Archives for July 2010

Guns don’t kill people. Oh wait… yes they do:

Los Angeles police say a 9-year-old boy playing with a loaded gun accidentally shot and killed his 2-year-old brother. … [H]omicide detectives interviewed family members and determined that the gun had gone off while the 9-year-old was playing with it.

If there weren’t a gun in the house, that child would still be alive. That’s all I’m saying.

Tea Party Nation canceled their “unity” convention, scheduled for this coming weekend in Las Vegas, claiming it was just too damned hot.

“The heat in Las Vegas in July is keeping many who would like to participate from attending,” organizers wrote last month, earning them mockery far and wide. Organizers said Friday in their weekly newsletter, obtained by TPM, that the rescheduling is “being worked on” so people can plan to attend.

Uh-huh.

No doubt it’s scorching in Las Vegas this time of year, but that won’t stop me and a couple thousand other progressive bloggers and political activists from heading to Sin City the following weekend for Netroots Nation, our annual blogger confab.

I’m not particularly looking forward to a few days of 105+ degree heat… though I’m assured it’s a dry heat, and that they have this newfangled thing called “air conditioning.”

Last week’s contest was won by mlc1us. It was Arlington High School in Arlington, Massachusetts, where a student was fighting to have the Pledge of Allegiance recited in the school.

Here’s this week’s, good luck!

Deuteronomy 22:13-21
If a man takes a wife and, after lying with her, dislikes her and slanders her and gives her a bad name, saying, “I married this woman, but when I approached her, I did not find proof of her virginity,” then the girl’s father and mother shall bring proof that she was a virgin to the town elders at the gate.  The girl’s father will say to the elders, “I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her.  Now he has slandered her and said, ‘I did not find your daughter to be a virgin.’ But here is the proof of my daughter’s virginity.” Then her parents shall display the cloth before the elders of the town, 18 and the elders shall take the man and punish him. They shall fine him a hundred shekels of silver, and give them to the girl’s father, because this man has given an Israelite virgin a bad name. She shall continue to be his wife; he must not divorce her as long as he lives.

If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death.

Discuss.

Okay, I have to ask: do any teenage girls get their fashion advice from Seattle Times editorials?

In a guest editorial today in PubliCola, Seattle City Council president Richard Conlin says the legislative provision pinning Big Bore tunnel cost overruns on Seattle taxpayers is much ado about nothing:

Much ado has been made about a state legislative provision saying that costs in excess of $2.8 billion will be paid by “property owners in the Seattle area”. No city council member supports a policy shift that would force Seattle property owners or local municipalities to pay cost overruns on a project managed by the state.

The Seattle City Attorney and legal professionals have clearly stated that this vague and unprecedented language is legally unenforceable.  The legislature would have to take additional steps that have no precedent in state history to actually figure out how to charge a local government or property owners.  Such steps would be vigorously opposed by all local governments around the state—and the work that the council is doing to develop regional and statewide partnerships positions us well to work effectively with these allies.  Frankly, the issue serves only as a way to alarm and divide Seattleites.

Okay Richard, fine. I trust you on that. But instead of making these assertions in an online editorial, how about making it official? Why not just have the council pass a resolution restating everything you just said here, that the cost overrun provision is illegal and unenforceable, and that the council would vigorously oppose any effort to impose such on Seattle taxpayers. Hell, pass an ordinance prohibiting Seattle from paying for any cost overruns.

Then you, the rest of the council and City Attorney Pete Holmes can stand behind the Mayor as he announces his intention to sign the contracts, but with this caveat in place. (And if the Mayor still won’t sign the contracts without legislative action that he’s not gonna get, well then, that’s his problem.)

The way to get things moving is to help Mayor McGinn to live up to his campaign promise on this issue. You know, help him save a little face.

Is that so hard?

As a legislator, State Rep. Geoff Simpson is absolutely one of my favorite Dems in Olympia. He’s not just reliably progressive, he’s outspokenly so, and in a swing district no less. Where many other Dems — even some pretty good Dems — tend to couch their votes and their public statements with an eye toward their next reelection campaign, Rep. Simpson doesn’t seem to even give shit. Then he fights like hell during the campaign, and somehow manages to win.

You could say he’s one of the few Dems in Olympia with balls.

So it really pains me to read the news that Simpson has been charged with a gross misdemeanor assault stemming from an incident at Seattle Children’s Hospital where his ex-wife attempted to keep him out of a room where their 12-year-old daughter was recovering from surgery.

According to the police report a social worker with Children’s Hospital witnessed the scene and her description of the incident matched what the ex-wife told the officer.

The social worker told the officer she saw Simpson “barrel” into the room, push his wife out and shut the door. According to the social worker’s statement in the police report Simpson closed the blinds and “barricaded himself inside using his body.” The social worker’s statement noted he was yelling inside the room and would not open the door.

I have to admit that if Simpson were a Republican I’d be more than rubbing his nose in this — it’s kinda my job — but I wouldn’t be having much fun. I have empathy for all the parties involved in this incident, Simpson, his ex-wife and their daughter, and I take no joy from reporting (or even exploiting) such personal family tragedies. Corruption and hypocrisy, that’s different, but this kinda stuff is always painful to write about.

And it leaves a lot of Democrats with a terrible dilemma. Rep. Simpson is a great legislator… an effective, outspoken progressive leader who always seems to have the interests of working families at heart. He’s not just another vote in the caucus, and would be hugely missed in Olympia.

And yet, domestic violence, whatever the circumstances (and for a moment, put yourself in Simpson’s shoes and imagine how you might react should your ex-wife block you from entering your daughter’s hospital room) is not something that can be dismissed lightly. I don’t know much more about this incident than what I’ve read online, but I have to trust Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes that his office wouldn’t be prosecuting if they didn’t feel it worthy of prosecution.

So is this enough to ditch Simpson, not only handing over his swing district to the Republicans, but costing us one of our most passionate and effective voices in the state House?

I dunno. I guess I’ll have to wait to learn all the details, and see what Simpson ultimately says for himself. In the wake of an incident two years ago in which charges were dropped after he spent a night in jail, Simpson made a point of reiterating his support for domestic violence laws that left police with little discretion but to detain and charge him in response to a complaint from his ex-wife:

“I’ve thought a lot about this the past several weeks. I don’t like what happened to me and I didn’t like going to jail with all the unpleasantness associated with that. But I think that’s better than the alternative.”

The alternative being that domestic violence reports not be taken seriously enough by the police and the courts.

It’s a complicated issue. Almost as complicated as the dilemma this incident creates for Simpson’s many friends in the Democratic Party.

UPDATE:
Much is being made in the comment thread about this being Simpson’s second  domestic violence charge, but I think it’s important to note that the previous charges were dropped. According to the dismissal motion:

“… based on the alleged victim’s stated intentions for calling 911 at the time of the incident, there is no evidence that the alleged victim was calling 911 to specifically report a domestic violence incident or that the defendant would have reason to believe that she was calling to report domestic violence.”

As I explained at the time, police have little discretion when responding to what they believe to be a domestic violence complaint but to detain and charge the defendant, and for good reason. So while Simpson and his ex clearly have their problems, I’m not sure these two incidents are comparable.

Apparently, Rep. Jay Inslee has been following my coverage of Goldmark v. McKenna, even if most of our local media hasn’t:

“He [McKenna] seems to think he’s the Lands Commissioner, the Secretary of State, the Governor, and the AG,” Inslee said of his potential rival for Governor in 2012.

Huh. You’d think the press might find that interesting. Apparently not.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been highlighting for me a very interesting paradox in how we understand the concept of responsibility:

BP repeatedly disregarded safety problems, according to a new damning investigation from ProPublica that was copublished with The Washington Post. Documents about internal safety investigations leaked to ProPublica by “a person close to the company” show a pattern of neglect and a culture skewed toward silencing whistle-blowers.

The investigations described instances in which management flouted safety by neglecting aging equipment, pressured employees not to report problems, and cut short or delayed inspections to reduce production costs.

That article was from a month ago, even before Texas Congressman Joe Barton expressed regret that BP was being pressured to take responsibility for the spill with a $20 billion fund set aside to cover the damage.

We often point to how the law treats corporations as equals to individuals as a major problem that creates skewed outcomes within our legal system and a dangerous downstream effect on society. But I’m not sure that that alone captures the depth of the problem. The problem is that we have two separate notions of what it means to be responsible – and that individuals and corporations are held to very different standards.

We make a lot of laws in this country that focus on our individual behavior. We zap speeders on the freeway and set up red light cameras. We fine people for jaywalking or drinking a beer on the sidewalk. We make people wear helmets on motorcycles and seat belts in their cars. The value of these restrictions are sometimes debated (and I certainly don’t like some of them), but they almost always have the broad support of the public – and few politicians dare to challenge the necessity of these laws that require responsibility on our part, both to ourselves and others. Government is seen as being the hammer necessary to force people to be responsible citizens.

But when it came to the years leading up to the devastating oil spill that wrecked both the environment and the economy of the Gulf Coast, the government was completely hamstrung in its ability to get BP or its partners to exercise even a minimal amount of responsibility, or even punish them when their previous irresponsibility led to actual damage (like when the Texas City refinery blew up, killing 15 people).

Part of this happens through outright corruption, but part if it is also from a belief that if we hold companies responsible with regulations, we’ll make it too hard for them to succeed and move our economy forward. Following this idea to an extreme, we now treat corporations far more kindly than we treat individuals. It has become an internalized double-standard that government protects society by holding individuals responsible, but endangers society by holding corporations responsible.

This article from last weekend in the New York Times shows how easy it is for companies like the ones at the heart of the Gulf oil spill to exploit this tendency:

With federal officials now considering a new tax on petroleum production to pay for the cleanup, the industry is fighting the measure, warning that it will lead to job losses and higher gasoline prices, as well as an increased dependence on foreign oil.

But an examination of the American tax code indicates that oil production is among the most heavily subsidized businesses, with tax breaks available at virtually every stage of the exploration and extraction process.

According to the most recent study by the Congressional Budget Office, released in 2005, capital investments like oil field leases and drilling equipment are taxed at an effective rate of 9 percent, significantly lower than the overall rate of 25 percent for businesses in general and lower than virtually any other industry.

…

Jack N. Gerard, president of the American Petroleum Institute, warns that any cut in subsidies will cost jobs.

“These companies evaluate costs, risks and opportunities across the globe,” he said. “So if the U.S. makes changes in the tax code that discourage drilling in gulf waters, they will go elsewhere and take their jobs with them.”

Can you imagine if individuals were treated the way we treat oil companies? Sure, your honor, I killed a busload of children while driving drunk, but if you make me pay too step a penalty or force me to stop drinking and driving again, I’ll just take my productivity to another country!

Even within the White House, which is supposedly run by anti-business socialists, this skewed mindset has a foothold:

I was on Good Morning America this not-so-good morning, doing what I could. But I was struck by something that George Stephanopoulos said: he claimed to have been speaking to an administration official who asserted that what we need to get businesses investing is for business to know that the government has stopped — presumably, that means no new spending, no new regulation, whatever.

GS is a careful guy, so this must be true. And it’s shocking — not that people are saying this, but that someone inside the administration is saying it.

It’s garbage, of course: businesses are refusing to invest because they don’t see enough demand for their products. And administration economists know that it’s garbage. But obviously some people in the WH — I’m guessing a political person, but who knows — have bought the right-wing line hook, line, and sinker.

In the meantime, while we cower in fear of potentially spooking these fragile businesses who can’t survive unless government becomes completely subservient to their every whim, we can’t even extend unemployment benefits to the folks who aren’t being hired by any of these great, glorious businesses. And this may highlight the full extent of our double-standard. Politicians see spending money on subsidies for oil companies as being necessary to help our economy, but see spending money on the unemployed as a waste, even though the latter belief is completely baseless. It’s as if we could have the perfect economy by keeping the corporations perfectly happy but jettisoning all these pesky human beings weighing down the system.

It may be unfair to single out any one person, but state Sen. Ed Murray deserves a ton of a credit for the successful strategy by which Washington’s legislature has gradually expanded gay and lesbian rights over the past five years.

Rather than going for the big prize — marriage equality — and much to the disappointment of some activists, Murray has promoted a more patient and pragmatic political approach. In 2006, after 30 years of prior failure, Murray led the charge in finally adding sexual orientation to Washington’s anti-discrimination laws, only to follow up a year later by helping to pass our state’s historic domestic partnership bill. In 2008 the Legislature vastly expanded domestic partnerships, and in 2009 Murray helped passed what he dubbed the “Everything But Marriage Act,” granting to domestic partners all of the state rights, responsibilities and protections legally associated with marriage.

Is “Everything But Marriage” really everything but marriage? Symbolically, no, but in a state where just five years ago one could be legally denied a job, a loan or a lease just on the suspicion of being a little faggy, it’s a huge step toward that goal. And, as Murray has pointed out on numerous occasions, calling domestic partnerships “marriage” still wouldn’t afford same-sex partners the many rights and benefits that are denied them under our federal Defense Of Marriage Act.

Until, maybe, today.

In a decision that seemed to take a lot of observers by surprise, a U.S. District Court Judge in Massachusetts ruled part of DOMA unconstitutional in that it interferes with states’ rights to define marriage. And while no doubt litigation will continue for months if not years before the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately settles the question, even the possibility of dismantling DOMA’s restrictions either in Congress or in the courts, is sure to spark demand for full marriage equality here in Washington state.

Is there the political will to take that final step? For the moment, I kinda doubt it. But should the federal DOMA’s demise come sooner than expected, it’s hard to imagine how marriage equality won’t become a dominant issue in future legislative sessions, whatever the political cost.

Lost in the debate over how best to use the remaining two acres of Seattle Center’s Fun Forest is the fact that the site is already home to a popular, rent-paying, job-producing attraction: the, um, Fun Forest.

Yeah sure, I know the hipsters and aging hipsters and yuppies and cultural elitists who dominated last night’s hearing all look down their nose at kitchy amusements and carnival rides, but since the opening days of the 1962 World’s Fair, the Fun Forest has been as much a part of the Seattle Center as the Space Needle that looms above it. And the family owned business that runs it is in no rush leave; they’d love to secure a long term lease, but they’re happy to operate on a year-to-year basis if that’s what works best for the city.

Much was made last night by Chihuly proponents about how their proposal is the only one that won’t require a public subsidy, but even in its reduced footprint, the Fun Forest is already producing about $250,000 a year in rent, taxes and concession fees, while employing 30 people in season. So honestly, what’s the rush?

I know the Fun Forest doesn’t fit into the Master Plan that calls for its removal, but neither does a paid-admission, for-profit glass gallery/gift shop/catering hall. And since it’s already producing revenues while providing residents and tourists a much needed family-friendly amenity, what’s the harm in leaving it in place for another year while we get to have a real public debate about the best use for the site? I mean, it’s not like it’s a vacant lot gathering abandoned cars or homeless encampments. It’s the Fun Forest for chrisakes. Kids love it!

I’m told the Wright family is a bit insulted by the city’s failure to embrace their proposal, and have threatened to pull out if a deal isn’t signed soon. But surely, if Ye Olde Chihuly Shoppe makes such good business sense to them now, it would still make good business sense a year from now, so it’s hard to take such hardball tactics seriously… especially when the guaranteed revenue from their paid admission “museum” isn’t all that much higher than what is already being generated by an attraction that has catered to Seattle families for two generations.

Yeah, I know… it’s hard to take something seriously when it has the word “Fun” in its title. But for all the arguments for and against the Chihuly proposal, I’ve never heard anybody attempt to explain what is so godawful about the status quo.

David Frum criticizing a Sarah Palin ad today [emphasis mine]:

Here’s Sarah Palin’s new ad. Lots of images of the former governor speaking to adoring crowds, meeting admirers, encountering women and children.

But here’s the remarkable thing. Republicans normally work hard to ensure that their ads feature non-white faces, to present an image of welcome and inclusion.

…

In Palin’s ad — not one. Now listen carefully to the audio, which twice warns of a “fundamental transformation of America,” twice emphasizes a threat to children and grandchildren from malign unnamed forces.

I think she’s talking about healthcare. I hope so. But she never does say so.

David Frum – May 3:

Three years ago, ETS — the people who administer the SAT — released an alarming study. It combined information on test scores with demographic trends to predict that the U.S. work force of 2030 would be less literate, less skilled and worse paid than the U.S. work force of 1990.

ETS reported: “[B]y 2030 the average levels of literacy and numeracy in the working-age population will have decreased by about 5 percent while inequality will have increased by about 7 percent. Put crudely, over the next 25 years or so, as better-educated individuals leave the work force they will be replaced by those who, on average, have lower levels of education and skill. Over this same period, nearly half of the projected job growth will be concentrated in occupations associated with higher education and skill levels. This means that tens of millions more of our students and adults will be less able to qualify for higher-paying jobs.”

Why?

One word: Immigration.

This is what a sham looks like, at least through the somewhat inadequate lens of my iPhone’s camera.

Last night hundreds of people gathered again to voice our opinions about the best public use of the Fun Forest site at the Seattle Center, and once again we couldn’t help but get the vibe that we were just being humored. Oh, the committee and the Chihuly gift-shop/catering-hall folks at least tried to make a better show of it this time as compared to the insulting propaganda-fest of the first public meeting, but it was still just a show. I didn’t talk to anybody who believed  a decision hasn’t already been made.

The problem is, as much as the committee will ultimately claim that this was a fair and open process, there’s nothing fair or open about taking a year and a half to secretly negotiate the details of the Chihuly proposal, and then publishing an RFP tailored to the same while giving everybody else just six weeks to respond. And so yeah, I kinda resented being there last night playing the role of “Man in Auditorium” in the Seattle Center’s unintentional amateur production of Our Town.

And like most bad theater, it’s not hard to predict how this play ends.

I don’t want to come off as the sorta blogger who obsesses on issues (though actually, it’s kinda my schtick), but I just can’t help but go back to that misleading article on Sen. Patty Murray’s fundraising in yesterday’s Seattle Times.

As the Times accurately reports, Sen. Murray has raked in a lot of cash from lobbyists and PACs, a not all too surprising fact considering that she’s one of the most powerful appropriators in Congress. And as I’ve already pointed out, it would be professional malpractice for lobbyists not to give to Murray.

There’s no indication that Sen. Murray has done anything illegal or unethical in accepting these contributions, or that contributors have purchased themselves any undue influence. In fact, as an anecdote involving her angry reaction to Boeing’s decision to build 787s in Charleston clearly illustrates, Sen. Murray is not afraid to publicly threaten one of her top contributors.

But what really sticks in my craw — and what leads me to wonder if the Times’ Kyung M. Song fully understands the subject on which she’s reporting — is how, in a subsection titled “Friends with agendas,” the article blatantly misrepresents the role of online political contribution clearinghouse ActBlue:

Microsoft is Murray’s top donor by contributor; its executives, employees and its PAC have given $131,000 since 2005 to Murray’s campaign and to M-PAC. The company just edged out the No. 2 contributor, ActBlue, a political-action committee that bundles individual donations to Democratic candidates.

Well, yeah, technically ActBlue is a PAC, and it does bundle individual donations to candidates, but that’s not particularly descriptive, especially within the context of an article whose thesis appears to be that Sen. Murray is a captive of special interests. For ActBlue doesn’t actually function like most every other federal PAC.

Most PACs raise money into their coffers, and leave it to their board to decide which candidates and committees to distribute funds to. ActBlue doesn’t do that. Instead, it uses its PAC status to legally accept earmarked contributions from donors, merely serving as a conduit to forward those contributions to the directed candidates and committees.

The genius behind ActBlue is that it democratizes online giving by taking most of the paperwork, time and expense out of what can be a very complicated process, enabling, say, bloggers like me to help raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for candidates (like, say, Darcy Burner), with little more than a blog post and a link. For example, simply click here to make a secure, credit card contribution to Sen. Murray, and ActBlue will forward it to her campaign.

And ActBlue’s model has proven a fantastic success. Since 2004, ActBlue has sent $138,297,445 to Democratic candidates and committees, via 1,063,855 contributions, for an average donation size of less than $130.00. Donors have elected to support 6,000 distinct committees through ActBlue, at every level of politics from local to federal.

So I forwarded the Times article to ActBlue communications director Adrian Arroyo, and asked him to put those numbers in perspective:

“I think those numbers underscore why it’s misleading to lump ActBlue in with the other PACs mentioned in the article, especially given the unfortunate section header “friends with agendas.” Unlike the other PACs listed, ActBlue doesn’t tell donors where to donate–that decision is entirely in their hands. Kyung M. Song wants to argue that Sen. Murray’s incumbency has led to her capture by special interests, but the fact that ActBlue is her #2 “contributor” undermines that thesis. It demonstrates that, in the aggregate, small donors can engage in politics at the same level as mega-corporations like Boeing and Microsoft. That’s good for Sen. Murray, good for Democrats, and good for democracy.”

If all you knew about Sen. Murray’s fundraising came from reading the Seattle Times, you’d think ActBlue was some powerful special interest group — you know, one of those “friends with agendas” — when in fact it is merely a tool for enabling small donors like me and you to collectively rival the power of special interests.

All the more reason why it would be a disservice to voters to let them get all their news from the Seattle Times.

Having followed Michael Steele’s inexplicable career as RNC chair, I’m beginning to understand what so many Republicans have against affirmative action.