HorsesAss.Org

Server issues

by — ,

HA was down for a little over an hour this morning.

I called Goldy and caught him in front of the U.S. Capitol, on his way to John Boehner’s office. He was pretty sure he’d been paying the ISP bills.

There was no evidence of a denial-of-service attack. A few minutes after submitting a trouble ticket to the ISP, the site returned.

In absence of any other obvious cause, I blame Carl Ballard.

Update: Oops. I was going to post something this morning before the server issue distracted me. As SJ points out in the comment thread, there is an extraordinary opportunity tomorrow evening when Sen. Maria Cantwell and Elizabeth Warren headline a reception titled, Fighting for Main Street. Admission is $40 at the Paramount Theater.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

by — ,

DLBottleThere are only 19 days left in this year’s War on Christmas. So please join the fray by wielding a pint this evening at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks will show up earlier for dinner.

Bye, bye, Herb Herm…we are soooo going to miss you:



Can’t make it to Seattle? The Tri-Cities chapter of Drinking liberally meets every Tuesday night at 7:00pm, and Thursday night, Drinking Liberally Bremerton meets at 5:00pm.

With 231 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and five more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.

McKenna’s campaign of petulance

by — ,

Why did Dino Rossi lose his second gubernatorial bid and his only U.S. Senate bid? The way I see it, Rossi lost because voters recognized something unlikable in him. The public’s first big taste of the unlikable side of Rossi came in his 2005 “concession speech,” following the loss of a bitterly-fought legal contest at the end of his first gubernatorial fight:

With today’s decision, and because of the political makeup of the Washington state Supreme Court, which makes it almost impossible to overturn this ruling, I am ending the election contest.

It wasn’t a moment of statesmanship for Rossi. In his subsequent 2008 and 2010 statewide elections, Rossi frequently exhibited a similar peevishness that left a bad impression with voters. Maybe he was deeply bitter (2008), or maybe he was annoyed at being forced to run a hopeless campaign (2010). Either way, he was unlikable.

Fast forward to late 2011. We have one Rob McKenna running for Governor. This is a man who has been elected twice to Attorney General, the second time with 59% of the vote.

This time McKenna has a serious liability in his run for Governor: He comes off as a petulant asshole.

We can all look back with bemusement that McKenna kicked off his campaign by excluding Goldy in his role as a reporter for The Stranger. Confronted by uber-legitimate Stranger reporter Eli Sanders, McKenna impishly replied:

“I don’t think David Goldstein qualifies as a journalist,” a miffed McKenna told Eli. “He’s a hack. He’s a partisan hack. He’s just there to parrot points from the other side.”

More recently, McKenna has decided that all Stranger reporters are personae non gratae:

Gubernatorial wannabe and anti-health-care crusader Rob McKenna is holding a campaign kick-off breakfast tomorrow morning, but The Stranger, if you can believe it, is not allowed inside. After I emailed the campaign to RSVP, I got a call back from McKenna-protector Adam Faber explaining, “Tomorrow’s event is for invited press only, and we didn’t invite The Stranger.” […]

“This is very simple and it is all I intend to say,” Fabar intentionally said. “The Stranger’s editorial director has made a $500 donation to our opponent and political blogger, Mr. Goldstein, is listed on the PDC reports as the head of a political action committee called the No Rob PAC. I think that speaks for itself.”

Well, Adam, it’s actually called the No Reversing Our Benefits PAC.

Dan Savage donated $500 to Inslee. Ooooohhh. Goldy, before he was employed by The Stranger created a PAC called “No Reversing Our Benefits PAC,” with the amusing acronym “NoROB PAC”. It was a fucking joke…unless you are a peevish and, perhaps, paranoid gubernatorial wannabe.

McKenna made a peevish spectacle of himself again when a Democratic videographer showed up to video tape his talk in a openly-advertised public venue. After his attempts to intimidate the videographer failed, McKenna terminated the presentation and beat a retreat to the “cupcake table.”

And then there’s the episode where McKenna had fucked up its own campaign cash rollover and bitterly complained about Jay Inslee’s query to the PDC about rolling over his federal dollars into his state campaign.

Recently a special session of the state legislature was convened that, by law, prohibits state elected officials, like McKenna but not Inslee, from fundraising. The McKenna campaign wailed like a spoiled child:

“At what point does Congressman Inslee start acting like someone following Washington state rules, instead of someone following Washington D.C. rules?” [McKenna’s campaign manager Randy] Pepple said.

(If McKenna wants a level playing field, perhaps he would agree to commute to D.C. for the work week….)

McKenna’s most recent display of petulance was last Friday when, at the last minute, he cancelled an interview with the Washington Education Association:

WEA members were disappointed McKenna decided not to share his opinions on education with the group, Lindquist said.

“The teachers here wondered why he wasn’t here. They were speculating that he was afraid to meet with us,” or that education was not one of his priorities, Lindquist said.

McKenna’s campaign manager, Randy Pepple, said the attorney general decided not to attend the WEA endorsement interview because he didn’t expect to have a fair hearing with people who were interested in hearing his point of view.

“It became very apparent yesterday that the WEA was turning today into `celebrating the endorsement of Congressman Inslee Day,'” Pepple said Saturday.

Lindquist said the WEA changed the date of its candidate interviews after McKenna said he had a conflict with the original Nov. 12 date. His campaign called the union on Friday afternoon to cancel his interview with the WEA-PAC Board. The union said he also refused to answer written questions about public education.

McKenna thinks he cannot win, so takes his ball and goes home. Maybe he got a cupcake.

Dissing the teachers was a stupid—and revealing—unforced error on McKenna’s part. For one thing, McKenna fancies himself as big on education. Apparently, he’s not so “into” it that he can communicate with teachers.

And dissing a teachers’ union raises a big red flag for folks who aren’t quite convinced that a Governor McKenna would do for Washington state what Governor Scott Walker has done to Public Sector employees in Wisconsin. Over the past year, we have seen a systematic Republican War on Workers. Would a Gov. McKenna bring the war to Washington? You know…the same way he forced us to join the multistate lawsuit against the healthcare reform law?

A better McKenna would have engaged the teachers, recognize common ground, acknowledge differences and made his best case. Instead, McKenna ran from the fight and then whined about it. And what we know from recent elections…the voters just don’t go for petulant whiners.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

by — ,

Ann Telnaes: Grover Norquist on raising taxes.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA): 10th anniversary of Enron:

Mark Fiore: Hard science.

Ann Telnaes: The most wonderful time of the year.

Thom with more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

White House: West Wing Week.

America Occupied:

Thom reveals some Good, some Bad, and Some Very, Very Ugly.

Jon on Obama’s war on Thanksgiving.

Ann Telnaes: Detainee provision trashes the Constitution.

Jon on elections in Egypt.

WA and RI Governors want pot recognized for medical uses.

Young Turks: Republicans won’t tax the rich to offset payroll tax.

Thom: Are lies and sabotage the only hope for the WI GOP?

An interview with Rep. Roger Goodman (D-WA-45).

Rupert Murdoch hacks his way to Worst Person in the World.

Why we need to protect voter rights.

The Republican Primary Asylum

Sharpton: DNC’s Voter Protection Director discusses ProtectingtheVote.org.

Alyona’s Tool Time: Rick Scott cares.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) urges extension of payroll tax cut for middle class:

Sam Seder: The problem of Republican ignorance.

Thom with the Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.

USA Ammo shoots up to Worst Person in the World.

Actual Audio: Grover Norquist on Meet the Press.

Kimmel’s Week in Unnecessary Censorship (via Huffington Post).

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

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

by — ,

Please join us tonight for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks will show up earlier for a quiet dinner.

Damnit! It looks like we won’t have Herman Cain to kick around anymore. Apparently, “conservatives” are telling him, “Nein, nein, nein.” So…enjoy whilst you can:






Can’t make it to Seattle? The Tri-Cities chapter of Drinking liberally meets every Tuesday night. Drinking Liberally Tacoma meets this Thursday. Also next Monday, there are meetings of the Olympia chapter, the Yakima chapter, and the South Bellevue chapter.

With 227 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.

The Walker Factor

by — ,

I consider myself to be from Wisconsin. My family moved to Madison in 1970. They’re still there.

I skipped my usual summer trip back home this year. In fact, I haven’t been back to Wisconsin since right-wing nut-case Gov. Scott Walker took office on January 3 of 2010. And this past week, Kathy and I decided we would not head back to the Midwest for Christmas.

It isn’t, exactly, that I am boycotting the state (and definitely not boycotting my family). But when I go to Wisconsin, I do my Christmas shopping there, rent a car, go out to eat with friends and family, and buy lots of groceries and stuff—that is, I contribute to the economy of Wisconsin.

This year the revenue will go to Washington; because, with a nearly balancing set of trade-offs for and against a trip home, the Walker Factor has tipped the scale in favor of not going. It’s a protest more than a boycott—my small way of saying, “fuck you, Gov. Walker, for trying to turn Wisconsin into a Republican wasteland.”

It looks like my protest can come to a satisfactory end soon:

Activists pushing to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) announced on Monday evening that they have collected more than 300,000 signatures for the effort in just 12 days.

To trigger a recall election, Walker’s opponents—coordinated by the group United Wisconsin—need to collect 540,208 valid signatures by Jan. 17, which is 60 days after the campaign launched. Organizers said they are aiming for 600,000 to 700,000 signatures.

I sense some anger towards Walker.

How are Republicans responding? As you might expect. With violence. You know, vandalism, threats of vehicular assault, destroying petitions (here and here)…the usual. And the fun has just begun.

I’m already making plans for a summer trip back home.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

by — ,

Stephen: Supreme court tapes.

David Shuster with Janeane Garofalo The double standard of Republican rhetoric.

Young Turks: IAEA’s questionable report on Iran & nuclear weapons.

Thom: Who’s screwed now that the Supercommittee has failed.

America Occupied:

Red State Update: Michelle booed at NASCAR.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and NYPD Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly are Worst Person in the World.

White House: West Wing Week.

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

Alyona: Black Friday gets headlines as the EU crumbles.

Young Turks: Citadel child sex scandal.

Stephen on The Media.

This Week’s Republican Primary Asylum:

Alyona’s Fireside chat: Millions go hungry in the U.S.A..

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

Young Turks: CIA gets outsmarted by Hezbollah.

Focus on FAUX:

Young Turks: Glenn Beck goes ballistic over Fallon’s dis of Michele Bachmann.

Alyona: Oregon puts death penalty on death row hold.

Jonathan Mann: Pizza is a vegetable.

Thom: How Wal-Mart killed “mom and pops”.

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

Thanksgiving Multimedia feast

by — ,

Here are a few slices of politics for your Thanksgiving feast. There are some real turkeys in here….

Thanksgiving on the right.

TPM: Top 5 Turkeys of Campaign 2012:

Best Thanksgiving day movies.

A conservative cultural warrior explains how to talk about same-sex marriage at Thanksgiving (via MoJo).

Flashback: Sarah Palin’s Thanksgiving Massacre!:

Mac and Cheese virgin Pat Robertson asks, Is Mac and Cheese a “Black Thing”?

Mark Fiore: A cartoonist gives thanks!

Megyn Kelly’s thanksgiving:

Obama pardons some turkeys.

Newsy: Cost of Thanksgiving dinner rises 13%.

Kimmel’s Charlie Brown Thanksgiving cum GOP debate:

Live Blogging the Republican Reality Show

by — ,

Woo-Hoo! It is another evening with some crazy fellows. I’ll try to live blog from the Montlake Alehouse.

5:07: Somehow I expect that tomorrows press will be all about Michele’s white outfit.

5:10: Rick Santorum blames Barack Obama for the economy?!? That’s simply precious.

5:10: Mitt makes a funny! (“Yes, Wolf, its my first name”.) Newt?

5:11 Newt puts limits on “innocent until proven guilty.” If we think you are a terrorist, it doesn’t apply.

5:12: Watch Mitt Romney throughout this debate. Some consultant once told him he needed to be a better listener. Now he makes a show of it, by which I mean, it looks very contrived.

5:17: Ron Paul, crazy as he is, schools Newt on the emergence of the police state.

5:19: Michele Bachmann, feeling her sound bite didn’t get enough headlines last time, rekindles the crazy “Obama outsourced the Justice Department to the ACLU” talking point. Still falls flat, I suspect.

5:21: Mitt agrees with Newt.

5:22: Wait. Rick Perry wants to “privatize the TSA”?!? Isn’t that exactly what we had on 9-11? You know, before George W. Bush enacted one of the largest expansions of the federal government by federalizing airport security?

5:23: My dinner has arrived, and I am having trouble eating the refried beans while Rick Santorum is speaking.

5:27: Cain, “I’m sorry Blitz, I meant ‘Wolf'” Wolf: “Thank you Cain”.

5:29: Huntsman sneaks in congressional term limits in a foreign policy debate.

5:30: Bachmann: “Pakistan is the epicenter of terrorism.” Where was she when George Bush was selling his Iraq war?

5:31: Oh my Gawd! Michele uses nuisance in discussing Pakistan. What happened to naive black and white issues and answers?

5:33: Here is a useful metric of how low Rick Perry has fallen: Michele Bachmann points out that his Pakistan “policy” is naive—and she is right!

5:36: Look at Mitt’s hair. It looks like a wig made of black fish line. What the fuck is up with that?

5:39: Huntsman is toast…there is, what looks to be, dandruff on his coat.

5:42: What the hell kind of pin is Newt wearing? Is that a Free Masons pin?

5:51: Cain: “If we pull out of Afghanistan too soon, Iran will help fill that power vacuum….” He should have just said, “9-9-9.”

5:53: Rick Perry is starting his fade-out phase of this debate.

5:56: Bachmann: Obama shuts down U.S. energy independence by stopping a pipeline with Canadian oil (being shipped to Louisiana for export). Right.

6:01: Mitt: “Obama has pursued an agenda of being friendly to our foes and being hostile to our friends.” I mean, yeah…he has certainly been courting Republicans at the expense of his base. Good point Mitt. Not bad for a member of a party trying to harm the U.S.

6:08: Perry has some super Super-committee rage! As only a Commander-in-Chief can have….

6:12: When Rick Santorum answers questions, he always looks like he wants to bite someone’s nose off of their face.

6:25: Rick Perry will shut down the borders within 12 months of “the inaugural.” Congress (and the Supreme Court) might have something to say about that.

6:27: Cain claims terrorists have snuck into the U.S. at the Mexican Border?!? Really? I missed that news.

6:30: Santorum: “trickle down.” Now there’s an UGLY picture.

6:31: Newt is gathering a few flakes, himself.

6:32: Michele’s lipstick is beginning to migrate to the rest of her face.

6:35: Even Mitt is showing a few dandruff flakes. Wait…why aren’t his flakes dyed black?

6:38: Or maybe it’s Santorum’s spittle on everyone else’s coat.

6:44: Wow…CNN allowed a genuine war criminal (David Addington) to ask a question!

6:46: Okay…Rick Perry is officially in babble mode now.

6:52: Mitt Romney just gave America an erection.

6:53: Why does Rick Perry refuse to wear an American flag?

6:54: Santorum is concerned about the spread of Socialism. Well, I suspect Socialism is concerned about the spread of Santorum.

6:59: Mercifully…it ends. It got a little hard to hear toward the end, as the “Occupy Montlake Alehouse” crowd showed up and started arguing about what they really stand for.

I thought this debate was substantively better than the CNBC foreign policy debate. Perhaps this means that the candidates just learned their talking points better.

CNN is trying to make a big deal about Newt’s answer on the “illegals” question. In fact, I think Newt is being savvy and more realistic than most Republicans on this issue.

Drinking Liberally—Seattle

by — ,

DLBottlePlease join us tonight for a pre-Thanksgiving evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks will show up as early as 5:00 pm to watch the Republican melee debate and eat dinner (not necessarily at the same time). I’ll try to live-blog the debate.

Can’t make it to Seattle? The Tri-Cities chapter of Drinking liberally meets every Tuesday night. The Bellingham Chapter also meets tonight. And tomorrow the Burien chapter meets.

With 227 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

by — ,

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

Alyona’s Fireside Chat: SOPA, bought and paid for: .

Senior citizens rap video: Scrap the cap.

Alyona’s Tool Time: Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI) wants abstinence only education!

The Republican Primary Asylum:

Patriotic Millionaires meet with Grover Norquist.

Alyona’s Tool Time: Rep. Bachus to combat insider Trading!? WTF?

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

Thanks Bank of America!

Greenman: Lone Star State of drought.

Alyona: National voter intimidation campaign.

Roger Ailes is Worst Person in the World.

U.S.A. Occupied:

Alyona: Do-it-yourself video drones.

White House: West Wing Week.

Gloria Cain is Worst Person in the World.

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

Oh, the Humanity.

by — ,

It seems to me, the real victim of this season’s bizarre G.O.P. primary season is Mitt Romney.

Here is a guy who has been running for President for a long, long time. He has executive experience. He has business experience. He has lots and lots of money. He doesn’t look like a troll (think Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich). He doesn’t have a “Google problem.” He isn’t a fucking lunatic teabagger (think Michele Bachmann). He lost the suit. He can recite Snoop Dog lyrics. He never worked for Obama.

Yet, here we are with less than two months to the Iowa Caucuses, and where does Mitt stand? Oh…maybe 30%.

A couple months ago, “George W. Bush on Steroids” jumped into the race and became the instant front-runner—until he proved to have the intellectual capacity of George Bush on paint chips. But Romney still couldn’t break out.

More recently he has been polling neck and neck with a serial sexual harasser whose entire platform is a one-word slogan repeated three times. That is, until the heightened scrutiny caused some ideas twirling around in his head to leak out…or not leak out. And still Romney didn’t break out.

And now he is tied (or even trailing) a serial adulterer, who at one time was the most despised man in U.S. politics. And soon people will remember why. And they will despise him even more for being a lobbyist for Freddie Mac. But Romney will still be shunned by 2/3 of a disappointed pack of Republican voters.

That’s gotta sting.

But nothing will sting more than the stain of trailing behind Rick Santorum in the polls—even if only briefly. And I do believe Santorum is next in line for a fling with increasingly desperate Republicans.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

by — ,

It’s Tuesday. Please join us for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm; a few folks will show up earlier for dinner.

This may be remembered as “The week that Republicans went for the Newtclear Option.” Here are a few clips to commemorate:







Can’t make it to Seattle? The Tri-Cities chapter of Drinking liberally meets every Tuesday night. Drinking Liberally Tacoma meets this Thursday. And next Monday there are meetings of the Woodinville chapter the Olympia chapter, and the Shelton chapter.

With 227 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.

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

Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!

Follow Goldy

I no longer use Twitter or Facebook because Nazis. But until BlueSky is bought and enshittified, you can still follow me at @goldyha.bsky.social

HA Commenting Policy

It may be hard to believe from the vile nature of the threads, but yes, we have a commenting policy. Comments containing libel, copyright violations, spam, blatant sock puppetry, and deliberate off-topic trolling are all strictly prohibited, and may be deleted on an entirely arbitrary, sporadic, and selective basis. And repeat offenders may be banned! This is my blog. Life isn’t fair.