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$15 Quick, Quick, Quick

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Contained in this snarky piece about Murray’s transition is some serious talk about the $15 minimum wage.

I asked Murray about the $15 minimum wage, an issue he ended up campaigning on and which has a lot of traction in the city, with Kshama Sawant’s win and the win in SeaTac. On the trail he didn’t give a real timeline for how to get there, but today he said, “We’ll begin our process immediately… We’re having our discussions in the transition team already.” He wants to “bring people to the table” (a politician? Who knew?!), and says “if we end up in a labor-business war, it won’t happen.” He also wants to be “especially sensitive to our small neighborhood businesses—like the Pike/Pine corridor,” he laughed.

I’m going to take that as a positive sign that stuff can get done quickly, and not that it means that the Chamber of Commerce or other bidness groups get a veto. He did run on it, and presumably in 4 years will want it as an accomplishment not as a place where a challenger can stake out a position to his left. And, you know, it’s the right thing to do and popular. And he’ll have at least one City Council member pushing him pretty hard on it.

1036 days, and 18,263 since

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Unlike my colleagues here at HA, I have clear, full memories of the events of 50 years ago. Darryl was just three years old at the time. It was years before Lee was born, many years before Carl was a twinkling in anyone’s eye, and possibly even before Roya’s father arrived.

In November 1963 I was 13 years old, an 8th-grader at Heritage Junior High School in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Just after we’d gotten back indoors from band practice (we were scheduled to play at halftime of the high school’s football game the next day … a game that was never played), the unimaginable announcement came over the loudspeaker as we were putting away our instruments.

Everything between that moment and arrival at the front door of my house has vanished from my memory. No recollection of gathering up my belongings, of boarding the school bus, of the half-hour ride with dozens of other dazed 12- and 13-year-old kids.

Once I got home, however, along with my entire family I was glued to the TV for days. We were a Huntley-Brinkley family, so we watched Frank McGee on NBC rather than Cronkite’s CBS. We saw President Johnson’s brief speech at Andrews AFB. We saw Lee Harvey Oswald murdered by Jack Ruby. We saw Kennedy lying in state in the Capitol rotunda. We saw the funeral procession, with muffled drums, the caisson, the riderless horse, the international leaders from far and wide, John-John’s salute, the burial in Arlington National Cemetery.

Like everyone else, we were in shock. And we were still in shock on Thanksgiving, six days after the assassination. We celebrated (if that’s the appropriate word) the holiday with relatives who lived in the DC suburbs. Over that weekend, we went to Arlington to pay our respects to the President. On that cold, blustery, sunny morning, we filed slowly and silently past the raw, freshly-turned soil of the grave. We had to be careful not to trip over the gas pipe (not yet buried) feeding the eternal flame … not an easy task with tear-filled eyes.

Since I started blogging almost 11 years ago, I’ve written a number of essays about what the assassination of President Kennedy means to me. On my own Peace Tree Farm blog, there’s Forty years (2003), The end of the innocence (2004), and 43 … and 46 (2006). My DailyKos diary on the subject is JFK and the “Where were you when…?” moment (2008). And I wrote The tricks that memory plays two years ago here on HA.

November 22, 1963 remains a central, seminal event in my life. For me, that is the day the Sixties began. The sudden, wrenching events in Dallas led directly to the immense discontinuity between the staid, black-and-white Fifties and the counter-cultural, many-colored Sixties.

How might American and world history have been different if JFK hadn’t been shot? Would there have been a Nixon, a Reagan, a Dubya presidency? Would the Vietnam War have been shorter or less lethal, or even been short-circuited completely? On the other hand, could John Kennedy have strong-armed Congress into passing the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare? We’ll never know, unless we can somehow jump into the alternative universe in which Oswald worked somewhere other than the Texas School Book Depository, or the one in which he stayed in the Soviet Union, or just the one in which he missed his target in Dealey Plaza.

I wish we lived in one of those other universes.

More Senate Republican Brilliance

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I go to the House and Senate GOP caucus websites fairly often to look for pieces to make fun of. It’s where I found Baumgartner’s piece the other day. But somehow I’d missed that they went with an offensive picture for another featured story. They had a press release about how they’re opposed to human trafficking. It’s an important issue, but they fubbed the execution.

Basically, despite the fact that most victims of human trafficking are women of color, they chose to illustrate it with a stock image of a white lady being grabbed by black hands (Spokesman-Review link).

This morning, the Senate Republican Caucus web site was down, and the photo was removed, although a spokesman for Committee Chairman Mike Padden said that was probably a coincidence. The hearing was more than a week ago, Eric Campbell said, and the site was rotating features to get more current things up.

[…]

We should note that this is a “stock photo”, one that has been used other places to illustrate sex trafficking or child pornography, primarily on web sites with ties to religious organizations. In some versions of the image, the hands over the mouth don’t seem to be quite as dark as in the above image.

It’s tough to figure out why the GOP has a problem attracting minority voters. And to be clear, I don’t think whoever put it up was acting out of malice: They probably just googled human trafficking, that came up, and they called it good. But they didn’t have any black folks in the office who’d see it before it came up to say, “google that a little harder.”

What Would A Takeover Look Like?

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Goldy deflects some of the flack coming at Kshama Sawant for suggesting the Boeing workers take over production, and start producing things that aren’t used for war. The piece is fine as far as it goes, but I think he misses the biggest problem with this kind of dismissive commentary: it doesn’t give us any idea of what a takeover might look like.

Now I have certainly no idea what a worker takeover at Boeing by its workers might look like. The best guess off the top of my head is something like Mondragon. Or maybe she has something completely else in mind; Mondragon isn’t a panacea. And in any event how the state, or others, might move from Boeing making unreasonable demands to whatever she’s pushing wasn’t discussed. It was a short speech at a rally, and there’s only so much nuance you can give. So there are more questions than answers.

But, gosh, the best people to get those answers are reporters. Rather than writing dismissive pieces, they could ask her for details. I mean they could eventually get to dismissive if that’s their position, but it would be nice to know what she’s actually proposing and how she expects to get from point A to point B before dismissing it.

Now to be clear, I don’t think I agree with her (again, to the point that I understand what she’s proposing). The best thing is probably for Boeing to realize that they need the Puget Sound workforce. But if that doesn’t happen, and Boeing continues the slow decline of their Western Washington workforce, there will be people in the region with manufacturing skills, and no job. It might make more sense for them to start something collective rather than hope that some other big company will come to the rescue, and if this discussion makes them realize that there are other options, well, I’d rather not have pundits — especially ostensibly lefty ones — shutting that discussion down.

Open Thread 11/21

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– Two Ed Murray things. I love this story of him helping a fallen cyclist (Seattle Times link). Also, here’s the transition webpage if you’re interested.

– It’s not as if the GOP aren’t marketing BS to the public on a daily basis. But I always hold out hope that people running for office won’t be so obvious about it. Color me naive.

– Does anyone care about the WA Dem Chair race? I tried to write about it, but nothing really came together. I could give it another try if y’all care.

– It was the 150th anniversary of The Gettysburg Address this week, and the biggest deal about it is that Obama was asked to read one of the versions of it. Also, how does it compare to President Whitmore’s speech from Independence Day? I’m glad you asked.

– WARONCARZ

– I would hate to be a former Zimmerman juror today. I’d also hate to be Sean Hannity, but that’s true every day.

Let Us Know

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Unlike most Seattle Democrats, Reuven Carlyle is willing to push an agenda pretty hard. Unfortunately, often times (privatizing public education and the Boeing giveaway for example) he pushes a terrible agenda. At other times, like defending King County against the state trying to vacuum up all of the money, he’s better. So, while most Seattle Dems inspire apathy and a wish that they would use their safe seats for something better than acting as placeholders, Carlyle actually has bold proposals. This is one that I like.

But Carlyle believes lawmakers and the public deserve to know how much a company like Boeing pays in state taxes, especially if that company comes to the Legislature asking for special consideration in the tax code.

Washington is certainly not alone in guarding corporate tax information. Oregon and Idaho do the same. But in Wisconsin, anyone can fill out a form and request a company’s—even an individual’s—net tax information.

Sounds good to me (although I’m not sure about individuals, or really how that would work in our sales tax heavy state). But it seems reasonable to know how much business are paying. And I was somewhat taken aback by the fact that we don’t know.

End Homelessness

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Last night The Occupy Committee to End Homelessness in King County Coalition held a camp in at Westlake Park to bring attention to Seattle’s homeless problem (and our lack of will to implement any solutions). It’s a brave thing when last night was freezing or near it. But I suppose for many of them, it’s not much of a choice.

I walked through it last night, and it was a few dozen people in sleeping bags. Then I walked home past people sleeping in doorways.

Anyway, they’ll follow it up with a march to Seattle City Hall where the Committee to End Homelessness in King County are meeting. The coalition is demanding, among other things, that we as a community divest from banks that have been active in foreclosures and that we build more affordable housing.

Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottle

It’s time to let out your inner Socialist! Please join us for an evening of politics over a pint at tonight’s gathering of the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday evening at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Our normal starting time is 8:00pm.




Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out another nearby DL meeting over the next week. Tonight the Tri-Cities and Shelton chapters meet. The South Seattle chapter meets this Wednesday. And for Thursday, the Spokane and Tacoma chapters meet.

With 212 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

Open Thread 11/19

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– The $15 SeaTac minimum wage initiative looks like it has the votes. Congrats to everyone who made that happen.

– Virginia state Sen. Creigh Deeds in critical condition after stabbing

– People are submitting so many applications for state licenses to sell marijuana.

– A Shocking Number Of Non-Violent Americans Will Die In Prison (h/t)

– Seattle Transit Blog looks at what the service cuts to Metro might look like for Seattle and the East Side.

– I don’t even know with young Republicans.

This Is Why People Are Electing Socialists

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Senator Baumgartner is upset (or pretending to be upset?) that Jay Inslee hasn’t made Washington a right to work state. It takes a lot in some of these metacommentary pieces to not just write “fuck you” after every paragraph, but instead try to come up with jokes and actual commentary. This may be one of those times where I just give into the urge.

State Sen. Michael Baumgartner today responded to Gov. Jay Inslee’s refusal to act on his call to begin moving Washington toward becoming a right-to-work state – a move that many believe will make Washington more attractive to employers, including Boeing.

Fuck you. No. I have to do more commentary. Fuck you and your corporate apologist shit. Fuck you and your anti-worker horse shit. If Boeing or Microsoft asked you to give them a blumpkin (yes, the entire company, don’t ask about the logistics, you pervert), you would probably not only do it but demand that Governor Inslee watch. Then write a whiny press release complaining when he didn’t.

According to media reports, the spokesperson for the governor told reporters a special session for right-to-work “is not going to happen.” Baumgartner, R-Spokane, and a member of the Senate Trade and Economic Development Committee, released this response:

Fuck you! Sorry, I really have to do more commentary here. Did you really think that Jay Inslee was just going to decide to fuck over unions because one of the biggest assholes in the Senate GOP caucus (and holy shit are there a lot of gigantic assholes) wrote a whiny bit of nonsense? And in a special session?

Also, he block quotes the rest of his response but since it’s in a press release, I’m not playing along with a double block quote.

“I am disappointed that the governor is not willing to engage in this effort to save Boeing jobs and attract other employers to our state, but frankly I am not surprised. This governor has shown a persistent lack of leadership when it comes to making Washington a more attractive state for employers to locate and create new jobs.

Fuck you. No — wait — here’s some more sarcasm. Yeah, that’s the fucking problem: that Jay Inslee was not friendly enough to Boeing. That Jay Inslee who just pushed the largest piece of corporate welfare in history through the legislature and is pushing for more in the form of a transit package for Boeing. That Jay inslee “has shown a persistent lack of leadership when it comes to making Washington a more attractive state for employers to locate and create new jobs”? And when, as day follows night, we’re inevitably ranked among the best states to do business, I’m sure governor Inslee won’t get any congratulations from Baumgartner.

“While he was willing to call the Legislature back to pass a series of incentives for Boeing, he repeatedly refused to urge union members to support the contract. On November 9, Governor Inslee met with the media after the adjournment of the legislative special session. He was once again given multiple opportunities to encourage machinists to accept the contract. One reporter specifically asked, ‘Are you saying that you’re ok if the machinists decide to reject the contract?’ The governor responded by calling the vote ‘an individual decision,’ once again refusing to show any level of true leadership to protect thousands of family-wage jobs in our state.

I don’t think the governor should be negotiating private sector contracts. Also, Boeing is trying to make them no longer family wage jobs. That’s the fucking point. That’s what unions do. Those jobs don’t become family-wage jobs out of the benevolence of gigantic corporations. They become them because those corporations are made to provide good wages by unions and by governments. Also, Fuck you.

“So now Washington must compete for these jobs and the governor is once again failing to lead. While Governor Inslee is off in China, rejecting my right-to-work proposal through a spokesperson, other governors are wasting no time courting Boeing and making the case that their business climate is superior to Washington’s. Within hours of learning of the machinists’ vote, Texas Governor Rick Perry tweeted, ‘Texas is a right-to-work state w/low taxes, smart regulations & skilled workers – perfect for @Boeing 777x manufacturing!’

Fuck you. Be more like Texas? Texas doesn’t have the skilled workers. Nobody outside the Puget Sound does, and if Boeing wants to start from scratch, they’ll have the same delays the South Carolina plant has had. Or hey, maybe Boeing can build a new plant next to another unregulated Texas fertilizer plant.

Also, the tax system here has been rigged by Boeing for decades, so Texas really can’t offer them better taxes. And for real, I love the implication that Jay Inslee is just fucking around in China. Like it isn’t a trade mission that will probably end up helping Boeing sell planes.

“Lawmakers in Utah, South Carolina and Alabama were making the case for their states, and Boeing representatives were on the ground or on the phone, in talks with these states the very next morning after the vote. Our aerospace workers are the best in the world, and they deserve to have a governor who is doing everything in his power to protect their jobs. Unfortunately that is not the case with Governor Inslee.

All of the fuck yous. Every single one. And frankly that probably isn’t enough. Also, who do you think the union that rejected Boeing’s shitty deal is made up of? Is it possible that they want good aerospace manufacturing jobs in the region more than you?

“The governor has a sign in his office that says ‘we can do hard things,’ yet he has never been willing to do the hard thing and stand up to his donors in organized labor, even if it has meant potentially costing Washingtonians jobs.

Fuck you. Maybe have a discussion about standing up to Boeing and other large corporate interests in this state for once?

“While his predecessor, Governor Gregoire, was willing to work in a bipartisan manner to achieve key reforms to unemployment insurance, he has refused to take on the unions when it comes to addressing our state’s out-of-control workers’ compensation costs. He has also failed to stand up to his friends in the environmental movement to provide a more reasonable permitting and regulatory climate for employers.

Fuck you. Governor Gregoire fucked over workers but it’s never enough is it? Always we need to do more and more and more and more to fuck over workers. And hey, why don’t we let people pollute more as long as we’re at it?

“Making Washington a right-to-work state is not a silver bullet that will solve all of our business climate concerns, but it is one of the concrete steps we can take to put Washington on a more even playing field with the twenty-four right-to-work states competing for these high-wage jobs. Perhaps just as important, it is also the right thing to do. Every individual should have a right to decide for him or herself whether or not to join a union and pay union dues.

Fuck you. Right to work makes the jobs less good. That’s literally the main point of them. That’s what makes them so attractive to business interests. Stop fucking using phrases like “high-wage jobs” when talking about them since the point of the proposed legislation is to lower wages. Also, fuck you and your scab propaganda. The right thing to do?

“This is about making Washington competitive, not about being anti-union. As the son of educators, I have a strong appreciation for the role unions play in our society. This is about competing for jobs and respecting the rights of workers. There is perhaps no state more associated with unions than Michigan, but on March 28 of this year, Michigan became a right-to-work state. Lawmakers there weren’t trying to attack unions; they were trying to revive the manufacturing base of their state.

Fuck you. You literally demanded that the governor “take on the unions” like 4 paragraphs before you said your plan is “not about being anti-union.” Pick one, or at least take the time away from snugglepupping Boeing for long enough to proof read your own goddamn press releases.

“Passing a right-to-work law here in Washington will be a challenge, but if they can do it in Michigan, we owe to our state’s workers, and those looking for work, to make the effort here. The governor claims he wants to do ‘hard things,’ well here’s his chance. It may be hard work, but we need to give Boeing, and all of our employers, an environment conducive to growth and job-creation, and making Washington a right-to-work state is the key step to reaching that goal.”

If Michiganders jumped off a bridge would you? I mean obviously, yes, if an executive from a big company asked him to.

PS Fuck you.

Open Thread 11/18

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– Who could have predicted?

– You don’t know how much time I tried to think of a war on Cranksgiving joke for here. Like 3 minutes at least. There isn’t one.

– Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell have a petition asking the House to take up ENDA.

– No, Mr. Feaver, Katrina isn’t shorthand for “bungled administration policy.” It’s an actual tragedy in which at least 1,800 people lost their lives. Thousands of others were left stranded without food or water in their flooded neighborhoods, on freeway viaducts, in hospitals and nursing homes, and in the televised hell-hole of the Superdome.

– Regional subtext to the Boeing special session: Left Coast (Cascadia) vs. Deep South Also, I’ve linked to several from the series, but I don’t think I’ve come out and said go read Emmett’s Cascadia Exists pieces, but you totally should if you’re interested in what makes the region unique.

– Sadly, pathetically, too many of us still see the mentally ill as crazy, nuts, losers, cursed by God, and so on. Few of us would joke about the bald head of a woman fighting cancer, but that same woman, mentally ill, wandering the streets and talking to herself – left on her own as many of the mentally ill are – would be mocked and laughed at endlessly. The woman would be the same woman, just suffering from different health ailments. The difference would be us: our knowledge and our attitudes.

– I realize you shouldn’t read too much into a press release, but it looks like good numbers for the Washington exchange.

-There is no nadir.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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So…the President walks into this bar…

Michael Brooks: The fraud, Chris Christie.

So…’sup in Canada?

The GOP: Not fresh, not new:

Mental Floss: 24 untended scientific discoveries.

Thom: The real web of economic life.

Audience laughs as Sen. Ted Cruz claims he didn’t want a shutdown (via Crooks and Liars).

Is Bitcoin coming to a campaign near you?

The Tragedy of Affordable Health Care for All:

Red State Update: Episode 52, The Fat Elephant in the Room.

Chris Hayes: Shrub and Jews for Jesus.

Young Turks: Koch brothers’ corruption on steroids.

Kshama Sawant goes national (via Slog).

Mark Fiore: Right-Winglandia.

Bill Maher with some new rules (via Crooks and Liars).

Minority Report:

Sam Seder: Gun rights group terrorizes mothers advocating for gun safety.

White House: West Wing Week.

Ed and Pap: The Rick Scott $1.4 billion fraud.

Young Turks: Trolls Invade AMA of Seattle Pastor Mark Driscoll.

Ann Telnaes: Our perpetual state of war.

Michael Brooks and Cliff Schecter: The Democratic Party’s future is progressive.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Linda Thomas is Leaving KIRO

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This is a sad development for Seattle radio:

Although I love my KIRO family, our listeners and my blog readers, I’ve decided to leave this job at the end of this year. In 2014, I’ll begin a new career that doesn’t involve being at work by 2AM. Those jobs do exist, right?

Radio is an industry where people often disappear from the dial. That leaves some listeners cheering the departure. “Finally, somebody there wised up.” Others feel like they’ve lost a friend. “I’ll never listen to that station again.” I hope you’ll cheer on the person who replaces me. I also want you to keep listening to KIRO Radio and keep checking MyNorthwest.com, as I will.

She doesn’t say what’s next, so hopefully she’ll still be around Seattle. Institutional, local knowledge and smart, well delivered news is a pretty rare commodity.

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