[I’m on vacation this week, but I’m reading and doing some metacommentary on Mitt Romney’s book. Enjoy, or skip over it: it’s a free country.]

Remember in the intro, where I complained that Mitt Romney didn’t mention any of his hardships? I think it might be because his greatest hardship in life was weeding his father’s garden when he was like 14. Here’s how he opens this chapter:

I hate to weed. I’ve hated it ever since my father put me to work weeding the garden at our home in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. It was planted with zinnias, snapdragons, and petunias, none of which seemed to grow as heartily as the weeds. After what seemed like hours of work, I never could see much progress and I’d complain to my dad. “Mitt,” he would reply, “the pursuit of the difficult makes men strong.” It seems now like an awfully grandiose response for such a pedestrian task. I complained about the weeding often enough that I heard his homily regularly. I’m sure that’s why it sticks with me to this day.

Fathers and sons. Great stuff for literature. Unfortunately, in this case, it seems Mitt is going personal only so that in a few paragraphs he can say how America needs the same ability to face tough challenges. We’ll get to that in a minute, but first a little more of his father’s story:

My father knew what it meant to pursue the difficult. He was born in Mexico, where his Mormon grandparents had moved to escape religious persecution.

For a book that’s about USA! USA! USA! this is willing to call what America did to the Mormons “persecution.” I agree, incidentally. But I think an apology is reasonable for persecution. And as we’ll see later in this chapter, Romney thinks Obama mentioning any legit problem is the same as him apologizing for it. So I don’t know, Romney is apologizing for and complaining about America? Maybe it’s too much to hope he has a coherent narrative.

Anyway, more family history. They were forced to move back to America, not because of anything America offered, but because they were afraid of “Mexican revolutionaries.” So his grandparents suffered hardships. They had to leave everything they had and live off the land. His father had to go to work and support the family at a young age, and never graduated from college.* Anyway, all that hard work by his parents and grandparents leads back to Romney weeding.

Three decades later, by the time I was weeding that Bloomfield Hills garden, my father had become a successful businessman. I knew he worried that because my brother, sisters, and I had grown up in a prosperous family, we wouldn’t understand the lessons of hard work. That’s why he put us to work shoveling snow, raking leaves, mowing the lawn, planting the garden, and of course, weeding–always reminding us that work would make us strong.

I know that I don’t know enough to actually say lesson not learned about hard work. But Mitt doesn’t mention hard work he’s actually done since his parents did what parents do. He doesn’t mention any hard work he willingly undertook on his own. I mean, I don’t expect him to have worked a decade on the line at American Motors, but he could show something to demonstrate he knows about hard work beyond he had to mow the lawn and weed the garden sometimes.

Anyway, a bit more about his father doing actual good things at American Motors. And then it isn’t just individuals who have to work hard, but also much more broadly. Then several paragraphs about Staples that feel like he wanted to write them, but didn’t know exactly where to put them because they don’t really fit. A competent editor would help. And then:

Today the United States faces daunting challenges, and I am similarly convinced that if we confront them and overcome them, we will remain a strong and leading nation. Just like individuals, companies, and human enterprises of every kind, nations that are undaunted by the challenges they face become stronger. Those that shrink from difficult tasks become weaker.

The examples are that we defeated the British to gain our independence, we won the Second World War, and the moon launch. He mentions Detroit switching to building planes during the war, without ever mentioning that these were top down orders from the government. He talks about how there were failures of American satellite launches, but we kept making them until they did work and “we became the first** nation on earth to put a man on the moon.” I couldn’t help thinking when I read that, that I can imagine how the Tea Party and today’s GOP would have reacted each moment along the way if they were around in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

And we’re to a section called Facing our Challenges Head-on. it starts by saying we thought we didn’t have any challenges during the Clinton administration. So we cut our military and that was a terrible thing. As if our military should have been as large or larger after the collapse of global communism than before it. Then without mentioning the Bush administration, he says:

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, our economy has suffered its worst crisis since the Great Depression. We have amassed an unprecedented amount of debt and liabilities, and added to that, the Obama administration plans trillion-dollar deficits every year. Russian belligerence is on the rise. China holds over $750 billion of U.S. obligations. Iran and North Korea threaten the world with unbridled nuclear ambition. Violent jihadists like those who attacked us on 9/11 plot our destruction. The consequences of failure to act in response to these perils is unthinkable.

I know it’s a bit unfair to criticize Romney for things that happened after the book was written. But most of those things are better because Obama acted. The depression isn’t nearly as bad as if we hadn’t had a stimulus. Iran and North Korea are whatever is the opposite of unbridled. Bridled, I guess. Iran still doesn’t have nuclear weapons, and North Korea’s missiles keep exploding into the sea. They’re both more isolated than under the Bush administration. And of course, Bin Laden is dead and much of his terror network destroyed, unlike the decade we wasted in Iraq. I don’t agree with everything the administration has done to get there, but it’s silly to say they didn’t act. All that said, he clearly is attacking a caricature of President Obama.

The section concludes with a plea for a strong military without ever explaining how we’re supposed to pay for it. The only remarkable paragraph is this one:

Does America make mistakes? Absolutely. We never fully understood the enormously complex political, economic, and military issues we faced in Vietnam, and we were wrong in our assessment of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. But in every case throughout modern history in which America has exercised military power, we have acted with good intention–not to colonize, not to subjugate, never to oppress.

First off: what do you do when you do something wrong but with good intentions? Oh, that’s right, you apologize to the people you wronged. That’s like human decency 101. So the No Apology book makes yet another case that there are places where America should apologize.

Second, does intent really matter? I mean the fact that we didn’t take the land in Iraq as our own is worth noting. But the dead in Iraq and Viet Nam don’t care about the country’s intentions. Our actions matter, and are what we should be held accountable for, good and bad.

We’ve reached the end of this section. Tomorrow, strategies countries can use to get ahead, and why Obama sux at foreign policy. Stay tuned.

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I’m on vacation this week, so to provide content in my absence, I’ll be reading/making fun of parts of Mitt Romney’s book the rest of the week (then if I’m up to it, the rest of the book when I’m home). For Monday, here are some general thoughts and the intro.

The book is called “No Apology Believe in America.” I feel like you can make apologies for the bad things America has done in the past — and continues to do — and still believe in it. You can say, people we enslaved, sorry about that, it won’t happen again. People we went to war with who maybe we shouldn’t have, including the native people we took the land from: our bad. Hey Mormons and others we’ve persecuted for your religion: We’ll try to do better next time.

In fact apologizing when we fail to live up to our ideals is something we do because we believe in those ideals. You know who doesn’t apologize when they fuck up? A goddamn sociopath! I may have stepped on your toe, but fuck you for having a toe in the first place: That’s how Mitt Romney’s book title reads to me. But perhaps that’s reading too much into a title.

So, we’ll start off with the intro. Or I think it’s an intro. On the front cover of the book it says, “FEATURING A NEW INTRODUCTION FOR THIS EDITION” and this is before chapter 1. But it’s called “Believe in America” and isn’t actually called an intro in either the table of contents or the chapter head where all of the other chapters are numbered. So maybe just call it chapter 0, or chapter “Believe in America.” It starts off with a story about going to Walmart.*

Sam Walton was all around me.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. Bear hug. OK, sorry it’s a metaphor. It’s also possibly the shittiest opening line I’ve read. Anyway, I swear I’m not going to quote every sentence, but here’s the next paragraph.

It was a few days before the Christmas of 2008. I was standing in the checkout line at Walmart, waiting to purchase the Tonka trucks and Buzz Lightyear action figures I has selected for my grandsons. As I looked around the store, I had to chuckle to myself. Somehow, that Walmart reminded me of Sam Walton himself. I’d never met the founder of Walmart, but I had read and heard a good deal about him over the years. People who knew him mentioned his attention to detail, his near maniacal passion about low prices, his plan to carry every single item a customer might want, and that he tended to be a spur-of-the-moment–almost impetuous–manager. I saw these very traits reflected in his store: low prices blazed** from signage, everything from tires to toothpaste were available for purchase, and, well, the store was not as organized and buttoned-down as those of other retailers I know. At target, for example, the aisles are wider and shelves are stocked and segregated like the Swiss might have done it. At Walmart, things look a bit more helter-skelter, more jumbled and maybe a little more entertaining. Yes, Walmart today is a reflection of its founder.

Wait. What about the Swiss? Is that a reference to cantons? Is that just casual racism that I don’t understand — the Swiss stock their aisles like this, but Americans stock their aisles like this. Is this some reference to his time in Europe? I know he spent a good deal of time in France, but has he ever been to Switzerland? I mean I know his money has, but has he? Target is an American store.

Anyway, then there’s a long discussion about how various companies reflect their CEO’s and founders. Microsoft and Apple reflect Gates and Jobs. Disney, reflects Walt Disney. Going to the Disney parks reflects on Walt years after he’s died. Between the Buzz Lightyear and the paragraph about how amazing Disneyland is, I think this intro might be sponsored by Disney.*** Anyway, lots of CEO’s are great. Oddly, he fails to mention that any of the employees at any of those companies might shine through when he’s visiting them. And then he transitions awkwardly from companies to all sorts of institutions, “schools, universities, charities, churches, even religions.” I’m not sure he needed to say “schools” and “universities” or “churches” and “religions.” But are those the only institutions? Please fill me in.

And it’s also true of nations. Nations are shaped by their founders, often for many generations and centuries after those founders are gone. The culture and character of America reflects the nature and convictions of the men and women who founded it.

Italics his. I’m actually going to go out on a limb and say America is better than it was at the founding. We don’t have slavery and we assume that women and people of all races and social classes are fully human. While we still have horrible wars, we’re more or less done with the stealing land phase of the country. I’m looking out my window right now and people are passing on cars and bikes and on foot. Men and women, and people of all races. This city in a place where the founding generation barely knew existed with technology they couldn’t have imagined is really better than they would have dreamed for it. Hell, just the fact that Romney felt he had to tack on “and women” is something the founding generation wouldn’t have thought to do.

Don’t get me wrong, we got a great legacy from this country’s founders. I can’t imagine anyone in the 1770’s and 1780’s anywhere in the world who would have been better to start the country. The notions of fundamental freedom they left us are important. But we also have a more difficult legacy because they were flawed people from a flawed time. This intro doesn’t deal with that beyond one aside in one sentence. “That first choice of freedom by the Founders–incomplete and only perfected by Lincoln four score years later–has made all the difference.” Yes, he thinks Lincoln solved all of our problems in 1856.

So that was cool until the 2006 and 2008 elections. Without naming names, the people who won those elections hate freedom. Then a long quote by Tony Blair, who apparently loves America more than Nancy Pelosi?

And we’re now to sub chapters (sub intros?) that start “Believing in America Means…” First Believing in America Means Believing in Freedom. He tells the story of his mother’s doctor who “hid in the coal bin of a ship that made it to America.” Since he’s a professional and white (a Russian Jew) Mitt doesn’t demand that he self deport. Instead he’s an example of freedom. And also Joe The Plumber was right. Also, Democrats passing laws they promised to pass is anti-freedom. Then he talks about checks and balances, never realizing that getting legislation through those checks might mean the laws they pass are compatible with freedom.

On to sub chapter (sub intro?) Believing in America Means Believing in Free Enterprise. You’ll be shocked to learn that there’s no mention of how large economic players use their power to distort free enterprise, despite that being something the founders knew quite well (hence all that East India Company tea in Boston Harbor). Nor is there any discussion of corporate responsibility generally to the community or to the state or to America. Freedom is letting corporations do whatever they want. Letting corporations devastate communities only increases freedom is what I get from his lack of addressing those things.

So what does he talk about? Why how Obama hates free enterprise. This feels a bit like the gentleman with a silk hat. Obama, you see, is a secret socialist. Then he says because in North Korea unlike South Korea, “citizens are nearly**** starved so that government and the military can be amply fed” any government jobs are inherently bad.

So, what are the awful things that are making us like North Korea? Using TARP money “for bailouts” instead of for saving the financial system, the fact that some unnamed trade talks haven’t been completed, health care, investing in green energy, “the rule of law was ignored in order to reward the auto workers union at General Motors” meaning that it’s different than the bailouts thing, the fact that there are boards and commissions in government, and that business people are being demonized in speeches. You know, socialism. He quotes a friend thinking about moving to France because at least those socialists have “really good food” because America love it or leave it, amirite? Also, if you’re privileged enough that you can seriously consider moving to France, you can get great food in America.

Then he quotes Thatcher, and I suddenly wonder if he meant to call it “Believe in the United Kingdom.” Then he half complains that rich people give “a lot more money” to Democrats than Republicans. I can’t write the infinity question marks to respond to that, so I’ll just write this instead (?*∞). Finally, he gets our history vis-a-vis Europe with the size government exactly backwards, claiming that our system was no government in the market place and not that we rebelled against that in England. So instead of the American System that brought us prosperity versus the rest of the world, he wants to go back to how economics was in England when we rebelled.

And so we’re on to Believing in America Means Believing in Opportunity. Sure, but guess if he points out that some people in America have less opportunity because of the circumstances of their birth? If you guessed “no” give yourself 0 points because that question is too easy. Maybe he would have mentioned it if he wrote the book before Lincoln solved our only problem in 1856.

Now in fairness to Romney, he does mention that at some point in the past there wasn’t equal opportunity, what with slavery and Jim Crow. Also, policies that harmed the Native Americans are mentioned vaguely. But he doesn’t seem to understand that there’s a legacy of those things in the here and now. He mentions rising above the situation of your birth, and that’s great for individuals. But he doesn’t seem to see that that situation of birth can be a problem if anyone can rise above it. The rest of the chapter is dedicated to how the Democrats are ruining everything, so:

Government can promote opportunity or it can crush it. Laws and regulations that govern business practices are essential for markets to function efficiently, fostering economic opportunity.

And you’ll be surprised to learn that elites (people wanting a level playing field are the definition of elites, no doy) who were elected in 2008***** are destroying free enterprise. He lies about tax increases on business and complains that financial regulations, without mentioning those regulations, are “not only depressing opportunity in that sector but also making it more difficult for businesses and entrepreneurs in other sectors to obtain necessary financing.” You’ll be shocked to your core to learn that he doesn’t mention that people weren’t lending before those regulations were enacted.

And now we’re to the penultimate subintro: Believing in America Means Providing for a Better Future. It starts off with a bold declaration that he completely fails to live up to. “I know how John Adams felt.” It goes on to talk about the hardships he suffered being away from his wife and children during the American Revolution to make this country what it would become. And yes, that was tough. But Romney fails to show how he has sacrificed anything at all to provide a better future.

Piggybacking onto Adams’ hardships wasn’t enough though. He then praises the sacrifice of the military. And God bless them, but they aren’t Romney. He doesn’t get to reflect their glory just because he writes a few paragraphs about them. Then he tries to tie them together, “In ways as different as our many occupations, we all make sacrifices for our children, and for the generations of descendents to come.” This would probably be better if he mentioned any of the sacrifices he has made. But he can’t because he has lived a life so privileged that he hasn’t really ever had to make sacrifices.

The rest of the subintro is about how Democrats are ruining everything. Borrowing is bad, blah blah teachers unions. You know who hates children? Teachers! Clearly.

And the final subintro is called The Choice for America. It’s more or less the same arguments he’s already made. The founders all agreed that we should have equal opportunity but that same “liberal elite” want equal outcomes. Again, he doesn’t mention how financial regulation or moderate tax increase on the wealthy or regulations would lead to equal outcomes: it’s just a given.
And finally (finally!) the last couple paragraphs.

They are also highly suspicious of free enterprise because it offers unparalleled opportunity for individual success and reward, and thus enables inequality. They endeavor to grow the scale of government, to empower it to guide the economy and make better choices for the people. While few of the liberal elite would ever openly advocate for the diminution of freedom and opportunity, that is the inevitable product of their policies.

OK player. A tax rate well below what it was for decades in the postwar period and regulation that you don’t like are going to destroy freedom and opportunity. This is logical.

These fellow Americans fail to appreciate the power of the choice that was made by the Founders—theirs was the creed of the pioneer, the innovator, the striver who expects no guarantee of success but asks only to live and work in freedom. This liberating inventing, creating, independent, current now runs from coast to coast. It has produced not only the renown, like Bill Gates. It also accounts for the men and women of every occupation who strive, who explore, who go beyond what is expected of them to reach for breakthrough and accomplishment. It is the engineer who tries to get one more mile from a gallon of gasoline, the chef who creates new recipes, the salesperson who goes off-script to make the sale, the educator who works with a child after school, the programmer who can’t rest until she has eliminated every excess line of code, the entrepreneur who starts his own business, the kid who launches a commercial site on the Internet, the person who edits an entry on Wikipedia, the farmer who plants a new variety—the list is endless. The pursuit of achievement, of discovery, of greatness, is what has made America the powerhouse of the world. And it has made us happy as well. Smother this spirit with the weight of government and America ceases to be America. That is what Washington is doing, and we must not allow it. Washington believes in itself. The American people believe in America.

Holy balls was that a long paragraph. And yet, I’m guessing the list isn’t as endless as Mitt thinks if editing Wikipedia part of what he mentions. That feels like he’s padding it. But does he not understand that that list can apply to pretty much every country? My God, if the marginal tax rate goes up, nobody will teach children or edit Wikipedia! Also, that engineer is probably striving to meet government standards to increase efficiency, so government regulation didn’t diminish that. Look, the entrepreneurial spirit is great. But whatever Mitt Romney’s straw man attacks mean for America, it isn’t what Democrats are doing to the country.

OK, this chapter took a lot longer to write than I’d thought when I started it (the only other thing I’ve tried was Lou Guzzo’s gigantic font, tiny chapter nonsense, and I just breezed through those). And this post is too long. So I think I’m going to break up the chapters for the rest of the book. The beginning of chapter 1 tomorrow.

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While I was never as much of a supporter of Mike McGinn as, say, the folks at The Stranger, I volunteered with his campaign and was happy with the result. While voting for him didn’t stop the tunnel, I think he’s been good on more issues the city faces than he’s been bad, but there have been plenty of times when he fucked up. So sometimes when he fucks up people will ask me if I regret supporting him. But no I don’t. I honestly can’t think of a single time where having corporate anti-choice conservative Joe Mallahan as mayor would have been better for the city. And I can only count a few times where Nickles might have been better.

And McGinn has handled most of the things a mayor is supposed to handle in the way people want. The roads were clear pretty soon after the snow storm.* Crime has generally been down during his term, although is going up recently, and it’s tough to know how much you can attribute that to any specific policy or set of policies. He helped get more money for the Families and Education levy (you can argue how much is him and how much is, say the council and education activists, but replace him with Mallahan and I don’t see how it doubles). And now he’s helped make sure the garbage strike ended quickly in a way that the union appreciated [h/t to Howie on Facebook].

“Behind the scenes, we’re being told that was really instrumental in getting Waste Management back to the table. That’s what pushed them,” said Heather Weiner, political action director for Washington Teamsters Joint Council 28. Local 117, which represents the 153 recycle drivers who went on strike July 25, overwhelmingly approved a new six-year contract with the company Thursday morning.

Weiner said the calculus of the strike changed when the mayors of Federal Way and Seattle said they intended to hold the company accountable for missed collections.

The cities’ contracts with Waste Management allow them to impose fines for every service missed. Those fines could have amounted to $1.25 million a day in Seattle alone. When the mayors made clear their intention to collect those fines, the strike became more expensive for the company, Weiner said.

…

“We’ve had our differences with the mayor, but he stood up and did what he thought was best for the city,” [Weiner] said. “We’re very grateful that he decided to be public about enforcing the contract. ”

Within hours of the press conference, she said, the company was back at the negotiating table.

Obviously, you can’t know for sure how another person would have handled the situation. But it’s hard to see Mallahan not blaming the union. It’s hard to see this being resolved quickly and efficiently. It’s hard to see Waste Management feeling the same pressure to go back to the table if he was mayor. So I don’t know if I’ll vote for McGinn again. But I don’t regret voting for him last time.

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I’m going on vacation next week, so I thought I’d check out the new downtown Target and see if there are any shorts or a bathing suit. Here’s my review. Like when I went to the Rack a few months ago (and like when I do all my clothing shopping) I looked for made in America. Unlike the Rack, I was able to find a few. It was a very few; most of the stuff was made elsewhere.

I found one nice pair of shorts that were the right size. No shirts that I saw were made in America.

The layout was fine there were signs to where everything was. It was well lit, and there was staff around.

I popped down to the grocery, and it looks fine. But it’s a block away from Pike Place and from the IGA, so I’m not sure when I’d pop in.

– No scab drivers as Waste Management and the union reach an agreement.

– Finally, women have access to preventive care. Now let’s get the word out

– Kirby Wilbur thinks that because Rick Steves has taken positions on things that will be on the ballot, he can’t do a bland, nonpartisan PSA on voting in the top two primary.

– Steve King is awful and kind of stupid [h/t].

– It will not be like this forever. Progress is being made. At times the pace seems glacial when we’d rather it poured forth like the Niagara, but attitudes are changing.

– “Domestic violence protections for all women shouldn’t be a Democratic or a Republican issue”

– This represents the kind of country I want to live in!

– Crisis Diversion Center to open Monday.

– Get your tickets to the Liberty Ball.

Is there any actual news when the Olympics are on? I don’t know, probably. I mean, the presidential candidates could go on multi-state bank robbery sprees and it would only be half reported because we’re concerned with gymnastics right now. But there really is a magic to the people who are the best in the world competing against each other in the most meaningful sports event there is.

So what have you been watching? Do you understand the gymnastics scoring? What would you eliminate? Do you like the coverage? If you’ve been able to watch it on the web, how has that been? Any news sources you particularly like or dislike?

For me: I’ve only been watching the prime time coverage, out of the house since I don’t own a TV box. I don’t think anyone really understands the gymnastics, but they love NBC’s helpful coverage of it. I’d eliminate the competitions with animals and the ones that there are world championships that are more important. So I’d eliminate the dressage because an Olympic horse sounds like a joke. And I’d eliminate Tennis and Soccer since the Grand Slam and World Cup events are more important in those sports. Coverage has been fine if you watch it at bars with the sound off. Having multiple channels do different events is pretty good. I always like Joe Posnanski and think his coverage has been solid.

– The King County Council approved the Sonics arena.

– There are plenty of health and environmental benefits for cities of bicycling.

– Decent first ad by the marriage equality people.

– So there’s your answer, America. We don’t need gun control. If we all become good Christians and armed ourselves, then when someone opens fire and sends a few Christians to a wonderful place, we can return fire and send them to a terrible place.

– One of the toughest Olympic moments was the fencer who refused to leave the piste.

– Nobody vetted Mittens.

– Chick-fil-a-holes

– Boxed in.

It’s been a long time coming, and it felt like it was just a matter of time since President Obama supported it. But now it looks like marriage equality has the support to make it to the final platform.

Leaders of the Democratic Party have apparently agreed to include language endorsing same-sex marriage in the party’s 2012 platform, to be ratified at the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C.

The formal platform language will be hammered out when the party’s platform committee convenes in Detroit in mid-August.

It has been a lot of work from a lot of committed activists for decades to bring us to this point. And of course there’s still a long way to go before it’s the law of the land in all 50 states. But the tide is turning. If this happens, it’ll be an important step along the way.

– This may be the most ignorant thing anyone has possibly said to anyone ever in any circumstance.

– Why does Thomas Paine hate free enterprise?

– In addition to all of these points, I’m not sure the leaderless Occupy movement and Bane go hand in glove.

– The settlement between Seattle and the DOJ (pdf). I haven’t read it, but most of the commentary about it sounds encouraging. The proof of the pudding will of course be in the eating.

– Charter school advocates are totally above board.

– Not the Olympics, but a great gold medal.

– And as far as I know, this may be the first time ant babies have been given haircuts for science.

Here are all of the answers we got for the primary:

Sec. of State:

• Kathleen Drew

Treasurer:

Nobody answered

36th District:

• Gael Tarleton

46th District:

• Sarajane Siegfriedt

• Jessyn Farrell

• Shelly Crocker

• Dusty Hoerler

Once again, I emailed the same questions (per position) to all of the Democratic candidates in these contested primaries, and gave them as much space as they wanted to answer. I think we got some interesting ones. Sadly, this time more candidates didn’t answer than did; I don’t normally endorse because who cares, but I’ll say since they were the only people in their races who bothered to answer, the official Carl Ballard endorsement goes to Drew and Tarleton. If they have any sense they won’t put it on any literature. Any candidate who reads this and feels bad is free to get in late, I guess.

So, going forward, is this something you guys would like to see in the general or future elections?

While I’m still not thrilled with the fact that CEO’s can do this sort of thing [h/t]. But as long as they can, this is a lot better than them spending it on the bad side of an initiative.

Amazon.com founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and his wife MacKenzie announced a gift Friday of $2.5 million to the campaign to defend Washington’s same-sex marriage law.

With the gift, Washington United for Marriage has raised more than $5 million for the Referendum 74 campaign. Last month Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and co-founder Bill Gates each donated $100,000 to support the law.

Dominic Holden on Slog linked to a poll a while ago that suggested that marriage equality might be in trouble. So hopefully this will help turn things around.

There’s a garbage strike in Seattle and the surrounding suburbs. I’m embarrassed to say, I didn’t know the situation before the strike, and it certainly doesn’t look good.

Talks between Waste Management and recycle drivers, represented by Teamsters Local 117, stalled on Thursday because the company refused to bargain in good faith. The mediator called off negotiations after the company refused to respond to the Union’s proposal.

“Waste Management did not come prepared to bargain today,” said Tracey A. Thompson, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 117. “We came back to the table to avoid a public health crisis but it’s clear that Waste Management wants to provoke a labor dispute.”

Waste Management has flown in out-of-state strike breakers to prepare for a lockout and has employed staffers from Huffmaster, a company that specializes in lockouts and strikes. “Waste Management is spending thousands of dollars on wages, plane tickets, rental cars, and hotel rooms for out-of-state strike breakers and security guards. That’s money that could be used to match proposals made by its major competitors,” Thompson said.

You can take that with a grain of salt being as it’s the union’s site. But I think it’s important for them to be able to get their side out.

… Late note, the link is old. When I wrote about not being aware of the situation, I thought that covered that it was for background, but re-reading it it looks like a current thing. So just to clarify.

– The Stranger endorses the Arena. Although Goldy has some caveats.

– People with power need to stand up to the NRA.

– The last debate in the 1st.

– Fox News have lost their damn minds.

– Obama is removing imaginary crosses.

– Countries to root for in the Olympics that have never won a medal.

– The most logical thing said about The Dark Knight.

The Commission on Presidential Debates announced the format of the presidential and vice presidential debates this year. As usual, they don’t really feature a strong back and forth or the chance to get into the minutia of these things.

They will be a better chance to air their points than ads and press releases, so I suppose that’s something. Still, they won’t have to have more than 2 or 3 minute’s knowledge on any topic to sound intelligent. That’s a shame. So many people watch the debates. Even if they haven’t decided the outcome of many elections recently, it’s still an important part of our democracy, and it’s sooooo watered down.

My questions bold, Dusty Hoerler’s as they were sent:

1) The state’s paramount duty is education. Do you feel the state is living up to that duty? If not, what needs to happen to live up to it?

The state is clearly not living up to its duty to provide for the education of young people. I was heartened by the fact that our state’s education budget emerged from the last session relatively intact, but I’m not satisfied merely holding the line. We’ll need to dedicate an additional $6.8 billion per biennium through 2018 to fund K-12 education at a level consistent with our constitutional mandate. That’s a tall order, and it simply cannot be done without raising more revenue.

But this is about more than obeying a court order to meet our constitutional obligations – it’s about the long-term strength of our democracy and our economy. That means that we have to take a broader view of education, to include early learning and making our public universities affordable again. We are seeing an alarming trend in higher education. Tuition at University of Washington has nearly doubled in the last four years, and, according to an article in Monday’s Seattle Times, tuition is projected to surpass $20,000 per year for in-state students by the end of this decade.

Why? Because our state legislators decided to, in part, balance the state’s budgets on middle and working class families and their children. Just four years ago, tuition only covered 41% of the costs of a UW education, while today, tuition pays 71% of the cost. In addition to our four-year schools, we also need to support our community colleges and trade schools, who are seeing similar budget cuts.

2) Washington State voters recently rejected an income tax. Most of the revenue that the legislature might be able to raise is quite regressive. Will you push for revenue, and if so, how will you make sure the burdens don’t fall on the poorest Washingtonians?

Washington’s tax system is one of the most regressive in America. The wrong people are being taxed too much! I believe that the rich and corporations need to pay their fair share. Not only are the poorest Washingtonians being taxed, but our tax dollars are indirectly subsidizing special interest loopholes. Here’s what I propose:

A. Sunset all corporate tax breaks. I’m in favor of legislation that sunsets all corporate tax breaks automatically. There are certainly some tax breaks that I support: Those encouraging the development of clean energy and green jobs, for instance. However, the legislature should reauthorize them every five years – at a minimum. If they prove to be productive, we should keep them on the books. But some of the tax breaks are frankly silly and need to be eliminated.

B. Aggressively prosecute corporate cheaters. I believe that if hard working people play by the
rules, they should be able to get ahead. However, time and time again, we see big corporations who are willing to step outside the law. While most of these transgressions have occurred elsewhere, I believe that we must draw the line in the sand against abuses in Washington State.

C. Our discussion about the income tax is not over – not as far as I’m concerned. I intend to be just as vocal a proponent of the progressive income tax in Olympia (and across the whole state) as I have been in this campaign.

3) There is a good chance that the State Senate and/or the Governor’s Mansion will be controlled by Republicans after the next election, and certainly most legislators will be more conservative than people who would be elected in a Seattle district. Given that, how will you get your agenda passed?

I’m a grassroots organizer – my political experience is in the hard work of organizing workers and mobilizing voters. I believe in the power of pressuring elected representatives from below, and I believe the voters of Republican-leaning districts share the concerns of the voters of my own district. We value effective schools and quality infrastructure, and we’re frustrated by a legislature mired in deadlock. I’ve been endorsed by normally Republican-leaning groups such as the Mechanical Contractors Association because I believe in reaching out, listening, forging relationships, and finding common ground. I think the best way to break that deadlock is to speak to voters in conservative districts directly.

I have volunteered to organize a Values and Priorities Tour that crisscrosses our state from small rural towns to urban city centers. In community centers and public school auditoriums, union halls and parking lots, we’ll have a frank discussion about our challenges, our values, the measures we need to introduce some common sense to our tax and budget systems – and what working people can do to help. I’ve learned something important: If we want to change the way our state does business in the face of special interest lobbyists, we’ve got to rally the people who have the most at stake in the decisions Olympia makes.

4) You’re running in a race with many Democrats who share similar positions. What separates you from the rest of the field?

I respect and appreciate the strong progressives in this race. But even in a race where each candidate can advance the right positions and promise the right votes, background matters: It molds the values you’ll refuse to compromise and determines what you’ll fight the hardest for.

I offer a blue-collar background. I’m a plumber by trade, a veteran union organizer and homeowner advocate. I co-founded SustainableWorks, an energy-efficiency nonprofit, to help jumpstart our state’s investment in clean energy jobs. (I’ve helped create jobs in the middle of a recession, while at the same time helping protect the environment — over the last three years, SustainableWorks has created 55 good, family wage jobs.) Last year, I organized a group of homeowners to travel to Olympia to testify in favor of foreclosure mediation legislation. My civic life has been dedicated to creating security and opportunity for working families, and this campaign has been bolstered by the contributions – of money, yes, but primarily of time and sweat – of middle-class workers. I believe that this is a seat we need to retain for working families.

5) Seattle and King County give more to the state than they get back. Part is this is reasonable things like the cost of providing education and social services in rural and suburban areas, but part of it is a lack of respect for Seattle and King County with the legislature that treats us as an ATM. How will you make sure your district gets its fair share of revenue without harming education or social services throughout the state?

The best answer is the politically hardest one: We need a restructuring of our revenue system, and that means communicating directly with our cross-state neighbors. We can change the way Olympia does business, but it starts with a discussion. I’m running to help lead that discussion.