The rumors from Washington are that Rep. Dave Reichert (WA-8) is absolutely miserable, being a bit player in a fractious, fractured, and demoralized minority party. Perhaps Reichert has aspirations for bigger and better things…

Peter Callaghan of The News Tribune notes that Dwight Pelz sometimes uses baseball analogies when talking politics. And sometimes they’re tortured baseball analogies:

So, Pelz said, having the state’s primary on Feb. 19 is akin to having a ticket to the fifth game of the series – it’s not too late and it’s not too early and it might be just right. Maybe you had to be there. And to think that Republican Party Chairman Luke Esser, not Pelz, is the former sportswriter.

Ahhh…yes, Luke “The Truth” Esser. He began his sports journalism career writing for The Daily, the student newspaper at U-Dub. One of my favorite columns was from 1986, where Luke used an interesting sort of political analogy metaphor allusion in describing a national championship football team:

A prominent associate editor of a great big Seattle paper as much as wrote my name in the loss column after the Husky football team lost to B.Y.U. on national television 31-3. According to Columnist ‘X’ and various B.Y.U. players, some unsavory comments I made about the Cougars the season before (when those polygamists won a national championship there was no way in hell they deserved) were responsible for the 28-point win.

Does this mean Luke isn’t going to be a Mitt Romney supporter?

Convicted liar Scooter Libby lost his bid today to stay out of jail.

A few days ago I wrote a rather whimsical post about political gadflies. The post was inspired by Richard Pope filing as a Democratic candidate for King County Council, District 6. In the general election Pope will be running against the Republican incumbent, Councilmember Jane Hague.

The interesting thing about this race is that District 6 is demonstrably a strong Democratic district. For example, the 6th incorporates parts of the 32nd, 41st, 45th and 48th legislative districts for which Democrats hold eleven out of twelve legislative seats. The 6th voted 61% in favor of Cantwell in the 2006 general election.

Considering how blue the 6th is, the King County Republicans ought not ignore Richard Pope. (Besides the taste of shame in losing to Mr. Pope will be all the more bitter because of a $40,000 fine levied on them by the PDC last month for campaign finance reporting violations. Richard Pope filed the complaint that resulted in the fine.)

Also, given what a motley band of tricksters that go under the Republican brand name in this state, we might well expect some dirty pool from the King County Republicans. And when it comes to goofy tricks, the Republicans never seem to disappoint.

Case in point: if you do a WHOIS query on the domain names “RichardPope.Org” and “RichardPope.Net”, the names were registered on June 9th, 2007 by Mr. Matthew Lundh of Seattle. A quick web search reveals that Matthew Lundh is both the Political Director and the Secretary for the King County Republicans.

So far, nothing has been done with the domain names (besides making them unavailable to Mr. Pope), but it is hard to believe that collecting domain names is simply one of Mr. Lundh’s weekend hobbies.

Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I do believe the King County Republicans are, um…rather concerned!

Today Gov. Christine Gregoire completed the recurrent training requirement to earn a “red card” that certifies her to be on the scene of a wildland fire.

The story was all over the news this afternoon; but, in fact, she first earned a red card in 2005:

“I want to understand the conditions that our firefighters face in keeping our families, communities and resources safe,” said the governor. “Having this training means that I will be able to safely enter these areas to get the most up-to-date information.”

Gregoire is the first governor in Washington history to receive this training. She completed the firefighters work capacity test by walking one mile in under the 16 minute-limit and properly deploying her fire shelter. Department of Natural Resources staff in a non-suppression role are expected to undergo light physical fitness training as well as an eight-hour annual firefighter refresher course.

The “Red Card” is a federally recognized Interagency Incident Qualification Card that lists qualifications and currency of people certified as wildland fire personnel. Based on the training she undertook, I suspect Gregoire re-certified as a Field Observer under the Wildland Fire Qualification System (see pg. 103).

No word yet on whether Dino Rossi will try for a Real Estate Broker license in response.

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for another exciting evening of politics under the influence. This is your chance to hound Goldy about those “pressing projects”, and get an idea about how much venture capital you’ll invest. We meet at 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E.

Drinking Liberally’s Seattle hosts are Nick Beaudrot of Electoral Math and HorsesAss contributer TheHim (also at Blog Reload and EFFin’ Unsound).

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area, check out their Drinking Liberally; Jimmy will have the details.

The Drinking Liberally web site has dates and times for 212 chapters in 44 states (plus DC). And if you don’t find a chapter near you…start one!

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave a talk on energy legislation before the Center for American Progress yesterday. He began by offering a few observations about some political colleagues:

My staff told me to make sure that I stayed away from presidential politics today. And I’m going to do that. Other — I’ve learned one thing in listening to all the debates and reading about all these people running for office, and the one fact I’ve learned, I can’t get out of my mind, is that Rudy Giuliani has been married more times than Mitt Romney’s been hunting.…

(Via Political Wire.)

Today’s Seattle P-I covers the candidate filings for this year’s elections. And, once again, HA commenter and political troublemaker, Richard Pope’s name comes up:

Serial candidate and municipal gadfly Richard Pope filed against Councilwoman Jane Hague, R-Kirkland. Although he has run as a Republican in several past races, Pope is a Democrat this time.

Municipal gadfly? What is that supposed to mean? I mean, the papers refer to people as “gadflys” all the time, but municipal gadfly? The term aptly describes Will Baker who has been called that “Tacoma gadfly” (News Tribune, 10 Jun 2004, pg. B06), “[Tacoma’s] most vocal political gadfly” (Seattle P-I, June 5, 2004, pg. B3), and a Tacoma “council gadfly” (News Tribune, 26 Aug 2003, pg. B06).

And then there is Glenn Baldwin who earned the headline “Vancouver Council Gadfly Tosses His Hat in the Ring” in The Columbian (August 03, 1995, pg. A8):

Vancouver City Council candidate Glenn Baldwin says his attendance at council meetings is better than that of the incumbent he’s challenging.
[…]

Once a milk man in Vancouver, Baldwin spent most of his career driving delivery trucks for Blue Bell Potato Chips in Portland. He retired in 1992 and planned to complete several repairs to his house. Instead, he became a City Council gadfly, attending meetings and writing to the council and The Columbian.

The Seattle Weekly once ran an article about dangerous dogs (March 1, 2001, Pg. 16) and mentioned another municipal gadfly:

Mitzi Leibst, a former Army intelligence officer and longtime city gadfly, whose concerns actually extend well beyond last summer’s code changes. “For years and years and years,” she charges, “the city’s gotten away with this kind of fascist mentality on dog bites. Seattle is one of the few jurisdictions in the state that doesn’t allow you to have a dangerous dog. That’s just crazy.”

Crazy, indeed…all we really need is concealed canine permits. Leibst died before a series of high-profile pit bull attacks; she left a sizable sum to the Pigs Peace Sanctuary.

Now those are examples of municipal gadflies.

(Apparently other governmental bodies can have their own fly problem, like former port commissioner Jim Wright, who was called “a port gadfly” by the Seattle Times [12 Sep 1993, pg. B1].)

Richard is an eastsider, and his gadflightery isn’t limited to any municipality, level of government, or even political party. He is more of a generalized political gadfly (and a perennial candidate).

For example, Richard has recently won the love and adoration of State Republicans (like former truck mechanic and failed King County Executive candidate David Irons Jr. and Benton County Republican Party Chair Patrick McBurney) over his PDC complaints about GOP campaign reporting violations. Ever the multi-partisan, Pope has also filed an unsuccessful PDC complaint against the state Democrats, and an ethics complaint against Gov. Gregoire last fall over a dinner date.

And last year, in a move that Ralph Nader could be proud of, Pope threw the election for King County Judge; his candidacy knocked out incumbent Mary Ann Ottinger in the primary and resulted in a victory for Frank V. LaSalata.

Pope is more like his brother-in-perennial-candidacy Michael Shanks, a.k.a., Mike the Mover. Before becoming a perennial candidate, Mr. Mover fought tirelessly (and did some jail time) to get rid of licensing for movers. It earned him his own Seattle P-I (15 Sep 2004) headline calling him a “political gadfly.” The Spokesman Review (15 Sep 2004, A1) referred to him as “perennial political gadfly Mike the Mover.” Most recently Mr. Mover ran against Cantwell for the Senate.

Maybe Pope is more akin to Dale Washam, described as “an unsuccessful office-seeker and political gadfly” by the Columbian (05 Sep 1996, pg. A3). Washam is, perhaps, most famous for suing Newt Gingrich for stealing his ideas when Newt created the “Contract with America.”

Washam, 58, a former Democrat, ran unsuccessfully for the Puyallup School Board in 1991, Pierce County executive in 1992 and Pierce County auditor in 1993.

When Washam won the Republican nomination for auditor, the county GOP chairman said he was voting for the Democratic incumbent.

In each election, Washam filed a notarized “political employment contract” containing campaign promises and a pledge to resign if requested in petitions bearing the names of at least 51 percent of the voters in the last general election. Citizens who felt he violated his campaign promises also could try to oust him with a breach-of-contract suit, he said.

In a complaint, Washam said Gingrich, Eikenberry and the state GOP “plagiarized as their own the plaintiff’s Political Employment Contract idea, concept and contents when drafting their 1994 ‘Republican Contract with Washington State,’ the ‘Contract with America’ and the defendants’ book ‘Contract with America.’ ”

In any case, look for a highly parsimonious campaign from perpetual political gadfly and perennial candidate Richard Pope. Richard is always proud to point out his very high ratio of votes to campaign dollar invested.

Pat Robertson fooled me once, but I…I…I can’t get foolded again. This one’s for real…

So relax…let’s not get too worked up about things like this (via Think Progress):

…when the fact is, Federal Way’s own climate expert and modern-day Nostradamus, Frosty Hardison, has foreseen that the world, as we know it, will end today. The rapture is upon us.

He made his prophecy on KIRO 710’s Dave Ross Show on January 24th, 2007.

Dave promised to have ’em back on if the world doesn’t end, which it will. Really. Frosty said so.

(Hat tip: mercifurious.)

Last night I posted a rant about how, in a “post-9/11 world,” common sense has surrendered in the pursuit of pseudo-security. I used an example from an Indian student at Purdue University who is on trial for his inflamed political rhetoric on an internet chatroom.

Twelve hours later, Kos diarist chiniqua posted this diary detailing her experience of being the target of an investigation based on her perfectly legal web page.

Apparently, her MySpace page elicited concern when, using her handle China, she said:

China’s Interests:

The eventual destruction of the capitalist system and the military industrial complex, revenge, culty TV shows, narcotics trafficking and naps.

Wow. Terrorism, drug trafficking, pop culture and sinister siesta speech all in one brief sentence!

She also linked to the New York Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) Underground, after getting a myspace friend request. The CCRB investigates complaints against the police department, and chiniqua used to work as an investigator for the CCRB.

Clearly this woman is a terrorist who presents a clear danger to those around her. Well…she presents a danger if you’re a cowardly, bed-wetting, irony-impaired idiot!

So she was being investigated by an NYPD-FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force team:

The detective pulled out a folder and took out a piece of paper. It was all the pictures from my myspace page printed out. He pulled out some more papers and (basically) said this:

Some ‘concerned citizen’ was trolling myspace and came across CCRB Underground. Somewhere on [the CCRB underground page] there was the quote from Back to the Future about how Doc got the uranium to power the time machine by stealing it from some Libyan nationalists: “They wanted me to build them a bomb, so I took their plutonium and in turn, gave them a shiny bomb-casing filled with used pinball machine parts.” This citizen took it upon his or herself to look at who the friends were on this site and found me. […]

He or she then sent an email through the NYC.gov site saying (as far as I can tell) CCRB Underground was some sort of terror group and I advocated armed revolution and narcotics trafficking. Somehow this ended up on the Mayor’s desk the Commissioner got upset and then the gears went into motion. A priority investigation was launched and, they said, the original CCRB Underground guy had his computer confiscated.

The detective proceeded to ask me if I traffic in narcotics, if I am involved in terrorist activities or armed violence, what is my primary email address, who do I live with, where do I work, what do I do, how long have I been there, whether I had travelled outside the country in the last ten years, who the other people in the pictures on my page were, if I knew anyone involved with CCRB Underground, or recognized any of the people from the page.

Investigated for a fucking MySpace page? Computers confiscated for quoting Back to the Future? (But…but…but isn’t Libya a partner nation in the War on Terror™ now?) Yeah…this kind of thing is making us safer.

I wonder if this is how it happened to the Roman Empire, too?

Join us tonight for another exciting edition Drinking Liberally (Seattle Chapter).

This is your chance to falsify the rumor that Goldy’s “break” is a polite way of saying he’s been incarcerated. We meet at 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area, check out their chapter of Drinking Liberally. Jimmy will have the details. For dates and times elsewhere check out the Drinking Liberally web site to find a chapter near you.

And if you don’t find a chapter near you, start one!

I know some of you were a bit concerned with Goldy’s claim that he was “planning to blow up SeaTac.”

And I understand your concern. It wasn’t about the safety of SeaTac. I mean, really, even the dopiest brainwashed rightwing wackjob couldn’t read Goldy’s post and seriously believe he was out to get SeaTac. Rather, the concern was the possible ramifications for Goldy’s liberties (and, who knows, maybe Goldy will yet announce that he is taking a “break”). It seemed conceivable at first glance that Goldy might get himself into deep trouble, because we now live in an America where “security concerns” are allowed to override common sense. We’ve been hoodwinked into believing that being “safe from terrorism” has a higher priority than our freedoms.

Here’s how it happened. After the initial overreaction to the attacks on 11 September 2001, an insidious erosion set in because the Bush Administration was constantly fear-peddling. America’s collective psyche sank into some kind of post-9-11 cowardly funk. Now some significant portion of our population is actually fooled into believing that their safety is tangibly threatened by terrorist acts. Sure, acts of terrorism very slightly increase ones risk of death or injury in the actuarial tables. But, this risk is trifling compared to every-day risks like crossing a busy street daily or driving an hour a day in a car.

The real injury from terrorism is the fear; the larger tragedy of terrorism is that people limit their life and willingly give up their liberties to accommodate those fears. You know who I am talking about. They’re the cowards who say things like, “I don’t care if they listen to my calls and read my emails—I have nothing to hide.”

Pussies!

I’ve written lots of negative stuff about Mike McGavick, but I completely concur with his statement from two days after 9/11 (Seattle Times, Sep 16, 2001. pg. D.2, [my emphasis]):

“I guess now I know more about the evil humans are capable of than I did before, and I’m sadder for it.”
[…]

“There is nothing a coward can do to change my behavior,” he said, anger filling his voice, “and that’s a rule I’m not going to start to break.”

That’s American Spirit! But the Bush administration will have none of it. It has methodically undertaken the pussification of America (as Jon Stewart might put it)—and they’ve done it to consolidate and hold domestic political power.

Now, in our “post 9/11 world,” every time some group of crackpots, oppressed street persons, or angry youths talk to an undercover FBI agent about “the revolution,” the FBI sets up a sting operation. Someone “offers” funding and support…they bite…a bust is made. The news headlines play up the “thwarted attack” of “horrific proportions” on the skyscraper or an airport.

“But it was more aspirational than operational.” (Doesn’t the idea of an “aspirational crime” have the look and feel of a “thought crime?”)

And a few more persons of color are sent off to jail for a long, long time.

Now, when Goldy makes a point through an outrageous statement, we stop to contemplate whether this might trigger some kind of “security concern” that gets him thrown in jail. A student at Purdue University learned about this the hard way. He is in deep shit because he “threatened” Bush administration officials in a chat room:

A judge refused to throw out a Purdue University student’s indictment on charges alleging he urged the assassination of President George Bush and made threats against other administration officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife.
[…]

Buddhi, an Indian national who was attending advanced engineering classes at Purdue’s West Lafayette campus, faces an 11-count complaint for alleged comments he made in an Internet chat room in 2005 and 2006.

Oh…and do you think that being a foreigner with a non-Christian-sounding surname had anything to do with it?

What were those egregious threats he made?

“It is now legal under international law to bomb key sites in the USA. Iraqis! Give Anglosaxons the tit reaction for the tat action of Bush and the Republicans,” Buddhi wrote in one posting, according to federal court records.
[…]

For example, on a message board pertaining to defense contractor Halliburton, Buddhi posted that “Bush is a President of Mass Destruction” and “should be electrocuted.”
[…]

[He called for] for someone to “Kill GW Bush” and “Rape and Kill Laura Bush”

So there you have it…”threats.”

In the past, these statements would be dismissed as sophomoric, heated rhetoric, but rhetoric that falls under the protections of free speech:

… a 1969 U.S. Supreme Court case in which an 18-year-old war protester told a crowd at the Washington Memorial, “If they ever make me carry a rifle, the first man I want to get in my sights is LBJ (President Johnson).”

The high court ruled the protester’s comments were simply crude political speech and overturned his conviction.

Unfortunately, the post-9/11 pussification of America means that Mr. Buddhi will lose his liberties for some time until a court throws out the charges.

I look forward to the day that Americans get past this post 9/11 bedwetting-chickenshit-scared phase, take a little advice from McGavick and grow a pair! Because giving up parts of the Constitution out of fear—and fear that is largely manufactured for political gain—is just so…fucking un-American!

Postscript:

On a lighter note, and just to demonstrate that I haven’t completely lost my sense of humor this evening, here is an instructional video on the topic of forbidden speech:

This morning I thought I might write about the oil stain on my garage floor. Or, perhaps, the blue fuzzy lint I cleaned out of my navel this morning. But I was just a little too lazy to write on a topic of such irrelevance.

Besides, Alicia Mundy beat me to it this morning. In her Letter from Washington column in the Seattle Times, Alicia writes about Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA-8)…and his utter irrelevance:

The annual power rankings from Congress.org have dropped Reichert, now a sophomore Republican, from 168th among 439 members to 419th. That puts him lower than emissaries from the District of Columbia (100), Guam (177) and Puerto Rico (377), none of whom represent a state or have actual voting rights in the House.

Reichert ranks lower than most Republicans, and every Democrat except Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA-2), who has been marginalized ever since the FBI filmed him taking bribes.

In short, Reichert has no recent accomplishments (well…he did successfully pretend to get a school bus driver fired). Furthermore he has shown no capacity to adapt—to find some kind of functional niche—in a House controlled by Democrats.

“But…but…but, what do you expect, Reichert is only a sophomore!” Sophomore, indeed…but, Reichert ranks 38th out of the 41 Representatives in his class of 2004.

So I guess Ms. Mundy was having one of those “I think I’ll write about something completely irrelevant” days, and she reported irrelevant old news about Washington’s 8th Congressional District’s irrelevant Representative.

If Ms. Mundy had been in the mood for a little more relevancy, she might have written about, say, sophomore Rep. McMorris Rogers (R-WA-5), with a ranking of 231 of 439, or 12th of 41 in the class of 2004 (and she spent the session pregnant until giving birth last month and missed much of May as a consequence).

Ms. Mundy could have done that…but, then again, McMorris Rogers doesn’t have that head of rich, silvery hair, bulging biceps, and those washboard abs….

From Eric Schwartz….

Discuss.

It is so hard to keep up with all the Republican scandals these days. One almost needs an instant message service just devoted to these scandals. Admittedly, quite a few came to light even before Congress jump-started its dormant oversight functions early this year. Now that the oversight machine has gotten warmed up, expect a new scandal to surface every couple of weeks or so.

One recent junior-level scandal is about to get bigger. Remember Lurita Doan, the Administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA)? She recently gave testimony before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform investigating GSA misconduct. If you don’t remember, here is an exchange between Ms. Doan and Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) over a meeting she attended, on GSA property, in which the White House Office of Political Affairs presented strategies for winning the 2006 elections. The presentation included things like a list of targeted Democratic seats. Multiple witnesses reported that after the presentation, Ms. Doan stood up and said “How can we use the GSA to help the Republicans in the next election.” She, of course, had no recollection of the presentation or her own statements afterward.

The problem for Ms. Doan is that the activity, on the face of it, violates the Hatch Act of 1939. That isn’t just the opinion of a spiteful liberal like me; in fact, it’s the opinion of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (here is a pdf version of their report).

The report has gotten Ms. Doan a second date with the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on June 7.

The Chair of the committee, Rep. Henry Waxman (R-CA), just gave an interview to the Center for American Progress to explain the rationale for asking her back for a second date. In summary:

By pressing forward with the investigation, investigators have revealed a disturbing pattern by Doan to mislead and cover-up her true intent regarding these partisan briefings. Some examples:

• When asked by the OSC investigators about her role in the briefing, she said “she was uninterested in the topic” and “was on her Blackberry…reviewing emails…and only periodically looked up and down.” But a review of her e-mail use during the meeting failed to corroborate that she was checking or sending email via her BlackBerry.
• Doan claimed the GSA employees who spoke out about her were employees who were poor performers. The OSC investigators said that Doan’s claim regarding the witnesses “appears to have been purposefully misleading and false” since none of the seven employees had “between a poor to totally inferior performance.”
• Doan claimed “she does not care about polls or election results.” But investigators report that Doan contributed $226,000 to Republican candidates and Republican organizations. Doan responded by testifying that the contributions had been “taken out of context.”

Here’s the thing. It is possible that this is an isolated case of a senior Bush appointee just not understanding the rules.

It’s possible…but why is it that every time something suspicious is investigated, it turns out that Republican appointees are breaking the law (or at least bending the law to the point of breaking) in order to squeeze out partisan advantage? And they never remember a thing about it afterward!

I’m talking Gonzogate (“I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons”), Monica Goodling (“I crossed the line of Civil Service policy”), Plamegate, the Armstrong Williams & Maggie Gallagher propaganda scandals, a fake reporter in the White House press corps, GAO-gate, and so on and so forth. And we’ve just scratched the surface.

Collectively, it is clear that (1) these people think they are above the law, (2) the GOP comes before country to them, (3) they feel being in power entitles them to use their power to keep power at any cost, (4) this abuse of power is systematic. The Bush administration’s great innovation has been to refine the concept of distributed power abuse it in a way that hasn’t been seen in generations (if ever before). It’s a pernicious, distributed, largely low-level abuse of power at all levels of government. And we have only scratched the surface.

When it comes right down to it, this current pack of criminals in the White House makes Richard Nixon seem like a real amateur.