gives them an electoral mandate to unilaterally impose their will on the rest of the state:

Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver, said Democrats are wasting taxpayers’ dollars by keeping lawmakers in Olympia longer.

“There’s just one thing standing in the way of a deal — the House Democrats’ unreasonable insistence on raising taxes solely for the sake of raising taxes,” Benton said in an email.

Right. It’s the Democrats who are standing in the way of a deal. Gimme a fucking break.

Look, the Republicans control the state senate, so they deserve something. Can’t pass a budget without them. No doubt about that. But compromise is a two-way street, and the problem is that today’s Republican Party is ideologically incapable of compromise on many key issues. For example, taxes. A majority of Republicans will never vote to approve something called a “tax.” For any reason. Ever. So they demand that the Democrats fold entirely on that.

Then there is transit. The Republicans largely have the transportation funding proposal they want—lots of tasty pork for their home districts. But they’re ideologically opposed to funding light rail, even when it’s not their money. And so they refuse to give Sound Transit the $15 billion in local taxing authority it needs to go to voters with a package that builds enough rail in each of the subareas to give it a chance of passing. Instead, they think they have an electoral mandate to insist on an ST3-crippling $11 billion in authority—not enough to get to either Tacoma or Everett, and not enough to get to both West Seattle and Ballard. Because Republicans can’t do the electoral math.

But the bigger danger would be if the Democrats can’t do the electoral math either.

The Democrats control two-thirds of state government. And if they want to hold on to the two-thirds they have (and have a hope of retaking the senate) then they can’t disillusion the Democratic base by rewarding the three-seat senate Republican majority for their uncompromising obstruction. Politically, capitulation is neither a responsible nor viable option.

The Republicans control only one-third of government. Give them a third of what they want. If Republicans want anymore than that, force them to make a case for it at the polls.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Mass murders and the media that love them.

Dickipedia: Mitch McConnell is a dick.

Tar Sands CEO says climate change is real.

Thom: Meet the new normal for student debt.

The silliest things people tweet at Obama.

Farron Cousins and Pap: FAUX News makes you stupid and the G.O.P. is worried about it.

The problem with frats.

Sam Seder: A Red state overturns the death penalty.

David Pakman: So much for “the party of jobs,” as Republicans pass zero jobs bills in their first 138 days in session.

White Super Power: Why Hollywood needs more white Super Heroes:

Mental Floss: 24 strange scientific studies.

The 2016 Clown Parade:

Congressional hits and misses: Rob Bishop (R-UT-01) edition.

White House: West Wing Week.

Trevor Noah’s New and Sexy Daily Show premier.

Farron Cousins: Media racism in the age of Obama.

Sam Seder: Louie Gohmert’s feelings are hurt over Jade Helm.

Thom: G.O.P. birth control bill is an insult to women.

Mr. Speaker:

Obama’s reaction to a meltdown by Congress a toddler in the White House.

Lawrence O’Donnell: John Stewart’s plan to help vets:


Farron Cousins: Louie Gohmert longs for perpetual war

David Pakman: GOP dragged kicking and screaming into acknowledging climate change.

Jon on allergies and media hyperbole.

Chris Hayes: Obama’s secret weapon on Iran’s nuclear program speaks

Liberal Viewer: The FAUX News alarmist irony alert.

Mark Fiore: Mitch McConnell and Snuggly The Security Bear beg to spy.

Mental Floss: Why do you see better when you squint?

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

open thread 5:29:2015

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– Am I being a dick with open thread titles? Someone asked for dates so you could distinguish one from the other, and sometimes I do these things that amuse me, but — I sort of assume — nobody else. At least there haven’t been puns in a little while!

– If you are thinking “Hmmm, I wonder if Mike Huckabee has anything to do with this,” you are wearing your thinking pants correctly! It turns out that, as Arkansas governor, Huckabee thought it would be great to use Gothard’s teachings and programs for … just about everything!

– Everyone raising money makes me uncomfortable, even as I understand it’s necessary in politics, but there’s something about the anti-Sawant people.

– The fuck, Denny Hastert?

– I’m always a bit skeptical when organizations change their names. The Committee to End Homelessness had a name that laid out a really ambitious agenda. No, they haven’t come anywhere near meeting that, but it’s better to fail than to not try.

Civil Liberties Roundup

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Recently in Cairo:

An Egyptian court on Saturday [May 16] sentenced to death the deposed president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, along with more than 100 others, for fleeing prison during the 2011 revolt against President Hosni Mubarak.

Mr. Morsi’s conviction is the latest sign of the undoing of the uprising that overthrew Mr. Mubarak. Mr. Morsi, who was Egypt’s first freely elected leader, now faces the death penalty for escaping extralegal detention — a form of detention that many Egyptians hoped would be eliminated by the revolution.

The past few years in Egypt have been painful to watch. The 2011 revolution that seemed to give many moderate Egyptians hope for a more democratic future was snuffed out after a 2013 coup against their first ever elected leader. Morsi was clearly unpopular and his religious extremism arguably rendered him unfit for the office. But it should be clear now that Egypt would be much better off had they democratically replaced him rather than the extreme response from al-Sisi and the Egyptian military.

At the time of the coup, I chatted a lot with a former co-worker from Microsoft who’d gone back to Alexandria (and who Dana and I visited in Cairo in 2007). He was torn between his fear of greater Islamic control of the country and his desire to trust the democratic process. It’s hard for most Americans to put themselves in his shoes. He supported the coup, but hoped it would still lead to more democratic reforms. It hasn’t (and he’s since moved out of the country again).

Ebrahim Deen, a researcher based in South Africa, wrote about Morsi’s death sentence (which he believes won’t actually be carried out) at Informed Comment:

The trial verdicts –Mursi was sentenced to life in prison on the espionage charge as well– were procedurally flawed, defendant’s had irregular access to legal representation, and evidence gathering and cross examination procedures were severely compromised. The glaring fact that the initial arrests were carried out by the former Mubarak regime in early 2011 under emergency law and without detention orders was not considered and so to [sic] was the communication between Mursi and an Aljazeera journalist the day of the ‘breakout’ wherein he provided the name, and street address of the prison, asserting that they were not escaping and would remain at the location awaiting government officials responses. The prosecutorial process had been extremely and even laughably shoddy. Of the around seventy Palestinians sentenced, two (Hossam Sanie and Raed El-Attar) had already died –Sanie as far ago as 2008 and Attar, during Israel’s operation ‘pillar of defence’ in 2014, which caused the deaths of over 2000, mostly civilian, Gazans. Another, Hassan Salama, has purportedly been in detention in Israel since 1996 and could not have possibly committed the alleged crimes from inside an Israeli cell. Further in the espionage case, which saw Muslim Brotherhood leaders including Mohamed El-Beltagy and Mohamed Khairet El-Shater receive death sentences, Emad Shahin, a political science professor now based at Georgetown University, who has no real links with the Brotherhood was handed the same censure, and so to was Sondos Assem, a media liaison official employed by Mursi.

This is an insult to everyone’s intelligence. Morsi is being sentenced for breaking out of a prison that shouldn’t have had the authority to hold him in the first place. Al-Sisi has taken Egypt back to the pre-2011 authoritarian regime where illegal detentions are commonplace, torture is routine, and members of religious parties like the Muslim Brotherhood are presumed to be terrorists, regardless of what those individuals have actually done. Deen continues:

These sentences are the latest in a string of actions adopted by the Sisi regime to crackdown on opposition and descent. Following the 2013 ouster, thousands have been killed, and over 16000 political prisoners currently languish in Egyptian detention facilities. A protest law, which has banned sit-ins and severely curtailed other protest rights, was adopted in November 2013, while in April, the Cairo Administrative Court criminalised worker strikes. Liberals and secular activists have not escaped this purge, in December 2014 Ahmed Maher, Mohamed Adel, and Ahmed Douma, three influential members of the April 6 youth movement were sentenced to three years for organizing protests in contravention of the protest law, while in February Douma was amongst over two hundred who received life sentences for inciting violence and destroying a science facility housing precious artefacts. Shahin’s farcical conviction falls into this milieu. Being opposed to the military ouster, publically vocalising this through writings and interviews, and being somewhat more ‘reputable’ internationally were the main reasons informing his death sentence. In 2014 alone, over 1400 individuals were sentenced to death in mass trials, which usually took only a few days to complete, and lacked even basic prosecutorial and judicial impartiality. It is noteworthy that the judiciary was a key cog in the political structure which allowed and maintained Mubarak’s regime and that following Mursi’s ouster, Sisi has sought a similar role for the institution –Adli Mansour (head of the Supreme Constitutional Court) was even installed caretaker president following the coup.

At least it’s not a theocracy, I guess.

News items from the last two weeks…

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Open Thread 5/26

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– Saying this early: Bryant v. Inslee is not Jobs vs. Environment

– The underrepresentation of women and people of color in media extends all the way to the cartoons tucked into the New Yorker, according to an analysis of every cartoon published in the magazine last year.

– If this is how the Patriot Act goes, well, OK, I guess.

– But it’s worth noting that amidst all the hue and cry turning cake bakers into martyrs in the name of religious freedom, here is an actual ordained minister who was jailed and fined for seeking to practice her faith and support same-sex marriage.

– Byron Calhoun and the Phantom Fetal Skull

– The Bad Intelligence

King County Unemployment Rate Plummets to 3.3 Percent! $15 Minimum Wage to Blame?

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$15 Now

Socialist council member Kshama Sawant, ruining it for the rest of us.

If Seattle businesses are closing up shop in response to our $15 minimum wage, you wouldn’t know it from our falling unemployment rate:

King County’s unemployment rate reach[ed] a low not seen since April 2008, data released Tuesday by the state Employment Security Department show.

King County’s unemployment rate in April was 3.3 percent, compared to 4 percent in March and 4.1 percent in April 2014.

Okay, monthly unemployment data is not seasonally adjusted, so the rate will surely rise in May and June as college and high school graduates join the workforce (like it does every year). And of course, it will take years—maybe even a couple decades—to fully suss out the employment effect (if any) of Seattle’s phased-in $15 minimum wage.

But again, if employers are cutting back on hiring in anticipation of rising labor costs—like $15 critics insist a rationally self-interested employer would—you wouldn’t know it from our falling unemployment rate.

But, you know, one crappy chain pizza place closed, so screw the data.

[Cross-posted to Civic Skunkworks]

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