Archives for August 2012

This year I will be starting college in France and I am going to France for two reasons. One being that I love France, its language and culture; the other being that I will be paying roughly $400 for my annual tuition without scholarships, grants, loans taken out or federal aid. (And additionally, I am still able to apply for federal aid for my housing). I am not able to go to a respected university in my own country without going into debt for the next few decades. It wasn’t always this way. And it doesn’t have to be.

Since the 1980’s the percentage of the federal budget that has been spent on education has decreased significantly, while the cost of education has skyrocketed and increased more than 5x the rates of inflation.

Some argue that we can’t afford to put more money into public universities. I say that’s a lie. We waste plenty of money into defense spending on weapons we will never use. Some defense spending is of course important, but to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into things we have no need for, or will never use is fiscally irresponsible.

What we can’t afford is committing an entire generation of educated people to the debt sentence. People starting their lives with tens of thousands of dollars in debt will not only severely damage our economy but it will also alienate entire groups of people who are brilliant and have potential that will either never be able to develop it or be struggling too hard to pay back into loans to be able to invest in their dreams.

The tuition costs we have now specifically hinder growth and that is not what education is about and it is not what our country says we’re about either. We say that we are the country of possibilities that anyone who works hard can make their way in the world. So then why am I someone who has worked hard for years needing to leave my country just to have access to a decent education without starting my adulthood in debt? I have stayed in the top 5% rankings in my class in one of the best schools in the country, a National Honor Society Member, took 10 AP classes, 5 honors classes and 5 classes that were considered college in high school classes for which I received college credit. I was a JV athlete in cross-country, a captain and varsity athlete in gymnastics and a varsity athlete in track and field in my high school. Additionally, I have babysat since I was 12 and babysat with an additional job from the time I was 16. And this year, on top of those two jobs, I had an internship with Darcy Burner.

So the fact that I didn’t receive enough scholarships to make school reasonably priced is not based on the fact that I didn’t work hard or didn’t do well in school. For every dollar in scholarships available there are 2 dollars of tuition. In the past, this number was reversed.

This week at a student activism conference, I met some students who have been in the ongoing protests in Quebec. They have had hundreds of thousands of students in the streets protesting and on strike because of the plan to have tuition raised from $2,168 to $3,793 between 2012 and 2017. When an American student at the conference asked, “why are you striking? You have the lowest tuition in Canada.” The Quebecois student responded, “we have the lowest tuition in Canada BECAUSE WE STRIKE.”

So, why are we not all in the streets? We’ve normalized the way in which we deal with tuition and higher education but that doesn’t make it right. We need to fight for our right to an education. As a country we seem to agree with that from elementary school until high school so what makes higher education any different?

We can do better than this. We can fight for our right to education. If not an education that is as cheap as it is in France, at least something that is more manageable for the average citizen.The students of this country need to step up and stand together to fight for access to education without going into debt before it’s too late.

Last week’s contest was won by wes.in.wa. It was the Paris location of Jason Bourne’s apartment in the Bourne Identity.

This week’s contest is a location somewhere in Washington state, good luck!

2 Samuel 17:29
Cheese.

Discuss.

Stop fighting and Get Cash for Rights.

Roy Zimmerman: Vote Republican, Nebraska edition:

Kimmel’s week in unnecessary censorship.

Ryan—Romney 2012:

• Ann Telnaes: Romney dances around Ryan budget.
• Young Turks: Tom Morello rips Paul Ryan
• Maddow: The Ryan pick…and the first week.
• The same.
• Kimmel: Mitt Romney’s new positive ad:
• Stephen on Ryan/Romney.
• Jenn: Ryan catches a bad case of the flip-flops.
• Stephanie Miller: Tom Morello raging against the machine that is Rep. Paul Ryan.
• Maddow: Ryan Medicare unpopularity trickles down…to Congressional races.
• Sam Seder: Romney rejects Obama’s “tax amnesty” offer.
• SlateTV: No truce in the Romney Tax wars.
• Young Turks: Paul Ryan’s pathetic FAUX debut
• Susie Sampson’s Tea Party Report: A VP for America?
• Lawrence O’Donnell: The hypocrisy of Paul Ryan.
• Ed: Obama wise-crack about Seamus
• Axelrod on Mitt non-disclosure.
• Maddow: Iraq war excluded from campaign as Romney hires Bush Iraq spokesman.
• Kimmel: Romney outsources Sesame Street.
• Ed: The great Romney-Ryan $700 billion lie
• Mark Fiore: Mitt Romney finds his hero in “Deficit Hawk Man”.
• Sam Seder: Why Paul Ryan is a gift to progressives.
• Jon: On Paul Ryan.
• Ann Telnaes: Paul Ryan displays his archery skills.
• Maddow: Still talking about tax returns.
• Maddow: Even STILL talking about tax returns.
• Ed: Who is the bigger liar, Romney or Ryan (via Crooks and Liars)?

Sam Seder: Sen. Rand Paul thinks, “Obama Arming Weathermen!”

Lawrence O’Donnell: Limbaugh attacks debate moderators as ‘far left-wing’ liberals (via Crooks and Liars).

Hooligans!

• Young Turks: Pussy Riot sentenced.
• Guilty of “Hooliganism”: Pussy Riot.

Sam Seder: Next on the Republican agenda? Taking school lunches from poor kids.

White House: West Wing Week.

G.O.P. Voter Suppression:

• Jon: The 2012 exciting new voter suppression efforts.
• Pap and Ed: Right wing courts are sending America back to the dark ages
• Maher: New Rules on Republican voter suppression (via Crooks and Liars).
• Sam Seder: PA voter suppression scheme goes forward.
• Pap: Republican judicial hacks help suppress voters

Stephanie Cutter: Medicare Whiteboard:

Roy Zimmerman: Vote Republican, New Mexico edition.

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

[I’m reading and doing some metacommentary on Mitt Romney’s book. Enjoy, or skip over it: it’s a free country.]

I don’t know if Mitt Romney still thinks global warming is a thing. But whenever his ghost writer ghost wrote this chapter, they acknowledged at least that public opinion moved in that direction. This is good, and hopefully he still believes it. But since half of my notes in the margins in these sections are about how maybe he could look into global warming, I wish he’d have stated it earlier instead of almost at the end. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Now we’re at the section “Common Causes?” and the question mark is because even Romney isn’t sure he can get anything useful out of the bare sketches he wrote about nations and empires collapsing. He starts off saying that both cultural and economic isolation lead to the collapse of empires. “China, Spain, Britain, and the Ottomans expressly or effectively retreated behind barriers to foreign trade, each convinced that competition had made them weaker. Their retreat from the marketplace of ideas and their retreat from the marketplace of goods inevitably led to their retreat from the pinnacle of leadership.”

(a) I think we can all agree that Britain was best known for its economic isolation. Who doesn’t remember that stirring line, “Rule Britannia, Britannia, stay home because the waves might be choppy”? (b) There’s no evidence in this book to suggest that empires that isolated themselves did it because they were losing ground or if they had already lost ground and their isolationism was a way to stave off/slow down the process.

“This is a lesson that shouldn’t be lost on us. When we face challenge, there will always be cries for protection”. I know: those cries of we shouldn’t have to compete with prepubescent girls paid almost nothing for factory work. Don’t they know that they’re the ones destroying the country?

“They will be heartfelt and not entirely illogical. Foreign competition will seem unfair — after all, if foreign products and services are more desirable to consumers, it must be due to some form of advantage. And if one’s competitor has an advantage, that doesn’t feel fair.” So what if it actually isn’t fair? It’s tough to quantify how much of China’s advantage is due to unfair things like child labor, shit environmental laws, currency manipulation, intellectual property theft, and trade barriers, and how much is due to fair competition. But calls to not have to compete with those unfair things aren’t in and of themselves shutting down legit trade or calls to close off all ties.

“The only successful way to overcome foreign advantage, however, is to create an advantage of one’s own — to innovate.” There’s no evidence that you can’t innovate and have certain trade restrictions. The US had plenty of trade barriers for most of our history, and we did a fine job innovating. In large measure it helped build our manufacturing base. China is doing the same thing now and out competing us at the moment.

It goes on like this, but you get the point. Moving on to the next reason for failure:

Some of these failed powers were weakened as well by wealth and spending that exceeded their own production–in other words, by easy money. The spoils of Ottoman pillage, the gold the Spanish stole from the Americas, the tribute the Portuguese exacted from trade–all allowed each of those nations to live well in excess of their productivity. In the same way that inherited wealth can lead descendents to profligate spending and economic ruin, easy money weakened these nations’ willingness to work and invest.

Totally. People who inherited their wealth don’t know what hard work is. Excellent point, Mitt Romney. Then I’m not sure if it’s the same point or bad transitions, but culture in general makes a difference in collapse of empires. Finally we can learn from this outline of failure to avoid “the same path that has led to the great decline in the past.” His prescription is don’t save industries that were once successful and avoid protectionism.

And we’re on to “Why Nations Fiddle as they Burn” the story of Nero Mitt Romney explaining with hindsight how he would have saved various places. He has a paragraph about Spain that doesn’t really say anything new. Then because he hadn’t mentioned the Dutch up to this point, he talks about them. “The Dutch also suffered from unearned wealth. Their trade monopolies, underinvestment in productive industry, and cultural decay led this condition to be called ‘Dutch disease.’ Lack of vision, lack of awareness, is an integral part of the malady.” I think Dutch disease is generally shifting from industrialization to a resource based economy. The parts about culture and trade monopoly seem out of place to me.

This leads to a discussion of other countries that have the problems generally actually associated with “Dutch disease.” The countries who have oil wealth in particular. He tries to shoehorn the Ottoman empire into that, but it doesn’t really work. Then to us:

Our own lack of vision led to the collapse of our financial markets and our economy. It precipitated a global recession, triggered the loss of $12 trillion of our citizen’s net worth and dealt a sharp blow to freedom. We simply did not see the so-called subprime home mortgages, liar loans, and nonliquified loans had the potential to cause such destruction. I know some believe that “the powers that be” saw it all along–that the greed of Wall Street tycoons, for example, was the root cause. But I believe a lack of vision played every bit as big a role.

I agree that it wasn’t a conspiracy. Too many people lost too much money. But, we were sold for decades before the crash that these sorts of investments were American innovation. That they were part of a new ownership society. It wasn’t a lack of vision, it was a lack of oversight, and common sense with a too far reaching vision. Also, if you think nobody saw the collapse, I’d recommend The Big Short. There’s no mention of who specifically Romney would blame for lacking vision, maybe because he wants largely to go back to the policies that he says lack vision.

However, lack of vision is the exception when it comes to the decline of great powers. In most cases, there were warnings. Farsighted Ottomans warned that adherence to religious dogma and reliance on oversized bureaucracy would doom the empire.

If only Mitt Romney were in charge of the Ottoman Empire, things would have turned out differently. There are several other examples of empires not having far reaching visions of the future. Here’s where my notes say “global warming” a bunch when he says things like “we seize on the opinion of someone who tells us what we want to hear” rather than face hard truths or look to large scale change.

It goes on for several pages, but I want to mention his calling out the media’s problem reporting on the Iraq war. Now you might think getting into pointless wars would be part of why empires decline. Finding enemies to rally against instead of using that energy to solve our actual problems. Perhaps things like Friedman Units where were promised everything would turn around in 6 months every 6 months? Point is: media criticism leading up to and during the Iraq war is a target rich case study for the decline of nations. Guess what Romney’s example was?

The media elite similarly took the early view that Iraq was a hopeless quagmire. There was often thereafter a perceptible snickering in the coverage, especially when the surge was unveiled. Then, when the surge actually worked, the media coverage of Iraq noticeably fell off.

Yeah, that’s the problem. The media didn’t cheer lead enough. Christ on the Cross. Anyway, now were to an unlabeled section about countries that turn things around. He mentions the emperors after Nero without saying why they were “Five Good Emperors.” The Ottoman apparently staved off their decline for a while. He says “after an eleven-year civil war” but doesn’t put it in the context of his previous Ottoman musings. And Churchill.

Then he talks about the Clinton era as a time of decline for America. Because peace and prosperity: ick. Then 9/11 and “America changed course” without mentioning why a decade stuck in Afghanistan is good for America. He has four reasons some countries can turn things around and why some can’t:

“The first is the occurrence of a catastrophic event that is alarming enough to spur action but not so large that it dooms the nation.” He mentions Sputnik and Pearl Harbor. I guess America was in decline before Sputnik? I don’t know.

“The second catalyst is the presence of a great leader.” He says they should be persuasive and a great statesman. Then without expanding on those qualities, he just lists a bunch of leaders.

“A third condition is national consensus.” He says usually national consensus comes from the top, but sometimes it’s from the bottom. “Lech Walesa galvanized a movement that brought down the Iron Curtain first in Poland and then across Eastern Europe.” Great, but not exactly how nations stay strong. And then he fucks with me: “Scientists, concerned citizens and* the world media succeeded in convincing the public that global warming is a real and present danger.” I haven’t finished the book, or the presidential campaign, but I look forward to his addressing global warming head on.

“The final conducive condition for turnaround is when a nation enjoys deep, broad-based national strength.” This seems like question begging to me. Why are nations able to stay strong? Because of their national strength!

There’s another small section, but it’s just recapping and setting up the next chapter, so we’ll end this here.

[Read more…]

Via Rolling Stone:

Don’t mistake me, I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta “rage” in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically the only thing he’s not raging against is the privileged elite he’s groveling in front of for campaign contributions.

— Tom Morello, songwriter, activist, guitarist for Rage Against the Machine

(h/t Joel Connelly.)

I’m a bit surprised that the National Organization for Marriage hasn’t come through (first point) with their promise of a huge pile of money to people who primary Republicans who voted for the marriage equality bill. They both advance, but having lost almost 2-1 in the primary, it’s tough to make the case that the general will be anything different. Maybe NOM wanted to spend the money in the general election so it’s a force multiplier for their opposition to R-74.

The National Organization for Marriage, the D.C.-based anti-gay marriage group, pledged to donate $250,000 to any Republican primary candidate that stepped up to run against a Republican in Washington State who “crosses the party platform and votes for gay marriage.”

[…]

Litzow does not have a Republican challenger, but Walsh does—staunch gay-marriage opponent Mary Edwards. While Walsh has raised $62,000, including big donations from gay rights advocates such as Lambda Legal board member Eric Nilson ($900) from Cleveland, Ohio, Edwards has raised $3,633—and no check from NOM.

Obviously a primary challenge means something different in Washington than elsewhere, and their goal was to unseat Walsh not to make a show of it in August. But by starting so late (if they start at all) they’ve made that difficult.

Not that I’m complaining. I’d rather the seat go to a Democrat, but if there are intramural fights between the Republicans, I’d rather it go to ones who are at least decent people in this one area.

For fuck’s sake, the Libertarian Party.

Today the Libertarian Party of Washington State filed suit (PDF) to have Romney’s name removed from the November ballot:

The suit seeks an order declaring that the Washington State Republican Party is “minor party” for purposes of the 2012 general election and directing the Secretary of State to issue ballots for the November election that do not contain the printed name of any Republican Party nominee.

The only statewide race in the last even numbered year was Cantwell in 2010, and the GOP didn’t endorse because they wanted to wait it out. So fine, they might technically be a minor party and thus too late to nominate someone. But really, fuck that.

This isn’t the sort of thing that needs suing over. The injustice here would be if the Libertarians won their suit and Romney wasn’t on the ballot. He’ll be the nominee of the Republican party, and if people are dumb enough to vote for him, they deserve the right to do so.

[Read more…]

The Libertarian Party of Washington State is suing to keep Mitt Romney off the ballot.

Their argument may be familiar to you…I wrote about it recently. By law, the Washington State Republican Party is a minor party and it hasn’t met the signature gathering requirements of a minor party for the fall Presidential election.

You can read the Libertarian’s complaint here. But let me briefly recap the argument.

In 2010, the WSRP didn’t nominate, or even endorse, anyone in the only statewide election. The reason, as I mentioned earlier, was that the Teabaggers were going to raise holy hell if Dino Rossi (who entered the race very late) got the nomination over uber-teabagger Clint Diddier for the U.S. Senate race.

Dino Rossi won a spot on the general election ballot by placing second in the primary. But, prior legal precedent has firmly established that our top-two primary is a “‘winnowing’ election designed to send only two candidates on to the general election without regard to political party nomination or affiliation,” rather than a nominating election.

So the Republicans failed to have a party nominee receive at least 5% of the vote in a 2010 statewide election as per RCW 29A.04.086:

“Major political party” means a political party of which at least one nominee for president, vice president, United States senator, or a statewide office received at least five percent of the total vote cast at the last preceding state general election in an even-numbered year.

They also failed to file the 1,000 signatures this year as is required for a minor party by RCW 29A.20.111 et seq.

Thus the Libertarians point out in their complaint:

Accordingly, the Washington State Republican Party is not entitled under the R.C.W. to have its nominee’s name printed on the November general election ballot, although its candidate (presumably Mr. Romney) is entitled to run as a write-in candidate.

In other words, the Libertarians (who are currently a minor party) want fair and equal treatment with the Republicans who, evidence suggests, is now a minor party.

And they have a point! It is how the law is written. And if the law is followed as written, there should be no Republican presidential ticket on our ballots this fall.

Here’s the thing. The relevant RCW actually predate the top-two primary. And, from one perspective, the major/minor party status law doesn’t quite jibe with a top-two primary system. In fact, in 2009, the SOS office pushed legislation that would have changed the major/minor party part of the law to better reflect a top-two primary. Alas, the bill (SB 5681) failed.

After my last post on this topic, I emailed the Secretary of State office to ask for their take on this issue. Dave Ammons respond with a helpful summary of the SOS position:

The Legislature has not repealed the old RCWs that were put in place for the old pick-a-party primary system, so many of the old definitions are still on the books. All three levels of federal courts (District Court, Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and U.S. Supreme Court) have commented at some point in the 8 year litigation over the Top Two Primary system that Initiative 872 impliedly repealed the old party nomination procedures for the pick-a-party primary. The upshot is that we have adapted many procedures for the Top Two Primary in WAC.

WAC 434-208-130 define major and minor political parties. The relevant paragraphs of the WAC state:

(1) For purposes of RCW 29A.04.086, “major political party” means a political party whose nominees for president and vice-president received at least five percent of the total votes cast for that office at the last preceding presidential election. A political party that qualifies as a major political party retains such status until the next presidential election at which the presidential and vice-presidential nominees of that party do not receive at least five percent of the votes cast.

In other words, the SOS office is relying on a WAC that changes the RCW, under the argument that the RCW’s major/minor party definitions were implicitly “repealed” when the pick-a-party procedures were replaced for the top-two primary.

The argument might make sense, except for two things. First, the major/minor party definitions as they exist under RCW are a little awkward to deal with, but they are certainly not incompatible with a system that primarily has top two primaries (except for presidential elections). Therefore, an argument can (and will!) be made that the definitions were not implicitly repealed as suggested by the SOS office. And you cannot use the WAC to “override” the RCW.

The second point is that the legislature actually considered the issue in SB 5681. They had a chance to change the law to dovetail with the definitions in the WAC. And they declined to do so!

It is a fascinating problem! That said, I don’t relish the idea of Mitt Romney being kept off the ballot.

What I enjoy about this predicament is just how fucked up the Teabaggers have made things for the WSRP. In almost any other year, the Republicans would have had the clone-like unity to rally behind the “chosen” candidate. They would have proudly nominated him and, knowingly or not, maintained their legal eligibility as a major party under all definitions. But not in 2010.

This is why I always keep a good stock of popcorn in my pantry….

Update (11:45 pm): I modified the post to remove an extraneous quote that was accidentally left in the original. I clarified the language in a couple of spots, too.

– People pointed out a year ago that Ryan’s plan will destroy Medicare. The Washington Post, the paper that brought down Nixon, responded by awarding that fact four cartoon Pinnochio heads. Journalism.

– The Greenwood food bank is running low.

– There are a lot of questions about the Chicks for Rob button. Not the least is how it got through whatever campaign bureaucracy there should be to stop this sort of thing.

– The supposedly liberal Seattle City Council can’t even support the tiniest bit of campaign finance reform. O’Brien’s proposal isn’t perfect, but it’s better than the status quo.

– And honestly, I’m surprised and impressed that the White House seems to have strengthened its spine and is resisting the silly demands of Republicans and their media abettors for apologies and denunciations when none are needed.

– RIP Johnny Pesky

King Felix pitches a perfect game. At Safeco. On a glorious afternoon for baseball. Sad to say, I missed it at work, and didn’t know until after.*

I know it’s a meaningless thing. A W is a W, and how you get there won’t change the standings. And the Mariners’ season is still shot. But there is something magical. Especially with Felix. He’s home grown. I have a friend who went to Tacoma specifically to see him pitch a year before he broke into the majors. And since he’s been up, it always felt like it was just a matter of time before at least a no-no; he has been that good.

* For serious, someone text me or someone I work with if this is going on. Like in the 7th.

There was a shooting at the Family Research Council this morning. A security guard was shot and is in the hospital. Like these LGBT organizations, I don’t know if it was politically motivated. Still, when anything like this happens to a political organization, you have to assume their politics was part of what made them a target.

I condemn political violence of any stripe, and I hope the guard makes a full recovery. I’m saddened that we live in a country where this sort of thing is common. I don’t agree with anything the Family Research Council stands for, but nobody deserves this for their political beliefs. Nobody.

The story of Romney claiming bipartisan cred for Paul Ryan over the fact that he once wrote a policy paper with Ron Wyden is strange on a few levels. First, what? It’s not a bipartisan accomplishment to write a paper. A bipartisan accomplishment would be turning that paper into actual legislation. And Wyden handled that pretty well.

Governor Romney is talking nonsense. Bipartisanship requires that you not make up the facts.

I did not “co-lead a piece of legislation.” I wrote a policy paper on options for Medicare. Several months after the paper came out I spoke and voted against the Medicare provisions in the Ryan budget.

I mean Romney had to know that Wyden would respond. And that he’d do it in a partisan manner. It’s sloppy campaigning.

The other thing is he didn’t pick him as the VP nominee for his bipartisanship. Ryan is a partisan ideologue on budget issues and on social issues. He fires up the base. He gives them something to vote for instead of just against Obama.

If you didn’t see what happened at the anti I-502 press conference today, here’s what you missed:

The spokesman for a new Washington state medical marijuana organization is looking for work after being fired at his own inaugural press conference.

Philip Dawdy, a longtime figure in the state’s marijuana reform community, had invited reporters to the law offices of Seattle lawyer Kurt Boehl for the kickoff of the new trade group, called Safe Access Alliance. The purpose was to discuss opposition among medical marijuana patients to Initiative 502, which would legalize marijuana for recreational use in Washington.

Two members of the another group, the No on I-502 campaign, crashed the news conference and accused Safe Access Alliance of co-opting their message — and their donations.

After some minor theatrics by the protesters, Boehl, the president of Safe Access, escorted them to the door. As Dawdy continued speaking, Boehl grew frustrated and stepped to the microphone, announcing that Dawdy didn’t speak for the organization and that Boehl would be answering any further questions.

At the end of the news conference, he canned Dawdy within earshot of the reporters.

“You’re fired!” Boehl told him. “You embarrassed us.”

I’ve been vocal about the shortcomings of I-502 before and I still have concerns about its potential negative impacts, but if this is what the opposition has devolved to, filling in that Yes oval won’t be so tough for me in Nov. I’ve lost count of how many complete bullshit arguments I’ve seen by anti-502 folks, from claiming that it overrides our medical marijuana provisions (it doesn’t), to claiming that police will arrest people at next year’s Hempfest en masse for passing joints (seriously?), to knowingly making incorrect claims about how long active THC can stay in your system.

The most common argument I run across is the claim that it’s not legalization because possession of more than one ounce will remain illegal and you can’t grow your own plants. At a certain point, this does come down to semantics, but the reality is that establishing a legal marketplace for producing and selling marijuana is legalization enough that the federal government is expected to freak out and try to pre-empt it. And that’s the main point here. Of all of I-502’s flaws, the overriding factor for me is that its passage triggers that big conflict with one of the most misguided federal policies in the history of the United States, and that’s something that drug law reformers have been fighting to get to for years. I-502 will do that, even if it does leave a few more messes to clean up.