Archives for November 2011

Bruce Ramsey seems awful upset by a press release from Mike O’Brien that says, “I got sick of all the fees and hassle of the big banks, making life difficult for customers while reaping record profits.” He takes issue on the fact that Bank of America (who O’Brien didn’t name as his bank) didn’t make a profit for a few years, showing their profits and losses from 2006 to 2010:

2006 $21 billion
2007 $15 billion
2008 $2.6 billion
2009 ($2.2 billion) loss
2010 ($3.6 billion) loss

So, how much did B of A to make in the third quarter of 2011, you ask? Oh, $6.2 Billion. Still, I don’t think O’Brien begrudges the banks their profits, I think it’s more the hassle and fees that he cites that are the problem.

Ramsey is also upset about the fact that O’Brien is sharing this in a press release. But it seems to me, it’s information his constituents might want.

– Olympia is Occupied

– At Occupy Seattle and in general, I’ve only had positive experiences with Seattle police. But this is unacceptable.

– The liberal media’s reputation is coming out of this a whole lot healthier than the conservative media’s reputation, isn’t it?

– If it turned out that Kardashian is actually a performance artist deftly exploiting American’s patriarchal fantasies and hang-ups, I wouldn’t really be surprised.

– Surely they all deserved it.

– #OccupyTemple

During Roads and Transit the no vote basically went 3 ways: Taxes bad, don’t spend the money on rail, or don’t spend that money on roads. This is, obviously, wildly simplified but the don’t spend that money on roads faction told people that the transit portion was good, but we should come back with just the Sound Transit. People are comparing that to the current debate on Prop 1. The programs are worthwhile but the funding mechanism isn’t as progressive as it could be. And lots of the opponents of the measure are saying come back with a better funding measure.

But the difference now is that there isn’t a plan B if Prop 1 fails. It’s hope the legislature sees a no vote as a signal from Seattle voters that they’d like an MVET or some other more fair tax, then hope Olympia gives a shit about that signal and passes an MVET, then a City Council that just lost a vote puts that MVET on the ballot. Then they’ll support it. Let’s call that unlikely.

They don’t have a fully formed plan only that car tabs are unfair. Contrast that with The Stranger and The Sierra Club who wanted to put just ST2 on the ballot. I mean nobody reading this believes Ted Van Dyk or Bruce Ramsey are going to support a progressive MVET, if it pays for the things the car tabs pay for, right? And opponents of car tabs weren’t pushing for an MVET or anything else when the legislature passed the authority. I don’t recall John Fox lobbying in Oly making the case for a better way for local jurisdictions to pay for these things.

Look, I disagreed with The Stranger and The Sierra Club on Roads and Transit. But at least they had a plan and some skin in the game. The anti-Prop 1 people need to explain their plan B and what they’re going to do to make it happen, and so far I haven’t heard that.

Yesterday morning on KUOW, Darcy Burner announced her candidacy for Washington’s 1st CD. Weekday host Steve Scher interviewed Darcy about her run and her vision for the position. Here is the audio of the interview. It’s worth a listen:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/BurnerInterview.mp3]

Darcy Burner’s campaign web site can be found here.

It is election time in Washington state. Like me, you probably have a ballot and a voter’s guide sitting on the kitchen table.

Sometime this weekend, Kathy and I will sit down at the kitchen table and discuss issues and races as we fill out our ballots. And no, we don’t always vote the same way, but usually. When there is uncertainty about a race or ballot measure, perhaps she’ll pull out her Mac Air while I fire up my my Windows netbook, or maybe she’ll grab her iPhone as I grab for my Android phone and we’ll engage in a friendly research competition. Despite our “platform heterogeneity” we typically end up agreeing politically. The winner gets there first.

One of my favorite on-line resources is Fuse’s Progressive Voters Guide. Their statewide guide can be found here. County-specific and even city-level guides are available as well. So, if you live in King County, check this one out. Seattleites go here.

As much as I lament the demise of the voting booth, I welcome voting as a new and interesting (if brief) family activity.

Make sure you vote this week! It just might be fun.

I’m a little late in commenting on this, but I’m going to risk being called naive and say that I believe this is 100% true:

U.S. attorneys have a message for California’s medical marijuana advocates: Don’t blame Barack Obama. After it was announced that the crackdown on medical pot establishments in the Golden State was a collective decision by the four U.S. attorneys in California and not the result of any directive from Washington, spokeswoman Lauren Horwood emphasized that the administration never even green-lighted the ramped-up enforcement actions.

The only D.C.-based official with whom California U.S. attorneys coordinated, Horwood said, was Deputy Attorney General James Cole, who was chosen by Attorney General Eric Holder, an Obama appointee.

“He’s the one who provided the quote for our press release, and he’s chosen by Eric Holder,” Horwood told HuffPost in an interview. “But we didn’t have direct talks with Eric Holder — not that we wouldn’t, he’s been out and visited — but just the way the Department of Justice works, he’s not that hands-on on these kinds of details.”

After the crackdown was announced, fingers were immediately pointed at Obama. The Young Turks saw this as Obama doing the bidding of the pharmaceutical industry. I’ve heard others theorize that this is happening to prevent medical marijuana profits from funding legalization initiatives in 2012. But if this article is accurate, the reality seems to be far more mundane than that (and I suggested that possibility about a month ago).

Much of the overreaching federal drug law enforcement we see comes from the simple fact that law enforcement bureaucracies across the nation are still filled with people who’ve become ideologically wedded to the failed mentality of prohibition. They continue to see the use of marijuana (whether it’s recreational or medicinal) as a phenomenon driven by those who sell it, rather than by those who buy it. As long as they live in that up-is-down-black-is-white world – and the government still gives them the power to act on their insanity – they’re going to do things as spectacularly stupid as what they’re about to do in California.

This isn’t to say that Obama is off the hook. He’s still the President, and it’s very clear that his U.S. Attorneys are getting ready to make him into a gigantic liar over his promise not to interfere with state medical marijuana laws. Even if he wasn’t the originator of this boondoggle, he has the power to stop it. And a lot of folks on the west coast are going to remember how he handles this when next November rolls around.

I like Darcy Burner, and if I still lived in the 1st district, I might well vote for her in a primary for all the reasons Darryl described earlier today. I certainly made calls and knocked on doors for her both times she ran for Congress before. But I’ve also walked a few precincts for Roger Goodman and I gave money to Marko Liias. And I supported Laura Ruderman for Congress before Inslee got into the race in 1998, and thought it was classy when she got out of that race to run for the legislature to avoid a primary fight (today I’m more pro-primary fights, but that’s another story).

We’ve got a lot of good candidates running in the 1st district who have done a lot of good in government and in the community. I might well vote for any of them if I still lived up North. So here are a few quick stories about some of the non-rockstar candidates in the hope that you’ll give them a look too.

I don’t know how many times I heard that Roger Goodman couldn’t win supporting marijuana decriminalization. How he was out of touch with a supposedly conservative district and that one issue was going to destroy him. He’d be portrayed as a dirty hippie, and it didn’t matter how he came to the issue quite sensibly and that his actual resume was quite impressive, never mind that it’s obviously the right position. He did win, and he has been a leader in the legislature.

Of course earlier than that, the East Side was one of the safest parts of the state for Republicans. So in 1998 when Laura Ruderman won in the 45th district it was quite a big deal. Democrats have followed her lead ever since, making King County east of Lake Washington competitive. It’s true that in the legislature, she tended to stick to more bread and butter things like education. But for a legislator with a target on her back to get those sorts of things passed in the state house that was evenly split is a mark of a good legislator.

Unlike Goodman and Ruderman, I didn’t know anything about Marko Liias until he already was a legislator. But I somehow got wrangled into going to a fundraiser for him. I talked to him briefly and was impressed by the depth of knowledge about and commitment to public transportation from a suburban legislator. As someone who was pretty reliant on public transit growing up on the suburbs, I was glad to hear it.

All in all, first district Democrats have some great choices, and the coming months should be exciting to see all of the candidates stake out positions. It’ll be the first competitive Democratic primary in the district that I can remember, so it’ll be a great chance to define what it means to be a Democrat in the area. As someone who grew up in the district when it was pretty conservative, this is a great development.

– Another reason to Pass Prop 1.

– Um, GOP, just no.

– Shorter Michael Bloomberg: How dare you blame the banks for anything bad when the federal government exists?

– Kenmore Products Are Garbage, and Sears Is Terrible to Its Customers and Employees (and a follow up)

– Good news for Washington State’s working women, but there’s still further to go.

– I love this proposal. But what I love even more is when sports writers suggest a fundamental change to the game, and then are flexible about certain parts of it.

– The Rachel Maddow Show: the name to trust for the latest in meat-based technology (h/t).

There were hints, and clues, and even outright claims, but now it’s official.

I mean, if you can believe hack journalist David “Goldy” Goldstein…Darcy Burner is running for Congress in Washington’s 1st congressional district.

For me that’s great news—I live in the 1st CD. Looking at the redistricting proposals, chances are excellent that Darcy Burner will be my next representative.

Darcy joins a somewhat crowded field of Democrats for the 1st CD, including State Rep. Roger Goodman, Former state Rep. Laura Ruderman, and State Rep. Marko Liias. I would be happy to be represented by any of these folks. (Okay…maybe not so much Ruderman, who seems to be great at fundraising, but what else? I simply don’t know.) Darcy, just by entering the race, becomes the front-runner.

This isn’t just my opinion. Remember the poll that Publicola got wind of (and that I mentioned here) a couple days ago? It shows Burner unquestionably in the lead.

If the redistricted 1st CD bears any resemblance to its old self, a Democratic candidate coming out of the primary will almost certainly win the general. Rep. Jay Inslee (who is vacating the seat to run for Governor) has held the district since 1999. The district has voted increasingly Democratic in recent presidential elections: Al Gore won by 53%, John Kerry won by 56%, and Barack Obama won by 62%.

On top of that, the Republicans have no candidates of any note running. Well…James Watkins, the guy who challenged Inslee in 2008, is running again.

I met Darcy during her first congressional run against Rep. Dave Reichert. I have interacted with her, perhaps, a dozen times since then, including doing one interview. My excitement at today’s announcement is genuine…I really want her to represent me! My reasons haven’t changed much from what I wrote back in 2006:

It was clear to me from that first meeting that Ms. Burner was an extraordinary individual—she struck me as smart, well-informed, articulate, disciplined, confident, and full of energy. I had no idea whether these attributes could translate into success in campaigning and politics, but I thought that Darcy exhibited many of the good attributes that I wanted in a political leader, and she didn’t seem afflicted with the negative attributes found in so many political leaders.

I couldn’t vote for Darcy in 2006 or 2008—my house is located a bit north of the 8th CD in the 1st CD. For the 2012 election cycle, I am most pleased to welcome Darcy to the 1st!

(You can contribute to Darcy Burner’s campaign here.)

Please join us this evening for an evening of politics 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 show up earlier for dinner.

Can’t make it tonight? The Tri-Cities chapter of Drinking liberally meets every Tuesday night. Drinking Liberally Tacoma meets this Thursday, 7:00pm at the Hub Restaurant. Also next Monday, the Olympia chapter of Drinking Liberally, the Yakima chapter, and the South Bellevue chapter meets.

With 227 chapters of Living Liberally, including thirteen in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.

This is a quick follow-up to my previous post about the new Washington Poll. The poll surveyed 938 registered voters from 10th Oct to 30th Oct.

In the Washington Governor’s race, the poll found Rep. Jay Inslee behind AG Rob McKenna by 38.4% to 43.9% with 17.7% undecided. The question is, how do these numbers translate into the probability that McKenna would beat Inslee if the election had been held in October. As is my habit, I employ Monte Carlo methods, simulating a million elections of 938 voters randomly drawing votes at the observed percentages.

The results give Inslee 92,405 “elections” and McKenna 903,409 “elections.” Thus, McKenna would have about a 91% probability of winning an election held in October. Here’s the picture:

By a traditional statistical assessment, McKenna’s lead is not “significant,” in that he doesn’t break the 95% threshold. Still…McKenna would be the likely winner. He was also leading Inslee by 34% to 38% in a late September SurveyUSA poll (and one other partisan poll as well.)

As Eli Sanders points out, there is a bright side for Inslee. He has cut into McKenna’s support in the Puget Sound region:

While September’s KING 5/Survey USA poll showed Inslee running dead even with McKenna in the Puget Sound region (a terrible sign for Inslee’s chances of pulling out a statewide victory), yesterday’s Washington Poll showed Inslee up by five points among Puget Sound voters.

I would add that in the poll before that by SurveyUSA poll, Inslee led McKenna. McKenna still had 44%, but Inslee had 47%. The difference is that only 9% were undecided. (And Inslee led by 7% points in “metro Seattle.”)

The evidence is too weak for any certainty, but taken together, the trend looks like Inslee gains over McKenna (particularly in the Puget sound region) when undecided voters make up their minds.

Herman Cain makes more headlines this week.

Although he has a juicy campaign finance scandal brewing, and a bizarre gaffe about the Palestinian people, what people are really intrigued by is the revelations that Herman was, in the 1990s, accused of sexual harassment by two employees of the National Restaurant Association while Cain was the organization’s CEO.

The story has some potential…comedy potential, as in, “Herman, dude, hasn’t anyone ever told you that nein, nein, nein means NEIN?!?”

Other than that, this story stinks.

First, this is not going to help and might, quite possibly, hurt Cain’s chances at taking the nomination. And I don’t want anything to hurt Cain’s chances of being the Republican nominee for 2012. Seriously…if Obama has to go up against Romney or Cain, I’d much rather he go up against Cain. Besides the fact that Cain is the weaker of the two candidates, I like the gut-knotting turmoil it causes amongst the bigoted faction of Republicans.

It also sucks for a more important reason: because it feeds ugly bigotry, by reinforcing a negative stereotype of black men. “They’re stealing our women!”

And that is simply ugly.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking a stand on whether or not Cain sexually harassed those women. I’m not offering any excuses for sexual harassment, or making excuses for Cain if it turns out he did engage in that behavior. But the legal settlement prevents the women from talking about their complaint or the monetary settlement, so that there will always remain some uncertainty about what really happened. And the bigots will use that uncertainty to feed their ugly habit. Yuck.

As an aside, even Obama isn’t immune from this stereotype.

Remember last year when Newt Gingrich made headlines about Dinesh D’Souza “stunning insight” into Obama?

…the “most profound insight I have read in the last six years about Barack Obama.”

“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”

“This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president,” Gingrich tells us.

What was D’Souza “profound insight” in this article that so inspired Gingrich? The article concludes:

But instead of readying us for the challenge, our President is trapped in his father’s time machine. Incredibly, the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s. This philandering, inebriated African socialist, who raged against the world for denying him the realization of his anticolonial ambitions, is now setting the nation’s agenda through the reincarnation of his dreams in his son. The son makes it happen, but he candidly admits he is only living out his father’s dream. The invisible father provides the inspiration, and the son dutifully gets the job done.

Ahh, yes…if Obama doesn’t fit the bigot’s stereotype directly, lash him to that post by his genes.

As for Cain, at least the sexual harassment issue will divert people from some other, probably more serious, “issues” of the Cain campaign.