HorsesAss.Org

A couple weeks ago, an overflow crowd packed into city hall for a public forum on Seattle’s growing affordable housing crisis, hosted by city council members Kshama Sawant and Nick Licata. It was a loud, emotional, and politically charged event that clearly demonstrated to Mayor Ed Murray the need for bold and decisive action:

SEATTLE (May 12, 2015) – Mayor Ed Murray and Councilmember Tom Rasmussen proposed legislation today that would strengthen election and ethics rules. The legislation amends existing law to explicitly prohibit campaign activities at, or adjacent to, official City sponsored events.

“City Hall should be – and is – a forum for ideas and civic conversation, but taxpayer-funded events should never supplement or support outside campaign activities,” said Mayor Murray. “We need to ensure public resources are not being used for political purposes. Electioneering and fundraising have no place at, or during, City-sponsored events.”

Jesus. Could Ed and his allies on the council tie their undies any tighter in a knot?

To be clear, there was nothing unethical about that affordable housing forum. What some of Sawant’s colleagues are really upset about is that she has once again latched onto an issue that is turning out to be one of the most dominant issues in the 2015 campaign. But she didn’t do that through illegal electioneering. She did that by being in touch with actual working people.

I really wish my friends in the Democratic establishment would focus more on solving the problems that Sawant is attacking instead of focusing on attacking Sawant.

What’s there to talk about in politics? Shell Oil got the go-ahead from the feds to drill in the Arctic, but will the Port of Seattle give them a base? Another week, another batch of G.O.P. Presidential candidate announcements to ponder. And Jeb Bush would still invade Iraq…even “knowing what we know now.” Please join us for drinks and conversation at this week’s meeting of the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. Our starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks stop by earlier for dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle on Tuesday night? Check out one of the other DL meetings this week. The Tri-Cities and Redmond chapters also meet tonight. On Wednesday the Bellingham chapter meets. The Bremerton, Spokane, and Kent chapters meet on Thursday. And next Monday, the Aberdeen and Yakima chapters meet.

There are 191 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, four in Oregon and two in Idaho. Chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting somewhere near you.

One of the stoopidest, stoopidest things local voters have done over the 11 years I’ve been covering local politics is to make the King County Elections Director an elected office. This is a position that demands a professional who knows how run elections, not a politician who knows how to run for them. And while it is putatively a nonpartisan office, we all know that’s bullshit.

The last person we want running King County Elections is a director with a political agenda, allegiance, or ambition.

Fortunately, disaster was averted back in February of 2009 when the appointed director, Sherril Huff, won a special election against a six-person field that included the likes of Pam Roach and David Irons Jr. (Irons actually came in second!) And the reason why you’ve heard so little in the press about Huff ever since is that she has done such a damn fine job. Which is why it worries me to read the press release that Huff is retiring:

King County Elections Director Sherril Huff will not seek re-election as King County Elections Director.  She had planned to run for a second full, four year term but will now retire for personal and health considerations.  Huff, who has held the position since 2009, issued the following statement:

“It is with some sadness that I made this decision.  I love my job, my team of dedicated professionals, and the work we do to ensure transparent, efficient elections for the 1.1 million voters in our state’s largest County. I was looking forward to continuing this service, but after consulting with family, friends and colleagues, I am making the right decision to step down after this year.

I’m particularly proud of the advancements we have made in ballot tracking, improving technologies to speed counting and processing, and improving accessibility through vote by mail, drop boxes, multi-language voting materials, and other efforts to increase participation.

I know I am leaving the office in a strong position as a state and national leader, and will enjoy the remaining months in office.”

Huff deserves a ton of credit for restoring confidence in the office in the wake of the controversial 2004 election. So my hope is that Huff has a qualified deputy in the office who the political establishment rally behind awfully damn quick before politics and personal ambition have a chance to corrupt this race. I don’t want a political ally—I want an elections professional. And so should you.

Much to the Republicans’ dismay, Washington is a “voter intent” state; but there is still plenty of room for an elections director to suppress the vote in subtle and nuanced ways. We could tighten up on the signature verification standards, leaving thousands more “challenged” ballots out of the count. We could pull back on our multilingual voter outreach efforts, reducing turnout in immigrant communities. We could scale back on the number of drop boxes in communities of color and on college campuses. In the wake of several elections in which the late ballots broke hard to the left, our new elections director could support the Seattle Times’ incessant call for moving the ballot deadline from postmarked by Election Day to received by Election Day.

There is plenty of opportunity for mischief. Or, the new director could follow in Huff’s methodical footsteps by focusing on improving and speeding the elections process.

Low profile races like this tend to fly far under the radar—voter turnout for the 2009 special election in which Huff first won office was only 22 percent. But considering that fair and impartial elections are the heart of our democracy, in the long run this could end up being one of the most important races on the November ballot.

– Any civil libertarian who counts on gun nuts to stand with them against government authority is a fool.

– So in a completely imaginary world where nearly half the jobs at the city are wiped out, pay is pretty equitable and the gender hiring disparity is pretty small! In the real world, meanwhile, pay isn’t equitable and the gender disparity is significant.

– God, how little sense of humor must Mike Huckabee have now if he was upset about Life Of Brian in his early 20’s?

– Anti-vaxxers are more dangerous than you thought

– What the fuck, Rick Scott?

Darryl just called to remind me that today is the 11th anniversary of my very first post to HA:

[T]o those upstanding members of the political and media establishment who insist I cannot possibly expect to maintain my credibility as an activist while producing an irreverent and outrageous blog, the Goldy half of me respectfully says: “fuck you.”

Yeah, it’s been a weird 11 years. But rereading that post, I’m proud that I’ve always managed to remain true to myself.

Anyway, thanks for reading me all these years. That’s all any writer can ask for in life: readers.

Genesis 27:11
And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man.

Discuss.

Slate: What is Bastille Day?

Mental Floss: Why do things taste bad after brushing one’s teeth?

Kimmel: This week in unnecessary censorship.

Surveillance State:

• Thom: Phone surveillance ruled illegal by appeals court
• José Díaz-Balart: NSA program is judged illegal
• Chris Hayes: Illegal!
• Sam Seder: NSA bulk collection is ruled illegal
• Young Turks: Court rules (one type of) NSA spying is illegal.

Minute Physics: How to subtract by adding.

Congressional hits and misses of the week.

Obama marks 70th anniversary of WWII end:

Jon on Deflate-gate.

Haters Attack a Hate Group:

• Mark Fiore: Pam Geller’s Islamification
• Young Turks: Pam Geller compares herself to Rosa Parks!?!
• Sam Seder and Cliff Schecter: Anti-Muslim activist nut wanted violence in Texas
• Jon explains when it is okay to shoot people who’ve offended you
• Matt Binder: Shooting at “Draw Muhammad” event in Texas
• Young Turks: How Texas Cartoon Contest and Charlie Hebdo are significantly different

Reid on the “unconscionable” backlog of judicial nominees.

Slate: A brief history of Godzilla.

Senate Historian: How TV changed the Senate.

Ann Telnaes: What’s a “rough ride”?.

The 2016 Clown Parade:

• Young Turks: Neurosurgeon-turned-FAUX-News-loon joins the Presidential clown parade.
• Sam Seder and Cliff Schecter: Scott Walker is the Koch brother’s Manchurian Candidate
• Jon: Let’s play “get rid of Ted Cruz.”
• Young Turks: Is this job-slashing ex-CEO the anti-Hillary the GOP’s been praying for?
• David Pakman: Ex-CEO who laid off thousands and left with $21 million, is running for President
• Sam Seder: Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina…what is Canadian Ted Cruz to do?
• Maddow: GOP overwhelmed with 2016 candidates for president
• Young Turks: Huckabee is in!
• The Daily Show looks at the legend of ‘El Jebe’
• Young Turks: Jeb Bush…adios amigo
• Sam Seder and Cliff Schecter: Jeb Bush’s incredibly sleazy PAC strategy

Mental Floss: 20 facts about the Muppets.

David Pakman: School without sex ed has chlamydia outbreak.

White House: West Wing Week.

Sam Seder: Mitt Romney doesn’t know what “mass incarceration” is.

Jade Helm 15 and Other Conspiracies from the Lunatic Right:

• Sam Seder: The Pentagon addresses Jade Helm 9
• Young Turks: Chuck Norris fears United States may invade Texas
• Maddow: Fearful Texas GOP base amuses nation with conspiracy panic
• Thom: GOP crazy new conspiracy theories
• James Rustad: “Barack Obama Is Invading Texas” (Jade Helm 15 song):
  https://youtu.be/UpbiHNsGrU4
• Sam Seder: Alex Jones and Michael Savage team up for insane Obama conspiracy

Stop! Or the entire state of Texas will shoot.

David Pakman: Cop accidentally shoots his mother in church…at a wedding.

Money and Politics:

• Maddow: Money in Politics is out of control
• Thom: Why Tennessee Republicans are “aggravated” by the Koch Brothers
• Sam Seder: Corruption is here to stay as FEC throws in the towel
• Jon on FAUX News hypocrisy over campaign finance

Mental Floss: Misconceptions about English.

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

When even Bruce Harrell is being pretty badass. I know, he has always been pretty good on police accountability issues, but it’s nice to see him actually saying a lawsuit might be a good idea when police act unreasonably. And while it sure doesn’t take much for the police guild to act like they’re the most put upon people in the world, I’m glad he got under their skin.

– Congrats to the UK for keeping horrible people in office. At least they won’t have to form a coalition with even more horrible people.

– Sound Transit will miss Joni Earl when she retires.

– Murray Releases Revised $930 Million Transportation Levy Proposal

– Oil trains are ticking time bombs, and each one passing through a small town in North Dakota or a large city like Seattle is a risk to the people, the property, and the environment of that community. There is no safe way to transport this oil, and local municipalities should not bear the risk while the railways and oil companies rake in all the profit. We urgently need stronger local, state, and federal protections against these dangerous oil trains rolling through our communities.

– I liked reading about the end of the gray wolf in Thurston County, but what I’m most amazed by is an old newspaper using “xpedition.” Did nobody catch that, or was it proper?

This happened in Washington state a bit over seven years ago:

This story was brought to mind as I was thinking about the upcoming election season—I guess the idea of Hillary bringing down a big slate of almost all males nutjobbers served as a vehicle to invoke the Hillary-as-nut-cracker metaphor, triggering the memory.

Hillary will, in fact, end up running against only one Republican. Even so, almost all the Republican candidates will be running as the anti-Clinton, besides trying to out-conservative, out-gun, out-god, out-science-deny, and out-homophobe the others.

It’s going to be entertaining. More so, if we can get some more televised G.O.P. debates.

And every time a Republican drops out, I’ll be hearing another nut being cracked….

I’ve been hearing a lot of people saying they don’t want to vote for Hillary Clinton because she’s sooooooo far to the right, and they’ll only vote for her in a general. And, you know, I’m not here to tell you how to vote in a primary where I haven’t even made up my mind yet, but that has always struck me as off.

I mean of the 3 candidates who got furthest in the last contested Democratic primary, her health care plan probably would have covered the most people. I’d have preferred universal single payer, but it wasn’t on offer. During that primary, other Democrats kept attacking her from the right. Her time in the Senate was pretty liberal, especially on domestic issues, and her tenure as Secretary of State was fairly remarkable. And while it’s early days right now, she has also run a fairly lefty campaign so far. This isn’t someone you have to hold your nose for!

Look, if you prefer some other candidate: great! That’s what primaries are for. If her vote on the Iraq war or how she or her surrogates campaigned 8 years ago is a deal breaker: you’re an adult vote how you want. If you think supporting someone else will push her to the left: go for it! But the idea that she’s some awful compromise doesn’t comport with how she has governed or campaigned.

– Oh hey, public pressure might have actually done something to stop the Arctic drilling fleet from coming to Seattle.

– I never drank as much as the author of this piece, but I can definitely relate to being one of the few non-drinkers by choice at a party.

– I’ve walked there a bunch, but it’ll be nice to try out the bike path is open at Mercer.

– I don’t really follow Canadian politics but it was explained to me at Drinking Liberally that Canada’s Texas just elected a bunch of commies.

– On busing and birthday parties (or, My brief encounter with a bus goddess)

Please join us for drinks and conversation at this week’s meeting of the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. Our starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks stop by earlier for dinner.

https://youtu.be/sRHVIcesOH4

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings this week. The Long Beach, Tri-Cities and West Seattle chapters also meet tonight. The Lakewood chapter meets on Wednesday. And on Thursday, the Tacoma chapter meets.

There are 191 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, four in Oregon and two in Idaho. Chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting somewhere near you.

– I already know what district I’m in but the Seattle District Map that Seattlish made is pretty great.

– It’s so rare to see killer cops actually prosecuted that it’s tough to know what to make of it.

– unfortunately, that’s probably a safe bet, since our media will be more interested in discussing whether he’s handsome enough to destroy Hillary, or something.

– Degree-Off