In a predictable move, state Rep. Jaime Herrera, R-18th LD, announced she is running for Congress in WA-03 within hours of incumbent Brian Baird’s announcement that he will not run again.

Herrera took office in the 18th after former Rep. Richard Curtis stepped down in the wake of an unseemly sex scandal.

While it’s a smart move by the GOP, as Herrera comes across as articulate and smart, she’s also untested in a big-name campaign. But her entry does seem to dim the chances of other announced Republicans David Castillo, Jon Russell and David Hedrick. (Those three are, to use some quick shorthand, a former Bush official (Castillo) who seemed to be the establishment nominee until today, a “Faith and Freedom” guy (Russell (who didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, and a man famous only for screaming at Baird at a town maul in August (Hedrick.)))

On the Democratic side, the names being bandied about include state Senator Craig Pridemore of Vancouver, Rep. Deb Wallace of Vancouver, Rep. Brendan Williams of Olympia, and Cowlitz County Commissioner Axel Swanson.

And as for the usual discussion about what kind of district the Third is, well, it’s a swing district pure and simple. It’s kind of weird how people from outside the district perceive it sometimes as either “Olympia area,” which it’s not because Olympia now has only a small slice, or as some kind of uber-red stronghold, which it’s also not, because Clark County has changed dramatically over the last ten to fifteen years with new residents. Lewis County is very Republican, of course, but other than that a solid Democrat can do well in Cowlitz and Pacific.

The largest county by population is Clark, of course, so being from Clark County is perceived as an advantage.

The district went for Obama, but there is a large and boisterous conservative movement and a well-organized Republican Party machine that utilizes talk radio and newspapers to the fullest advantage. There is a giant, gaping media hole in Clark County, which is generally ignored on the political front by the dominant Portland media, which allows plenty of space for the GOP to operate.

The GOP types probably think they have an advantage going in, and maybe they do in a generic sense, but until the candidate field sorts itself out, I’d say anything could happen. As in any election, turnout and enthusiasm will be critical, and maybe a fresh face on the Democratic side can help motivate folks.

News-Tribune has brief story and Baird’s statement.

A mixture of relief and some wistful thoughts for me, for certain. I wish him the very best.

Columbian editor emeritus Tom Koenninger serves up a stinking dung bowl of war on Christmas bullshit in an opinion articled headlined, “Despite PC Crowd, Merry Christmas!”

If you want to view a school Christmas program this year, you may have to go to the Inchelium School District on the Colville Indian Reservation. That’s 90 miles north of Spokane. You won’t find such a program in Clark County’s public schools, at least not by that title.

Santa and Christmas are banned in the schools because they are politically incorrect. The legal beagles declare they are constitutionally incorrect, a violation of church and state separation, even though the American Center for Law and Justice pointed out in 2004: “It is important to note that nothing in the U.S. Constitution prohibits students in public schools from exercising their constitutional rights to express their religious beliefs, especially during the Christmas season.” That goes for the public square, too, they maintain.

Or if you wanted to see a Christmas play at a school you could go see one at a local Christian school, there are over eight thousand of them in Clark County alone. Bet Tom never considered that basic fact, or more accurately, he deliberately chose to bitch and moan about not being able to shove his religion down my kids’ throats.

So to his “Merry Christmas” I issue a cheerful, “Go Fuck Yourself with a Holly Branch, Tom.” Pass the eggnog.

As for the “legal beagles” Koenninger laments, I think they’re called “The Supreme Court of the United States.” The dirty fucking hippies have to live by any horrid decision they make, like Bush v. Gore, but somehow upholding the separation of church and state is worthy of contempt. There are fine distinctions to be made, but that may be why the place is made out of marble I guess.

Koenninger goes on to complain about various examples of how poor, poor picked-upon Christians have to deal with things like sorting out whether a Christmas tree should be in a public school. Granted, there are reasonable positions to discuss, but that would require some small attempt at empathy, something always in short supply for righties this time of year.

Striving for the PC Christmas, a lot of self-proclaimed do-gooders have done silly things. Last week, an elementary school principal in Ashland, Ore., removed an artificial Christmas “giving tree,” which held tags requesting gifts for needy children, after a family complained it was a religious symbol. Dozens of parents were upset, noting the tree was not a religious symbol but a way to celebrate the season and help those in need. Last year, the director of Seattle Schools Department of Equity and Race, Caprice D. Hollins, distributed a letter suggesting Thanksgiving is a difficult time for “many of our Native students.” She referred staff to a Web site that declared the holiday “is a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship.” Oh, those rotten Pilgrims!

Those rotten liberals, asking people to do unto others as they would have done unto them, it’s offensive.

The War on Christmas idiots complain endlessly about some vague threat against Christmas, but Christmas is everywhere you look right now. I was taught it’s in the heart, but I guess that’s not good enough for some people.

Hell, some of us might be tempted to come back to the organized religion if it weren’t for petty, narrow-minded fools like Koennigner. That’s about the last thing I need on Sunday morning, listening to some self-righteous prick tell me the difference between good and evil, knowing that the prick’s newspaper works tirelessly to fuck regular working people over the other six days of the week.

If someone gets cancer without health care they’ll be comforted if they can watch second graders sing “Silent Night” on public school grounds, because nothing is more comforting than the tribal culture war against liberals. People may go bankrupt, lose their houses and lives, but it’s all worth it just to generate animosity towards those who try to defend Constitutional principles that conservatives find troublesome, ie all the ones that don’t involve guns.

I say we put a Hindu “giving cow” on top of the new Columbian building and see what folks say. Well, we’d have to ask the bank that actually owns the new Columbian building first I suppose. Nobody could have predicted…

It seems that the “Congressman from the Lars Larson show” is being noticed by others, this time for his vote against extending the estate tax.

Let’s review: Heath Shuler, Congress-critter from deepest North Carolina, Yea. Congressman “Lieberman of Vancouver,” Nay. I feel a surge of deeply alienated base coming on.

Props to Jack Bogdanski of Portland, Oregon, who is more clever than I and came up with the satirical terms regarding Rep. Brian Baird, D- Wash.

I don’t have any special insight into what happened to Baird, feel free to make up your own theory involving Washington, D.C., power, hubris, narcissism or whatever. Maybe he just needs to make a change, it happens to the best of folks.

Yes, I have defended Baird quite frequently in the past. You can be assured that will not happen again, and I apologize for being so slow to admit what has been a painfully obvious and disheartening abandonment of both the party and the district by Baird.

As for a Democratic challenger to explore the vast political space now emerging to the left of Baird, a space I believe is inhabited by a majority of his constituents, in my experience truly outstanding insurgent candidates tend to be self-motivating and emerge much to the surprise of party regulars. In short, people can try to recruit candidates, but sometimes candidates need to emerge.

They may be moms in tennis shoes, they may be professors, they may be business folks or labor activists, but somewhere out there could be the person who will give the people of the 3rd District a representative who acts with their interests in mind rather than siding consistently with the ruling kleptocracy.

Who will die for a color TV?

It’s not surprising, but the overwrought nature of this editorial in The Columbian is easily ascertained by reading the first sentence.

The tax-increase snake is not exactly back on the state’s budget table, but it has slithered under the door and is coiling its way up a table leg.

It goes on in that serpentine fashion for quite a while. It’s essentially an argument for making Washington another failed West Coast state, ala California and Oregon.

Digby at Hullabaloo comments on the fun they’re having in California, with protestors trapping some board of regents members in a building after they voted for a huge fee increase. One possible future, heh?

Of course, the editorial doesn’t mention that the newspaper industry just this year received a huge tax break.

The new law gives newspaper printers and publishers a 40 percent cut in the state’s main business tax. The discounted rate mirrors breaks given in years past to the Boeing Co. and the timber industry.

So the Legislature sure is on a roll mollifying Boeing and the wealthy publishers! Nothing like caving in and getting fucked anyway, it’s the Democratic Party Way.

As Digby points out, cutting government spending during a recession just makes things worse, but reflexive right-wing ideology is so ingrained in our culture after three decades of conservative stink tank bullshit that changing things seems like a hell of a mountain to climb.

Neoliberalism may be dead as a viable economic system, but its diseased zombie corpse haunts the offices of newspapers and the minds (such as they are) of those who get paid to attack the government, always and forever. You can almost envision them zombie-walking around the mall, zombie-spittle dripping from their rotted lips, droning “no unions–no taxes.” (Sorry, I tried to work a snake into the last sentence, but zombies will have to do.)

These people are nihilists of the most extreme order, and if they get their way they’ll drag all of us down with them.

Maybe it’s time we stop listening to lectures from people who fail at their businesses? The rest of us don’t want to live in a failed state, and we want basic services like schools, emergency services, parks and libraries. Our kids are going to need fantastic skills to rebuild this country, if we can ever wrest control of it from the greedy morons who nearly brought the whole thing down only a year ago.

We’re not out of the woods yet, either. If Washington adds itself to the ranks of the “Hoover” states, about the only silver lining will be that the last of the newspapers will surely go out of business.

Your liberal media…making sure Sarah Palin has a legitimate gripe:

There are a lot of legitimate reasons to criticize Sarah Palin, her new book, and her policies, but you don’t have to stoop to sexism to do it. Newsweek’s November 23 issue, however, does just that by publishing on its cover a photo of Palin in short running shorts and a fitted top, leaning against the American flag. Making matters worse is the equally offensive headline Newsweek editors chose to run alongside the photo — “How Do You Solve a Problem like Sarah?” — presumably a reference to the Sound of Music song, “Maria,” in which nuns fret about “how” to “solve a problem like Maria,” a “girl” who “climbs trees” and whose “dress has a tear.”

Click through to read about the “slutty Sarah Palin school girl doll” illustration. I. Shit. You. Not.

There really are no words. Now when Palin’s supporters complain that she has been subjected to an absolutely horrific double standard, this is exhibit number one. Thanks Newsweak! I’m sure the conservative victimhood machine will utilize this to the fullest extent possible, because they will (for once) have an actual point.

Rep. Dave Reichert, R-WA-08, is “just getting started” in his jihad against AARP. From The News-Tribune:

In e-mails to the office of Washington’s insurance commissioner, Reichert’s staff wanted to know if AARP needed to be regulated under state insurance laws. An official in the insurance commissioner’s office, Gayle Pasero, company licensing manager, responded that AARP didn’t qualify as an insurance company covered by state law.

Wow. Just wow. AARP is now cowering under its covers at the mighty wrath of Dave, who called the state insurance commissioner, and was rejected. EPIC—well, you know.

Next up: Davey turns his back on AARP when it wants to play, staring at the ceiling and pretending not to notice AARP wagging its tail.

I also notice via Think Progress that Grandpa John McCain supposedly wants seniors to cut up their AARP cards to protest the group’s support of health care insurance reform. Yeah, like they’re going to give up those 5% discounts at RV parks, sure.

This is still the fundamental problem with Republicans: they don’t live in the real world. Gun owners may loudly proclaim that some undetermined, mythical entity will have to pry their guns from their “cold, dead fingers,” but try taking away a twenty five cent ketchup coupon from an AARP member. You’ll pull back a stump.

Paul Leonard of Vancouver Business Journal, in a piece dated yesterday:

One of the reasons behind his “No” vote, according to Baird, was that there was not enough time to consider Republican amendments to the legislation – a concern apparently held without regard to the GOP-led chants of “Kill the Bill” outside the Capitol last week.

As written here and here, the spiraling cost of employee healthcare coverage is the number one issue for small businesses – one that threatens the survival of those lucky or nimble enough to get this far through the deepest and most prolonged recession in 60 years.

These are concerns that Baird, as evidenced by VBJ’s Q&A with the Congressman last September, shares with his business constituency – making his vote against the healthcare bill all the more puzzling.

Small business is frequently hailed in campaign ads as the backbone of the American economy, if not its soul. Which is fine, as thriving small businesses hold the promise of future breakthroughs in technology and industry.

So it’s kind of strange that the national debate hasn’t featured more talk about the sometimes insurmountable challenges small businesses face when it comes to health care insurance. They need reform as badly as anyone.

This is kind of an odd story, not sure what to make of it. Oregonian reporter Allan Brettman reports that eleven members of the Northwest Congressional delegation signed a Nov. 9 letter to the Obama administration requesting funds for land purchases and economic development in the Columbia River Gorge.

The letter was signed by Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley and Washington Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell. Oregon Congressmen Earl Blumenauer, David Wu, Kurt Schrader and Peter DeFazio joined in the request, as did Washington Congressmen Jay Inslee, Jim McDermott and Norm Dicks.

It was timed to coincide with the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area Act.

And Baird, a 3rd Congressional District Democrat, says in a written statement issued today that his name also should have been on the letter — but his staff didn’t tell him about it.

And I guess one can surmise that nobody else, including members of the delegation, told Baird about it either.

Did something happen over the weekend?

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck’s Protest Footage
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

Fake News, magically making trees grow back their leaves in late Autumn. Supporting Fake News channel is an unnatural act in more ways than one. Their fraud knows no limits.

UPDATE Nov. 12 10:45 AM– Sean Hannity has admitted he was wrong and has apologized.

Well, okay, this is not a secret if you follow Washington politics, but it’s worth bringing up right now.

According to Open Secrets, Rep. Brian Baird’s (D-WA-03) top three metro areas for donations last cycle, excluding PAC contributions, are Portland-Vancouver, Seattle-Bellevue-Everett and Washington, D.C.

And it sounds like the heat is ratcheting up. From Politico:

A delegation from Vancouver’s Clark County Democratic Central Committee on Monday requested a meeting with Baird in the district to encourage him to vote yes on the final version of the Health Care Reform bill.

Chris Bassett, a Vancouver-based Democratic activist who writes a blog about Clark County politics, said the congressman had damaged his standing within the party.

“Brian’s really moving the wrong way,” he said. “A lot of Democrats are going to sit on their hands in 2010.”

“This, for a lot of folks like myself frankly, is the last straw,” Bassett said.

I’ve been tempted to write that the lesson I took away from the Guns of August was that being over-the-top rude and crazy is the best way to get Baird’s attention, but as we all know, liberals are expected to be civil at all times. Don’t want anyone hitting the fainting couch. Jolly good, tea and crumpets, gov’nor.

So I politely and respectfully hope that individual donors to Baird, many of whom live in the Puget Sound region, will consider politely encouraging him to vote for the final bill, assuming the Stupak-sepsis amendment is removed. Did I mention be polite?

So you, or your wife or daughter might be forced to by an insurance policy under the threat of federal penalty, and one of the prime actors in shaping part of that that bill, the Bart Stupak sepsis amendment, was the Catholic Church.

Which, you know, is great if you’re a devout Catholic. It’s more than a bit problematic if you believe, just as sincerely, that government inserting itself into one of the most private and painful medical decisions families face is flat out wrong.

But hey, it’s not like the the Catholic Church doesn’t have a track record of scuzzy political actions and inserting itself into painful, private family decisions. From The Wall Street Journal:

The bishops have a history of political activism. In the 2004 presidential race, some bishops said they would refuse to grant communion to Democratic nominee John Kerry, a Catholic who favored abortion rights. In 2005, the bishops’ conference backed efforts by then-President George W. Bush and Republican lawmakers to intervene in the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case. But rarely has the church entered the fray with such decisive force.

The Catholic Church often does stand-up work in regards to social justice issues, so it’s more than a bit troublesome that the larger social justice issue of health care reform is being subverted by the very same organization. It’s a shame, too, because there are many, many Catholics in the Democratic Party, but the leadership of the church leaves, um, a lot to be desired. If you want people to respect your religion, you need to show proper respect for the beliefs of others.

Now, if one sincerely believes that abortion is wrong, that is fine. There are others who believe that abortion will happen no matter what the law of the land is, as pre-Roe v. Wade history shows us, and that the results will be horrific and barbaric for women. The key question is who gets to make the decision: the state or the individual. Not hearing a lot of noise on that score from the Tea Party folks, are we?

As has always been the case, anti-abortion forces are not sincerely interested in reducing unintended pregnancy, because these are the same people who oppose contraception. It’s about punishing the sluts, pure and simple, and if a whole bunch of women who have problems with desired pregnancies get caught up in the Stupak sepsis amendment by accident, they could care less.

The only silver lining in this awful amendment mess is that I don’t recall such anger and energy on the left in a long time. Congratulations, Bart Stupak-sepsis, you and your pals at the C-Street “Family” house have awakened liberals in a way Obama never could.

You bet your bippy we’re pissed, and we’re not going away. Democrats would be wise to take note.

Already up at the Urban Dictionary:

Stupak–A medical condition (subset of sepsis) resulting from unsafe – unnecessarily so – back alley abortions as a result of the “Stupak Amendment” to the 2009 Health Care Reform Bill.
Doctor: Unfortunately, while this would have been covered under private insurance carriers, public plans were barred from including women’s health measures. I’m sorry, you’ll have to see “Dr. Julio” in the alley behind 7-11.

(Three weeks later.)

Doctor: I believe you’ve developed Stupak, a form of sepsis, a severe illness in which the bloodstream is overwhelmed by bacteria.

I guess you can go to Urban Dictionary and vote if you wish. While there are others worthy of scorn in this sorry episode, Bart Stupak deserves to go down in history as the misogynistic disease that he is. If his barbaric poison pill is in the conference report, there will be political hell to pay.

(Props to Firedoglake and Eschaton.)

AND–From an article at The Hill, here’s a paragraph that neatly summarizes why the Stupak amendment is so asinine:

Stupak’s language not only prohibits abortion coverage in the public insurance option included in the House bill. It would also prevent private plans from offering coverage for abortion services if they accept people who are receiving government subsidies.

So, as far as anyone can tell, that would be virtually all plans.

The US House just passed HR 3962, the health care reform bill. A solitary Republican voted “Yea.” Roll call should be up here after a while. If you go there, you can also check out Roll 884, the Stupak Wire Coat Hanger Amendment.