Goldy

They say you can tell a lot about a person by the friends they hang out with, and so when HA commenter I Got Nothin’ went trolling around Susan Hutchison’s Facebook page, he couldn’t help but notice her friend Orly Taitz.

And who is Orly Taitz? Only the crazy queen bee of the “birther” movement, a woman who accuses mainstream journalists of being Brownshirts, and who compares the Obama administration to Nazi Germany.

But don’t you worry, Hutchison’s friendship with Taitz doesn’t make her a Republican. After all, Hutchison is also Facebook friends with Joe Mallahan, so that makes her about as nonpartisan as they come, right?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMUaca8wP9w[/youtube]

As I learned this week at Netroots Nation, some leaders lead through mere words, while some lead by example. For Drinking Liberally’s Justin Krebs, it’s definitely the latter.

There is no fundamental right to profit from selling private health insurance.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4jcdy4QZdQ[/youtube]

Jeffrey Feldman caught Rep. Jay Inslee in the hall yesterday at Netroots Nation, and I couldn’t help but eavesdrop as they talked about what we (that’s you and me) need to do to help pass real health care reform. Shorter Inslee: show up!

Thursday a federal court rejected a permit to build a 305 foot dock in an environmentally sensitive area on Maury Island, essentially halting Glacier Northwest’s controversial gravel and sand mine for years to come, and State Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark deserves a huge “thank you” for helping to realize a key campaign promise:

Last year, the company gave $50,000 to a political action committee that supported former Republican State Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland’s re-election bid. Sutherland lost, but signed a lease for the project days before leaving office. His successor, Democrat Peter Goldmark, who’s campaigned on a promise to try and stop the project, immediately announced plans to more thoroughly scrutinize the lease. In early July, he ordered the company to do no work until it could prove to him Puget Sound would see no harm. Earlier this week, the company responded with a 17-page letter — and a promise that it still planned to start work next week.

Now, the project is on indefinite hold, and a protest scheduled for Saturday on Maury Island instead will become a victory party.

I started writing this post while sitting in the audience of a health care forum with Gov. Howard Dean at Netroots Nation (just reasoned, rational discusion, FYI… no angry, disruptive teabaggers thus far), and was feeling a little nostalgic at this particular turn of events.

It was at last year’s Netroots Nation that I celebrated my biggest blogging accomplishment of the year, my success at forcing the Seattle Times and other media outlets to front-page then-incumbent State Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland’s embarrassing sexual harassment scandal… a scandal I broke.

As a blogger, I know that I have made a difference over the past few years, but this was one of the few times that I could really quantify it. Despite being snugly in the pocket of mining and timber interests, Sutherland was a personable guy and a self-proclaimed moderate who appeared to be well liked by members of the press, and up until this point in the election cycle the Lands Commissioner race and the challenge from Goldmark had received very little media attention.

All that changed after the scandal, as journalists and voters started paying closer attention to both the candidates and the issues, with Goldmark eventually squeaking out a one percentage point victory… close enough for me to almost confidently say that my coverage likely helped swing the election.

Of course, one of the main issues in that election was the Maury Island gravel mine, and it’s tremendously gratifying to see Goldmark living up to his campaign promise to block it. This past legislative session notwithstanding, elections do matter, and thus what we all do to influence elections matters too. Yes, it’s hard to quantify, and so much easier just to be cynical, and no individual should pat themselves too hard on the back for the outcome of any election, as it’s the voters in the end who deserve most of the credit for making the right choice. But for those of us who devote ourselves to such things, there’s nothing wrong with a little self-congratulation if that’s what keeps us going.

How long that alone can keep me going, I don’t know.  But I might as well enjoy the moment.

President Bill Clinton delivered the opening keynote address in the Keystone State last night at Netroots Nation. It wasn’t as much a rousing barn burner as it was a frank come-to-Jesus, a bit defensive about his own record on hot button issues like health care reform and gays in the military, but absolutely blunt in telling the audience that we need to provide more support to President Obama than we did to Clinton if we expect real change.

If there’s a break in my day, perhaps I’ll post some audio and video clips. Perhaps.

Today is an absolutely jam packed agenda, starting with a health care reform town hall with Gov. Howard Dean, followed by the much anticipated Pennsylvania US Senate race face-off between Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak, and newly-Democratic incumbent Sen. Arlen Specter, who’s gotta be given credit for stepping into the lion’s den.

Then I’ll be going to the state blogger caucus where I plan to bitch loudly about the dearth of panels aimed at state bloggers (by far the largest contingent of attendees), before heading off to an energy policy forum featuring Washington state’s own Denis Hayes and Rep. Jay Inslee.

After that… I dunno… maybe a nap?

Susan Hutchison is a Republican.

Back home in Washington State, Darcy Burner is a loser. Twice over. But you wouldn’t know it from the reception she’s getting here in Pittsburgh at Netroots Nation, where she was definitely the most popular person in the hotel bar last night, and where they just announced that she would be the closing keynote speaker at Netroots Nation.

Saturday night’s closing keynote will be headlined by Darcy Burner, director of the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation. After three days of strategizing around progressive change, Burner will close out the convention with a message on how we make that a reality after everyone has left Pittsburgh. She believes activists must strike a balance between applying sophisticated pressure on their elected leaders and amplifying their efforts to create space for progressive policy.

Opening keynote: President Bill Clinton. Closing keynote: Darcy Burner. That should provide a little perspective.

Darcy may have lost her race last November, but in her new job as director of the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation, she’s playing a much bigger role in the health care debate than the winner, Dave Reichert.

It’s no Grand Central, but Philadelphia’s refurbished 30th Street Station, is pretty damn grand in itself, a relic from the heyday of rail travel in America, and a damn sight less seedy and more inviting than it was in the days of my youth. It also seemed to be more crowded too, with a bustling lunchtime rush filling the new food court. (Well, new to me.)

The station is also more conveniently located than I remembered, as I discovered when I walked across the river to score myself a Philadelphia style soft pretzel from one of the many street cart vendors, only to find myself standing outside a Trader Joes. After stocking up on a few snacks and beverages for the long ride to Pittsburgh, I walked back to the station and had myself a cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee.

At this point I’m more than halfway through the seven and half hour ride, having just traversed the famous horseshoe curve, and one of the biggest surprises of the trip is how well my Internet access has held up via the AT&T 3G network on my iPhone… and hence my ability to surf and post. Sure, there have been plenty of areas of no service, especially here in what us East Coasters call “mountains,” but anybody expecting to get work done with a similar hookup won’t be too disappointed. And unlike the train cars on the Amtrak Cascades line, there are power outlets at every seat.

As for the rest of the trip, it’s been pretty much what I expected: smooth, quiet ride, plenty of leg room, and the ability to take a walk down the aisle whenever the mood strikes me. Another surprise, though I guess it shouldn’t have been, is the number of freight trains we’ve passed on this trip, many of them laden with coal. Amtrak’s Pennsylvanian may make only a single round trip between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia a day, but for those of us looking forward to a passenger rail revival, it should be encouraging to realize that freight rail never died.

And oh yeah… so far, the train is exactly on time.

Traveling on my own rail adventure today, I was amused by the headline in this morning’s Seattle Times, “Link’s ticket system confounds riders“, which included the following teaser on the front page of their website:

Sound Transit’s unfamiliar payment system is forcing thousands of riders to make an extra effort to pay, yet deliberate fare dodging appears to be low.

Oh no! Faced with an unfamiliar payment system on a brand new light rail line, riders are making an extra effort to pay! Meanwhile, there appears to be little deliberate fare dodging!

Um… and the problem is?

I’m off on my rail adventure from Atlantic City, NJ to Pittsburgh, PA as I head out to Netroots Nation, and I’ve already come across a couple of glitches that might frustrate the casual traveller. Apparently, NJ Transit’s website doesn’t see fit to advertise directions to its Atlantic City Station, or even a street address. Meanwhile, Atlantic City doesn’t exactly provide adequate road signage.

Oh, if you want to get to the new outlet mall, that’s clearly marked. But the entrance to the rail terminal tucked into a corner of the new convention center across the street… not so much.

The other glitch, NJ Transit’s website warned me of in advance, so it is more a temporary inconvenience than a surprise.  See, it turns out, when you build rail infrastructure, you occasionally have to spend some time and money maintaining it.  And that’s exactly what they’re doing to the tracks between Hammonton, NJ and Philadelphia’s 30th Street Station.

The result? An earlier start than I would’ve liked to make sure I arrive in time for my connection, and the fact that I’m writing this post from a (gasp) shuttle bus on the Atlantic City Expressway.

More later…

UPDATE:

The shuttle bus between Hammonton and Philadelphia was uneventful. Crowded, cramped, and briefly stuck in traffic, but uneventful. The train/bus got us in about 20 minutes later than the train alone was scheduled. Not too bad… but it was a bus.

Oh, and FYI, the fare between Atlantic City and Philadelphia was $8.00. Not a bad deal.

As a kid, I used to think it weird that 30th Street Station was actually outside of Center City Philadelphia… you know, all the way across the Schuylkill River. But since I moved away over two decades ago, Center City seems to have grown larger, and walking distances shorter.

I just came in from the beach to find my inbox filled with emails from Mayor Nickels and Mike McGinn.  According to McGinn, Nickels is a liar who makes false promises, while Nickels accuses McGinn of lying about Nickels being a liar. And this just in, according to McGinn, Nickels is lying about McGinn lying about Nickels being a liar.

Or something like that. Rather than actually reading the emails, I decided to have a beer and help my daughter play Bananagrams. (We kicked her older cousins’ collective ass.) So there.

Legal documents can be awfully confusing, so as a courtesy to voters, here’s a brief summary of some of the revelations from Susan Hutchison’s discrimination suit against KIRO TV.

Hutchison’s suit charged KIRO with age and race discrimination after she was replaced as evening news anchor by a younger, Asian-American woman, Kristy Lee.

Shorter Susan:  Attractive white women are an oppressed minority.

In a deposition, Hutchison said the late U.S. Rep. Jennifer Dunn, a Republican, had asked her to run against U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat. Hutchison also said the head of the Republican Party in King County had asked her to run for Seattle mayor.

Shorter Susan:  Mayor of Seattle is a nonpartisan office, and since I was asked to run for it, that must make me a nonpartisan.

She believed KIRO executives were out to get her when she was suspended for a week without pay in July 2002. The suspension came after Hutchison was denied a vacation request over the Fourth of July holiday, called in sick and went on a vacation to Bend, Ore., with her husband.

“I was deeply humiliated and punished beyond belief for taking two sick days and there was a hatred there among the news director and the general manager,” she said in a deposition.

Shorter Susan: I was deeply humiliated for being treated like, you know, any other employee, when in fact I’m Susan Hutchison.

Hutchison was assigned work she didn’t know how to do, she said, “to make me a spectacle so that they could write me up every day for what I could not accomplish … they wanted me gone, period.”

KIRO officials maintained in the records that they demoted Hutchison because of low ratings.

Shorter Susan:  I was spiritually ready for the job, but I guess I wasn’t professionally ready.

Shorter, Shorter Susan: Nobody can fire the KC Executive for not knowing how to do her job.

She took medical leave Sept. 19, 2002 — and never returned to work before she was fired Dec. 20 — because she was “totally stressed out” by her situation at KIRO.

Shorter Susan:  I didn’t quit; I was fired for not being a young Asian woman.

Hutchison called the mother of a college student who wanted to intern at KIRO and told her the station would be a bad environment for her daughter. The student’s mother, according to a sworn statement, found the call from Hutchison — whom she had never met — “strange.”

Hutchison alleged that John Woodin, then KIRO’s general manager, was a “sexual predator” and had a “drug problem,” according to the mother. Her daughter went ahead and worked at KIRO in the summer of 2002 and told her parents she “had no problems with John Woodin and had seen nothing to corroborate the accusations made by Susan Hutchison.”

Shorter Susan:  I’m strange. I’m also a vindictive, spiteful shrew, who’s not afraid to slander you behind your back if you dare to cross me, so watch out.

Just in case you’re wondering why I haven’t been posting much the past few days…

Friday morning I wrote about why numbers matter, castigating my friends in the legacy media for failing to do their math. It was perhaps a nitpicky complaint in focusing on the R-71 signature count, but it was part of a larger pattern of failing to accurately and truthfully represent numbers in the press.

Early news reports claimed that R-71 would likely qualify for the ballot, despite the fact that the numbers, if you bothered to add, subtract, multiply and divide them, clearly said otherwise. As the sample expanded and the full effect of the duplication rate started to be reflected in the daily totals, comment threads started to fill with conspiracy theories about how the Secretary of State’s Office was jiggering the numbers to keep R-71 off the ballot. In my mind, shallow reporting led to misguided expectations that would ultimately further undermine public faith in the integrity of our electoral process.

But of course, all that was written before I learned that the numbers we were getting from the Secretary of State’s Office were total bullshit… a preliminary, half-cocked accounting that didn’t reflect that actual invalidation rate at all. On Friday afternoon I received a call from Darryl telling me that all the numbers had changed and all of our well reasoned conclusions could be tossed out the window. Oh, our equations were still valid, but with the SOS moving over 400 signatures from the bad to the good pile, they now produced dramatically different results.

And to complicate matters, after suddenly adjusting the totals a week into the validation process, the SOS failed to provide the all important breakout of duplicate signatures in the final result, leaving us unable to rerun our equations with the supposedly more accurate data.  I mean… WTF?

From what I know (and at this point, I obviously don’t know much for certain), it still looks like R-71 will likely fail to qualify for the ballot, but that’s actually beside the point. We had just spent a week congratulating the SOS for their timely and helpful daily updates, and the speed at which they responded to public and media inquiries.  And now we learn that the data they fed us was crap, which I guess would’ve been okay, if they had only warned us. So much for defending the integrity of the office.

Bullshit in, bullshit out, and all that.

I just thought the public deserved (and was getting) a little better.