Archives for August 2011

It’s an election night!

Not so much in Washington. But it is in Wisconsin, where a series of recall elections are taking place against six Republican incumbent state Senators. The latest polls suggest that two, and maybe three, Democrats will win. But the elections are unprecedented in the modern era of polling, so anything could happen.

Please join us tonight for an evening of election-watching under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but a few folks will show up before then for dinner and early election returns.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? There are 233 chapters of Living Liberally, including thirteen in Washington state and six more in Oregon. Here are some other meetings over the next week:

• The Tri-Cities chapter meets tonight beginning at 7:00pm.
• Drinking Liberally Bellingham also meets tonight beginning at 7:00pm.
• And the Vancouver, WA chapter meets tonight, as well. Starting time is 7:00pm.
• Tomorrow night (Wednesday), Drinking Liberally Bremerton meets at 5:00pm.
• Also tomorrow, Drinking Liberally Portland Metro West meets from 7:00pm to 10:00pm.
• On Thursday, Drinking Liberally Portland is meeting from 7:00pm to 10:00pm.
• Next Monday, Drinking Liberally — Shelton meets at 6:30.
• Also next Monday, the Olympia chapter of Drinking Liberally meets at 7:00pm.
• Finally, the Yakima chapter meets on Monday, as well. Starting time is 7:30.

If none of these works for you, consider starting a new chapter that does.

– Want!

– Moochers.

– I chose to blame you for not stopping me earlier.

– Metro will cut well used routes without the $20 increase in car tabs.

– Aside from the idea early on that Costco and Kemper Freeman are somehow exactly as ungrassroots as SEIU, this is an interesting piece on Eyman’s latest shitty initiative (h/t).

– I love Thrifty Thursdays.

I.

Hate.

Mike.

Mc.

Ginn.

And.

Taxes.

Do you remember what we learned about Jane Hague the last time she ran for the King County Council sixth district seat?

KUOW‘s Amy Radil has an interesting profile of the candidates for this seat. The story begins with a reminder:

Jane Hague was first elected to represent the Eastside on the King County Council in 1994. She’s always won reelection fairly easily, despite some personal mishaps. Mostly recently, in 2007, she was arrested for driving under the influence. And her then–opponent revealed that Hague, King County’s former elections director, did not have a college degree from Western Michigan University as she’d claimed.

Hague denied ever intentionally deceiving anyone about her education.

But a public records request from King County shows that Hague put a Bachelor of Science degree from Western Michigan University on her resume when she applied for the elections job in 1986.

You can listen to the audio version here:
[audio:http://www.kuow.org/mp3high/mp3/News/20110808_ar_hague.mp3]

So, besides getting pulled over and arrest after blowing a 0.14, an incident in which she verbally abused the arresting officers, we also learned that Hague got her career in government started by lying about having a college degree on her application for King County’s manager of records and elections.

And somehow the fake degree perpetuated:

But Hague denied intentionally providing incorrect information and initially said she was puzzled at how several “Who’s Who” books, The Seattle Times, the Municipal League of King County and the National Association of Counties all reported erroneously that she had a bachelor’s degree from Western Michigan University.

Two things. First, let’s not forget the real victim here. Until this became public, the lack-of-degree secret must have been a horrible burden for Jane. Imagine knowing you built your entire career on a fabrication that your political opponents could easily uncover.

I mean, a burden like that can drive one to drink!

Second, electing Jane Hague to King County Council after she lied to get an appointment to King County Elections Director, seems akin to…well, sort of like hiring the person who just robbed you as your Head of Security.

I think it’s likely that Jane Hague and Richard Mitchell will be the top two coming out of the primary. But let’s not make it easy for Hague. If you’re eligible to vote for this race, be sure to vote…for someone other than Jane.

Get that ballot off your kitchen table and into the mailbox!

In case you missed this one, the 84-year-old mayor and city commissioners of Oak Hill, Florida fired their entire police department after police found some pot plants growing in the mayor’s yard. The mayor says they were secretly planted there by the cops, the cops sound like a real life version of Reno 911, and even if I didn’t mention it, you probably could’ve guessed that this all took place in Florida. Just watch the local news report at the bottom of the article. God help us all.

Last week’s contest was won by Gordy. It was Baring, WA, which may lose it’s historic post office due to federal cutbacks.

This week’s contest is a random location somewhere in the world. Good luck!

Luke 19:29-34
As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’”

Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”

They replied, “The Lord needs it.”

Exodus 20:15
Thou shalt not steal.

Discuss.

It seems like the secretive American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) isn’t so happy about being less of a secret now:

Yesterday, at a conference in New Orleans, two ThinkProgress reporters were attacked by security guards for no apparent reason. Reporters Scott Keyes and Lee Fang were at the Marriott Hotel for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) annual meeting, an event that brings together state lawmakers with corporate lobbyists to draft “model” legislation.

While we stood by the second floor lobby of the conference hotel, security guards surrounded us, demanding that we leave. As we were leaving, they approached us, violently pushed us and twisted our arms. A guard approached Fang from behind, tackling him and later bending his arm to take his camera. Keyes, faced similar treatment: two security guards roughed him up on the escalator, taking his video camera, and cutting Keyes’ hand as he attempted to leave the premises. As Keyes asked why he was being forced to leave, he was shoved from the back.

Asked why they were being so belligerent, the security guards said they were acting on instructions from ALEC.

The video is here.

I’m sure we all remember this:

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire has vetoed key parts of a bill that aimed to regulate medical marijuana dispensaries.

Gregoire said Friday she could not approve the measure after the state’s two U.S. attorneys said that state regulators would not be immune from prosecution. A union that represents thousands of state employees asked Gregoire to veto the bill.

“I will not subject my state employees to federal prosecution. Period,” Gregoire told reporters before signing parts of the bill into law.

At the time, there was no shortage of people pointing out the absurdity of Gregoire’s belief. And since then, even Republican Governor Chris Christie allowed New Jersey’s medical marijuana dispensary regulations to move forward. But now you can add another name to the list of those who find it absurd that the Department of Justice would arrest state employees:

The Department of Justice.

From Raw Story:

The Department of Justice filed on legal brief on Monday that indicated the federal government would not prosecute state employees for implementing state medical marijuana programs, according to the Marijuana Policy Project.

The brief asks for a lawsuit filed by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer (R) to be thrown out.

…

The Department of Justice said Brewer’s claims had no merit, noting that her lawsuit failed to provide credible evidence that state employees were under threat of imminent prosecution.

Unlike Arizona, though, where the voters passed a law that set up dispensaries, we’re left with a giant mess. So much so that the Municipal Research and Services Center still isn’t entirely clear on what cities can do to regulate medical marijuana production and distribution. Here’s part of their page on the new law:

Cities and counties can place zoning restrictions and impose licensing requirements on collective gardens, but it is not clear whether local governments can totally prohibit them, so long as the collective gardens comply with the restrictions on the numbers of plants and numbers of qualified patients. See Sections 403 and 1102 of E2SSB 5073. Also, Chapter 69.51A RCW still allows a “qualified patient” or a “designated provider” to possess a quantity of Cannabis not exceeding a 60-day supply for a patient, which has been interpreted in the regulations as including up to 15 Cannabis plants, so individual gardens are clearly allowed. [If you have been following this webpage recently you will notice that we have changed our interpretation twice on the issue of whether collective gardens can be prohibited. That is a measure of how we are struggling with interpretation of the provisions that go into effect on July 22nd.]

Of course, this hasn’t stopped numerous cities from imposing moratoriums, meaning that a judge will likely sort it all out once a local jurisdiction tries to arrest someone who’s following the law.

UPDATE: More from Dominic Holden and Steve Elliott.

UPDATE 2: According to Dan Catchpole of the SnoValley Star, North Bend may be the first municipality to have its collective garden moratorium challenged in court.

AC: S&P–GOP largely responsible for downgrade.

Colorado Congressman Doug Lamborn is Worst Person in the World.

Young Turks: Romney SuperPac Scandal?

Andrew Breitbart penile gratitude:

Glenn Beck is back in the saddle as Worst Person in the World.

Liberal Viewer: FAUX News anti-Muslim, pro-Christian on Norway shooting?

Thom: The Teaparty takeover you don’t know about.

Pap: Karl Rove’s plan to win back the Whitehouse.

King 5 News: Republicans accuse Jay Inslee of illegally trying to move funds from congressional campaign.

Senator Joe Lieberman is Worst Person in the World.

Raising the Ceiling:

• Olbermann Special Comment: The four great hypocrisies of the debt deal:
• Thom with Robert Reich: Ransom paid!
• Ann Telnaes: The debt ceiling clock.
• David Feldman interviews John Boehner.
• ONN: Obama debt ceiling deal a prime example of Democrats and Democrats sacrificing for the greater good.
• Ann Telnaes: Debt deal passes.
• Mark Fiore: Bipartisanship.
• Ann Telnaes: Debt limit sausage making.
• The letter:

White House: West Wing Week.

Handy Handl emerges victorious as Worst Person in the World.

Sam Seder and Al Franken: Republican obstructionism.

Pap: The Republican assault on labor reaches new lows.

Hannity beats out Cantor, Boehner, and Gingrich for Worst Person in the World.

On Wisconsin:

• Thom: Update on the Wisconsin recall.
• Stephen: On Wisconsin’s recall election.

Young Turks: Rent is Too Damn High eviction.

How would Congress screw in a light bulb?

Twelve ways to tell Michele Bachmann from Sarah Palin.

Pap: The religious right gear up for 2012.

Vote Connor Ratliff for President: He’s 35 years old:

Maddow: The suspicious birth of Barack Hussein Obama.

Thom: The good, the bad, and the very very ugly.

The Torture Chronicles:

• Olbermann: Donald Vance on torture and his suit against Rumsfeld, Part I
• Olbermann: Donald Vance on torture and his suit against Rumsfeld, Part II

Newsy: Congress ends FAA stalemate…for now.

Jon: Biracial Spiderman et al..

Young Turks: Renton police department try to criminalize cartoon.

For 2012: Boehner—Weiner

Pap: How Obama let Rove off the hook

Thom: Why the stock market plunged.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

When Bill Clinton left office in 2000, he left us with a roadmap to paying off the U.S. debt by 2009.

George W. Bush came into office and he decided to defer on paying off the debt. He proposed and got huge tax breaks. And we fell back into deficit spending.

Not only that, but Republicans went on an unprecedented spending spree. They started a couple of costly wars without doing the responsible thing and take in new revenues to cover the costs. They massively increased military spending. They passed an unfunded health care reform (the Medicare prescription drug benefit). Essentially, under Bush, Republicans spent like a pack of meth addicts with a pile of stolen credit cards.

By 2008, the Republicans had failed to follow Clinton’s roadmap toward a debt-free U.S. In fact they had added $4 trillion to the national debt. And the economy tanked.

Whether you believe the economic collapse was completely Bushes fault or not, the inability to implement a proper economic recovery was the fault of Republican policies during the Bush years. The $10 trillion debt that George Bush left us with placed severe constraints on, and even foreclosed upon, many possibilities for using our credit for a bold recovery effort.

Under Obama, the Republicans have done almost nothing beneficial for American. Their sole goal has been to obstruct Obama, even when their actions are terrible for America. Most recently, they held us all hostage, taking us to the brink of a debt default.

Republicans, through their recklessness, have failed to be good stewards of our country. They have placed Republican political gain ahead of America.

Today S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch from AAA to AA-plus. S&P cited a lack of faith in the political process as part of their downgrade decision.

Nice job Republicans! You fucked up the debt repayment, you spent us into the ground, you trashed the economy, and now you’ve fucked up the credit rating of the U.S.

al Qaeda must be proud of you!

So…why is it that Republicans are not considered enemies of the United States?

Crosscut‘s Erik Neumann has in interesting piece on the importance of Washington’s growing Hispanic population for the next gubernatorial election:

At 755,790 people, Latinos are Washington’s largest and fastest growing minority, currently making up 11.2 percent of the state’s population, according to the 2010 Census. Some counties are predominantly Latino, with Adams County at 58 percent Latino and Franklin at 50 percent. (By comparison, King County is 8 percent Latino.)
[…]

According to [UW political science professor Matt] Barreto, Latinos typically favor Democrats 3-to-1 over Republicans. He adds, however, that there is an ideological split among Latinos to consider. “They tend to identify as conservative, but the vote tends to be Democratic.”

(As an aside, Neumann mostly uses the term Latino instead of Hispanic. The New York Times considered which term to use as part of their coverage of the confirmation hearings for Judge Sotomayor, and decided either is acceptable in most contexts. I tend to use Hispanic, unless discussing an individual or group with a known preference for Latino or Latina)

The most recent poll in the Washington gubernatorial race by SurveyUSA provides crosstabs by race/ethnicity. About 6% of all respondents were Hispanic, which seems about right considering that a chunk that 11.2% Hispanic population cannot vote, either because they lack citizenship or are under the age of 18. (As the Crosscut article points out, Washington’s Hispanic population is a young demographic).

The survey found that Hispanic respondents overwhelmingly choose Inslee over McKenna, 84% to 10%, with only 6% undecided. By contrast, the same survey found among the 8% of respondents identifying as Asian or “other”, 52% to 37% support for Inslee over McKenna, with 11% undecided.

Clearly, Washington’s growing Hispanic population will benefit Inslee and, more generally, Washington Democrats.

The implications for GOTV initiatives are clear.

This is going to be interesting:

The Renton City Prosecutor wants to send a cartoonist to jail for mocking the police department in a series of animated Internet videos.

The “South-Park”-style animations parody everything from officers having sex on duty to certain personnel getting promoted without necessary qualifications. While the city wants to criminalize the cartoons, First Amendment rights advocates say the move is an “extreme abuse of power.”
[…]

KIRO Team 7 Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne holds a key document that really lays bare the city’s intent. The document was quietly filed in King County Superior Court last week. It’s a search warrant accusing an anonymous cartoon creator, going by the name of Mr. Fiddlesticks, of cyberstalking (RCW 9.61.260). The Renton Police Department and the local prosecutor got a judge to sign off as a way to uncover the name of whoever is behind the parodies.

KIRO found two of the nine or so cartoons, here and here.

Apparently, the cartoons never identify individuals, or even the name of the police department. Basically the satirist did a brilliant job playing on people’s insecurities, to the point of provoked them into seeking revenge. Nice.

The complaint suggests this the author has engaged in cyberstalking. What. The. Fuck.

Unless there is some forthcoming bizarre twist in this story, it simply will not stand up in court. The ACLU is already itching for a fight:

The cyberstalking law is designed to protect individuals from serious harassment by other individuals, not to protect government from parodies by employees. People have a right to speak anonymously on the Internet, and employer-employee issues involving YouTube satires should not be pursued as criminal matters. We would very much like to hear from the individual who posted the parodies so that we can know more about the facts of this matter.

Clearly, the Renton police department is using a bullshit argument to get a search warrant to “out” the author (who they suspect is an insider). The author won’t be convicted of cyberstalking, but then that isn’t really the point, is it? The point is to extract revenge.

In other words, the Renton police department is administalking a person exercising their first amendment rights.

I’m sure the courts will do their job and find the author not guilty of cyberstalking. With a bit of luck, they will also rule in favor of the author in the inevitable follow-up civil lawsuit.

Will the press do its job? Will the press allow the Renton police department to get away with this bullshit? If they really do their job, this incident will result in many embarrassing internal affairs revelations, findings of abuse of power, and whatnot. Sounds like they have a “problem of internal culture” in the Renton PD.

And if the blogosphere does its job, the Renton police department will become a target. There will be many more satirical cartoons. There will be essays ruthlessly mocking Renton Police Chief Milosevich (yeah…that’s his name!), and whoever the fuck else is involved in this stupidity.

I haven’t tried one of those “make your own animation” tools yet, but this sure has me tempted!

You can click here to see one of the videos that the Renton Police Department considers cyberstalking. Apparently, six more of these will be released soon. Full story here.

I guess I’m a bad liberal, ’cause I frequently drive when I travel from my home in Redmond to work at the University of Washington in Seattle. Depending on my teaching schedule, some quarters I manage to take the bus three out of five days, but mostly…well, ahhh, not so much.

A pleasant surprise of driving over the last couple of years has been the occasional sight of a bald eagle sitting on top of a light post on the SR-520 floating bridge. It just sits there on top of that lamp in full majesty with its head held high.

Sometimes it causes a traffic slowdown. And that’s okay.

When I see the eagle, I always wonder how it can stand the traffic noise. I mean, have you ever kayaked around the West end of the SR-520 bridge in that quasi-nature area? Yikes..I have, and it feels like a battle zone. Maybe it is a function of acclimation or something, but I find the experience disturbing.

An maybe the eagle does too. Because, from what I can tell, this describes nothing short of a suicide:

Metro spokeswoman Linda Thielke said the bus was in the middle of the bridge, moving at about 50 miles per hour when the eagle started to fly in the same direction as the bus.

“The bird very, very suddenly took a turn and smashed into the windshield,” cracking it, Thielke said.

I’m guessing it was the persistent assault of traffic.

But maybe he really hated that “big deal”—the debt ceiling “compromise.”

Either way…rest in peace pal.