ECB is gaming the refs:

Dear liberal media: Please stop pretending Hillary Clinton doesn’t exist. I know the narrative you’ve written is one in which Barack Obama triumphs against all odds to defeat the baby boomers’ Democratic Party machine and achieve the American dream, but for fuck’s sake, this is an election, not a coronation, right?

I think the coronation reference is funny, considering how it used to be that Hillary was the one getting coroneted.

Mark my words, when Obama wins South Carolina, the Times is going to play it as the story of the year: Miracle long-shot candidate comes back from near-death to triumph against impossible odds.

In 2004, Deaniacs complained loudly about unfair press coverage (“yeeeeargh!!”). In 2008, Edwards people dissed the media for pushing a “two person race” construct. (That is, until it actually became a two person race, like it is now.)

I don’t think the Clinton campaign is being ignored. We’re hearing about Bill Clinton’s false allegations of voter intimidation in Nevada, and his odd misinterpretation of Obama’s Reagan comments. We’ve heard Hillary praise Joe Lieberman, and put down Martin Luther King, Jr (if ever so delicately). Even though she’s good on the issues, it’s other stuff that bugs folks and garners press coverage.

Doug Ericksen (R-Ferndale) has some truly neat-o ideas for getting the GOP back into the game!

Our state must also do a better job of monitoring and addressing sex offenders. State government needs to be proactive, not reactive.

Start with your own caucus, homeboy.

On the local front, I’m working on many issues including repealing the state mandate on septic tank inspections, creating public trails districts, and ensuring local transportation projects are delivered. At the end of the legislative session we will know we were successful if we can say, “They said it couldn’t be done — but together we proved them wrong.”

Putting the kibosh on septic tank inspection? Gov. Dan Evans had his “Blueprint For Progress”… Rep. Doug Ericksen has “repealing the state mandate on septic tank inspections”.

Nothing says “solid strategy for winning back the majority” like septic tank reform.

A few weeks ago, Paul wrote about the impending return of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to their respective Comedy Central television shows and wondered:

Am I the only one who thinks Jon & Stephen have something up their sly little sleeves in returning to their shows?

[…]

Do we really think they’ll be anywhere near as funny?

I’m a regular viewer of late night TV, and I have to tell you, “Strike TV” has been “Must See TV”.

First of, Jon Stewart was on fire during his recent interview of Jonah Goldberg:

Also, Jon was very classy in changing the name of his show from “The Daily Show” to “A Daily Show” out of respect for his writers. Stephen Colbert, OTOH, relied on some pre-strike taped segments to get him through the week:

Leno, who sucks with his writers, sucks extra hard without them. David Letterman and Craig Ferguson agreed to terms independently with the writer’s guild, so they came back fully staffed. Letterman, however, returned with a crazy “old guy who lives in the woods” beard, and had it shaved off during the show. As guest Tom Hanks remarked, “Dave, that’s the kind of bit shows without writers do.”

More than any other program, “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” takes the cake for strike-related mischief. Whether it’s spinning his wedding ring on his desk, playing German techno set to a laser show, or riding down a zip line from the balcony to his desk, Conan has been making the best of a bad situation. Perhaps the best example of goofy-ass shit on “Late Night” is the giant rat maze that guest Tom Brokaw had to navigate just to get to the stage:

[Unfortunately, the clip won’t embed properly, so click here to check it out.]

Seattle Times:

Advocates for a new University of Washington branch campus packed an Olympia hearing room Thursday to argue whether an urban Everett location or a more spacious Marysville campus would be the best site to serve the north Puget Sound region.

This choice is easy: Everett, right? The proposed campus would be easier to get to, considering many students take transit. The UW Tacoma location happens to be right on their streetcar line, and it’s a big success.

Backers of a 27-acre Everett site adjacent to the city’s transit center said Everett is closest to population centers, convenient to public transportation and offers a wealth of high-tech employers with whom future students can partner.

There you go, it’s a slam dunk. But the “rural campus” advocates don’t like the Everett choice:

Proponents of a 369-acre site in North Marysville said the more rural location offers a traditional campus setting with room for dormitories, sports fields and future growth. It would also better serve students in Island and Skagit counties, they said.

If a prospective student wants the sleep-away college experience, complete with sports teams and palatial grounds, that choice already exists. It’s called the University of Washington. You know, the original one.

Besides, kids from Island and Skagit counties already have a state school with sports field and dorms. It’s not new, but Western Washington University, located in Bellingham (in Whatcom county, just to the north) has been churning out quality graduates since 1893. (Most of Death Cab for Cutie! Chris Vance! Randy Tate! Joyce Taylor! The Punter For The Atlanta Falcons!)

The U-Dub’s lobbyist (who blogs, oddly enough) says this:

[…]but while the Everett site has gained some additional support this week, deep divisions remain in the legislature on the issue. More importantly, I believe a number of legislators are beginning to question the wisdom of moving ahead at all on the new campus given the cost projections and what appear to be concerns about how this really fits into the entire higher education system.

Considering just how tough a time Olympia is having providing funding for the UW branches that already exist, one has to wonder: is creating another UW branch in our best interest? Or is it more about legislators bringing home some pork?

[For more info, check out Postman’s run-down.]

Nice.

Police say a man who allegedly fired shots near a Spokane Valley, Wash., business has been arrested near Post Falls.

Washington State Patrol Trooper Mark Baker says police were looking for a man who fired shots at a Hooters restaurant early Friday, then may have caused a wreck on Interstate-90 as he drove the wrong way toward Idaho.

I’ve actually been to that Hooters. It was during a weekend trip to Spokanistan for a family member’s graduation from Gonzaga. The service was great, and the food didn’t suck. The gals, however, weren’t that hot, and certainly not worth shooting up the joint over.

What’s more, he was busted for using the carpool lanes! (Or as folks on the west side call it, “driving the wrong way on the freeway.”)

Seattle Channel has been running Paul Krugman’s appearance at Town Hall, and I watched it a few times. During the question and answer session, somebody stood up and asked this:

…and also, your thoughts on Building 7…

Paul Krugman was very cute in his response, saying that he thought the dazed look on Bush’s face was proof enough that he didn’t have prior knowledge of 9/11.

But to you conspiracy theory assclowns: stop it. You’re not helping.

Matt Taibbi, who writes for Rolling Stone, perhaps said it best:

I have two basic gripes with the 9/11 Truth movement. The first is that it gives supporters of Bush an excuse to dismiss critics of this administration. I have no doubt that every time one of those [conspiracy theorist] dickwads opens his mouth, a Republican somewhere picks up five votes.

Read the whole thing.

Josh Feit, Olympia edition:

Earlier this week, I slogged from Olympia that a battle was brewing over tolling.

The question: How should money generated from tolling be divvied up between roads and transit? (Note to Will at HorsesAss, “Transit” means BRT, HOV, bike lanes, light rail and light rail connections among other investments that get us out of cars.)

Considering both Josh and myself are already out of our cars, I figure he’s using the royal “us”. That is, unless he’s referring to my occasional Flexcar use to visit family on holidays in rural NE King County. In which case, good luck getting me out of that car, since there’s no light rail to Carnation. But I digress.

From the comments to Josh’s post:

Josh, if you really, really want to kill the tolling idea for 520, this is exactly the way to do it. Tolls are supposed to pay for the 520 replacement. I have no problem with using part of the toll money for transit… if it’s built into the replacement bridge. Two HOV / transit lanes down the center, with dedicated ramps, like I-90? We can do that. But the farther the money moves away from the bridge itself, the greater the public outcry and the chances of the toll idea being shitcanned.

If we’re getting a new bridge, it makes sense to make robust transit-oriented functionality a part of the design of the bridge. This means HOV and bike lanes. This means bigger light rail-carrying pontoons and interchanges that make bus travel easier. If we make these investments, does it really matter how we we divide the tolls?

Josh Feit:

It seems to me, the real environmental battle in Olympia this session is going to concern tolling.

[…]

The battle will be over this: What percentage of the money that’s generated from tolls should go to roads and what percentage should go to transit? The annoying negotiating starting point is a 90/10 split—90 for roads.

The transportation chairs in both the senate and the house […] are reportedly leaning toward keeping the dollars funneled toward roads for now.

Tolls collected by bridges should be spent replacing or maintaining bridges. I don’t know what kind of transit Josh is alluding to here. Light rail? Buses? Light rail is too expensive to be paid for with tolls on bridges. Maybe Josh is talking about “transit as mitigation” during construction. (Lots of new buses, getting stuck in traffic through Kenmore as they go around the lake. A sight to see!)

How about this: Spend bridge tolls on the bridge. Then, continue tolling, putting that money in a bank account. Then, in 50 years, when that 520 bridge is falling apart, we can just write a check to replace it. That way we can avoid the whole “90/10” argument, the whole “roads vs. transit” argument, and other dumb arguments that keep our region from getting shit done. I’m no Jim Vesely, but that seems like a good way to go.

John McCain is one wild and crazy guy:

At an event this morning in Michigan, John McCain joked that going on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show is “dangerous experience”:

I also want to assure you that from my encounters with young Americans in the military and Google and colleges, universities, high schools, even — I even went on MTV Town Hall — interesting experience. Going on Jon Stewart: That’s a dangerous experience. Letterman, Leno — I try to reach out to young people. And every time I’m around a group of young Americans, I am enthusiastic and my faith is restored.

McCain is, of course, joking. But I think it’s funny that a conservative Republican, running for President, thinks that going on a cable show somehow wins him points with his GOP base. McCain has always been somewhat of a media whore. Take, for example, his turn hosting Saturday Night Live, for which he missed a critical spending vote.

I also find it odd that McCain says that his “faith is restored” by the young people who show up for The Daily Show taping. Those kids are high. Either McCain is one hip guy or he’s not paying attention.

Now that’s got to be a fun comment thread. I’m sure everybody is polite and moderate, in a very Times kind of way.

[UPDATE]

Critics of Oemig like to whine incessantly… If he’s so bad, then how’d he put away a top notch GOPer like Toby Nixon? I don’t think it’s Toby’s fault; folks just wanted some progressive change.

Either way, in 2010 the folks in the 45th LD will get to have their say. The idea that impeachment is going to hurt him somehow is a GOP precinct captain’s wet dream.

At the last Drinking Liberally, somebody asked me how much a post at Horse’s Ass would cost.

To answer, it costs this much:

But from anyone else, it might cost more. FYI.

From The Stranger, who quote Grist:

On Monday, Clinton named Joy Philippi, the former president of a the National Pork Producers Council, the main trade group representing confined animal feeding operators, as co-chair of Rural Americans for Hillary.

You known who’s in change of rural outreach for the John Edwards campaign?

John Edwards.

Can you imagine the howling we’d hear from the Seattle Times editorial page if it was Sound Transit that had flushed 97 million dollars down the toilet, and not the Port of Seattle? Or if it was Sound Transit that was under investigation by the Justice Department and not the Port of Seattle?

Sound Transit was pounded by the Times during last year’s Prop 1 campaign. After Prop 1 failed, the Times editorial page took plenty of cuts at Sound Transit and at light rail. The Port of Seattle, meanwhile, gets the kid glove treatment.

With the Port of Seattle’s recent malfeasance, you’d think the Times would be all over it.

Nope. Nothing yet.

If somebody at Sound Transit so much as palms a twenty from petty cash, they get the third degree from Balter, Vesely and the gang. Port of Seattle under investigation? Doesn’t move the meter.

Actual voter suppression in the works, thanks to the Bush Court:

There are many ways to lose a Supreme Court case, and by the end of an argument that was before the court on Wednesday, the Democrats who were challenging Indiana’s voter-identification law appeared poised to lose theirs in a potentially sweeping way, with implications for many future election cases.

One of the big problems I have with folks who cry “vote fraud” is that it isn’t nearly as common as voter suppression. Requiring voter ID at the polls, which is what Indiana has done, creates greater barriers to voting, and Republicans push for these laws because they know that Democrats are more likely to not have proper ID with them on election day. Another trick is to put fewer (or broken) voting machines in black neighborhoods. Mix in the occasional purge of the voter rolls in Democratic neighborhoods and you have a recipe for actual, honest-to-God voter suppression. All of this is far, far easier to pull off than some sort of big voter fraud conspiracy.

As John Amato says:

Get off the voter stuff in NH and focus on a real threat to our democracy. With huge turnouts more than likely this election, what will happen at the polling stations when Americans are turned away because of these new rules? We’ve had to fight for our right to vote and we must continue to do so.