Archives for August 2008

Everybody seems to be tamping down expectations for this week’s first ever “top two” primary in Washington state, but the biggest loser Tuesday night may be the top two primary itself.  While Secretary of State Sam Reed and his cheerleaders on editorial boards throughout the state have hailed the advent of the top two as a huge victory for Washington’s voters, it’s proving much less popular in practice, with the 27% ballot return rate thus far significantly trailing Reed’s rosey turnout predictions.

Hmm.  I wonder why?

In most cases, the outcome from Tuesday’s vote is in little doubt.

Yeah, it’s hard to get voters excited about a meaningless election, but that’s exactly what we have in almost every race on the ballot, where even the handful of hotly contested races will inevitably result in rematches come November.  Indeed, with the exception of the State Treasurer’s race, where a field of three legitimate contenders will be winnowed down to two, I can’t think of a single meaningful result to watch for Tuesday night.

(Yeah, sure, some judicial races will be decided Tuesday night, but that was true of previous primary systems too.)

Oh, if one candidate substantially trounces another, it might tell us something about their prospects for the general, but absolutely nothing will be decided; the same folks facing off against each other Tuesday will face off against each other again eleven weeks from now.  So why bother voting?

Well, the majority of WA’s registered voters won’t bother, which is a shame.  And, inevitable.

The lesson to be learned from all this is that the top two is about as close a substitute for our old blanket primary as Cremora is a substitute for half and half.  Sure, primary voters can split their ticket, choosing candidates from both parties without ascribing to any party identification themselves, but with the absence of party labels and the absence of any race with nomination battles in both parties, what’s the point?  I suppose it could be argued that top two does have the advantage of eliminating the possibility of third party candidates serving as spoilers, but doesn’t that put control of our elections even more firmly in the hands of the two major parties?  That’s not exactly what voters were promised.

And what happens in an off-year election, when Seattle’s 20-percent strong Republican minority finds itself in November with no Republicans on the ballot?  Top-two has the potential to reduce turnout in a general election as well.

I suppose the solution favored by the wise old folks on our ed boards would be to simply make all our offices non-partisan, thus covering up top-two’s reduction in choice by reducing the relevant information available to voters.  Sure, if they really wanted to give voters more choice they could push for innovative electoral reforms like Ranked Choice Voting, but honestly, all our ed boards really seemed interested in doing was delivering a big, spiteful “fuck you” to the parties for challenging the beloved blanket primary in the first place.

Job well done.  Now let’s deal with the consequences instead of pretending there aren’t any.

And yet, partisan political bloggers like me, we’re the ones who aren’t credible. Sheesh.

Bradley Marshall is an attorney, sports agent and adjunct law professor. He is also a pussy. A vain, effete, caterwauling pussy.

Of course, that’s just my opinion. My entirely non-libelous, constitutionally protected, personal opinion. But I think you’ll agree with me that it is pretty damn well supported by the facts.

So what makes Marshall such an incredible pussy? This cease and desist letter to fellow blogger Michael Hood:

Over the course of the last several years you have published the “Blatherwatch,” a conservative political blog site.

Approximately two years ago, you published a defamatory and slanderous blog of the undersigned in connection with a story of the famed talk show host, Mike Webb. […] The story you published concerning me was inaccurate, denigrating, and placed me in a false light. The purpose of this writing is to formally request that you remove the article from the BlatherWatch website and cease any further negative reporting concerning the undersigned.

[…] It is not my desire to seek redress through the courts, but I will do so if you and I are unable to reach an amicable resolution.

As Darryl has previously pointed out over at Hominid Views, A) a defamatory post would be libel not slander; and B) there is absolutely nothing defamatory about a post that reports facts, no matter how unflattering or how secondhand. Hell, Michael would have a better chance of suing Marshall for libel for his clearly false and defamatory claim that blatherWatch is “conservative”… though I guess Marshall could always fall back on the defense that he was merely expressing an opinion… you know… like my characterization of him as a dainty, dickless pussy. (It would be worth the lawsuit just to see Marshall definitively prove in a court of law that he does indeed have a dick.)

The December 27, 2005 blatherWatch post that Marshall is attempting to bully Michael into removing (and which I have appended in toto at the end of this post) is titled “mike webb’s attorney no stranger to ‘dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation’,” a factual claim I haven’t bothered to independently verify, because under US law, I don’t have to. I am merely reporting that Michael reported it, an inherently non-libelous act within the context of covering a threatened libel suit, regardless of the accuracy of the original statement. (Think about it… one could never report on libel suits if repeating the charges is an act of libel itself.)

Likewise, Michael’s headline was merely quoting the conclusions of the Washington State Bar Association from a Disciplinary Notice he blockquotes in its entirety. In correspondence with Michael, Marshall disputes the WSBA’s findings, but as a legal argument that’s neither here nor there, for Michael has every right to report on the WSBA’s Disciplinary Notice, again, regardless of its accuracy. The WSBA found Marshall to be in violation of its Rules for Personal Conduct (RPC), including the subsection that prohibits “dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation”… an undisputed fact (the finding itself) that Michael duly reported. It is also a fact that Michael reported it, and I could not possibly report on the dispute between Michael and Marshall without reporting this particularly fact as such.

See, this isn’t Canada where litigious pussies like Marshall can attempt to bully the press and citizen journalists alike with harassing libel suits that place the burden of proof on the shoulders of the defendant. This is the United States of America, where the First Amendment protects freedom of the press and freedom of speech, and where the courts have firmly placed the burden on the back of the plaintiff… a burden of proof, by the way, that Marshall already failed to meet when the WA State Supreme Court handed down an 18 month suspension of his license as punishment for the exact same RPC violations he is now threatening to sue Michael for reporting.

What a pussy.

And what an idiot, for if his goal was to rid the Internet of an unflattering blog post that ranks near the top of Google searches on his name, Bradley Marshall has achieved the exact opposite, not only attracting subsequent posts by Michael and a highly ranked post by Darryl that only further elaborate on their subject’s reported ethical failings, but now a post by me, one that will surely settle near the top of Google’s rankings, where it will forever inform potential clients that Marshall is a frivolous, conscienceless, unscrupulous pussy. (At least, in my opinion.)

As it so happens, today is the day the pussy has set as a deadline for Michael to pull his post:

I am prepared to execute a settlement agreement, wherein I will release you personally, Blatherwatch and its writers from all liability. This proposal may be accepted on or before August 15, 2008. Thereafter, I will file the lawsuit against you personally, any writer who contributed to any slanderous story about me, Blatherwatch, the Seattle Magazine and any other publications you may have been affiliated with during the time the subject storie(s) were written.

See Brad, I mention this because I wanted to make it clear that I got my post in under the deadline, and that I have no intention of pulling this post or any other, short of a court order… and possibly not even then. So if you really intend to file a lawsuit that you have no possibility of winning, under the bizarre belief that this will somehow clear your reputation as a lawyer, you better sue me too.

Some may find my bravado stupid or irrational, but Marshall’s whole attempt to intimidate Michael was based on the expectation that he would do the rational thing, and quietly pull a two-year-old post rather than risk the expense and hassle of even a clearly frivolous lawsuit. The problem is, once bloggers start caving in to litigious pussies like Marshall, we’ll find ourselves inundated with cease-and-desist letters from every litigious pussy who has ever been the subject of an unflattering post, and who happens to have access to a lawyer or a law license (suspended or not).

So sue me, Brad. Sue Michael. Sue Darryl. And sue the dozens of other bloggers, local and national, who will surely follow up on our posts should you choose to follow through on your pussy threats. Turn us into netroots heroes and I can all but guarantee that “Bradley Marshall” will become the equivalent of a Google bomb for the words “dishonesty,” “fraud,” “deceit,” “misrepresentation” and “pussy.” Or, you can do the rational thing, accept the fact that we called your bluff, and walk away from this dispute before you sully your own reputation to the point where you become legally libel-proof.

It’s not about me, Brad. It’s not about you. It’s not about Michael. It’s about the integrity of our medium. And damn if I’m going to allow a pussy like you to turn bloggers like me into pussies too.

APPENDIX:
Following is the original blatherWatch post that prompted Marshall’s bullying tactics, reproduced in its entirety. (Nice job expunging any record of your ethical lapses from the Internet, Brad. Let this be a lesson to anyone else who thinks they can use bullshit cease and desist letters to chill online discourse.)

[Read more…]

I want to follow up on Goldy’s post from yesterday on the strong push by Catholic Church dioceses and archdioceses to fund the opposition to the Death with Dignity Initiative, I-1000.

In the comments, and on Catholic web sites, there continue to be accusations that the I-1000 movement is displaying anti-Catholic bigotry. Let’s be very clear about this. Pointing out that the Catholic Church has had an alarming problem with not only allowing pedophiles to hold positions of power within their organization, but also actively trying to shield them from the law, is not anti-Catholic bigotry. It’s the truth. I don’t think that individual Catholics should be held responsible for these actions, but the organization as a whole still carries the weight of this tragedy.

The Catholic Church is allowed to lobby and donate money to certain causes. But that does not mean that what they’re doing is reasonable or fair. And when people are wary of what this organization is pushing for, this is not automatically evidence of bigotry. The Catholic Church can impose any sort of rules they want upon their own membership. But in a nation that truly has freedom of religion, they should not be able to impose rules that extend beyond their membership, as they have tried to do in the past by trying to restrict the sales of birth control or to ban abortion.

As has been pointed out here, the current way that end-of-life treatment takes place has not kept up with the realities of a plural, modern society. Doctors are put in uncomfortable situations in dealing with terminally ill patients who desire a dignified and less painful way to exit this world. The correct solution is to ensure that people have the legal right to make their own choices and for a doctor to be legally allowed to respect that choice and evaluate whether it’s being made freely. The safeguards in this bill ensure that the old, the depressed, and the disabled won’t be coerced into ending their lives prematurely. The bill has worked exactly as expected in Oregon for 10 years.

Why does the Catholic Church oppose it? That’s not for me to be concerned with. I’m not a Catholic, and while I respect their right to practice their religion, it’s not for me. Many Catholics in this world are inspirational people who do far more to benefit humanity than the average person. And if deciding that it’s a sin to take your own life along the parameters of I-1000 makes someone a better person, more power to them. But for the Catholic Church, as an organization, to expect that this paradigm be enforced on everyone crosses a line that should not be crossed. Supporters of I-1000 aren’t attacking the Catholic Church, we’re defending ourselves from it.

UPDATE: There’s quite a bit of carnage in the comments below already, and it highlights a very important point here. If you accuse someone of bigotry, as many people have been overly inclined to do on this issue, it helps to have proof. For instance, in the past I’ve accused SeattleJew of bigotry, but instead of just lobbing baseless accusations, I’ve linked to the proof. I hope that makes it clear.

It’s not something the campaign likes to talk about, but when Darcy Burner first started pushing her Responsible Plan to end the war in Iraq, the folks at the DCCC weren’t exactly supportive. Sticking your neck out on a controversial issue like that is just not the sort of thing that challengers are supposed to do, so you can be damn sure that the DCCC didn’t encourage any of Darcy’s colleagues to sign on. And yet, over 50 fellow challengers did anyway.

And now we House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Stefan’s girlfriend) not only recording a video in support of Darcy, but mentioning the plan by name.

You want a guy with great hair and big biceps representing you in Congress, faithfully supporting the Bush policies on Iraq and the economy? Vote for Dave Reichert. But if you want a smart, energetic representative, willing and able to challenge the establishment in both parties, and still come out on top, your only choice is to vote for Darcy Burner.

Cold days=no global warming. Ergo….

Today’s forecast from The Oregonian:

It’s already near 70 at 5 a.m. and the thermometer is headed for 104. Today’s forecast also calls for north northeast winds 5 to 9 mph. The low tonight is a balmy 65.

There’s no relief on Saturday, with the high expected to hit 104 again. Winds kick up a bit 10 to 13 mph. The low dips to 59. Sunday remains sunny with a high of 91. Temperatures cool next week, with highs in the mid 70s and hey, a chance of rain on Wednesday.

I got an iced mocha and global warming went away! But then I had a toasted sandwich and it came back.

This climate change stuff sure is confusing, which is why I try to ignore it and drive around a lot to think about it while listening to talk radio. Paris Hilton!

The most polled gubernatorial race in the country this election season, hands down, is Washington state. The rematch between Dino Rossi (“G.O.P. Party”) and Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) has had 36 polls taken, starting in August of 2005, just two months after a court declined to overturn Gregoire’s victory.

And now we have one new SurveyUSA poll to add to the collection. The poll of 714 people, taken on the 11th and 12th of August, shows Gregoire leading Rossi by a slim 50% to 48%.

The +2% advantage for Gregoire is smaller than the +4% found a week ago in a Rasmussen poll. It is much smaller than the +12% found in a late July Strategic Vision poll. But it matches the +2% found by a late July Strategic Vision poll.

That makes four polls all taken within the last three weeks. As can be seen in this figure of polling over the last three months, the race has scarcely moved provided one ignores those Elway polls.

Mr. Elway has offered a defense of his poll numbers, perhaps in response to a somewhat “underinformed” Eric Earling commentary. Elway discusses sampling differences (registered, known voters versus random digit dialing used by national pollsters), different modes of communications (humans used by Elway versus computer used by SurveyUSA and Rasmussen), question wording, and party identification (Elway uses the Washington state ballot labels). I think Elway’s arguments are all reasonable, and given Elway’s smaller sample size, I am not surprised to see this magnitude of difference between Elway compared to Rasmussen and SurveyUSA. Still, I’m not going to declare that Elway is “right” and the others are “wrong.” There is simply no way to know which pollsters have (statistical) bias until one can observe the performance against a number of actual elections. My preferred strategy is to take ’em all, and combine multiple polls that are close together in time, and hope any biases cancel.

A Monte Carlo analysis of just the current SurveyUSA poll (methods) suggests that, if an election were held now, Gregoire would have a 66.6% chance of winning and Rossi would have a 33.4% chance of winning. Here is the distribution of vote outcomes based on the polling information:

The more interesting analysis, however, includes all four of the polls taken in the last three weeks. This seems reasonable if we are allowed to assume that voter opinion has remained relatively static over these three weeks (i.e. no breaking scandals, “Macaca” moments, natural disasters, etc.)

The four pooled polls mentioned above give Gregoire 49.3% of the “votes” and Rossi 44.5% of the “votes”, with 6.2% undecided. There were 2,272 people surveyed who selected either Rossi or Gregoire. The Monte Carlo results suggests that Gregoire would win an election held now with a 95.9% probability and Rossi would win with a 4.1% probability. Here is the distribution of vote outcomes for the combined analysis:

Here are a couple of observations that back up these results. The last time Rossi led in a poll was in February. There have been 16 polls taken since then. One of those polls was a tie and Gregoire led in the other 15. Before that, one has to go back another seven polls, back to November 2006, before finding this poll in which Rossi led.

The take-home message is that (1) Gregoire has repeatedly held the lead in this race. It is highly unlikely that this has happened by chance (i.e. the lead is almost certainly real). (2) There has been very little movement in the polling numbers for Rossi or Gregroire over the last 1.5 years. (3) If the non-movement continues, Gregoire will almost certainly win a second term.

This weekend is Seattle Hempfest. I usually spend my time there at the Hemposium stage, listening to panels and other speakers, but there’s plenty more to do, especially if you like spending a nice summer day outside listening to music. Once again, Rick Steves will be there, giving a presentation at the Hemposium stage at 2:40 on Saturday on why he’s fighting so hard to change this country’s marijuana laws. And possibly also about the backwards attitudes of far too many in the media.

It was Michelle Malkin who shot and killed Arkansas Democratic Party chairman Bill Gwatney yesterday. At least, according to Michelle Malkin.

Yes, just hours after the shooting, before Gwatney even died from his wounds, Malkin responds to the tragedy with a defensive post attempting to immunize herself from potential accusations that her right-wing hate-mongering might have played any role in provoking this senseless act of violence. Jesus… talk about a guilty conscience.

And talk about a narcissistic personalty that borders on solipsism. A man had just been mortally wounded, shot three times in the chest, clearly the target of an assassin’s bullets… and Malkin can only think about herself and her own victimhood as the potential target of a character assassination. Could she be any more insensitive to Gwatney, his family and his friends?

Oh, but she’d already received an email, Malkin cries, telling her that she should be “held accountable” for hate-talk that “turns people to murder.” A lone email, for chrissakes? That’s her justification for this mind-numbingly inappropriate post? A single fucking email?

Shorter Michelle Malkin:

Somebody sent me an email blaming my so-called ‘hate’ for this horrible act of violence against a Democrat Party liberal. Here is that person’s full name and unredacted email address.

And while I’m sure as hell not one to judge a blogger by their comment threads, Malkin is, and in her own heavily vetted thread it is apparently calm, rational, non-hateful discourse to accuse Bill and Hillary Clinton of assassinating Gwatney as a message to Barack Obama that he’ll be next if he doesn’t fall in line.

But you know, we foul-mouthed liberals, we’re the crazies… we’re the dangerous lunatic fringe.

While Gwatney was clearly the victim of a targeted attack, we don’t yet know the motive. We don’t yet know if his assassination was an ideological hate crime like last month’s Knoxville shootings, or just the kind of everyday tragedy in which sick, personal grudges sometimes (and inevitably) manifest themselves in our heavily armed society.

But if she’s come to the point where she feels the need to preemptively issue a denial of culpability each time news breaks of another Democrat or other such perceived liberal being assaulted or murdered, perhaps Malkin should listen to her guilty conscience the next time she’s tempted to resort to the sort of violent, eliminationist rhetoric that has made her famous. That is, assuming, Malkin still has a conscience.

The Democrats gained some ground in the standings this week, as the Seattle Times endorsed incumbent Rick Larsen over Republican challenger Rick Bart in Washington’s 2nd Congressional District. Using our NHL-style scoreboard (two points for a victory, one point for a tie), that brings our current standings to Republicans 11, Democrats 9.

No doubt some at the Times may find my scoring system arbitrary and unfair, but the scorecard would be tilted even further toward the Republican side if not for my decision to exclude local judicial and legislative races. For example, my standings don’t include the Times endorsement of Republican State Sen. Cheryl Pflug, who they glowingly describe in the lede as an “independent workhorse.” (Isn’t it at least ironic that the highest praise the Times can muster for a Republican these days is to describe them as not really being all that much of one?)

And then there are the Times’ superior court endorsements, where in Position 22 they dismiss the two candidates endorsed by the King County Democrats in favor of the one endorsed by the Republicans. Huh. I guess that’s probably just a coincidence.

In the end, I always expected the standings to be close, but there’s a point to be made in all this, and if you haven’t figured it out already, you’ll just have to wait for my end of endorsement season wrap up. In the meanwhile, here are the current standings:

Seattle Times Endorsements	GP	W	L		T	Pts
Republicans	10	4	3		3	11
Democrats	10	3	4		3	9
Third Parties	9	0	9		0	0

The appearance of Gov. Christine Gregoire at Drinking Liberally last night offered me the perfect opportunity for some gonzo-journalism. All politicians are alike, right? So in the interest of being “fair and balanced” in my journalistic endeavors I pulled out my video camera….

Hey Goldy and all, be careful later this month when you go to Denver. (Props to this Daily Kos diarist.)

CBS4 News has learned if mass arrests happen at the Democratic Convention, those taken into custody will be jailed in a warehouse owned by the City of Denver. Investigator Rick Sallinger discovered the location and managed to get inside for a look.

The newly created lockup is on the northeast side of Denver. Protesters have already given this place a name: “Gitmo on the Platte.”

Inside are dozens are metal cages. They are made out of chain link fence material and topped by rolls of barbed wire.

—snip—

Each of the fenced areas is about 5 yards by 5 yards and there is a lock on the door. A sign on the wall reads “Warning! Electric stun devices used in this facility.”

I love those “free speech zones” like they had under a bridge in Boston in 2004, those were awesome.

But four days after he evaded security officials in his hometown, slipped into Beijing at dawn and submitted his application, Gao, a farmer from Heilongjiang Province, has yet receive permission to display his hand-scrawled poster, which accuses local Communist Party officials and the police of conspiring to steal public money.

If the silence at the protest zones is any indication, Gao’s prospects are not very good.

Five days since the Olympics began, not a single demonstration had taken place at the three city parks approved for protests. In fact, at least four people have been detained for seeking to demonstrate, according to human rights groups and relatives of those who have been seized.

Oops, that appears to be an article about the Olympics in China, my bad. But since it’s basically the same thing, you get the idea.

I’m sure the good delegates of the Washington State Democrats will not stand for this.

Breaking news…

The chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party was hospitalized in critical condition Wednesday, a party executive said. A television station reported that three shots were fired at party headquarters.

[…] Lee said the secretary told her the man had come into the party’s office and asked to speak with Gwatney. When the secretary said she wouldn’t allow him to meet with Gwatney, the man went into his office and shot him, Lee said.

She said the secretary described the man as in his 40s and white and drove off in a blue truck.

I’ve got no other details, but I dunno, whenever I hear about Democrats being shot by middle aged white guys in pickup trucks, I tend to get a little paranoid.

So what explains Dave Reichert’s pro-oil industry energy agenda in the face of skyrocketing fuel costs and the dire consequences of carbon-induced climate change?  Well, maybe we should just ask some of Dave’s pals who set up that lucrative K Street funder for him… you know, energy industry lobbyists like Dan Maloney (American Petroleum Institute), Brett Shogren (Exelon Corp.), Mike Chappell (Edison International) and Matt Lapinski (Frontier Oil)?

I’m just sayin’.