Archives for May 2009

What Ben said, in his thorough fisking of Michael Ennis’s misleading anti-transit guest column in today’s Seattle Times.  (Light rail is going to electrocute the I-90 bridge? I mean, really? Could the folks at the Washington Policy Center get anymore ridiculous?)

And… um… I don’t tell Ennis how to build Enumclaw’s transportation system, so why’s he telling us how to build ours?

Fox Noise still just makes stuff up.

SUMMARY: Fox & Friends hosts repeatedly touted the allegation that Steven Rattner “threatened to ruin” Perella Weinberg’s reputation, as Dave Briggs put it, if it continued to oppose the Obama administration’s Chrysler bankruptcy plan. Only hours later did anyone on the program mention that the administration and the investment firm have both denied the allegation.

And then the lie spins its way out into the conservative wank-o-sphere so conservative wankers can get their panties all in a bunch about something that didn’t even happen in the first place.

Way to rebuild your brand, guys.

Only fools believe Fox Noise about anything, and I don’t think the American people are in the mood for fools right now. I mean really, the guy with the annoying voice who sells television products late at night is more believable.

I’m with Joel, in that I didn’t agree a whole lot with Jack Kemp.  I freely admit that he and his brand of economic libertarianism were awfully compelling, but I could never buy into the most alluring feature of his Ayn Rand/Chicago School style Reaganomics:  its simplicity.

It was hard for me to believe, as Kemp genuinely did, that tax cuts for the rich would eventually trickle down to the rest of us, and I’m confident in asserting that the past couple decades of an ever widening economic divide have proven my doubts well founded. So why, considering how much I opposed his policies and dreaded his unfulfilled ascendancy, did I not only bother to briefly commemorate his passing, but follow up with this second post?

Yes, as I previously wrote, in light of the GOP’s recent and disastrous collapse, I do view libertarians like Kemp (and former Massachusetts Governor William Weld) as a tremendous missed opportunity for his party to seize upon a potent political theme that could have kept Republicans competitive, if not dominant, for decades to come.  And I’m thankful for their fumble.

But Kemp’s passing also deserves notice because he represented the sort of politician who was rare even in his day, and who is almost entirely absent amongst the leadership of the 21st century Republican Party… one whose policies you can hate, but whose character you can respect.  Perhaps it was his competitive experience as a top athlete, or perhaps it was simply who he was, but unlike many Republicans today, Kemp always seemed able to distinguish between an opponent and an enemy.

I don’t remember Kemp ever attempting to paint Democrats and their supporters as cowards, traitors, terrorists or worse, and so he never earned the type of enmity by example that liberals like me now justly hold for so many of his Republican colleagues. And if more Republicans had followed Kemp’s example in both substance and style, I wonder if his party would be in the dire straits it finds itself in today?

State lawmakers have put a lot of faith in deep-bore technology and the latest advances that, we’re told, will make the Viaduct tunnel possible. But apparently, not too much faith.  That’s why as a condition of providing a couple billion dollars of funding in the recently passed transportation budget, legislators threw in a provision that requires Seattle taxpayers to pull out their checkbooks for any cost overruns.

But you know… what are the chances of that?  Transportation mega-projects always come in on time and on budget, and those giant tunnel boring machines?  They’re as infallible as the Pope.

On Beacon Hill, Christine Miller-Panganiban said she was doing a little gardening in her front yard a couple of Sundays ago, when she noticed a mysterious hole. She stuck her shovel  down. It didn’t feel the bottom.

Her husband got a piece of tubing seven feet long. Still they couldn’t feel the bottom. Only when she looked down it with a flashlight did she find that it went down 21 feet. “Oh my God,” she thought, and more when she realized that suddenly there was a deep void that now only went down and down, but extended under her house.

The hole was apparently created when Sound Transit was boring the tunnel for the new light rail line. On Monday, Sound Transit spokesman Bruce Gray acknowledged the agency has found seven underground voids caused by its boring machine within a couple of blocks east of the future Beacon Hill station, though the one in Miller-Panganiban’s front yard was the only one visible from the surface. Aside from causing concern in the neighborhood, he said testing for them and filling them would cost the agency up to $1 million.Oops. Apparently, the boring machine hit a layer of sand, which flowed into the tunnel leaving a gap in its place.

What kind of gap? “An empty gap,” Sound Transit’s Bruce Gray explains to us laymen.

But let’s not worry about all those boring details. The scientifically minded folks at the Discovery Institute assure us that recent technological advances make it possible to dig the world’s largest diameter deep bore tunnel, straight under downtown Seattle, cheaper, faster and more reliably than ever before possible. So unforeseen and costly technical hurdles — like, you know… sand — couldn’t possibly happen here.

Oh wait… it just did.

– Scott Sunde writes in the PI about the upcoming attempt to extradite Marc Emery to Seattle to face drug distribution charges for selling marijuana seeds to Americans. Not even pot, just seeds. The extradition is set for the first week in June. As one of Emery’s 4,999 Facebook friends, I have to admit that it feels weird to be so closely connected to someone who our government considers the largest drug kingpin in Canada. Our laws really couldn’t be any stupider.

– KUOW’s Weekday program did an excellent hour on drug policy [mp3]. King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg was part of the panel, and I have to say, if Republicans want to figure out how to become relevant again, they need to listen to that guy. Yes, using science and reason on topics like drug policy will make the base of the Republican Party mad as hell, but if you don’t do it, that base will just keep shrinking. At some point, you need to dump the loonies and start making sense to independent voters again.

– The arrogance and ignorance within Kitsap County’s Prosector’s Office is starting to get even more attention across the country.

– As a new father, this news item was extra terrifying for me.

Speaking of being out of touch with the will of the people, my occasional KOMO colleague John Carlson has proposed solving our state budget crisis by legalizing slot machines and taxing the profits at 20 percent.

Um… been there, done that, John.  As recently as 2004, Washington state voters broadly rejected I-892’s slot machine measure by a landslide 62 to 38 percent margin, with the initiative failing in 34 of 39 counties.  Under the late Norm Maleng’s leadership, the opposition brought together a coalition so diverse that it found me sitting next to Jeff Kemp at a strategy session, and when you have a tent that big, it’s hard to imagine John effectively working this issue from the outside.

Voters just don’t want slot machines in their neighborhoods.

But there’s one other interesting, if unintentional, point in John’s column, for in talking up casino gambling as an alternative to a sales tax increase or even (gasp) a high-earners income tax, our state’s leading conservative pundit, and one time Republican gubernatorial nominee, appears to all but concede on the question of whether additional revenues are needed.

I opposed casinos and gambling a decade ago but the tribes have made most of my arguments obsolete. The question on the table now is whether the state allows private competition and thereby creates a new revenue source to help our schools and keep down taxes and tuition…

Huh. That sure sounds to me like John is arguing that we actually need a “new revenue source to help our schools and keep down taxes and tuition,” which is a huge departure from Tim Eyman’s I-892, which promised voters a substantial tax cut in exchange for legalizing slot machines.

Welcome to the reality based community, John. Now if only you’d join me in supporting a new revenue source that has a realistic chance of being approved by voters.

Sigh.

Larry Stickney, president of the Washington Values Alliance, has a noon appointment to file a referendum that, if passed, would repeal Washington’s most recent domestic partnership bill, says Washington Secretary of State spokesman David Ammons.

But who, exactly, is running the show?

It’s unclear which group will actually run the referendum. Faith and Freedom had been fundraising for the referendum, but the group, led by the carpetbagging and tax-evading Gary Randall, may not run the campaign after all. “The latest buzz we’re getting is that it will be run by the Washington Values Alliance,” says Brian Vysltra, a spokesman for the Secretary of State.

For more on the skeevy nature of Faith and Freedom, check out this diary at Washblog by poster Lurleen.

The major recipient of PAC expense payouts was Northern Concepts LLC. Northern Concepts LLC is owned by the Faith & Freedom PAC Vice Chair and former F&F lobbyist, Jon Russell. He and his wife reportedly “run the business from their home”. The PAC paid Mr. Vice Chair $3,790 in “event planning” fees. The previous year, he had received a Warning Letter from the Public Disclosure Commission dated March 8, 2007 for failure to file his monthly lobbyist expense report (L-2) for January, 2007. Commission files relating to Jon’s tenure with FFN contain several memos between himself and the Commission regarding his mistakes in depositing funds in the wrong accounts and failure to submit reports on time. For the latter he was assessed a fine on June 3, 2008.

It’s the endless multi-level marketing nature of conservatism that’s the problem. A few rich and ultra-conservative nutballs pay the wannabes to do their dirty work for them, and the wannabes call themselves bidnessmen. Let’s call it “the Tim Eyman model.”

We should just take up a collection and pay these people to sell diet formulas and steam cleaners on late night television, give them a Chamber card, maybe they’d go away finally.

Survey USA recently posted the latest results of its Senate approval ratings tracking poll, and Senate Guru has a concise analysis of what the reelection landscape looks like for Washington’s Sen. Patty Murray:

Patty Murray	Jan. ’09	Feb. ’09	Mar. ’09	Apr. ’09
Approve	55	54	54	54
Disapprove	36	37	34	32

Senator Murray’s numbers remain remarkably stable and quite safe with little Republican opposition on the horizon.

I dunno, perhaps after losing her King County Executive race, Susan Hutchison will offer herself up for another beating, this time at the hands of the diminutive Sen. Murray, but for the life of me, I can’t think of any other prominent Republican who might be willing to jump into the race.  Certainly not Dino Rossi, who seems contentedly devoted to making himself some more money. And while I’ve heard rumors that Rep. Dave Reichert might be considering a challenge, I have a hard time believing he’s that stupid.

No, as things stand, the only Republican with a hope of taking down Sen. Murray is State Attorney General Rob McKenna, and I’d be shocked if he isn’t wisely biding his time in preparation for a 2012 run at the governor’s mansion.

Of course, there’s plenty of time for things to change.  The economy could go even further down the toilet, causing voters to blame President Obama and the Democratic Congress.  Or some other disaster, political or otherwise, could strike.

But Sen. Murray has always been a much more adept politician than her opponents have ever acknowledged (publicly, or to themselves,) and to describe WA’s Republican bench as weak is to deceptively imply that the state GOP actually has a bench.  It’s more like a three-legged stool.  With two of its legs missing.

Local R’s sure do enjoy mocking Murray as the dumbest Senator in the other Washington, yet they can’t ever manage to scrape up a credible challenger.  Huh.  I wonder what that says about them?

What an odd editorial.  The headline says “Voters should have a say in how president is elected,” yet the editorial argues against the direct election of the president, and for maintaining the electoral college system that propelled George W. Bush into the White House despite losing the popular vote.

Yeah, I know, what the Seattle Times editorial board says it is saying is that voters here should get a direct vote on whether we want to be part of a national compact assuring that voters here get a direct vote on the presidency. But by pushing for a referendum or initiative to overturn this recently passed legislation, the Times is also arguing against the legislation itself.

This was a big thing done with little public notice, and is disturbing in its implications.

The unsigned editorial’s author doesn’t bother to explain exactly what these disturbing implications are… nor how such a “big thing” slipped by with so “little public notice.”  As VGood astutely observes in the editorial’s comment thread:

So Seattle Times, you have people that cover Olympia, how come this wasn’t given more press in the Times?

Touché, VGood.  Touché.  The Senate bill was introduced in January.  A similar House bill first received a public hearing way back on February 5.  The Times had three months to warn readers about the bill’s disturbing implications… how much more “public notice” do they need?

Personally, I’d rather presidential candidates consider my vote just as important as those from crucial swing states like Ohio and Florida. And if I were an Eastern Washington Republican, I imagine I’d be damn happy to know that my vote for WA’s eleven electors wasn’t made futile by a sea of votes from dirty, Seattle liberals.  Perhaps that explains why an overwhelming 77 percent of Washington voters support National Popular Vote legislation?

But, you know, nobody has their finger on the pulse of the Washington electorate like those populists at the Times, so maybe I have this issue, and the politics surrounding it, completely wrong?

Last week’s contest was won by State Rep. Geoff Simpson, who emailed me the correct answer of San Diego. In honor of the first win by an elected official, here’s this week’s picture, good luck!

Former Republican Congressman and NFL quarterback Jack Kemp died today at age 73, apparently of cancer.  My condolences to his family.

There was a time when I feared Kemp could be a transformational political figure, but that was before the theocratic wing of his party seized control, relegating Kemp and his fellow libertarians to the sidelines.

Hey Republicans… how’s that working out for you?

This is pure awesomeness:

Last year, when law professor Joel Reidenberg wanted to show his Fordham University class how readily private information is available on the Internet, he assigned a group project. It was collecting personal information from the Web about himself.

This year, after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia made public comments that seemingly may have questioned the need for more protection of private information, Reidenberg assigned the same project. Except this time Scalia was the subject, the prof explains to the ABA Journal in a telephone interview.

His class turned in a 15-page dossier that included not only Scalia’s home address, home phone number and home value, but his food and movie preferences, his wife’s personal e-mail address and photos of his grandchildren, reports Above the Law.

And, as Scalia himself made clear in a statement to Above the Law, he isn’t happy about the invasion of his privacy:

“Professor Reidenberg’s exercise is an example of perfectly legal, abominably poor judgment. Since he was not teaching a course in judgment, I presume he felt no responsibility to display any,” the justice says, among other comments.

– The two individuals indicted along with Marc Emery for selling marijuana seeds to American customers came down to Seattle from B.C. this week to enter a plea of guilty after reaching an agreement that would keep them from having to serve jail time. The formal sentencing will be on July 17. Hopefully, we’ll see a new U.S. Attorney for Western Washington who will have the sense to finally drop the charges against Emery and his partners and focus our limited resources on real criminals.

– Jacob Sullum looks at the potential for disaster as we plan to step up our efforts in Afghanistan.

– The Obama Administration moves to end the disparity between crack and powder cocaine penalties.

– The Cannabis Defense Coalition has posted its calendar of court dates. Over the next two months, there will be hearings in King, Snohomish, Mason, Okanagan, Grant, Stevens, and Kitsap Counties. I don’t know much about any of these cases, and some of them may be against individuals who were doing things outside of the medical marijuana law, but having observers in each of these courtrooms has been a tremendous help in making sure that any valid patients don’t get railroaded. If you have any interest in being an observer, please contact the CDC to find out about carpooling with others.

– If you thought that Obama was serious about not staffing his administration with any anti-science ideologues, you might want to think again.

– I almost missed the news of Pontiac’s demise. My dad, who has reliably bought only American cars since 1970, gave me his 1989 Grand Prix (manual transmission!) while I was in college. The Ann Arbor winters were rough on that thing, and within two years, much of the gray paint had peeled off the roof. I took it into a dealership in Lansing (where I was living for a summer) where I was told, “sorry, the car’s more than 5 years old, it’s not covered anymore”. My next car was a used BMW.

– And even more off-topic for this blog, my wife is a huge fan of Jon and Kate Plus 8, so I’ve been hearing a lot about this all week. All I know is that I’m looking forward to the episode where all hell breaks loose at a Pennsylvania Chuck E Cheese.

The regional manager of the San Francisco Federal Reserve, Craig Nolte, told an audience in Vancouver this week that there’s still trouble in them there ARM’s. From The Columbian:

The high rate of foreclosure has made Clark County No. 1 out of all 39 counties in Washington state in the first quarter of 2009. The problem could get worse before it gets better, given the lax lending standards and high number of adjustable rate mortgages issued during the 2005 home-selling boom, Nolte said.

“It’s not all subprime loans that are the problem. It’s mainly subprimes with ARMs,” he said.

Adjustable rate mortgages made up more than 23 percent of the area’s home lending while Clark County’s housing market was hot. Now those homeowners are overstretched as their mortgage rates adjust, which can raise the average payment by up to $300 a month.

And as Atrios is pointing out this morning, the problem is likely to get worse before it gets better.

Tanta, who is sadly no longer with us, in an old post reminds me to use the correct terminology to describe the problem. Option ARM rates are going to be recasting soon and in increasing numbers. That’s the magic moment when people can no longer make minimum payments, when they can longer make interest-only or neg-amortization payments.

When that magic moment comes, all of those people are going to look at how high their now unaffordable mortgage payments are. Then they’ll look at how much their house is actually worth relative to how much though owe. Then, maybe, they’ll try one of the various initiatives to modify their mortgage terms. And then, quite likely, they’ll jut walk away.

And these re-casts are coming in 2010 and 2011 in big numbers.

The point being, as Atrios succinctly says, is that’s why the failure to put in place cramdowns is so troublesome.

The banksters stopped it, and if nothing is done we’re all going to get to enjoy another round of mortgage-related calamity, presumably with similarly damaging results to the larger economy. So meanwhile idiots can talk about socialism and guns and gays and whatever, but the regular citizenry needs both the financial system and the larger economy to function well.

It’s absolutely fascinating, too, how some bidness guys ‘n gals think this is all just a bump in the road, and that everything will go back to what they thought was normal soon. Thus the silly talk lately here in Clark County from Republican county commissioners about how important it is to re-inflate the bubble to provide jobs, as if the larger systemic problem know colloquially as “big shitpile” doesn’t exist. Who the heck is going to be buying lots of new houses now, when the market is being depressed so badly and there seems to be no end in sight?

Beyond that, neo-liberal economic policy has been an utter and complete disaster. Continuing to pursue it, as the Obama administration and Congress are doing when it comes to the financial sector, is likely to produce the same result. Most regular people who screw up their jobs horribly get fired, but the banksters get our money and get to continue making a mess of things. Awesome.

It’s worth keeping in mind Republicans want the Obama administration to fail, so of course they are going to fight hard for the status quo ante. We still need a change we can believe in on this front, and if it doesn’t happen by the end of the year, things may get very interesting again.