Comments

1

Correction: Antomwaffen should be Atomwaffen. Oh, and fuck Kaleb Cole

2

It's better if their name is misspelled, for me.

4

Test results in “3-5 days” are utterly fucking useless.

5

@3, wear a good mask and you’ll be fine. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2022/01/does-it-help-wear-mask-if-no-one-else/621177/

6

A really fine Slog PM by Jas Keimig. Can't help but be struck by all the insane weather news, and all the devastation being wrought. I have FOX 13 news on in the background, so I'm getting the extreme weather news on two fronts. Of course, this is all about climate change, which is THE story that dwarfs all other stories and THE crisis that dwarfs all other crises, even COVID.

Which reminds me of something else I caught on the TV news this evening. Some perspective on our perceptions about climate change from the incomparable Adam McKay, who directed a movie I don't plan to see, "Don't Look Up:"
https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/-don-t-look-up-director-adam-mckay-on-turning-up-emotional-bandwidth-on-climate-130649669844

On a brighter note, nice to see the Remi Wolf clip. She is so underrated. My favorite Remi Wolf tracks: "Guerrilla" and "Liquor Store."

7

“Sadly, the United States Senate, designed to be the world’s greatest deliberative body, has been rendered a shell of its former self,” Biden said.

The chamber may have been designed in such a fashion, but our countries evolution has rendered it decidedly not great. It's fundamentally undemocratic and the entire chamber and institution should be immediately affixed to an interplanetary missile and fired directly into the freaking sun. That said, I still don't know that I'm altogether on board w/ the kill the filibuster campaign. The whole system and legislative body is just so backward on so many levels in it's day-to-day function, that I feel like keeping it as a tool for dems to use down the road (we'll be losing control sooner rather than later) could outweigh the short term goals (significant, I know) that could be accomplished by abolishing it.

Keep the filibuster, abolish the Senate.

8

Thomas Dausgaard is a diva.

10

Something that literally dropped today cannot be "iconic". Words have meaning.

"Shit is looking fraught" with what? With what does it appear to be fraught? "Fraught" is not a stand-alone descriptor.

11

@9: Follow the science. We do. But the science is always changing, hence the policies are changing, and hence there is ambiguity.

As a tired tactic tried many times by people like you to seize that ambiguity and morph it into a gotcha epiphany to argue against this or that.

Most disingenuous.

12

mike blob @7: "That said, I still don't know that I'm altogether on board w/ the kill the filibuster campaign. ... I feel like keeping it as a tool for dems to use down the road (we'll be losing control sooner rather than later) could outweigh the short term goals (significant, I know) that could be accomplished by abolishing it.

We should never be judging anti-democratic, anti-majoritarian measures on the basis of whether they might some day benefit "our side." But hey, these are the sorts of rationalizations you believe are legitimate when they've been perpetually hammered home by those in power. Just like the myth that the filibuster in its current form is some ancient tradition.

14

cressona @12,"We should never be judging anti-democratic, anti-majoritarian measures on the basis of whether they might some day benefit "our side."

Fair point, but then I'd counter that the larger organization itself is fundamentally anti-democratic and anti-majoritarian in it's foundational design and ongoing function. And so if there's a tool that exists that has the power to to mitigate the anti-democratic power and influence of said institution, we should be cautious of forfeiting it on moral priniciple.

15

@12 Two problems: (a) The thing the GOP wants to pass more than anything else (tax cuts*) already requires only a majority vote. (b) if there was something that the GOP really wanted to pass but was held up by the filibuster, do you think that Mitch McConnell would really let it stand?

I really don't think that the national GOP actually wants to pass things like national abortion restrictions. It has too much chance of backfiring on them once their religious right lapdogs are no longer whipped into a froth.

16

mike blob @14, you can apply the same rationalizations to gerrymandering. If the Republicans are going to gerrymander to the max, then the Democrats shouldn't give up that weapon either. You really want to go down that path?

You seem to miss the calculation that claiming the moral high ground--and always being the pro-voter, pro-democracy party regardless of "What's in it for me?"--has a political benefit in its own right.

But if you just want to go by the sheer cynical politics of it, it's pretty obvious that over time the removal of the filibuster would benefit the "government is an agent for good' party more than the anti-government party.

But hey, you're welcome to champion a system where political entities representing 25% of the population can exercise a veto over a sovereign nation's ability to pass legislation, and where the political incentives are such that it's entirely in those politicians' interest to do so.

17

I'm also thinking about what mike blob wrote @14: "And so if there's a tool that exists that has the power to to mitigate the anti-democratic power and influence of said institution, we should be cautious of forfeiting it on moral priniciple (sic)."

To think that the filibuster MITIGATES the anti-democratic nature of the Senate is a bit like an NBA team being offered the ability to get rid of the three-point line in a game against the Golden State Warriors and refusing the offer because they want to have the opportunity to outshoot Steph Curry and Klay Thompson.

(Even if it's not my point, I guess you could say Mitch McConnell is the Steph Curry of exercising anti-democratic power. I would prefer to call him the LeBron James of exercising anti-democratic power.)

18

They should "restore the filibuster" to the way it was for over 150 years, with the people filibustering required to stand there talking and talking, while those who want to move on can sit in their office and work on their next campaigns....the exact opposite of how it's been for 10 or so years now. Besides a) being a lot harder for the GOP to object to it, when they are portrayed correctly as the ones who changed the senate rules; and b) forcing the GOP to waste time and lose campaign donations, it will also: c) make for entertaining theater, watching some old fart standing there pontificating (sometimes even on the topic of debate) for hours on end through the night and allow viewers to take bets on whether the senator will have a heart attack or massive bladder leak on camera.

19

@18, you nailed it, and this is pretty much what Norm Ornstein and Al Franken have been proposing, along with putting the burden on the "filibuster-ers" to sustain the filibuster rather than the other way around, the way things are now. It's only very, very recently that we switched to the current filibuster rule.

But hey, maybe folks like mike blob here can argue that it would just be too darn risky to go back to that old system.

BTW, what I found "funny" was that McConnell said yesterday that if the Dems try to carve out an exception to the filibuster for voting rights, there will be hell to pay for "the rule-breakers." Never mind that what the Democrats would be doing is changing the rules, so by definition they're not breaking the rules. Mitch knows darn well what he's doing.

20

What?

Nothing on the new CW TV show NA0MI set in a fictional sunny Seattle?

That rocked.

21

Has The Stranger become so much of a state organ that it can't do minimal due diligence when reporting other's stories on police/public safety? How can you report about Andrew Myerberg being appointed by Mayor Harrell as Dir. of Public Safety (upgrading from Dir. of OPA) without reporting this: https://kuow.org/stories/seattle-s-top-police-watchdog-wants-a-job-in-phoenix-two-former-city-employees-aim-to-thwart-him or this https://hjgale.tumblr.com/post/643859576948654080/february-2021-interviews-with-opa-dir-myerberg ?

22

Meanwhile, the ocean is boiling; Leavenworth is buried 4' deep in snow, US Route 2 and Hwy 12 are closed due to heavy snow and avalanche danger, SR 101 has rockslides and floodwaters over the roadway, and we're not even into February yet. Climate change is real, people, and we're paying dearly for it now.


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