Search Results for: 10,000

NY Times tech blogger Nick Bilton has a thorn up his ass about the FAA prohibitions on electronic devices during take-off and landing. Bilton just cannot understand why some pilots are now being allowed to use iPads in the cockpit for paper flight manuals but he cannot use his Kindle for the take-off and landing parts of the flight.

As it happens, this is one of Goldy’s pet peeves as well. Neither person seems to believe that electronic devices can affect flight safety during critical (take-off and landing) phases of flights. At least Goldy leaves it at complaining and denial. But not Nick Bilton.

Bilton decided to do something about it. You know, use science and technology to “prove” that electronic devices are safe.

What he did, however, amounts to horse shit. As I show below, Bilton, sets-up and then destroys a straw-man argument.
[Read more…]

Just how badly has the G.O.P. lost on the payroll tax break issue? Bad enough to lose the Wall Street Journal editorial page opinion like this:

GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell famously said a year ago that his main task in the 112th Congress was to make sure that President Obama would not be re-elected. Given how he and House Speaker John Boehner have handled the payroll tax debate, we wonder if they might end up re-electing the President before the 2012 campaign even begins in earnest.

The GOP leaders have somehow managed the remarkable feat of being blamed for opposing a one-year extension of a tax holiday that they are surely going to pass. This is no easy double play.

That’s pretty damn bad.

And if that’s one outcome of yesterday’s House Republican fiasco, today’s theater should sting at least as much.

In trying to complete a quick pro forma session of the House today, Speaker Pro Tempore Michael Fitzpatrick (R-PA) walked away while Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) implored the House to take up the bill that would extend the tax break (via ThinkProgress):

Hoyer got a few good slams in on the Republicans before turning the microphone over to Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD). Van Hollen never got a chance. His microphone was cut off, and a few seconds later, the video feed was terminated.

But the issue isn’t just about how Scrooge-like the Republicans have become for the holiday season. The other side of this story is about the collapse of Republican discipline. Speaker Boehner had a revolt among the House masses that forced him to beg-off an agreement he made with the Senate leadership and, in particular, with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) (via Politico):

While the two men have been remarkably united this year, the year-end package has prompted an unusual amount of confusion, disunity, frustration and increased finger-pointing, both publicly and privately, between House Republicans and Senate Republicans over who is at fault in the political fiasco.
[…]

“This is a colossal fumble by the House Republicans,” said a senior Senate GOP aide, requesting anonymity to speak candidly about his own party. “Their inability to recognize a win is costing our party our long-held advantage on the key issue of tax relief. It’s time for Boehner and [House Majority Leader Eric] Cantor to look these rookies in the eye and explain how the game is won or lost.”

For most of the past year, the House Teabaggers have been less of a liability than I figured they would be. But with reelection campaigns on the horizon and a distinct lack of positive accomplishments to their credit, the House Teabaggers are feeling unsettled and maybe even nervous.

Boehner will have increasing difficulty keeping the feral hordes from further trashing the Party.

Erica C. Barnett has a post on Metro cutting the hours of the 99.

However, the low ridership is a bit of a Catch-22. Before Metro eliminated the streetcar, ridership on the corridor was dramatically higher than it is today—about 404,000 trips a year in 2003, compared to about 252,000 in 2010 (and 204,000 in 2009). The reason, probably, is twofold: First, Metro cut service on the route from every 15 minutes to every 30, making the faux-”streetcar” less reliable and convenient. Second, and perhaps more importantly: People like riding streetcars—and buses painted like streetcars don’t fool anyone.

Fair enough, and as good an argument for rail as anything. The bus gets stuck in traffic and traffic grinds to a halt on rainy days down there, probably more now with construction. But there’s another reason that Erica doesn’t mention, and that’s that the 99 only runs one way. So it makes a circle, going South along the waterfront, then across Pioneer Square through the ID, and then back North up First Ave.

If this were a commuter route going from the suburbs downtown, a few blocks wouldn’t be a big deal. But if you’re a tourist and you get off the bus anywhere other than the ID, you’re not going to catch it close to where you got off. Also, the route to the sculpture park doesn’t go by the waterfront, so you can’t get off for a bit, look at the aquarium or whatever and then hop back on.

Still, I’ve always pictured it as potentially a great route, even a bus route. If it ran every 15 (or dare to dream 10) minutes each way a lot of people, not just tourists, would use it. As it is, poorly thought out and underfunded, it doesn’t do much.

…you can probably skip this post. On the other hand, I think there might be one or two HA readers who will find this intriguing.

At a special meeting later this morning, the Washington State Redistricting Commission will unveil the next iterations of their proposed redrawing of Legislative District boundaries. As displayed here (PDF), the Commissioners have split into two bipartisan pairs, each responsible for drawing a particular portion of the state. Commissioners Tom Huff (R) and Dean Foster (D) have been working on the Olympic Peninsula, the Pacific coast, and the southern section of the wet side of the state. Their colleagues Tim Ceis (D) and Slade Gorton (R) have been tasked with working on the Eastside, the islands, and the northern west-of-the-Cascades area. They are not currently dealing with either the Seattle environs or the large area east of the mountains.

I don’t know whether they’ve been skipping over both the most and least urban parts of the state because they’ve already agreed on the LD lines in those areas, or because they’re at an impasse there, or (most likely IMHO) because drawing the lines in and around Seattle and the dry side depends on the outcome of their deliberations in the segments they’re working on. Whatever the reason, the Commissioners had better get their asses in gear — they’re supposed to present an agreed-upon plan to the Legislature by January 1, 2012, just half a month from now.

While this next presentation will be the third iteration of LD borders, we still have seen no Congressional District maps since each of the four Commissioners presented their own proposals on September 13, fully three months ago! Their silence on the topic frustrates many observers no end.

While we wait (and wait, and wait, …) for the Commissioners to break their long silence, I’d like to take a step back in the process, to discuss the reapportionment that presented the Commission with the opportunity to construct a brand-new Congressional District instead of merely rejiggering the existing ones in their redistricting task, as they’re doing with the state’s 49 (no more, no less) Legislative Districts.

As you’re no doubt aware, the number of Congressional Districts in each state is determined based on the results of the decennial Census, mandated by the Founders in Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution and revised under the 14th Amendment (you know, the one that got rid of that pesky three-fifths of a man thing). How the reapportionment is actually carried out is based on laws written by Congress, and those laws have changed numerous times over the decades. I’ll mention three issues to be considered:

• The Census counts persons, not citizens. Undocumented individuals, if they’re willing to participate, count as residents of their state.
• The apportionment population is not the same as the resident population. The latter does not count federal employees (including the military) living overseas on April 1. For apportionment (but not redistricting) purposes, such individuals are counted with their state of residence as listed on their employment records. This approach can make a difference in apportionment of Congressional Districts … in 2000, Utah might have gotten an additional seat if the Census counted Mormon missionaries for apportionment; that seat went instead to North Carolina, and Utah took its case (Utah v. Evans) all the way to the Supreme Court, where UT lost.
• Sensibly, apportionment is carried out through the use of a ranking algorithm. What isn’t set in stone is the methodology. It’s been done in a variety of ways over the years. Different procedures often give different results, but it must be said that there is no “correct” way to do it. Whatever method has Congress’s blessing at the time is the method to be used.

Washington’s resident population in the 2010 Census is 6,724,540. Adding in the 28,829 Washingtonians overseas, the state’s apportionment population is 6,753,369. Washington has the 12th highest count of overseas residents, one place better than its overall population rank. Texas, #2 overall, has the highest number of overseas persons, while California ranks third (behind Florida). Alaska, way down at #47 in population, ranks 26th in overseas employees.

Since 1940, the method of equal proportions has been used for reapportionment. After each state receives the required minimum of one seat, the other 385 seats are assigned to states in descending order of priority value (PV), where PV for potential seats 2, 3, 4, … is calculated as:
where n is the state’s potential seat number. In other words, the PV for a state’s second seat is its apportionment population divided by the square root of two. For its third seat, divide by the square root of (3*2=)six, then continue with the square roots of (4*3=)12, (5*4=)20, 30, 42, and so forth. By the time we get to the 55th seat, the divisor is the square root of 2970 (that’s 55*54). After all these values are calculated, rank-order them in descending order and assign the seats until 385 of them have been filled.

Not surprisingly, the 51st seat goes to the largest state, California. Texas gets #52, followed by another CA seat, then NY, FL, CA again, TX again, and so on. Washington’s first added seat (its second overall) is #78 and its next is #122. The state’s ninth seat, equalling its 2000 number of Representatives, comes in at #391.

It gets really interesting as we come to the final few seats. The assignments for the last ten seats (#426-#435), along with the next ten near-misses, are displayed below:

The new WA-10 seat comes in at #432, comfortably above the cut-off. Minnesota’s eighth seat wins the final position in the House (too bad, as it’s likely that Michelle Bachmann’s district would have been axed). MN just barely avoided subtracting a seat from its 2000 allocation. At #434, California narrowly averted losing a seat in the House; if the Golden State had done so, it would have been its first-ever lost seat. Washington, by the way, has never lost a seat either. It may be poetic justice that North Carolina is the first runner-up this time around, after winning the final spot in 2000. The Tarheel State missed adding another seat by that thin margin.

It turns out that using resident population instead of apportionment population wouldn’t have altered the composition of the next Congress. The rank-order of the last five seats would be different, with Washington at #433 and TX-36 taking the final spot.

It’s likely that none of the above is of much interest to the Redistricting Commission. They probably don’t particularly care how it came to pass that they’re tasked to draw ten CDs instead of nine. It falls to reapportionment geeks like me to look at this sort of information. There’s a pile of additional information here that I find fascinating — trends in the distribution of House seats over time, states that actually lost population between Censuses (hint: several states in the plains in the 1930s … can you say “Dust Bowl”?), states that have never lost seats, states on long seat-losing streaks (Pennsylvania has lost at least one seat in every Census since 1930), and much more.

If you’re interested enough in redistricting, tune in to the Redistricting Commission’s web feed at 10:30am. It won’t be great theater, but the final result of all that line-drawing and all that negotiation will affect your political life for a decade. And whether you know it or not, that’s important.

[UPDATE, 1:30pm]

An item I meant to include in the original post — Washington wasn’t even close to reaching 10 seats in the 2000 Census. Its ninth seat came in as #407, and the next potential WA seat (#455) missed the cut by 20 positions.

The third iteration of draft LD maps, in PDF format, is now available at the WSRC site.

A couple more (way-cool, IMHO) links from the Census website:

• Apportionment methods and factors considered, from 1790 to the present
• How various apportionment methods can produce differing allocations, with examples

Video “explanation” of the apportionment process, from the Census Bureau:

It isn’t official news yet, but the big announcement is likely coming on Thursday:

One month to the day after the start of the effort to recall Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker from office, organizers have scheduled a Thursday press conference to provide a “special update” on how the effort is going.

And several liberal blogs and pro-recall Facebook pages said Wednesday that the Democratic Party of Wisconsin and United Wisconsin, the two groups spearheading the recall, already have collected more than enough signatures to force an election.

The effort to recall the Republican governor kicked off on Nov. 15, and organizers have until Jan. 17 to collect more than 540,000 valid signatures to force a spring recall election.

The blog New Dog Democrat reported Wednesday that more than 550,000 signatures have been collected and that organizers want to hit the 1 million mark before the deadline.

A million signatures?!? Just two weeks ago they were aiming for 750,000.

A million signatures would be, symbolically, a thermonuclear maelstrom. Even 540,000 valid signatures will be fucking huge!

Aside from likely derailing Walker’s harmful “stewardship”, and, you know…maximizing the possibility I can visit my family this summer, this is huge for Washington and other states.

The Walker episode sends a big shot across the bow of, what is almost certainly, a coordinated Republican Governor’s agenda.

For us here in Washington, what does this mean? It means Rob McKenna is put on notice. Walker made campaign promises that seemed quite moderate. Once elected, he turned to a radical Republican agenda. He cut education funding and betrayed public employees while giving out tax breaks to businesses, he did his damnedest to disenfranchise voters at the margins of society. And, in general, he steadfastly disregard the will of the people.

Would Rob McKenna really try pulling the ol’ switcheroo on Washingtonians the way Walker did to Wisconsinites? Well…if his decision to join the Republican AG lawsuit against the Health Care Reform law of 2009 is any indication…two years ago, I would have said, “absofuckinglutely!.” Now, with the events in Wisconsin, I think McKenna is forced to scale back on his agenda.

Should McKenna win next year, Washingtonians will owe Wisconsinites a huge debt of gratitude.

Update: They aren’t quite there, yet. The number of signatures gathered so far is 507,000, leaving a mere 33,000 more to gather. Practically, they will need something over 100,000 additional signatures to account for challenges and duplicates. Organizers have another month left to do that.

It’s Tuesday, and ’round here that means Drinking Liberally. So 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 dinner.

News from the Republican reality show:

Can’t make it to Seattle? There are also meetings tonight of the Tri-Cities, Bellingham, and Vancouver, WA chapters. On Thursday, Drinking Liberally Tacoma meets. And next Monday there are meetings of the Woodinville the Olympia, the Yakima, and the Shelton chapters.

With 232 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.

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

Young Turks: Right-wing elementary school cuisine bizarre freak-out.

The War on Christmas:

• Jon and Bill-O in a War on Christmas.
• Jon launches another salvo in the War on Christmas (via HuffPo).

Alyona: Mind blowing inequality figures.

Jon on the new go-to-jail-with-no-trial bill.

Corporate Personhood, Corporate Speech:

• Thom: Corporate personhood for dummies.
• Thom with Rep. Ellison: Amendment that corporations aren’t people
• Alyona: LA votes against personhood.
• Thom: Corporate personhood and talking money?
• Thom with Rep. Ted Deutch on the outlawing corporate cash amendment

Young Turks: Blackwater asks for Sharia law?!?

White House: West Wing Week.

Greenman: It isn’t about the “hockey stick”:

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

Obama speaks on the economy.

Rockbottomcookie: The gay homophobes.

The Republican Primary Asylum:

• Ed and Pap: Donald Trump and The Republican Freak Show.
• Alyona’s Tool Time: GOP wants to rip apart families.
• Young Turks with Al Gore on the GOP primary.
• Ed and Pap: The dimwit Republican circus freaks march again.
• Thom: Crazy alert for the New Hampshire ballot.
• Suzie Sampson sits down with Pastor Jim Miller and talks candidates.
• Stephen on The Trump debate.
• Ann Telnaes: Herman Cain drops out.
• Young Turks: Rick Perry’s “Hot Gas” moment.
• The Rick Perry ad that is universally disliked.
• Jesus responds to Perry’s disliked ad.
• A response to Rick Perry’s ad:
• Another response to Rick Perry’s disliked ad.
• Sam Seder: Rick Perry’s Strong Save the Christians Ad.
• Young Turks: Newt’s “food stamp credit card used for Hawaii vacation” bullshit.
• Actual Audio: Newt on child labor.
• Sam Seder: Newt is running for Asshole-in-chief.
• Romney’s $100,000 taxpayer funded destruction of records.
• Mark Fiore: Suzie Newsykins, the Antimitter.
• Romney: A career politician.
• What’s younger than Mitt’s political career?
• Romney’s accidentally released anti-Gingrich ad. (via Slog).
• What was Mitt Romney hiding?
• Maddow: Newt’s gay half-sister supports Obama.
• Mitt Romney through the ages.
• Ed and Pap: Gingrich tries his hand at race bating.
• Newt Gingrich credits Mitt Romney’s wealth to…Newt Gingrich (via TalkingPointsMemo).
• Flashback: Politically Incorrect (ca. 1999) Newt and The Godfather.
• The 3 minute hip-hopish evangelical attack on Newt Gingrich (via Slog):
• Ann Telnaes: Newt Gingrich as frontrunner.
• You’re a mean one Newt Gingrich:
• Aloyna’s tool time: Rick Santorum suggests people die because of “bad decisions”.
• Alyona’s tool time: Rick Santorum war on food stamps.

Sam Seder: Republicans to the unemployed, “Go pee in a cup”.

Thom with The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very ugly.

“Behind the scenes” at Moveon.org.

Sam Seder: George W. Bush cancels trip to Switzerland over fears of being arrested for torture charges.

Sharpton: Rep. Dennis Baxley, sponsor of strict FL voting law, admits no widespread fraud (via HuffPo).

Bill-O’s umbrella attack (via Slog).
Obama speaks on the economy.

America Occupied:

• Young Turks: Tea Party meets Occupy.
• Alyona: Occupy San Francisco evicted.
• Garfunkel and Oats with Weird Al Yankovic: Save the Rich:
• Thom: 99 percenters occupy jail
• Olbermann: Occupy protester assaulted by Bill-O’s umbrella.
• Young Turks: Bill-O’s umbrella attack.
• Olbermann: Occupy a Newt fundraiser.

Hanukkah at the White House.

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

Stephen on corporate personhood and the S.C. referendum.

Rick Santorum oozes his way to West Wing Week.
ref=’http://youtu.be/Vy5GTQNZeew’>Worst Person in the World.

Young Turks: No abortions for raped military women.

Roy Zimmerman’s buy war toys for Christmas:

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

There 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.

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.

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.

– Occupy Comics

– If anyone who voted for (or against, I suppose) the Seattle Housing Levy wants to know where your money goes. It goes in part to “seven new apartment buildings that will serve homeless individuals, low-income families and seniors. The investment, primarily Seattle Housing Levy funds, will help create 476 new permanent apartments, including some set-aside to serve veterans.”

– Someone should probably do something. Maybe throw a body upon the gears and what not?

– You know when I was a kid the War On Christmas didn’t start until after Thanksgiving.

– Yikes, again.

– Seattle Transit Rider’s Union public forum.

– Hippocracy

– There are too many stars.

– Very realistic.

It’s election day! If you haven’t done so yet, drop off your ballot. Then join us for an evening of electoral 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 a few folks show up earlier for dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle? Tonight there are also meetings of the Tri-Cities chapter, the Vancouver, WA chapter and Drinking Liberally Bellingham. Tomorrow night, Drinking Liberally Bremerton 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.

White House: West Wing Week.

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

Young Turks: Steve Jobs ripped FAUX News a new one.

Susie’s presidential cat bowl.

Greenman: Climate denial crock of the week.

Pap: G.O.P. continues its Class Genocide.

Jon on the Koch brother’s accidental science.

America Occupied by Americans:

• Alyona and Anna: Has OWS reached a turning point?
• Olbermann: Sgt. Shamar Thomas calls on veterans to support OWS.
• Meet the 0.01%: The war profiteers.
• Sam Seder: Marine veteran Scott Olsen seriously injured in Occupy Oakland
• Thom: Injured vet Scott Olson’s roommate speaks out.
• The shooting of Scott Olsen (via Slog):
• Thom: Witness to night of terror in Oakland.
• Jon on Occupy Oakland (via Gawasylker).
• Thom: Is the Tea Party joining OWS?
• Olbermann and Sam Seder: “ACORN is coming, ACORN is coming”.
• Maddow: I’M BEING ARRESTED! There’s An App For That!
• Stephen on the Occupy Wall Street fad.
• Jimmy Fallon And Brian Williams make Occupy Wall Street sexy video:
• Alyona: Occupy the news room.

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

Ann Telnaes: Mitch McConnell on state bailouts.

ONN week in review.

Bill-O the Clown retakes the crown as Worst Person in the World.

Young Turks: Global warming confirmed by Koch-funded scientist.

Comedian Orlando Jones jokes his way to Worst Person in the World.

Thom: The Patriot Act at 10 years.

Mark Fiore: Tough enough.

The G.O.P. Primary Asylum:

• Ann Telnaes: Anothr frightening presidential prospect.
• Stephen does Jon Huntsman (via Political Wire).
• Pat Robertson: Republican candidates are too extreme(!!!!!) (via Political Wire).
• Aloyna’s Tool Time: Rock Perry regrets debating.
• Cenk: Rick Perry’s “new” plan.
• Ann Telnaes: Rick Perry—lousy shot.
• Sam Seder: This song will certainly get Herman elected.
• Young Turks: Herman Cain’s campaign disaster.
• Alyona’s Tool Time: Herman Cain now foreign policy ‘expert’
• The weird Cain smoking ad (via Political Wire).
• Stephen on Cain’s smoking ad (via TalkingPointsMemo):

• Herman Cain is running for president of crazy campaign ads
• Ed and Pap: The GOP Crazy Train derails.
• Sam Seder: Herman Cain’s yellow campaign ad: “So bad it’s good?” Or worse.
• Huntsman’s parody (featuring his daughters) (via Daily Beast).
• Bad Lip Reading Herman Cain:
• Rock Cookie Bottom: Everybody hates Mitt Romney:

Sen. Maria Cantwell: Preserving workers’ rights.

Young Turks: No handguns for Obama voters….

Alyona’s Tool Time: Gov. Walker supports guns, not cameras.

Thom: Have Dems not learned their lesson yet?

San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee: 2 Legit 2 Quit (via Political Wire).

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

The budget proposals are very, very ugly:

The governor identified $4 billion in optional cuts, in which she choose $2 billion in preferred cuts. The following proposals are likely to end up in her November budget proposal:

• Eliminate the Basic Health Plan, ending subsidized health care to 35,000 low-income individuals.
• Cut off medical services to 21,000 people enrolled in the state’s Disability Lifeline and ADATSA (Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Treatment Support Act) programs.
• Trim 15 percent from the support the state provides to colleges and universities.Reduce levy equalization, which helps property poor districts, by 50 percent.
• Cut the length of supervision for all offenders, based on severity of offense. Sex offenders will be supervised for 24 months, and all other offenders, for 12 months.

“This is what our choices look like even after we let go of thousands of state workers and cut money to our public schools, our colleges and universities, our prisons, and shredded our safety net for the old, sick, and poor,” Gregoire said.

This is a budget that hurts everyone, but it really hits the most vulnerable of our citizens. Crime and violence will be higher than it should be for all of us. These cuts can be quantified by increases in bankrupcies, untreated morbidity, and dead bodies. The actuaries will tell us just how many bright high school graduates have had a college degree stripped from them—with lifetime consequences and lost dreams.

But this budget does not have to be. The Governor is, undoubtedly, hoping the legislature will grow a pair and work on the revenue end of things:

Gregoire says she will now turn her attention to finding ways to offset some of the cuts with new money. That could include fees, closing tax exemptions or a general tax increase.

We are now living through an era of historically low taxes. It’s well past the time to close many of the tax exemptions that have outlived their usefulness to us, the flesh and blood people of Washington state. And its time to raise bring in more tax revenue.

Seriously…I don’t want to live in a Washington surrounded by decaying infrastructure, high crime, medical bankruptcies, or physical suffering for those who chose pain, even death, over bankruptcy. Let’s confine that Mad Max-like dystopia shit to the movies, huh?