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Archives for August 2007

Send a Message

by Goldy — Monday, 8/27/07, 1:27 pm

I’m heading off to Darcy Burner’s “Send a Message” Virtual Town Hall on Iraq, and this is the kind of performance I don’t expect to see:

Go to www.darcyburner.com at 3PM PST today and tune in to a real leader conducting a real forum on dealing with the mess in Iraq. And while you’re there, please put your money where your heart is. We’re only about $7,000 short of our ambitious $100,000 goal, but we’re trying to reach 3000 Act Blue donations by the end of the day.

So please do your part by joining 114 other HA readers in sending the message to Republican incumbents nationwide that they will not profit by toeing the Bush line on Iraq. Just five or ten bucks speaks volumes.

Help Darcy Burn Bush: $

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Gonzo gone

by Goldy — Monday, 8/27/07, 7:45 am

I was wrong. The big story today will be the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The question is, will Bush attempt to make a recess appointment? Can’t imagine he’d want to appoint anybody the Senate would want to confirm.

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Darcy Burner: “There are more of us than there are of them”

by Goldy — Monday, 8/27/07, 6:13 am

The big story today will be President Bush’s $10,000/person Bellevue fundraiser for Rep. Dave Reichert, but the real story behind the big story probably won’t make it onto the evening news or into the next morning’s headlines. Oh, you’ll see the usual pictures of rich folk lining up for a few seconds with the president, while protesters wave banners outside in a carefully quarantined “free speech zone.” And of course, there will be the traffic. Lots of traffic. But the real news will be taking place a few blocks down the street in a small conference room at the Westin, where Darcy Burner will be breaking new ground in the realm of electronic campaigning.

You’d think maybe, in one of the most tech-savvy regions of the nation, our media might recognize history in the making when they see it. But no, our newspapers, TV and radio have all but ignored the extraordinary new standards Burner is setting with her virtual town hall and the netroots fundraising drive that has organized around it.

Displaying the vision, leadership, boldness and technical expertise that have made her a netroots favorite, Darcy and her staff have used Bush’s visit as an opportunity to send a message on Iraq by creating an innovative “virtual town hall,” and attracting participants of national stature like Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton and Ambassador Joe Wilson.

Meanwhile, the netroots have seized on Darcy’s efforts, organizing around them an unprecedented $100,000 online fundraising drive intended to send a message of our own, that Republican incumbents won’t prosper by toeing the Bush line on Iraq. You will not find a single member of the political establishment who thought we had a snowball’s chance of coming anywhere near our goal, but in the first three days of the drive we have raised over $75,000 from over 2000 donors. Over a weekend. In August. Fourteen months out from the election.

If that’s not breaking new ground, I don’t know what is. And still, our local media refuses to take notice, even as history is being made in their own backyard. Go figure.

Well, somebody will notice… some national journalist will read the headlines at Daily Kos or Atrios today and scoop the Times and the P-I by recognizing that something special is unfolding in Seattle… that the dynamics of political campaigning are changing right before our eyes. Darcy isn’t just another Democrat, she’s a Democrat v2.0. Welcome to the future of politics.

So let the old guard media willfully ignore Darcy’s virtual town hall — you are invited to help us make history with or without them. Go to www.darcyburner.com, submit your question, and sign up to view the live stream. And if you haven’t already contributed via our Burn Bush Act Blue page, please join the 102 HA readers who already have. Let’s blow through our $100,000 target and give the political and media establishment the fright of their lives.

Help Darcy Burn Bush: $

UPDATE:
Howie Klein has a great post on Darcy over at DownWithTyranny!

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Gratuity

by Will — Monday, 8/27/07, 12:42 am

128326381910081250iminyrrestaur.jpg

UPDATE (– Goldy):
In all fairness to Stefan and his reputation as a cheapskate, he paid for the pitcher. (Though I’ve got no idea what, if any he tipped.)

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Open thread with video links

by Darryl — Sunday, 8/26/07, 10:53 pm

Here are a few videos to ease you into the new week…

  • Bill Moyers takes a look at some of the smaller stories coming out of Iraq:

  • The political situation in Iraq takes on a strange new twist as an American right-wing lobbying firms is being paid big bucks to undermine the government of Nuri Al-Malaki and promote Ayad Allawi:
  • A Ted Nugent video clip was mentioned on The David Goldstein Show this evening. Here is the clip, showing Nugent saying that Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton should suck on his machine guns. Ted…still motherfucking insane after all these years. But hey…he just may be the next governor of Michigan.

Discuss.

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“The David Goldstein Show” tonight on News/Talk 710-KIRO

by Goldy — Sunday, 8/26/07, 6:51 pm

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:

7PM: Is President Bush coming to town to raise money for the Democrats?
President Bush is coming to Bellevue tomorrow for a high-dollar fundraiser for Dave Reichert, but there’s a good chance he could end up raising more money for Democratic challenger Darcy Burner than for the Republican incumbent. Burner will be in the studio with me to talk about her Virtual Town Hall on Iraq she’ll be holding tomorrow, just down the street from the President, and the $100,000 netroots fundraiser that’s been organized around. Panel moderator and Daily Kos front page blogger Joan McCarter will join us be phone, as will retired Major General Paul Eaton.

8PM: Primary wrap-up; general election preview
Democratic consultant Christian Sinderman and Republican consultant and former WA State GOP chair Chris Vance join me by phone for wrap up on Tuesdays primary and a look forward to the November general election. Will the Republicans continue their slide? Will voters approve roads and transit? Tune in and ask the experts.

9PM: TBA

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

PROGRAMMING NOTE:
My show will be preempted again by a Seahawks preseason game next Saturday.

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Gen. Paul Eaton: “Do everything you can to elect Darcy Burner”

by Goldy — Sunday, 8/26/07, 2:58 pm

Gen. Paul Eaton knows what’s at stake in Iraq, and he knows what’s at stake in the next election. That’s why he urges you “to join me in doing everything you can to elect Darcy Burner to Congress,” and to participate in tomorrow’s virtual town hall on Iraq. If you haven’t already signed up for the town hall and sent in your question or YouTube video, go to www.darcyburner.com and do so now. And if you haven’t already given generously to our ambitious $100,000 netroots fund drive, you’re running out of time.

Help Darcy Burn Bush: $

The local media hasn’t seemed to realize it yet, but we’re on the verge of making history in their own backyard. By pulling together the national and local netroots in an unprecedented effort, we’re within striking distance of raising more money for Burner than Bush raises for Reichert. The DC establishment is already in shock at our success thus far — nearly $67,000 in less than three days. Together we can blow through our target and add a little awe to their shock.

Even a ten dollar donation brings us ten dollars closer.So please give today.

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Stefan Sharkansky is a vindictive prick

by Goldy — Sunday, 8/26/07, 1:45 pm

Several witnesses have confirmed to me that they once saw Stefan Sharkansky beat a homeless man to death with a tire iron. And if Stefan denies it, he and his wife are free to sue me for defamation.

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Goldy & Times Editorial Board: We think alike

by Goldy — Sunday, 8/26/07, 10:15 am

Frightening as the two of us may find it, the Seattle Times editorial board and I are in complete agreement on electing King County’s elections director: opposed.

Should the King County elections director be chosen by voters? The correct answer is no, but this becomes a far more complicated question now that Initiative 25 has qualified for a ballot.

I-25 next goes to the County Council, which should do us all a favor and put this measure on the ballot in such a way that it changes the rules not for next year’s elections, but rather for elections in 2009 or 2010. King County switches to all-mail balloting in April 2008, in the middle of a huge election year, with a presidential contest, congressional races and legislative races on the ballot in the summer and fall.

The county does not need to make this change amid all of that. The county does not need to make this change, period.

I-25, if adopted by the council and approved by voters as a charter amendment this November, would hold a special election this February to name the first elections director, with no primary contest, and an abbreviated last minute campaign. I consider I-25 sponsor Toby Nixon a friend of HA and of my radio show, but I have to say that I find this provision at the very least ill-conceived if not downright sneaky. Republicans look at this as an opportunity to seize control of the county’s election machinery, but to do so, they have to win. And a rushed, low-profile, nonpartisan race where a sudden influx of cash can make all the difference, is just about the only way for Republicans to win a countywide election these days.

Much fuss has been made about how the elections director is not accountable to the public and how if the elections director had been directly accountable to the public in the 2004 governor’s race, election mistakes would not have been made.

This is by now trumped up hooey, and a judge in a Republican county said as much after a lengthy trial on behalf of Republican Dino Rossi.

The elections director currently is accountable to the county executive. Challenger David Irons tried to pin the foibles of the election on Ron Sims in the 2005 campaign for county executive. Voters didn’t buy it.

Unfortunately, this is one of those situations where rhetoric and reason aren’t on the same side of the debate. An appointed elections director is in fact more accountable than an elected one because the appointment must be approved by the council, and the director can be fired at any time. Likewise, it is hard to imagine how electing the elections director, rather than just hiring a qualified professional, is the obvious path toward keeping politics out of our elections.

That said, it is equally hard to imagine voters rejecting the deceptively simple appeal of “more democracy.”

My only hope is that Democrats wake up to the larger agenda of the GOP, which has focused relentlessly on controlling Secretary of State and Attorney General offices nationwide… and to possibly devastating effect in places like Ohio and Florida. As they did during the legal contest over the disputed 2004 gubernatorial election, WA’s Republican minority now controls the offices of the Secretary of State, the state Attorney General, the King County Prosecutor and the US Attorney. Should they control the elections office, they could have absolute control over elections in the largest and most Democratic county in the state, as well as all offices wielding administrative and legal oversight.

And just in time for a presidential election and the Gregoire-Rossi and Burner-Reichert rematches. How convenient.

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US makes progress in Afghanistan

by Goldy — Saturday, 8/25/07, 11:49 pm

I guess now we know what the Bush administration has been smoking…

Afghanistan produced record levels of opium in 2007 for the second straight year, led by a staggering 45 percent increase in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand Province, according to a new United Nations survey to be released Monday.

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Join me at the “Send a Message” Town Hall

by Goldy — Saturday, 8/25/07, 7:59 pm

I’ve devoted a lot of bytes the past couple days to the Burn Bush for Burner online fund drive, because, well, the sad truth about politics is that money talks. And believe me, hitting our ambitious $100,000 target will be heard loud and clear in both Washingtons, so if you haven’t already given, please give now.

Help Darcy Burn Bush: $

That said, this ambitious netroots fund drive was really only an afterthought a few of us bloggers put together around the Darcy Burner campaign’s ambitious plans to hold a virtual town hall on Iraq to coincide with President Bush’s $10,000/person funder for Dave Reichert. And I haven’t written nearly enough about the town hall itself.

The “Send a Message” Town Hall will be held Monday afternoon at 3pm PST at the Bellevue Westin, just three blocks from the Hyatt where Reichert and Bush will be holding their exclusive high-donor affair. Space is very limited, but don’t you worry because that’s where the word “virtual” comes in. The entire event will be streamed live a www.darcyburner.com, throughout Washington’s 8th Congressional District, the nation and the world. You are all invited to sign up, submit your questions, and then watch the town hall from the comfort of your own computer.

In addition to Burner, panelists will include:

    Moderator Joan McCarter — Writing under the pseudonym “mcjoan” at DailyKos, where she is also a fellow, Joan is one of the best known and respected voices in the blogosphere. She writes regularly about the Iraq War, campaign strategy and other issues, and recently co-moderated the YearlyKos presidential candidates’ debate in Chicago. She is currently working on a book about the politics of the American West.

    Jon Soltz — the co-founder and chairman of VoteVets.org, Jon is a veteran of the Iraq War, where he served as a captain with the 1st Armored Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is considered one of the country’s most authoritative voices on veterans and military issues and is a regular contributor to the MSNBC program “Countdown” with Keith Olbermann. He also blogs on military and veterans issues at the Huffington Post.

    Navy Capt. Larry Seaquist (ret.) — a former US naval officer, Captain Seaquist commanded a number of warships including the battleship USS IOWA during his distinguished 32-year career. He also served as a senior security strategist in the Pentagon including an appointment as the Director of Policy Research in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. During the period leading up to the Gulf War he was Acting Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning. He currently serves in the Washington State legislature and writes regularly for major newspapers and defense journals.

    Lorin Walker — serves as vice-president of VetPac, a political action committee dedicated to electing candidates who preserve the values for which veterans have served, fought and died. She is the daughter of Captain Bruce C. Walker USAF, MIA 1972. A resident of Washington State, she is active in veterans affairs and Democratic politics and works at Microsoft.

    Professor Clark Lombardi — teaches comparative law at the University of Washington and is an expert on Islamic legal systems. He recently returned from a trip to Iraq, and speaks knowledgably about the difficulties the United States faces in Iraq in creating functioning civil institutions that are critical to the functioning of a stable and effective democracy.

Major General Paul D. Eaton (ret.), who went to Iraq in 2003 to lead the effort to recreate the Iraqi military from scratch, and who since his retirement has stepped forward to speak plainly about the Bush administration’s incompetence in conducting the Iraq War and callousness in treating its active duty forces and veterans, is unable to attend in person but has submitted a video statement for the “Send a Message” virtual town hall. The same is true of Ambassador Joe Wilson, who exposed the administration’s efforts to falsely hype the Iraqi regime’s efforts to acquire nuclear materials from Niger in the run-up to the war and has been forthright ever since in .

The participants will answer questions submitted over the web or via Youtube video clips and will offer their expertise on our current dilemma in Iraq and the impact it is having on our nation, our military, and our reputation in the world.

This first-of-its-kind forum promises to be as innovative and ground breaking as the netroots fund drive that sprang up around it. For further details about how you can participate, visit www.darcyburner.com today, and check regularly between now and Monday for updates.

And oh yeah… be sure to go to Burn Bush Act Blue page, and give whatever you can.

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Burn Bush Update

by Goldy — Saturday, 8/25/07, 12:49 pm

Yup, that’s the kinda “conscious-driven independent” who currently serves Washington’s 8th Congressional District. The kinda congressman who apologizes to fellow Republicans for voting with his constituents and against drilling in ANWR… but of course votes for drilling when the vote really counts. The kinda congressman who votes the way the Republican leadership tells him to vote, because he knows they are trying to protect him. The kinda congressman who is comfortable voting against education funding because he knows his leadership is putting together a bill to cover his ass. The kinda congressman who jokingly compares Democrats to the Green River Killer, trivializing the deaths of dozens of women… deaths that occurred on his watch.

And this is the type of leadership Darcy Burner would bring to Congress:

No wonder the national response to our Burn Bush for Burner campaign has been so overwhelming: over 1,420 contributers giving over $47,000 in just a day and a half! (Blue Majority totals included.) Wow!

That is simply amazing, but it’s still less than half-way toward our ambitious $100,000 target. This is not just about supporting a progressive netroots candidate like Darcy Burner when she needs us most — it’s about sending a message to other Republican candidates nationwide that they bring Bush into their district at their own peril. If we can meet or beat our target — if Darcy can possibly raise more money from Bush’s visit than Reichert — then we will have effectively neutralized the GOP’s most effective fundraiser, potentially costing other Republican incumbents millions of dollars by making the rewards of a Bush visit simply not worth the political and monetary price.

So if you haven’t already given, please give today. Every little bit counts.

Help Darcy Burn Bush: $

As for my own, personal HA targets, it’s been equally amazing. Yesterday I asked for ten HA readers to match my own $100 donation (as most of you know, a financial stretch for me,) plus a total of 25 contributions of any amount over the next day. One day later we’re an encouraging half-way towards my $100 matching challenge… but you blew my one-day 25-person contribution request right out of the water. So far, 56 HA readers have contributed over $1,700! To put that in perspective, that ranks HA number five nationwide after powerhouses Daily Kos, Atrios, AmericaBlog and Blue Majority! And on a contribution-per-reader ration, nobody else even comes close.

So here’s what I want to do. Let’s keep my $100 matching challenge unchanged, but let’s shoot for a total of 100 HA contributors by midnight Sunday. Give whatever can — five or ten bucks is enough — and let’s show Bush, Reichert and the Republican and Democratic establishment that people-powered politics can beat a handful of rich folk any day of the week.

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Late Night Open Thread

by Lee — Saturday, 8/25/07, 1:06 am

At EffU, I’ve posted a response to Congressman Brian Baird’s Seattle Times editorial on Iraq.

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Does the Seattle Times actually understand tax levies?

by Goldy — Friday, 8/24/07, 10:51 pm

No doubt the Seattle Times editorial board doesn’t like taxes, as evidenced by the sarcasm they ooze in commenting on Tuesday’s decisive approval of the two King County Parks levies:

Yes, yes, everyone take a bow and gush over how much we need parks and how much we use them. It is all true, but that doesn’t make it any wiser that the county has become dependent on levies to run its park system.

Well, yeah, I think most tax structure experts would agree that it isn’t particularly wise to depend on dedicated levies to run our parks or anything else. But rather than presenting a constructive discussion of the circumstances that have led us to this situation, the Times merely adopts the lazy, anti-tax meme of blaming elected officials for failing “to make other, unpleasant budget cuts.”

Such as? Over 70-percent of King County’s general fund goes to the criminal justice system — a number typical for counties statewide. Shall we empty the jails? Cut funds for the courts or the sheriffs department? Slash salaries in the prosecutors office? Where’s the fat?

The Times doesn’t know, and they haven’t bothered to look. The editors have the reporting staff of the largest newspaper in the state at their disposal, yet I don’t see the expose on all the waste, fraud and abuse apparently sucking King County coffers dry. And I also don’t see a serious discussion of the reason the county was forced to go to special purpose parks levies in the first place: I-747’s arbitrary and unsustainable 101-percent limit on growth in revenue from existing construction.

The Times continues to editorialize on local property taxes as if they understand what they’re talking about, but I see no evidence of this from the cursory and muddled nature of their discourse. By setting a limit factor on revenue growth well below that of inflation, I-747 intentionally erodes the real-dollar value of regular levies over time. Indeed, the whole point of the initiative was to force local taxing districts to resort to special purpose voter-approved levies like the type the Times now disses; this is exactly the kinda “direct democracy” that Tim Eyman professes, and that the Times sacredly defends.

In fact, the only way for a district to secure a stable inflation-adjusted revenue stream under existing statutes is to run a multi-year lid lift, like the parks levies, which not only permits the district to replace the 101-percent limit factor with a more reasonable growth index, but also specifically requires that the levy be dedicated to a special purpose, and not supplant existing revenue in the general fund.

Ask nearly any government budget writer what they’d prefer, the current system that routinely forces the district to run special purpose levies, or a more reasonable limit factor — say, inflation or 4-percent, whichever is lower — and dollars to donuts they’ll choose the latter.

That’s the issue the Times should be discussing. But they don’t. Or they won’t. Or maybe, they can’t.

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Bloggers Burn Bush for Burner

by Goldy — Friday, 8/24/07, 1:02 pm

Last cycle it took an immense amount of local support for Darcy Burner to prove herself a national netroots candidate. This cycle, she has that national support right from the start.

Yesterday we launched an ambitious $100,000 fundraising drive to counter President Bush’s $10,000/person funder for Dave Reichert, and to coincide with Darcy Burner’s Virtual Town Hall on Iraq, Monday Aug 27 at 3PM. And while 380 individuals have already contributed over $15,000 via our Act Blue page alone, I’m hoping HA readers will be more than just a tiny asterisk in the final totals.

To that end I have personally donated $100 (and you all know I don’t have a lot of cash to spare,) and I’m hoping 10 of you will make it worth my while by matching it dollar for dollar. And for those who can’t afford to be so generous (or unlike me, are prudent enough not to make a donation you can’t afford,) ten bucks isn’t so much to ask, is it? I’d like to see at least 25 HA donations over the next day, in appreciation of the generous support we’re getting from our friends in the national netroots.

Send a message. Make a difference. Please give generously to Darcy Burner.

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