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Open Thread 7/11

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– “I can tell you this: No matter who introduces it, it is not going anywhere in the Senate,” Murray said. “We are not going to let it come up in the Senate. There is no reason for it. This is settled law. We are not going to be sidetracked by a debate on women’s health yet again.”

– I don’t know why I keep mentioning these and then not going, but there’s a Seattle Balloon Juice Meetup.

– So how long is it respectable to pretend that David Boardman was anything other than a right wing hack who survived at The Seattle Times for 30 years by being a right wing hack?

– You wouldn’t think this would be necessary to say, but in the last two days, I’ve seen 2 different cars that looked to me anyway to not be county vehicles on bike paths. Don’t do that.

– I haven’t had fruit flies yet this year (something something eat more fruit, Carl), but this is a neat idea for when they come.

Comments

  1. 1

    In all the years I’ve worked in and around Seattle media – most of which have featured plenty of complaints about the Times and its personnel, and lots of chatter about David – I have never heard him described as a “right wing hack” or anything similar. By anyone. Until now.

    Mind you, I’m not particularly a fan of his, and he’s unquestionably made some terrible decisions over the years (though leaving the Times isn’t one). And plenty of the Times’ bad institutional decisions tend to be the product of right wing hackery. But RWH has never been perceived as a Boardman thing by anyons I know. That sort of stuff comes more from the Blethens and from people brought in to satisfy the Blethens.

    This is a paper that once had Michelle Malkin on its editorial board. That’s the sort of thing I think of with “Times” and “right wing hackery.” If you’re going to professionally impugn someone like that, don’t just throw it away as a one-liner. Back it up.

  2. 2

    I just hope that Mr. Boardman in his new position finds he actually has any students to teach–both for his sake and ours.

  3. 3

    Great article about the horror of police militarization and abuse:

    “They did their thing,” Taylor says. “Everybody on the floor, guns and yelling. Then they put the two kids in the bedroom, did their search, then sent me in to take care of the kids.”

    Taylor made her way inside to see them. When she opened the door, the eight-year-old girl assumed a defense posture, putting her- self between Taylor and her little brother. She looked at Taylor and said, half fearful, half angry, “What are you going to do to us?”

    Taylor was shattered. “Here I come in with all my SWAT gear on, dressed in armor from head to toe, and this little girl looks up at me, and her only thought is to defend her little brother. I thought, How can we be the good guys when we come into the house looking like this, screaming and pointing guns at the people they love? How can we be the good guys when a little girl looks up at me and wants to fight me?And for what? What were we accomplishing with all of this? Absolutely nothing.”…

    Taylor recently ran into the little girl who changed the way she thought about policing. Now in her twenties, the girl told Taylor that she and her brother had nightmares for years after the raid. They slept in the same bed until the boy was eleven. “That was a difficult day at work for me,” she says. “But for her, this was the most traumatic, defining moment of this girl’s life. Do you know what we found? We didn’t find any weapons. No big drug operation. We found three joints and a pipe.”

    http://www.alternet.org/civil-.....paging=off

    This moronic drug war can’t end soon enough.

  4. 4

    Deficit? What Deficit?

    CNBC reports the U.S. Treasury ran a $117 billion surplus last quarter.

  5. 5

    4 – The U.S. government posted an unexpectedly large budget surplus in June, a further sign of the rapid improvement in public finances that has taken the heat off Congress to find savings and raise the nation’s borrowing limit.

    How sweet it is.. This will have klownservatives screaming “liberal plot” and tearing out clumps of hair from here to Miami.

    Alpha klownservative krackpot Issa will try to save the day with another bullshit scandal to distract from this. He’ll fail.. That last one all but died with whimper.

  7. 7

    I probably shouldn’t say anything about how my stock collection is doing today, because that might piss somebody off.

  8. 8

    Wow…

    On July 1, federal student loan rates doubled—yes, doubled—from 3.4 percent to 6.8, after members of Congress went home for fireworks without lifting a finger on the issue. Meanwhile, in Oregon, legislators unanimously passed a bill paving the way for students to attend public universities without paying tuition or taking out traditional loans at all.

    Fueled by the organizing savvy, policy creativity and relentless effort of the state Working Families Party, and by a classroom of outstanding college students, the new bill offers a progressive victory and a common-sense national model on an issue where Congress has recently been derelict at best. The legislation, which Democratic Governor John Kitzhaber is expected to sign, instructs Oregon’s Higher Education Coordination Commission to come up with a “Pay It Forward, Pay It Back” public university financing model in time for a legislative vote in 2015.

    http://www.thenation.com/blog/.....udent-debt

    A model for the entire country.. Greedhead student debt profiteers and klownservatives will attack this with everything they’ve got!

  9. 9

    @8 It’s intriguing, but I have a couple of questions.

    How would it work for students with athletic scholarships or veteran’s educational benefits?

    And would it be mandatory for all students, or just a tuition-payment option? If the latter, it seems likely students going into low-paying occupations — teaching, social work, the arts, etc. — would be more likely to opt for it, while students aiming for business and finance degrees would opt out. How would that affect the program’s finances?

    Considering student loan debt exceeds credit card debt, and Uncle Sam guarantees lenders will be repaid, banks won’t like losing the student loan business.

  10. 10

    @4
    The pubtards will no doubt now claim that there is a surplus because of the sequester and that it was their idea and was all along.

  11. 11

    Sen. Rand Paul today defended a staffer who once praised John Wilkes Booth for assassinating President Lincoln, opposed allowing people who speak Spanish to immigrate to the U.S., and called himself “the Southern Avenger.” Paul denied the staffer, whom he employs as his social media director, is a racist and said he wouldn’t employ him if he was.

    http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/po.....rate-past/

    Roger Rabbit Commentary: Should a hospital employ Dr. Mengele if he pledged he isn’t performing medical experiments on children anymore?* At what point do you overlook a person’s past; and how much past can a person have before you don’t overlook it?

    * I know for a fact he isn’t, because he’s dead. He drowned in 1979.

  12. 12

    So some guy made a living as a radio shock jock in a southern state by waving the Confederate flag and praising the murder of President Lincoln, in a fit of youthful exuberance or out of economic necessity or whatever. Should that guy be working in a U.S. Senator’s office years later, even if he disavows his previous rantings and says he feels “embarrassed” by his youthful behavior? Considering that he said that stuff to public audiences on radio airwaves and in public appearances, probably making an impression on listeners that may endure to this day in the form of antisocial and racist attitudes and behavior, should disavowing it give him a clean slate? What do you think?

  13. 13

    So some guy made a living as a radio shock jock in a southern state by waving the Confederate flag and praising the murder of President Lincoln, in a fit of youthful exuberance or out of economic necessity or whatever. Should that guy be working in a U.S. Senator’s office years later, even if he disavows his previous rantings and says he feels “embarrassed” by his youthful behavior? Considering that he said that stuff to public audiences on radio airwaves and in public appearances, probably making an impression on listeners that may endure to this day in the form of antisocial and racist attitudes and behavior, should disavowing it give him a clean slate? What do you think?

  14. 14

    My guess is Sen. Paul may have a hard time keeping that guy on his payroll after this revelation.

  15. 15

    House Republicans passed a farm bill today that’s DOA in the Senate. Unable to slash food stamp spending in a broad farm bill, they split off food stamps and passed farmer subsidies separately, figuring to axe food stamps later. This will hit a brick wall in the Senate and the president has pledged a veto.

    In my opinion, House Republicans shouldn’t be paid their taxpayer-funded salaries. They’re wasting everyone’s time on legislation that has no chance of becoming law while Democrats control the Senate and White House. It’s nothing more than partisan grandstanding while the nation’s work is left undone. Like any other bunch of loafing employees, they shouldn’t be paid.

  16. 16

    You know who might like to get a Farm Bill passed… into law? I think the farmers in Eastern Washington might like to get the Farm Bill done.

    Good thing they’ve got legislative powerhouses like Eastern Washington’s 5th congressional district Representative and Chair of the House Republican Conference, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who is there to ensure ….


    7/12/12

    Washington, D.C. – Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) applauded the House Agriculture Committee for passing a new farm bill last night in a bipartisan vote. The legislation – which is a high priority for Eastern Washington’s agricultural community – now moves to the House floor.

    “Eastern Washington’s farmers and ranchers deserve the certainty of a new five-year farm bill, and I appreciate Chairman Lucas and the rest of the Committee for passing a solid bill that maintains our commitment to rural America while improving the efficiency of many programs,” said Rep. McMorris Rodgers. “I’ve been a strong advocate for getting a new farm bill signed into law this year, and I will continue working with my House colleagues to make that goal a reality. With yesterday’s important milestone, I am more confident than ever that it will get done, which will be a great victory for Eastern Washington’s largest industry.”

    Get that?
    This “leader” was “confident” a year ago that the caucus she leads would get it done.
    And where are we a year later?

    Nowhere!

    Good for you, WA-05!

  17. 17

    Adding to @16 above…

    The link to McMorris Rodgers, Chair of the House Republican Conference, gives us this

    For more information about the House farm bill, click here.

    Page Not Found

    Good for you WA-05!

  18. 18

    4.

    Ah yes Roger, but what you failed to mention is we are seeing rising interest rates, and now within a spitting distance of 17 trillion in debt which these rising interest rates will hit. When this happens sequestration and its effects will look like child’s play.

    Also it does not take a Rocket Roger to see why Owebammacare’s employer mandate got shoved off past the 2014 election. Wait till you see the layoffs the year that toad lands. They have already started…see Wegmans grocers cuts part time employees health benefits.

    PS your gas prices are about to take a wild jump. I counted 30 brand new Nissan Leafs being unloaded at the dealer today.

    The costs of ignorance are a bliss.

  20. 20

    @ 19

    The costs of ignorance are a bliss.

    Bus-boy @18 must be having an orgasm every minute.

  21. 21

    @1,

    Geov, I generally trust your media criticism instincts I trust more than my own. So I’m going to expand on it, but wary of the first rule of holes I’ll start out more irenic.

    The paper has done fine job keeping content. Sometimes I buy another local paper and the news section is so thin that it makes you wonder why they even bothered. That doesn’t happen with the Seattle Times, and it’s to his credit. As is much of the investigative reporting that goes on in the paper. Yay for all of that; it certainly wasn’t inevitable in any 21st century newsroom.

    Still, if he’s responsible for that good, he surely has a responsibility for his paper making up lies about Darcy Burner’s education or at the very least not correcting them. For the paper making up quotes to oppose the head tax, and then not disciplining the reporter who did that (as far as I can tell from the outside). For their newsroom, not just editorial, petty nonsense against McGinn (I’m not saying McGinn should’t be criticized, Lord knows. I’m saying the way they do it isn’t about the legit criticism, it’s petty and pathetic).

    Now, maybe that sort of thing is inevitable in a newsroom where Frank Blethen is a publisher, and it would make more sense to attack the tide for coming in and going out. But a lot of right wing hackyness happened on his watch, and if he couldn’t, wouldn’t, or just didn’t stand up to the publishers, the result is the same.

  22. 22

    @18 “your gas prices”

    You mean YOUR gas prices. I’m a rabbit, I hop everywhere, I don’t buy gas, I own stock in companies that sell it, who gladly take your money (the more, the better) and send me dividend checks (ditto). Thanks for your business, I appreciate it. Come see us again.

  23. 23

    @18 “we are seeing rising interest rates”

    No problemo. That didn’t stop my stocks from going up another $4,461.29 today, after Bernanke promised to keep the printing press running indefinitely. And if Uncle Sam needs more, the guy who paid $48.8 million for this chunk of graffiti-sprayed concrete can afford to pay more taxes.

    http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news.....68791.html

  24. 24

    @21 It used to be you needed a $150 million printing plant to publish your opinions. Now anyone can do it for the cost of an internet connection. And there’s only one guy in this town who’s stuck with a $150 million printing plant he can’t sell. Be happy you’re not him. I’d rather be almost anyone but Frank Blethen.

  25. 25

    Something else I noticed noticed about the Quebec train accident. Last year, TRAINS Magazine did an issue on how railroads work, and one of the articles was on dispatching. The sidebar was how a small, regional does it. The example, Montreal, Maine, and Atlantic, and the more I read, it was not territory for a crude oil train. It’s mostly unsignaled, Dark Territory, operating under track warrants from the dispatcher, which they only have one on duty.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_territory

  28. 28

    Maybe the Great Recession should be called the Billionaires’ Recession, not only because they caused it, but also because they’re prospering mightily as a result of it.

  29. 29

    @26 Should’ve built it with union labor. That’s what moving your factory to a right-to-work state gets you.

  32. 32

    Here’s the GOP program for America: Only Republicans are allowed to vote, only wage earners have to pay taxes, and your kids fight their wars.

    Why would anyone in their right mind vote for that? Unless, of course, they’re a Republican …

  33. 33

    1) Low wage outsourcing
    2) ???
    3) Profit!

    Boeing Dreamliner 787 ‘forced to return’ to Manchester

    12 July 2013 Last updated at 14:33 ET
    A Boeing 787 Dreamliner jet has been forced to return to Manchester Airport following “a technical issue”.

    The Thomson Airways plane was travelling from Manchester to Sanford, Florida but circled over North Wales for 30 minutes before returning.

    The holiday company said the incident was not connected to a fire on a parked Ethiopian Airlines Dreamliner at Heathrow Airport earlier.

  35. 35

    34)Wasn’t it Steve Schmidt’s idea to put Palin on the ticket because they needed a game changer? At least he admits the party is too far with kooks worse than Palin.

  36. 36

    35 – you’re probably right, but I don’t think he realized what a kook Palin was until it was too late.

  37. 37

    36)I remember when the movie came out, Nicole Wallace admitted she did not vote for her own party(but not for Obama either), after being the campaign aide that had to work with her.

  38. 38

    “Court records show an Oregon man told police he was using his assault rifle as a crutch to help him get up from a couch at a friend’s apartment when it fired a burst through the ceiling and killed a little girl upstairs.”

    http://blogs.seattletimes.com/.....-it-fired/

    Roger Rabbit Commentary: Morons shouldn’t have guns. If the Second Amendment says otherwise, it should be amended.

  40. 40

    I don’t believe his crutch story. I don’t believe he didn’t know it was a fully automatic weapon. I believe he pointed the rifle at the ceiling and pulled the trigger to show off, then made up an accident story when informed he had killed a child in the apartment above.

  41. 41

    Who would dream their child would be killed by some jackass in the apartment below firing a machinegun at the ceiling?

    There are too damn many kinds in this country, the wrong kind of guns, and the wrong people have them. If the Second Amendment prevents us from doing anything about it, then this country needs to amend or repeal the Second Amendment.

  42. 42

    Who would ever dream their child would be killed by some jackass in the apartment below firing a machinegun into the ceiling?

    There are too damn many guns in this country, the wrong kind of guns, and the wrong people have them. If the Second Amendment prevents us from doing anything about it, then this country needs to amend or repeal the Second Amendment.

    This isn’t 1776 anymore. Few of us are subsistence hunters anymore. The Second Amendment has outlived its usefulness.

  45. 45

    Turns out that the Montreal, Maine, and Atlantic was not doing that well before the accident. The oil train deal was a financial lifesaver, well, before last weekend at least. The previous owner, the Bangor and Aroostock, went bankrupt, and the paper mills that provided the traffic, were going under. Mr. Burkhardt had, at Wisconsin Central not only purchased ex-Soo line trackage in Wisconsin, he also purchased the Algoma Central in Ontario, and took advantage of privatization in New Zealand and the UK.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07.....1&

    When he was forced out(or left, I am not sure), WC was acquired by Canadian National, which kept Algoma Central(and it’s Sault Saint Marie-Hearst, Ontario remote lifeline passenger train), but the overseas assets were sold off. The UK freight carrier English, Welsh, and Scottish railway was eventually acquired by DB Schenker, a division of Deutsche Bahn, and the New Zealand was sold to another owner, and then bought back by the government, and operates now as KIWIRAIL.

  46. 46

    RR @ 42

    The following is an exchange involving some libertarian friends of mine on Facebook:

    Person 1:

    [W]e have a level of constant government monitoring and of police militarization that the Stasi would have masturbated over, and yet it is not used frequently. Dissidents are not routinely rounded up. The hammer is, for the most part, just… ready.

    Person 2:

    Yeah, what bothers me is that the scope and capacity of what the US government can do to spy on people is way beyond anything seen historically. It’s really on par with dystopian fantasies like 1984. But that power does not seem to be abused much yet. But it very well could be at some future point. Even governments like China don’t have the power the US does, even if they are much more likely to abuse what power we have. The US can effectively spy on the whole world because of its privileged position over the backbone of worldwide internet traffic.

    Person 1:

    *much* and *yet*. Also the insane level of militarization of every damn local police force. Also cop cars on many forces (and Feds on Interstates) routinely and automatically tag license plates of *everyone* and that data is centralized and databased forever.

    Clearly no one ever thought to ask why there is such an “insane level of militarization of every damn local police force.”

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