Wildfires in California, a “murder epidemic” in Philadelphia, a proposal to turn Hanford’s B reactor into a hot new tourist attraction… two wire stories and a feature dominate the Seattle Times front page today. Meanwhile, the P-I is less newsy but more local, filling the front of their dead-tree edition with features on Seattle’s condo wave, new migraine research, and the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s race (… partisan candidates running a partisan race for a partisan office…? Who’d a thunk?)
So apart from just getting everybody’s name right, how would I prioritize the front page on a typically slow Seattle Monday? Well, I could feature the Seahawks 33-6 win over the hapless St. Louis Rams. (In the news biz’s corollary to Intelligent Design, if God hadn’t intended Monday to be a slow news day, he wouldn’t have put football on Sundays.) Or I could dwell on a spree of bizarre deaths that seems to be plaguing our regional newswires. Nah.
Nope, given my druthers, if there isn’t any compelling local news to report, I’d try to focus on national headlines, but within a local context. You know, like…
Everybody Hates Hillary. At least, that seemed to be the consensus opinion at the Republican presidential debate last night, where the GOP hopefuls mentioned the Democratic frontrunner’s name 34 times, compared to twice for President Bush. Mike Crowley of the New Republic believes the Republicans did Hillary Clinton’s Democratic opponents “a big favor“, with the audience whooping it up every time a candidate (or FOX News “reporter”) mocked or derided her:
It’s hard to watch that spectacle and feel that Hillary doesn’t have a unique visceral effect on Republican voters likely to galvanize them in an general election. Which is exactly what Hillary’s primary rivals want you to believe.
Yeah, but then, this is the same audience that booed 70-percent of their fellow Americans for wanting to pull out of Iraq.
So is Hillary really the great GOP uniter…? Is she really the Democrat the Republicans want to face off against most? Or, as Digby contends…
She obviously scares the living hell out of Republicans, whose macho pretenders would rather band together, whimpering like a bunch frightened little boys in the dark, than take on each other. So they are preening for the easy applause from their Cro-Magnon audience. It’s a little bit pathetic.
It certainly is. And I expect Hillary will get an entirely different reception tonight in Seattle when she speaks before state Dems at their annual Maggie Awards. Every doubter I know who has seen Hillary speak these past few months, has been disabused of the notion that she just can’t win. I’ll be looking to see if local doubters have the same reaction tonight.
Everybody Hates Brown People. Ethnic cleansing proceeds apace in Prince William County Virginia, as fear of mass deportations has led thousands of Latino residents — legal and illegal alike — to pack up and leave. The brown flight comes in the wake of an anti-illegal immigration resolution passed this July by county supervisors, and then approved this Wednesday. Message sent. Message received.
“This is not something that only affects the undocumented,” [real estate] agent Rosie Vilchez said. “Because in the same family, it’s so common to have some people who are citizens, some people who are residents and some who are undocumented. And those with papers are going to do whatever is necessary to protect those without.”
Within hours of the board’s vote, Salvadoran-born Aracely Diaz instructed her real estate agent to put her townhouse on the market. […] “Even after they passed that July resolution, I had hope that [the supervisors] would change their minds,” said Diaz, 37, who has legal status but worries about relatives who do not.
Now, she noted bitterly, “I’ll be selling at a loss. But I don’t care. I no longer have any affection for this place that treats us this way. I just want to get out.”
Which of course, is the point… we want people like Diaz to leave. Sure, our immigration laws need to be either enforced or amended, but I doubt there would be this public uproar if we were talking about millions of undocumented white people pouring across the Canadian border. (Well, maybe French Canadians.)
Here in WA the anti-immigration fervor is wreaking its own selective havoc. While economic concerns leave migrant pickers largely unhassled in the apple orchards of Yakima (at least during harvest), Immigration agents make a show of arresting an 18-year-old Seattle girl on her way to school, and then shipping her back to Mexico, dashing the high school senior’s dreams of becoming a doctor. Yet another one of our state’s hardworking immigrants being officially terrorized in the name of our War on Terror. Aren’t you proud to be an American?
Everybody’s Gonna Die! Turkish troops are moving toward Iraq, Bush wants yet another $196 billion for his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Vice President Dick Cheney warns that “we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon”… I suppose even if that means using nuclear weapons ourselves. Doesn’t all this ratcheting up the rhetoric about Iran remind you of 2002 when we were ratcheting up the rhetoric in preparation for invading Iraq? When Bush warns about “World War III,” is he really warning about Armageddon, or just cheering it on?
We’re all gonna die. Really.
While Bush is busy throwing another $196 billion down his Iraq rat hole, could he maybe thrown, say, $47 billion at Sound Transit — so I don’t have to? That seems to be chump change in D.C. these days, so I’m sure he can spare it.
throw not thrown
wow! this thread is up to 3 posts already!
Has anyone noticed that crops are rotting in the fields thanks to our hard-working Immigration agents who are trying so hard to defend our borders against cheap labor?
“some people who are citizens, some people who are residents and some who are undocumented”
That would be some that are in the country illegally in the last case.
I don’t bring my friends/relatives into the country illegally and I could easily.
4 RR
Well, there was a big freeze somewhere south of here as well…
Hillary is scary. And I mean that in a good way. She’s so good it’s freakin’ scary.
I don’t see any of the Seven Dwarfs taking her down if she’s the candidate.
How about this nightmare scenario?
The US and Iran both realize that conflict would be bad for both parties and that cooperation would likewise be good for both parties. The US comes off its “Bomb Iran” bombast and makes a genuine diplomatic offer of talks. Important elements in Teheran recognize this reality and welcome a diplomatic opening, so they accept. Funny, but it turns out that verifiable nuclear disarmament is a price they’d be willing to pay for normalization of relations.
Having settled that question amicably, the two former-enemies-now-partners jointly move to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan and to check al-Qaeda.
Saudi Arabia continues to fund and arm violent Sunni insurgent factions in Iraq. Who’s yer pal now?
@8 Keep smoking pal, maybe if we survive until 2009.
Another headline: Rossi to announce his 2nd run at being the most corrupt governor in state history. Word is he will do so on Thursday 25th at 4:30 in Spokane and the Doubletree Inn.
BRING IT ON, Fred’s pink dog, BRING IT ON!!!
Oh boy! One can only hope that Lou Guzzo is going to write his speeches!
In other news, Glenn Beck said that all those people are losing their houses in the fires because they ‘hate America.’ WTF is wrong with him? I think his parents must have dropped him headfirst onto a sharp implement when he was an infant!
drool @ 5: “I don’t bring my friends/relatives into the country illegally and I could easily.”
Thank you for that small contribution to the purity of our national gene pool. One of you is quite enough.
My biggest problem with Hillary is that when it comes to Iran, she is on the same playbook as the Bush Administration. Just as she used to be when it came to Iraq before it became unpopular.
Also, when it comes to scaring the Republicans, that is not necessarily a good thing. Yes, it is fun to give them a “fuck you” vote and vote Hillary in. But it also will give the Republicans an already radicallized archetype to rally their base against rather than having to create one.
The script is already written and known to work against her. That won’t likely cost Hillary and the Democrats the White House, but it will mean that down the ticket races in Swing Districts are likely to suffer and that we won’t have a chance to pick up a few of the Red Districts like we do currently.
In essence, voting for Hillary in the Primaries actually hurts the Democrats rather than helping them. All for a cheap and illusory thrill of ramming Hillary down the Republicans craw. Not to mention that it reinforces the partisan gridlock that killed the SCHIP veto over-ride where for purely political reasons, the Republicans from safe districts voted to sustain the veto.
@8
Yeah, that scenario turned out so well when we tried it with Iraq. Who also repeatedly claimed that they had no weapons and no nuclear weapons program at the time. Even if Iran were to fully capitulate, like Iraq did prior to the invasion, history is likely to repeat itself with Bush faking intelligence that they are not and going in anyway. Just a couple of months prior to the November Election as a misguided and misanthropic attempt to swing the election to Republicans. Hopefully and probably it would have reverse effects but we would still be stuck in a war with Iran.
Hows that for a return “fuck you” from the Bush Administration and the Republican Party. That is what happens when you vote to stick it to the other side rather than what is actually best for the country.
I am anything but wild about another Clinton, and, by chance, I saw and picked up an amusing book by the late Molly Ivins at Half-Price the other day; it certainly reinforced my attitude, and she was a very liberal gal.
The only saving grace in what appears an inevitability is that the mere mention of Hill’s name causes a visible, visceral reaction in the Repubs I work with at the P.O..
If I have to vote for her, I can at least watch the righties shriek and squirm for 8 years. The bagpipes will overload incinerate Piper, for one thing. That will be worth it, by itself.
I saw Mitt Romney in the Republican “debate” last night pompously claiming that Hillary had neither the leadership nor policy experience to lead this nation in a time of crisis. Such rot. Here’s a guy who was governor for one term in Massachusetts–and a totally different person at the time from a policy perspective–saying that a woman with 6+ years in the United States Senate and 8 years married to a president lacks the necessary experience. I find it remarkable that anyone can take Romney serious about anything. Of course, given his competition, he doesn’t look so bad. Aside from Ron Paul (who is a bit scary if taken too seriously), the Republican presidential candidates look like a vaudeville act, all trying to out-pander, out-family values, out-taxcut, and out-macho each other. Democrats, on the other hand, suffer only from a luxury of riches with regard to our candidates. Our indecision about who to support arises not from a paucity of competent candidates, but from an excess of talent. It is a good time to be a Democrat.
Dino Rossi hates America.
goldy…enjoy!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/200.....active1_dc
You could have commented on the truly pathetic “guest column” in today’s P-I by Greg James.
Columns like this tiresome recantation of the left’s talking points, and the recent attempts by the Media Matters Hillary Machine to “get” Bill O’Reilly, Rush Limbaugh,and Micheal Medved have to make one wonder if the left is becoming a bit desperate. The old “Bush lied us into war” fabrication may not be working so well these days.
The Tax happy B is in town.
Give everything away free Hillary!
It’s……….gonna cost ya!
I’d vote for Hillary just to get Ron Simms outta town!
And imagine Her Highness Gregoire as Attorney General!
Get out the shovel and clean out the tax happy barn!
YEAHHHHHHH
Bill @ 19
That essay was brilliant. Armchair warmongers have gotten awfully tiresome. As Bruce Springsteen asks so plaintively on his new CD, “Who will be the last to die for a mistake?” Not you, Bill, because you sit at home risklessly cheering on the Iraq War with your pompons in hand. With regard to your claim that “[t]he old ‘Bush lied us into war’ fabrication may not be working so well these days,” might I humbly ask, on what planet do you live? Bill, old boy, reality can deal some harsh lessons, but it’s better than living in a basement world lit only by Fox News on the old telly.
13 I think you may have hit the nail on the head. For some time, I’ve been a little puzzled by some of the right-wing screechers seeming almost to relish the idea of Hillary being the Dem candidate, and my assumption was that they think they have some Swiftboat “silver bullet” to defeat her. On the other hand, once in office she’d give Limbaugh/Hannity/Coulter/Ingraham/Malkin/Zorro the Dancing Toad plenty of fodder to bray about how she’s a big socialist, when in reality she’d be governing just about as far to the right as any of them would. The result would be that they’d take back both houses of Congress and regain the White House in four years.
The good news about Mitt Romney is that he has one hell of a track record of getting things done. The bad news is that most of the things he wants to are undesirable.
” As Bruce Springsteen asks so plaintively on his new CD, “Who will be the last to die for a mistake?”
Millions of unborn children.
“Millions of unborn children.”
Hey, Bill. Why don’tcha kiss my ass? Nature ‘aborts’ more of those li’l thingmo’s every year than any abortionistopath could ever dream of in their wildest mastubatory fantasies.
You’re lucky, huh? You got a life, and now you can grow old and contemplate your death. Such a deal!!!
Moron.
Do I need to comment? I think not.
Why don’t those who oppose abortion speak out against in vitro fertilization. Many embryos are fertilized, few are implanted, the rest are discarded (or deep frozen).
Goldy,
Fox News is about the only news on cable. Anything else is just more pro-Democrat propaganda. The left, through a long, long effort, gained control of most of the media outlets (ABC, CBS, Washington Post, LA Times,etc.). Their reporting is biased in favor of everything left – wealth re-distribution, higher taxes, more government intrusion into personal financial and family affairs. I suppose we can thank Richard Nixon for setting off this unfortunate chain of events. (I realize most of you folks on this blog were still shitting and pissing your diapers when Nixon was in office. Many of you probably weren’t even thought-up yet!)
Eventually, someone had to make an effort to stop the propaganda and just report the news. Fox News fulfilled this function, and their 5-minute summaries of the daily events are far superior to the 30-minute propaganda sessions put on by the likes of CBS, CNN and NBC.
Fox News is hated by the left because it does not act as a propaganda machine for the ultra-leftist agenda. So, given the lens that most leftists view the world, Fox News is the enemy.
If you view Fox News as the enemy, why does it still exist? If you people are so morally superior to everyone else, why are you scared of Fox News?
My main reason for liking the existence of Fox is that is pisses-off all of your fuckheads on this blog. It’s an alternative to hearing your pre-approved drivel every day.
Arguing FOX is “Fair and Balanced” is absurd.
re 27 –Doesn’t the Crutch’s pomposity reek of Piperisms?
“I think not.”
Truer words were never spoken, Crutch, old boy! It seems you do have a little introspective knowledge.
@8 “Who’s yer pal now?”
Who’s got more oil?
@11 No, the houses are burning down in California’s annual wildfires because “the market” was too stupid to realize they shouldn’t have been built on land that burns over every year in the first place.
The market, sir, is an ass! That’s why I make money in the stock market. Oh, maybe 5% – 6% of it comes from companies growing their sales and profits … but most of it comes from buying cheap from idiots and selling dear to bigger idiots — it’s mostly a zero sum game. If the market were right, like some folks claim it is, nobody could make more than bank interest. I make money in the stock market by taking it away from fools.
Two more fucking market failures …
@5 What country are you from? Are we at war with them? We seem to be at war with nearly everyone. Are you an enemy alien?
Hillary came from a well-to-do Republican family and was herself a Republican until she hooked up with Bill. So it’s not surprising there’s more than a little Republicanism in her.
I think all Republican dogs should be euthanized, starting with that Balogh mutt!
@19 “Bill Cruchon says: You could have commented on the truly pathetic ‘guest column’ in today’s P-I by Greg James.”
You mean this?
“If we choose to measure results and not talk, Limbaugh and his ilk clearly have made us less safe, aided radical Islam and bin Laden, helped keep a hopelessly inept president and Cabinet in power, and generally worked against our long-term interest. They are phony patriots.”
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/.....son22.html
Greg James has presented us with a well-reasoned, factually-based assessment of the reality of Republican bungling. And you? You sound like a drowning wingnut gasping for air.
Okay, Cruchon, exactly what RESULTS have 3,700 American lives and half a trillion dollars achieved in Iraq? Can you even explain what the mission is? Can anyone? Is there one?
@20 “It’s……….gonna cost ya!”
Yeah? like Bush and his crooked GOP buddies are some flaming bargain?
@21 “And imagine … Gregoire as Attorney General!”
I like that idea. A lot. We’d have a well-run Justice Department, honest and competent federal prosecutors, and … no more caging lists, no more suppression of black soldiers’ votes, no more 8-hour lines at polling places, no more GOP election bullshit.
Gregoire would reinstate merit hiring at the DOJ — a concept that looks better with every passing day of Republican malfeasance.
Cheers from Arianna to Bill (Cruchon)
It has become impossible to tell where the Republican mainstream stops and the fanatical fringe begins. We now have a mainstream on the right that supports torture, that is backing an Attorney General nominee who is agnostic on torture, and that rallies behind a president who refuses to define what the word “torture” means. A mainstream that supports — even applauds — the behavior of Blackwater thugs. A mainstream that continues to back the White Houses delusions about Iraq at the expense of our military, our treasure, our safety, and our standing in the world. A mainstream that supports the gutting of our civil liberties. So, it can no longer be denied: the right wing lunatics are running the Republican asylum.
Read it all at http://www.huffingtonpost.com
@25 Your comment is stricken as nonresponsive to the topic of Iraq. For the record, however, Republican warmongers are killing Iraqi children every day. Fucking loudmouth hypocrite.
“joe pine says:
re 27 –Doesn’t the Crutch’s pomposity reek of Piperisms?”
They’re Siamese twins- conjoined at the ego.
@27 Oh yes, please do; the more you say, the more opportunity we have to ridicule you.
I hope the wingnuts that hang out here didn’t have to watch McKay on Olbermann talking about the possibility of Gonzales getting indicted…..
His little talk in Spokane may just be the tip of the iceberg….
@45
He’s the smarter of the pair; his comments are RARE AND BRIEF.
40
Another words, free reign of democrat voter fraud. roof roof.
@42 “It has become impossible to tell where the Republican mainstream stops and the fanatical fringe begins.”
Oh no, it’s easy to tell. The mainstream are coming over to the Democrats (e.g., CEOs, Bush Pioneers, Merle Haggard et al.); the fanatics are still in the GOP, and everyone in the GOP is a fanatic.
@46 Gonzales has hired a top criminal defense lawyer, so apparently he thinks he’s going to be indicted, too.
@48 Dog, please drop dead. Seriously.
Hillary is no sweat one on one. The only reason to fear her is if another third party comes along and get her in with 40% of the popular vote like her hubby.
@48
I see Dufus’ hebephrenic rattlings continue unabated. I thought some of the newer antipsychotics might work…wait, he’s a winger. It’s not abnormal for him!
Well, good, everybody loves a clown.
Roger @ 49: ” The mainstream are coming over to the Democrats (e.g., CEOs, Bush Pioneers, Merle Haggard et al.); the fanatics are still in the GOP, and everyone in the GOP is a fanatic.”
As a country musician in the Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, and Merle Haggard mode, let me say that the Hag’s forage into Republicanism was brief. He, like a number of Democrats, some whom I still consider friends, thought Reagan was a friend of the working class. The Hag has recognized his error and is endorsing Hillary. I don’t yet endorse Hillary because choosing amongst our Democratic presidential candidates is like being a kid at a candy store–all the choices look good. Ain’t it good to be a Democrat right now?
Rabbit at #38 says this, “Okay, Cruchon, exactly what RESULTS have 3,700 American lives and half a trillion dollars achieved in Iraq? Can you even explain what the mission is? Can anyone? Is there one?
A better question Rabbit might be what benefit has Bush and the “neocons” if the Iraq war was so cleverly hatched? I’ll try, though.
Maybe establishing a democracy in middle the one of world’s biggest hellholes? Same thing we did in Japan a few decades ago.
There is such a thing as evil in the world. I know it’s popular among leftists to only believe Bush and the “neocons” are the sources of the world’s evil. This misguided myopia ignores an entire culture that treats women as second class citizens and want to impose their dark ages way of life on the world. Believe me, you wouldn’t like it a bit. You sure as hell wouldn’t be going out and “drinking liberally” tonight, that’s for sure!
@55: so then we’ll be putting troops into Darfur and Myanmar very soon then, right? ‘Cause we’re all about wiping out teh evil, right?
Oh wait, they don’t have oil.
How’s that “democracy” working for ya, there, Bill? How’s that “garden in the desert” working out? Boy, it sure looks like Iran is ready to topple, huh? And Saudi Arabia? Egypt? Boom! Those dominoes are right on the verge of falling.
And if I hear one more wingnut yapping about “ignoring” an entire culture that wants to 1) kill us all, 2) treat women as second-class citizens, 3) impose the dark ages, 4) your rant here…I swear my head will explode. There is space on the spectrum between “ignore” and “wage war” that y’all just don’t seem to get.
Which is a damn shame, really, because there’s just no talking to you people.
-OM
I’m sorry, but Bill has left the building. I know you’re surprised.
haha, not so much surprised.
It’s just one more reason there’s no talking to these people.
What?! An entire thread with no pickled Piper post-it posts? A day without the Pipester is a day without sunshine. Today, in other words.
My Rabbi, Roger, Roger Rabbi, on the other hand, Talmudic scholar that he is, is afflicting this place even more than the usual infestation of Darcy Christ Superstar. Got methicillin? Got meth?