Goldy

Well, I’ll give RNC chair Michael Steele credit for one thing… there’s certainly no change in his party’s political climate under his leadership:

Michael Steele has taken the GOP’s global-warming denial to a new height: “We are cooling. We are not warming. The warming you see out there, the supposed warming, and I use my fingers as quotation marks, is part of the cooling process.”

Yeah, sure it is.   And Steele knows this because of his vast experience as a seminarian, attorney and political hack, whereas the overwhelming percentage of climate scientists who say our planet really is warming, well… what the hell do they know?

A policy debate is one thing, but I mean really… don’t you R’s find it the least bit embarrassing to belong to a party that denies science?

I agree with the Seattle Times editorial board in one respect, silly rules do beget silly results, but the ballot mockery they rail against really is as much their own fault as anybody’s.

[L]awmakers should find a way to close one gap in the law that allows candidates to make a mockery of the ballot. Current rules say a candidate can list political party preference below their name as anything that fits within 16 letters.

In the 2008 election, the net result was candidates who listed themselves as members of parties, such as “Prefers Salmon/Yoga Party” or “Prefers Cut Taxes G.O.P. Party.”

Neither are the names of real parties. Some candidates used the 16-character rule to create a campaign slogan, and in the process, ridiculed the ballot.

[…] The same rule allowed Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi to list “prefers G.O.P. Party,” probably because of the dire state of the Republican brand.

Yup, this sure does make a mockery of the ballot, but I think it worthwhile to point out that this mockery is entirely within the spirit of a top-two primary system that intentionally ridicules the party based system it seeks to replace.  In championing both the top-two primary and the move to “nonpartisan” elections in King County, the Times has repeatedly berated and belittled the rights of political parties and their longstanding role in the American political process—should it come as a surprise that others, without a printing press at their disposal, have chosen to echo this meme on the ballot itself?

(It is a curious irony that when the Chinese Communists trample the rights of political parties we rightly accuse them of being anti-democratic, but when we do the same here it is always in the name of more democracy. Huh.)

Of course I support the rule change the Times urges, but it merely lances a single oozing boil rather than addressing the underlying disease eating away at our body politic:  a profound disrespect for politics itself.  Even after the rule change a Republican could still claim “prefers Democratic Party” on the ballot rather than Dino Rossi’s more subtle deception, for as long as the parties are denied the basic right to officially identify or deny candidates as their own, party identification will remain entirely meaningless.

Parties and partisanship have long played a vital role in American democracy, as a means of institutionalizing dissent, and of encouraging a vigorous public debate.  In the long run, it is the Times and other defenders of civility, through their relentless undermining of a meaningful dialectic, who really make a mockery of our political process.

A Seattle Times headline tells us that the “State budget comes down to unpleasant choices.”

Kicking kids off health insurance and out of college, laying off tens of thousands of employees, reducing sentences of state inmates, eliminating social services when they’re desperately needed most… choices like that are merely “unpleasant.”

Oh.  Well, I guess in that case, the Times ed board is right in arguing for a cuts-only budget.  We can certainly handle a little unpleasantness if it means keeping a few more dollars in our wallets.

No, I’m not turning gay, and God no, I’m not turning Republican, but as Michael has already reported on BlatherWatch, I’ll be filling in for Ken Schram on KOMO 1000’s The Commentators, Monday March 23 and Tuesday March 24th.

It’ll be a bittersweet moment for me, working for the competition.  I got my start at 710-KIRO, when really, I didn’t deserve a shot at all.  With zero radio hosting experience on my resume and a nasally tenor that makes Woody Allen sound like James Earl Jones, then PD Tom Clendening rolled the dice and plugged me in one evening as a last minute fill-in.  A week later, I had my own Sunday night show, and six months after that they added Saturday night to my schedule.

It was great fun, and a tremendous honor, especially those days I got to fill in for the incomparable Dave Ross, and I would have been proud to have continued advancing my radio career at KIRO, but the station was sold, new management came in, and alas, they moved in a different direction.  I was deeply disappointed when my show was canceled, but you can’t really ask for more in life than a chance to prove yourself, and that I had.

I hope Michael’s wrong when he writes that “there’s no going back to Bonneville to fill-in now that Goldy has gone to Fisher”—I figure, I’m not bitter, so why should they be?—but I’ve got to take the opportunities that come my way, and I couldn’t ask for a better opportunity to get back on the air than going toe to toe with John Carlson, arguably the preeminent conservative talker in the state.  My first time in a radio studio was on John’s old show back on KVI, and both he and Kirby not only gave me tons of air time, they also provided a lot of off-air support when I decided to pursue a radio gig of my own.

So going up against John again, this time as a co-host, will be kinda like coming home for me.  But don’t you worry about me getting all nostalgic like… I still plan to kick his ass.

In justifying the state Democratic leadership’s decision to throw the WSLC under a bus as a convenient excuse for killing the controversial Workers Privacy Act, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown issued a statement saying we have to “draw the line” between the offending email and the “normal process.”

Huh.  Which I suppose begs the question:  what exactly is the normal process?

Back in 2004, House Democrats sent a fundraising letter to business groups that had recently given more money to R’s than to D’s, exhorting them to balance their generosity… 

“As a result of our research, we would like to ask that you consider balancing out your contribution history by writing a donation of $10,000 to the Harry Truman Fund,” concludes the letter obtained by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. “We would very much appreciate your generosity and support as we gear up for the 2004 legislative session and impending campaign season.

“Our Leadership team wants to maintain our open door policy with you.”

So, is that the normal process, encouraging the inference that money equals access?  House Speaker Frank Chopp seemed to think so, vigorously defending both the ethics and legality of his fundraising efforts.

“Since when is it a crime to talk about having an open door and bringing people together? … The only limit on me meeting with people is my time,” said House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle. “That’s hardly threatening language. … That’s pretty soft language.

“And that’s pretty common language.”

No doubt.  So if that’s the normal process, when did it become a crime for constituency groups to talk about withholding future financial support from politicians who refuse to support their agenda?  I thought that’s the whole point:  we work for and give money to only those candidates who generally vote our way.  

Of course, Frank knows as well as anybody that this is the way the system works, and for all the effort to make labor look like the unethical bad guys here, it is the business lobby that has recently honed influence peddling into one of Olympia’s most profitable professions.  So profitable in fact, that one of the lobbyists who brokered Boeing’s $4 billion 7E7 tax break, conducts workshops teaching other businesses how to “Turn Your State Government Relations Department from a Money Pit into a Cash Cow.”

The seminar, presented during a portion of the annual three-day meeting of the State Government Affairs Council, taught dozens of corporate government-relations executives how to “Turn Your State Government Relations Department from a Money Pit into a Cash Cow.” Michael Press, national director of Ernst & Young’s Business Incentives Practice, and Robin Stone, former vice president of state and local government relations for The Boeing Company, delivered the Microsoft PowerPoint-supported presentation March 26 in Savannah, Ga.

The presentation includes a long list of “negotiable incentives” along with such such helpful tips as “control publicity,” “avoid legislation if possible,” and “be mindful of the election cycle,” while encouraging businesses to make a “but for” the incentives threat.  (You know, “but for a multi-billion dollar tax break, we’re moving all our jobs out of state.”)

Turning your state government relations department into a cash cow is perfectly legal, and just plain smart business, and from the lack of moralizing on the part of our politicians and opinion leaders, I can only assume that it is perfectly ethical as well.  So what’s so wrong, by comparison, about labor using the resources at its disposal to influence the legislation it wants? Why shouldn’t unions be able to say what we all understand to be true:  “If you don’t support us, we won’t support you?”  

Ethical or not, isn’t that the “normal process?”

So how much of “conscience driven independent” is Rep. Dave Reichert?

“Twice, Representative Reichert could have voted to support major improvements to E Sammamish Lake Parkway, Route 162 in Orting and upgrades to the transit network in Eatonville – and put Washingtonians to work.  And twice, Reichert just said ‘no’ to what’s best for King and Pierce Counties,” said Andy Stone, Western Regional Press Secretary for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Fortunately, the economic stimulus bill passed without his support, so Reichert’s home district will get these federal dollars anyway.  But no thanks to him.

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What does it say about the state of our current news media when the most anticipated and insightful news coverage and analysis of the week is coming from a fake news show? Really… watch the whole thing.

The subject matter aside, what I find most instructive here is the way Jon Stewart’s total lack of pretense and decorum results in one of the most brutally honest interviews you will ever have the privilege of watching on TV.  Unfettered by the journalistic shackles of objectivity and fairness (and even free to employ—gasp—foul language when appropriate), Stewart manages to level a devastating critique of the financial news industry, while demonstrating by example the sort of pander-free directness that is too often missing from traditional coverage.

At one point Stewart rails against “the gap between what CNBC advertises itself as, and what it is,” telling Jim Cramer, “Look, we’re both snake oil salesmen to a certain extent, but we do label the show as snake oil here…” a critique that mirrors some of my own complaints about our local news media.  After years of newsroom cutbacks, the all important space between stenography and opinion has shrunk to the point where news-papers are fast becoming neither, and yet when you hear many of the legacy journalists talk about their own sacred role in our democracy versus that of the barbarian bloggers at the gate, you’d think that nothing has changed but the business model.

But it is not just the Internet or the economy that is driving down both subscription and ad revenues; it is the product itself. Publishers like to console themselves by pointing to their rising online readership, but, well, you get what you pay for… which may help explain why so many readers today prefer to get their news for free.

Back in college, my roommates and I once bought a used, black naugahyde couch, despite the bizarrely sleazy pitch from the aging salesman, who amongst other things, offensively described the couch as a “pussy magnet.”

I guess this is what he was talking about.

I first watched the movie Alien in a center city Philadelphia theater, where, um, audience participation was more of an accepted part of the film-going culture than in my bland, white suburb, and during that horrific dinner table scene where the alien bursts through the chest of a writhing John Hurt, a fellow theatergoer relieved the tension by yelling at the screen:  “Well, if you didn’t like the spaghetti, you could’ve just said so!”

That’s kinda my reaction to yesterday’s manufactured scandal over the now dead Workers Privacy Act.  If they didn’t like the bill, they could’ve just said so, but state Democratic leaders certainly didn’t have to make such a big scene about it.

Passage of the Workers Privacy Act was one of labor’s top priorities during the current session, so when Gov. Chris Gregoire, Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown and House Speaker Frank Chopp issued a joint statement early yesterday morning announcing that they were shelving the bill due to “serious legal and ethical questions,” and forwarding a labor email over to the state patrol for further investigation, I feared I’d be covering a scandal of Blagojevichian proportions.

But after finally reading a leaked copy of the email, which turned out to be a communication between labor stakeholders summarizing a strategy conference call… well… not so much.

Union leaders would send a message to the State Democratic party and to the Truman and Roosevelt funds from the House and Senate that “not another dime from labor” until the Governor signs the Worker Privacy Act.

Um… that’s it?  Angry constituents talking amongst themselves about withholding future contributions? That’s cause for a police investigation? Our state’s three top Dems douched the Washington State Labor Council for this? Are they out of their fucking minds?

You wanna prosecute a supporter for an idle threat, how about me:  not another dime from Goldy until Gov. Gregoire signs an income tax. In fact, I’ll take it one step further:  if the governor does sign an income tax, I promise to donate five dollars to every legislator who votes yes on the bill. There… now that’s crossing a line.  I await my visit from the state patrol.

Sure, it may have been imprudent to use such blunt language in writing, and it was certainly stupid to have included a handful of legislators on the email list, but there is nothing unethical or illegal about threatening to withhold future contributions from a Democratic leadership that seems intent on screwing its most loyal supporters. Money follows votes—that’s how our system works—and if legislators don’t like it they could give up the inherent advantage of incumbency and move to a system of publicly financed elections.

Indeed, it’s only when votes follow money that we’ve really crossed a legal and ethical line, and as this incident once again proves, our Democratic leadership has absolutely no problem kicking their gift horse in the mouth… you know… at least when the horse belongs to labor or environmentalists or any other non-business constituency group.

No doubt the business lobby’s fake think tanks and talk radio hosts and other surrogates in our media establishment will get all high and mighty about the corrupt culture of Olympia and all that, and yet it is business that has honed extortion into their most potent and familiar political tool:  “Cut these unemployment benefits, or we’ll leave town!”  “Kill this bill, or we’ll leave town!”  “Cut our taxes, or we’ll leave town!”

But a handful of unions threaten to turn off the tap if the Dems keep treating them like shit, and that’s unethical? That warrants calling the cops? It beggars the imagination.

No, we all know what happened here:  the Democratic leadership hated this bill and were just itching for an excuse to kill it. The only question remaining is why they had to do it in such an outrageously ham-fisted manner?

Frank could have just refused to let the bill come to the floor for a vote; he’s good at that.  Or the bill could have been allowed to die in one committee or another.  Or the governor could have vetoed the bill, had it somehow managed to pass both houses. If they didn’t like the spaghetti, they could’ve just said so.

And if they really were concerned about the language or intent of the email, they could have expressed their displeasure privately, then killed the bill all the same, just as they had always intended to do.  It was a stupid thing to put in writing, and the WSLC arguably deserved a tongue lashing in response.

But instead, they took this relatively innocuous line in an email that wasn’t even directed to legislators, and used that as grounds for publicly attacking unions, and instigating a police investigation?  Why?

Are they that fearful of even the remotest appearance of impropriety that they’re willing to throw their most loyal supporters under the bus at the slightest provocation?  Is this whole incident a calculated effort to prove to the media and business establishment that the party really is independent of labor?  Or, have the state Dems really come to take labor money so for granted, that they’ve forgotten it isn’t their own, thus, in their own minds, making any suggestion of withholding future contributions the ethical equivalent of a reverse bribe… essentially a threat to steal money from Democratic coffers unless the bill is signed?

I dunno.  But what I do know is that unless an apology for this bizarre overreaction is forthcoming, the unions in question might be better served by holding true to their threat.  Not a dime for the house and senate Democratic committees… at least not while they remain under control of leaders who clearly don’t value labor’s support.

As Jon previously reported, a huge controversy was kicked up today over an email apparently threatening/promising financial consequences in regards to passage of the Workers Privacy Act, prompting the Gov. Chris Gregoire, House Speaker Frank Chopp and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown, to pull the legislation altogether, refer the email to the state patrol and issue a joint statement.

News reports had suggested the email came from the Washington State Labor Council, which the WSLC now confirms by releasing the following statement:

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11, 2009
Statement from WSLC President Rick Bender 

The following statement regarding today’s developments surrounding the Worker Privacy Act is from Rick Bender, President of the Washington State Labor Council:

“We regret the incident.  It was a result of frustration with the legislature’s failure to protect workers’ rights in the workplace.  Our job is to always protect workers’ rights.

“We do not believe that any law has been violated and we have no additional comments until we know where this will go.

“Thank you very much.”

I’m still trying to get a copy of the offending email.

Seattle is a green city, and not just because it rains a lot. Maybe it’s our extraordinary landscape, maybe it’s our history, maybe it’s a combination of these and other factors, but Seattle and its surrounding communities have long been politically green, and profoundly so. Except, it appears, when it comes to the thorny issue of urban density.

Counterintuitive as it may seem, the densest urban communities are also the greenest, making the most efficient use of both landscape and energy, a fact brought home by a recent study that compares the relative CO2 emissions between cities and their surrounding suburbs. Not surprisingly, our nation’s densest city is also by far our most energy efficient, with a CO2 emission differential of nearly 7 tons annually between the average city resident and that of the typical suburbanite.

In almost every metropolitan area, we found the central city residents emitted less carbon than the suburban counterparts. In New York and San Francisco, the average urban family emits more than two tons less carbon annually because it drives less. 

[…] But cars represent only one-third of the gap in carbon emissions between New Yorkers and their suburbanites. The gap in electricity usage between New York City and its suburbs is also about two tons. The gap in emissions from home heating is almost three tons. All told, we estimate a seven-ton difference in carbon emissions between the residents of Manhattan’s urban aeries and the good burghers of Westchester County. Living surrounded by concrete is actually pretty green. Living surrounded by trees is not.

The policy prescription that follows from this is that environmentalists should be championing the growth of more and taller skyscrapers. Every new crane in New York City means less low-density development. The environmental ideal should be an apartment in downtown San Francisco, not a ranch in Marin County.

Of course, New York is the extreme, and due to our lower densities, temperate climate, and anemic, bus-centric transit system, the CO2 emission differential between Seattleites and our suburban counterparts is substantially less, amounting to about 2.5 tons annually per capita.  But that’s a significant savings nonetheless, and one that will only increase as we let go of our single family home ideal, and eventually build up a denser, more energy efficient Seattle.

The shift to electric light rail will also make a huge difference, both by moving trips from cars to transit, and by shifting transit to cleaner electric power.  In fact, one of the more interesting details in the study is that Seattle, while generally in the middle of the pack on other metrics, ranks amongst the top five cities in terms of the current CO2 differential from public transit, with city dwellers annually emitting 2,600 pounds more CO2 per capita than their suburban counterparts.  Of course this is more than offset by the CO2 savings from reduced driving, but our relatively meager overall differential on combined transportation related emissions demonstrates how much room there is for improvement both within and without the city center.

While public transportation certainly uses much less energy, per rider, than driving, large carbon reductions are possible without any switch to buses or rails. Higher-density suburban areas, which are still entirely car-dependent, still involve a lot less travel than the really sprawling places. This fact offers some hope for greens eager to reduce carbon emissions, since it is a lot easier to imagine Americans driving shorter distances than giving up their cars.

Of course, apartment life is not for everybody, and I certainly empathize with residents concerned that rezoning to higher densities will change the character of their neighborhoods, but Seattleites should stop kidding themselves that this resistance to change comes without an environmental cost.  The Denny Party originally dubbed their new settlement New York Alki, “alki” being the Chinook word for “eventually” or “by and by.”  If supposedly green Seattle really cares about maintaining the landscape and natural splendor that is so important to our quality of life, it is time we let go of our 1950’s mentality, and embraced a little more of the Denny’s 1850 vision.

Yet another reason why I’ll miss living in a two-newspaper town…

Seattle Times:  Seattle P-I to live another day
Seattle PI:  P-I closure appears near

Same story, two newspapers, two headlines.  So much for impartiality.

State Sen. Fred Jarrett (D-Mercer Island) emailed supporters this morning officially announcing that he’s kinda sorta maybe considering whether to consider a run for King County Executive:

You may have read recent press reports that I might be a candidate for King County Executive this year. Over the past several months many of my friends and supporters have encouraged me to consider entering this race. 
 
I am currently occupied with my Senate duties and will be until the session ends.  That is my priority.  I am deeply involved in strengthening education and the challenges of our budget, and the economic situation our state faces.  Even if I decided to run, I am prohibited from doing so during the legislative session.  Consequently, I’ve answered those who’ve suggested the race that while I saw the opportunities a new county executive would have, I didn’t know how it could be done.
 
This weekend, Susan and I talked about the race.  What it would mean for our family and what I could bring to the race.  We decided we should take a closer look into whether such a candidacy would be feasible.

Well that clears up everything.

It’s no secret that Jarrett would love to take on the Executive job, but running for it, that’s an entirely different question, especially considering he’s barred from raising money until after the current legislative session.  That complicates things for Jarrett and Rep. Ross Hunter (D-48)—who is also rumored to be considering a run at the Exec office (or perhaps WA-08)—and places them both at substantial disadvantage against councilmembers Larry Phillips and Dow Constantine, who are already in full campaign mode.

Still, a lot of folks really like Jarrett and his chances; 41st LD hoo-hahs had already started jockeying to line up his senate replacement, well before today’s pseudo-announcement.  Hell… I really like Jarrett, despite his Republican heritage, and if I didn’t ultimately support him, would find it nigh impossible to back an opponent in my usual enthusiastic style.

This one, at least, is potentially shaping up to be an interesting race.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s days are numbered, but there’s still time for their editorial board to set the record straight on the new domestic partnership legislation being debated in Olympia, and the blatantly misleading, anti-gay TV ads that are using the P-I to validate their lies.

Of course, the legislation does not “redefine marriage” as the ad claims, nor does it require schools to teach that homosexuality is normal; it merely extends to domestic partnerships the same rights and responsibilities under state law that are currently available to married couples.  The bill does not legalize gay marriage, so all you gay-bashers out there can rest assured that same-sex couples will still be denied the 1,138 rights and protections enjoyed by married couples under federal law.

Yeah, sure, these are the types of lies and exaggeration we’ve come to expect from social conservatives on issues concerning gay rights, but this ad goes one step further, deliberately misquoting a state legislator in a smear campaign that borders on libel.

The sponsor of this law says, those who disagree with homosexual marriage should “face being fined, fired, and even jailed until they relent.”

The sponsor of this bill is Sen. Ed Murray (D-Seattle), and he said no such thing.

The alleged quote comes from a May 20th, 2008 guest column in the Seattle P-I from David Benkof, a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage.  Benkof wrote:

Openly gay Washington state Sen. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, and a representative of the largest Michigan gay-rights group, the Triangle Foundation, have both told me that people who continue to act as if marriage is a union between a man and a woman should face being fined, fired and even jailed until they relent.

This is, of course, not a direct quote, and as Sen. Murray complained five days later in a letter to the editor, it was a “deliberate misrepresentation” of his views on the issue:

In an e-mail exchange, Benkof posed to me numerous hypothetical scenarios in a world where same-sex marriage was legal. One such scenario was of a business owner who “was just stubborn and wouldn’t treat wife-wife couples equally” to heterosexual couples for religious reasons. What should be made of their “principled stand,” Benkof asked me.

[…] I wrote to Benkof: “The law should be enforced, just as it was when either King or Gandhi engaged in civil disobedience. Both ended up in jail despite the righteousness of their cause.”

A state legislator urging that state laws be enforced… who’d a thunk?

So how does Sen. Murray’s reasonable statement get transformed into a fascistic call for jailing people who oppose homosexuality?  It is tempting to blame the lying, amoral scaremongers who put together that ad… but that’s kinda like blaming a pig for wallowing in mud. It’s what they do.

No, it’s the P-I who really deserves the blame here.

Benkof was entitled to his opinions—that’s the whole purpose of publishing guest columns—but the editors at the P-I had an obligation to at least make an effort to verify his statements of fact, and anybody who is at all familiar with Sen. Murray would have been immediately suspicious of such an uncharacteristically impolitic assertion on such a sensitive subject.  A simple phone call would have sufficed… you know, the kinda basic fact-checking the legacy media so often accuses us of bloggers of neglecting.

Now, as is often the case in political campaigns, the lie, which first appeared in print, is being compounded and exaggerated on TV, and given even more weight by the bogus claim that the alleged statement appeared in a “Seattle P-I Editorial,” as opposed to a mere guest column.

The P-I failed in their obligation to fact-check Benkof’s column, but they still have time to make amends.  I’m sure there are plenty other topics on which they’d probably prefer editorializing during their final days, but it would serve them well to acknowledge their error, correct the public record, and demand that this misleading ad be pulled.  As this incident proves, newspapers do matter.  It would be nice to see the P-I prove that they matter in a good way.

Hoop Dreams
The Seattle Times editorial board, one of our state’s biggest cheerleaders for a cuts-only approach to our $8 billion budget gap—even if it means a 20-percent cut in funding to the UW and the rest of our colleges and universities—devotes scarce op-ed space today to cheering on the Huskies’ men’s basketball team.  It’s good to see the Times editors have their priorities straight.

The Oklahoma Mariners?
Oops… I guess it’s time to build a new baseball stadium…

For the first time since moving into Safeco Field in 1999, the Mariners reported a financial loss last season, according to documents filed by the team Monday with the Public Facilities District.

The club reported a $4.5 million deficit, owing in large part to having the highest player payroll in franchise history at the same time that attendance dropped during the 101-loss season.

I mean, after all, how can we really expect the Mariners to make ends meet, playing in an antiquated, 10-year-old facility? If Seattle really wants to be a big league city, it’s time for us taxpayers to play ball.

Feet of Clay: Insert Directly in Mouth
And speaking of teams leaving for Oklahoma City, I don’t really miss the Sonics Thunder, but as a blogger, I surely do miss owner Clay Bennett:

Bend It Like Bennett, one of the most hilarious basketball blogs out there, has a glimpse inside of Un-Sonics/Thunder owner Clay Bennett’s household. Bennett’s 16-year-old son, Graham, has the following listed as one of his favorite “quotations” (with “Dad” assumed to be Clay):

I guess in Bennett’s defense, he didn’t call anybody a nigger.