Archives for March 2012

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

Roy Zimmerman: Texas verse of “Vote Republican”.

Medicare, Affordable Care, and Health Care:

• Actual audio: Mitt versus health care.
• Stephen on the death of Obamacare.
• Newsy: Do oral arguments matter?
• Thom: SCOTUS, POTUS and budget for all.
• Ed and Pap: The GOP plan…if you get sick, you are going to die!
• Ann Telnaes: The wrong health care debate.
• Jon on SCOTUS and Obamacare.
• Mitt and Paul Ryan:
• Mark Fiore: Shoot-em-up Charlie discovers ALEC.
• Ann Telnaes: The best health care money can buy
• Darcy Burner on Medicare.
• Pap: Republicans misrepresent basics of Affordable Care Act.

Jennifer Granholm: Outrage over the war on women is deafening.

Alyona’s Tool Time Award: Sen. Rand Paul shills for Big Oil.

V.P. Biden says “Thank you, Dr. Pepper” to Dr. Paper.

Stephen on Obama’s secret plot to not take away your guns.

The G.O.P. CrazyFest:

• Alyona’s Tool Time Award: Romney claims ‘Russia is #1 geo-political foe’ ?!
• Maddow: Romney and Santorum oblivious in Wisconsin.
• Mitt Romeny: Wrong for women.
• Thom: Does Santorum have pink balls?
• Young Turks: Santorum hates pink balls.
• Stephen has some stand-up material for Mitt.
• Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: Abortion and devils and Santorum, oh my!
• Crazy Alert: Romney’s cars are Movin’ On Up.
• Mitt: Not ready to lead.
• Sam Seder: Did Santorum almost call Obama the N-word?
• Maddow: Mitt and taxes and foreign policy weaknesses.
• Big Oil and Mitt Romney.
• Young Turks: Did Santorum almost call Obama the N-word?
• Jim Norton on Rick Santorum et al.
• Jon: Santorum and Romney versus the media.
• Young Turks: A tribute to Newt Gingrich

Greenman: What we knew about global warming in 1982.

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

White House: West Wing Week:

Jon: Obama’s hot mic gaffe.

Sam Seder: It isn’t just phone hacking for Newscorp anymore.

Death Sentence for Trayvon:

• Sam Seder: The demonetization of Trayvon Martin.
• Jasiri X: A Song for Trayvon (h/t Howie in Seattle).
• Young Turks: The Trayvon Martin smear campaign.
• Brett: Hoodies and hairpieces.
• Red State Update: George Zimmerman’s Other 911 Calls:
• Sam Seder: Freedom unless you are wearing a Hoodie.
• Ed and Pap: Tea Party rushes to defend Trayvon Martin killer.
• Young Turks: George Zimmerman video analysis.
• Jon on the Media’s coverage of Trayvon Martin’s death
• Young Turks: A Hoodie for Trayvon Martin Gets Rep. Rush kicked out.
• Rep Bobby Rush removed from House floor for wearing hoodie (via TalkingPointsMemo).

Roy Zimmerman: Utah verse of “Vote Republican”.

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

Obama: Repeal subsidies for oil companies.

Liberal Viewer: FAUX News’ biased reporting on CA prisons.

Sam Seder: Dick Cheney has a heart.

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

I was looking around editorial pages for something to make fun of, and instead I found this great opinion piece in the Yakima Herrald-Republic.

My faith is important to me. And I believe that religious faith is a fundamental human right that government should not restrict. My faith may be different from my evangelist neighbor’s in that I believe that two consenting adults who love each other should be allowed to be married no matter what their gender mix is, and I believe that more ethically responsible decisions can be made by women who have access to contraception and abortion services. So no, I don’t feel that my faith, anyway, is under attack.

But I do feel that something is amiss. Our Constitution, thankfully, says that government shall not restrict the free exercise of religion; but I don’t see in any of these examples the government doing that. The government is not requiring people to marry someone of the same gender, or mandating that people take birth control. I understand that filling a “Plan B” prescription may be counter to someone’s religious values, but that is not the same as exercising one’s religion. The Catholic Church is not being asked to actually take birth control pills; they are only being asked to provide reasonable coverage for health benefits like all other employers, and pharmacists are being asked to simply do their jobs. These examples have nothing to do with religious practice.

Yesterday I attended an open house for several transit agencies to discuss the elimination of the free ride area in September. It was mostly what you know already if you’re paying attention. Starting September 29, every route will be pay as you enter, and what’s now the free ride area will just be part of the Seattle zones for Metro and ST.

The one thing that I hadn’t realized (and I didn’t notice until I was reviewing one of the handouts on the way home, so I didn’t get to ask anyone about it) was that they are considering ways to help poor people get around. These include “increase the number of human service tickets provided to the agencies” and to “operate a free circulator.”

I wish I had a chance to ask someone about it, but the two questions that come to mind are who would operate it and how do they keep it from becoming a rolling homeless shelter? I assume that the question of who operates it hasn’t been worked out since the entire idea seems to still be up in the air. As for the homeless people: of course there should be services for them, but the bus isn’t that.

I’d like a circulator through the urban core (and both ways if it’s not just up and down the same street), free or not. But I’m not sure free is the better way to go.

You know, I hate to say it, but the trolls are right. This blog isn’t fair to conservatives. We exclude their voices and we don’t take them seriously. That’s why I’m glad to see we’ve added Rob McKenna’s Twitter feed to the side bar. Sure he’s a Republican who presumably nobody writing on this blog will vote for, but it’s important to have his voice.

We can dramatically increase state spending on K-12 education by dramatically decreasing spending on teachers. It’s #McKennaMath

I endorse Michael Bumgardener for US Senate! Watch out, Miss. Cantwell!

I’ve always felt it inappropriate for elected officials to endorse in pres. primaries. Except for 2008, 2004, & 2000. That was different.

So welcome aboard Rob.

In 2005, Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA-8) was one of only 21 Republicans to vote against House Resolution 639 that, essentially, authorized drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). HR-639 passed the house only to be killed in the Senate (thanks to a big show of leadership by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA)).

Reichert has gotten a lot of mileage out of these types of “courageous” votes against his own party…but he shouldn’t. After all, Reichert stupidly admitted that his voting record was built on a strategy of keeping himself and Republicans in power—even on this very ANWR vote:

Sometimes the leadership comes to me and says, “Dave, we want you to vote a certain way.’ Now, they know I can do that over here, that I have to do that over here. In other districts, that’s not a problem, but here I have to be able to be very flexible in where I place my votes. Because the big picture here is, keep this seat, keep the majority, keep the country moving forward with Republican ideals…. Not the vote I place on ANWAR that you may not agree with, or the vote that I place on protecting salmon.”

With redistricting, Reichert finds himself moving from a very competitive district to a safe district. So today, when the House Republicans took a vote on the Ryan budget—you know, the one that would dismantle Medicare and replace it with a coupon system–how did Reichert vote?

He voted in favor of it (via Publicola):

Perhaps it’s because he’s in a safer Republican district now thanks to redistricting (and the only person running against him has raised just $12,000), but US Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA, 8 ), who has broken with his party on some high-profile and highly politicized votes in the past, stuck with his party today. (In the past, Reichert voted against his party to override President Bush’s veto of a children’s health care bill, voted for the employee non-discrimination act, i.e., for gay rights, voted with President Obama and the Democrats to extend emergency unemployment benefits, and, most dramatically, voted for the cap and trade bill.

Today, the liberated Congressman from the redrawn 8th (no more rich Microsoft liberals coming after him), voted for the controversial budget pushed by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) in a party-line 228-191 vote.

Last year, Reichert skipped this vote…not out of political strategy, but because his mother had just died after an 18-month bout with pancreatic cancer (and, no doubt, Medicare prevented another bankruptcy). His office suggests he would have voted for it with the caveat that:

I’ve heard from my constituents and share their concerns about reductions in Pell Grants for low-income students, oil drilling expansion in our wilderness, and how entitlement reform could affect seniors and those approaching retirement.

Today he really did vote for a extremist right-wing bill. Sure…this version is a bit less extreme than the previous version, but it is still extreme. Yes, this one lets Senior’s use their coupons to purchase their way into a Medicare-like system. (This particular modification came about with the assistance of Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR).) It’s still extreme.

The bottom line is that the bill gives tax breaks to the wealthy at the same time raising health care costs for Seniors by thousands of dollars a year. And it does lots of other bad things, like repealing key parts of “Obamacare” and cutting Pell Grants.

If this bill were to become law millions of Americans would be affected by loss of insurance, increased health care costs, uncertainty and bankruptcy.

As Publicola suggests, Riechert is free now—free from having to take strategic votes that appease his constituents against his conscience.

Reichert still represents the OLD 8th Congressional District. What his vote today did was tell many of his constituents (the soon-to-be ex-constituents from the liberal parts of the old 8th) to fuck-off. And why shouldn’t he? Yeah…as he said last year, he’s heard from them, he knows their concerns. But they no longer hold anything over him, so screw ’em.

Via Human Rights Campaign:

You’re not gonna use the pink ball. We’re not gonna let you do that. Not on camera. Friends don’t let friends use pink balls.

I’m pretty sure Rick prefers blue balls….

An all local open thread, but feel free to talk about whatever you want in the comments.

– Puget Sound Energy owns the biggest chunk of the power (and the pollution) coming from the Colstrip coal plant in eastern Montana, which is the second-largest coal-fired power plant west of the Mississippi.

– This is about the greatest picture I’ve ever seen.

– City Council member Tim Burgess failed to pass a proposed amendment to the city’s comprehensive plan this morning saying that the city supports homeless encampments only at religious institutions.

– Solid endorsements for DelBene.

– Financial fitness day.

– Trail updates

– Strangest opening day ever.

I’ve been reluctant to write the following piece. I mean, what about the white guy’s experience isn’t the most useful frame for the Trayvon Martin case. And unlike the founder of this blog, I try to keep my personal life personal; the most I usually write about myself is I took my bike somewhere. Still, the discussion of the stand your ground laws make me think of the time my housemate was killed, and I wonder what might have happened if we’d had stand your ground laws here in Washington like those in Florida.

Basically, the story is this: After college, I was underemployed and bumming around suburbia. Eventually, I moved into a house with several other people. The house was advertised in the local paper and I didn’t know any of the people before I moved in. It was cheap while I got myself onto a better situation.

It was a large house and people moved in and out all the time. One couple moved in and was constantly late on payments and was constantly getting into arguments with the landlord.

One weekend the landlord shot him and then claimed self defense. The forensic evidence didn’t back up his claims, and eventually he plead down and will be in prison for a long time, but I wonder if it would have been easier for him to concoct a story if we had those sorts of laws, and if it would have been a tougher case for prosecutors.

No surprise, really:

While he is yet to campaign in Wisconsin, Mitt Romney worked the state’s Republican voters from Dallas on Wednesday, holding a “telephone town hall” in which he embraced Gov. Scott Walker’s labor policies, endorsed U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan’s House budget….

Got that?

1. Romney endorses Walker’s anti-labor policies
2. Romney endorses Ryan’s budget which will end the current Medicare program and replace it with “coupon care”

The problem for Romney is that these two positions taken together pretty much make him unelectable in a general election.

Romney is counting on being able to “hit the reset button”—start over in his political positioning—after winning the nomination.

Will it work in 2012? Can a campaign really erase history when access to video, audio, and print media has become so democratized? Or will truckloads of money succeed in buying a big case of collective amnesia?

I’m thinking of doing another round of candidate questions like I did for Seattle City Council last year. Since unlike City Council, most of these races are partisan, and I have no qualms about being a Democrat, I’ll have to start asking questions sooner, so they cover the primary. I was thinking the open seats in Seattle and the the executive offices with more than one Democrat running.

Like last time, it would be the same set of questions emailed to all of the candidates, so no when-you-were-mayor questions to Nickles, for example. And of course, they may or may not answer them. But I’d be willing to ask different things of different legislative districts. So my question: is this something you’d like to see. And if so, are there any questions you’d like asked, or positions other than those that you’d like me to ask questions to?

Mercifully, there is no new episode of the Primary Reality Show this evening. But a certain case being argued before the Supreme Court will be to talk of the tavern.

So please join us tonight for an evening of jurisprudence under the influence at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally. We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. We’ll begin at our usual starting time of 8:00pm, but some folks will show up even earlier for dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle? There are DLs meeting all around Washington state, including in the Tri-Cities and Bellingham tonight, Burien on Wednesday night, as well as Yakima and South Bellevue next Monday.

With 233 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.

– What Everyone Needs To Know About The Smear Campaign Against Trayvon Martin (1995-2012)

– There’s quite a bit to take in in this Joan Walsh piece.

– Hoodies. (h/t)

– Maintain your bargaining rights

– I can confirm that skinny people are HELLA SMART. It’s a direct correlation. The younger and skinnier you are, the more of a fucking genius you are. In fact, my broom regularly beats me at chess.

– Apple Core

– I can think of no swifter route to the GOP becoming a national and international laughingstock than, in their moment of doubt and crisis, turning to a proven charlatan and ignoramus like Palin as their unifying great white (and I do mean white) hope.

– Yay! (h/t)

– Open letter to Christopher Monckton

I know it’s super provincial, but I don’t care: I love it when Seattle and Washington State get mentioned in the New York Times, especially for good things.

Nationwide, women’s groups point out the glaring gender disparity in public life, noting that there are only 6 female governors and 17 female senators. Across the country, women make up 23.6 percent of state legislatures, according to Off the Sidelines, a project started last year by Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand of New York. But in Washington State, women’s serving in public office has been as consistent as the rain.

“Every once in a while a note or a letter will mention it,” Ms. Gregoire said. “But mostly, it’s taken for granted.”

Courtney Gregoire, her daughter, would relay differences between Washington State and Washington, D.C., where she worked as the director of the National Export Initiative at the Commerce Department. She found herself biting her tongue when men mentioned her age (she is 32), and she started wearing pantsuits to appear older. Once, after being the lone woman in a meeting of 25, she called her mother.

The governor replied, “Welcome to how it was for us.”

There’s still a lot of work for equal representation here in Washington. A lot of women are retiring from the legislature this year. I mentioned a while ago that we might not have any women elected executive officers come November. I don’t think the Democratic party has done a particularly good job in recent years of recruiting women.

Also, the Norm Dicks quote (if it was in context) makes me glad he’s retiring.

“I think women tend to advocate for women, and I think to myself, ‘They ought to mention men, too,’ ” he said. “When I’m running, I’m not just talking about men, I’m talking about men, women and children. I think women in politics have to be a little careful not to act as if they’re just representing women.”

Ms. Cantwell, Ms. Gregoire and Ms. Murray have campaigned together, he said, and Ms. Murray in particular has focused on recruiting women to run for public office.

“All of that is great but I feel like, ‘Can’t they find a good man to run sometimes?’ ” Mr. Dicks said.

If only men would run for office sometimes.

– Yesterday was the anniversary of the Triangle fire. If you haven’t seen it, I’d also recommend the American Experience on the topic.

– God, covering a Congressional debate should be rip roaring fun and instead it’s B-O-R-I-N-G. Imagine at a labor debate, labor questions being asked!

– Over on the TeeVee, Fox news reported the story and invited people to comment on the network’s blog. The result was a whole lot of ugly.

– Breitbrats is my new favorite word.

– The outer reaches of plot twists.