2008 WA electoral map, Obama vs. McCain
Even the most casual observer of Washington state politics is acutely aware of the Cascade Curtain, the physical and cultural barrier that separates East from West, right from left, and Republicans from Democrats. This pathological East/West divide is the cause of much of the dysfunction that plagues our state political system, yet if you ask an elected official how we might bridge this gap, don’t expect to elicit much more than tired platitudes or a roll of the eyes.
But I wonder if one of the ways to bring the two sides of the state closer together both politically and culturally is to close the physical distance between them… namely, by building high-speed rail from Seattle to Spokane.
That’s exactly what’s happening in Spain, where an ambitious new high-speed rail network is binding historically separate and distinctive regions together into a much more cohesive nation:
Spain opened its first Alta Velocidad Española, or AVE, high-speed train route in 1992, between Madrid and Seville. The network has grown to nearly 2,000 kilometers and stretches from Malaga on the south coast to Barcelona, which is north and east.
Supporters say the AVE has begun to transform the country, binding remote and sometimes restive regions to Madrid and leading traditionally homebound Spaniards to move around for work or leisure.
“Spaniards have rediscovered the train,” said Iñaki Barrón de Angoiti, director of high-speed rail at the International Union of Railways in Paris. “The AVE has changed the way people live, the way they do business. Spaniards don’t move around a lot, but the AVE is even changing that.”
By slashing the time it takes to travel from one city to another, high-speed rail in Spain and elsewhere has increased tourism, altered housing patterns, and lured millions of travelers out of airplanes and cars. According to the International Union of Railways, a high-speed train can carry eight times as many passengers as an airplane over an equal distance, using the the same amount of energy, while emitting a quarter of the CO2 per person. It also creates economic opportunities outside the traditional urban cores that never before existed.
For example, previous studies have suggested that high-speed rail could connect downtown Seattle to Moses Lake in under an hour, with Spokane only another half hour away. That’s downtown Seattle to downtown Spokane in less time than one typically spends at the airport before departure. Such a rail line could instantly transform Moses Lake into a viable international airport, while creating the freedom to live and work anywhere near a station.
Live in Spokane and work in Seattle, or vice versa? That’s a shorter commute, time-wise, than between some parts of Long Island and Manhatten. And just think of the economic opportunity this would create in the half dozen or so counties through which a high-speed line would pass.
When we tie the people and economies of Washington state closer together, when prosperity in King County directly generates prosperity in Kittitas and Grant counties too, that’s when the politics of this state will become less divisive. And as has been proven in other parts of the world, high-speed rail can put us on the fast track toward achieving that goal.
Great idea.
That’s a great idea. Unfortunately there’s no money for it now from WA State. All the federal money for such a proposal will be going to CA first, since they voted for high speed rail in 2008.
The only way to ever get this to happen would be to put a proposal on the WA State ballot first like CA did.
Or if Bill Gates finances it.
Even then, I think connecting Portland to Vancouver (through Olympia, Tacoma an Seattle) would be more of a priority, just in terms of population.
But, but, but no one will ride it. We love cars. Never mind that public transit of any kind is usually a break-even or money losing proposition off-set by the tax revenues associated with getting people to places of employment.
Hell, I’m all for it. I really like Spokane for a weekend but flying there is kind of a waste of fuel and driving there takes too damn long so I’ve been maybe twice in a decade.
I agree. It’s a great idea. So is #3. Do ’em both.
When you think about Krugman’s metaphor of the Zoned Zone and Flatland, there’s a lot high speed rail could do for the country.
@ 3, 4
Highspeed rail Portland to Vancouver would be awesome.
I used to work in Portland during the week, come home to Seattle for weekends. Door-to-door, flying and driving were the same.
Short haul flights make no sense. Our society wouldn’t even do it, were it not subsidized.
I don’t recall what the cross over point is (was), where rail beats air. Probably 200 miles. Better rail would increase that distance, of course.
Ironically, State Rep. Doug Ericksen has been pushing this idea for a little while now. He is *gasp* a Republican.
Gee, it was just a couple of days ago that some wingnut posted to the effect that “rail has proven to be a failure everywhere in the world”! Obviously, they haven’t been to Spain. or France. Or Britain. Or Germany. Or Japan. Or Korea. Or just about anywhere else where it has been sufficiently funded to do it right.
Wingnuts insist that rail has to be profitable or at least self-supporting, but impose no such requirements upon the alternative transportation infrastructures (highways, airports) which are heavily subsidized in the U.S. In the meantime, our U.S. rail system remains mostly in private hands (due to the financing system set up in the 1850’s and 1860’s), and which hasn’t seen signficant infrastructure investment since it’s heyday in the 1930’s.
It really isn’t a question of highways vs. rail vs. airplanes. Each has it’s own set of advantages and demerits depending upon the number of people being transported, the distances involved, the size and weight of freight, and the pick-up and ultimate delivery locations. Trying to have a transportation system which uses only two of these systems is like trying to stand on a two-legged stool.
Nope! We don’t have the cash or the natural resources to do that. Live in Seattle walk or bike to work in Seattle. Live in Spokane walk or bike to work in Spokane. That’s where we’re at both in terms of money and natural resource availability.
Well maybe, live in Cle Elum or Ellensburg work in Seattle and live in Ritzville work in Spokane for a handful of folks.
Ideas about improving rail connections between Seattle Moses Lake and Spokane, using Moses Lake for more flights- some passenger and lots of freight and so on have been around for quite a while. I think the standard rail connections are there except you’d need a new tunnel to get over the Cascades.
I go to Spokane about once a month and I’d much prefer to make the trip sitting in an Acela train going 150 MPH than in my car going 70.
You can forget about anything fancier than an Acela train, if a train can’t run on existing tracks, it’s not going to get built for a 300 mile extremely low population density route.
Should note that Spokane is an important rail hub and from there you could run a trains to Boise, SLC and Calgary and Edmonton.
Traveling by rail cross-country takes a lot of patience. I’ve wanted to take Amtrack to visit my sister in Pennsylvania, but it just doesn’t wash economically. The price of the tickets (air vs. rail) was about the same last I checked, but the three-day time in-transit, with two or three train changes with layovers, killed that idea.
Of course, high-speed rail might reduce that cross-country transit time by quite a bit, but most of us don’t want to spend more than one long day in travel.
Now, along the Pacific coast it would be another matter. I can drive from Seattle to L.A. in two days (yes, two LONG days, but it can be done). A high-speed rail might make that a one-day trip, which would be worthwhile.
@8
!
I thought that post was satire.
@10
Rail is generally looked at as a way to replace short hop flights. I think 500 miles or less.
Me three.
BUT, I prefer the Portland ,, Tacoma ,, Seattle ,, Everett line (PTSE) over Seattle Moses Lake Walla-Walla Pulman Spokane Moscow (SMWPSM)
PTSE connects four existing urban centers. Hopefully, the fast rail would foster the growth of these existing centers.
SMWPSM ties a very urban area to rural areas. The history of such connections seems to me to spread
urban blight in the form of epidemic spread of the kind of development that has filled our side of the mountains.
Seems to me this raises another issue. Why should East and West merge? I rather like having different cultures within my drive/fly/train range.
So let me get this straight: a high speed rail will tie the east side to the west side adn make everyone happy go lucky…
hey goldy, you ever heard of I90, or US2 or the other numerous HIGH SPEED highways that already connect the state together..
please, tell me you can come up with a better reason than that for a high speed rail line.
how many billions will it cost to transport a few hundred or few thousand people per day?
@3…I can agree with that.
don davidson, conrad lee, and kemper freeman say NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
I just compared SEA – SPO, departing 1/26, returning 1/28.
Amtrak $85, 8+ hour travel
Horizon Air $123.40, 1 hour travel
Assuming 50 cents for driving mile…
Car $222, 4.5 hour travel
No doubt Vancouver BC to to Eugene, OR high-speed rail makes more economic sense than Seattle to Spokane, but it would be more expensive to build (right of way acquisition) and would do absolutely nothing for the other side of the state. Indeed, the economic disparity would only get worse.
I’m talking about more than just a transportation solution here. I’m talking about an infrastructure solution that ties our state more closely together economically, culturally and politically.
lebowski @ 14
Spokane’s growth is 1/2 of Seattle’s. Much of Washington is depopulating. No jobs or economic growth, so people have to move to the big cities. So you’re okay with everyone moving to the coast?
Makes me wonder, why do you hate Eastern and Central Washingtonians so much?
Investments like high speed rail would make those areas more appealing to businesses, leading to job growth.
I have family on the “eastside”. They’re happy there. And we need Eastern Washington to grow our food, generate our power, and so forth.
Personally, I think those communities are worth fighting for.
18 … Goldy
The question I have is whether it makes more social sense to ties Spokane to Seattle than to tie the Portland USA Vacouver Ca corridor together?
The American states barely make more sense than the middle eastern states. Our boundaries are accidents. What is good for Walla Walla may not be at all good for Everett.
So, as a Cascadian, I believe in the superiority of Cascadian culture and do think the Eastside would benefit from being more plugged in.
I would use such a train to work with colleagues in Pullman, that sort of thing would be good for the State. OTOH, I already work with colleagues at UBC and Portland Health Sciences. So for my bizness, building Cascadia as an entity is more important than building Washington.
I am also less dismal than others about the future of Easter Washington. The Okanagon and Columbia Valley are very impressive regional resources that cross the US/Ca border as well as our state borders. As pressure on water and farmland grows, shouldn’t the focus of Eastern WA be on the greater community needs of that area?
Good idea… but look for Alaska Airlines to spend big bucks to kill a high speed rail line in the Pacific Northwest.
Southwest did it in Texas in the 70s, when they were wanting to build high speed lines between Dallas, Austin, San Antonio and Houston.
I do think the right of way issues for Cascadia are areal. However, issues like that seem to me to cry for a more business oriented estimate of return on investment.
As one example, sooner or later greater Seattle will need a second airport. High speed rail to Vanc Ca would make their airport a very useful hub for the northern region of Cascadia without putting so much pressure on Seatac.
Similarly, we all worry about housing costs in Seattle .. assuming the economy recovers.
But housing costs are inversely proportional to supply. Having the ability to live in urban centers at a greater distance from the major cities of cascadia should encourage the building in places like Everett, Tacoma, Bellingham, and Vacn WA .. all of which would be urban (because of the rail) AND mitigate the need for housing in Seattle or Vanc CA.
Finally, we do need to think about our ability to compete across the USA as well as globally, As expensive as right of way may be in Cascadia, the costs are nothing compared with similar costs for the northeast corridor or California. A high speed rail system could make Cascadia the most attractive North American portal on the Pacific Ocean!
So it seems to me that the net cost of a Cascadian rail system might be offset by its effect on other regional needs.
RULE Cascadia, land of the golden slug!
@21 I do not see why this would be bad for Alaska. They make most of their money flying to and from Cascadia, not within it. HS rail connecting the three major airports alone would greatly enhance their value as existing hubs for Alaska.
RULE Cascadia, land of the golden slug!
re 7: Does he plan on financing it with (gasp) tax cuts, or is the scheme (double gasp) to get Western WA to pay for it all?
@23, actually if you look at their numbers, Alaska Airline’s bread and butter are flights between SEA, PDX, GEG, BOI… also Lower 48 to Alaska flights, but the flights between SEA and GEG are full… and leave about once an hour. Why do you think that is?
@22
We already have Acela trains running from Portland to Vancouver BC. What we need are track improvements so that the trains can run full speed (150MPH) on the route. Most of those improvements have already been planned and a few of them are funded.
I can see Goldy is at it again with his magical choo-choo trains. Of course, WA state should bankrupt itself to build a choo-choo train from Seattle to Moses Lake in the name of liberal hopeychange togetherness crap. Kumbaya and pass the hashish pipe.
@22
Did you see what happened to the airline industry in 2008 when oil was over $100 a barrel? The airline industry is a cheap oil industry, it will be contracting in the future.
The main thing to know about the so-called “Cascade curtain” is that 78% of the state’s population lives on the west side (with 52% concentrated in King, Pierce, and Snohomist counties) and only 22% on the east side, so who cares what the hicks and bumpkins in the red counties think?
A high-speed rail link between Seattle and Spokane might not be a bad idea (except where will you get the money?), as long as there are no stops in-between, because after all there’s nothing worth stopping for in that vast empty intellectual desert.
@29 RR – those “hicks and bumpkins” grow your damn food you git.
re 27: The conservative position of standing pat on everything because change could make things worse is no longer viable because change will come whether you like it or not.
“Please get out of the new boat if you can’t lend a hand….” I’m sure you know the rest of Dylan’s line.
If the train went 320 mph it would be feasible to live in Spokane (where housing is cheaper) and commute to a job in Bellevue or Seattle.
re 30: Those ‘hicks’ couldn’t grow shit without the water from all those ‘socialistic’ dams the government built and the produce would rot in the fields without infrastructure built and maintained with $$$$ from the Western part of the state.
Looks to me like a symbiotic relationship where each side needs to appreciate the other’s contribution.
I don’t see that coming from the hicks, or, as my carny father would have said, ‘the rubes’.
@30 Wrong! Have you looked at food labels lately? Over 90% of our processed food supply contains imported ingredients, and even the produce in local stores mostly comes from other countries. Less than 4% of state GDP is agricultural products, a big chunk of which is grown in Western Washington, and most of it is exported. The amount of locally grown food we eat is de minimis. If all of Washington’s farmers and growers moved away and our entire state agricultural economy disappeared, you would barely notice it was gone.
off topic: i wonder if a lot of felons plan to vote for sheriff hairspray in 2010?
@17
When you factor travel time you need to go door to door. 1 hour is just the taxiing (made-up word? Sp?) and flight gate-to-gate.
I bring it up because when I lived and worked in L.A. I would go see my brother in the North S.F. bay area about every couple months. Driving with a single stop for gas and maybe food took about 5.5 to six hours. When I left my apartment, travelled to the airport, went through security, waited, flew, de-planed, picked up and driven (longer by Airporter bus)to San Rafael it would usually clock in around 8 hours. That was pre 911 security.
If a train could do door to door in under 6 I would trade the mental alertness of driving and the length of time flying under almost all circumstances.
The problem getting Americans onto trains is the very idea is completely foriegn to a huge majority of us. Annecdotally, I don’t know anyone who has travelled on trains a half dozen times who doesn’t find it far better than planes or automobiles.
Most Americans know most manufacturing has gone overseas, but I wonder how many people know how much of our food is imported, too?
If there’s a world war, we’ll not only be unable to meet our needs for weapons and petroleum from domestic sources, but we’ll also starve within a few weeks.
Our ill-advised economic policies under 30 years of Republican rule have put us in exactly the position Britain was in at the outbreak of hostilies in 1939.
If China gets an effective submarine force, we’ll be finished.
@5 “Do ‘em both.”
With whose money? Oh, hell, why not? The middle class is already bankrupt, so we may as well spend ourselves into even deeper bankruptcy, because our debts won’t be repaid anyway. Let’s rip off the creditor class while they still have something left to rip.
I have had some experience traveling in Spain and other parts of Europe. The trains & roads are great. But Spain has an advantage. The customer base (passengers) is a population of 50 million while Washington is only 5-6 milion. Another feature I liked was using a credit card on the toll roads.
@38 By the way, I don’t own bonds, only stocks. This is a really bad time to be a creditor — risk is sky high and interest rates are less than inflation. Loaning money in this environment is crazy. I never liked the idea anyway. I think it’s better to own assets than be owed money, and hard assets probably are safer than soft assets. Some folks think by the time this is all over, dollars will be worthless and ammunition will be the new currency. I’m not quite that pessimistic, but I think ordinary prudence dictates that liberals must arm, too.
Boeing shares are up $6 in the last 3 trading days. I guess union-busting pays. I bought it this morning. This stock may still have some upward run to it, but even if it doesn’t, it pays a 3.5% dividend yield at the current quotation, which is 15 times what you’ll get from a bank or money market fund.
I also bought KBR this morning. This military construction contractor was a Halliburton subsidiary but has been spun off and is an independent, stand-alone company now. I think this stock is undervalued at the current quote of $20. The dividend yield is about 1.5%, which is 6 times what you’ll get by leaving your money in a savings account or money market fund.
Xe = Blackwater
Two more Blackwater “security contractors” (a/k/a mercenaries) have been indicted for murder. This time, the murders occurred in Afghanistan. These yahoos got into a car accident with some Afghans at that country’s only intersection (there are only two roads and six cars in Afghanistan), so they shot ’em. I suppose nobody has insurance in that country. What do you need it for, if the other driver kills you?
Btw, Blackwater is trying to hide from public view by changing its name. The company calls itself Xe now (pronounded “zee”). So if you see news reports of Xe getting no-bid contracts from Republican cronies or Xe employees shooting unarmed Iraqi or Afghani women, children, and elderly people, remember that Xe is Blackwater.
When the Howard Hansen dam collapses this spring when the snow melts, and all the new residential subdivisions in the Kent Valley look like New Orleans, you’d better run for your life before the Xe “security guards” show up, because those trigger-happy motherfuckers don’t make any distinction between nationalities. They shoot everyone.
@7 Just what we don’t need! Another borrow-and-spend Republican.
@8 “Wingnuts insist that rail has to be profitable or at least self-supporting”
Why? Their wars aren’t profitable or self-supporting, cost a lot more, and have much less social and eocnomic utility.
rhp6033, way back @10:
Where in Pennsylvania?
Seattle-Pittsburgh would require just one change (Chicago), Seattle-Harrisburg would be two changes (Chicago, Pittsburgh). Seattle-Philadelphia could be done with just one (Chicago), but the Cardinal gets to Philadelphia through Cincinnati and Washington DC; it would be quicker to take the Capital Limited from Chicago to Pittsburgh and then change to the Pennsylvanian.
Yes, it’s time-consuming, but if you have the time it can be a real thrill. Many years ago, I did a Pittsburgh-Seattle trip, building in several stops along the way to visit with family and friends. That trip was actually a fly-drive combination, so I flew the other way; that combo isn’t easily doable any more, if it exists as all. And I also had a choice of routes to get to Seattle. In addition to the Empire Bulder, there was a route from Chicago through Denver, Boise, and Portland (the Chicago-Denver portion was actually three routes, with LA and SF as alternative destinations.
Funny how wingnuts are always willing to spend unlimited amounts of taxpayer money on killing foreigners, but won’t spend one cent on anything that helps the Americans who pay the taxes. What a bunch of traitors.
@14 Oh yeah, US 2 is a high-speed link between Seattle and Spokane, now I’ve heard everything.
Well, actually maybe it is, the way you guys drive. The western segment of US 2 does seem to keep the Snohomish County redneck population in check.
Goldy @ 18: Your thoughts are similar to the motives behind the first Transcontinental Railroad.
The cross-country railroad was first proposed about 1850. But political disputes over the routing stymied authorization. A northern, southern, and central route all vied against one another, with the spread of slavery and the delicate political balance between northern and southern states held in the balance. Southern states pushed for the Gasden purchase, which they argued was the best all-weather route to southern California, but northern politicians feared that route would spread slavery into New Mexico, Arizona, and California, eventually giving slave-holding states a majority in the U.S. Senate.
After the seccession of the Confederate states, choosing a route was much easier, and the northern route was authorized by acts of Congress in 1862 & 1863, with eventual linkage between the eastern and western lines at Promontory Summit, Utah in 1863. At the same time, Congress passed the Homestead Act, which made cheap federal-owned land available to farmers with little means to buy land on their own. But why would the U.S. Congress, in the midst of the Civil War and the enourmous manpower, industrial, and financing commitments that required, dilute their resources by engaging in a huge construction project not directly involved in the war effort, and encouraging the spread of manpower westward instead of conserving them for military use?
The answer lies in California, and the gold found there in 1848-49. California became a state in 1850, but settlers were divided between southern and northern sypathies. When an attempt to form a seccessionist government failed (in part due to the strategic stationing of loyal federal troops), California remained at least formally part of the Union. But politicians recognized that there remained a strong independent streak among the settlers there, and the distance between California and the rest of the northern states compounded their isolationist feelings. So to ensure California’s loyalty, promises were made. Innitial work on a transcontinental railroad would begin immediately, and a fast, reliable mail service would be instituted in the meantime (hence the Pony Express).
In order to quickly finance the huge project, Congress issued thirty-year bonds, but also gave large tracts of federal lands along the right-of-way to the railroads building the line. Since any land adjacent to a railroad would immediately appreciate in value, it was a huge boon to the railroads. But empty land without settlers to pay for passage and freight on board the railroads would have limited value, so the Homestead Act gave the railroads a ready base of customers and potential leasers/buyers of the land. (Eventually the railrooad’s use of their near-monopoly power encouraged the populist backlash of the Grange movement).
So anyway, the transcontinental railroad was not only a transportation project, it served a political purpose of tying California with the rest of the Union at a time when the federal government badly needed the gold coming out of the California mines, and didn’t want yet another state secceeding from the Union.
@18 What culture does Spokane have that we want?
N & 46: My sister lives near Harrisburg. The last time I checked (several years ago), I had to change trains in Chicago and Pittsburg. It may be different now.
OK, let me get this straight. We have several transportation megaprojects we don’t know how to pay for (AWV, 520 bridge; light rail to Northgate, Bellevue, and Everett; I-90 expansion, a possible new East King County freeway, a new Columbia River bridge, etc.), and posters here are throwing out several more proposals — high speed light rail to Spokane and Vancouver — where does the money for all this come from?
From those least able to pay who are already obscenely overtaxed, that’s where. We’re stuck with a regressive tax system that soaks low income households. Stuck! As in “unable to fix.” So the only way you can raise money for more transportation megaprojects is to soak the poor even more. At some point, those turnips just don’t have any juice left in them, or if you keep squeezing you may face armed revolt.
As I’ve posted before in this blog, NOTHING is possible in this state until we fix our tax system. NOTHING. So, until tax reform happens, all of this discussion is merely pipedreams.
@34, @37 A large part of our state’s “Inland Empire” is devoted to very large corporate grain farms. Historically we’ve mostly grown wheat (and some barley for the brewing industry) but I’m inclined to wonder how much has been switched to corn for animal feed and high-fructose corn syrup.
@42 Fuck you very much. Thanks for helping support a company that built electrified showers for our troops in Iraq, along with a litany of equally sleazy things.
RR @ 52
Back in my glory days, I worked for a megacorp. We used a slow, inefficient, expensive way to produce architectural documents. I wrote up the business case for buying one large, fast, reliable plotter. It’d pay for itself in 3 months.
Now, you’d think that an 3 month ROI would be pretty compelling.
That’s now how this story ends.
The big boss plotter cost $100,000, producing drawings at 10 cents a pop.
The crappy little plotters cost $6,000 each, at $1.20 per. (It was also 5 times slower.)
All the decision makers would get stuck on the $100,000 capital expense and say “We can’t possibly afford that.” I’m pretty sure that the shareholders would disagree, if only they were aware.
The way I see it, you gotta spend money to save money.
You may be right about the status quo, regarding funding. But I think that’s a pretty poor excuse for inaction. If you try hard enough, one can find all sorts of reasons to say “No!” to even the most obviously correct course of action.
Just ask the Republicans. They’ve gotten pretty good at “No!”
@54 I think you’re being hasty in your judgments. This isn’t an IPO or new issue, so the money I paid for this stock isn’t capitalizing the company. Not buying it wouldn’t make the company go away. But by buying it from Republicans when it’s cheap and selling it back to Republicans after it goes up, I’m relieving Republicans of some of their money. All this does is make a Republican poorer and a liberal richer. And taking money from stupid Republicans makes it possible for me to donate something to Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. So why does this deserve a “fuck you” from a fellow liberal?
Goebbels Rabbit has reached levels of idiocy.
@43 Xe may have a new, obscure name, but it’s still owned and operated by Eric Prince, who believes God put him on Earth with a mission to destroy Islam. As I think you pointed out, Roger, it was a bit of a surprise that two Blackwater…I mean, Xe personnel, were killed along with the CIA operatives in the recent suicide bombing in Afghanistan. Supposedly, the administration has been “phasing out” the use of private contractors in general, and Xe in particular, in “sensitive operations”.
Which reminds me … I need to cut a check to Sea Shepherd. They just lost a $2 million boat to a ramming attack by the Jap whale murderers.
@57 I can’t possibly compete with you.
@55 Nowadays, that company would probably outsource the plotting process, to a service bureau that leased the plotter and hired someone at minimum wage to run it. Then again, nowadays the entire department you worked in would probably be offshored.
If such a rail service were established, and if it and the Cascades were electrified instead of using diesel, they’d emit zero CO2 per passenger.
@53
@55 I’m sure they would have jumped for the $100,000 plotter if they could have made the coffee shop in the lobby pay for it, but the owner of the coffee shop would have wanted to know what was in it for him.
Trust me, I understand the theoretical arguments about return on investment, but believe me, you can’t keep loading more taxes on people living on subsistence incomes who are already being forced to pay 17% of their income to state and local taxes. It just ain’t gonna work.
You have to fix the tax system before you can talk about “investments” in education, transportation, etc. Attempting to use the country’s most regressive state/local tax system to fund even more megaprojects will merely throw gasoline on the tax revolt fire, tarnish liberals’ image, keep Tim Eyman in business, and play into the hands of antigovernment demagogues.
rhp @ 49
Great writeup. Thanks.
The Homestead Act created a middle class.
The free market cultists imagine that a middle class is the natural outgrowth of laissez faire (aka crony capitalism).
A middle class is only created from progressive wealth redistribution. Without our nation’s social programs, infrastructure projects, etc., there would be no middle class.
The rich get richer. That’s not a value statement. It’s just basic math.
Left unchecked, the rich become an aristocracy. No big surprise there. We’re watching it happen. The 30 year campaign to dismantle the New Deal is exactly why inequity has grown and then accelerated. And now the cronies run the show. (Until we organize and fight back. Just like what happened before.)
@53 Last I heard, Washington apples were being pushed out of the market by cheaper Chinese apples.
@37
It wouldn’t take a world war, just a $100 a barrel price floor for oil.
We need to improve our rail system and we need to do it in a hurry. Forget about anything that can’t run on the existing rails, we don’t have the time, money, natural resources, or skills to build enough of it fast enough.
@65 The Homestead Act turned poor sharecroppers into poor family farmers. The middle class was created by union wages.
This is a nutty idea.
Connecting Seattle and Everett is a challenge to great for the multi-modal/agency to handle, let’s just move on to high speed rail.
Btw, that 90 minute travel time is what I have NOW (90 in the morning) getting from North Seattle to South Everett (door to door, 120 minute return trip) riding the buses. Having a wrecked car as a great chance to experience why I MUST drive. I am buying another car asap.
Let’s ask me to pay for something that doubles my commute time, if I use it, and when I say no to that, propose a transstate boondoggle.
Improve we can do what we do today, before we blow more money on the mulimodal transit “system”.
Thanks.
Welcome to Elbonia.
@67 A $100 oil price wouldn’t be such a bad thing. It would spur energy conservation and alternative energy development, reduce CO2 emissions, reduce our dependency on oil from hostile countries, and make dwindling petroleum supplies last longer. At that price point, lots of things compete with OPEC oil, and OPEC’s market share declines. It costs $2.50 to get a barrel of Saudi crude out of the ground, but over $40 to extract deepsea oil from the Gulf of Mexico, the Arctic, or the new offshore megafields in Brazil. A higher oil price encourages development of new oilfields which helps stabilize supply which reduces the chances of another supply shortfall-induced oil price shock. Higher gasoline prices discourage driving which reduces our need for more freeway lanes and increases public support for transit. The low oil prices of the 1980s and 1990s had disastrous results; among other things, they encouraged the Bush regime to invade Iraq in a vain effort to prolong the era of cheap oil.
@52
High speed rail from Stumptown to Vangroovie is a done deal, it’s call an Acela train and it runs several times a day. There are improvements in the works, some funded, some unfunded, to get the trains running at higher speeds than they can currently go.
@70
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
The question is how high can oil go before the price crashes the system? We need it high enough to do what you’re talking about (and fixing our existing rail system is part of that) but, not so high that it crashes the system.
@69
Part of the problem is defining what “high speed rail” means. What I’m talking about is fixing up our current rail system, most of which is privately owned and operated, so that we can run more freight and run it faster and get 150MPH Acela trains to run on the tracks.
@73
That was poorly worded.
Acela trains can already run on existing tracks but, very few tracks are in good enough condition for them to run at their top speed of 150MPH.
I have always been partial to giving Eastern Washington to Idaho. It is a kind of funny shaped state that could use more land. But I suppose they would want us to pay them to take Eastern Washington so it probably wouldn’t work.
RR @ 68
Different generation, entirely different decision to purposefully create a middle class.
ratcity @ 75
New Zealand set up their jurisdictions to manage their natural resources by watershed. To create benefit.
Our current political boundaries make resource management extremely difficult.
RR @ 64
It’s exhausting to always hear all the reasons something can’t be done. We’ve got enough whiners.
It’s fair to identify obstacles. As Yogi Bera said, “The obstacles are insurmountable!”
Major investments are an opportunity to change the game.
Imagine the leader who stumps for progressive tax reform, not just because it’s fair, but because we’re building something to be proud of.
Stop telling me why things can’t be done. Put your energy into finding ways to accomplish what we both agree need to be done.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
(And not just you.)
Baker @ 65
I’ve had a few jobs where I’ve commuted by bus.
I’ve always wondered why our bus routes are milk runs. Hub and spoke would be so much better.
Then replace the links between hubs with rail, as needed.
Seems obvious.
RR @ 59
For those that don’t know, the Japanese are catching 50 blue, 50 fin, and ~900 minke whales each year for “research”. Presumably of the culinary variety.
Whales are non-human persons. I don’t how these three species compare to the orca and porpoise. But we humans are slaughtering and eating sentient creatures. Cannibalism.
Thanks for supporting Sea Shepherd. Though I think their tactic of direct physical confrontation is silly.
Thinking about the problem, my idea is to “harpoon” the Japanese whaling vessels with water-filled balloons, rendering them immobile.
I probably got the idea from visiting the Makah Museum. Their hunters would attach balloons their their harpoons. They’d both tire the whale and prevent it from sinking once dead.
I hope someone implements this. The irony of harpooning whaling vessels would be awesome.
Michael @ 9
It’s the internet. Use them links.
Thanks for mentioning the Acela train. I had no idea what they were. Wow! They’re so cool.
Now I know we need one for Seattle to Spokane (and beyond).
(Total agreement on the need for rail improvements. I once had a regular consulting gig for Burlington Northern. I learned all about that problem.)
Where is Puddy Bud? Save me!!!!
There once was a superior rail route across Washington, as well as farther east. It was electrified and the important bridge over the Columbia still stands. The old Milwaukee Road. This might cause a little consternation with the bikers and hikers, but as James J. Hill said, as a person who would lay tracks over his own grandmother, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
@58 I didn’t know two of those guys were Blackwater mercenaries. I thought they all were CIA. So we lost 5 patriots in that blast, not 7. The other two were mercenaries, so their deaths are “business.”*
* Hey, just kidding! Mafia joke.
@72 It would crash the global economy if it got back to 2007 levels.
The solution is quite simple: just create a new state by splitting the state right down the divide.
Western Washington will take on the red county of Lewis and Eastern Washington will get the remaing two blue counties.
In about two years we’ll have the equivalent of another Mississippi on our border: Dumb, broke, and Republican.
@78 I disagree with you on this point, and it’s a very fundamental disagreement on a very fundamental point.
You’re saying you can live with imposing regressive taxes on lower income people who already pay 5 1/2 times as much of their income to state and local taxes as the affluent, if that’s the necessary price of progress for lack of a fair tax system.
I say that’s unacceptable no matter how laudable the spending objectives; and that if the only way to build these projects is by soaking the already overtaxed poor, then they should not be built.
@80 “Though I think their tactic of direct physical confrontation is silly.”
So you would do what? Put flowers in the barrels of their harpoon guns?
There are over 130 nations on this earth. If, as the Japs claim, the South Pacific Whale Sanctuary can sustain a harvest of 1,000 whales a year, then those whales should be divided equally between the 130 nations, which works out to about 7.5 whales each. Why should one country get all of them?
The Japanese whaling is lawless. Their claim it’s for “research” is unvarnished bullshit. They have the full support of their government. Australia, which asserts legal jurisdiction over the whaling grounds by claiming an exclusive economic zone to the area, refuses to enforce its own laws. The Jap whalers are bandits and the Australian government is a pussy.
Under the circumstances, it is up to the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society to protect the interests of the planet’s other 6 billion-odd people in the preservation and protection of these whales. When one government encourages its citizens to act in a lawless manner, and another government asserts legal jurisdiction but then totally abrogates its responsibility to enforce its own laws, that leaves a vacuum that is being filled by a conservation NGO acting on behalf of the world’s peoples to prevent the plundering of a world resources that belongs to all nations and peoples in common and is being plundered by one selfish nation.
And you criticize Sea Shepherd? The Jap whalers are the only ecoterrorists I see in this picture.
Sea Shepherd has been restrained in their tactics. Their physical interference with the illegal Japanese whaling has been limited to throwing stink bombs onto the decks of the whaling ships and entangling propellors with lines to temporarily disable the whaleships so they can’t pursue the whales. By contrasts, the Japs have rammed Sea Shepherd vessels, and they tried to assassinate Captain Watson; last year, he was hit in the chest by a rifle bullet fired from a Japanese ship, being saved by his bulletproof vest. It is the Japs who are resorting to violence. I’m certainly not advocating that Sea Shepherd escalate their tactics or respond to Japanese violence with violence. What I’m advocating is that the United States, Australia, and other nations send warships down there to enforce international law and discourage the Japanese whaling fleet from committing acts of war on the high seas against unarmed conservation vessels.
@86 I wouldn’t dream of abandoning our fellow Democrats in Whitman and Klickitat counties. Never! I think we also should keep Benton and Franklin counties to assure the existence of a land corridor to our compatriots in Whitman County. The reds can have the rest.
@86, 90
Spokane has some pretty progressive stuff- like these folks:
http://www.community-minded.org/
Crusader exemplifies the modern “conservative” mindset.
Getting along with people shouldn’t be allowed – the mantra of the angry, frustrated, broken middle aged balding white guy.
The only time we are allowed to “bankrupt ourselves” – when we are maiming and killing innocent humans in the name of “national defense.”
One more reason righty wingnuts prefer jets over trains: five times the carbon footprint.
In the world of the exurban sheep-like dittohead, burning more fossil fuel is a GOOD thing….
Apparently, you haven’t been keeping up with recent events.
I would like to see at least some kind of Amtrak Cascades-type service on the former Northern Pacific route, but even that option would need significant upgrades. So far, the only passenger service being proposed for this route, which going all the way to Spokane would hit most cities in Eastern Washington, is a commuter rail study between Auburn, Maple Valley, Covington, and Black Diamond. Tacoma might block anything further east, they have always been protective of their watershed, in the old days, NP had to lock the toilets when passing through, although today’s trains have retention toilets now.
RR @ 87, 88
Slow down and read my posts before responding.
Me: Use big ideas to push through progressive tax reform.
You: Our state’s tax system is already too regressive.
I know!
Me: Direct confrontation bad. My idea, covertly attach water balloons to their ships.
You: Direct confrontation bad. That Japanese did all sorts of bad things.
I know!
(And it’s Japanese, not Japs. Come on. You really want to come off sounding like Miller Freeman?)
@79, Community Transit is further along there. They have a good mix of milk runs connecting with commuter runs. Metro on the north end sucks ass. The closer you get to the metro treminal, the worse the service.
(paging mayor mcpipedream, no more condo auctions, uh, density without better bus service, and I am not buying anymore fucking light rail to replace buses, buses that get sent off to Republicanville.)
for those of you in the other Seattle, the Northgate transit thing is 40 blocks from the city limits
Community Transit Center is building a giant P&R off I-5, just on the other side of the county line.
Had an uninsured motorist not turned right in front of me I would not be experiencing a grossly inefficient mish mash.
“it’s Japanese, not Japs”
Why should a rabbit be polite to whale murderers? Try to understand. I’m closer to whales on the evolutionary tree than you are. Whales are my buds.
@96 So, you think the solution to regressive taxation is “big ideas” and the solution to illegal whaling is water balloons?
I moved to Spokane, the second most populated city in the State of WA, a few years ago and couldn’t be happier. As such, I feel compelled to say a few words in defense of Spokane specifically, and Eastern Washington in general.
The original proposal related to the idea that distance between east/west leads naturally to misconceptions about people who live on either side of the state. This is well illustrated by some of the postings here referring to east-siders as hicks, bumpkins, etc.
Spokane is a wonderful community and increasingly progressive. I suggest you take time to come visit this community before dismissing its value! I think you will enjoy the city’s “near nature, near perfect” reputation.
You Think Working Is Bad Now?
Business Week reports,
“[American workers’] situation isn’t likely to improve soon; some economists predict it will be years, not months, before employees regain any semblance of bargaining power. … [T]his recession’s unusual ferocity has accelerated trends — including offshoring, automation, the decline of labor unions’ influence, new management techniques, and regulatory changes — that already had been eroding workers’ economic standing. The forecast for the next five to 10 years: more of the same, with paltry pay gains, worsening working conditions, and little job security.
http://www.businessweek.com/ma.....op+stories
Roger Rabbit Commentary: With things only getting worse for workers, why would anyone work? I don’t work! Investing in work skills is silly. Eat grass and live off the land like I do! Then you won’t have to worry about this stuff.
Puddy @ 99
I give up. Knock yourself out.
The concept of expanding the international airport in Moses Lake and linking it to Seattle (and Spokane) by high speed train has been around since before I lived in ML over 20 years ago. It does make sense because ML is “famous for its good flying weather”. It was being talked about in the business courses I took at Big Bend CC.
Because it would involve interstate and international commerce a good chunk of the money would likely come from the Feds. However, we haven’t had effective federal representation from those districts since Tom Foley. More’s the pity. If ML was in Norm “bring home the bacon” Dicks’ district, it would have been done by now.
A project like this would definitely help Grant County whose unemployment rate is consistently among the highest in the state.
I have always heard that the major impediment is those pesky mountains. Apparently it’s expensive to drill a tunnel through solid rock. Who knew?
But I’m still in favor of forcing Idaho to annex eastern WA creating Wash-a-ho.
Re 103
“But I’m still in favor of forcing Idaho to annex eastern WA creating Wash-a-ho.”
I realize (or hope) this is satire, but King County needs those irritating Eastern Washington citizens. One of the last things the US still exports is produce and meat from Eastern Washington. That’s a valuable client for the ports over here. King County desperately needs a balance to their slash and burn liberal politics. Left to their own devices libs would love to saddle productive business with “fair” taxes which cripple business, “fair regulations” which price themn out of the market etc. Like it or not Goldy’s right on this one. You libs have a lot to learn from the sensible side of the state and high speed rail might promote that.
104 – Wonders never cease. A winger (almost) in support of a liberal tax and spend infrastructure project.
Interesting that he’d think a bullet train would alter politics in this State.
@102 Puddy is guilty of a lot of things, but I don’t think he can quite bring himself to steal my identity.
GOP Family Values Dep’t
Bush’s former deputy White House counsel, John Farren, is being held on $2 million bail and faces attempted murder charges after beating and strangling his wife at their Connecticut home last night.
http://tpmlivewire.talkingpoin.....php?ref=tn
Accused Holocaust Museum shooter James Von Brunn, 88, who faced a potential death penalty, has died in jail pending trial.
Jason@102,
What a moron! The last person Puddy would sockpuppet is that old crusty lagomorph Herr Goebbels Dumb Bunny.
@100
Yay! I’m a frequent visitor to Spokane and love the place. Hell, I should probably move there too.
Herr Goebbels Dumb Bunny@108… glad you finally caught up with the news. He died yesterday at 10 AM PST.
Well being a slow and decrepit Dumb Bunny maybe that’s par for the course.
Three notorious players in Bush’s political firings of 9 U.S. Attorney firings are running for office.
Tim Griffin, the man behind the “caging operations” that blocked U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan from voting in the 2004 election, is running for Congress.
So is Mary Beth Buchanan, a Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney who became infamous for political prosecutions.
And Allen Weh, a former New Mexico Republican Party chair who helped orchestrate the firing of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, is running for governor of that state.
One of the really neat things about Republicans is they’re so dishonest they steal from their own donors.
An independent audit of Republicans For Choice, a PAC purporting to support pro-life Republican candidates, shows only the group spent only 5% of its budget on supporting pro-life candidates. Most of the rest was paid to consulting outfits owned by the PAC’s director and her husband.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpoi.....lect_p.php
@109 The fact he doesn’t put it past you says something about what he thinks of your character.
@89….the “bullet” that hit Capt Watson was merely a publicity stunt by the Sea Shepards. I dont like their tactics, but I do agree that whaling should be outlawed.
Capt Watson on the other hand is an attention whore who LIED about the bullet hitting him. If it had been a real bullet, he would have been killed – or at the very least severely injured.
Capt. Watson got caught in a lie with the bullet incident…it was a complete fabrication.
@93….what is algores carbon footprint?
looks like you took algores bait – hook, line, and sinker….he cashes in while you look stupid.
So how many of ALL of the players in the firing of AG’s politically fired under clinton have ran for office? Hmmmm?
we infect Spokane?
So in retard-land, 9 AG’s fired during the course of one adminstration’s time in office is politically motivated, but Janet Reno’s firing of 93 AG’s immediately after being sworn in at the behest of the Arkansas hillbilly wasn’t?
Talk about retard logic, but then, we are dealing with liberals here, so logic isn’t necessary when leveling charges.
1. High speed to Portland and Vancouver BC makes aabout 100x more sense than to Spokane. for now.
2. The constant cries we don’t have enough money are baloney. We’re talking about a wasteful two billion dollar DBT that will end up being $4 billion.
Our state population and gross product are about the same as SWITZERLAND OR SWEDEN.
They have shitoloads of high speed trains and great infrastructure. They tax the rich we don’t, and we live under a regressive national government with the dumb 60 vote rule in the senate so the liberals and progressives can never get what we want, even when we are the majority.
hey empty suit obama. Try to follow this logic.
If you fire a US attorney because he isn’t prosecuting your political enemy…that’s illegal, immoral and unamerican. That’s what Bush did. It was criminal, impeachable, felonious, corrupt and shameful.
What Clinton did and what every other president does is fire a whole bunch on taking office … but they aren’t firing them because they didn’t persecute a political enemy. these presidents don’t commit felonies in this type of firing and haven’t perverted the justice system nor corupted it nor committed felonies nor impeachable offenses.
Can you see the difference, or are you going to argue that the en masse group firings of Clinton and Reagan and Bush I and Eisenhower were all as felonious and corrupt as the firings of Bush II?
Please explain.
And while you’re at it, don’t forget to add that the US attorneys put in by Clinton were also all big litterers, every one of them, and you know this because you heard it from your cousin in DC and everyone knows all liberals litter.
What would you know about logic?
…but not political of course…
I already have, dumbass. It just requires someone to have reading comprehension to understand.
WTF was that that above babble supposed to mean?
9 polical firings vs. 93 political firings….you do the math there, sunshine.
The retard land is that of knee jerk right wing idiocy and of course it was politically motivated. Those AG’s didn’t jackboot to the ACORN voter fraud meme of the right wing delusional system:
OOPS!
…and the truly retard-land is that of the liberals that did the same political firings…only 10 fold…just a few years earlier. This fact, however, remains elusive to the brain-dead amongst us. The willfully ignorant enjoy their ideological paradise, no fact necessary.
Empty Head @ 124 keeps spouting nonsense he knows is false. He keeps repeating it anyway.
Every President replaces every federal district attorney general when he takes office. It’s an appointed office, it’s expected. Obama replaced every George W. Bush district attorney. George W. Bush replaced every Clinton district attorney. Clinton replaced every George H.W. Bush district attorney, and so on.
But once a district attorney is in office, they are expected to exercise independence and non-partisonship in their investigation and prosecution of cases. To bow to political pressure to prosecute individuals for partison political purposes, or to refrain from prosectuting others for the same reason, is obstruction of justice and abuse of legal process. To try to intimidate prosecutors in the performance of their duties with threats of firing is also a felony.
Simpleton @125 spewed:
As you readily admit, all firings of the AG’s are political…so singling out the 9 Bush fired and soiling yourself in self righteous indignation is plain and simply ignorant and yes, retarded.
There is no evidence that the firings were done because the AG’s wouldn’t pursue a prosecution nor because they wouldn’t stop from pursuing a prosececution.
What you and the other lemmings on the left have hung your beanie cap with propeller affixed is purely speculation, which in a court of law is of no intrinsic value.
Wise up, dopes.
empty suit:
you didn’t respond to my points, indicating you have no response.
The Bush II firings were firings of US attorneys who refused to follow orders to commit felonies by persecuting political figures at the direction of Karl Rove. The Clinton firings and the firings of every other president in history, upon taking office, are for general political orientation, which is distinct that “political orders to politcally persecute public figures and commit felonies of misuse of office.”
You, sir, ignore that distinction, and you call others illogical and dumb?
The reference to littering is to your own statement the other day that all liberals litter. It proves you are a moron and a cretin. Btw, now that I gave you a reasoned argument and you failed to responsd with reason, you have opened the door to being fairly insulted again. In fact, you’re such a cretin and a moron that you pretend to not “get” the joke about littering. When we all know, you’re a moron, but you can’t be that stupid that you would forget you said that and that this was the subject of several posts the other day. This again shows you’re basically a chicken and a coward who runs away and cries to mommy because you can’t defend the fact Bush in firing the attorneys for their refgusal to file false charges and persecute political opponents is fundamentally different than what Reagan did in firing scores on taking office, what Eisenhower did on firings scores on taking office, what LBJ or Nixon did in firing scores of executive officers on taking office in every brandch and department…that’s normal politics. This is different than “politically motivated prosecutions that are false, and that are in violation of people rights, and that themselves are feloneis for misuse of office under the US code.” Your response is your usual childish drivel and consists simply of name calling and avoiding the issue. You, sir are a clown, a fool and a knave. You are a poltroon. You are a cretin and a moron and you’ve shown it once again.
Have a nice day, moron.
Empty head # 126 said:
“There is no evidence that the firings were done because the AG’s wouldn’t pursue a prosecution nor because they wouldn’t stop from pursuing a prosececution.”
Gee, you can’t open your mouth without uttering a lie, can you?
The California prosecutor was fired after prosecuting a GOP politician for corruption and bibery.
The New Mexico prosecutor was fired after receiving a phone call GOP heavyweights emphasizing the importance of him handing down indictments against Democratic politicians prior to the November elections. When he said that wasn’t going to happen and that the call was improper, he was told that his response was “dissapointing”.
Here in Washington State, the prosecutor was pushed hard by GOP activists to prosecute Democrats for vote fraud in the 2004 Governor’s race, even though the FBI said no evidence of a crime existed.
The attorney in the Justice Dept. that helped prepare the list said she wasn’t aware that what she was doing was illegal (she was, I think, a Regency University Law School graduate), but now realizes that she was involved in the commission of a felony.
The Bush administration’s attempts to argue that the prosecutions were not politically motivated came apart like cardboard in a Tsunami (I think they tried to give two or three non-political reasons, before giving up). Their final defense was “We could fire them if we wanted to, and you can’t prosecute us unless someone squeels”.
Is that enough for a conviction? Probably not. But obtaining further evidence was hampered by stonewalling by the Bush Administration’s justice department under Gonzales, and obstructionism by Bush in reventing administration officials from testifying to Congressional under claims of immunity.
All such dismissals were designed to punish prosecutors who didn’t use their office to forward the politicial interests of the Republican Party, and to serve as a warning to others.
I just ignore your ignorance. All firings of AG’s by incoming presidents are equally “political firings”. Because this is a common occurence and the fact that they serve “at the pleasure of the president”, it is always a “political firing” when done. Now, you idiots can write a book (as I see you have done), but you can’t present any evidence to back up your theories, because none exists.
Type as madly and frantically as you’d like you dopes, but it doesn’t change a damn thing.
THERE IS NO EVIDENCE
RHP and Hey…,
“Your response is your usual childish drivel and consists simply of name calling and avoiding the issue. You, sir are a clown, a fool and a knave. You are a poltroon. You are a cretin and a moron and you’ve shown it once again.”
I can’t tell, was this meant to be ironic, or are you really unable to see the irony in it?
Empty suit makes a point which you refuse to address. Two things to add-
First, the Patriot Act, that egregious instrument for stripping what remains of civil liberty, specifically allows for the “Bush 11.” As, for instance, Republicans won’t sign on to bad legislation like the 2010 Insurance and Pharma Welfare Act, I mean the health care reform bill. Bush had authority for those firings, both as chief law enforcement officer in the US and under specific legal provision.
Second, confusing the unusual with the illegal is logically insupportable. It’s unusual to fire attorneys mid-term. It may even be ill advised. But it isn’t illegal.
Try taking off the blinders and looking at facts for a change.
RHP
“Is that enough for a conviction? Probably not. But obtaining further evidence was hampered by stonewalling by the Bush Administration’s justice department under Gonzales, and obstructionism by Bush in reventing administration officials from testifying to Congressional under claims of immunity.
All such dismissals were designed to punish prosecutors who didn’t use their office to forward the politicial interests of the Republican Party, and to serve as a warning to others.”
All your ‘facts’ are anecdotes. Even in the medium sized company for which I work I could find disgruntled employees willing to stretch truth for revenge. How much more likely in a highly political job like the AG offices? The justice department came to finding about this matter which you conveniently ignore. Try reading it before going off on internet searched urban legends.
As for the political interpretations you place on your facts they are simply biased emanations of your deep underlying anger. There are courses for dealing with that, or you could continue to let it poison your life.
Yeah I guessed they learned their lessons from Medicare Part D. Pffffft…
IOKIYAR..
Re 132
Not really connected to this thread, but this begs an answer.
I find it very interesting that no-one on this blog directly answers that critique of Obamacare. It is purely and only a gift to pharma and insurance. Pharma is gauranteed price increases and insurance 40 million new customers. This should outrage both ends of the political spectrum. But playing politics means that anything Obama, Reid, Pelosi and other such leftists do is good? Glad I’m not a kool-aid drinking democrat, I guess. I like to be able to criticize Republicans when they’re wrong, and I guess that’s against the rules on your side.
Well it’s official, Amber Waldref, environmental activist and youngest woman to ever serve on the Spokane city council, has been sworn into office. She won her race by 25%. So much for the east/west divide.
ESO:
RHP response:
So state your evidence,dope. If I’m lying, you should be able to prove it. Not your assumptions, conjectures, conspiracy nut theories, but actual proof. Please limit it to only specific legal charges leveled, any and all prosecutions done and judgments received.
If I don’t hear anything back, I’ll just have to take your silence as an admission that you are the liar here, not me.
Bring it!
The divide isn’t East/West, it’s Rural/Urban. Note the 3rd legislative District.
@136
Yeah, I think you nailed it. Inside the Spokane city limits you see plenty of signs of liberalism, outside not so much. Eastern Pierce county is Republican where the N. end of Tacoma is one of the most reliably Democratic places in the state.
Empty Suit @94: you just made my point about trains having about an 80% smaller carbon footprint than jets (and limos).
Aren’t you supposed to be arguing your own(retarded) point of view – as opposed to signing off on my argument? Or, have you really hit intellectual rock bottom this time?
empty suit:
okay, thank you. you now have agreed with one of my points, which is that felonious perversion of justice and orders by karl rove to commit same, and then firing a US atty because they wouldn’t do so, is wrong.
And you have implicitly admitted that yes, this kind of politicization….which is also a fucking felony as well as perversion and corruption of our system….is diff. than what every single president does whether reagan or clinton in replacing ALL us attys on taking office.
Now, you’re backed into the position of simply questioning the factual assertion I made that the ones fired by Bush were fired for such corrupt reasons.
I decline to respond. Everyone following this case knows that the nine who were fired either didn’t prosecute some political figure or similarly refused to be corrupt. For various reasons including the GOP’s incredible loathing of the US constitution, investigations into this have been blocked stalled and opposed by the likes of you and the politicians you support, asshole.
If you don’t know this set of facts, tough. I don’t have to go link to the 20,000 news articles relating this crap. If you choose to be wilfully blind that’s your problem.
Go google the subject your own lazy self, moron. I have on obligation to you at all.
The firing of the US Attorneys by BushCo probably wasn’t illegal, even if it was specifically to punish and/or eliminate those who refused to prosecute bullshit fabricated “voter fraud” cases in an attempt to jig elections. On the other hand, it takes a pretty heavy dose of partisan Zoloft to overlook that it was a Really Bad Idea and if left alone sets a precedent for future abuses that could undermine what’s left of our pretenses to representative democracy.
To be honest, I really wouldn’t enjoy living amongst Seattlites who want to commute from Spokane. Before you know it, Spokane will turn into a debt-heavy, pretentious infused city full of folks who think if they own a BMW they have somehow made it in life. I for one like the 4.5 hour distance. Seattle is a great place to visit…once or twice a year.