Goldy

Last year, when university presidents lobbied for, the legislature passed, and the governor signed a 30% increase in college tuition over two years, promises were made that this would help keep higher education more affordable, not less. How? By increasing the total amount of financial aid dollars available, and by raising the income levels under which families qualify for financial aid, those who could afford to pay more would pay more, while those who couldn’t would pay less.

That is the high-tuition/high-financial aid model as practiced successfully by many private and some public universities, and it’s a model that can work… as long as public officials keep their promises.

One year later, with the governor and legislature looking to fill an additional $2.6 billion hole in the last year of our current two-year state budget, there’s talk that the state could eliminate financial aid altogether, saving $272 million in the process. But even a partial reduction in financial aid would be both a breach of public trust, and a disastrous public policy.

I understand the temptation to paint a worse case scenario as the governor and other Democratic leaders prepare to rally the troops in favor of a revenue package, but college financial aid must be explicitly taken off the table now, before any further damage is done. Cutting financial aid would surely interrupt the education of thousands of Washington students, but the mere talk of it is disruptive in itself, as many needy students will put off their college plans rather than face such financial uncertainty. Such talk also poisons the well, undermining faith in our elected officials to do right by our state’s young people, and ultimately making it even more difficult to enact further higher education funding reforms.

Promises were made, and they must be kept; our higher education system is simply too important to the welfare and prosperity of our state to do otherwise.

The Seattle P-I’s Chris Grygiel tells it like it is:

How did Dow Constantine beat Susan Hutchison so handily in last month’s King County executive’s race? As a Seattle Times map shows, he won Seattle handily and got more votes in the Eastside suburbs. Constantine’s strong showing in what, until recently, had been GOP territory bodes ill for the Republican Party heading into the 2010 legislative elections.

The emphasis is mine, and it’s not because I believe the GOP won’t pick up any seats in 2010 (I think they likely will), but because Grygiel’s analysis clearly exposes the lie that is nonpartisan elections.

Had Hutchison won, the conventional wisdom would have been that this would have bode ill for Democrats. So how exactly does the outcome of a supposedly nonpartisan race bode anything at all for one party or another? Of course, it was nonpartisan in name only.

I understand why Republicans would want to promote this particular fiction, and I don’t blame them for trying. But civic leaders who endorsed and supported the charter amendment (you know who I’m talking about, Muni League), and opinion leaders who attempted to perpetrate this lie after the fact (you know who I’m talking about, Seattle Times editorial board) should really be embarrassed by their efforts to deceive themselves and others.

Fortunately, the voters saw through this particular charade.

Republicans rooting for the failure of the Obama administration will be disappointed by today’s unexpected jobs report that showed unemployment falling from 10.2% to 10%, while the U.S. economy lost only 11,000 jobs in November.

Not a stellar day for Mark Griswold.

Update [Darryl]: From the Bureau of Labor Statistics report comes this graph (with colors modified to reflect political party):

Notice the November number is practically zero compared to numbers from the past 22 months. The graph highlights the differences under Republican economic policies compared to Democratic economic policies.

It also substantiates the labels: “The Bush Recession” and “The Obama Recovery.”

And of course, the best way to prove you are not a “sleazeball” is to try to get your son’s teacher fired for allegedly calling you one:

Hugh “Skip” McGee, one of Wall Street’s best-paid bankers, has launched an extraordinary attack on staff at his son’s exclusive private school after a teacher allegedly claimed that all investment bankers are dishonest “sleazeballs”.

Mr Mcgee, who is Barclays Capital’s global head of investment banking, penned a rambling five-page letter to the board of trustees of Houston’s Kinkaid School, asking that the teacher and two other staff members be fired.

In the letter, Mr McGee, who is alleged to have an eight-figure salary, claims that history teacher Leslie Lovett has a “leftist invective” which “is neither accurate nor part of the approved curriculum”.

The banker, who was global head of investment banking at Lehman Brothers until its collapse last year, goes on to claim that the teacher told his son John Edward’s 11th-grade class “that somehow both Lehman and Barclays made a bunch of money on the Lehman bankruptcy, and that all investment bankers were ‘sleazeballs’ and dishonest”.

Okay, maybe it was wrong to call him a sleazeball. Asshole might have been the more appropriate epithet.

Here is the photo the media wants you to know about, but not see. I’ve cropped out just a small section, but click on the image above to view the whole thing. Or not. It’s your choice.

We’ve all seen a lot of dead bodies on TV and on film, some of them even real dead bodies, and as far as these kind of images go, this one isn’t particularly brutal or disturbing. I’m not saying it isn’t disturbing, just no more disturbing than any number of other images with which we’re bombarded on a daily basis.

I can understand not plastering this image on a newspaper front page or broadcasting it on the evening news, but once you’re talking about it, what’s the purpose of withholding a link? Respect for the deceased? Respect for the family that tried to help him escape capture?

This is one of those bizarre journalism ethics things I just don’t understand. All over the local media this morning is news of a leaked photo of Maurice Clemmons dead body (here, here and here, for example). Yet nobody’s willing to actually show the controversial image. (Slog provided a link, but that’s as dead as Clemmons now, so it doesn’t really count.)

So if the photo isn’t safe for public consumption, why the hell are you teasing us with it? It’s either news or it’s not news, and since there seems to be unanimity in our local media that it is news, don’t you think you owe it to your readers to treat them like adults, and give them the option of viewing the photo for themselves?

I’ve searched for the photo and didn’t find it in Google’s cache or anywhere else, but I trust my readers. So if anybody has a copy of the photo and wants to pass it along, I’ll post it here to HA and give you all the choice of viewing it for yourselves.

UPDATE:
Several readers have sent me the photo via email. Thanks. Here it is.

Zombie Reagan Raised From Grave To Lead GOP

Eight more deaths in British Columbia from H1N1. Not a stellar day for Mark Griswold.

Carl has already thoroughly fisked it over at EFFin’ Unsound (yes, I know Carl, you hate the etymology of the term, but find me a better word that describes what you do), still, I just couldn’t let this Seattle Times editorial pass without comment.

METROPOLITAN King County Council members must be forward-thinking and willing to select an independent or moderate to fill the council seat vacated by new County Executive Dow Constantine.

You know, exactly the kind of “independent or moderate” (whatever that means) the voters of Constantine’s predominantly liberal Democratic district would never choose.

Why? Well, according to the Times, despite that fact that the office nominally became nonpartisan last year, council members still tend to caucus and vote along party lines, leaving a 4-4 split between Democrats and Republicans in any effort to choose Constantine’s replacement. So the Times’ solution: the Democrats must cave.

That’s right… it’s not up to the Republicans on the council to do the right thing and accept a replacement who largely reflects the values of the voters of Constantine’s district, but rather it’s the Democrats’ responsibility to settle this quickly by appointing a so-called “independent” who would surely tilt the balance of power on the council to the other side, and perhaps marshal the advantages of incumbency to win the seat for good next November.

What a load of crap.

Constantine won and held that seat as a progressive Democrat. Constantine ran and won the executive’s office as a progressive Democrat. It would thus be a disservice to the voters of his district and the county as a whole to appoint anybody who doesn’t largely share Constantine’s values. And if the Republicans on the council choose to be obstructionist about this, then they’re the ones who deserve the criticism.

Of course, this whole logjam wouldn’t have been possible if that incredibly stupid, naive, dishonest and shortsighted charter amendment making the council nonpartisan — you know, the one the Times strongly endorsed — hadn’t passed. Under the old system, the Democratic PCO’s would have presented a list of three suitable candidates to the council, eliminating the opportunity for kind of partisan gridlock the Times now claims it seeks to avoid.

Kinda ironic, huh?

I know a lot of my fellow Dems are disappointed in President Barack Obama’s decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. Not me. For unlike a lot of my fellow Dems, I’ve always held my expectations of Obama in check.

I can’t even remember what Obama promised on the campaign trail, but I never labored under the assumption that he could quickly withdraw us from Iraq and Afghanistan. Personally, I would have preferred to have been told that we were ready to start bringing our troops home, but that clearly is not the conclusion that the White House has come to, and so given no reason yet to question Obama’s motives or intellect, I suppose that’s a decision I’m willing to accept.

I remain convinced that the U.S. had an opportunity to do things right in Afghanistan, and leave that country more prosperous, peaceful and secure than it was before we justifiably invaded, but that opportunity was squandered when President Bush turned our attention to Iraq. I’m not convinced that eight years later, that opportunity still remains.

But I suppose we’ll find out.

The folks at Seattle Weekly were doing some dangerous, investigative research, when they came upon this:

According to a “Safe Browsing” advisory from the search giant, Eyman’s site, www.permanent-offense.org [don’t click, for the love of humanity!], is “listed as suspicious” and “may harm your computer.”

It seems that destroying our state’s tax base, abolishing affirmative action, opening up HOV lanes to single-driver SUVs, and legalizing discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation were not sufficiently malicious gambits for Eyman to attempt. Now his malware is extending beyond public policy into the digital realm itself.

According to the Google Safe Browsing diagnostic page:

Of the 16 pages we tested on the site over the past 90 days, 6 page(s) resulted in malicious software being downloaded and installed without user consent. The last time Google visited this site was on 2009-11-24, and the last time suspicious content was found on this site was on 2009-11-11.

Malicious software includes 6 scripting exploit(s).

Malicious software is hosted on 2 domain(s), including newtechnologyconference.co.uk/, ppl-14.ru/.

1 domain(s) appear to be functioning as intermediaries for distributing malware to visitors of this site, including ppl-14.ru/.

One can only conclude that either Tim is in league with the Russian hackers, or he’s just as irresponsible in running his own website as he is in attempting to run state government.

Mark Griswold may not have much talent as a writer, journalist or rhetorician; in fact, he may not have much talent at all. But in his new role as (un)Sound Politics’ most prolific contributor, Griswold has certainly been an upgrade in the crazy department…  and that’s saying something considering the proud legacy of Stefan’s tin foil hat, and the ongoing competition from Pudge.

Take, for example, Griswold’s personal reaction to the tragic shooting of four Lakewood police officers:

Today was not a particularly stellar day for me.

But then, when you’re Mark Griswold, what day is?

While listening to Laura Ingraham this morning (sorry Kirby, Glenn Beck went to commercial) I became infuriated at the story of Michigan abortionist Abraham Hodari, who continues to practice despite countless instances of forced abortions and even, what one might generously label, the negligent homicides of four young girls.

Well, there’s your first mistake, Mark. In your quixotic quest for a stellar day, perhaps you shouldn’t start it off by getting your morning news from Laura Ingraham, Glenn Beck, and Operation Rescue.

And then there’s Maurice Clemmons and his cold-blooded murder of four Lakewood Police Officers, among them a distant cousin but a relative nonetheless, Tina Griswold.

Which of course, ruined Mark’s day. Damn you, Maurice Clemmons!

What do these two tragic cases have in common?

They somehow remind Griswold of himself?

They represent a failure of the system.

Like I said.

I don’t have some grand illusion that life is suppose to be fair.

No, they’re more like grand delusions.

There are some sick folks out there and sometimes really bad things happen to really good people. It may be tragic but it’s life.

And that pretty much sums up the Republican approach to health care reform.

The grand illusion that I do carry around is that, while life may not be fair, government should be.

Because in Grisworld, reality and government have nothing to do with each other.

And by that I mean government needs to uphold and enforce laws that help to prevent tragedies like those I just mentioned.

Just like in the movie Minority Report. All of Griswold’s most deeply cherished beliefs are derived from cheesy action movies.

The crimes committed by Hodari and Clemmons should never have happened.

Tom Cruise should have stopped them.

Hodari should have, at the very least, been stripped of his medical credentials long ago for forcibly aborting pregnancies. In my opinion he should be rotting in a Michigan prison.

And “my opinion” is entirely based on something I read on the Operation Rescue website.

Clemmons should never have been pardoned by Gov. Huckabee and certainly should not have been released on a scant $150,000 bail after being charged with child rape. He, too, should be rotting in prison.

But neither of them are and what are we left with?

Um… a less than stellar day for Mark Griswold?

Who knows how many more young girls may be forced to go through forced abortions? In the case of Clemmons I suspect justice will eventually be served and he’ll be placed behind bars without the possibility of parole but I doubt this will be the last time that innocent people must die at the hands of a felon walking free. So I ask you, what are we suppose to do?

Obviously, we need to establish an elite “Precrime” unit, in which three genetically altered “Pre-Cogs” are used to predict crimes before they happen. Sure, occasionally the Pre-Cogs get their prediction wrong, putting Tom Cruise in peril, but that’s a small price to pay when we’re fighting a war on terror.

Some may say, “Well, we still need to rely on the system. Sure it may have some kinks but it’s still the best on Earth.” Others may advocate reform at the ballot box. I’d certainly hope that whatever idiot judge that granted Clemmons bail be retired as soon as possible, but is any of this really enough?

Well, it depends on how much faith you place in hippie-dippy liberal values like the rule of law.

I’ll add one more name to the list: Khalid Sheik Muhammad.

So just to be clear, Griswold’s list now includes the self-professed 9/11 mastermind, a convicted felon who brutally gunned down four police officers… and a gynecologist. It’s good to see he hasn’t lost any perspective.

What is this guy doing receiving a criminal trial? He’s already admitted to planning 9/11. Why is he not already six feet under?

Apart from that rule of law bullshit, I don’t know. Perhaps there’s a movie from which we can draw an important lesson? Maybe… Death Wish?

All the criminal trial is going to do is serve as an opportunity to plead not guilty on the grounds that either a) only 2800 people died on 9/11, not the 3000 that the government is charging him with or more likely b) everyone that died on 9/11 deserved it because they were infidels. Either way he’ll use the time to rail against the evils of the very country that is allowing him the opportunity to do so.

Judgement at Nuremberg?

This can’t continue indefinitely, folks. We can’t keep relying on “the system”.

Dirty Harry?

I’m not advocating blind vigilantism.

Hmm… no blind vigilantism. So I guess the movie Blind Justice doesn’t help us out much.

As much as I can empathize with someone who takes the law into his own hands and blows away the guy that raped his daughter, it’s not right. I don’t agree with the guy that murdered abortion doctor George Tiller either. Abortion is still, unfortunately, legal and, to the best of my knowledge Dr. Tiller, while a despicable human being, wasn’t so despicable as to forcibly abort any of his patients’ pregnancies.

Or at least, he hasn’t been accused of such by Operation Rescue. Still, I’m sure there must be some Hollywood blockbuster out there that we can all look to for guidance.

But when “justice has been served” and the verdict is not guilty on account of the guy didn’t get read his Miranda Rights or, as in the case of Dr. Hodari, he laughs at his accusers because he believes he’s above the law (and apparently rightfully so if you go by the State of Michigan’s actions) what must be done?

Wait for it… wait for it…

In the hugely underrated film National Treasure, Nicholas Cage’s character Benjamin Franklin Gates sums up the actions of the founding fathers by saying

If there’s something wrong, those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action.

No truer words have ever been said and what that means to me is that if I have the ability to take action on Clemmons, Muhammad or Hodari, if I am put in a position to take any of these guys out, you’re damn right I will and I won’t regret it for an instant either.

Oh. My. God.

Forget for a moment that Griswold equates an abortion provider with a mass-murdering terrorist and a serial cop-killer, or that he not only advocates for sighted vigilantism, but narcissistically imagines himself in that role. This is a guy who looks to a cheesy action flick like National Treasure for guiding moral principles? What a fucking nutcase.

Good thing for Griswold we don’t have a Precrime unit, or Tom Cruise likely would’ve taken him into custody years ago.

If you disagree then I welcome a better suggestion. I’d encourage you though, before you post, to ask yourself, “if it had been my daughter who’d died at the hands of Dr. Hodari, or my brother who’d been in Forza Coffee Sunday morning about to start his shift, and I came across their killers, what would I really do?”

What would I do? Well, if I had come across Clemmons, I probably would’ve trembled with fear as I frantically dialed 9-1-1… which I’m guessing is exactly what the police would’ve preferred me to do. (The 9-1-1 part. I don’t think they’d care much about the trembling, one way or another.) But I certainly wouldn’t have been stupid enough to imagine that I could single-handedly take on a guy who had just gunned down four police officers. That’s just crazy.

As is, by the way, Griswold’s admission that “if I am put in a position to take [Dr. Hodari] out,” he’d kill him without regret.

Somehow, I doubt that attitude accurately represents the moral philosophy of National Treasure’s screenwriter, let alone our founding fathers. And it’s not exactly a recipe for a prosperous, peaceful and civil society.

For all the drama of yesterday’s manhunt, in the end, suspected cop-killer Maurice Clemmons was shot and killed by a lone police officer on routine patrol in South Seattle.

Assistant Chief Jim Pugel said a Seattle police officer “was patrolling this area when he came across an unoccupied stolen vehicle. The officer radioed the location and license plate, and he then detected some movement behind him and got out of his car.” Then the officer “recognized the person who was approaching him as looking like … the possible suspect of the tragic homicide in Lakewood.” The officer then asked man to show hands his, but, Pugel said, “the person would not show his hands and began to run away… and would not stop.”

“The officer fired several rounds,” Pugel continued. “All indications are that he is deceased.”

Pugel said a gun recovered from the suspect had the “identical serial number” to the one taken from one of the murdered officers.

Assuming all that information is correct, it looks like the police got their man, which should be a huge relief to the family, friends and comrades of the fallen Lakewood officers… as well as anybody who even vaguely matched Clemmons’ description. I don’t know standard police procedures, and I certainly don’t mean to question the officer’s actions, but I wonder if under normal circumstances the officer would have been so quick to shoot just any suspect fleeing from the scene of a stolen car?

Oy…

Officers on the police scanner say that a would-be vigilante flagged down a cop near Cowen Park. The man was carrying a handgun and wearing body armor. He apparently wanted help flush out the suspect from the park.

There’s a part of me that wishes the police had put his armor to the test.

Since I spend an awful lot of time critiquing the press, I think it only fair to point out that the coverage thus far of the tragic murder of four Lakewood police officers, and the ensuing manhunt for the suspect has been pretty damn good. Both the Tacoma News Tribune and the Seattle Times have been on top of the story since shortly after it broke, doing what newspapers do best.

In fact, in this age of instantly updated websites, the newspapers have provided much better coverage than they ever could in the days of their mere print existence.

SeattleCrime.com also deserves a shout-out for its ongoing coverage, and particularly its on the ground reporting from the Leschi police action last night. Kudos all around.