Archives for February 2008

I guess even Republicans deserve a bit of good news once in a while, however small:

Ralph Nader said Sunday he will run for president as a third-party candidate, criticizing the top White House contenders as too close to big business and pledging to repeat a bid that will “shift the power from the few to the many.”

“Shift the power from the few to the many,” huh? Gee… I thought that’s what I’d been doing this past half decade or so, along with a few million of my neighbors in the netroots community? Way to give us the finger, Ralph.

No, I guess instead of dedicating our lives to blogging for little or no money, creating new media infrastructure from scratch with zero resources, and struggling to build a new progressive movement that has empowered millions, actually won a few elections, and has started to change the way politics is conducted nationwide… the real way to shift the power from the few to the many is for a single, cranky, dried up, arrogant, old white guy to go on national television and declare that he is running for president. You know… for us. Because apparently, we’re too stupid to do it for ourselves.

There was a time, decades ago, when I dreamed of a viable third party that might duplicate the success of the Greens in Europe, but then, there was a time when I once looked up to Ralph Nader, consumer protection crusader, as a genuine American hero. I was young. What the fuck did I know?

Over the years, my understanding of electoral politics matured into a deep appreciation for the nuances of our two party system, long before Nader’s tragic 2000 campaign destroyed what little credibility the American Green Party had left. There is a genius to our system, that for the first time in history not only legitimized dissent, but institutionalized it. Yes our system is profoundly conservative at its core in that truly big, abrupt changes are exceedingly difficult to achieve, but this institutional sluggishness is not insurmountable and it has served to maintain the political and economic stability on which past generations have built our nation into the most prosperous and powerful on earth. And when cranks like Nader critique the Democrats and the Republicans as providing little or no choice to voters, they focus solely on the competition between the two parties while ignoring the competition within them.

It took thirty or more years for the forces of the far right to firmly seize the reins of the Republican Party and the institutions that support it, and it will take at least another decade or two for our “people powered” progressive movement to do the same with our party. That Nader can’t see the slow motion political revolution unfolding before his eyes reveals him to be as much a part of the ossified political establishment as the politicians he reviles… his third, futile campaign a last gasp of the status quo fighting to retain its own relevance. The old crusader appearing before the old media, challenging the declining power of the old guard; it is a scene that would be comic if it weren’t so tragic: Nader cast as Lear, railing against a storm of political change that threatens to sweep both him and his foes into the dustbin of history.

From a recent sermon by the Rev. Ken Hutcherson, pastor of Antioch Bible Church, preaching on gender roles:

“God hates soft men … God hates effeminate men … If I was in a drugstore and some guy opened the door for me, I’d rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end.”

Well, that explains the alarming number of one-armed doormen at some our city’s upscale drugstores.

I don’t claim to be a Bible scholar, having only read the New Testament cover to cover once (and let me tell you, the sequel isn’t nearly as entertaining as the original)… but could somebody please point out the scripture where Jesus advocated tearing the limbs off polite people?

At some point, one of Hutcherson’s congregants is going to commit a hate crime, and when they do, I hope the victim or his family sues the hell out of Hutcherson and his “church.”

Courtesy of TheRealMcCain.com.

Over on Slog, Josh writes about outgoing state Sen. Brian Weinstein and his quest to pass his Home Buyer’s Bill of Rights before he retires at the end on this session. Some had suggested Sen. Weinstein was using his Senate committee to hold hostage a condo conversion bill recently passed by the House; Sen. Weinstein, a consumer protection champion, denies the two are related, telling Josh “I expect to pass it.”

He also said he had a good meeting with House Speaker Frank Chopp (D-43, Capitol Hill) about the homeowners’ rights bill. Last year, Weinstein accused Chopp of caving to the BIAW by snuffing Weinstein’s homeowner bill.

He didn’t say Chopp promised to move the bill forward, but he did say: “It was a good discussion. He asked good questions and it was a good meeting. Last year at this time, the bill was dead.”

Oh to be a fly on the wall at that meeting. Sen. Weinstein has a well deserved reputation as a tough negotiator, but what kind of leverage can a retiring senator hold over our famously risk-averse House Speaker?

Well, the buzz amongst the consumer protection community is that Sen. Weinstein has been quietly talking about possibly unretiring should his bill fail to get through the Legislature this session… potentially creating a very messy Democratic primary battle between an incumbent senator and newly minted Democrat, Rep. Fred Jarrett.

Did Sen. Weinstein make this threat to Speaker Chopp? I’ve got no idea, but it certainly would be a doozy. Sen. Weinstein, for all his merits, can be a bit abrasive, and I’ve heard that our amiable Speaker doesn’t like him all that much — so buying Weinstein a one-way ticket out of Olympia might be well worth the price of the bill to both Chopp and the BIAW. And the last thing Speaker Chopp and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown want at this late stage in the game is to have their neatly arranged 41st LD races thrown into disarray. The Democrat seeking to replace Jarrett in the House, Renton’s Marcie Maxwell, is no sure thing, and a Godzilla versus Mothra battle for the Senate seat would surely draw money and resources out of the House race.

The easiest way to avoid this mess is to pass Sen. Weinstein’s bill, which merely gives buyers of new construction a minimum legal warranty on the biggest purchase they’ll ever make in their lives. (Two years on materials and workmanship, ten years on structural defects.) And what’s so wrong about that?

My friend in the mortgage industry back in Philly sent me a funny Powerpoint presentation that’s floating around to help explain the subprime loan mess. I’ve embedded it here using Powerpoint’s semi-adequate Save as Web Page feature. Enjoy.

UPDATE: Apparently, the link does not work for Mac users. I’ll see if there’s another way I can embed it.

UPDATE 2: ‘Sidereal’ in the comments found it at another link. Click here. That should work for everyone. Thanks!

In the several years I’ve lived in Belltown, you’ve been a good neighbor. The people who take classes with you are most nice, well-adjusted kids, and they don’t cause trouble. You’ve got a nice location, right on the waterfront. I use your parking garage often whenever I grab a Flexcar Zipcar for a few hours. All in all, it’s been a good relationship thus far. But there’s something on your campus I’ve got my eye on.

Your basketball court.

See, the City of Seattle took away a half court when they put in the dog park at 3rd and Bell. The closest public basketball court in now up at the Denny Playfield, which doesn’t get the love it should.

Belltown is home to some interesting open space. There’s the Belltown cottages, Victor Steinbrueck Park, the aforementioned dog park on 3rd and Bell, and the Olympic Sculpture Park. The latter has a sign which says, “no active sports allowed.” So while my neighborhood has a gigantic typewriter eraser sitting on a grassy burm, it doesn’t have a b-ball court.

Is there an agreement we can come to that might allow Kurt Rambis-types such as myself the chance to shoot hoops at your court, until the city finally puts up some rims under the Viaduct? I want to play some pick-up basketball without having to leave my neighborhood.

Can we make this happen?

For those of you who, like me, miss my weekend radio gig (and especially for those few of you who have made it clear that you definitely do not), I am pleased to announce that I will be back on 710-KIRO, if only temporarily, filling in for Dave Ross for most of the next two weeks. So tune in 9AM to Noon, February 25th through the 29th, and again March 3rd through the 6th, as I bring my drive time propaganda to the masses while wiping my liberal stink all over Dori’s microphone.

Sure, I’d prefer my own show, but if they’re still letting me sit in for Dave, I suppose I must not suck all that much after all.

The Seattle Times fires off another editorial ripping Democrats for caucusing:

Washington voters pride themselves on their independence. Many had trouble reconciling the fact that they had to sign an oath of allegiance to a party for their vote to count. The parties insisted on that.

Can you believe it? The Democrats insist that only Democrats* participate in their nominating process. What assholes!

You know, if independents and Republicans get to decide who gets the Democratic nomination for president, I should be allowed to weigh in on who the Seattle Times endorses. It’s only fair.

*or people willing to say, for one day, that they are a Democrat.

More from Josh Feit’s interview:

Sure, endorsing Obama was calculated political pandering. But we like being pandered to.

To believe that Gregoire endorsed Barack Obama for political reasons is just wrong. Clearly, the “smart political move” would have been to not endorse in the race. Gregoire pissed off a lot of women by not endorsing the woman in the race. (My mom, for one.) Clinton backers would have dumped some fat checks on the Gregoire ’08 campaign. They may not, at least not for a while.

Hey, I got an idea… Maybe Gregoire was actually inspired by Barack Obama in the same way she was inspired by John F. Kennedy? Why it always has to be a “calculation”, I don’t understand.

Yo know, some of this governor’s biggest achievements have been non-political in nature, such as reaching an agreement between insurance companies and lawyers, or on water rights in eastern Washington.

And you know what? Maybe rushing into the implementation of a cap-and-trade isn’t the best thing. Says Gregoire:

We’re trying to get everybody to stay together. Here’s why: It’s one thing to get a bill passed, but it’s another thing to get it implemented. The way to make it move forward is to get everybody committed to implementation. This isn’t about taking away from Ecology. It’s saying, “Ecology, you develop a cap and trade, but bring it back to the legislature for approval,” versus, “You have the authority to adopt the rules and implement them today.” That’s the difference. That’s what they [business interests] want, and I’m okay with that.

Considering Gregoire ran the Ecology Department under Gov. Booth Gardner, I think she knows what it’ll take to get this done in a way that get all the parties on board. It reeks of competency and cooperation, not calculation.

This week’s Birds Eye View Contest is posted.

If you haven’t, you should read Josh Feit’s good-but-too-snarky interview with Gov. Chris Gregoire. The part that jumped out at me was about light rail:

Gov. Gregoire:

I would do north before south. I’ve said to both the mayor and Joni [Earl, Sound Transit executive director]: Let me see what it is.

Josh Feit:

Wrong answer. The right answer: “I’m excited to see their plan, and I’m excited to promote light-rail expansion this year.” After all, she was gung ho about a light-rail plan that included 185 miles of new roads. Why so finicky about light rail only?

I think the Governor is focused on replacing the 520 bridge and pushing ahead with the Alaskan Way Corridor Project. Light rail is a local issue, and besides freeing up MVET for use by Sound Transit, the Governor should not be a major player on the issue.

The fact that Josh is asking Gregoire to do heavy lifting for a light rail package that doesn’t exist yet is goofy, especially considering The Stranger’s ignorant slagging-off of light rail between the airport and Tacoma. I mean, what happens when Sound Transit 2.1 comes out and they find that not enough of it is being built in Capitol Hill?

Sen. John McCain says he’s “going to go to war” with the New York Times, because frankly, that’s all McCain knows how to do. War, metaphorical or otherwise, is his response to everything. I swear, the guy is suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder… his “fight or flight” response is stuck permanently on the former.

And there are folks who want this guy to be the one with his finger on the button?

In related news, The New Republic brings us the story behind the story of the McCain/Iseman affair, while Josh suddenly claims to have standards.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s Joel Connelly seemed almost prescient in his column yesterday, accusing his colleagues in the legacy media of holding Sen. John McCain to a “different standard.”

[T]he national press corps’ “big feet” owe it to the country to put aside their pack mentality and subject McCain to the same critical scrutiny as other presidential hopefuls.

A year ago, on “Hardball,” Matthews asked about Hillary Clinton’s presidential aspirations: “What have you done to deserve this job?”

The program’s guest allowed that this was a “tough question” facing the full field of candidates.

“Not so much for McCain,” Matthews interrupted. “He has deserved the presidency. Whether he should be president or not, it’s up to the voters.”

It’s a different standard.

I don’t know if Joel was tipped that the New York Times bombshell was about to drop, but his column couldn’t have been more timely. Last night after reading the headlines of McCain’s alleged affair with a lobbyist 30 years his junior, and his inappropriate ties to firms with business before his committee, I flipped through the cable news channels expecting to see the media in a fevered feeding frenzy. Virtually nada. You’d think CNN and FOX News hadn’t discovered the Internet yet, while what little coverage I saw on MSNBC was almost apologetic: it’s a “ten year old story”, we were told… “anonymous sources” and “firm denials” from the campaign… there’s no there there. This despite the fact that as they spoke the Washington Post had already named names:

John Weaver, who was McCain’s closest confidant until leaving his current campaign last year, said he met with Vicki Iseman at the Center Cafe at Union Station and urged her to stay away from McCain. Association with a lobbyist would undermine his image as an opponent of special interests, aides had concluded.

By this morning, the right wing propaganda machine was in top gear, attempting to make this a story about the NY Times credibility, not Sen. McCain’s… and how this unfolds over the next few days and weeks will tell Joel everything he needs to know about the objectivity, impartiality and courage of his colleagues in the legacy press. Anybody who knows anything about the workings of the corporate media knows that the NY Times only ran this story after extensive research and internal debate, and only after an excruciating vetting by their attorneys. And, at it’s heart, this is not merely a story about an inappropriate relationship (sexually consummated or not) between a then 63-year-old US senator and a 32-year-old lobbyist; this is a story about an inappropriate relationship between a US senator and lobbyists and their clients who had business before his committee. This is the story about a presidential candidate who runs on his reputation as a champion of campaign finance reform and breaking the power of special interests, while at the same time using his influence on behalf of companies giving him tens of thousands of dollars in contributions and flying him around on their private jet.

This is a story about hypocrisy.

If this were a story about Barack Obama it would likely cost him the nomination. If Hillary Clinton, a married woman, was exposed as having had a romantic affair, it would likely end her political career. But “Straight Talk” McCain, a man who has admitted to past infidelity (he began his affair with his current wife before divorcing his first)… he, we are told, should receive the benefit of the doubt. If he denies having sex with Ms. Iseman, then that should be the end of that. And if the sexual allegation is dismissed, then that means all the other very serious allegations in the NY Times article should be dismissed as well. At least, that is the GOP spin we’re hearing today coming from their official and unofficial mouthpieces.

But this is not an unsourced smear as the McCain camp has framed it, and it is not a he said/she said about sex. The NY Times published a well sourced article about official corruption, and it is time for the DC media to abandon their myth about the straight talking McCain, and as Joel says, subject him to “the same critical scrutiny as other presidential hopefuls.”

The right will attempt to do to the NY Times what they did to Dan Rather. Shame on the traditional media if they succeed. And shame on us in the blogosphere if we allow that to happen without putting up one helluva fight.

Now that I’m a flesh-eatin’, red votin’ member of the Washington State Republican Party, I suppose have some ethical obligation to make these goofballs look good less idiotic. One way to do that is show that there are Republicans in other states who are even more incompetent and corrupt than our crop.

So, Washington state Republicans…this post’s for you!

If you think about it, what can be more incompetent and corrupt than, say, calling a Republican caucus for Sen. John McCain before any real data becomes available to support the claim? How about this: failing to get McCain qualified for a state’s primary election ballot. Seems difficult to believe such a thing could happen. But apparently it has in Indiana. From Blue Indiana:

Now, I’m originally from the 4th District, so curiosity led me to check out who had made it (and by how much) in my old stomping ground. To my surprise, I noticed that John McCain — the presumptive front-runner for the GOP nomination — was just a little short in a few districts, including my precious 4th, despite the fact that Attorney General Steve Carter had already turned in their petitions. I made a few phone calls, and one by one I found out that the McCain camp had got the job done across the state.

Except in the 4th District.

In the 4th District, they are short.

By my latest count, they turned in 496 signatures for the 4th, and the latest IED report for this morning shows them with only 491.

So this afternoon, I filed a challenge with the Secretary of State’s office to keep John McCain off of the ballot. You can check it out here.

By the “Indiana Standard” sending out the same postcard with the same picture to several different districts warning people of a sex offender in their neighborhood…just looks like a mean-spirited adolescent prank.

Had we sunk to the Indiana Standard, I believe those postcards would have gone to Idaho addresses….

So hold your head high, my fellow Washington state Republicans, we’re not the most incompetent!