by Carl Ballard — ,
– Obama endorses R-74.
– What the property tax swap would mean.
– What strangers does the McKenna campaign imagine are going to teach about alternative lifestyles? If your kid’s teachers are strangers, you’re doing something wrong.
– The My Lai is no big deal, wave fake anthrax to start a war guy endorses Obama. Yay? And the GOP reaction to it is pretty awful.
by Carl Ballard — ,
I don’t have much to add to this Seattle Transit Blog piece. But right on.
The few million in this proposed budget seems like so little compared to the huge Sound Transit projects many of us are used to – but in this case, at this time, it goes a long way.
In the next couple of years, Sound Transit is likely going to put together their ST3 package; sources in Sound Transit say it’s looking more likely that we could see a regional vote in 2016. The primary goals for the next package are to connect Everett, Tacoma and Redmond (and maybe Issaquah) with extensions of Link. This means there will be money in Seattle for projects too, but it might not be exactly the right amount for the big projects we need in the city – it could be too much for one surface or elevated rail line, or too little for underground rail. We don’t know.
The projects on the table right now – major improvements to the streetcar line on Westlake (likely making it more like Link than streetcar), connecting it through downtown to the First Hill line, to Ballard via Fremont, and to the U-district via Eastlake, building real BRT on Madison, and extending the First Hill streetcar to Aloha – are all projects that might fill in those gaps.
by Carl Ballard — ,
Seriously, Donald Trump is like the worst person in the world. It’s tough to imagine someone you don’t like offering to give money to charity, and you liking them less as a result, but kudos to Trump for paving the road to that particular place.
To be fair, we did enjoy your impression of Dr. Evil as you sat behind your very big desk and shouted into the camera, vowing to contribute “five mill-ion dol-lars!” to the charity of the president’s choice if he releases “to my satisfaction!” all of his college records and passport applications by, appropriately enough, Halloween at 5 p.m.
Seriously, Donald Trump, if you’ve got $5 Million to spend on charity, don’t play this game. Just give it to charity. Don’t waste the finite amount of time the President of the United States has on your paranoid nonsense. Just give the money to charity.
Also, passport applications? I’m pretty disorganized, but I’m not sure if I was better organized that I could just pull up all of the passport applications I’ve made in a week. And I’m not in the middle of, you know, running for president. Do you keep them? Would the government keep the passport applications of a 7 year old (or whatever) kid from Hawaii from when he went to visit his dad, like years after it had expired? That’s such a strange request. And really, can you imagine Obama using the last week of the campaign to argue with Trump about if that was really all, and the correct, passport applications to his satisfaction? That’s just bizarre.
by Carl Ballard — ,
– There ain’t enough fuck you in the world for this guy.
– Nepotism on full view on TV.
– At what point do the R-71 people give up their court case to keep their signatures hidden?
– Bikers and walkers spend more money than drivers over time.
– Anyone interested in seeing a MST3King of BIRDEMIC tomorrow?
by Carl Ballard — ,
Goldy points to this piece by the Sky Valley Chronicle taking the Seattle Times to task for their Rob McKenna ad.
And now the Times asks for forgiveness. Asks for another chance.
But as the Times reader comment noted in the headline of this piece – produced in response to a column written by Times Executive Editor David Boardman called “A vow to continue impartial reporting,”- it may be far too little and way too late.
I get why people are upset with the ad. I’m upset with the ad. The real problem is that Frank Blethen runs the paper. The problem isn’t the perception, it’s the reality. The paper is owned by a bully who has a toy that he pretends is a public service, but that he uses to tilt toward corporate power and the status quo.
The ad is just a symptom of that. And the symptom was far worse a few years ago, for example, when The Seattle Times decided to run a phoney story about Darcy Burner’s diploma. But they circled the wagons when people like Goldy pointed it out.
And it wasn’t just The Seattle Times staff. I couldn’t find anything in the Sky Valley Chronicle criticizing that. Plenty of main stream people ran with it. After all, if it’s in The Seattle Times, it must be true. But that was far worse than the ad people in The Seattle Times giving away the space in their paper. That was a news decision clearly directed by Blethen’s desire to swing the race. So, color me unimpressed that the people who are fine that sort of content are upset about the ads around it.
by Carl Ballard — ,
– UW people, here’s a chance to ride in the rain.
– RIP George McGovern and praise the lord if you’re paying high taxes.
– The most important endorsement ever.
– News Corp’s shareholders are not particularly happy with the way the company is being run.
– I’m not as big a sriracha person as the author of this piece (how could anyone be?), but by coincidence I was having some soup when I started reading it, and immediately decided to add some. It was exactly what it needed.
by Carl Ballard — ,
I’m not a fan of our nonpartisan election system here in Washington where we don’t have to register by party to vote in the primary. But I had thought when the national scandal about GOP operatives dumping voter registrations.
A campaign worker linked to a controversial Republican consulting firm has been arrested in Virginia and charged with throwing voter registration forms into a dumpster.
The suspect, Colin Small, 31, was described by a local law enforcement official as a “supervisor” in a Republican Party financed operation to register voters in Rockingham County in rural Virginia, a key swing state in the Nov. 6 election. He was arrested after a local business owner in the same Harrisonburg, Va., shopping center where the local GOP campaign headquarters is located spotted Small tossing a bag into the trash, according to a statement Thursday by the Rockingham County Sheriff’s office. The bag was later found to contain eight voter registration forms, it said. The arrest was reported Thursday night by WWBT-TV in Richmond.
But maybe not as tough as I’d thought.
In Virginia, where the Pennsylvania man working for the state GOP was arrested Thursday, Chesterfield County’s General Registrar Larry Haake was seen explaining to Richmond’s CBS 6 in late September that he had received complaints of Strategic employees discovered doing the same thing in a library last month.
“They were responsible for people that appeared in some libraries in Chesterfield County, supposedly to conduct voter registration drives,” Haake said, “but they were asking voters for whom they are going to vote.”
Haake says he informed the GOP of the incident at the time, but, apparently, no action was taken.
If, in fact, Small, or the workers he is said to have supervised, were using the same technique of misrepresenting themselves to voters about being a pollster, rather than being a registration worker, it’s likely he would have been able to glean whether those registrations he was allegedly seen tossing into a dumpster were for Democratic or Republican-leaning voters.
I think this is what you get when people keep screaming ACORN, ACORN, ACORN. They think they’re just leveling the playing field.
by Carl Ballard — ,
That Seattle Times staffers are upset about The Seattle Times giving Rob McKenna free advertising. But honestly, this would be a lot more meaningful if the newsroom felt like it had stood up to Frank Blethen on newsroom issues.
It threatens the two things we value the most, the traits that make The Seattle Times a strong brand: Our independence and credibility.
Ultimately, The Seattle Times’ independence and credibility are harmed more by, for example, Truth Needle segments that say things that are true are false if Democrats say them and ignoring things GOP candidates says that aren’t right. The newsroom has an obligation to independence and credibility. They’d be better able to withstand any fallout from their publisher being in the bag for McKenna if their paper hadn’t been in the bag for him and much of the GOP.
When the paper reads like a free ad for a certain type of GOP elected official, it’s tough to complain that there’s a free ad for a certain type of GOP elected official.
by Carl Ballard — ,
– This story about puppy mills in Lewis County will break your heart.
– The Burden of a Black President
– Charming people watching the previous debate.
– I love this XKCD piece on presidential election conventional wisdom.
by Carl Ballard — ,
This is a terrible decision from The Seattle Times.
The Seattle Times Co. jumped directly into two of the state’s hottest political contests Wednesday, launching an $80,000 independent-expenditure campaign promoting Republican gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna and announcing a similar effort in support of the referendum to legalize gay marriage.
I don’t like either of these, but the R-74 ad makes a tiny bit of sense on its own. They look like they might win a squeaker, so the Seattle Times can say, “oh look our ads made the difference.” I don’t think that’s good for the brand of independent minded fair people, but at least I could see a path to it working. But since McKenna is losing, and will probably lose, the pitch will be buy an add, it won’t help you? Or do they think it will turn it around?
by Carl Ballard — ,
– Great endorsement, Seattle Times.
– I think Oliver is somewhat selective, but yes, there are many areas where liberal ideas clearly are the default, for now.
– This post on Obama’s popularity in Ireland contains some of the worst puns in human history.
– Yet another Biblical family.
– Good luck to the SeaTac Fuelers who have their day in court today.
by Carl Ballard — ,
Seriously, what is this?
The food had been served, the patrons were long gone, and the cutlery cleaned when Rep. Paul Ryan, his wife, three kids and photographers pulled up Saturday at a St. Vincent de Paul food kitchen in Youngstown Ohio.
Ryan and his wife put on aprons and washed several pans that already appeared to be clean, and then were off to the airport
I’d guess something on the order of 80% of photo ops are more waste of time than actual help. But at least the politician usually does something, even if more could be done without them. Oh, and by the way:
“We’re a faith-based organization: We are apolotical because the majority of our food is from private donations,” Brian Antol told The Washington Post. “It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.
…
“I can’t afford to lose funding from these private individuals,” he said. “If this was the Democrats, I’d have exactly the same problem.”
by Carl Ballard — ,
The Seattle City Council actually does something decent.
The Seattle City Council approved new campaign finance rules today. Under the changes, candidates for local office can’t roll over campaign funds from one election to the next and can’t start fundraising until Jan. 1 of the year before an election.
Vote was 7-2 with Council President Sally Clark and Councilmember Tom Rasmussen voting no.
Council members said they took the steps to limit the influence of money on local elections and reduce the amount of time that elected officials are fundraising at the same time they’re making policy.
They’ve still given themselves the chance to transfer their money into their next election, because of course they did. But over the long run, this is a positive step to getting good challengers who aren’t scared off by the large piles of money in the incumbent’s war chests.
by Carl Ballard — ,
– I’m sure all of the reporters who were concerned about Darcy Burner’s inelegant explanation of her Harvard degree will be equally upset with Brad Toft’s makie uppie degree.
– Me too, too.
– Important news about the Northwest in national publications.
– Those who know the history of state hotline slipups involving Republican governors is clearly the greatest phrase ever.
– Happy Reloan Day, people on Kiva
by Carl Ballard — ,
– Yay for parks; boo for the accompanying picture that I can’t put my finger on it but creeps me out.
– No question about why these creep me out.
– Merry Christmas, Yakima.
– I would like to see some random questions from children in the next debate.
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