I rode up the elevator with Seattle Times editorial board member Bruce Ramsey, as we both headed to wait with the press for Dino Rossi’s news conference. The difference was, he was escorted into the press room while I was escorted out.
Why? I’m a “partisan blogger” I was told, while he is a legitimate member of the press. You can read the Times’ totally, nonpartisan, impartial, objective, fair and balanced editorial here.
I don’t know if there are some in the old press who applaud these efforts to exclude new media journalists like me, but they certainly don’t seem to be standing up for us. Josh Feit, when he was credentialed by The Stranger, had the same kind of access as Ramsey, but yesterday, a working reporter in the employ of HA and its readers, was also escorted from the building because, I suppose, he wasn’t paid by the right kind of people.
Over time, more and more journalists will be employed by nontraditional outlets like HA, and if the subjects of our reporting get to pick and choose who is a journalist and who is not, it really isn’t honest to call it “journalism” anymore, is it?
“News” is as much about narrative as facts. And as such, who controls the narrative controls what is perceived to be the news.
Bloggers challenge control of the narrative, and can only rarely be controlled via monetary or, in some cases, as can be seen here, threats regarding access. (Lack of access itself can become part of the narrative.)
Present-day old-line news media wants to treat their situation as a commodity over which they have a controlling interest. And the bottom line is that they can’t any more.
Restricting access and having centers of power collude with them is their last option, unless they intend to take the Russian route.
Last gasps, Goldy. Last gasps….
Hang on and you and others will make it through.
Speaking of partisanship, here is an interesting poll from today’s Rasmussen:
Just 34% Like One-Party Rule in Washington
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Obama will be under the microscope from Day 1…for his Marxist/Socialist Views and overall lack of experience. From Day 1, Obama’s past affiliations and new revelations will haunt him. And now, with the backdrop that the majority of Americans do not like 1-Party rule in DC.
Buying an election with over $600 million spent is one thing…so is celebrating a victory. But effective governing is quite another. Obama has set expectations of our youth & the far-left extremely high.
Just watch, his first 6-months will be spent lowering the expectation bar and putting out brush fires. Obama has a very, very poor track record of choosing quality people to surround himself with (Wright, Rezko, Ayers, Khalidi et al).
If I hear Obama toss out the name of the king of Capitalism, Warren Buffett, anymore, I think I’ll hurl!!
Buffett has been silent since the Obama Marxist Ideology has been laid wide open.
Elections are always the most fun part.
Effective governing, when every word is parsed & every action criticized, is yet another.
Conservatives are stoked to be what you KLOWNS have been the past 8 years.
Do you really think Obama should expect any different treatment than you metted out to Bush??
Let’s take a look at the Times Editorial you reference Goldy:
Editorial
Dino Rossi vs. the lawyers
The deposition of Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi was a farce.
THE deposition of Dino Rossi was a farce.
In other words, the 2 Supreme Court Judges who brought this political hatchet job on behalf of TEAM GREGOIRE are a disgrace…as is the attorney, KLOWN PRINCE Knoll Lowney, who did this before on McGavick for the daughter of Ashley Bullitt…who had recently bought 50 shares of Safeco stock.
Who is paying Lowney for this hatchet job????
Find out Goldy.
@3 – Cynical
You provide the editorial in its entirety as evidence of what exactly? Since the ST calls it a farce, that’s evidence that it is a farce?
Excellent and penetrating Republican logic.
Goldy, see this for a similar anti-blogger experience:
http://www.openleft.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=9510
Stoller had a similar experience – did you guys discuss your shared dissing?
I completely agree. I understand how depositions can be testy, but the Times editorial page has a raging hard-on for Rossi that clouds their judgment to the point where they are useful except as PR for Rossi.
The paper itself isn’t perfect (none are), but the level of reason and balance generally displayed in the paper, eclipses the increasingly old-school, small-Seattle, right-wing leaning editorial page by a mile.
It’s like the Wall St. Journal, whose reporting is actually quite good, but whose editorial page is basically “mash” notes to whichever Republican supply-sider is currently in favor.
Listening to Joel Connelly, who presents himself as patient adult representative (“‘calumnist,’ as Dwight Eisenhower always said”) of the real media among the upstart bloggers on PL (though, to his credit, he does deign to appear with you every week), the root of the argument against blogging seems to boil down to stylistic issues: use of the personal pronoun “I”, use of swear words, tone, sarcasm.
To borrow a phrase, it seems to me that blogging is journalism unmasked. Columnists are paid and have to commit their words to paper (which you can’t go back and edit), but this does not journalistic integrity necessarily make. Check out the P-I’s baffling endorsement of Dave Reichert.
No question that blogging is heavily weighted toward opinion instead of reporting, but there’s great investigative reporting on blogs like HA as well. It seems that blogging requires a more active and participatory kind of reading than newspapers. Most of the trolls (and journalists) that disparage blogs like HA for their “lack of objectivity,” or who demand relentless civility, are just stuck in a legacy media frame of mind. If the good Lord had intended Man to fly, he would have given him wings!
Wow David Brooks at the NY Times steps on his own you know what:
Well David perceiving what’s true is easier for some people and those people are definitely NOT slavish, Bush-worshipping wingnuts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10.....rooks.html
BTW – This is how depositions work (there’s a reason they are transcribed). Whomever is being deposed does their best to say nothing incriminating, and those conducting the deposition try to find out anything incriminating they can.
But when the person being deposed is increasingly obstructionist, it’s important for counsel to make that clear on the deposition (so no one thinks the answers were acceptable).
Rossi and his lawyers may have some good political theater in the very short term (think McCain’s pick of Palin) but his answers are not going to stop this case from going forward.
Unless you are a short-sighted Republican idiot, this deposition will play a significant role in the judges support for not dismissing this case, and ultimately finding the BIAW guilty of illegal coordination.
Ranching in Montana is such easy work. It affords Cynical the time to post day and night on a Western Washington political blog. He also has plenty of time to dine at his favorite cafe in Lacey, just a short hop from the BIAW headquarters in Olympia. Yes, ranching in Montana is such easy work.
journalist
noun
a person who writes for newspapers or magazines or prepares news to be broadcast on radio or television.
Let’s face it, the Seattle Times is a blog, and a partisan one too, the main difference between the Times and HA being that which was explained by Fitzgerald and Hemingway:
Scott: “The rich are different from us.”
Ernest: “Yes, they have more money.”
For a while, anyway. Print blogs are dying because of the high cost of newsprint (and the distribution system it requires) and migration of advertising dollars to other media (read: internet). Newspapers were created in an age when they had monopolies at both ends of the business: They were the only place people could get news, and they were the only place merchants could advertise. Both of those monopolies have been broken. Now there are lots of (better) places to advertise; and newspapers are rapidly losing their panache as the news source of choice. Newspapers have always been partisan; it’s just that papers like the Times (or the Hearst rags of the bad old days) are more out of touch now, and aren’t getting away with it anymore. I mean, how many of the Times’ readers give a damn about whether the next generation of Blethens have to pay inheritance taxes?
Great, Bruce. I’m sure the Seattle legal community won’t hesitant to call on you in the future for your incisive and trenchant analysis of complex legal issues in the future. You should set yourself up as a consultant evaluating the merits of potential lawsuits so people like two ex-Supreme Court justices can save themselves a bundle of money by calling upon your expert legal advice and prognostications. Your education at the U.W. School of Communications, your training on the U.W. Daily, and your experience as an editorial shill at the Seattle Fishwrapper equips you well for this demanding work. Your legal knowledge is without peer. Sure, Bruce, sure. Next time, would you please have the courtesy, and show the grace, to warn your readers that your diatribe is uninformed (and uninformative) partisan propaganda? You know, like the warning labels on cigaret packages and bottles of unregulated snake oil?
Signed,
R. Rabbit, Esq.*
* “Esq.” means I — unlike you — know what I’m talking about when it comes to legal stuff. For that matter, I know what I’m talking about when it comes to journalism stuff, too, because I got my journalism education at one of the country’s top J schools and worked in the newspaper business before you did, neener neener.
Roger Rabbit, you say the Seattle Times is a partisan blog.
Do you also believe the Seattle P.I. is a partisan blog?
The reason pols like Rossi hold press conferences, and talk to journalists, is because they want something. Namely, publicity. Rossi wants the right kind of publicity, of course — the kind that presents his message in a favorable light, hopefully while dissing (or at least ignoring) the messages of his critics and opponents.
For the last 8 years, the media have traded a fawning sycophantism for precious access to the Bush administration, with disastrous results for the country.
Every journalist, everywhere, ought to think about that before ever again hocking his honesty and objectivity for a seat in front of the propaganda microphone.
@2 I don’t like one-party rule, Cynical. The trouble is, here in Washington as throughout America, we have only one responsible party. The lack of competition isn’t our fault; a need exists for competing ideas and leadership, but there’s no one capable of filling it. We don’t have a “loyal opposition” in either of the Washingtons. And we certainly don’t have another political party with practical ideas or competent leaders. All we see is hatemongering obstructionists. If you were trying to run a democracy in 1920s Germany, you wouldn’t invite the Nazis to the table just because they’re bawling at the gates, would you? Not if you could help it, anyway. We’re in somewhat the same position. If you Republicans ever grow up and act civilized, then yeah, there could be a role for you. For the present, however, the less say you have in the governance of our state and country, the better off everyone (including you) will be, so that’s how we plan to do things in the foreseeable future. And now that you’re about to be marginalized, Cynical, you and your ilk had better get used to it.
@4 “provide the editorial in its entirety”
Isn’t that a copyright violation and also a violation of HA’s posting policy?
@6 Connelly, although not a dogmatic conservative, has fallen for the classic conservative trap: They paper over their dogma with polite mannerisms (and fake Christianity) and expect people to think that makes their dogma respectable.
The reason Democrats will bury the GOPers in this election is because the low-information electorate has finally realized that voting in Republicans doesn’t mean Republicans will let them keep their jobs or savings.
Were the rabidly partisan bloggers from (un)SoundPolitics also refused entry?
@13 No, the P-I is much closer to an “objective journalism” standard because even in their editorials they make at least an attempt to base their opinions on facts and reasoning and try to serve a broad community interest instead of the owner’s self-interest.
“One-party rule” is always what the losers scream when the voters aren’t buying what the losers are selling.
Goldy: You need to hire someone really qualified: like Jeff Gannon Guckert. He seems to have plenty of ‘access’ to Republican politicians.
And the beauty-part is that he’s non-partisan!
I just read that the Christian Science Monitor, one of the nation’s great national newspapers, was halting its print edition and will be only on the Web. Does that mean that reporters from the CSM won’t be allowed regular press access from now on?
What a farce those rulings are.
Roger soldier, lawyer, journalist, day-trader Rabbit says:
“For the last 8 years, the media have traded a fawning sycophantism for precious access to the Bush administration, with disastrous results for the country.
Every journalist, everywhere, ought to think about that before ever again hocking his honesty and objectivity for a seat in front of the propaganda microphone.”
How is that any different from the fawning sycophantism of this blog towards Burner and the Democratic party in general?
[Deleted]
I have not gotten myself to switch to the PI so I guess I’m just as guilty. I did send an e-mail to Joni Balter and Kate Riley.
WHAT THE FUCK?????!!!!!
You’re kidding, right?
You’re not.
oh…
THAT explains a lot.
The Seattle Times mission statement reads:
1)At all times we must promote the interests of the wealthy elite who run this town.
2)Repealing the death tax will guide all editorial commentary.
25 – What mindless drivel!!!
Cynical seek counseling. Really.. And not with your current whacked out pastor. Someone a little more mainstream or level-headed. Good luck..
How is that any different from the fawning sycophantism of this blog towards Burner and the Democratic party in general?
Nope. Our guiding principle is more and BETTER Democrats.
First you win and then you hold their feet to the fire.
Once I saw the endorsement for Rossi and the hit job on Burner I deleted the Times from my favorites. I quit reading the printed version a long time ago, now I don’t even waste time at work reading their on line version.
32
I’d delete them too. But they have Doonesbury.
17 Roger, that’s no less offensive than the way the right’s “either you’re with us or you’re against us” demand for ersatz ideological purity.
If people like you and Lee insist on tossing people like me and Joel out of the tent because you can’t stand the fact that our motivation to work for a peaceful and just society is at least partly motivated by faith, you’re going to be saying bye-bye to an awful lot of potential allies.
Since when do newspapers defend candidates for ducking important questions? And for hiring attorneys, and engaging the State Attorney General, no less, to keep information from the public?
Oh yeah, ever since the Governor and the state’s voters approved the estate tax the newspaper publisher hates.
25 Oh….I guess that means you think the rest of the commandments don’t matter.
Why The Rich Should Pay Higher Taxes
Nouriel Roubini, an NYU business professor, writing in Forbes magazine, predicts
” … the fiscal costs of bailing out borrowers and/or lenders/investors will not be inflationary, as central banks will not be willing to incur the costs of … using the inflation tax to pay for the fiscal costs of cleaning up the mess that this most severe financial crisis has created.”
Yes, he acknowledges, “the fiscal costs of bailing out financial institutions would eventually lead to inflation if the increased budget deficits associated with this bailout were to be monetized,” but goes on to explain why that’s a poor option that policymakers will avoid.
Instead, he says, the government will finance deficits with public debt. But this means “taxes will have to be increased over the next few decades and/or government spending reduced to service this large increase in the stock of public debt.”
(Quoted under fair use.)
Roger Rabbit Commentary: In this article, Prof. Roubini explains at some length why the U.S. and world are facing what he calls “stag-deflation.” This has to do with surpluses of capital, labor, capacity, and inventory as demand shrinks in response to the credit freeze. I’ll skip over that aspect of the big picture to focus on what he says about higher taxes. His argument, basically, is that policymakers have a choice between raising taxes to pay the interest on higher public debt, or using inflation to wipe out the increased debt, and they will opt for the former for reasons he explains in his article.
For purposes of this comment, I’ll take it as a given that Prof. Roubini is correct and that policymakers will recognize, and respond to, the need for higher tax revenues to pay government’s higher debt service costs. Here, I assume rational policymakers seeking the greatest good for the greatest number, which in turn assumes Democrats will win full control of the government, because when you talk about “policymakers” who determine spending and tax policies, you are of course talking about the President and Congress.
Thus, assuming Democrats win in 2008 and enough subsequent election cycles to implement a long-term fiscal strategy, and accepting Prof. Roubini’s reasoning that higher taxes will be necessary to avoid destructive inflation via monetizing the increases in public debt (it is, after all, logical), the question becomes:
Who should pay the higher taxes?
That’s a no-brainer. Or, at least, it ought to be. During the 27 years of Reaganomics, only the rich benefited from “supply-side” economic policies, with little or nothing trickling down to anyone below the top 2%. In addition, not only did the greed and selfishness of the rich bring about this economic catastrophe, but it was also they who reaped all the economic benefits of the buccaneering capitalism that Reagan ushered in against the advice of his principal economic adviser, David Stockman, who publicly acknowledged years ago that “supply-side” thinking is “voodoo” that doesn’t work.
So, naturally, the rich should bear the higher tax burden of cleaning up the mess they created and from which they profited. Another reason is, after this meltdown, they’re the only ones who still have any money. Workers don’t; their wages have been falling for nearly 40 years. The middle class doesn’t; it has been stripped of its home equity and savings.
At this juncture, the Screeching Monkeys may interject that raising taxes cuts revenue. That’s a lie, and I beat Mark the Welshing Redneck into the carpet on this point long ago. For those new to the issue, I’ll briefly repeat the essential truth here.
A 0% tax rate produces no revenue, for obvious reasons. Conversely, a 100% tax rate produces no revenue, either, because there would be no economic activity. It follows that revenue is maximized at a tax rate somewhere between 0% and 100%. If the actual tax rate is below that point, raising taxes will increase revenue; if it’s above that point, raising taxes will decrease revenue. I further posited that in a democracy actual tax rates will never be above the revenue-maximization point because public resistance to higher taxes will always influence policy choices before that point is reached (disregarding nominal tax rates that no one pays because of the various tax-avoidance artifices that spring up, and which therefore are irrelevant). Thus, we can take it as a given that raising taxes will increase revenue, and empirical statistics will confirm this. For example, federal revenues fell for 5 straight years after the Bush tax cuts of 2001, and although they may have slightly exceeded the baseline year (2000) by 2007, that was due to population growth, inflation, and other extrinsic factors. The same phenomenon is seen in data pertaining to the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980s (which went too far and eventually forced Reagan and Bush Sr. to raise taxes 5 times).
So, no, raising taxes won’t decrease revenue — it’ll increase it, and that increased revenue will be needed to service the higher public debt that is now being incurred to avoid inflationary monetization of the financial rescue and stimulus needed to prevent a reprise of the 1930s depression.
On the spending side, there are absolutely no options, and anyone who thinks so is completely unrealistic. We have two expensive wars ongoing, the new costs of Bush’s prescription drug program, huge unmet infrastructure needs, and we’re on the verge of incurring the Social Security and Medicare costs of the baby boomers’ retirement. Federal spending will grow, and there’s no way around it. The deficit in the next budget is likely to exceed $1 trillion. (And that won’t be President Obama’s fault; the spending and revenues for that budget are already locked in by Bush’s policies.)
So, faced with the need to pay for higher public debt to avoid inflationary monetizing of the liquidity being pumped into the economy to avoid its collapse, and the inability to cut spending to avoid tax increases, future tax policy comes down to a choice of taxing the undertaxed rich or taxing overtaxed workers even more. Given that the tax system is already heavily tilted in favor of the asset-owning class and creates powerful disincentives to work via high taxation of wages, this policy choice, as I said above, is a no-brainer.
Finally, the argument of conservatives that further tax cuts for the rich, or at least avoidance of tax increases on the rich, are necessary for economic stimulation and job creation are easily debunked. We’ve had these policies in place for three decades, and it’s clear that the GDP growth over that time was created by an unsustainable credit bubble, not investment, and all one has to do is ask, if the rich create jobs, where are the jobs?
re 24: “How is that any different from the fawning sycophantism of this blog towards Burner and the Democratic party in general?”
I see your point! Backing a Democratic candidate for congress and showing party preference is exactly the same as giving the Republican president (illegally elected)a pass on lying us into a war, bringing us to financial ruin, and enriching himself and his cronies in the process.
Where is Halliburton headquartered?
@21 I haven’t seen it put in a better way. Well done!
To your comment I would add, as Republicans weren’t interested in bipartisanship when they controlled the levers of power — even though they were a majority by the slimmest of electoral margins — why should be accomodate them after the voters repudiate their failed policies and leadership by a landslide? The people are electing us to steer the country away from the GOP’s destructive partisanship and policies, not to cut deals with them. There should be no negotiations, compromises, or accomodations of Republicans. The job voters are giving us is to cut out the Republican cancer. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do!
@24 This is a partisan blog. Get past that. I’m a Democratic Party hack and liberal propagandist who doesn’t pretend to be an objective journalist. Does that disqualify me from demanding that journalists do their job instead of being fawning sycophants like me? Of course not, and only an idiot would think so, because I’m a consumer of news, not a producer of news content. No one expects me to be nonpartisan, nor does anyone depend on me for objective news reporting and analysis. That’s the Times’ and P-I’s job, and the Times is falling on its ass.
@25 I’m willing to go anywhere I won’t have you as a roommate.
@27 No problem, you can be my roommate.
Rossi’s counsel’s performance during the deposition violated procedural rules pertaining to the what objections are appropriate and how such objections may be made. He resorted repeatedly to what are called “speaking objections.” Patterson knows speaking objections are inappropriate; he has been a litigator for a long time. Given Patterson’s reputation for nasty litigation tactics, which reputation is widespread and well-earned, Rossi’s criteria for selecting counsel become apparent: (1) willingness to be an asshole on a public stage; (2) disregard for basic discovery rules; and (3) having a win-at-any-cost mentality. In Patterson, Dino found his man. Hopefully, sanctions will come Patterson’s way.
@34 You misunderstood my comment, Art. All I did was make an observation about how conservatives operate. To wit: They’re superficially polite, and make a big show of going to church, but are anything but kind or compassionate under that phony veneer. All I said was this pretense of respectability by people who are not respectable is intended to lay a trap; and by judging people according to such superficialities instead of by the quality of their ideas, Connelly falls into the trap. To rephrase: He ought to swear more and give less credence to those who don’t. Nothing I said @17 or here disses genuine Christians or people whose social graces are accompanied by constructive social behavior; I only went after the phonies, and nudged Joel to not fall for their pretenses. How is that bad? I certainly am not tossing either of you “out of the tent;” all I’m saying is don’t bunk with those other guys, and don’t buy their bunk.
Goldy’s description of yesterday’s meeting is accurate: I did accompany him to the third floor of the offices of the Patterson Buchanan law firm, and they let me in and not him or his reporter, Josh Feit. Goldy told the woman who met us that Horses’ Ass was part of the Seattle media, that he had retained Feit to cover Rossi’s press conference, so that Feit was a paid media person. I told the woman that I knew Goldy and could vouch for him to the extent that he was who he said he was. She wasn’t interested. She appeared to have her orders, and she carried them out.
As to the other comments on the blog: the editorial column of the Times is an opinion section. It is not bound to be evenhanded. Nor is does it always side with wealth. Our opposition to the estate tax does not stop us from endorsing Barack Obama, nor did it stop us from endorsing John Kerry four years ago. Nor is our support of the liberal minority on the FCC in any way a support of wealth.
As to Mr. “Rabbit,” esquire: I invite you to read the the transcript of the deposition of Mr. Rossi. It does not take a law degree to detect an irrelevant question.
Bruce Ramsey
Seattle Times editorial board
@35 “Oh yeah, ever since the Governor and the state’s voters approved the estate tax the newspaper publisher hates.”
What bullshit! This state has had an inheritance tax since before you were born. The state supreme court invalidated it because of a technical defect in the statute (it incorporated by reference a federal provision that had been repealed) and the governor merely signed a bill that fixed the defect and reinstated it — and, in the process, the Democratic legislature and governor gave heirs a 50% tax cut.
Why shouldn’t inheritances be taxed? Wages are taxed. Heirs do nothing to earn or deserve the money they inherit, so why are they more deserving of tax-free income than people who work hard and have a lot less money?
And don’t spew that conservative crap about inheritances having already been taxed because it isn’t true. Virtually all estates large enough to be taxed consist largely of previously untaxed capital gains, and when an estate transfers to heirs, the heirs get a basis stepup that eliminates all past and future taxation of those capital gains. Without an inheritance tax, heirs would receive millions upon millions of dollars that have never been, and never will be, taxed. Except for the piddling personal exemptions and deductions that wage earners get, all other income is taxed, so why should inheritances be an exception?
I’ll tell you what though. I’ll support repealing all estate taxes — federal and state — if we also eliminate the stepup and treat inheritances as wages for tax purposes. I’m not asking for disfavored treatment of unearned and undeserved inheritance income; I’m only asking for parity treatment with the wages that workers work hard for. How can you criticize that?
Rujax @ 27 and YLB @ 30–
It was your friend steve (formerly known as ByeByeGop) sliming this Blog again.
Goldy banned him before for doing this under ByeBye..and he should ban him again, don’t you think?
I did not post 25…I do not think that way.
It is Mr. GoatFornicationFantasizer Steve…at his worst again.
Goldy, please delete 25 and ban this guy.
34. ArtFart spews:
AF..
I believe there is going to be a 3rd Party that rises out of the ashes after Obama is bashed the next 4 years like Bush has been bashed for the last 8.
Conservatives are motivated…the most I’ve seen in years. We are glad Bush is gone. He isn’t a Conservative.
You have seen the motives of the fringe lunatic Left. Obama has fired them up to the point you are stuck with them. Your mission is hopeless.
A 3rd Party is the only way.
@45 Oh cripes, Ramsey, now you’re gonna tell me how to practice law? What do you know about that? Let me explain a couple of things.
First of all, a deposition is part of the discovery process, and one of the purposes of discovery is to illuminate the legal issues. Going into discovery, you can’t be sure what the legal issues are or what you’re going to litigate until you get the facts, and getting the facts is what discovery is for.
Secondly, who authorized you to decide what’s relevant? Determining legal relevance is ultimately up to the judge. Just because you think a question is irrelevant doesn’t mean a judge will see it that way and it certainly doesn’t mean the attorneys asking the question are required to look at the case through your prism. (Hint: Your vernacular understanding of “relevance” and legal relevance are not the same thing.) Being trained lawyers, it’s highly likely they see things you don’t, and they know what they’re looking for. If the deponent and/or his counsel think a question is irrelevant their remedy is to refuse to answer it; and the questioner’s remedy is then to ask a judge to order the deponent to answer. At that point, the questioner may be required to make a showing of relevancy, through an offer or proof or other means, and the judge will rule on the contested question of relevancy. There is a process for this, and the knee-jerk opinions of journalists are not part of that process.
In short, your personal opinion of whether the questions that Lowney and Withey asked Rossi are “relevant” is just that, your personal opinion. A lawyer can’t just drag someone off the street and make him answer questions. There has to be a lawsuit filed, and the deponent has to be a party to the lawsuit or a witness, and depositions and other discovery have to conform with procedural rules and comply with ethical rules, and when those conditions are met lawyers are given broad latitude to ask wide-ranging questions in interrogatories and depositions because the underlying philosophy of our legal system favors disclosure rather than litigation by ambush and surprise.
Do you understand any of this? Or is it all flying over your head? Get a second-year law student to explain it to you. Don’t try to play lawyer here, Ramsey. You’re no good at it.
Bruce @ 45–
Here is what Goldy said about himself a week or so ago:
Goldy has made it very clear about his motives. I respect that. I also should disqualify him or his surrogate, Josh, from participating in a politically motivating 3-act farcical mini-drama aka the Knoll Lowney KLOWN Show
Fuck you Cynical! Who do you think you are you Goat Fucker?
Rabbit, you rock.
Bruce @45,
Thanks for stopping in and backing up my description. I didn’t have time to elaborate this morning because I was heading out of the house, but your statement about the Times editorial columns being opinion, “not bound to be evenhanded” was exactly my point in referencing today’s editorial.
While I dabble in reporting, like you I am primarily an opinion writer. And yet you were allowed into the press conference and I was not, I suspect because the Rossi campaign likes your opinions while they don’t particularly enjoy mine. And that is not a defensible standard for determining one’s credentials.
I would hope that however irritated your ed board might be at the relentless criticism I launch your way, the Times might stand up and defend my right to do so as a credentialed member of the press, regardless of my chosen medium.
Rog @ 49–
Trying to impress Bruce and others with typical Lawyer HUBRIS??
Won’t work.
Doesn’t take a lawyer to see how many questions were totally politically motivated and completely irrelevant to the case at hand.
Sure, they are questions Gregoire and her loyal KLOWNS @ TEAM HORSESASS find interesting and possibly politically charged.
But the issue is relevancy.
You old-time DSHS Lawyers sure have a lot of misplaced HUBRIS running thru yer veins Rog.
Spending your career as a DSHS lawyer trying to make excuses for DSHS misconduct and ineptitude does not qualify you to be more able to judge relevancy than Bruce Ramsey…or anyone else for that matter.
Some of KLowney’s questions were sooooooooo irrelevant…
Good luck to KLowney on his latest threat to go after Patterson.
Bring it on KLowney…then we can find out who is really paying you!
cyniklown…
…maybe you ought to pay attention to RR…
…oh wait…YOU’RE BIAW aren’t you?
Shit, I forgot.
You HAVE no morals or ethics or compunctions with regard to massing power and wealth by running roughshod over state and community environmental restrictions, growth control agreements and building safety and construction codes.
Aside from THAT…you’re just a garden variety asshole.
51. Bruce Rammit spews:
Yet another ID for ByeByeGOP aka Steve aka pretend Mr. Cyn and many, many others–
Let’s use this KLOWN as the posterboy of the Left!
None of you seem to be concerned about him ruining this Blog. Your silence means consent to his lunacy.
Do you all long to be like ByeByeGOP aka Steve aka pretend Mr. Cyn now Bruce Rammit and many, many others–??????
Your silence speaks volumes.
Since a lot of people here, including one (if not all) of the Seattle Times’ leading editorial lights, can’t see past the partisanship of this partisan season, let me explain what this lawsuit is for.
Washington’s campaign finance laws are part of the Public Disclosure Act, which was enacted by initiative of the people.
These laws are something our citizens want to protect themselves from the potential abuses of secret government and the undue influence of special interest money in politics.
The two retired Supreme Court justices who filed this lawsuit may well be people with partisan leanings who support a particular partisan candidate, but that’s entirely beside the point. They brought this lawsuit to enforce the campaign finance laws. They brought it based on prima facie indications of massive violations of those laws.
Whether the laws were, in fact, violated remains to be determined. That’s what trials are for. The judge has ruled there is sufficient factual basis for the complaint to allow the trial to go forever. Our legal system does not allow plaintiffs to hector defendants with frivolous or meritless legal proceedings. If a factual basis for the allegations and a legal basis for the requested relief cannot be show, the lawsuit gets tossed at any early stage.
It doesn’t matter whether the justices or someone else brought the complaint. Nor do they have to be a candidate or political party to have standing to bring it. They are enforcing the citizens’ rights, not the rights of any candidate or party. Accordingly, any citizen could bring this suit. It could as well be you or me.
Nor does the fact we are holding an election next week disqualify this lawsuit, or require its postponement. In fact, doing so would de facto defeat the plaintiffs’ legal rights by mooting them, as they are seeking an injunction against the spending of what they contend is illegal campaign funds, and this relief is of value only before the election.
Personally, I support the spirit of our state’s campaign finance laws, but feel the legislature should revisit the remedies, which I believe are insufficiently effective. For example, while a small violation of the finance laws is unlikely to change the election outcome and can be adequately punished with a fine, a massive violation that does change outcome should result in the violator forfeiting his election victory. Fining a winner who won by breaking laws designed to protect our democracy is merely a cost of doing business for those who would subvert democracy, and they will get it back anyway by using their ill-gotten office to pass that cost on to the citizenry through corruption or other means.
In summation, for all the howling about this lawsuit being a campaign gimmick engineered by the Gregoire camp, it is anything but that. To argue that is to argue that it doesn’t matter if a candidate or special interest group commits massive violations of what is essentially an anti-corruption law, even if the violations result in the lawbreaker winning the election. That argument is absurd.
You don’t need to enforce campaign laws in between campaigns and elections; you have to enforce them while campaigning is taking place. Otherwise, the laws are just taking up space in the statute books and might as well not be there.
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@54 First of all, I’m not a DSHS lawyer. I don’t work for DSHS, I’m not authorized to represent that agency, and I don’t represent DSHS and never have. DSHS is represented by the Attorney General’s office, and I never worked for the Attorney General, and don’t now.
Secondly, I’m a lawyer, period. Who I work for, or what type of law I practice, at a given moment doesn’t change the fact I’m a lawyer. All lawyers are generalists. I know more about legal discovery and the definition of legal relevance than Ramsey does, who I suspect (from his demonstrations so far) knows no more about those subjects than the average non-legally-trained man on the street, which is damned little.
And you? What do you know about law, lawyering, discovery, depositions, and legal relevance? Are you going to lecture me about lawyering and legal process, too?
Sheesh. Is there a recycler who takes ignoramuses? We have too damned many of them here.
@47 and 56 If you think everybody here who calls you a goatfucker these days is a sockpuppet of mine, then your issues are far beyond reach. Go ahead and plead to Goldy. The only thing he can do for you is to tell you that I post under only one screen name, that I’m not BBG, that I am not Roger, and that you are indeed one dumbass goatfucking bitch.
Ramsey @ 45: “It does not take a law degree to detect an irrelevant question.”
Actually, in a discovery deposition, which is what Rossi’s deposition yesterday was, lack of relevancy is not a permissible objection to a question. The range of permissible questions in a discovery deposition is far broader than such range at trial.
Every time conservatives’ policies fail, they blame it on the fact that their leader was not a ‘real’ conservative.
The biggest lesson conservatives learned was that they could create artificial realities that actually influence real reality — up to a point.
As when Ronald Reagan announced that he knew all about the illegal things he had done in Iran-Contra, but gosh-darn-it, it didn’t ‘feel’ like he’d done anything wrong. And enough shmoes went along with it to help him evade being impeached.
The world is crumbling around you after DECADES of Republican REAL CONSERVATIVES pursuing their preposterous agenda.
Mow, it’s the same old BS from Republicans: Bush wasn’t conservative enough! He wasn’t real.
Here’s a hint for you die-hard Republicans: The REAL CONSERVATIVES are all in the Democratic party.
Goldy said:
“Over time, more and more journalists will be employed by nontraditional outlets like HA, and if the subjects of our reporting get to pick and choose who is a journalist and who is not, it really isn’t honest to call it “journalism” anymore, is it?”
If journalist go to work on blogs like HA, they will cease journalists. Blogs are a place for people to bitch at each other, make personal attacks on others, and generally fuck around. Blogging will never be considered journalism.
re 63: Well, the comments section won’t be journalism. It’s better, though, than yelling at the television. It’s more immediate than a letter to the editor — and you can swear all you want!