Perhaps I’ve underestimated the ideological cravenness of the Seattle Times editorial board, what with their refusal to endorse any Democratic legislative incumbent even remotely tied to organized labor, regardless of their accomplishments or the lack of qualifications of their opponents… but I still think they’re going to endorse Sen. Patty Murray in November.
Why? Well, the more than $500 million she just won for our state in additional federal aid for Medicaid and public schools is just one of many examples of how important she is to our local economy. That’s $500 million to be spent right here in state. That means thousands of jobs that won’t disappear due to even further draconian cutbacks. That means smaller class sizes, and more kids getting preventative health care.
Had Dino Rossi been senator, he would have stuck to his ideological guns and voted with the Republican leadership to block the amendment. But not only did Murray fight hard to pass the amendment, she’s the one who sponsored it.
Sen. Murray is just too valuable an appropriator, too powerful a defender of Boeing and the thousands of high paying jobs it brings to our region for Frank Blethen to have the balls to instruct his ed board to endorse the light weight Rossi. I mean, he wouldn’t sacrifice the best interests of our local economy just to score an ideological victory, would he?
UPDATE:
In the comment thread, classic HA troll Mr. Cynical poops out some classic GOP bullshit:
Goldy–
All she did was increase the National Debt.
It’s a shell-game the Dems are using.
In the end, the credit card bill will come due…for our grandkids.
Uh-huh. Except, it’s not true. The cost of the Murray amendment is actually paid for through closing several tax loopholes, including one that rewards companies for moving jobs overseas. In fact, the Murray amendment actually reduces the deficit by $1.4 billion.
Which, of course, Rossi opposes, because you know… anything to avoid closing corporate loopholes.
Silly man. Question is, is it possible to overestimate this trait?
Everyone agrees our state has a spending problem, and not an income problem, so how is throwing more money at spendaholic helping things? Murray is only enabling continued wasteful spending, and putting-off further, necessary cuts.
@2
Actually, no, not everyone.
Dino’s use of Karl Rove is sort of backfiring. The tennis shoe tromping on citizens ad really pissed a lot of people off. A lot.
watch Rossi run to middle now to preform some moderate candidate theater.
@2 just makes shit up.
Rossi should just post his concession speech on his website and get lost.
@2
“Everyone agrees…”
Perhaps in your twisted world, but not in the one the rest of us share.
Everyone agrees that without Murray’s bill, the unemployment problem would get significantly worse.
Thank you, Senator Murray, and a special thanks to the Republican Senators from Maine that broke the filibuster.
Troll @2 sounds like Herbert Hoover coping with the building Great Depression by cutting spending, laying peopole off, and hastening the cyclical decline.
“…but I still think they’re going to endorse Sen. Patty Murray in November.”
Well, that would require rational decision making on the part of the Blethens. I hardly expect them to delegate this decision to their “independent editorial board”, they are going to make this one themselves.
I hope I’m proven wrong, but the early indications, as I reported before, seem to indicate that they really, really, want Rossi to win.
They devoted a front-page top-of-fold article to Didier which pretty much ensured he won’t be getting many votes within the Times coverage area. Not that there was anything inaccurate in the article – it just displayed Didier for who he is, which will work against him among most voters. The reason this is important is that it did Rossi’s job for him – it cut off any likelihood that Didier would have a significant surge which would compel Rossi to attack him directly, a tactic which might well cut him off from significant support from the far right he would need in the general election.
Then the following day they burried Murray’s accomplishments in securing $44 million for the Howard Hanson dam project with the bland headline “Senate Approves…”, not bothering to mention Murray’s role in the headline. You could discern it from the bare-bones story, but it was clear that the Times was “throwing it out with the trash”, as they say in the P.R. business when they want to get rid of some news on a Friday afternoon so that it’s disclosed, but unlikely to be read by most people.
Then the next Monday they addressed Murray’s accomplishments in bringing home that $44 million only indirectly in an article where the headline claimed that the GOP’s criticism of Murray’s “earmarks” had placed her on the defensive. But the article itself didn’t support the headline, Murray was unapologetic and rather proud of her ability to bring $44 million home for needed repairs on the dam, and pointing out if she didn’t get the money for Washington State, someone else would get the money for another state.
So I’ll be interested in seeing how the Times plays this in the print edition. I haven’t seen the print edition yet, so I’ll reserve the right to revise this later after I’ve had an opportunity to do so.
Goldy–
All she did was increase the National Debt.
It’s a shell-game the Dems are using.
In the end, the credit card bill will come due…for our grandkids.
Here is a Summary of the Debt Situation.
It shows ObaMao thru 6/30/10.
As of today, it has jumped to $13.35 TRILLION…well over 90% of our GDP.
http://www.skymachines.com/US-.....l-Term.htm
So Patty Murray has voted to increase it again!
And you are flaunting that Goldy??
C’mon.
It figures. The headline reads “Gregoire relieved as aid bill advances in Senate”. The article itself give Murray credit, but the headline doesn’t match the article. The Times seems to be counting on lots of people never reading beyond the headlines.
I’m also wondering about the reference in the story to Murray finding money to the program by cutting an ammunition purchase by the military. I’m sure there’s more to the story than that. Expect that sentence to appear multiple times as the wingnuts try to tar her as “endangering our servicemen”, blaming her for any ultimate loss in Iraq or Afganistan, and assert that the money was wasteful spending.
Here is Rossi’s Press Release about Murray’s public statements…and her actions.
OUCH!
Murray is a phoney…more interested in getting elected than doing the right thing.
Her words say one thing…her actions are the opposite. Typical Saul Alinsky Socialist.
Goldy writes; “Sen. Murray is just too valuable an appropriator, too powerful a defender of Boeing”. Does Boeing need to be defended? I don’t think so. In fact Boeing is part of the problem. If our defense budget wasn’t being spent to keep so many troops abroad and that includes the Air Force we probably wouldn’t need as big a military and that includes the planes that Boeing builds.
I wrote to Senator Murray some time ago asking for an audit of the costs of keeping the military spread around the world and never did get a straight answer.
Here’s a CNN article on state debt. Interesting reading. Check it out.
http://money.cnn.com/news/stor.....index.html
Cynical @ # 11 chimes right in on cue, trying to blame Murray (and Democrats in general) for the federal debt.
He does this despite knowing that the Bush Tax Cuts make up the largest portion (by far) of the budget deficit, and the two wars (Afganistan and Iraw) make up the next larger portion. Even the Tarp bailout is rather tiny compared with those other two items.
And, of course, the budget deficit is also due to decreased revenue in the middle of a rescession. Cutting spending in a rescession just puts more people out of work and reduces revenues even further. Cutting taxes isn’t the panacea the Republicans have claimed it is for the past thirty-odd years: taxes on zero income is zero, regardless of whether the rate multiplier is 10%, 30%, higher.
Republicans who fail to acknowledge that they are responsible for most of the budget deficit deserve to be ignored, ridiculed, or run out of town on a rail.
@13
We elected Murray, and we keep re-electing her, to represent the citizens of Washington.
You ‘thugs are always trying to leave people out. Why do you hate Americans? Why don’t you recognize that we’re all in this together?
Fortunately your definition of family just got smacked HARD by Judge Walker (bless him!), and that phoney designation ‘job creator’ you twits love to use to put capitalism on a pedestal bears no resemblance to the real economy in which the contributions of every worker add to our economy and society.
(BTW, I’m a small business owner with employees. So STFU, you don’t speak on my behalf).
@5 “@2 just makes shit up.”
A common wingnut affliction.
@13 And speaking of which, the Rossi press release is not only vacuous, they make shit up. heh- Why does Rossi hate the jobs that the dam project would provide? Why does Rossi want everybody in the valley to die?
I had the pleasure last week of meeting someone who works for Blethen’s Bugle. She said there are lots and lots of unoccupied desks and virtually everyone left assumes they’re on short time.
If we examine the postulate that “private enterprise” can make everything work better than government, then Frank’s recent success (or lack thereof) at operating a viable business would seem to be lurid evidence to the contrary.
@16
Indeed, indeed, indeed.
Right now, with the economy awful (from the point of view of workers), the time is to retire the Bush tax cuts and BORROW at the ridiculously low interest rates that T-bills pay and BUILD INFRASTRUCTURE. Put people to work and get cool stuff that pay out dividends over years like trains and wind farms and smart power grids and schools and on and on.
@18 Rossi’s probably just pissed that he’s not in on the huge commercial development coming up in the lower Green River Valley that would probably have had its permits yanked without the dam being fixed. Hmmm…maybe he had his money in a competing project.
For example, the US has about 300,000 megawatts of coal-fired electrical generating capacity.
At about $1 million per megawatt for large-scale wind generated power, for about $300 billion we could replace all the coal-fired power with wind.
Now it’s not as simple as that, but you get the scales – they’re doable in terms of $$$ that we’re presently flushing down the toilet, eg giving them away to millionaires via tax cuts, or dumping in the wastelands of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Bluecollar @ 14: I think Goldy didn’t want to bog down the post into discussions of Boeing’s interests within Washington state or elsewhere. Murray made it pretty clear to Boeing last year that there is a price they are going to pay for opening up the second assembly line in Charleston. Now when they ask for her support in the Senate, she’s going to insist on guarantees that such support benefits Washington residents, and doesn’t help finance Boeing’s efforts to relocate work to anti-labor locations, either here or overseas.
Remember that the entire Boeing wide-body jet program, beginning with the 747, could have been located in Wichita instead of Everett. Although Washington (and particularly the City of Everett) made a very attractive offer to Boeing, Senator Scoop Jackson’s influence in the Senate played a big part as well. The possibility of ticking off Scoop Jackson, with his influence on defense appropriations, was enough that Boeing executives later admitted that locating the 747 program outside of Washington State was never a serious alternative.
Patty Murray now has almost the same amount of influence in the Senate the Scoop Jackson did. With her re-election, the analogy should be complete.
BlueCollar @ 14:
continuing the discussion….
As for reducing America’s military footprint overseas, I have no problem with that. Once we withdraw from Iraq and Afganistan, there shouldn’t be a need for an American soldier anywhere in the Middle East except for a handful of advisors and liason officers. That alone should help dilute the conflict between muslim nations and the U.S. (Osama Bin Laden first started his jihad against the U.S. because he considered the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia to be an insult to the prophet, as Saudi Arabia is the host and guardian of the muslim world’s holiest site, Mecca).
In the far east, the American footprint in Japan and Okinawa should be seriously reduced. U.S. troops there caused substantial problems with the local populations, and are in general no longer wanted by the majority of the people. On one visit to Japan, I saw a small group of young caucasions boarding the train, and I said “How’s it going, Marine?”. He asked me how I knew he was a Marine. It wasn’t hard – several young, very fit caucasion men wearing U.S. style clothes with the type of short haircuts then popular with the Marines made it pretty easy to guess. They explained that they were told to wear civies and keep as low a profile as possible while off base.
S. Korea is a much harder problem. Any significant withdrawal there might well be mis-interpreted by that idiot megalmaniac in N. Korea as an abandonment of S. Korea by the U.S., thus encouraging an attack of one sort or another. I expect we will continue to have to keep troops there until he dies, and hope that whoever succeeds him will be more reasonable. But S. Korea residents are also resentful of the priviledges of American troops, the valuable land they occupy, and their rather arrogant and rude attitude in dealing with civilians. Every time a U.S. soldier is involved in a traffic accident where a Korean civilian dies, it causes quite a bit of outrage that the U.S. serviceman is exempt from the Korean civil justice system.
@20 “schools”
I was talking to a guy at L&I last week and he was telling me that his plan review section is swamped with so-called “shovel-ready” public works projects, including schools. It makes sense that it took awhile to get some of these through the pipeline. To be a shovel-ready major public works project doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a case of taking a shovel and you start digging tomorrow. I do some of that stuff and these things usually move like slugs through the final design and approval process. I followed up that conversation by going through the all the stock charts of the basic construction materials sector and liked what I saw.
# 13: If figures. Citing a Rossi press release as evidence to support your point. Could you have possibly found a LESS credible source?
16. rhp6033 spews:
Whoa–rhp, are you really that ignorant.
I’m shocked…SHOCKED.
You’re so inept you do not understand that tax increases SLOW the economy even more?
Do you really believe. as the Leftist Pinheads do, that there are absolutely no consequences of tax increases??
C’mon.
How sophomoric of you rhp.
Childish even.
Grow up and wise up.
Actually, I think Cynical is a worker on Rossi’s campaign. It’s his job to make sure Rossi’s press releases are inserted here anytime Murray’s name is mentioned. Didn’t he mention that he was doing some freelance gigs right now, or am I thinking of someone else?
Patty’s fellow Leftist Senator, Babs Boxer, has a fight on her hands–
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Yep – more and more stories about how the stimulus dollars are working their way through the economy.
Building stuff we all need – schools, other infrastructure – even right wingers need. Keeping teachers and public safety workers working. This isn’t rocket science but tell that to the lockstep obstructionists in the U.S. Senate and elsewhere.
Looking good for progressives this fall.
Bad for return to the ugly past right wingers like the KLOWN.
Any incumbent not over 50% is in play.
To deny this is to get a good ass-kicking.
Dems like Murray are desperate to NOT talk about their voting records and the current state of the economy.
Blame Bush===Excuses.
Americans who are unemployed don’t want no stinkin’ excuses.
Fools like rhp somehow believe raising taxes will encourage private sector investment which fuels job creation.
I really thought you had a few marbles upstairs rhp.
Your comment was one of ignorance.
You seem to be in a rut…the more ObaMao and the progressives plunge in the polls, the stupider you get.
Damn you WA socialists!
Don’t you know that your tax money should being going to rural states like Montana?!
Okay, I just saw the print edition of the Times. They did have it as a lead story on the front page, along with Murray’s picture. That’s better than I expected. But the headline still doesn’t mention her.
My previous prediction was that the Seattle Times would endorse Rossi – not because he would be a better Senator, but because he more closely matches the philosophical and economic interests of the Blethen family. But I am now revising that prediction. I’ll use the language of stock analysts’ reports:
@2
That’s what the folks in Ireland thought, so they went the austerity route from jump street. They’re sucking left hind tit, to put it mildly, these days.
Actually I’m starting to agree with MrC;
we shouldn’t be subsidizing the Port Of Seattle…where that 90% of Montana’s wheat is exported from.
Cynical’s just pissed that he didn’t win the coveted “Golden Goat” this month.
He’s the clubhouse leader for September!
@31
You just keep right on believing that…
The solution to the problem that is our nation’s crumbling infrastructure is to give the rich a tax cut. In fact, that’s the solution to every problem that our country faces today.
“Americans who are unemployed don’t want no stinkin’ excuses.”
I’m pretty sure that the thing the unemployed want most is a tax cut for the rich.
@11: No. The bill is paid for by closing tax loopholes for corporations and cutting food stamps.
I’d say that tax cuts for the rich and chip implants for American women in order to monitor their womb is pretty much the entire Republican wish list. Well, maybe toss in a new war or two with Iran and North Korea.
Has Cynical,or any other Republican, responded to my call to respond to David Stockman’s article?
NYT: “Four Deformations of the Apocalypse” by David Stockan
I’m wondering what they think about their economic theories after reading a serious discussion by Ronald Reagan’s first budget director.
@43 Unfortunately, they threw Stockman under the bus decades ago.
11. Mr. Cynical
Cynical, you are a liar, a lunatic, or a moron. I’ll let you Choose.
The bill in question reduces the deficit by $1.3 billion over ten years (PDF). When you’re wrong, you’re wrong. And you’re ALWAYS wrong.
And if Rossi had been our Senator (thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster that he isn’t!), he would have filibustered this deficit-reducing jobs bill.
Which is why he won’t be. I just saw Patty Murray’s new ad. She hits hard for a little gal!
The chart showing how by far the largest components of our current deficit are our two concurrent wars (completely “paid for” by deficit spending), the Bush-era tax cuts, and the reduction in revenues due to the Bush Recession is at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities site (hint: it’s Figure 1)
Cynny @ 27: “Grow up and wise up.”
How rich the irony that you should be passing on such advice. Thank you for the belly laugh you gave me.
If allowing the Bush-era tax cuts to expire as the Republicans planned them to would be such an economic growth disaster, how come after they were enacted that growth in the economy, wages, and jobs so anemic?
For those who can appreciate the (slightly) longer form of a newspaper column, here’s Nobel Prize in Economics winner Paul Krugman slicing and dicing the idiots who think that the Bush tax cuts helped our economy.
Okay, I checked back on the previous “Open Thread”, and Lost did make a thoughtful response, for which I applaud him:
I agree that Stockman’s no Democrat. Given a chance, he would cut entitlements to the bone, including Social Security and Medicare. But I appreciate that he is, and generally has been, consistent with his beliefs, and willing to acknowledge their downsides rather than be hypocritical.
I even agree with his comments about the “hollowing out of the economy” as it’s manufacturing base declines, and his comments about how the financial industry is an inefficent waste of our economic potential.
But mostly I agree with what he says about the bankruptcy of the “laffler curve”, the whole idea that tax cuts help balance a budget. In his mind, fiscal conservative means you pay for things as you go, and the Reagan tax cuts (and later the Bush tax cuts) were irresponsible without accompanying spending reductions. He dismisses the whole idea of cutting taxes first and relying upon budget pressures to later “force” budget cuts. That has proven to be politically impossible, not matter which party is in power.
As I’ve said before, I’d be much more willing to consider seriously the Republican Party if it was consistent between what it said and what it actually did. But over the past thirty years I’ve seen a huge gap between them.
I’m sure Cynical and others would argue that “Well, the Democrats do it to”, but in my experience it’s not nearly to the same scale. And with the Democrates you just don’t have the same level of self-dealing and profit motivation as you do with the Republicans. Sure, you might find a Democrat who’s caught with a few thousand dollars in his refrigerator. But that’s nothing compared to the billions Republicans spent funneling taxpayer money to private corporations friendly to Republicans under the guise of conducting foreign wars, etc.
@50 Who cares what cynical would argue?
First, Klynical lies and is so damn stoopid that he does not even realize what a fool he is.
Second, Klynical does not know how to argue.
Look at the pathetically ignorant posts above. frist hew says the bill will increase the deficit (a lie) then he claims increasing taxes on overseas corporations will make less jobs – what a complete fool and LIAR Klynical is.
He favors outsourcing American jobs to greedy tax-avoiding corporations over educating our kids and medicaid for people who need it.
Only a liar, fool and shill for the rightwingnuts would advocate for that – and clearly that is what Klynical is.
Thanks again Klynical for showing how ignorant, morally bankrupt and just plain stoopid you and the rightwingnuts are.
I will never understand why the average person will defend corporations using loopholes to get out of paying taxes, but supporting teachers sends them into a boiling rage.
Class? Class?!! Can we get back on track? I have never seen a group a yahoos go so far off the trail. This is about whether or not Senator Murray should be re-elected. As your contributing union hating, tax hating, gun-toting conservative; I am once again going to shock, yes puddy bird, shock you by saying that I will be voting for Patty this fall.
The reason is simple; enlightened self interest.
A Senator in her fourth term can bring home the bacon. A freshman Senator is worth nothing. Say what you want about good verse evil, and all that other crap, this is about who can bring home the goods; Murray can, Dino can’t. We want bridges, ferry systems (I ride weekly), and other pork barrel items, then Murray is our vote.
Also, let’s get off the soap box about who’s deficit this is. Nobody’s skirt is clean, we are spending ourselves into oblivion – but since we are spending, and since neither Dems or Reps seem to be able to stop themselves, then I would rather spend it here at home. If my great-grandkids are being driven to the poor house, the least we can do is give them a smooth, safe road.
That’s it, my next tirade will once again involve Union thuggery and why RICO laws should run them out of business.
Talk amongst yourselves.
Duke @ 53
My jaw is on the floor. I thought all notions of pragmatism had been stricken from Republican ideology. Perhaps there is still hope for the development of a noble opposition . . .
@53
You and a whole lot of others. Enlightened self interest is a good thing.
Wow,
Murray’s bill hit the enhanced food stamp program, low income tax credit and green energy loans to help pay for it.
Wat to go libtardos!
Murray has a lot of clout. She actually has real life support for some of the things some conservatives claim to support, like the troops. However, the lock step jack booted GOP elected representatives don’t show the slightest evidence for actual, real support for the people fighting their precious wars. They love war. Blood, guts and human fodder are good.
Murray actually gives a shit what happens to them after they have fought your stupid ass fucking war.
So bringing home the bacon (read spending more deficit dollars) is what counts in a politician? Walking lock step with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi is what counts?
The deficit hit $1Trillion for FY10 in June 2010. Way to go libtardos.
A bringin in the pork, bringin in the pork, we will come rejoicing bringin in the pork.
The Duke @53,
That’s all I’m saying. No moral, ethical, or ideological intended, Sen. Murray is simply too valuable to our state and our region to toss out. For example, are we better off with or without the forty-some million she appropriated for the Army Corps to reinforce the Howard Hansen Dam?
So yeah, it’s nice to see a little pragmatism coming from your side.
A bringin in the pork, bringin in the pork, we will come rejoicing bringin in the pork. (repeat)
The Duke53
So in giving your grand-kids a smooth road to the poorhouse you have lost and given in. Wrong is wrong, pork is pork and just because it comes your way does not make it right. I cannot believe that a “gun toting conservative” is going to cower to this. Looks like we are going to have to depend on your grand-kids once they take the smooth road to the poorhouse to stand up in your place. Sorry to hear that…or think it even…kind of thing that makes me ill.
re 61 & 62: Look upon it as money for the Iraq war.
You’ll feel better. Welfare for billionnaires.
It’s clear to many Americans.
Murray’s unfunded $26.1 BILLION is merely a bailout to keep government jobs and appease the Government Unions.
Add to the National Debt and make our grandkids pay for Big Government 2010.
Explain it to them KLOWNS
Cynical @ # 64: “It’s clear to many Americans.
Murray’s unfunded $26.1 BILLION is merely a bailout….”
What’s the deal, coming in a day later to post a comment which is directly contradicted by the facts, which are explained to you in length in the preceeding posts? Do you have some urge to get in the final word, even if no one’s listening?
I just happened to stumble on this one by accident. Do you do this regularly?