The latest from Eric Schwartz:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRCbMc4YPzk[/youtube]
And Bill Maher has some New Rules:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyv_Oqsr9f8[/youtube]
(There are some fifty other media clips from the past week in politics posted at Hominid Views.)
OMG. It looks like apologists for the CIA’s use of torture under the direction of the Bush Administration are going to use the foiled attack on the US Bank Tower in LA as evidence that torture worked.
In an op-ed piece in the Washington Times, entitled “Waterboarding saved L.A.,” Terence Jeffrey writes:
This, after pointing out that:
But, wait a minute. Back in Feb. of 2006 President Bush was citing this same “Liberty Tower” plot as one that the Bush Administration had successfully foiled:
At present, comments on Mr. Jeffrey’s opinion piece are “temporarily disabled,” so I can’t ask him. Were they not disabled, I’d ask:
Mr. Jeffrey, exactly how did Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, who wasn’t even in US custody until March of 2003, manage, under subsequent interrogation, to provide information that led us to the arrest of the leader of a terrorist cell in February of 2002?
Perhaps some of our wingnut trolls can answer that question? Does waterboarding also include a time machine that allows us go backward in time to use the information we get?
Unfuckingbelievable.
1 – Of course. The wingnuts will bend, distort, bloviate, name-call to deny the overwhelming reality that their movement that they’ve placed so much faith is a corrupt, stinking corpse.
Oh does it suck to be these fools!
Gee Goldy, you forgot to applaud Stefan for his successful lawsuit against corrupt government:
King County settles vote-records suit from 2004 governor race
King County has agreed to pay conservative blogger Stefan Sharkansky $225,000 to settle a public records lawsuit he brought over the county’s delay in releasing documents about the 2004 governor’s election.
Read the whole thing!
I’m sure you have.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....ger25.html
Thank you Stefan…you have helped make government accountable.
PS–
How can Don Ron Sims King be in the Obama Administration that touts OPEN GOVERNMENT??
I’m just askin’
Has anyone noticed the decline in mahers show since obama was elected. I wonder if it’s because he refuses to mock the obama.
So Marvin the Pervert what evidence do you offer to back up your stupid lie about Bill’s show? Oh yeah – the usual amount of evidence we see from you – NONE!
@1 Washington Times, are you kidding? That’s the Moonies’ rightwing propaganda sheet. Nobody cares what they think, except their sweatshop slaves.
@3 Leave it to Mr. Cynical to applaud Stefan’s taking $225,000 from taxpayers and putting it in his own pocket. That’s what Mr. C thinks constitutes public service and good government.
The New York Times spent millions extracting the Pentagon Papers from the government, but didn’t ask to be reimbursed by taxpayers.
Here in Washington, both the Seattle P-I and Seattle Times have spent big bucks on lawyers to extract documents from government agencies under our state Public Records Act, but neither of those entities ever expected or asked to be reimbursed by taxpayers.
Apparently Stefan has a different business model. When he asks for public records, he isn’t doing it as a journalist, or for public benefit. For him, King County taxpayers are a profit center.
Torture is illegal and a grievous moral wrong. In addition, it puts our citizens and soldiers in danger of being tortured, because adversaries will say the fact our country did it means they can do it, too.
Republicans ordered torture. They must have known it was illegal and wrong, because they concealed the fact they were torturing people, and lied about it. The bloggers and loudmouths who defend them are Republicans, too.
Draw your own conclusions.
Rog Rabbit @ 7–
First, welcome back. I was worried about you. If you croak, who will I banter with where it’s actually enjoyable?? Here’s to your improved health.
Second, you are a complete moron re: the need for government to be upfront, prompt and complete re: Public Records requests. Open Government is a key to longetivity of our system.
BTW, Stefan spent tons of time and money pursuing this on behalf of ALL of us. Stefan Sharkansky is a great American. He made next to nothing on this Rabbit…other than to send a message to korrupt King Kounty.
Re-read your post Rog. You sound like Stalin.
@9 If Stefan made “next to nothing,” then who got the $225,000?
C’mon, Cynical, how much is “tons of time”? If he spent 40 hours a week for 3 years on this, the most he invested was 6,000 hours of labor, and if you divide that into $225,000, it works out to $37.50 an hour.
I think the single-mom waitress he got fired for correcting his rowdy kid, who was disturbing other restaurant patrons, would love to have a job paying $37.50 an hour. Even allowing for Stefan’s generous tipping, I doubt she was making anywhere near that. Hell, right now she’d probably be happy to have a job paying $9.50 an hour.
On behalf of us? Are you serious? Stefan is neither a journalist nor a public servant. He is a partisan propagandist who did this to promote a lie (that Gregoire “stole” the election) and further an ideological agenda. Don’t misunderstand, I have nothing against that, but I don’t think partisan propagandists like me and Stefan should be paid by taxpayers for what we do.
It’s hard to see what, if anything, this raid on the public treasury accomplished for citizens like you and me. You can’t justify it in terms of running off Dean Logan — even if that’s deemed a public good — because Logan left years ago. It didn’t change the election result, and doesn’t prove anything beyond what we already know: That elections are complex enterprises, and no one is capable of running a perfect election. Can any reasonable person believe that Stefan turned up evidence of criminal wrongdoing where the FBI and Republican prosecutors found none? No, Mr. C, Stefan is merely a public records hobbyist who was extremely well-compensated for busy work that proves we need a professionally managed, not politically elected, elections department in King County. I said the same thing over a year ago, and if that’s worth $225,000, then I want the county to cut me in a check in a similar amount.
You, sir, have established yourself as a world-class hypocrite alongside Stefan. The two of you have spent years railing against soaking taxpayers for things like public education, transportation projects that support commerce and our economy, health care for poor kids, and so on. Yet, you think putting $225,000 of public money in Stefan’s pocket for whatever it is that he did is a wise and fruitful use of 2,250,000 taxpayer dimes. I don’t need to say anything; this speaks for itself.
The only thing this settlement proves is that the Legislature needs to take a hard look at reforming the Public Records Act.
As I’ve pointed out in another thread, the penalty provisions of the PRA have spawned a large cottage industry of private individuals trying to profit by inundating public agencies with records requests.
They don’t want the records, they don’t know what’s in the records, and they don’t use the records for anything when they get them; they simply toss them into the recyle bin.
The sole objective of these records requests is to trip up the agency in order to collect a monetary penalty.
I’m not saying there aren’t citizens who request public records for legitimate purposes, or that there isn’t a problem of some public entities denying, stalling, or procrastinating in opening public records to citizens entitled to them.
But there has to be a better way of enforcing legitimate requests for public records than the current system that creates huge financial incentives to manufacture penalties.
It also should be understood that, as large as the high-profile penalties collected by a few individuals are, the penalties are the least of the costs to public agencies of the flaws in the PRA. It is very costly to public agencies, and therefore to taxpayers, to respond to bullshit requests whose sole purpose is to manufacture a PRA violation that will trigger a penalty.
The public needs to understand there are predators who ask public agencies for thousands of pages of documents they don’t want for the sole purpose of manufacturing a PRA violation; that the PRA requires agencies to provide these documents; and the costs of doing so in terms of staff time and other resources are enormous. And every penny of it is wasted, and none of these expenditures serve any useful purpose, either for the public or for the individual requesting the records.
Unfortunately, there’s no simple way to sort legitimate records requests from predatory ones, even though the latter often are easily recognizable. The issue did get some newspaper publicity in this legislative connection, primarily in connection with a prison inmate who was seeking sensitive personal information about his jailers, including their home addresses. This example serves to illustrate how badly a well-intentioned law (which originated as a popular citizen initiative) can go awry, and that the PRA is an unfinished work that needs more polishing.
There is a sure way to shut down the manufactured-penalty industry, though, and that’s by taking the personal profit component out of the compliance incentive system. That’s easy to do; you can still fine public agencies for violating the PRA, but instead of giving the money to profit-seeking individuals, you give it to the public. In other words, fine the agency, and take the money out of their budget, but send it to another public entity that either spends it on something that benefits the public or returns it to the taxpayers in the form of tax rebates or tax cuts.
Regardless, the current system of financially incentivizing predatory requests for public records shouldn’t and can’t continue. The Legislature should address this issue in its next session, if not sooner.
I’ll probably get an argument from Cynical (and others) that most of the $225,000 went for attorney fees, and Stefan deserves to reimbursed for what he spent out of his own pocket to sue the county.
Poor baby.
Under the American legal system, litigants pay their own lawyers fees. Period. If you’re injured in a car accident by some asshole who was speeding and ran a red light, your legal expenses for suing him come out of your settlement, not his insurance or personal assets.
If neighborhood vandals spray-paint graffitti on your fence and throw rocks through your windows, you have to sue them in small claims court on your own time and at your own expense, and then you have to spend more of your own money to collect the judgment. You don’t get reimbursed for that.
Why should Stefan have special privileges that people who suffer real injuries from real law-breaking don’t? Why shouldn’t he have to bear the same disadvantages and expenses that every other aggrieved individual seeking redress under our legal system is forced to bear?
It seems to me that if we’re going to change the system for people like Stefan, than we should change it for everyone. If he can get his attorney fees reimbursed, then victims of accidents and intentional trespasses should be allowed to recover their attorney fees, too.
This is America, where people expect equal treatment. Let’s not create a royalty of public records hobbyists who enjoy special compensations and privileges the rest of us don’t get.
Yup Rog–
Evil King Kounty Executive Don Ron Sims King can defy the law and suffer no personal consequences…shifting the penalty to the taxpayers.
That’s outrageous, isn’t it!
Sims should reimburse King Kounty $225,000.
You are looking mighty foolish trying to shift the burden onto Stefan Rog.
C’mon, Sims failed to follow the law…by a mile! Now he has gotten promoted!
Only in government.
Then there should have been a prosecution by the Republican U.S. Attorney McKay. There was none because they looked at the facts and saw no basis for going ahead.
This is one right wing myth that refuses to die.
And it disgusts me that all that KC taxpayer money will be going to the loony right wing crank of Greenlake. As if there weren’t a multitude of places where that money could be better spent.
YLB–
Had the Sims GANG not taken 3 years to respond to a clear, concise Public Records request…you would have that $225,000 in the Kounty Koffers and saved a ton of staff and legal time.
Spin it all you want.
King Kounty failed us all.