The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Come join me in saying “Yes, Yes” to some hoppy beer as Seattle voters say “No, No” to the tunnel and the elevated Viaduct.
Not in Seattle? Liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities. A full listing of Washington’s eleven Drinking Liberally chapters is available here.
Speaking of firing a bunch of U.S. attorneys for political reasons, see if anybody there tonight can remember back to the Nixon days, specifically his 2nd article of impeachment.
Something about manipulating the United States Justice Department for political aims.
Just wanted to see . . . .
Does anyone know where City Light customers living outside the city limits turn in their ballots? You know, the folks who will pay $5.50 a month, $66 a year, higher electric bills for the rest of their lives for Nickels’ tunnel?
Well, I dunno if I’ll be there tonight. Montlake is a bad neighborhood — full of GOP spies, bounty hunters, bill collectors, process servers, and CARS!!!
Cars may not sound like a big deal to you, but if you think they’re not, you should practice being 16 inches tall and looking up at one.
Roger Rabbit stays alive by rarely attending DL, and never announcing his appearances in advance when he does.
Roger Rabbit has posted 80% of the comments on this thread! If you don’t like it, go pet your armadillo! And then fuck yourself.
I’m sure your Liberal Drinking party’s are as enlightening & impressive as this Blog.
I hope Seattle Voter’s do vote NO on both ballot initiatives as Goldy suggests.
It will make tomorrow rather……humorous, won’t it?
Hey I hear ya Rog Wabbit! This City Lighter DID mail in my ballot the day after it came in the mail. Waiting with bated breath for the results. I’m hoping all the senior citizens, all those West Seattlelites who rely on the viaduct, and all the people who need to drive to work at their 2nd & 3rd jobs just to be able to live in this expensive city – just quietly mailed in their ballots. We voted out the Commons because it was just another playground for the rich and the developers, I’m hopeful common sense in this town continues to prevail!
With all the dithering and demanding more studies, more options to study, what’s everyone waiting for? The “Big One” to belch and level the pancake? Granted that would save costs in demolition and permits, but people could get flattened in the process.
This morning’s P.I. said that only about a third of the ballots had been returned by Monday. What’s that mean? Are people ‘thinking’ about it until midnight tonight before casting their ballot? Could many have mailed them out ON Monday (taking the weekend to mark their ballot) and mail delivery, next day service, doesn’t get in to King County until TODAY? Perhaps we really won’t have any REALISTIC idea of the results for a couple of days for those of the midnight-postmarks.
Yikes! On a funny note, my friend and former coworker that I volunteered as a caregiver for the last few years he struggled with AIDS, would have turned 60 years old TODAY! Still have the loves of his life, his kitties Thelma & Louise. Like I told the girls this morning, their Dad would have been overjoyed that Seattle was celebrating his birthday by having an election just to commemorate such a special day. Go Viaduct, keep people working and workers traveling to their jobs. Send all them scheming developers to some other town that even wants to be World Class.
Any of you wing nuts want to tout the “Bush Economy?”
Recession, here we come. Just in time to secure the White House and a firm Democratic majority in the Senate, if not a filibuster proof Senate.
America will be saved from conservatism after all.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17594114/
No, we can expect that they will be blaming it on the Democrats. We’ll be hearing “see what happens when you don’t vote for us” from the Republicans very soon.
Heck, I’m surprised that Ms. Coulter and Mr. Limbaugh haven’t already been saying that to their followers. (Maybe they have. Has anyone
waded through the muckread or heard anything from them?)Jim @ 1
I’ve been against the impeachment for partisan purposes–I think keeping Bush/Cheney in office is the best thing we can possibly hope for with regard to promoting Democrats in office for a long, long time. But, this U.S. Attorneys scandal is changing my mind. These bastards have so little respect for the rule of law that they want to make federal prosecutors into nothing more than partisan hacks, doing the will of the White House. Somebody needs to pay. There is no way for the rightwing trollfucks to spin this one. John McKay is a good man, good lawyer, and good Republican. And, this goddamned White House sacrifices him to the altar of Karl Rove. Enough is enough.
In case any of you lapel-pin patriots haven’t noticed, it’s been more than 2000 days since Sept 11, and Bush family friend Osama bin Laden is still running around free.
RES said: “Bush family friend Osama bin Laden is still running around free.”
They probably send him monthly “Care Packages” to ensure he’s not suffering without creature comforts in his cave.
If Algore & his minions are correct about the magnitude of Global Warming……..
And if you folks all believe the impacts predicted by Algore to be true………
Then why in the world would you vote for either a Tunnel OR a Street Option???
It makes no sense if you believe Algore’s science.
An elevated structure is the only long-term solution.
I can’t believe any of you impressive HA’ers with all your knowledge about almost everything & nothing haven’t “connected the dots”.
Perhaps you believe in Global Warming only when it doesn’t smash your other dreams. Impressive.
@8 “Send all them scheming developers to some other town that even wants to be World Class.”
Two words: Oklahoma City.
Buh-bye, Sonics! Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.
@9 Looks like the trillion-dollar junk mortgage meltdown is arriving two years ahead of schedule.
@9 The thing about the Bush Economy is that there was no economic recovery at all, if you subtract the housing boom out of the equation, and the housing boom was fueled by speculation financed by junk debt. In other words, the Bush Economy is a house of cards.
@14 Beat you to it. I posted about the Floating Bridge Option a couple days ago. This consists of a surface street built atop pontoons, so that it will float with the rising sea level.
GBS AND JOHN YOUR BOTH IDIOTS WERE YOU BOTH ATTACHED AT THE HEAD AT BIRTH LOSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSERS
http://www.crooksandliars.com/.....his-clout/
Funny look at the draft-dodging WHATADICK Cheney.
GBS says: Any of you wing nuts want to tout the “Bush Economy?”
From what you told PacMan & me, the Bush Economy is treating you very well! We’re you exaggerating?
Mr Stupid: The Daily show? This is where you get your “political insights”. Mr Stupid – WEAR IT PROUD!
Waaaaaa haaaaaa haaaaaa HAR HAR HAR HAR HAR!
THE BUSH “ECONOMY” TREATS THE FEW JUST GREAT AND THE MANY LIKE CRAP.
If Social Security is such a great program, why is it mandatory?
As the ’08 election cycle begins in earnest, few see any prospects for Social Security reform. However, a deal to “fix” the problem may be closer than we think.
President Bush is eager to have a domestic policy legacy, and has signaled his willingness to strike a deal with the Democratic-controlled Congress.
For its part, the Democratic Congress has promised to “put everything on the table” to save Social Security.
Unfortunately, there is not much to put on the table, because only two options exist in the current policy paradigm: raising taxes or cutting benefits.
Neither is particularly good politics or policy.
Such solutions focus on Social Security “solvency” rather than genuine retirement security.
A quick fix will kick the can down the road and temporarily extend the solvency of the program.
Yet the fact remains that young workers will pay twice for this fix, first in higher taxes over their working lives, and second with lowered benefits at retirement — all without finding a permanent solution to the solvency problem.
Social Security is not a retirement system; it is a government program that was created in the 1930s that does not reflect America’s new economy of independence, ever-changing career paths and the challenges of a global economy.
The program certainly does not reflect today’s ownership society of 401(k)s, mutual funds, easy access to financial information and diversity in investment portfolios.
So why does this outdated program continue to exist?
A government program is the closest thing to immortality on Earth.
Bureaucrats, special interest groups, and politicians all have a strong vested interest in protecting the program and expanding its budget and reach.
In 1937, Social Security collected a combined 2 percent of an employee’s income; today, it collects over 12 percent.
It is also important to recognize that, politically, Social Security has served advocates of big government well.
Washington garners a significant amount of power from the one-size-fits-all bureaucratically administered solutions provided by the program.
Changing Social Security is a direct threat to centralized power that would dramatically reduce the size and scope of government.
Heading into this debate, the first priority of big government advocates is simply to save a program, not create a retirement program that gives individuals greater control of how they save and invest for the future.
Social Security is more than a failed government transfer program; it is also a congressional slush fund.
Since 1970, when Social Security surpluses were first treated as part of the general budget, over $1.69 trillion in surpluses has been spent on everything except retirement security, including NASA missions, AIDS programs in Africa, agriculture subsidies, earmarks such as the “bridge to nowhere,” and the war in Iraq.
As the money is spent, it is replaced in a vault in West Virginia with government IOUs that pass from one generation to another — a hot potato that will eventually land in the taxpayer’s lap when the chits are called in.
As President Clinton said in his 2000 budget, “The existence of Trust Fund balances does not by itself have any impact on the government’s ability to pay benefits.”
In 2001 Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill warned Congress that “there is no variable asset in the Social Security trust fund.”
For those serious about real retirement security, personal accounts offer a promising alternative to the pain — low rates of return, shrinking benefits, and higher taxes — to be incurred for the sake of saving a government program.
Every American would enter the investment class with accounts containing real assets that they own, control, and can pass on to family.
The alternative is to rely on the mercy of politicians who control the existing retirement system.
Reform would create an entirely voluntary choice, and all promised obligations would be met.
Social Security would not be destroyed; it would simply have to compete against other investment options.
Personal accounts allow all Americans to build wealth and join the ownership society by harnessing what Albert Einstein said is the “greatest power on earth”: compound interest.
Moreover, personal accounts would fundamentally increase individual freedom and end the practice of involuntarily compelling workers to take part in a system that is inferior to other options.
Such reforms would be profitable, portable, and controlled by individuals.
Personal accounts would eventually transform Social Security’s $12 trillion unfunded liability into individually owned assets that will provide real financial security in retirement.
It would be the single largest debt reduction in world history.
President Bush came to office sincerely wanting Social Security reform, but the push for personal retirement accounts did not receive the same dedicated leadership we saw with No Child Left Behind, tax cuts, or the Iraq War.
Comprehensive reform has subsequently been pushed off the table by the war and the loss of Republican majorities in Congress.
The idea was not defeated, it was just out-politicked.
At this point, the president should resist any temptations to sign a bad bill not premised on personal retirement accounts.
Compromise means tax hikes and benefit cuts aimed at extending the Social Security program, not on strengthening individual retirement security.
The bargain is that the Democratic Congress gets to raise payroll taxes to preserve the program, while President Bush may get small personal accounts — and all the blame for raising taxes and cutting benefits.
After a nice ceremony at the White House, the ink will barely be dry before Democrats head toward cameras to blame Bush for cutting benefits and imposing the largest tax hike in history.
Any compromise focusing on solvency that forces people to pay more will disproportionately hit the middle class, entrepreneurs and small business, the backbone of our economy.
Raising payroll taxes will also have a negative effect on personal savings, furthering the divide between those able to save and those just scrapping by.
The best chance for meaningful Social Security reform may be the 2008 presidential race, in which voters can demand that candidates take retirement security seriously and not allow them to run from the issue.
If Democratic candidates simply want to preserve the program and favor tax hikes and benefit cuts, Republican candidates will have an opportunity to take the benefits of personal accounts directly to the American people.
If the solution is so clear and the problem so obvious, why has Washington failed on retirement security?
There is a different mentality in the Capitol that is antithetical to trusting people and hostile to individual freedom.
It was best summed up by Sen. Edward Kennedy.
Several years ago, in a conference committee regarding medical savings accounts, I heard him say, “We can’t give people that choice; they’ll take it!”
The time has come for politicians to let Americans have a choice: Do they want real retirement security or do they want to save a government program?
Funny.
I remember hearing ad nauseam from Republicans (or the wingnut trolls in here, probably not synonymous) how awful it was that the Democrats only stripped William Jefferson of his committee chairmanship once he was under investigation and was apparently found with thousands in cash in his freezer.
But when a U.S. Attorney who is investigating Congressional corruption and who is widening the investigation (to ~now-former~ House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis) is fired and an e-mail from the AG’s Chief of Staff begs WH Counsel Harriet Miers to call him about “the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam” the same day she announced that wider investigation, do we hear a peep? The AG fires his CoS and then defends the USA firings even though they were why he fired his CoS.
It’s in the headlines every day, and every day more shit hits the fan. The AG is going down. Karl Rove is almost certain to be called as a fact witness (which the President just made himself also, by stating that speculation that there was a political motivation was “wrong.” How does he know? What does he know?).
Sen. Sununu, up for ’08 re-election in a blue-trending state, just called for the AG’s resignation.
And the Democrats have been in power less than two months.
This administration (and their accomplices in the GOP Congress) will end up destroying Republican power for decades.
Oh, com one, “Dick Armey.” Give whatever poor schmuck actually wrote that piece a fucking attribution. Dammit.
Dick Armey
Re: “the Democratic Congress gets to raise payroll taxes to preserve the program…”
The Democrats are going to do no such thing. For one thing, SS is solvent. For another, if the first seven weeks of this Congress are any indication, they’re going to be kinda busy uncovering corruption, malfeasance, and other crimes.
A totlaly unnecessary SS “reform” (Republican-speak for cutting benefits and enriching campaign contributors) is waaaaaaay down on anyone’s list.
Medicare wil need some attention, but it’s part of the larger problem with health care. This Congress or the next Democratic Administration (that’s ’08, bro) and Democratic Congress will address it.
Daddy Love,
Actually, Dick Armey did write the article:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258763,00.html