HorsesAss.Org

Goldy writes:

So here’s a question: Assuming Gaddafi has fallen to a popular rebellion, and Libya is now in the hands of presumable democratic (whatever that means in the region) opposition forces… were the NATO air strikes justified? Morally and financially? Was it worth the cost in both dollars and “collateral damage” to first protect the nascent rebellion, and then to support its offensive?

President Obama has been criticized by Republicans and Democrats alike for our military intervention in Libya, but compared to Bush’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Gaddafi’s ouster appears to have come relatively fast and relatively cheap in both blood and treasure. So does Obama deserve a little praise for his policy, or was this always none of our business?

I do think Obama deserves some praise for his policy here. I supported the initial intervention back in the spring when a massacre of Benghazi was looming, and I think it was morally justified for NATO to see this through until the regime was completely brought down. If the mandate was to protect the civilians of Libya, the only way to truly do that was to get rid of Gaddafi and those loyal enough to him that they’d try to slaughter their countrymen. Did it cost a lot? Sure. But does it cost less than having the world’s most powerful military while only using it for cynical self-interest. Definitely.

As for that last point, I’m still worried that any goodwill generated by the support for the Libyan people is largely overshadowed by our failure to stand up for the Palestinians. The lack of freedom in Gaza and the West Bank is not much different than what others in the region are rising up against. In fact, the Palestinians in the occupied territories are worse off than their neighbors in Egypt and Syria. And our failure to help them will continue to overshadow the times that we get things right in the region.

Last week’s contest was won by Budget Wonk. It was Briarcrest Christian School in Eads, Tennessee, the real-life counterpart to the fictional Wingate Christian School in the movie The Blind Side. Briarcrest was the actual high school attended by future NFL player Michael Oher.

This week’s location is somewhere in Washington state, good luck!

Song of Solomon 4:5-6
Your breasts are perfect;
they are twin deer
feeding among lilies.
I will hasten to those hills
sprinkled with sweet perfume
and stay there till sunrise.

Discuss.

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

David Shuster: How FAUX News got the Secret Service bus story wrong.

Thom: FAUX News doesn’t know jack about economics.

More Rotting NewsCorpse:

• Sam Seder: More phone hacking news from News of the World (RIP).
• Young Turks: NewsCorpse Smoking Gun.
• Newsy: Hacking was widely discussed at NOTW
• Sam Seder: Murdochs caught in lie to Parliament?
• David Shuster with Harry Shearer on ‘Murdoch-gate’ and his latest documentary.

Christine O’Donnell gets all weird and walks out of a CNN interview.

Thom: How Republicans avoid angry constituents…outsourcing?

Jon does Michael Steele.

Koch Brothers Exposed:

• Koch Bros’, Americans for Prosperity helps resegregate the South.
• Ed: Koch Bros’ exposed.
• Why do Koch Brothers want to end public education?

Seattle’s Hempfest arrives.

White House: West Wing Week.

Ann Telnaes: The New Media censorship.

Thom: What happened to compassionate conservatism?

Ed: Hannity Psychotalk on unemployment.

The Libertarian Floating Petri Dish Dream:

• PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel dreams his way to Worst Person in the World.
• Newsy: Libertarian sea colony.
• Sam Seder: Floating Libertarian countries in international waters.
• Thom: Sea Standing Institute’s libertarian fantasy.

Young Turks: More town hall heckling.

Sam Seder: Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder’s strip club problem.

Liberal Viewer: FAUX News on Texas’ prayers answered.

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

ONN: Supreme Court rules first amendment does not apply to one annoying man.

The Republican Primary Nut House:

• DNC Chair: GOP candidates are interchangeable and hamstrung by Tea Party.
• Republican presidential comedy:
• Thom: The Republican race to the bottom.
• Perry, Bachmann vow to kill EPA.
• Olbermann with Markos Moulitsas on Republican candidates.
• A good week for The Tea Party.
• Mark Fiore with News of the world campaign.
• Young Turks: Michele wishes Elvis a happy birthday.
• Young Turks: Michele Bachmann and the threat from the Soviet Union!!!!
• Jon: The Republican front runners.
• Young Turks: Bachmann, Perry and Dominionism.
• Rick Perry flummoxed when asked about failure of abstinence education in TX.
• Maddow: Perry proves Supreme Court is a farce.
• Sharpton: Perry used to be a Dem. & supported Carter, Gore
• Newsy: Perry attacked on jobs record.
• Rick Perry in 2 minutes.
• Young Turks: Rick Perry on treason
• Ann Telnaes: They pander bigger in Texas.
• Ed, Pap and Lizz Winstead: Perry not ready for prime time.
• Stephen: Colbert’s SuperPAC’s old treasurer is Perry’s new treasurer.
• Jon advises Rick Perry to dial back the Texas a bit.:
• Rick Perry calls the Jimmy Dore show.
• Ed with Pap and Michael Medved on the field of GOP candidates.
• Young Turks: Rick Perry donor deals exposed.
• Gov. Rick Perry, who once suggested the Texas secede, says Bernanke policies “almost treasonous” (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Stephen: Parry with an “a”-gate.
• Ann Telnaes: Bachmann’s clear view on gay marriage.
• Conan: Mitt gets cocky (via HuffPo).
• Young Turks: The Mittster slams Obama over vacation but…..
• Olbermann with Janeane Garofalo on the tea party, Herman Cain and more.
• Herman Cane, WTF?!? “If ObamaCare had been fully implemented when I caught cancer, I’d be dead.”
• Sarah Palin’s bizarre family vacation video

Newsy: Bill Clinton goes vegan.

Sam Seder: Who is the Tea Party?

Thom: Darrel Issa and the Lobbyists.

Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma shoots up his way to Worst Person in the World.

Highlights of Obama’s Rural Economic Tour:

• Part I
• Part II.

Jon: hose money grubbing fat cat poor people:

Tweety: Coburn’s racist attack on Obama, and other crazy sideshows events.

SCTV: Eco-Maniac.

On Wisconsin:

• Pap: Wisconsin recall elections, implications for Walker.
• Extremest GOP Govs in retreat?
• Maddow: Success in Wisconsin and beyond.
• Pap: Big Money in Wisconsin.

Young Turks: Is Allen West Harriet Tubman?

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

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

The Seattle Times had an editorial a few days ago about the results of the School Board primary. Not to worry, they’re exactly as pro-insider as you’d expect.

Challengers raised valid concerns about the School Board’s failure to provide stronger oversight of former Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson or get ahead of serious problems uncovered by state audits.

Voters want to hold elected officials accountable. This is understandable at any position, but especially with the school board. The school board is a mess. Goodloe-Johnson’s tenure was horrible. The teachers are sidelined by the administration. I can’t imagine why anyone would support any of the incumbents.

The Times editorial board endorsed all of the incumbents and one challenger in a nod toward stability and experience. The candidates we endorsed stood out in a crowded field marked by inexperience and unfocused answers about solutions.

THEIR EXPERIENCE WAS FUCKING UP! That’s what they did. All of them. Jesus, by that logic you can never vote against any incumbent. Hell, you can never fire anyone by that logic.

Really, Goldy, give it a rest with the hyperbole. If you are going to call Rob Mckenna a socialist, you’d better back it up with proof.

Hey…no fair using McKenna’s own words and stuff! That’s the kind of hack reporting that’s gonna bite you in the ass.

– I did not mean to imply that Bachmann might have been anything other than awful for the country thus far.

– Time to Play on Rainier Ave.

– This pastry prevents Rick Perry from explaining why he thinks Social Security is unconstitutional.

– The Civil War Isn’t Tragic.

– Dave Reichert’s unemployment line.

OK, this has been bouncing around my brain for a while. In an open thread a week or so ago, I made a passing reference to the fact that unions are more grassroots than large corporations or one rich guy. The background is that 3 initiatives qualified for the ballot: one a Tim Eyman initiative largely funded by Kemper Freeman, one a let Costco sell booze initiative funded by Costco and one a home healthcare initiative funded by SEIU.

It paints a nice picture if you’re a reporter or a journalist. Tut tut, all sides do it. But I’m sorry to let the people using that sort of construction know, no they aren’t the same. The editorial makes a special case that one person funding an initiative is particularly bad. Fair enough, I guess. Still, corporations, especially large ones like Costco, are nearly as unaccountable. But one of these things is not like the other. Unions are accountable to their membership.

SEIU (and all unions) have to be accountable to their membership. That’s a more engaged group than disinterested shareholders or boards of directors who are often buddy buddy with the CEO. If SEIU’s initiative fails, they’ll rightly be held to account by members who paid dues and elected union officers. When Costco’s last liquor initiative failed, there was no fallout. They just put another one on the ballot.

And membership does hold its officers to account. Those of us in or with family or friends in unions know plenty of people who take active part in union activity. My aunt was a teacher in another state and she and some of the other teachers in her district ousted the old guard who were, “on the take.” This sort of thing happens regularly in unions, but hardly ever in the corporate world.

To get back to this initiative season, SEIU’s home health care initiative is not only something that benefits the union and its membership, but is also of benefit to anyone who needs to hire a home healthcare worker in Washington. We’ll know that our loved ones and ourselves are in good hands. Even if you think Costco’s initiative is beneficial, they only put it on the ballot to make money. So, no, when a union gets something on the ballot that benefits its members and the state, it’s not the same as when a corporation buys itself a law.

One of my favorite outcomes from Tuesday’s primary election was in the King County Council District 6 race.

Incumbent Jane Hague is in trouble.

Yesterday’s data dump shows Hague with 38.8% of the vote. Next is Democrat Richard E. Mitchell with 29.1% of the vote. Port Commissioner John Creighton is third with 24.6% of the vote, and Patsy Bonincontri took 7.2%.

(One reason I like this outcome is pure vanity. Political uberwonks Erica Barnett and Josh Feit predicted Hague and Creighton making it through. I predicted Hague and Mitchell. So there.)

We cannot generally read too much into a top-two primary result. But, holy shit, 38.8% for the incumbent? That cannot be considered positive. I see no way that Hague takes anything close to half the Creighton vote in the General. Many Creighton voters were making a statement—a protest against the incumbent.

The votes tallied yesterday were greatly skewed relative to the election night dump: Mitchell was within 2% of Hague.

Why the shift in the later ballots?

Mitchell’s campaign offers the explanation:

“Undecideds clearly are breaking for Richard because they’re tired of the personal and legal drama of the other opponents. That is clearly reflected in the numbers,” [Mitchell’s political consultant, Jason] Bennett said.

Maybe. Bennett offers another possibility:

[Hague] may have suffered from a backlash by Tim Eyman and other anti-tax conservatives over Hague’s decision to vote for an annual $20 car-tab fee to maintain Metro bus service.

This seems less plausible. First, as Goldy points out in this must read piece featuring Goldy defending Hague, King county rejected Eyman’s most recent “Thou shalt have $30 car tabs” initiative by a 60-40 margin.

Secondly, the anti-government nut jobs that would actually change their vote in response to Tim Eyman’s apoplectic screeds against Hague would most likely throw their vote behind the politically androgynous Creighton before Mitchell, who told The Stranger Election Control Board that

…he would approve a $20 car-tab fee to avert a devastating 17 percent cut in Metro bus service and believes in a minor sales tax bump to rescue the county’s underfunded criminal-justice system.

(As an aside, Eyman produced a:

wanted poster-style enemies list that pictures and labels four County Council members. The word “Liar!” appears below mug shots of Jane Hague and Kathy Lambert.

Does Tim “Biggest Lie of my Life” Eyman really want to go there?)

My hunch is that some folks who mailed their ballots at the last minute simply did a little on-line research. Mitchell looks great when investigated on-line. Hague…not so much. Like here.

Via CBS News:

So far, President Obama has taken 61 vacation days after 31 months in office. At this point in their presidencies, George W. Bush had spent 180 days at his ranch where his staff often joined him for meetings. And Ronald Reagan had taken 112 vacation days at his ranch.

Among recent presidents, Bill Clinton took the least time off — 28 days.

Yes…Elvis was the hardest working. Obama’s a close second. George W. Bush? To be kind, let’s call it The National Guard Plan.

Right-wing nutjobs point out with sophomoric glee that “Obama plays more golf than Bush!!!” Of course he does. I mean, after this “performance”, Bush pretty much had to recreate by other means. (He had to give up carrier landings for similar reasons.)

Other metrics could be manufactured out of arbitrary presidential pastimes: Bush spent much more time than Obama destroying habitat clearing brush, perch fishing, Segway “riding”, and mountain biking. On the other hand, we must admit that Obama has spent a lot more time engaged in presidential dribbling than did Bush.

But golf, mountain biking, hoops…whatever. Only one President was too distracted by vacationing to act on a daily briefing titled, “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US”. That inaction started another big mess that Obama has spent years cleaning up. Apparently using some of his vacation days.

OK, almost certainly not. But here are some thoughts with a day’s reflection:

First off, I’m somewhat ambivalent about initiatives. There is too much money in them, and they have all sorts of problems, but I’m not ready to do away with them. Still, I’m glad it made the ballot even if it lost. Before McGinn’s election the cost overrun provision being enforced was a given. After his election, most people said it wasn’t enforceable. And during the campaign, both candidates for governor and most of the political establishment said Seattle wasn’t on the hook. So it helped shift the debate on the sticking it to Seattle aspect of the project (in my opinion the worst part, and the thing McGinn ran against throughout his campaign). I suspect we’ll start to hear the establishment push for enforcement of the cost overrun provision again, but at least we had a year and a half, and especially this year, where they had to oppose it.

Second, I didn’t mention the drunk Legislative staffers I got into an argument with (and I’m not going to name names here) in last night’s post. But try to isolate McGinn all you want, he has been a better mayor than Dow has been an executive or Gregoire has been a governor. I’ll take McGinn’s record over Gregoire’s or Dow’s any day of the week and twice on Sunday. While Gregoire and the Democrats in the Legislature are cutting education and social services to the bone and beyond, while King County has had to cut social services and had a hell of a time just getting continued bus service at a much higher cost for riders, McGinn has signed a budget that doesn’t cut social services and has put transit and education improvements on the ballot.

You can say that he was in a better position when he took office; you can say he doesn’t have to deal with Eastern and Southern Washington or Eastern and Southern King County; you can decide how much of that is McGinn and how much is the City Council. That’s all fine, but I’ll take McGinn’s record of human decency, at least potentially better transit, and better education over Gregoire’s Republican budgets and Dow’s 2 zone peak trip costs $3 each way (and one zone trips are expensive too) for the same service.

Third, I hope I’m wrong, but the I-Told-You-Sos are going to be some comfort. When people complain about the worse traffic downtown, or when they wonder where the on and off ramps went, at least I’ll be able to say, “you were warned.” If buildings have to close or the cost overruns are somehow back on Seattle, if the tunnel machine gets stuck, well that’ll be awful and I hope it doesn’t happen, but at least I’ll be able to say something.

Kevin Drum writes about this report on the political origins of the Tea Party movement. Not surprisingly, surveys of Tea Party folks discover that they have only mild interest in small government principles, but far more interest in imposing a religious agenda in Washington.

– Sidewalk dining is by far the best news to come out of yesterday.

– $60 isn’t going to get us as much as $80, but let’s pass this thing.

– What could go wrong? (h/t)

– Rick Perry’s gaff machine seems to be familiar to Texans. I have a friend, a recent transplant from Austin, who was about as pissed off about him getting in the race as I’ve ever seen anyone pissed off about anything. Also, on the subject of Rick Perry, what the hell? I mean seriously. But at least there’s a good rule of thumb.

– Plutocrat Pete.

– This thread is going to keep me eating well for a while to come.

If there is one thing that Americans can agree upon and rally behind is that Elvis Presley was the King.

So it’s just plain ol’ good, smart politics for Rep. Michele Bachmann to head down South today to help celebrate Elvis’ birthday:

Only one problem. It’s a small wrinkle, but one we shouldn’t overlook…today isn’t the anniversary of Elvis’ birth.

It’s the anniversary of Elvis’ death.

Holy shit…someone’s been taking stupid lessons from Sarah Palin!

Here’s the King County results page. First drop (I believe, the absentees they had on hand) at 8:15. I’m rooting against the tunnel, and I voted against the incumbents for Seattle City Council, but I wasn’t particularly moved by anyone. If there are any other races you’re following, talk them up in the comments.

I’m off to Havana first for the tunnel people. but I’ll probably stop by a few parties and will update as the night goes on. Here’s your list of places to par-tay.

8:00: Judging from the food out this is definitely the grassroots event. A lot of people and hardly anyone I know. T-15 minutes or thereabouts.

8:06: I’ve made it into a press area (you can get anywhere in a tie, but nobody asked for credentials). If someone notable stops by, I’ll try to get you a quote. This has been the most inside baseball update ever, sorry.

8:18: Early results say Seattle wants to be bullied by the rest of the state, hates Art Walk. With 19.59% of the vote in:

APPROVED 43410 59.66%

REJECTED 29348 40.34%

Mike O’Brien to the crowd after announcing the results “I’m going to have another beer.”

8:45: O’Brien came back and said more telegenic things that you’ll probably see on TV but I’d already closed my laptop.

Also, looks like Forch and Ferguson will face the incumbents. To the extent that anything matters for the general (it doesn’t) Godden was under 50% but both her and Clark have big leads. I’ve been talking to transit nerds, but will probably go find another party.

In the comments, it looks good for Wisconsin and Michael likes Mary Vernor’s lead in Spokane who has 70%.

9:22: No bike parking at the pro tunnel people. The least surprising thing ever. I’m trying to find an elected to ask why they hate art walk.

9:29: Dow says if the legislature had let King County extend the stadium tax, they could have paid to mitigate 619. Ifs and buts and all that. Will try to find more.

9:43: Reuven Carlyle will look into if there’s any way for the state to do anything to mitigate 619 (my email’s at the top of the post, Reuven).

10:08: I’m a Forch’s party but he isn’t here.