– A big Congrats to Dave Neiwert on 12 years’ Blogging. I’m looking forward to what he’ll do with the blog next.
– We are starting to get the outlines of what the budget debate is going to look like this session.
– I don’t know what to do about Boko Haram out here in the West, but jeez.
This is the first installment of the Civil Liberties Roundup I introduced before the New Year. It will be a running aggregation of news stories and other important items related to the outline of topics I described. As I mentioned in that post, I hope this can be collaborative with HA readers, so please feel free to email me with any items you feel I’ve left out. Here’s the roundup:
I suppose one of the more shocking aspects of yesterday’s Charlie Hebdo massacre was that it happened in the West, where both laws and cultural norms tend to provide near absolute protection to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it,” Voltaire is often credited with saying, a quote that while misattributed, still accurately represents both Voltaire’s sentiments and that of the broader French tradition. Here in the US and other modern democracies, a journalist might occasionally risk his job by speaking his mind, but almost never his life or liberty. A free press is absolutely essential to sustaining a functional democracy; indeed, neither can long survive without the other.
That is why, beyond the obvious human tragedy, the assassination of political cartoonists has so united citizens of the free world in outrage and mourning. This was an attack on the most fundamental tenet of modern Western civilization, a principle on which there cannot be an inch of compromise if democracy is to survive.
That said, it would be a mistake to be too Western-centric in our celebration of journalistic courage while ignoring the thousands of journalists who risk their lives pursuing their profession in parts of the world where freedom of the press is denied either in law or in practice. According to Reporters Without Borders, 96 journalists were killed on the job in 2014, while thousands more were arrested, threatened, kidnapped, and assaulted. And a quick scan of the list of victims will find it dominated by Arabic and other Islamic names, journalists who faced death or imprisonment every day of their professional lives.
I have long blogged by the unofficial motto “write fearlessly, or don’t bother writing at all,” but that’s a pose of false bravado that’s easy to assume when writing from the relative safety of the United States. (Also, when writing from the relative obscurity of just another local political blog.) But I’ve always been left a little in awe of the journalists who fearlessly pursue their profession in parts of the world where mere words or drawings can easily get oneself killed, beaten, or imprisoned. Which is why for the past several years I’ve been proud to use as my avatar on Twitter, Facebook, Slog, HA, and elsewhere the following unflattering caricature sketched of me by Tunisian political cartoonist Imed Ben Hamida:
A couple times a year, in my role as foul-mouthed blogger, I meet with visiting foreign delegations, usually journalists, through a program run by the State Department, and administered locally through the World Affairs Council. And in the summer of 2009 I met with Imed and five other political cartoonists from Tunisia, Qatar, Egypt, Algeria, Bahrain, and Kuwait. Here’s how the State Department briefing document described that day’s program:
Designed for political cartoonists from the Near East and North Africa, this program will examine the role of a free, independent media in a democracy vis-à-vis political cartooning. Participants will examine the practices, techniques, and ethical responsibilities of political cartoonists, the philosophical beliefs underlying their work, and the impact that their cartoons have on history, political debate, public opinion and free speech.
I always enjoy these meetings, but I remember this one being particularly fascinating. It was a year and a half before the Arab Spring, and much of our conversation centered around issues of press freedom. They seemed both amused and surprised at the manner and degree to which I could savage government officials and other subjects without fear of reprisal, and I was curious about how they could effectively ply their craft given their own legal and cultural constraints. (The short answer: “subtly.”) But we all agreed on the crucial role of political satire in shaping an honest and effective public debate.
The point of this tangent, I suppose, is to remind ourselves that our battle is with a small group of Islamist extremist assholes, not the Islamic world as a whole—an Islamic world that includes political cartoonists not much different from those who were brutally gunned down in Paris. They may not share all of our values, but they share many of them. And my strong impression from our conversation was that far from hating our freedom, these Arabic speaking political cartoonists understandably envied it.
And so in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre I continue to wear my Tunisian-drawn avatar with pride, and in a show of solidarity with political cartoonists everywhere.
I can’t find the press release mentioned in this article online, so I’ll pass doing the full metacommentary on it. But Senators Mike Baumgartner and Doug Ericksen are pushing to change the rules in the GOP controlled Senate so that it would take a 2/3 vote to pass tax increases.
It’s a terrible idea, of course. On top of being an anti-democratic copycat of an unconstitutional idea, it assumes that tax increases are somehow a different category than spending cuts. But things being terrible ideas never stopped the GOP from having them.
Without getting too deep into the parliamentary weeds, the changes involve steps before a final vote. Technically a bill should receive three “readings” before coming to a final vote. But full bills are never read completely. A clerk starts on the text and before he or she needs to take a breath the presiding officer usually calls “last line”, meaning the reader skips to the final line of the legislation, whether it’s at the bottom of that page or 1,000 pages later.
The second reading is usually skipped in a procedure called a “suspension of the rules” that allows the bill to jump forward for a final vote. Baumgartner and Ericksen want to change that rule to require a two-thirds vote to move a bill forward for the final vote. They also want to change another bill requiring that super majority when the Senate agrees to a bill that comes over from the House for final passage after being batted back and forth for changes.
Could the Democrats as stridently do that sort of nonsense? Could we require a 2/3 vote for — I don’t know — tax breaks for major corporations in the state House? Or for renewing unproductive tax cuts? Or for spending cuts? Or for spending money on counties over what they send back to the state?
And not to sound like a broken but why 2/3? What’s magic about that particular fraction? I realize several unconstitutional 2/3 initiatives passed, but is it really appropriate to say that some number Tim Eyman pulled out of his ass is the right thing? It’s just so arbitrary.
Today’s cowardly massacre at the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo is both incredibly sad and incredibly infuriating, for reasons I don’t think I really need to explain. In fact, I am so outraged, that I’m momentarily at an uncharacteristic loss for words. And so pathetic as it is, the only thing I can think of to honor the lives of the courageous satirists who were assassinated today is to reprint my own pathetic cartoon of the prophet Mohammad:
The prophet Mohammad enjoying an ice cold seltzer
I don’t pretend for a moment that I face any personal risk in posting this. I’m not nearly important enough. But lacking the words to fully express my outrage, I felt the need to make some sort of symbolic gesture, and this was the best I could come up with in the moment.
Personally, I’d rather not live than live in a world without satire. And I would hope that everybody in the media who shares this sentiment would err on the side of defiance rather than caution in honoring the lives of their fallen comrades.
– Charlie Hebdo: Gun attack on French magazine kills 12
– In our great democracy, all of the white guys are represented in Congress.
– Cis Allies and Trans Suicide
– Well, running citywide would be one way for Sawant to avoid having to run against Rod Hearne.
– Oh, we’re already talking about the next census appointment. Sure.
– Open your wallets, suckers. Huckabee’s back in business!
– SPL is a pretty great place to watch sports.
With GOP control of the Senate, I suspect much of the important work of the legislature will be pushed back another 2 years. There probably won’t be a transportation budget, again. There probably won’t be significant revenue increases (or tax restructuring in a way that will make taxes more fair), again.
On the plus side, maybe McCleary will actually force some action on education funding??? And they do have to pass a budget that in theory has to balance, so maybe that will force the issue on revenue. I’m not optimistic, but who knows?
Still, legislators will be responsible to their constituents, so we might as well say what we want.
– When I was lobbying with NARAL last session, one of the things they wanted was to try to make sure that any supplemental budget didn’t have family planning cuts. Now that the state is working on a 2-year budget, it’s probably something that has to be watched out for.
– As I said above, I don’t hold much hope that our tax structure will improved much, but we can hope.
– Barring that, Inslee’s carbon tax proposal (video loads automatically) is better than a sharp stick in the face, at least for transit funding.
– The social issue that will probably go nowhere that I’d like to see the most is the Reproductive Parity Act
– Maybe the background checks initiative passing will put a little bit more spine into legislators for other popular, common sense gun control measures.
If you’ve got something else you’d like to see, add it in the comments.
I’d also like to say that as the session gets going, I’ll probably be pushing y’all to write your legislators on various issues. I really hope you will consider taking the time to write your legislators, or key legislators, on issues. It really makes a difference. If you want to get started, you can contact your legislator here.
I’m also looking at my calendar at work, and may go down to Olympia at some point to do some actual reporting, or maybe just a bit more lobbying. Or nothing at all.
To be clear, I don’t intend to use my occasional posts here on HA to closely cover local elections. I’m mostly done with that. But I couldn’t pass by the recent buzz over Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat’s professed non-candidacy for city council without mentioning that the Democratic establishment has already apparently recruited a challenger to Socialist incumbent Kshama Sawant: former Equal Rights Washington executive director Rod Hearne. At least, that’s what I’ve been hearing.
Before their separation last year, Hearne and his former partner, high-priced PR flack Roger Nyhus, were a bit of a Capitol Hill power couple, hosting numerous political fundraisers at what Dom once described as their “swank mansion.” I’ve no idea what Hearne has been doing since—I emailed him yesterday to give him the chance to confirm, deny, or hedge on the rumors of his candidacy, but he’s yet to reply (hence the question mark in the headline).
I suppose part of the logic behind Hearne’s recruitment is that his leadership in the LGBTQ community will earn him the lion’s share of the LGBTQ vote. Or something. Sawant can’t really help herself that she’s attracted to the opposite sex (she was born that way!), but she’s a pretty fierce advocate for LGBTQ issues too. So it’s hard to see this sort of identity politics playing a decisive role in the race. And while Hearne is no doubt capable of raising a ton of money, Sawant will raise more than enough to get her message out—$200,000-plus wouldn’t surprise me—so it’s not like she can be dramatically outspent. Hearne would also garner a bunch of establishment endorsements, but that didn’t help Richard Conlin all that much in 2013. And this time around organized labor and human services organizations would be crazy not to line up behind Sawant.
And those are Hearne’s known strengths. On the other side of the ledger the “swank mansion” thing makes Hearne an imperfect challenger to diffuse Sawant’s powerful message of economic populism.
I’ve bumped into Hearne from time to time through political circles, and he seems like a nice enough guy. And who knows: Perhaps he’ll turn out to be a dynamite campaigner? But as an unapologetic Sawant partisan, I can’t say I’m all that concerned.
UPDATE: Last night Hearne confirmed to me that he is indeed running against Sawant in Seattle’s 3rd council district. So I’ve removed the question mark from the headline.
Please join us tonight for some politics and conversation over a drink at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.
We meet every Tuesday evening, rain or shine, at the Roanoke Park Place Tavern, 2409 10th Ave E, Seattle. The starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks show up before that for dinner.
Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? You have options! Check out one of the other DL meetings this week. Tonight the Tri-Cities chapter also meets. The Lakewood chapter meets on Wednesday. The Bremerton chapter meets on Thursday, as does Washington’s newest DL chapter in Kent.
There are 181 chapters of Living Liberally, including sixteen in Washington state, four in Oregon and two in Idaho. Chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting somewhere near you.
Longtime readers, both here on HA and on Slog, know that I’m kinda obsessed with fixing Washington’s absurdly regressive and unsustainable state and local tax structure. Yet more than a decade of kvetching, cursing, and exhaustively explaining why our 1930s-era kludge of a tax system can’t possibly meet the needs of our 21st century economy has sparked little serious debate amongst our state’s politicians and pundits. It’s the blogging equivalent of pissing into the wind.
And so it is at least a little bit encouraging to see state Representative Reuven Carlyle (D-Seattle) use his position as chair of the House Finance Committee to publicly advance the issue:
All of these dense policy issues fail to capture the human impact of morally bankrupt tax system. By any standard our tax system has become the most unfair to the middle class and low income in the nation. According to the Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, the lowest 20% of income earners in Washington–making an average income of $11,500 per year–pay 16.9% of their income in state and local taxes. The national average for this group is 11.1%. The top end–the proverbial one percent earning average income of $1.1 million per year–pay 2.8% of their income in combined taxes in Washington, dramatically less than the 5.6% national average.
We can no longer continue down the same path of tinkering with a broken, unfair and economically inefficient tax system that is divorced from our economy and fails to serve our communities. The 20-year trend shows absolutely no signs of relenting. In a handful of years we are likely to be 40th in the nation in the combined level of state and local taxes based on personal income. And a few years beyond that we can expect to reach 45th. Is that our vision for ourselves? Are we so caustically anti-tax that we would close the doors of our colleges to our own children? Would we close foster homes for our most vulnerable? Would we allow traffic to suffocate our industrial economy and our quality of life?
Again, nothing in Rep. Carlyle’s blog post will come as a surprise to my regular readers—I’ve been writing about this stuff for years. But I hope that the fact that it’s coming from the House Finance chair will lend the issue the gravitas that a dirty, foul-mouthed, blogger like me could never give it.
– Sen Wyden and his staff handled a hands up protest about as well as one might expect, but I’m surprised it was organized without anyone on staff’s knowledge.
– Another reminder that the Supreme Court is not always going to do the right thing.
– Male Nerds Think They’re Victims Because They Have No Clue What Female Nerds Go Through [h/t]
Matthew 21:18-19
Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.
Discuss.
Mental Floss: What is dirt made of?
The “Duke” of Louisiana:
Thom: Who should be drug tested?
Sam Seder and Cliff Schecter: Republicans have moved to crazytown on immigration reform.
White House: West Wing Week.
Obama messes up wedding…but helps makes it memorable.
“President” Michele Bachmann delivers on $2/gal gasoline (via Crooks and Liars).
It’s Back, Baby:
Thom with some Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.
Al Sharpton: Six years and running…Obama’s greatest accomplishments.
Michael Brooks: Freedomworks hilariously attacks net neutrality.
Mental Floss: 21 things that turned 21 in 2014.
Reflections and Resolutions:
Hylp: A app for ladies.
John Green: Racism in the U.S. by the numbers:
Mental Floss: Misconceptions about exercise.
Sam Seder: Republican admits G.O.P. Benghazi report is “Full of crap.”.
David Pakman: 20 states raise minimum wage in 2015.
Young Turks: West Virginia finally gets some justice, Don Blankenship is indicted.
Grimm Reaper:
Thom and Pap: How the Kochtopus is reaching for our criminal justice system.
Vsauce: Reduplications and other language curiousities.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
– Man, I’ve been taking too much time off. I’m back in real life and, hopefully, here next week. So enjoy 2015, and I’ll see you there.
– Looks like last year was a banner year for hate crimes in King County.
– Oh hey, baby orca.
I’m proud to have been able to cast a vote for NY Governor Mario Cuomo in 1990, and will forever regret that I never had the chance to cast a vote for him as president. He was one of our nation’s most inspiring orators, and one of the last of a generation of great statesmen.
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!