by Carl Ballard — ,
– Picking a favorite part of this Pam Roach presser is damn near impossible. But I think “not even arguably” she cares more about people than anyone else in the Senate is probably it.
– Jonah Goldberg’s opposition to hucksters in movement conservatism is only hostility to the competition.
– Assholes gonna asshole.
– This Brandon McCarthy Twitter battle encapsulates everything right and wrong with sports people on social media.
by Carl Ballard — ,
If Washington NARAL are pushing the Reproductive Parity Act again this session then that’s good enough for me.
Washington voters have a long history of ensuring a woman’s ability to make the decision to have an abortion. As Washington proceeds with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Washington women could face increased barriers in their ability to access reproductive health care, including abortion services. Anti-choice politicians in Congress tried to undermine the ACA by inserting a provision to roll back reproductive healthcare. This legislation addresses that problem and guarantees access to a full range of reproductive healthcare including abortion.
The link is a petition, and if that’s your thing, I’d encourage you to add your name. If writing your legislator directly is more your thing, you can find them here. Presumably it’ll be able to pass the State House again. But even before the GOP coup, this was going to be tougher in the State Senate. I assume it’ll go to the Health Care Committee where Senator Becker will kill it. But if you’re represented by someone on the committee, you might want to let them know how you feel.
by Carl Ballard — ,
Looking at the House vote for Sandy relief, I noticed that Doc Hastings and Cathy McMorris Rodgers voted against it. It’s morally abhorrent to see another part of the country devastated, and first to take this amount of time to help, and then to vote against it. It also seems pretty short sighted.
I can’t imagine any Northeast politician giving them help the next time there’s a wildland fire in Eastern Washington. For that matter, I can’t imagine any Northeastern politician giving them any help on anything they want to do. “Oh, you voted against relief for people who are still homeless in my community months after Sandy, here let me help you secure funding for a road” seems like something said by nobody ever.
by Carl Ballard — ,
Evening edition (AKA, having been out for a few days kind of screwed me up).
– Any bill that doesn’t allow me to buy the rights to the Rodney Tom Can Go Fuck Himself Overpass still needs some work.
– We should take a moment and remind ourselves who are the people of the state and who are we
– I keep forgetting to post this anti-Sully piece.
– We’ve got ourselves a brand-new governor.
– The sincere answers to asshole petitions manager would be a fun job at the White House.
by Carl Ballard — ,
I’m slowly making my way through this biography of William Seward. There’s an interesting story I wasn’t aware of from his days as a Senator. By 1858, he was a leading opponent of slavery in the Senate. Still he was cordial with many Southern Senators. One story in particular: “In early 1858, when Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was suffering from a sever eye illness and confined to his darkened room for seven weeks, Seward visited him every day and spent an hour amusing the invalid with stories.”
If we didn’t all know what was coming, that would be the type of how-DC-Used-To-Be stories that the beltway press like to tell themselves. If we didn’t know that in 3 years they’ll stand on opposite sides, as over half a million people die in the Civil War, it might be a lovely story of the bipartisan niceness of a bygone era. Viewing it as that also obscures that one side was right on one of the least morally ambiguous issues of our history: slavery was wrong.
So that’s what I was thinking about when I read at Balloon Juice that reporters are using their question at a press conference to ask Obama why he and his staff don’t socialize more.
I’d like to ask you, now that you’ve reached the end of your first term, starting your second, about a couple of criticisms — one that’s longstanding, another more recent. The longstanding one seems to have become a truism of sorts that you’re — you and your staff are too insular, that you don’t socialize enough.
DC is a place with strange values.
by Carl Ballard — ,
– Our Times Will Get More Interesting
– You know how your conservative friends are saying Hitler banned guns? Turns out, that’s the exact opposite of true.
– The dreamers are pretty amazing.
– As organizations like Planned Parenthood back away from the “pro-choice” label, what is next?
– No pants day on LINK Light Rail is still a story.
– The White House response to the Death Star petition.
A blogging note: I’ve still got a bit of the yucks (to use the technical term) so this is the only post from me today, and possibly tomorrow.
by Carl Ballard — ,
– I like Wyble, but I think he’s wrong about still supporting Rodney Tom
– Transportation Advocacy Day is coming up.
– It’s not far to caricature people. Except liberals, obvs.
– There might be several little ants in that acorn.
by Carl Ballard — ,
I was intending to do another zzzzzzz post for McGinn. I’ll probably vote for him, but I’m still giving Ed Murray and Peter Steinbrueck a look. I mean mostly, he’s been good but his standing in the way of police reform has been problematic. Part of the original consist was that it was the holidays when the other people announced. But still, mayor runs for mayor would have worked. Anyway, in stead of that, I’m going to make fun of this article in Crosscut (h/t to my friend Brice):
Luck of the Irish: McGinn makes his campaign move
Awesome title. The fact that he’s Irish is relevant to his campaign, somehow. And I think we can all agree that the colon was appropriate: after all a campaign move flows naturally from luck/and or his ancestry. He quotes his mom as saying “it’s better to be lucky than smart” without any context from the piece. And there’s no mention of his Irishness after the title, so really great job all around. I don’t know if Crosscut writers write their own headlines, but this is certainly not a great start.
Location, location, location, and the location where Mayor Mike McGinn chose to announce his bid for reelection spoke volumes: far from the madding club crowds of Capitol Hill and Belltown that helped drive his first election, at the Filipino Community Center on MLK Way in the heart of the Rainier Valley.
I didn’t know where to break this up, but that’s one sentence. “Location, location, location, and” what the fuck is that? I know it’s supposed to be what people look for in real estate, but Mike McGinn isn’t buying it. You can say the location, location, location thing, I guess, but just throwing it out there doesn’t help anything. Then he seems to think there are club crowds in Capitol Hill and Belltown on a Wednesday afternoon. FACT: Some people go to clubs and live in the South End.
It was a perfect stage for a perfectly casual event, in a suitably undersized, overstuffed room that reinforced the impression of clamoring urgency for, as supporters chanted twice, four more years.
Anywhere is fine for a casual event, especially on Wednesday afternoon. I don’t think holding it in South Seattle is bad. I’ve been to several South Seattle McGinn events, and I’m glad McGinn makes an effort to include that area.
A representative selection of minority community leaders sang his praises. El Centro director (and campaign co-chair) Estela Ortega, who, “in the spirit of Roberto Maestas,” capped her passionate panegyric with a few fist-pumping rounds of “Viva Mike McGinn!” Rep. Kip Tokuda, fellow co-chair Tony Lee, and Mohammed Yussuf variously echoed the themes she sounded: The mayor listens.
This isn’t a particularly good place to break it up, but it’s as good as it gets from here (and we’re still in the lede!). The support of this community is great for him. Still, I suspect they’d get on the light rail if the event were Downtown. Or on a car if it was further North. Or maybe take a car. Some McGinn supporters drive sometimes.
He didn’t cut social programs during the bust, and now that the money’s rolling back in he’ll expand them (including ours). He gets “tangible results”: rebuilding the seawall, a new basketball stadium, clearing the snow from the streets (a dig at McGinn’s predecessor, Greg Nickels). He got the libraries open on Sundays and a jumbo Families and Education levy passed.
Yay. We’re finally done with the first paragraph. I’ve been nursing a cold today, so I don’t think this will get the metacommentary it deserves. But I’d be missing the reason to write it if I didn’t skip to:
When he enumerated his transportation accomplishments and goals, Mayor post-McSchwinn [?] knew not to mention bikeways to this crowd. Many here still smart at seeing steep Othello Street/Myrtle Place squeezed down to one crowded lane each way for bike lanes that no pedalers [sic] use — while no one thought to include bike lanes when Sound Transit ran rail down wide, level MLK Way.
There were probably political reasons for not mentioning bikes. But honestly, my fat ass has no problem riding those hills, so at least don’t pretend nobody does it. Hell, McGinn probably rode there, so he might have taken those same routes that nobody takes.
Honestly, it’s not a bad rough draft. But it’s not a story yet, Crosscut.
by Carl Ballard — ,
I haven’t read the Weekly in years. Since the sale to VVM, really. Between the stories that hardly ever felt local, and writers I never got used to, I never picked it up, and I think that was probably true of a lot of the casual readers. I had more or less stopped reading before it became apparent that their business model relied in part on ads for child prostitution and it wasn’t a tough decision not to read them at all after that.
So it’s for the good that they were just bought by Sound Publishing. Here’s hoping it’ll get more of its local flavor back, and that there’s a business model that makes sense. The Weekly still has a constituency, even though I don’t read it. More newspapers is generally better for Seattle.
by Carl Ballard — ,
– A largely sympathetic look at cops who drink.
– A new record number of safe routs to School in Seattle.
– The Tea Party is suuuuuuuuuper popular.
– The gun buy back program.
– How about instead of Gun Appreciation Day, gun safety day? Or literally, anything else?
by Carl Ballard — ,
Who could have predicted that building a legislative coalition where Pam Roach got plumb assignments might not work out well?
A report says Sen. Pam Roach of Auburn violated the Senate’s policy in March by verbally attacking a Senate Republican staffer charged with upholding sanctions against Roach that prevented her from having direct contact with staff. The report was compiled by a subcommittee created last summer solely to investigate incidents involving Roach.
When reached by phone Tuesday, Roach said she didn’t know anything about the report.
“I’m looking into it,” Roach said. She declined to comment further.
I mean, never bet against Pam Roach being an asshole. But I would have guessed that it would have taken at least until the session for her to abuse staff again. Now we see that as Rodney Tom was scheming to give her the chair of the Government Operations, Tribal Relations & Elections Committee, she had already gone back to her old ways. Rodney Tom should probably apologize to the staffer at the very least.
Tom has said the sanctions against Roach would be lifted, even though they recently were reaffirmed under a legal settlement announced in September. Tom did not return a phone message Tuesday seeking comment.
Courage.
by Carl Ballard — ,
I’m writing today to ask you to oppose John Brennan’s nomination to head the CIA. This country should not put into office someone who helped bring about the torture regime. It’s bad enough that it happened at all. It’s bad enough that it happened in our name. It’s bad enough that that there were no prosecutions above the lowest levels. But for God’s sake, the least the Senate can do is oppose a high level torturer for a job at the CIA.
And look, I know that other than the torture, Brennan is highly qualified. But what a qualifier to have to add! It seems that some things should be off limits.
And yes, I realize this could be a political blow to Obama. I recognize the problems with that, and as someone who supported him, that will be too bad. But he shouldn’t have nominated someone who supported a program that “included slamming detainees’ heads against walls; prolonged standing in stress positions; beating and kicking; prolonged shackling of hands and feet; and much more.”
Thank you,
Carl Ballard
If you want to write Cantwell or Murray an email, the forms are at their names.
by Carl Ballard — ,
This is a great thing Patty Murray did to prevent active duty suicides.
U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., announced Thursday that President Obama has signed her amendment to require the Pentagon to create a new suicide prevention program for active military members.
The new program would also expand eligibility for Department of Veterans Affairs mental health service to family members, improve training and education for health care providers and create more soldier-to-soldier counseling opportunities, according to Murray.
Great work, Senator. Still, as long as the war in Afghanistan is going on anything like this is going to be a small part of the solution. Because this is an inevitable consequence of a decade of war. This is going to happen in a war where the end is still over a year away. This is what happens when people are going to be away from their families for an extended period of time.
So by all means, let’s do everything we can to prevent military suicides. But let’s not pretend they’re going to stop while the country is at war.
by Carl Ballard — ,
All questions edition:
– Is the best fact about Patty Murray her college major?
– Is a hostage negotiation the best metaphor for what the GOP is trying to do with the budget?
– Wouldn’t you want a beer after you’d shot yourself? (h/t)
– Anyone interested in seeing Sarah Weddington at Town Hall?
– Did you get called for jury duty?
– How about those Seahawks?
by Carl Ballard — ,
West Seattle Blog passes this along this Department of Ecology request to help document the high tides in the coming month.
The dates for January’s king tides vary slightly depending on location:
· In the Strait of Juan de Fuca, king tides will occur Jan. 8-13.
· Along Washington’s outer coast, they occur Jan. 10-12.
· The Puget Sound dates for king tides are Jan. 14-17.
Follow these steps to participate:
· Use Ecology’s king tide map and schedule to find when and where the highest tides will occur. Go to http://www.ecy.wa.gov/climatechange/ipa_hightide_map.htm.
· Locate a public beach by checking out Ecology’s Coastal Atlas at https://fortress.wa.gov/ecy/coastalatlas/.
· Take photos during a king tide, preferably where the high water levels can be gauged against familiar landmarks such as sea walls, jetties, bridge supports or buildings.
· Note the date, time and location of your photo – then upload your images on the Washington King Tide Photo Initiative Flickr Group at http://www.flickr.com/groups/1611274@N22/.
· Play it safe! While the winter king tides occur during daylight hours, don’t venture out during severe weather and keep a close eye on rising water levels.
I love the citizen participation aspect of this. Hopefully they get a lot of good data.
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