Archives for September 2008

I suppose, if the American people want Sarah Palin a 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency, that’s up to them, but as for me, I’d fear for my liberty should she ever take the reins of our government.

Nazi Germany banned books.  The Soviet Union banned books.  Saudi Arabia bans books.  But a small town American mayor firing a librarian for her lack of political compliance?  You’d think that would be a career killer for anybody trying to climb the political ladder in, you know… a democracy.

KOMO News is the first local news outlet to cover the case of legal medical marijuana patient Robert Dalton. Kitsap County prosecutors are trying to seize his property and send him to jail because they allege he had more plants than was allowed and that he said that he was going to give some of his harvest to other patients. At his trial in Port Orchard today, witnesses will be called in Dalton’s defense.

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. Officially, we start at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Some folks show up early for Dinner.

For tonight’s activity, we will sit in the central circle and share our Sarah Palin dreams/nightmares followed by an angry flag-disposal ceremony, and capped off by a round of Kumbaya.

Tonight’s theme song might well be one interpretation of a McDream:

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally. Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

As a blogger, I love to pepper my posts with personal anecdotes, reality being the sharpest rhetorical bolt in any writer’s quiver. But while I usually try to stay as close to the facts as possible, this post’s story has been generously fictionalized, the names and details altered to protect the participants of the real life anecdote I would prefer to tell.

For to do otherwise could get a loved one convicted of murder.

At the center of the story is a family matriarch, let’s just call her Aunt Sarah, a spry old lady, decades a widow, who seemed to cherish her independence almost as much as she did her grand kids, and who one day in her early eighties was suddenly and unexpectedly diagnosed with end-stage cancer.  Her doctor thought it started in her lungs, but we’ll never know for sure, for despite the fact that she had shown few symptoms, it had already metastasized throughout her body, the doctors giving her little more than six months to live.  She would be dead in three.

The rapid progress of her illness was quite stunning, even to a family that had been ravaged by cancer.  My father, his only sibling, three out of four grandparents (the fourth having died young of a bum heart), and a  plurality of great aunts and uncles have fought the disease, some successfully, some not. But never have I seen such a precipitous decline, from diagnosis to death, as that of Aunt Sarah.

Only three weeks after stubbornly driving herself to the doctor’s office to receive her own death sentence, Aunt Sarah was mostly bedridden, the pain of the advancing tumors almost unbearable, and by six weeks the cancer had clearly started to eat away at her brain.  Aunt Sarah, in her fashion, defiantly insisted that she wanted to die in her own home, and her children dutifully obliged.  Home hospice care was arranged, round the clock aides hired, and a rotating vigil of sorts informally organized, family members coming to sit by her side and pay their last respects to the living, while Aunt Sarah’s body and mind withered away before our eyes.

By the third month Aunt Sarah appeared gone, although her body continued to linger on.  For days she had lay there, mouth ajar, eyes slightly open but apparently unseeing, her body motionless but for her long, labored breaths and an occasional, wracking shudder that seemed to start at her toes and exit through her mouth in a low, pleading groan.

I was there that afternoon when a doctor (or perhaps a hospice nurse) came by on a routine visit, and pronounced that Aunt Sarah would soon pass on—maybe a few days, or a week at most.  Aunt Sarah’s daughter, who by this point was staying with her around the clock, was concerned that she appeared to be in pain, and so the doctor carefully instructed her in the use of a morphine drip, providing ample medication to last the week.

On the recommended dosage he was quite specific.  “This much,” he instructed, “should ease any suffering, but if you notice any changes in her breathing, please feel free to give me a call.”  Clear enough.  “But this much,” he warned, indicating a significantly larger dosage, “Well, you have to be careful not give her too much, or else her breathing will gradually slow and eventually stop, as she peacefully drifts off into a gentle, quiet and painless death.”  There was a brief pause, the silence broken only by Aunt Sarah’s gasps for air.  Nobody said anything, nor needed to.   We thanked the doctor, and gave our goodbyes.

That night, Aunt Sarah died in her sleep.

No, that story did not actually happen, at least not exactly in that way, but something like this did occur in my family, as it does in many other families every day, and throughout the nation.  Some doctors choose to provide the information and the medication necessary to humanely terminate the life of a dying patient, and some families choose to act on it.  If “Aunt Sarah’s” daughter did indeed up the dosage, easing her mother off into a peaceful death, it was an act of love and compassion.  And it was most certainly illegal.

And it would still be illegal under the terms of I-1000, the controversial Death with Dignity initiative on Washington’s ballot this fall, despite the dire exhortations of its opponents.

I-1000 does not authorize euthanasia or physician assisted suicide; it merely allows physicians, under certain narrow circumstances, to prescribe a lethal dose of medication to terminally ill patients for self-administration.  And it is not, as Oregon’s decade old measure has proven, a slippery slope toward legalizing the very common practice that shortened “Aunt Sarah’s” suffering, let alone a path toward Soylent Green style suicide centers.

To argue that one inevitably leads to the other ignores two realities, the first, a political reality in which I-1000, as limited as it is, will barely pass if it passes at all, a context within even the thought of a successful euthanasia initiative is a political fantasy.  The second reality is that individuals, families and physicians already make these difficult and painful decisions everyday—as was made in the case of “Aunt Sarah”—unregulated, un-talked about, and totally outside the law.

We cannot prevent terminally ill patients from choosing to end their own lives, we can merely make this option more difficult and more painful for them and their families.  Likewise, while our current legal prohibition on mercy saves no lives, it does promote suffering, discouraging some doctors from prescribing adequate pain relief out of fear of legal consequences should the patient or family choose to administer a lethal dose.  It is a prohibition that simply does not work, and as such, if the goal is to protect the vulnerable, it is a goal that would be better served by pragmatic regulations than by moral platitudes.

Initiative opponents scoff at a “right to die,” but what they’re really telling us is that there is only one right way to die: apparently, of natural causes, no matter how long or how painful the death.  Personally, having watched close family members suffer through exactly that, I know what decision I would make in a similar situation, with or without my government’s blessing.

A terminally ill patient, under current law, can legally buy themselves a handgun and ammunition, but not a lethal dose of medication.  Go figure.  And then go out and vote Yes on I-1000.

See, a video like this… this is exactly the kind of race-baiting dirty trick you’d expect from the Republicans… and we’d never want to stoop to their level, even if it meant the difference between winning or losing an election… so whatever you do, do NOT, under any circumstances, pass it along.  Do not email this link to friends or coworkers, and do not embed this video in your own websites.  Because if you do, this video might go viral, especially in southern toss-up states like Virginia and North Carolina where it might do the most damage, and we just wouldn’t want that to happen.  Because it would be wrong.  Very, very wrong.

And while you’re at it, that email that’s been going around containing the list of books Sarah Palin tried to get banned from the Wasilla library? It’s not true. Sure, Palin did repeatedly ask the city librarian how one would go about banning books, and when she replied to the mayor that she would not be all right with such a request, Palin demanded her resignation.  But as far as we know, Palin never issued any written list of the books she wanted banned.

So please, please, if you’ve received this damaging, slightly misleading email, delete it, and absolutely positively do not pass it on. (And if you haven’t received the email, under no circumstances should you conveniently copy it from here.) Indeed, the very worst thing you could do would be to forward this email to your entire address book—repeatedly—because to do so would be dishonest, irresponsible and politically effective… you know, just like that bogus “Obama is a Muslim” email that’s likely cost him untold numbers of the “I believe anything I read in my email” vote.  And we’re better than that.

So the black dude fathering Bristol’s baby and the banned book things…?  Shhhh.

I’m just sayin’….

The Seattle Times reports today that the US Chamber of Commerce is lying on Dave Reichert’s behalf in radio ads that falsely accuse Darcy Burner of supporting “higher taxes on families with children.”  Imagine that.

The radio spot, which started airing Friday in local markets, is part of a $20 million national ad buy with which the U.S. Chamber is supporting some House and Senate candidates.

And that’s on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars the Chamber has spent over the past half decade or so, backing conservative, pro-business candidates in local judicial, executive and legislative races nationwide.  We’re talking maybe half a billion dollars from the US Chamber alone.

One of the criticisms I’ve heard of Darcy’s 2006 campaign was her failure to effectively fight back against the many lies that were told by Reichert and his surrogates, but the 2008 campaign seems much more responsive.  In fact, they’ve already cut a new radio ad that will start running tonight on both KOMO and KIRO:

[audio:http://horsesass.org/wp-content/uploads/burner_special_interest_friends_v2.mp3]

It’ll take of lot of work for Darcy to win in November, but job one is refuting the lies before they have time to take hold.

So now that NBC has caved by demoting Keith Olbermann, once again we have to recognize the Orwellian quality of the American media landscape. Glenn Greenwald notes:

That’s because the Right has created a reality where anyone who isn’t explicitly Rush Limbaugh is deemed to be a “liberal” (hence, Donaldson likely qualifies) and no actual liberal ever needs to be included. That’s how we have a “liberal media” where the principal rule is that actual liberals are systematically excluded, and it’s why the ascent of Olbermann (who is, in fact, far more of a Bush critic than a doctrinaire liberal) has created such turmoil — because it violates that central rule prohibiting liberals from appearing in the Liberal Media.

This is standard operating procedure for conservative candidates and supporters up and down the ticket. If a Republican candidate for say, the Legislature is caught telling bald-faced lies, they simply blame “the liberal media” and their unthinking supporters simply don’t have to deal with the fact their chosen candidate is a flat-out liar. (And by lies, let’s be clear: every politician puts spin on things. I’m talking about just making stuff up, like fake statistics and credentials or saying one opposed a spending project when one supported it. Just for example. And no, it’s not the same as the parliamentary games Republicans are so fond of playing, where cheap procedural stunts are used with an eye to future political attacks.)

One can argue that the telling of bald-faced lies while daring anyone to call them on it is now the raison d’etre of the Republican Party. I mean, the whole “lower taxes and less spending” thing isn’t exactly working out for them, given wars and economic scandals. The more libertarian wing is just as disgusted with them as we are.

Since Democratic candidates will rarely resort to actually calling their opponents liars, as it is still somehow considered bad manners, the GOP tactic of bald-faced lies works to engage and enrage the GOP base, cow some media outlets, and neuter Democrats. The Republicans learned a savage and twisted lesson from Watergate: you can’t get away with criminality and corruption if there is an objective press. The ability to lie and get away with it is fundamental to the GOP approach.

When confronted with their lies, Republicans start screaming and hyper-ventilating about “elitism” or “bias” or whatever their baloney of the moment happens to be, whether it’s Freedom Fries or Brain Dead Women Who Smile. And far too often, the suits who hire journalists retreat into reflexive “both sides do it” excuse-making.

I know, I know. Telling the truth isn’t enough, as George Lakoff argues. But I’m not a social scientist nor am I clever enough to be framing things all the time. All I know is that in a world of two second sound bytes complex discussions stand little chance. Thus the Republicans’ moronic chanting of “drill, drill drill” as if energy policy were a football game. It’s the triumph of the Know Nothings paired with a soupçon of two minute hate.

It’s no secret that American journalism is in a bad way, and at a (perhaps final) crossroads. The GOP is daring journalists to expose the lies or STFU. It’s worth noting that there will continue to be individual journalists who rise to the challenge, but overall the traditional media has yet to recover from the yellow journalism it engaged in during the lie-up to war. But hey, first they came for the journalists and I’m not a journalist and all that.

Don’t get me wrong. When Democrats lie, obfuscate or otherwise engage in bad actions, they should be called on it. If they had been held more accountable maybe some of the outrages of the last seven years might have been mitigated a wee bit.

Sadly, General-Electric-NBC has made its position clear. Repeat the zombie lie enough and they will give in.

You have to wonder how many other outlets will do the same.

There is a remarkable guest column in the Seattle P-I from the Colorado state trooper charged with driving Gov. Chris Gregoire around Denver during the Democratic National Convention… a first person evaluation of the Governor from a self-described Republican.  While he doesn’t necessarily agree with Gov. Gregoire on every issue, he was impressed with her both as a person and a politician:

Gregoire may be a strong advocate for her party, but she is not a “partisan” in the way the term has recently become defined.

[…] I’ve spent much of my 28 years in law enforcement as an investigator, interacting with thousands of people and making judgments on their truthfulness and character.

My conclusions after spending time as a “fly on the wall” with Gregoire is that she is a person of integrity who has the interest of her state at heart and puts that interest above her own.

I too have had the opportunity for a little face time with Gov. Gregoire, and I too don’t agree with her on all the issues (particularly tax issues, where she has failed to take the lead on moving toward a more progressive and sustainable tax structure).  And I have drawn the exact same conclusions.

Indeed, my biggest criticism of the Governor and the way she has run both her office and her campaign is that she has not been partisan enough. At times it feels as if she thinks that she is above politics, reluctant to dirty her hands in what at times can be a very dirty business… a reluctance that can be a terrible liability when facing an opponent who clearly has no compunction about about wallowing in the mud.

This is why it makes sense to give tax cuts to the rich – because they know how to put their dollars to good use…

In completely unrelated news, two Washington State medical marijuana patients have court dates tomorrow (both out on the peninsula). The Cannabis Defense Coalition has both listings in their event calendar. I don’t have details on either case just yet, but I’ll be following up with whatever happens.

Nine days ago in this space, I took a lot of heat for pronouncing John McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as politically “brilliant.”

My assumption, of course, was that McCain had actually seriously vetted the most important decision of his campaign (I was wrong), but, scandals and ugliness in Palin’s past notwithstanding, that judgment is looking pretty sound. I praised the selection as giving McCain his best, perhaps only, shot at winning in November, and after this week’s convention and media coverage, the McCain strategy has become pretty clear: make November a referendum on personalities, not issues or records. Over the next eight weeks we’ll hear lots from the Republican camp about McCain’s war heroism and Palin’s ability to gut a moose, and virtually nothing about how they would actually govern — because to talk honestly about that would guarantee the White House to Obama.

So is that strategy — and Palin’s selection — working as planned? Judge for yourself. This weekend, from the Sunday chat shows to the daily newspapers to the blogosphere, it’s all about Palin. Meanwhile, an administration that has perfected the art of quietly letting slip bad news in the slow news cycles of the weekend let slip Friday night the worst news of the year — maybe of the decade (and yes, 9-11 was this decade). And thanks to Sarah, it is going all but unremarked:

The Treasury Department is expected to announce as early as this weekend a plan to bail out and recapitalize collapsing home mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in one of the biggest government rescues in U.S. history. […]

According to media reports citing unnamed sources close to the negotiations, the government is expected to take at least temporary control of Fannie Mae … and place the troubled firms under the umbrella of the Federal Housing Finance Agency. […]

Fannie and Freddie hold roughly $1.5 trillion in direct debt, guarantees on what could be as large as $5 trillion and possibly off-balance sheet obligations that could reach $3 trillion, according to recent estimates from Ladenburg Thalmann & Co.

This is a disaster of epic proportions. In the best case scenario, we’re looking at a federal bailout that will make the savings and loan bailouts of 20 years ago (remember the Keating Five?) look like an ordinary earmark for Wasilla. At worst, the federal government just bought itself a major depression:

Today, we are back to the 1930s with large financial institutions reaping huge profits and paying obscene salaries to their CEOs in good times and with government bailing them out with public money when things turn sour.

And that’s not even the worst part. The takeover was reportedly forced by the foreign central banks that own much of America’s debt, particularly the Chinese.

Remember when red-meat conservatives used to rail (rightly) about the “red menace” of China? Well, while John McCain was crowing about his empty (and illusory) “victory” in Iraq Thursday night, his party’s government was capitulating completely to a far more serious global adversary on an issue that will likely spell ruin for tens of millions of Americans. And it was all made possible by economic policies McCain has enthusiastically signed off on, and a deregulatory law (the Commodity Futures Modernization Act) pushed through Congress by McCain head financial advisor and campaign co-chair Phil “Nation of Whiners” Gramm.

So much for “Country First.”

In any educated country, this news would drive a stake through the heart of the McCain campaign (as well as earning Bush unassailable honors as the Worst President Ever). But most Americans don’t even know what a “secondary mortgage market” is, let alone why it’s important, let alone why this news is so devastating. Our media certainly doesn’t help: instead of explaining it to us, we’re being inundated this weekend with moose drool. Which, absent the particulars, was (along with firing up the conservative base, and perhaps snagging a few credulous Hillary supporters) the entire logic behind the Palin pick: bad for the country, but good for McCain and friends.

That shouldn’t surprise us: it’s how Republicans govern. Cronyism and “America Last” is the overriding theme throughout the entire, ruinous eight-year Bush kleptocracy. And now taxpayers will be bailing out all the (well-heeled) decision-makers who exploited banking deregulation, kept all the fabulous profits, and now are sticking us with the inevitably staggering losses — in a course of action forced on the United States by a foreign adversary.

The American Empire may just have been permanently buried (though we may expect what Dick Cheney might call the “last throes” for some time to come). Thanks in large part to Sarah Palin, with a big assist from a lazy, celebrity-based media culture, the American people mostly aren’t even noticing. But when the economy subsequently tanks — and it will — we’ll notice in a big way. Republicans are simply hoping that will be some time after November 4.