The Seahawks kick off the season today in Buffalo against the Bills. Earlier this year, Bills owner Ralph Wilson signed an agreement to play 8 games in Toronto over the next 5 years. Concerned that Buffalo may be losing it’s team, Democratic Buffalo Congressman Brian Higgins asked NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to allow more franchises to be community-owned or at least partially community-owned. The only community-owned team right now is in Green Bay, which set up the Packers as a publicly-owned entity before the rule went in place.
Can’t Bring Yourself to Type the Word “Ass”?
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!
And speaking of escaping across the northern border, check out this article about a tunnel between Mexico and California with elevators, rail, and a ventilation system. Good luck relying on the border fence…
nod to Borden
Palin Has A Pastor Problem
Sarah Palin was born a Roman Catholic but raised in an Assemblies of God church. Some years ago, she voluntarily switched to a non-denominational charismatic church where people speak in tongues and dance in the aisles.
Palin’s pastor, Larry Kroon, is controversial. He preaches End Times doctrine, under which God will destroy the Earth and its inhabitants. His preachings are full of hellfire, brimstone, and promises of divine retribution for mankind’s sinfulness.
On July 20, Kroon told his flock that “God is going to raise his hand against America.”
Hmm.
We already know Palin supports a third party that advocates Alaska secession. Now we find out her pastor is an America-hater. Do you discern a pattern here?
Jeremy Wright. John Hagee. Larry Kroon.
Of the 4 people on the Democratic and GOP national tickets, 3 have had a “pastor problem.”
But Sen. Obama repudiated Wright and Sen. McCain distanced himself from Hagee, whereas Gov. Palin still embraces Kroon.
Of these 3 candidates, which 2 are seasoned politicos, and which 1 isn’t ready for prime time?
In case you’re wondering, Kroom also preaches converting gays to heterosexuality through prayer.
Independent Women Voters Flocking Away From Palin
The NY Daily News reports a spike in donations to the Obama campaign and a strong movement of independent women voters away from the GOP ticket as a result of McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate.
The Obama campaign pulled in $10 million in the 24 hours after Palin’s convention speech, the newspaper reported.
And a new poll by Emily’s List shows a 10% spike in women voters supporting Obama. Ellen Moran, executive director of Emily’s List, said “information about her agenda and her experience [doesn’t] resonate with women voters outside the Republican base.”
The paper says Democratic strategists now see Palin’s presence on the GOP ticket as an opportunity instead of a threat.
Political consultant Rebecca Kirszner said, “It’s going to take more than delivering a line about lipstick to win over undecided women voters. Undecided women voters care about getting out of Iraq, affordable health care, and creating jobs. On those issues, Sarah Palin is no different than John McCain or George Bush – and that’s going to be a deal breaker for a lot of women.”
(Quoted under fair use.)
Remember my prophetic words:
The hate and intolerance and belittling and demonization of Palin will backfire on us Democrats in November.
I will be here on November 5th reminding you of my profound prediction.
Not Training Wheels We Can Believe In
There’s a lot of complaining that the McCain campaign won’t allow anyone to interview Sarah Palin. And for the major news outlets that would be in line for such an interview there’s a logic to keeping up the drumbeat. But McCain campaign manager Rick Davis is right: It’s their campaign to run. They can do it how they want. Everyone else should just shut up, stop complaining and call the reality for what it is.
Davis says Palin won’t give any interviews until she feels “comfortable” giving one. And this morning he added that she wouldn’t give any “until the point in time when she’ll be treated with respect and deference.”
Sarah Palin could be the President of the United States in four and a half months. We tend to think of this as an abstraction; but it’s true. And yet today she’s so unprepared and knows so little about the challenges and tasks facing the country that she can’t even give a softball interview.
That’s really all we need to know. Yes, she’s off being prepped at some undisclosed location. And I’ve little doubt that by the time her debate rolls around she’ll be sufficiently pumped full of slogans and bromides to make a show of it. But now, this moment, is the one that tells us all we need to know.
As is so often the case, Palin is the incarnation of the Republican slurs. The darling of the hard-right; she gives stem-winding speeches. She pushes all their buttons. But she’s such a lightweight, they can’t risk letting her answer a few questions. Not even on Fox. They know she’s not ready and probably never will be. But they think the politics might work for them.
–Josh Marshall
Oh Troll, for the love of GAWD-SHUT THE FUCK UP, you ignorant motherfucker.
@8
On this blog we like to stick to the issues and leave the politics of personal destruction to others.
Perhaps this isn’t the blog for you?
Sound Transit Underinvests In Buses
“Buses are overflowing throughout the central Puget Sound area.” — Seattle Times
Ridership is up not only because of high gas prices, but also because of “high parking fees, employer subsidies for transit passes and high population densities from new apartments and condos,” the Times article says. In other words, at least some of the increase in ridership is permanent, even if gas prices were to ease.
Yet, only a tiny slice of the sales tax increase Sound Transit wants to put on the fall ballot is destined for buses. Most of it would be spent on ST’s shiny new light rail system that won’t carry any riders for years to come.
The sales tax is a lousy way to fund public transportation anyway, because sales tax revenues are tied to retail sales and therefore unpredictable, and a weak economy means lower revenues. This can wreak havoc with the budget and planning processes of public transportation agencies.
King County Councilman Dow Constantine is taking the lead in pushing the Legislature to expand funding options for public transportation. This is the avenue I have always advocated. Among other things, I’ve said that light rail, if it’s built at all (and it shouldn’t be, because it’s absurdly expensive, and offers no flexibility in rearranging routes in response to shifting population and employment patterns), should be paid for with a sales tax on gasoline.
At any rate, if the light rail sales tax as currently envisioned by Sound Transit appears on the fall ballot, I will vote against it. Any new money raised by increasing the sales tax should be spent on buses. Expanding the bus system, not throwing tens of billions of dollars at a super-expensive light rail system that will take decades to build, is what makes sense for the Seattle metro area.
@6 If you’re a Democrat, I’m Mother Goose.
@6 (continued) The GOP’s campaign strategy for 2008 is to pretend their Democrats. This idea is so popular even John McCain has adopted it. And don’t be surprised if you hear his sidekick, Sarah Palin, trying to sound like a Democrat, too. Thing is, they’re really Republicans, and what Republicans say and do are two different things. So, when you hear a Republican making Democratic noises, don’t believe a word of it. It’s nothing but an act designed to defraud voters, just like the “nonpartisan” label that our local Republican politicos are clamoring to wear on their vests.
Speaking of which, I’d like to remind all liberal voters to vote AGAINST the GOP’s ballot initiative to convert county offices to “nonpartisan” positions so they can sneak more wingnuts into county offices under voters’ radar.
Key Alaska allies of John McCain are trying to derail a politically charged investigation into Gov. Sarah Palin’s firing of her public safety commissioner in order to prevent a so-called “October surprise” that would produce embarrassing information about the vice presidential candidate on the eve of the election.
In a move endorsed by the McCain campaign Friday, John Coghill, the GOP chairman of the state House Rules Committee, wrote a letter seeking a meeting of Alaska’s bipartisan Legislative Council in order to remove the Democratic state senator in charge of the so-called “troopergate” investigation.
[snip]
Coghill, who told NEWSWEEK that he has the backing of Republican Speaker of the House John Harris in his effort to remove French, suggested Friday that the investigation into Palin’s firing of Monegan should be shut down entirely. “If this has been botched up the way it has, there’s a question as to whether it should continue,” Coghill told NEWSWEEK.
[snip]
Coghill told NEWSWEEK that he decided to write his letter to strip French of his position on his own-without any coaxing by McCain campaign officials.
But a top McCain campaign official acknowledged that the GOP lawyer had given the campaign a “heads up” about his letter and that the McCain campaign approved of the effort to remove French.
“An investigation that was supposed to be non-partisan has become a political circus and has gotten out of control,” said Taylor Griffin, a top communications aide dispatched from McCain campaign headquarters to Alaska this week to monitor the investigation and related matters.
@10
(This is a sincere comment)
I would be curious to hear your opinion on why you think Sound Transit is doing this? Why are they focusing more on rail than buses? Is it a political reason? An environmental one? A status thing?
@7 As a beauty pageant contestant, Palin was trained to deliver scripted lines with style, charm, and polish. She does it with the robotic competence you expect from a runner-up in a Miss Alaska pageant.
But that’s kid stuff compared to being able to think on her feet in press conferences or engage seasoned national leaders in ad hoc debate on complex national and world issues. That’s not something a coach can teach someone to do in a few days, anymore than you can train a novice to play in the NFL in a 1-week camp.
Palin is an amateur in national politics, and it will show every time she opens her mouth, unless the McCain campaign can manage her appearances so rigidly that she doesn’t have to open her mouth. And that’s what they’ll try to do. They’ll parade her in front of ticket-only audiences and tell her to smile and wave a lot. And not open her mouth.
But, while some voters are stupid, not all are, and it will be obvious to undecided voters from Palin’s silence that she’s not prepared to play on the big stage.
And, after November 4, she won’t have to. When the dust has settled on Election08, she’ll resume being a small-time governor of a tiny state, in which role all she has to do is hand out oil royalty checks to citizens, send her state’s congressional delegation her annual earmark wish list, and play her brand of mean-spirited small-town personal politics.
@9 You must have taken a wrong turn, bub. On this blog we engage in cursory discussion of issues as a device for promulgating the personal destruction of wingnut traitor goatfuckers like you.
@15 I don’t know.
I would venture to guess that interest groups enamored of light rail had a hand in selecting a rail-friendly ST board, but I have no specific information to that effect, and only say that because that’s how local interest group politics usually work.
For example, the Seattle Monorail project was set up so that monorail boosters formed the core of SMP’s governing board and then they, not voters, chose the rest of the board. The object, of course, was to keep dissenting voices off the board and ensure the board would rubber stamp the project no matter how far off the rails it went. We know how that turned out; the voters took things into their own hands after it did go way off the rails.
I haven’t taken the time to study the makeup of the ST board, but viewing them in a most cursory fashion, they do strike me as an inbred lot who are so fixated on building light rail at any cost that there really isn’t any critical thought or independent judgment going on in that body. ST’s board seems to concern itself only with getting voter approval for light rail taxes; and whether Phase II and Phase III should be redesigned, or built at all, or whether those resources would be better used to expand the bus system, appears not to be in their vocabulary.
This, however, is speculation on my part; and if you really want to know, you should research it yourself.
@18
Hahaha. Liar. You just don’t want to talk to a goatfucker.
Ooops. Thank you for your answer.
That right wing idiot Delbert keeps spewing “you guys are so fucked”.
How can the second coming (in the form of Sarah Palin) face down al Qaeda when she’s too scared of the sunday morning talk shows?
@19 “You just don’t want to talk to a goatfucker.”
To the contrary, I delight in discussing your deviancies with you, and do so copiously — every chance I get.
If there were no wingnut traitor goatfuckers to talk to on this board, I wouldn’t have anything to do.
So, please, don’t go away! Stick around so we can continue kicking you where it hurts.
LMAO!! The “Hollywood Elite” gets it!
http://tinyurl.com/6alnu4
@20 I don’t see where he gets that idea. If a head-up-her-ass shmuck like Palin fucks up our national security and we get attacked again by the terrorist leader that 8 years of wingnut government still hasn’t killed, the bricks won’t fall on my furry ass. No matter what happens, I’ll be safe in my underground hole. Another breakdown in national security on the scale of 9/11 might be a personal problem for Delbert, but we rabbits will still be here after all you humans are gone. After al Qaeda wipes you out, rabbits will fill the ecological niches vacated by the late human species. Rabbits will run this planet, and I’ll be their king!! And there will be billions and trillions of rabbits, there’ll be rabbits everywhere, the entire surface of the planet will be covered by rabbits, and there will be nonstop rabbit-fucking and the rabbit population will double every 24 hours! I can hardly wait. So … what were we talking about? … oh yeah, Delbert, um, I don’t give a shit what al Qaeda does to him.
Re the NFL and Green Bay’s community-owned Packers: does anyone know if the NBA also prohibits community ownership? I’m guessing that if Seattle had the opportunity to actually own an NBA franchise and not be subject to threats of relocation every time owners weren’t filling enough skyboxes, the voters would approve whatever it took to get a replacement for the Sonics.
h[Deleted]
ANOTHER FAKE POST-
Someone is posting using my name.
Any chance Darryl, Goldy, Lee would like to tell us all who???
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