I spent the last 90 minutes reading Facebook, and my feed has been absolutely over­whelmed with Orlando-related posts, be they grieving, discussing homophobia, calling for gun control, or reacting to reactions. I've never seen such a skewed set of posts. Some of it is surely Facebook catering to what it knows are my interests, but it seems like the vast majority of my friends and the pages that I follow can talk of nothing else. Even Trump/Clinton/Sanders articles, except as they pertain to this, have tem­porar­i­ly dis­ap­peared.

So far, I have seen nothing useful from Republican politi­cians regarding gun control or homophobia.

I woke up this morning to news of another American massacre: a lone gunman had murdered 50 people at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, and injured another 53 people. It was the worst mass shooting in US history and also the worst hate crime.

I put it out of my head for the afternoon while I attended an old friend's wedding, but it's been at the forefront of my mind ever since.

Only in America could we put up with massacre after massacre, yet not find the political will to do anything meaningful about gun violence. Craven politi­cians in thrall to the NRA mouth platitudes, but will not …continue.

Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee for the 2016 Pres­i­den­tial race. Although Sanders has not yet ended his campaign, he can't win. I voted for Sanders in the Washington state caucus and I still have his yard sign sitting in my front yard.

Unlike some diehard Sanders' supporters, I have absolutely no qualms getting behind Clinton. She's one of the most qualified candidates ever to run. If elected, she will be on the right side of many of the issues I care about and she will make good ap­point­ments to the Supreme Court. She's competent and capable and gets things done. Clinton has survived more scrutiny and more attacks …continue.

The Washington state Democratic Caucus was held today. The final totals aren't in yet but Bernie Sanders beat Hillary Clinton by a nearly 3:1 margin around the state. Our own precinct, SEA 11-1945, had Sanders 41, Clinton 26, Undecided 2. That translates to 4 Sanders delegates and 2 Clinton delegates in the next level of caucusing.

Emma and I both voted for Sanders. We believe that Sanders represents much-needed change in the party and in the nation. Clinton is un­doubt­ed­ly one of the most qualified candidates ever, with an ex­tra­or­di­nary résumé and a high degree of competence. She's also too tied to the status quo for my liking.

However, unlike some Sanders …continue.

In an interview with MSNBC Friday, 2016 Democratic pres­i­den­tial candidate Hillary Clinton said that Ronald and Nancy Reagan helped start a national con­ver­sa­tion about HIV/AIDS. This is not exactly a bald-faced lie, but it is a gross mis­un­der­stand­ing of history and a mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the true gov­ern­men­tal neglect during the AIDS epidemic that killed millions worldwide.

—Mathew Rodriguez, mic.com

As I wrote on Facebook earlier today:

I'm really surprised by this. I expected Hillary Clinton to know better. It's one thing not to speak ill of the dead at their funeral. It's quite another to make such a profoundly wrong assertion. The Reagan White House's negligence and homophobia was directly re­spon­si­ble for the growth …continue.

In a new article for Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi excoriates Trump:

It turns out we let our electoral process devolve into something so fake and dys­func­tion­al that any half-bright con man with the stones to try it could walk right through the front door and tear it to shreds on the first go.

And Trump is no half-bright con man, either. He's way better than average.

Both Trump and Cruz scare me, for very different reasons. Trump is impulsive, all id, doesn't give a fuck, riling up the worst impulses of the American electorate for short-term gain. Who knows what this loose cannon will do? Cruz is a nasty piece of work, cold and …continue.

We went to hear Matt Taibbi speak at Town Hall Seattle tonight. He spoke about the topic of his new book, The Divide, which covers inequality in the United States. After several years of covering white-collar crime in Wall Street after the financial collapse of 2008, and not seeing any pros­e­cu­tions, he got curious about what the criminal justice system is like for the poor. Community policing is harsh in many poor com­mu­ni­ties, like Ferguson and Staten Island, where the police regularly issue tickets for minor in­frac­tions. Those being summonsed can ill-afford the fines, often leading to worse con­se­quences. The U.S. prison population is now twice as high as it was in 1991 and four times …continue.

I'm fairly confident that Referendum 71 will be approved. It was leading by 51% this morning and by 51.8% this evening, and leading 2:1 in King County, the most populous, most liberal county in Washington state.

Ballots merely have to be postmarked by Election Day to be valid, and hundreds of thousands of them have not yet been received by the vote counters.

I attended the Election Night party last night and helped the tech team with some behind-the-scenes arrange­ments. In the photo, Joe Mirabella (lead blogger) and Josh Cohen (tech lead) are being thanked by Anne Levinson (campaign chair) and Josh Friedes (campaign manager).

The mood was cautiously optimistic …continue.

I attended the Approve Referendum 71 community or­ga­ni­za­tion meeting this evening and came away with several good ideas.

Emma and I are going to organize a fundraiser in late September or early October. Stay tuned.

I'm getting Freely Speaking Toast­mas­ters and BiNet Seattle to officially endorse the Approve Referendum 71 campaign.

Large businesses like Microsoft and Boeing endorsed the campaign yesterday. I'm told a number of small businesses have too. I'm going to ask our CEO to endorse the campaign. Robbie was willing to host Patty Murray at Cozi and to appear in her press releases, so why not.

I offered my technical services to the campaign, though I'm willing to do …continue.

I spent 90 minutes phonebank­ing for Approve 71 after work today. I called voters who had already been identified as leaning pro­gres­sive and asked them to vote APPROVE on Referendum 71 in November.

Under the recent Domestic Part­ner­ship law (SB 5688 aka the “ev­ery­thing but marriage bill”), registered domestic partners (same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples with at least one partner over age 62), and married couples, are now treated equally under the law in all parts of Washington state.

The Religious Right objected and put together an initiative which scraped together just enough signatures to be on the ballot. They'll be voting to REJECT the bill, which would overturn domestic part­ner­ships in this state.

Civil …continue.