The Stranger was quick to pick up the story, as was Publicola. The Seattle P-I and the TNT covered it, if only on their blogs. And this morning it hit the front page of Daily Kos.
But so far we’ve heard nothing but crickets from the Seattle Times in regards to the leaked audio of Rep. Dave Reichert explaining is cynical environmental votes to a roomful of Republican PCOs.
Huh. Feel free to speculate why.
Les Canadiens whipped the Flyers last night in Montreal by a score of 5-1.
Because the Times does not actually carry or analyze news anymore.
However, if it was a sports score – they would be all over it.
Goldy, get a leaked recording from Junior Griffey talking about his sleeping habits and you will be splashed all over the paper.
But lying by an elected republican- that is old hat.
“Feel free to speculate why.”
Because the Times is the WSRP newsletter?
The Tea Party’s Fresh New Face
First he was against the Civil Rights Act, now he’s for oil spills:
“Kentucky’s Republican Senate candidate Rand Paul criticized President Barack Obama’s handling of the Gulf oil spill Friday as putting ‘his boot heel on the throat of BP’ and ‘really un-American.'”
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/.....n/19486625
Roger Rabbit Commentary: Huh. We’ll see how this kind of idiocy plays across the country among minorities and people who work for a living (e.g., shrimpers, fishermen, etc.).
The P-I didn’t “cover it.” Buried on their site, the P-I has blog section, and one of their blogs is called Strange Bedfellows, and on that blog they mention that the blog Horses Ass mentioned the “scoop” that Reichert is a politician.
That’s hardly the P-I covering it. It’s more one blogger helping another blogger out.
“We journalists don’t read or respond to blogs.” – Frank Jr.
@5
It’s quite prominant under the “Politics” header at PI. D’oh.
# 4: You beat me to it, I was going to link the story on Rand Paul’s infatuation with BP.
Basically, he said “accidents happen”.
That’s okay as an excuse when I break a piece of my wife’s china (well, it’s okay for me, but not so much for her).
But when you are dealing with situations presenting an obvious risk of enormous damage, especially to human lives, the environment we live in, or the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people, that’s simply not good enough. You aren’t allowed to take such risks without lots of safety precautions and redundancies to protect against such disasters.
Like we say in the aerospace business – you can’t just pull over to the side of the road and call a tow truck if the cheap part fails. It has to work every time, and you have to have a backup – or two or three – just in case.
As an eye surgeon, you would think Rand Paul would understand that. But apparantly he’s one of those doctors who thinks he should be entitled to very large fees for the risks he’s taking, then gets upset when someone sues him because he made a mistake. In his eye, it’s the patient who should be bearing all the risk, not the doctor. Anybody want to guess about his opinions on tort reform?
But his national views aren’t going to make much difference in Kentucky. It’s been a red state for a long time, and it’s awfully far from the Gulf Coast. Most of the employers there are either the government or large companies making a profit off clear-cutting mountaintops, strip mining, etc.
I sent a letter to the TImes editor right after I read your post, Goldy. Not holding my breath.
@6
I agree with Mr. Blethen. A respected, serious, and legitimate news source, like the Seattle Times, shouldn’t be expected to respond what’s written in AOL chatrooms, message boards, or blogs.
Re 8
I consider myself more libertarian that either Democrat or Republican.
Having said that the line between necessary government involvement in our lives and unnecessary government intrusion is far from a bright one.
Sure, the deference the feds are paying to BP is puzzling. BP may own the mineral rights (lease them? Not sure, but they have legal standing in them in any case.) But they don’t have property rights thay overrule public interests, like the possible catastrophic environmental impacts.
My problem is that on the left property rights are seen as secondary at best, and sometimes non-existent. On the right civil rights and the rule of law (while loudly championed) are disregarded or held in contempt.
Neither side does this out malice, in the main, I hope. Both do it for what they conceive to be societal good. But like Rand Paul, any political philosophy taken to extremes becomes a cartoon at best, and dangerous at worst.
I didn’t see that the Times hadn’t covered the story. That’s because my subscription lapsed yesterday and I didn’t renew. Even though I got kinda weirded out this AM without an actual newspaper to read while eating my breakfast, I survived. I’m thinking hard of subscribing to the NY Times, however.
Plus, did you notice that Daily Kos picked up the story?
http://www.dailykos.com/storyo.....swing-seat
” A respected, serious, and legitimate news source, like the Seattle Times,…”
I’m still laughing over that one.
Re 13
Goldy repeatedly introduced his now defunct radio program with the claim that journalism should be biased.
What is his kick with the Times having one now? That he doesn’t happen to agree with their position? Ideals are fine, but consistency counts for something.
“…Sure, the deference the feds are paying to BP is puzzling….”
Yes, and someone on the radio this morning was wondering why the U.S. Navy didn’t take over the cleanup efforts from B.P.
Having once worked in the environmental department of a major oil company for a short period of time, I can tell you that B.P would want nothing better than for the U.S. Government to make even the slightest indication that it was going to tell B.P. how to clean up this mess. Because the moment that happens, B.P. lawyers will argue that all damages occuring after that date were caused by the government “intereference” in their cleanup efforts. Of course, now that the U.S. government has told them to use less toxic dispersal chemicals, we’ve probably already reached that result.
The picture B.P. lawyers are already preparing, and will be arguing in court and in the media for years to come, is that they almost had everything under control, but that the big, bad goverment prevented them from fixing the problem, so everything is now the government’s fault. Cigars are breaking out in B.P. boardrooms all around.
Of course, Rush & the other wingnuts will happily parrot the B.P. line. They are already claiming that the whole problem was caused because environmentalists “forced” B.P. to drill in deep water.
RE 15
Interesting take.
So, when are the left going to stop lighting and heating/cooling their homes? When are they going to stop driving themselves to work and the kids to soccer and ballet? When are they going to stop buying anything produced more than 50 miles away?
Economic realities are what they are. All ‘green’ sources of energy taken together would provide a tithe of the energy needs of this country. Until they do, oil and coal are just a nasty fact of life. Sorry, but there it is.
@11 “I consider myself more libertarian”
Something like Pudge, huh? He considers himself a “Small L libertarian”.
“Having said that the line between necessary government involvement in our lives and unnecessary government intrusion is far from a bright one.”
Necessary government involvement in our lives. That must be like Pudge wanting cops to patrol America’s vaginas to make sure no harm befalls any little blastocyst baby.
“My problem is that on the left property rights are seen as secondary at best”
heh- Small “l” libertarians. Property rights are sancrosanct. A woman’s right to control her own body? Eh, not so much.
“I consider myself more libertarian”
Yesterday’s “I prefer GOP” and before that, “Republican”. You keep tarnishing one brand after another.
I was glad to see a front-page article on dKos by mcjoan (Joan McCarter). This needs national buzz.
Rand Paul thinks that our government should not regulate BP or any other oil company AT ALL.
Interesting contrast in morality & ethical political behavior between Cantwell & Reichert.
Cantwell’s NO vote yesterday was in direct opposition to her party & fully aligned with the people she represents. Contrast that with Reichert’s cynical, immoral pandering to his party while using his constituents like a cheap blow up doll.
The Times isn’t paying attention to Reichert, or for that matter to the upcoming elections. They’re too busy trashing Tim Harris.
One would almost get the impression that Uncle Frank considers a weekly paper staffed partly by volunteers and sold on the street by homeless people has become a threat to his dwindling empire.
@19 “Rand Paul thinks that our government should not regulate BP or any other oil company AT ALL.”
He seems to believe that it’s un-American to even criticize a global oil corporation for fucking up. After all, shit happens, huh?
re 16: Things don’t happen in a vacuum. The reason that people are forced to drive everywhere instead of using public transportation is by design — the auto companies’ design.
This is a well known fact that every high school graduate is aware of.
What I want to know is: How long will you keep repeating your lame, outmoded, and repudiated talking points in the face of facts that contradict them?
I think you present your arguments in bad faith — as a reasonable and informed person (which you claim to be) would not do.
@20 It may be that when the Democratic leadership had a good prediction of how the Senate vote was going to turn out, they decided it was safe to have two Senators vote against the bill as an indication of concern that it doesn’t do enough. Cantwell and Feingold apparently volunteered.
In the same way, Scott Brown may have been positioned to vote “yes” by the Republican leadership to enhance his appeal to centrist voters. Since Brown is up for re-election in only two years, this is almost more like a House race.
Rand Paul’s idea of a political utopia seems to resemble nothing so much as massive dog fight. The final score is based on which contestant has lost the fewest body parts before they all bleed to death.
@24, That may be, but two day ago Reid and Shumer were up in her grill.
re 11: Your basic premise that government exists in a vacuum is flawed. The type of government that we have responds pretty exclusively to the demands of big business.
So, when you are complaining about all those ‘governmental’ rules and regulations that hamper the ordinary citizen’s life and business pursuits, you should really take into account that it is not just government that is hampering you, but government and big business.
Just as an exercise in testing the realistic utility of your ‘philosophy’, look at the way the use of independent contractors changed for small business under the aegis of Reagan.
Face it Goldy. The kiss of death on that story for the Times was that you broke it.
@14: Goldy went on to say in the same sentence that journalists should be open about their biases. Goldy is open about his own biases, but the ST never is.
Which is the point of posts like this.
re Steve
Rehashing Thom Hartman talking points word for word is a bit disingenuous…Still.
Abortion is the possible ending of a human life. No way exists to prove that this life exists, but neither does one exist to prove it doesn’t. In that state of doubt shouldn’t the onus rest on those wishing to end it to prove that it isn’t life? Additionally, if a couple plans a baby they consider it a baby from the day pregnancy is known. This same couple might consider it a blastocyte were the child not wanted. Logical?
This is not a property issue. It isn’t a choice issue, unless you consider Ted Bundy to be simply excercising choice.
Lucy,
We are fundamentally in agreement. No human system exists in a vacuum, government particularly. Which is why those ardent partisans of the left and the passionate voices from the right still argue. Rand Paul on one side and Bernie Sanders on the other are both so far out of American mainstream thought as to be irrelevant. Should government treat me as a an average citizen with the same deference as BP. Sure. But human nature militates against that. Fixing or maintaining that inequal distribution of power is the basis of all political thought. Find a way around this and you’ll win a Nobel. Wait, probably not unless it’s related to Global Warming.
Yellow Pup
Mine are red, by the way. Redbone Coonhounds are Gods’ gift to the active dog owner, in my opinion. Anyway, the Times once a year prints for all to see the editorial premise of their paper. This can be found by asking at the Times. No secrets there.
Yellow Pup,
Further journey down the road of Redbones- One further advantage is that my wife can never have a cat, as Redbones frequently see them as prey. “Sorry honey. I’d LOVE a cat, but we wouldn’t want the poor thing hurt, would we?”
“Rehashing Thom Hartman talking points word for word is a bit disingenuous…Still”
Since I don’t listen to Hartman that’s quite the feat, huh? Word for word you say? I doubt it. You’re just dancing around your belief that,
“Abortion is”
Murder. A miscarriage due to the irresponsible lifestyle of the mother would be manslaughter. The only way to determine which women are quilty of manslaughter is to investigate every miscarriage that takes place in America. Every single one of them. Or have you no value for human life? You accuse me of rehashing talking points. I accuse you of lacking the balls to even state your beliefs, let alone live them. When we see you out front demanding that American women be sent to prison for the manslaughter of their baby blastocysts, we’ll know that you’ve grown a pair. Until then, you only blow your beliefs out your ass.
“you consider Ted Bundy to be simply excercising choice”
Choice? Six hundred thousand miscarriages each year in America. Hundreds of thousands of possible murders. It looks like your choice is to whine incoherently about Ted Bundy and Thom Harman while doing nothing whatsoever to stop these horrible women from carrying out their murderous deeds. There’s your “choice” for you. You believe murder is being committed and yet you do nothing to stop it but whine.
Steve
I do listen to Hartman, as the man, while wrong on every point, is fascinating in his intelligence. It’s rather like watching a Greek tragedy. The hero is basically good. He just screws up badly and pays the costs. Yesterday he did voice your argument. But it’s possible for intelligent people to come to the same conclusions without collusion, so I apologize.
Having said that, reductio ad absurdum again?
There is a blatant difference between walking into an office and making a choice to end a life and a miscarraige. If you can’t see this, I don’t know what to say.
Try answering the questions. Why is a wanted pregnancy a baby from the start and an unwanted one a blastocyte. Why would you risk the taking of a life where this is a possibility?
The personal abuse gets old. Try engaging the question.
“Which is why those ardent partisans of the left and the passionate voices from the right”.
>>Bullshit alert<<
“There is a blatant difference between walking into an office and making a choice to end a life and a miscarraige.”
Of course there’s a difference, just like there’s a difference between premeditated 1st-degree murder and a lesser charge of manslaughter. Of course you’d want to convict and then execute the aborting mother and her doctor. A miscarriage due to the careless lifestyle of the mother? The results are still a dead blastocyst baby, Lost. Don’t you care? Don’t you value a baby’s life? Grow a pair and tell us that you’d send that mother to prison for manslaughter. Then tell us how you want a government that will investigate and prosecute women in this country who have miscarriages due to their unhealthy lifestyles.
Re 35
What of the content that actually follows that statement is bullshit, exactly?
We have governments as a necessary evil. Progressives have a hard time getting their heads around Rouseau, I know, but it’s true. We surrender certain liberties to gain certain advantages, stability or safety for instance. Only a madman would surrender these liberties as a personal joy without corresponding gain. The trick is to fashion a governmental system which surrenders the fewest liberties to gain the greatest advantages. And here the devil is and will always be in the details. This is where academics bore the hell out of freshmen only interested in the coed opposite them or how much beer they’ll drink this weeekend expounding on all the ways devised to pull this trick off. And anyone who tells you they have found the way is a liar or a fool.
I’m off to the cabin. Have a nice weekend.
“Yesterday he did voice your argument.”
I layed this on Pudge last week. He ran away and never returned. Now you’re reduced to babbling inanities while doing the wingnut dance. Perhaps Hartman reads HA and took note.
“Progressives have a hard time getting their heads around Rouseau, I know, but it’s true.”
Rouseau? Oh, you must mean Rousseau. Unlike you, we do know how to spell his damned name. Try getting your head around that.
Steve,
Before I go, why the obsession with abortion? I hope it isn’t a personal thing, a mother or sister or friend who is suffering from her choice to abort.
Is it just arguing to argue? After all, abortion is settled law, no matter how unjust or immoral, in this country. Not I or anyone else will change that, God help us.
Would you like me to do what that deluded homicidal fool did and shoot an abortion provider? Sorry, I can’t oblige. I can’t even kill the rats that come in from the fields near my house in the fall. I have to live trap and remove them back to the field, wimpy as that sounds. As well, murder to punish murder is illogical. (And yes, I believe this about state sponsered capital punishment as well.) Additonally, those prison jumpsuits, prison food and sharing a bedroom with another man wouldn’t suit me. I prefer the company of my wife, thanks awfully.
So what is it you want? If it’s for me to admit that I and every other living human being have contradictions, limits and outright hypocrisies in our beliefs, granted. God knows I’m no better (if hopefully no worse) than the run of my fellow men.
Well, have a nice weekend.
Re 39
I’ll strum ‘Deliverance’ on my banjo, drink whiskey out of a clay jug while a-chasin of them gummint agents offen my land just for you this weekend pardner. Much obliged for the spellin lesson.
“why the obsession with abortion?”
If you believe abortion is murder then you must believe that a good portion of miscarriages are manslaughter. Babies are dying. You do nothing about it. Apparently, if a little baby blastocyst cried out for your help you would say to him or her, “Sorry, I can’t oblige.”
@30: The point of the post is not that the ST editorial board doesn’t have opinions, but that the ST isn’t covering this political news story (in its news section), while insisting that it is the regional paper of record.
Lucy said:
Don’t hold your breath.
These guys aren’t actual conservatives. You can have a rational conversation and agree on practical solutions to problems with a conservative.
These guys have their own set of facts, think nothing of MSU (Making Shit Up) on the fly, and basically just have no interest in anything but themselves.
And they’re stupid (willfully ignorant) too.
# 43: I’m beginning to wonder: Why does the Seattle Times seem to have such a vested interest in Reichart’s incumbency? Does “Sherriff Dave” know something the rest of us don’t?