Comments

1

A good guy without a gun stopped a bad guy with a gun? In Texas? That's gotta hurt a talking point or two.

2

I believe Justice Gorsuch's selfish behavior threatens to bring Catholic Christianity into bad odor.

4

MLK wouldn't stand with SPD.

5

If anyone can afford gas they can afford to renew their tabs. They're not that expensive to renew.

If anyone can afford to afford a bike they can afford a helmet. If people are angry about anti-vaxxers, they should be angry about anti-helmet bikers.

If anyone can afford to eat at Dicks, or they can afford to fix a broken taillight.

If anyone who has car insurance, they can afford to get their windshield fixed.

Thugs and criminals don't care about these things, but good people do.

6

You can look at the Voting Rights floor bill as “Democrats losing,” or you can look at it as “let’s get these asshole Republicans—and DINO assholes Sinema and Manchin—on the record as anti-Democracy fascists, so we can hang it around their necks in future elections.”

8

Gorsuch epitomizes most of what is wrong with America: smug pampered conservative elitist, blinded by money, well-indoctrinated religious-cult dupe, Republican royalty of corrupt parentage serving corporate plutocracy, then directly serving corporate plutocracy of his own volition, and now elevated to the theocratic, kleptocratic heavens where he can indulge his perverse god compulsions and aggression. Egomania run amok. A fat target for karma.

9

Nina Totenburg had a brief, but thorough write-up/segment on the current SC's state of affairs this AM.

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/18/1073428376/supreme-court-justices-arent-scorpions-but-not-happy-campers-either

(actually, I guess Rich linked that same piece in his embedded tweet. Links embedded in tweets always confuse so me.)

Anyway, Gorsuch really sounds like a complete dick. Has he gone on record w/ any sort of explanation as to why he'll not mask? Is it just b/c Jesus loves us and so if someone dies it was b/c Jesus wanted them to die or whatever?

10

"always confuse so me?"

Gah. They confuse me.

13

@12: The point is the helmet-less bikers share a lack of concern about their own safety and risk going to the ER that are already way too overloaded. That's the commonality. But yeah, it's kind of a stretch I admit.

14

I wish journalists would stop blaming Manchin and Sinema for not passing voting rights. While it is true they so far have refused to back it, you should clearly point out that every single republican in both the house and senate is against it. The only reason it needs 100% of democrats on board is because there isn't a single republican in the country, in either the house or the senate, who supports voting rights.

This is mind boggling. Even in the middle of the worst racial tension of the 1960s, there was at least a few republicans who crossed over and supported the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Today? Zero.

If voting rights dies, that death is wholly owned by republicans. Stop throwing all the blame on a couple of democratic holdouts.

15

@5, the point isn't that people can't afford to fix those issues, it's that they're minor infractions that the police basically never enforce except in the context of using them as a pretext to pull over "suspicious looking" non-white people.

16

@14 Same thing about them repeatedly saying democrats are unable to govern. No one is able to govern, this country is ungovernable!

19

@15: Such a policy erodes the safety on our roads, and it's a slap on the face on people of color who take pride in taking care of their cars and obligations. (Didn't think of that, did you?)

This is a supreme example of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

20

@19, I literally cannot tell if you are being serious.

21

If Roe is over-turned and Republicans regain both houses and the presidency by 2024, then it may well be the filibuster that prevents a national abortion ban.

22

@20: Well, then you'll just have to take my word for it.

23

@21: Bingo. But a rebuttal to that is a democracy without a filibuster is better than no democracy at all -- e.g, last chance before a coup.

24

So, "Speaking of SPD" & their announcement last Friday about not enforcing bike helmet & other trivial vehicle violations: Policy changes like this WITHOUT REAL POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY are worthless because without accountability there is no reason for an officer to adhere to policy.

The SPD murder of Faletogo ( https://seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/seattle-police-release-video-of-fatal-shooting-by-officer-on-new-years-eve/ ) clearly demonstrates why this is pointless: Faletogo initially came under suspicion because he was driving his mom's car & she had a suspended license, though it is hard to see how a very large younger male might be confused for a small older female. SPD claims he later made an "unsafe" lane change (SPD never released evidence of this), which was the reason for the stop which resulted in the murder.

Hence, when cops want to stop someone they can always create the pretext. New policies just demand cops make new pretexts to fit the new policies.

The only solution is 100% independent investigation & control of cops: SeattleSTOP.org

Since when did Rich & The Stranger become the newspaper of "record": i.e., just record what those in power say with credulity.

27

@21 and 23 If the situation you describe comes to pass, do you really think that the modern Republican Party would let the filibuster stop them? Of course not. They'd get up on their sanctimonious high horses and say that the lives of the unborn are soooo important, they have to ditch the filibuster.

See also: blue slips. Used to be that senators would be asked if they approved of a judicial appointment in their state. If they approved, they'd sign a blue slip and return it and the nomination would go forward. Under Trump, the GOP deemed this to stand in the way of appointing lots of unqualified idealogues, so they did away with blue slips entirely... until the moment that Democrats retook the Senate. Then the GOP reinstated the blue slip rules. They're now crying bloody murder that the Democrats are moving ahead without blue slips.

The moral: If a tradition stands in the way of raw exercise of power, the Republicans will drop tradition like a hot rock.

28

Easy to understand why the Democrats want to get rid of the filibuster - when is the last time they even used it?

29

@28 You do realize the Dems used the filibuster 314 times during the Trump administration? That was basically double what the Repubs did under Obama (175) and that was over two terms. I make no judgement if either of those stats are good or bad (I'm sure its both) but there is a great deal of dishonesty and gaslighting going on right now about how the filibuster is racist or something that has been weaponized by Repubs. Both parties have used it for the exact reason it was designed. Slow down the wheels of government so you can pass consensus legislation and not ram down idealogical wish lists simply because you have a majority. I have no doubt if the Repubs had tried to pass legislations that essentially became a federal takeover of the election process TS and many others would have labeled it a facist attempt to control our democracy.

@6 and what are you going to do with them "on the record". For the Repubs they view this legislation as a giant Dem takeover of the entire election process and a battle between federal vs state rights. For Simema and Manchin you do realize they exist as Dems in traditionally red states so if you primary them and oust them with someone more progressive they will get trounced in the general by a bonafide Repub (see our local city atty election for reference).

30

@11: most of the people on your list are doctors. How much should an doctor make? It seems like you have a number in mind.

31

Anybody who thinks today's GOP would let the cloture rules stop them from passing a national abortion ban is crazy

32

@28 just so. It's not senate procedure that impedes the GOP's worst impulses. It's the politics of.the policies. But we are on the threshold of an age in which they will have insulated themselves from any democratic accountability. And the Katy bar the door.

33

@15 - I had plenty of White clients who were pulled over for cracked windshields & the like. Driving a shitty old car seems to automatically bring you under suspicion. But it is not necessarily racial.

35

Why the fuck can't Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, Jr., Brett Kavanaugh, Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett, Joe Manchin, Krysten Sinema, Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, their idiot fixers and followers just all breathe on each other and drop dead until the GOP reaches mass extinction, already??
RepubliKKKans really should be officially declared "rabid dogs" in addition to being a global threat to public health and democracy. Then we could legally shoot them.

@6 schmacky: I'm going for Door Number 2.

@31 Alden: No further questions, Your Honor. RepubliKKKans are rabid dogs worthy of mass extinction.

38

Good Grief, Charlie Brown, that foggy photo looks more like San Fransisco than Seattle!

Heartfelt condolences to the people of Tonga, Tuvalu, and other island nations, along with the people of the U.S. State of Hawaii. The underwater volcanic eruption has been reported to be equivalent to 100,000 Hiroshima bombings! Climate change is inarguably real, and extreme weather is only going to get worse.
Being part of Oceania, the Polynesian island nations between Australia and Hawaii, and like Tuvalu, Tongans are also at threat of their island nation sinking into the Pacific as sea levels rise and get warmer.


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