Archives for October 2007

Attacking kids edition.

*It’s sad whenever anybody dies. But holy shit, what kind of a lie was Jerry Falwell’s compatriot living? I can’t decide if on top of being tragic, it’s funny or creepy.

* But I do know that smearing a 12 year old boy’s family, is definitely on the creepy side. So knock it off, crazies. And while I wouldn’t call Michelle Malkin a terrorist, it is certainly true that her tactics are probably more about putting the fear of speaking out to other people than it is about having a sane reasonable debate. The next time someone who was helped by a program thinks they might want to speak out, they’ll be a bit more reluctant because she might send her flying monkeys after them.

* But at least conservatives are still compassionate toward injured Iraq war vets. Oh.

* The media do like to de-bunk some people.

* And John Gibson can tell the color of your skin by how your murderous rampage ends.

Locally:

* Jane Hague has a funny way of taking responsibility. I think maybe she feels responsible for getting caught?

* Jesus will ungay Washington and America if only conservative crazies let Him.

If you were driving through Bellevue this morning and noticed firefighters waving signs for city council candidate Keri Andrews, get used to it: the firefighters plan to be out there every day between now and the election.

Why the passion and effort behind Andrews and her race against two-term incumbent Phil Noble? Chronic under-staffing has made Bellevue response times some of the worst in the nation, putting lives at risk and threatening the department’s accreditation. And that could mean huge premium bumps for residents and businesses should the insurance industry lower Bellevue’s Public Protection Classification.

“We are very concerned about our ability to provide a timely response to fire and medical emergencies,” Bruce Ansell, president of Bellevue’s firefighters union, said, “If the people of Bellevue really understood how serious this problem is, they would be asking the City Manager some very pointed questions.”

But rather than fixing the problem the city council keeps lowering the bar. In 2001 the council rejected the national standard of 5 minutes or less for emergency response time as too stringent, adopting instead a target of 6 minutes, 90% of the time… a goal they have not met since 1997. Now, in preparation for review of its accreditation, the city is setting a standard of 8 minutes, 80-percent of the time… almost twice as long as Seattle’s average response time of 4 minutes, 19 seconds.

If Bellevue voters want to continue electing conservative, anti-tax councilmembers like Noble, they could pay with their lives. Or they could elect a progressive like Andrews and get the kind of public service they demand.

Of course, I always expected the Seattle Times editorial board to endorse a “No” vote on Proposition 1… they’ve been smearing the Roads & Transit package for weeks. But I was a bit surprised by the curious logic that underpins their argument to reject the package: apparently, rail simply doesn’t work.

Light rail replaces buses, and at a much higher cost per rider. Rail soaks up money buses might have used. Rail funnels transit. Buses extend it. And most rail riders will be people who were already riding the bus.

[…] Seattle may deny this, but the surest way to reduce congestion on roads is to build more lanes.

Damn right Seattle denies it — recent polls show that as many as 80-percent of Seattle voters support extending light rail. So… um… is the so-called “Seattle” Times calling 80-percent of Seattle voters stupid? Huh. That can’t be good for business.

As for the Times assertion that “the surest way to reduce congestion… is to build more lanes”… um… you mean like that twelve-lane section of Arizona’s I-10 that has done such a good job reducing congestion, they’ve decided to double it to twenty-four lanes?

Arizona’s “Freeway to Heaven”

Yup, can’t argue with “human experience” like that.

Indeed, the Times seems to argue that rail has absolutely nothing to do with reducing congestion, but is rather some sinister exercise in social planning.

It is about increasing density, levering us into apartments around rail stations. If we live next to rail, we will drive less and help save the Earth. It is a fetching, utopian vision, but it is not so easy to change the way Americans live.

A “fetching, utopian vision”…? But wait… what about Portland, where the Times’ own Danny Westneat recently found that city’s transformative rail system to be “fast,” “cheap,” “reliable,” “quiet” and “mostly pollution free”…?

Consider Portland. That city opened its first light-rail line two decades ago, and has built several of them, all of which replaced bus lines. Overall, Greater Portland is no less car-dependent than Seattle. Its congestion has gotten worse, just as it has here.

Oh… so there’s the logic. Portland built rail. Portland’s congestion has gotten worse. So therefore, according to the brilliant logicians at the Times, rail does not reduce congestion. In fact, one might argue, it actually increases congestion.

Huh. New York City is incredibly congested, and I guess, the Times would argue, that its extensive subway and commuter rail system is at least partially to blame. Chicago’s nightmarish traffic? Must be that damned El. Same goes for Boston and its “T”, London and its Underground, Paris and its Metro, and hundreds of other gridlocked cities that also, stupidly, clog up their transportation systems with subways, elevateds, streetcars, trolleys and rail systems of all types and gauges. If only these cities had followed the sage advice of the transportation experts at the Seattle Times, and invested in roads rather than rail, traffic congestion would be a thing of the past.

No wonder you can’t drive anywhere in NYC, what with all these damned colored lines getting in the way.

After all, who needs rail, when like Frank Blethen and Jim Vesely, you live on Mercer Island and have SOV access to I-90’s HOV lanes speeding your commute to and from Fairview Fanny?

And that’s what this editorial really comes down to: selfishness. Ron Sims opposes Prop. 1 because he’s wrong. The Sierra Club opposes Prop. 1 because they’ve sadly succumbed to their Naderite demons. But the Times editorial board opposes Prop. 1 because damn if they ever intend to ride a train, and goddamnit all to hell if they’ll ever be caught dead on a bus. I mean, just look at the disdain these folks hold for mass transit, arguing that the better (ie cheaper) alternative to rail is buses… you know… “if people will ride them.”

But then, what do you expect from the editors of our city’s largest newspaper when most of them can’t even bring themselves to live in the city they write about? When your perspective of Seattle comes from driving through it at 60 miles-per-hour, of course SOV and Lexus Lanes are your preferred transportation solutions. And of course you resent paying for a rail system that 80-percent of your readers are apparently too stupid to oppose.

Carl and Lee at EFFin’ Unsound rejoice: WhackyNation’s Mark Gardner is blogging again after two weeks in Hawaii, and he picks up right where he left off:

Got to meet Donald Rumsfeld and hear him speak to a small group. In person, he is an incredibly gentile, humble human being, a great public servant.

So Donald Rumsfeld is an incredibly “gentile” person. Or as Ann Coulter would say: “perfect.”

On Tuesday we kicked off a netroots fund drive for Bill Sherman, with an ambitious, five-day target of $5,000 in online donations, and once again our region’s progressive community came through. 101 of you donated a total of $5,335. I personally thank all of you.

I spoke with Bill early last night, after we had passed our target but before the tally was final, and I can’t tell you how grateful he was. We didn’t just raise enough money for a targeted mailing, we created a whole lot of excitement and buzz, prompting more well-heeled donors to open up their checkbooks and help close the money gap between Bill and Republican Dan Satterberg. Bill might still be outspent nearly two-to-one, but if he can raise enough money to get his message out, he’s in a great position to be our first Democratic King County Prosecuting Attorney in over sixty years. So if you haven’t already given, please give now.

And while we didn’t hit my personal target of 200 new donors, 101 represents an amazing response rate relative to the few thousand readers who hit the participating blogs on a daily basis. By comparison, earlier this month Satterberg held his last big fundraising event of the campaign, attracting about 60 donors. By that measure, we kicked his ass, and with only a handful of blog posts. Not bad at all.

What we are witnessing both nationally and locally is an emerging progressive movement with the potential to challenge the dominance of both party’s political money machine. When Darcy Burner and I first met back in 2005, and talked about the role the blogs might play in supporting her campaign, the first thing I told her was “don’t expect us to raise you any money.” We can create buzz, I said, help frame the debate and debunk media coverage, but we just can’t raise money. And so nobody was more surprised than me when HA readers contributed over $30,000 to Darcy Burner and Peter Goldmark over a ten-month period in 2006.

Then came Darcy’s astounding $125,000 national netroots funder — over a weekend in August — and now Bill’s $5,335, which relative to the size of the audience is at least as impressive, if not more so.

The point is, that by helping Bill win we are not just gaining a progressive perspective on the administration of justice in King County, we are sending a message to the local political establishment that the rules are changing. As the Democratic Party and other progressive organizations have increasingly relied on local bloggers to get their message out, we have necessarily played an important role in helping to shape their message. And now, in a campaign finance system where most races have contribution limits, our growing ability to harness the financial resources of a diffuse netroots community, and focus it on a handful of very local races, has the potential to transform our movement into one of the most sought after “endorsements” in the state. When a union or corporate PAC or wealthy individual can only give $700 to a race, but we can bring in thousands — in $50, $25, $10 increments — our broader progressive voice becomes louder than any individual special interest.

This is a slow process; it will move forward in fits and starts. But together, we have the potential to transform the face of local and national politics.

Send a message — help elect Bill Sherman.

My posting has been a little sparse as of late. Why? I don’t think I ever really announced it, but as of the end of September, I’m a full time student at Seattle Central Community College. I have one year to go until I can transfer to UW. I’m excited to be back, but the workload is more than I was prepared for.

With full time school and a very interesting part time gig, I’ll be super busy for the near future. Some things I will be looking out for:

Roads and Transit. The latest polling puts the measure at the mid fifties, which is decent, but not great. I get the sense that Seattle’s great civic tradition of screwing the pooch on transportation will pay us yet another visit this fall. Already, the whispers of “vote this down, we’ll come back with something next year” can be read in the blogosphere.

If this this is voted down, I’ll tell you what is coming:

Last January, a commission led by former Seattle Mayor Norm Rice and telecommunications billionaire John Stanton called for a new agency of members who would plan and finance road and transit projects for central Puget Sound. The new Puget Sound Regional Transportation Commission would take functions from the Puget Sound Regional Council, the Regional Transportation Investment District (RTID), and Sound Transit.

The Rice-Stanton report [2.5 MB PDF] concluded that there are 128 agencies who manage aspects of transportation in the four-county area. “Our current system of transportation governance delivers inadequate results and will need fundamental systemic change to meet our region’s transportation needs in the future,” they declared.

Sound Transit and others fought the proposal, which passed in the state Senate but died in the House.

If ST2/RTID doesn’t pass, the punishment will not be doled out equally. Sound Transit, an organization with no friends in Olympia, will get the lion share of the blame. The Rice/Stanton plan will likely pass both the Senate and the House. (Some ask, “why would Democrats shitcan Sound Transit?” Remember, we’re not talking about regular Democrats. We’re talking about Olympia Democrats. This blogger was once told the story of a Sound Transit community meeting in north Seattle, where state Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson showed up in a t-shirt that read “Mag-Lev Mama.” That’s how out to lunch they are on this issue.)

If Rice/Stanton passes, Sound Transit will be folded into a larger agency which will, in all likelihood, be governed by an elected board. Seattle, home to transit loving liberals, will have its political clout diluted by the new governance scheme. A transit board member in, say, Gig Harbor will have the right to veto transit funding in Seattle. And that, ladies and gentlemen (and Sen. Ed Murray), is bullshit.

Don’t forget that even if Prop 1 goes down this fall, roads will still get built. Why? Gov. Gregoire won’t allow 520 to plunge into Lake Washington. Expansion of the south portion of 405 is popular on the Eastside (and already partially funded), and with traffic congestion statistics showing this stretch of road to be the most congested in the state, it will be an easy call for legislators. Roads spending, unlike light rail, has sometimes be handled by the legislature without a vote of the people. Initiative 912 notwithstanding, two gas tax increases came out of Olympia without public votes. This could very well happen again, but this time to fund the projects that RTID funds.

The “Let’s Wait ‘Til Next Year” crowd sometimes cites Sound Transit’s success at the ballot box in 1996 as proof that light rail can do a quick turnaround to be approved by voters. What they don’t tell you is that Sound Transit’s failed measure in 1995 was paired down significantly to gain approval in 1996. The package in ’95 included light rail north to Lynnwood, south to Tacoma, and east across the lake to Bellevue. The package voters approved in 1996 was much smaller in scope. In fact, Sound Transit 2 greatly resembles the original Sound Move of 1995. Even with the much-publicized blunders made by Sound Transit during the 90’s, approval of the original Sound Move plan would have put the region in a great position today.

People who want more high capacity transit are rolling the dice by voting “no” on Prop 1. Don’t assume you’ll get another chance to vote for visionary transit investment like this in the near future.

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

7PM: The Stranger Hour
Erica C. Barnett and Josh Feit from The Stranger join Goldy to talk politics, Erica’s new iPhone, and maybe some sex.

8PM: Drinking Liberally
Justin Krebs, founder of Drinking Liberally, will join Goldy to talk about the liberal grassroots, drinking and being liberal. [Update: Nicholas Beaudrot, Seattle Chapter co-founder is there, too.]

9PM: Perfection, Ann Coulter style
Goldy discusses wacky topics like disenfranchising women and perfecting Jews.

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

The headline on Postman’s blog was “Reichert bests Burner, a bit, in latest money totals,” but a closer look at the numbers doesn’t bode so well for the incumbent. According to Postman, Dave Reichert will report raising $340,800 from July through September, compared to $304,901 for Democratic challenger Darcy Burner. So yeah, Reichert raised a bit more than Burner in the third quarter.

According to Postman, Reichert also leads Burner in total dollars raised Year To Date (YTD), $830,440 to $518,630, but of course, the whole point of raising money now is to spend it later, and despite Reichert’s presidential fundraiser, Burner still leads $370,228 to $339,400 in the all important category of Cash On Hand (COH).

That puts Burner in a pretty damn good position heading into an election year against one of the GOP’s most vulnerable incumbents. How good a position? Well, a quick comparison of the numbers this cycle to those at the same point in the previous cycle is quite stunning.

	Reichert:	Burner:
Oct. 2005, YTD:	$937,829	$105,156
Oct. 2005, COH:	$455,120	$43,952
Oct. 2007, YTD:	$830,440	$518,630
Oct. 2007, COH:	$339,400	$370,228

In October of 2005, Reichert led Burner by a substantial ten-to-one margin, with over $455,000 in the bank (both went on to raise about $3.1 million each,) but this time around Reichert’s fundraising is noticeably down while Burner’s — fueled by her $123,000/3,200 donor netroots fundraiser — is way up, actually giving her a $31K lead in the number that really matters, Cash On Hand… and that’s after Reichert brought President Bush into the district for a high-donor fundraiser. And note, the YTD numbers represent “net receipts”; if you only look at contributions and subtract out Reichert’s $64,000 2Q “committee transfer,” Reichert’s fundraising is running about 20-percent below last cycle’s efforts.

It’s harder to raise money when you are in the minority, as Reichert is discovering, but it still ought to be easier as an incumbent than as a challenger, especially this early in the contest. If the Reichert folks were as pleased with their candidate’s anemic showing as they claimed to Postman, I’m guessing they wouldn’t have buried their announcement on a Friday afternoon.

Today is the last day of our netroots fund drive for Bill Sherman, Democrat running for King County Prosecuting Attorney, and as of the last update, 85 people have given $4835… just $165 shy of our $5,000 target! You could be the one to put us over the top.

Of course we’re way shy of our target of 200 new contributors, and I’d like to at least get above 100… that would be more than the number of contributions to Dan Satterberg during his previous reporting period. So if you haven’t already given, just $5 or $10 bucks is enough to make a difference.

Satterberg and his surrogates are working hard to paint Sherman as unqualified for the office, but as Joel Connelly pointed out yesterday, that’s simply not the case:

It’s an oft-frustrated hope that democracy will give us a choice between the greater of goods, rather than the lesser of two evils. The Sherman-Satterberg contest offers two top-notch individuals with different approaches to the job.

All Sherman needs to win this race is the money to get his message out and refute Satterberg’s attacks. Please give to Bill Sherman today.

The Bush administration announced this week that federal budget deficit declined this year, and for the third year in a row.

Jack Cafferty examines the claims and points out, “They’re lying!”

Bonus factoid:

There has been more debt accumulated during the administration of President Bush than during all of the previous presidents combined.

(This and some 70 other media clips from the past week are now posted at Hominid Views.)

Via Slog, Newsweek reports on a very bizarre incident in Iraq:

The colonel was furious. “Can you believe it? They actually drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers.” He was describing a 2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee on a street in Baghdad’s Green Zone. The colonel, who was involved in a follow-up investigation and spoke on the condition he not be named, said the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until they could disentangle the SUV. His account was confirmed by the head of another private security company.

Scary progressives launch preemptive invasion of Bellingham

The Washington Bus rolls into Tacoma Saturday morning (details here,) to doorbell for Tacoma City Council Candidate Marilyn Strickland, and you can be sure that the local righties will be all aghast at the “out-of-towners” and “special interests” invading Tacoma to influence their precious “non-partisan” election. (Don’t the smiling young folks in the picture above look scary?)

This is a theme that has grown quite popular with Republicans throughout the region this campaign season, as they watch their political prospects steadily shrink. When the Bus made a trip up to Whatcom County a couple weeks back to doorbell on behalf of County Council candidate Ken Mann, local Republicans flew into hysterics, launching a whisper campaign warning of a “National Socialist Organization that is Supported by Hanoi Jane Fonda.” On Mercer Island, where my ex-wife, Maureen Judge is running for City Council, wide-eyed righties stand up at candidate forums, frantically waving Progressive Majority print-outs, a la Joe McCarthy and his “list” of known communists. In Bellevue, incumbent Councilmember Phil Noble unsuccessfully pleaded with the 48th District Democrats to withhold their endorsement of his opponent Keri Andrews, claiming it would be an inappropriate intrusion into their non-partisan race. (Noble is so non-partisan that he gave a second contribution to Republican Jane Hague… after her drunk driving incident was made public.) And of course in the region’s marquee race, Republican Dan Satterberg has made non-partisanship the central theme of his campaign for King County Prosecuting Attorney, even promising to lobby to officially change the office to non-partisan, should he be elected.

Why the fearful reaction to progressive organizers, and the sudden public embrace of non-partisan ideals? Because in a region where Republicanism has been discredited perhaps more thoroughly than anywhere else in the nation, these nominally non-partisan races are the only chance most Republicans have of ever holding public office.

Non-partisanship has become the last refuge of political losers.

After twelve years of corrupt congressional rule, an inept and contemptuous Bush administration, and the collapse of the Eastside GOP, the red “R” has become a scarlet letter few Puget Sound Republicans are eager to wear, and the growing chorus of protestations against the politicization of non-partisan offices should be understood in this context. For decades conservatives have dominated these local races using the cloak of non-partisanship to hide their very partisan agenda, resulting in a virtual Republican lock on councils and school boards in otherwise Democratic districts. Ironically, the grassroots tactics employed by organizations like Progressive Majority and Washington Bus are largely those that were pioneered by conservatives decades earlier.

In fact, non-partisanship has always been a lie… a sham… a fiction, in which even the most casual observer could generally pick out the players without a program. We all know who the liberal and conservative justices are on the state Supreme Court, and we’re usually pretty damn sure about party identification. Likewise non-partisan councils and school boards throughout the region routinely factionalize along ideological if not party lines. Party identification reflects the candidate’s values and judgment, and it is not only dishonest, but fundamentally undemocratic to hide these labels from voters.

It has oft been written that our nation’s founders were uncomfortable with the notion of political parties, but they created this framework nonetheless, and in so doing helped create the greatest political, economic and military power in the history of the world. While America may not have invented the notion of “the loyal opposition,” it was here that it reached full fruition, for by institutionalizing a public debate in which endless argument is embraced as patriotic dissent rather than a treasonable act, our nation has managed to achieve a degree of political stability that is the envy of people everywhere.

Indeed, it is not less partisanship that is needed, but more… a truth self-evident in the familiar groans of self-described independents and third-party fantasists who routinely complain about the lack of difference between the two major parties. Of course, at the policy level, nothing could be further from the truth, but the general failure of Democrats to forcefully distance themselves from the conservative rhetoric that dominates public discourse, only sows such confusion.

Politics, like the law, is an adversarial process, and if one side is less dedicated to winning than the other, then the entire system fails. The Republican brand is tarnished for a reason, and GOP fortunes deserve to be punished accordingly. If we meekly allow them to tear off their scarlet letter and masquerade as non-partisan, we will be doing ourselves and the electorate a great disservice.

Political climate change…?

Former Vice President Al Gore and the U.N.’s climate change panel won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for spreading awareness of man-made climate change and laying the foundations for counteracting it.

Gore, whose film on global warming, “An Inconvenient Truth,” won an Academy Award earlier this year, had been widely tipped to win Friday’s prize, which expanded the Norwegian committee’s interpretation of peacemaking and disarmament efforts that have traditionally been the award’s foundations.

“We face a true planetary emergency,” Gore said. “The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and spiritual challenge to all of humanity.”

But of course, it’s unseasonably cold somewhere on the planet today, so folks like Stefan are just laughing at us and the Norwegians for foolishly believing in science. (What a maroon.)

Speaking of maroons, while we’re enjoying the fruits of Bush’s genius, remind yourselves that we could have had this:

What with our local media elite’s fetish for splitting tickets, it was far from a sure thing, so I must admit breathing a sigh of relief to see the Seattle P-I Editorial Board enthusiastically endorse Bill Sherman for King County Prosecuting Attorney:

Every organization occasionally benefits from new ideas, perspectives and energy.

In a contest of two impressive candidates for King County prosecuting attorney, Bill Sherman makes the more compelling case. In Sherman, a Democrat, voters can pick someone who is well qualified, with diverse experience and possessed of a healthy interest in exploring new directions.

Dan Satterberg has argued that Sherman is unqualified to serve as Prosecutor, but he clearly failed to sway the P-I. I sure hope he’s more convincing in front of juries.

That said, Satterberg maintains a two-to-one money advantage, and that could be all he needs to win this election, so Sherman still needs all the help we can give him. With two days left in our five-day netroots fund drive, 69 people have already contributed $4,160. That’s well on the way toward our $5,000 target, but far short of our goal of 200 new donors — and nothing would be more satisfying than to blow through our goal with a wave of five and ten dollar donations.

So please give to Bill Sherman today, and help him bring “new ideas, perspectives and energy” to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. Thanks for all your help.

UPDATE:
As expected, the Seattle Times has endorsed Satterberg. The Times also bought into Satterberg’s bullshit “non-partisan” meme. Also not unexpected.

So there you have it, a hung jury from our two dailies. Both papers acknowledge that both candidates are well qualified — the P-I believes Sherman has made the case for change, the Times does not. All in all, a net-nothing in terms of changing the dynamics of this race.

My only question is, with this being the marquee race of the season… why did they both endorse on a Friday?

The Darcy Burner campaign has announced that it will report raising an impressive $304,901 for the quarter ending September 30. That brings the campaign to a total of $518,630 year to date, with $370,228 cash on hand. The third quarter is traditionally the slowest fundraising quarter of the year.

It is hard to predict how much Dave Reichert will report by the Oct. 15 deadline, but I’m guessing it won’t be substantially higher, even with his much ballyhooed visit by President Bush. And in any case, it seems certain that he’ll be in a substantially weaker financial position than he was at this time during the previous cycle, when he reported $929K YTD, and $455K COH.

In October of 2005, Reichert led Burner by a ten-to-one margin in the money race. This time around it is almost certain that Burner will report more cash on hand. No wonder Stuart Rothenberg ranks Reichert as one of the top three most endangered Republican House incumbents.