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Drinking Liberally — Seattle

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DLBottleThere are only 19 days left in this year’s War on Christmas. So please join the fray by wielding a pint this evening at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but some folks will show up earlier for dinner.

Bye, bye, Herb Herm…we are soooo going to miss you:



Can’t make it to Seattle? The Tri-Cities chapter of Drinking liberally meets every Tuesday night at 7:00pm, and Thursday night, Drinking Liberally Bremerton meets at 5:00pm.

With 231 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and five more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s one near you.

McKenna’s campaign of petulance

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Why did Dino Rossi lose his second gubernatorial bid and his only U.S. Senate bid? The way I see it, Rossi lost because voters recognized something unlikable in him. The public’s first big taste of the unlikable side of Rossi came in his 2005 “concession speech,” following the loss of a bitterly-fought legal contest at the end of his first gubernatorial fight:

With today’s decision, and because of the political makeup of the Washington state Supreme Court, which makes it almost impossible to overturn this ruling, I am ending the election contest.

It wasn’t a moment of statesmanship for Rossi. In his subsequent 2008 and 2010 statewide elections, Rossi frequently exhibited a similar peevishness that left a bad impression with voters. Maybe he was deeply bitter (2008), or maybe he was annoyed at being forced to run a hopeless campaign (2010). Either way, he was unlikable.

Fast forward to late 2011. We have one Rob McKenna running for Governor. This is a man who has been elected twice to Attorney General, the second time with 59% of the vote.

This time McKenna has a serious liability in his run for Governor: He comes off as a petulant asshole.

We can all look back with bemusement that McKenna kicked off his campaign by excluding Goldy in his role as a reporter for The Stranger. Confronted by uber-legitimate Stranger reporter Eli Sanders, McKenna impishly replied:

“I don’t think David Goldstein qualifies as a journalist,” a miffed McKenna told Eli. “He’s a hack. He’s a partisan hack. He’s just there to parrot points from the other side.”

More recently, McKenna has decided that all Stranger reporters are personae non gratae:

Gubernatorial wannabe and anti-health-care crusader Rob McKenna is holding a campaign kick-off breakfast tomorrow morning, but The Stranger, if you can believe it, is not allowed inside. After I emailed the campaign to RSVP, I got a call back from McKenna-protector Adam Faber explaining, “Tomorrow’s event is for invited press only, and we didn’t invite The Stranger.” […]

“This is very simple and it is all I intend to say,” Fabar intentionally said. “The Stranger’s editorial director has made a $500 donation to our opponent and political blogger, Mr. Goldstein, is listed on the PDC reports as the head of a political action committee called the No Rob PAC. I think that speaks for itself.”

Well, Adam, it’s actually called the No Reversing Our Benefits PAC.

Dan Savage donated $500 to Inslee. Ooooohhh. Goldy, before he was employed by The Stranger created a PAC called “No Reversing Our Benefits PAC,” with the amusing acronym “NoROB PAC”. It was a fucking joke…unless you are a peevish and, perhaps, paranoid gubernatorial wannabe.

McKenna made a peevish spectacle of himself again when a Democratic videographer showed up to video tape his talk in a openly-advertised public venue. After his attempts to intimidate the videographer failed, McKenna terminated the presentation and beat a retreat to the “cupcake table.”

And then there’s the episode where McKenna had fucked up its own campaign cash rollover and bitterly complained about Jay Inslee’s query to the PDC about rolling over his federal dollars into his state campaign.

Recently a special session of the state legislature was convened that, by law, prohibits state elected officials, like McKenna but not Inslee, from fundraising. The McKenna campaign wailed like a spoiled child:

“At what point does Congressman Inslee start acting like someone following Washington state rules, instead of someone following Washington D.C. rules?” [McKenna’s campaign manager Randy] Pepple said.

(If McKenna wants a level playing field, perhaps he would agree to commute to D.C. for the work week….)

McKenna’s most recent display of petulance was last Friday when, at the last minute, he cancelled an interview with the Washington Education Association:

WEA members were disappointed McKenna decided not to share his opinions on education with the group, Lindquist said.

“The teachers here wondered why he wasn’t here. They were speculating that he was afraid to meet with us,” or that education was not one of his priorities, Lindquist said.

McKenna’s campaign manager, Randy Pepple, said the attorney general decided not to attend the WEA endorsement interview because he didn’t expect to have a fair hearing with people who were interested in hearing his point of view.

“It became very apparent yesterday that the WEA was turning today into `celebrating the endorsement of Congressman Inslee Day,'” Pepple said Saturday.

Lindquist said the WEA changed the date of its candidate interviews after McKenna said he had a conflict with the original Nov. 12 date. His campaign called the union on Friday afternoon to cancel his interview with the WEA-PAC Board. The union said he also refused to answer written questions about public education.

McKenna thinks he cannot win, so takes his ball and goes home. Maybe he got a cupcake.

Dissing the teachers was a stupid—and revealing—unforced error on McKenna’s part. For one thing, McKenna fancies himself as big on education. Apparently, he’s not so “into” it that he can communicate with teachers.

And dissing a teachers’ union raises a big red flag for folks who aren’t quite convinced that a Governor McKenna would do for Washington state what Governor Scott Walker has done to Public Sector employees in Wisconsin. Over the past year, we have seen a systematic Republican War on Workers. Would a Gov. McKenna bring the war to Washington? You know…the same way he forced us to join the multistate lawsuit against the healthcare reform law?

A better McKenna would have engaged the teachers, recognize common ground, acknowledge differences and made his best case. Instead, McKenna ran from the fight and then whined about it. And what we know from recent elections…the voters just don’t go for petulant whiners.

Drug War Roundup

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– That News Tribune piece on Roy Alloway and the WestNET drug task force is absolutely incredible. Their outrageous behavior was one of the major reasons the Cannabis Defense Coalition exists today. There was always somewhat of an understanding that Alloway and his associates weren’t playing by the rules, but Sean Robinson does an outstanding job going back through their history and providing more detail on exactly how often and how blatantly they either cut corners or simply broke the law. Most damning is the fact that they even fabricated their statistics in order to continue qualifying for federal funds.

– Sorry, but if you want to be a police officer, you’re not allowed to have independent thoughts or opinions.

– Also from the New York Times, the DEA has participated in money laundering and other normally-illegal behavior involving drug proceeds as way to build cases against drug lords. None of this is news to people who’ve been following the drug war, but it’s now being lumped into the greater witch hunt over Fast and Furious. Folks on the right are trying to paint this as something unique to the Obama Administration, but that’s quite a stretch. In fact, nothing in Fast and Furious is even close to as bad as the Juarez House of Death case, where ICE and the DOJ were aware that a paid government informant was killing people in Mexico, but did nothing about it. That, of course, happened during the Bush Administration. And not surprisingly, no one in Congress demanded that anyone resign over it.

– Maia Szalavitz writes about the new study showing that states with medical marijuana laws have seen larger decreases in drunk driving fatalities than states that don’t have them. My first reaction to the study was skepticism, primarily because I’ve never been a big believer in the substitution theory, that when marijuana is sold through legal channels people will replace their alcohol consumption with marijuana use. But if that’s what’s happening, it should be pretty obvious that it will lower the number of traffic fatalities.

Luxury Tax

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In baseball, teams that spend excessive amounts on payroll (you can say they all pay excessive amounts in payroll, but that’s a discussion for another day) pay a percentage over a set limit back to the league. It seems to me the state could, in these dire budget times, demand a certain percentage back. I’m not saying a lot. Maybe 5% of the money over 120% of the money they get back from the state. Enough so that counties feel it but not so much that it cripples them.

I should note, even though the trolls will ignore it, that I don’t like this proposal of mine. I simply dislike it less than the idea of further cuts to education and social services. I’d prefer tax increases, and preferably progressive ones. I’d prefer that the Roadkill Caucus and the Republicans act seriously instead of demonizing state workers. But since they won’t, we’ll have to think creatively.

And, yes, I’m aware that many of the deepest cuts to education and social services are happening in counties that would have to pay this luxury tax. That’s just the price you pay for your anti-tax rhetoric.

Open Thread 12/5

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– Lee may have more to say on this piece on WestNET, but it really solidified in my mind the difference between the Trib’s terrible editorials and their solid reporting.

– I’m still not fond of Sully.

– The War on Christmas is still going on? Bring the elves home, I say.

– On Facebook, Occupy Seattle made note of this comment.

– Cowardly Rob McKenna.

– Well that settles it, I’m not keeping a beehive in my house.

– I’ve joined Twitter, thus officially draining it of any cool it had left. Feel free to not follow me, as you’ve been doing.

Open Thread 12/3

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– Those big banks are a piece of work.

– I don’t find anything objectionable about the code of conduct for street canvassers, but just saying “no thanks” or “I’m already a member” when you see one usually works fine.

– It’s time to move to targeted direct action, and, no, that doesn’t mean supporting candidates for election.

– Shorter Seattle Times: The middle is always the right place.

– One’s first response is, whoa, okay, that’s really weird. One’s second response is, what a terrible negotiating strategy. One’s third response is, awesome, an international free agent, these guys are always exciting! And one’s fourth response is to wonder whether Kawasaki is actually any good.

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

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Ann Telnaes: Grover Norquist on raising taxes.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA): 10th anniversary of Enron:

Mark Fiore: Hard science.

Ann Telnaes: The most wonderful time of the year.

Thom with more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

White House: West Wing Week.

America Occupied:

Thom reveals some Good, some Bad, and Some Very, Very Ugly.

Jon on Obama’s war on Thanksgiving.

Ann Telnaes: Detainee provision trashes the Constitution.

Jon on elections in Egypt.

WA and RI Governors want pot recognized for medical uses.

Young Turks: Republicans won’t tax the rich to offset payroll tax.

Thom: Are lies and sabotage the only hope for the WI GOP?

An interview with Rep. Roger Goodman (D-WA-45).

Rupert Murdoch hacks his way to Worst Person in the World.

Why we need to protect voter rights.

The Republican Primary Asylum

Sharpton: DNC’s Voter Protection Director discusses ProtectingtheVote.org.

Alyona’s Tool Time: Rick Scott cares.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) urges extension of payroll tax cut for middle class:

Sam Seder: The problem of Republican ignorance.

Thom with the Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.

USA Ammo shoots up to Worst Person in the World.

Actual Audio: Grover Norquist on Meet the Press.

Kimmel’s Week in Unnecessary Censorship (via Huffington Post).

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

Ballard Street Car

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I know, early days and all that, but this would be pretty rad.

Yesterday, the Sound Transit Executive Committee recommended a $2 million budget addition to study high-capacity mass transit from downtown to Ballard in 2012, instead of maybe three years from now, as was originally proposed.

This is fantastic news! Regardless of if the full Sound Transit board approves the $2 million Executive Committee recommendation on December 15, millions have already been pledged. Specifically, the City has budgeted an additional $2 million for studying and planning (including $900,000 from a federal transportation planning grant, a $300,000 SDOT match of the federal grant, and $800,000 from the approved 2012 budget).

I would be interested in how much this would work as a spur to development versus changing the way people move between Ballard and Downtown. The buses between Downtown and Ballard now seem to work pretty well (they work well for me when I take them, but I don’t commute that route so it’s not rush hour). And while there’s always room for improvement, Ballard doesn’t seem as in need of a spur for growth that much of the Link corridor will benefit from in the long term.

Or People’s Lived Experiences

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Goldy highlights this gem from Frank Luntz.

“I’m so scared of this anti-Wall Street effort. I’m frightened to death,” Luntz said. “They’re having an impact on what the American people think of capitalism.”

While I think the Occupy movement in general and Occupy Wall Street in particular changed the discussion and have had a positive impact, a much larger driver is that the economy has turned many people against capitalism (or at least the brand of capitalism in the United States). It’s the housing bubble and the myriad foreclosed houses it’s left since it burst. It’s the high unemployment rate, and what it does to people who can’t find work or to people who are afraid to ask for a raise or who aren’t able to take that vacation any more or who aren’t getting as many tips as they did a few years ago. It’s the high price of gas. It’s the degradation of government services.

No, if you want to make people think positive things about capitalism, build a capitalism that works for them. Make capitalism more democratic, and more fair. Make it a vehicle for building a strong middle class accessible to anyone who works hard.

I Don’t Care About the Cheating

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It may be more cumulative than any one thing, but the reaction to Cain’s affair seems to be more harmful to Cain than his alleged sexual harassment. While I can’t say the affair, if true, reflects well on him, well adults are free to fuck up their private lives. As long as it’s consensual and not abusing power, it’s between himself and his family, and we can focus on policy.

And yet, the thing that’s got him in the most trouble is the consensual thing that doesn’t matter to his policy. Seems like we could straighten out our priorities a bit. Also, while I’m dreaming about straightening out our priorities, maybe don’t take the next Herman Cain quite so seriously.

Wenatchee Gets The Bailout It Deserves, None

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I’m glad that the Wenatchee bailout isn’t going through. Although unlike the Republicans who oppose it, I’m not against the state bailing municipalities out on principle. But since I don’t think the state would return the favor for Seattle, well, no bail outs is probably preferable to bail outs that only flow East.

Also, it’s tough to justify this when the economy is on the rocks and the legislature is in cut, cut, cut mode. The Republicans have, with their insistence on no new revenue, made this a choice between bailing out bad investments in Wenatchee or schools and social services. Really, a no brainer.

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