– The deadline for the College Bound program is coming up (h/t).
– I’d still rather have higher taxes, especially on the wealthy, but facts are facts.
– Strike up the band, baby. It’s our chance to see who the GOP field has to pander to (also, what a great sidebar).
– Of Course.
– I didn’t know what a globular cluster was before reading this post.
Last week’s winner was Siberian dog. It was Oulu, Finland.
Here’s this week’s contest, related to a TV show or a movie. Good luck!
Genesis 27:11
And Jacob said to Rebekah his mother, Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man.
Discuss.
On Thursday, the State Supreme Court ruled against “Jane Roe”, a woman in Bremerton who was fired by TeleTech because she was a medical marijuana patient. The Seattle Times explains why they had no other choice:
The plaintiff, who sued under the pseudonym Jane Roe, was pulled out of her training class after a week and fired Oct. 18, 2006, because she failed a pre-employment drug test. She had a valid medical-marijuana authorization from a doctor.
In court documents, the company said its contract with Sprint required drug testing and makes no exception for medical marijuana.
Thankfully, we have choices in cell phone providers. I’ll be contacting Sprint regarding this case, and asking why their policy makes no exception for medical marijuana. For those of you out there with Sprint coverage, here’s a page edited by Wired that gives you tips on how to get out of your cellular contract.
UPDATE: Danny Westneat has a great column about the Jane Roe at the center of this case.
Thom: What American has given up for the Bush tax cuts?
Patriotic millionaires have a Message to Congress: “Tax Me”.
Washington Supreme Court rules medical marijuana patients can be fired for testing positive for marijuana:
Liberal Viewer: FAUX News hates solar power?
Weiner Weird & Woeful Week:
Thom: Republicans hold U.S. and world economy ransom.
Mark Fiore: Dogboy and Mr. Dan tackle the debt ceiling.
Herman Cain:
Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA-01) leads discussion on Northwest biofuels.
Thom: Is Jon Steward single-handedly bringing down FAUX News?
Patriotic millionaires for America.
Palin around with Craaaaaazzzzzy!!
Politico: Norm Coleman’s (R-MN) ping-pong diplomacy.
White House: West Wing Week.
Jobs:
Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) on new doppler radar system.
Cenk: Is Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) corrupt?
Thom: The vast Sesame Street conspiracy.
Rob McKenna announces:
Young Turks: Alabama’s draconian new immigration law.
Sam Seder: Rush pwned by caller on taxes, stimulus or oxy.
Newtany
Pap: America’s new service society.
Young Turks: MA Rep. thinks crimes against illegal immigrants is okay.
Lawrence O’Donnell: Saying no to Norquist.
Maddow with Cenk: GOP now going after privatization of Social Security?
Thom: Kids say the darnedest things (about Bush and Cheney).
Mittens:
Stephen: The Word — Hear no evil.
Young Turks: Rush mocks Cenk, the postmortem.
ONN: Antigay Senator’s horse affair caught on tape.
Young Turks: Guilliani for 2012—irrelevant.
Thom: So…who’s pushing Granny over the cliff?
Maddow: Anti-choice nut-jobs shoots self in foot re: contraception.
Pawlenty Cuts Self:
Santorum wants constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
While last week, I made fun of the Seattle Times’ online content, they do have some original content, and I think the newsroom to make more of a go of it online. In short, it could be worse. It could be The Tacoma News Tribune whose Inside Opinion blog consists of a list of their editorials. In a time of shrinking newsrooms and less news in general, it may be too much to ask the smaller papers to put out content that doesn’t even make it to print.
And of course I’m not being entirely fair here, there are other blogs on The Trib that provide original content. Still, it feels like the focus is on the paper. What you see on Political Buzz will eventually find its way to the paper. Of course, that focus has value. The Tribune puts out a product that especially on the news end is worth a read for people in the South Sound.
Roughly, it seems that the dailies tend to ignore online, or they use it in service of the printing and the weeklies (and now the P-I) have more freedom. While yes, you’ll see content on Slog that will eventually make it into The Stranger, it doesn’t feel like with the Trib or Fairview Fanny. Maybe that’s illusory, and if The Stranger had to put out content every day, we’d see more of what’s on Slog in the paper.
– When I read that headline in Crosscut I thought to myself “That doesn’t seem to jibe with many of the people I know in the city” and then made a note to come back to read it. But it looks like it was wrong, and there are plenty of families in Seattle.
– Seems like the Yakima law enforcement authorities should have shown up for the forum on the Secure Communities program.
– I’ve written before that my mind what should determine if Anthony Weiner has to go or not is if he had consent to send those pictures, and sadly it’s looking more like he didn’t.
– And speaking of disappointing Democrats: Jon Tester.
– In fairness to Newt Gingrich his is just a nonsense vanity campaign for him to keep his name in the news, so it doesn’t really matter to his presidential hopes, and hey his name is in the news.
I mostly agree with Goldy that we shouldn’t judge the Martin Luther King Elementary sale solely on the money.
Perhaps the higher bid from the exclusive Bush School, along with its promise to keep the play fields open to the public on weekends would have been the best option for the community. Perhaps the investigation will ultimately uncover something improper about the First AME deal. I don’t know. But there’s nothing scandalous in itself about taking less money for the property in the interest of best serving the needs of the surrounding neighborhood.
And that’s why the Seattle Times’ editorial that followed was so dispiriting.
In a time of teacher layoffs, postponed schoolbook purchases and curtailed library usage, the district ignored the highest bidder — using private capital — to go for the lowest bidder using a state grant — taxpayer money.
The Seattle Times finds no need to mention WHY we’re in that “time of teacher layoffs, postponed schoolbook purchases and curtailed library usage.” Subtlety implying that the sale is the reason teachers have to be laid off. No need to mention how much their preferred budgets hit schools versus this sale. No need to even see if they had another reason for the sale. I mean, to take an extreme example, if a nuclear waste dump was the highest bidder, I doubt the Seattle Times editorial would demand we go with it.
And given that, I find their attitude a bit much.
This transaction needs to be sliced and diced in bright sunshine for all to see. Much more is at risk than the lost revenue and opportunity costs of a tawdry deal.
OK, I agree (except, perhaps, for the tawdry part) that more examination of what happened is a good idea. Still going out with the assumption that it must be tawdry, it must be the wrong deal isn’t going to help.
The school district is developing a grim reputation for sloppy stewardship of tax dollars. A legacy with consequences.
The Seattle Times is developing a grim reputation for sloppy stewardship of our tax cut dollars. While the news side still does good work (including the story that prompted the editorial), it’s hard to believe that the B&O and sales tax money that the Seattle Times saved over the years wouldn’t be worth a few more teachers at schools around the state.
A few years ago when Frank Blethen lobbied for the B&O tax break, he argued that newspapers were vital to the state. They force politicians out into the light and expand the dialogue in meaningful ways, that they are in some sense a good for the public. Then when an important job at the editorial page opened up, he gave it to his son who can’t write worth a damn. It seems to me if their goal was to perform a public good, they would have hired someone else rather than that tawdry nonsense.
Stranger reporter David Goldstein, a.k.a. Goldy, provides more details on the incident last night at McKenna’s campaign kicker in which Goldy was blocked from attending the post speech press conference.
The campaign was specifically targeting The Stranger for exclusion, as the publication did not receive an invitation…and they essentially told Goldy as much. McKenna’s campaign communications coordinator Adam Faber told Goldy that “he wasn’t invited” and he couldn’t get in. Nevertheless, Goldy observed that Erik Smith, the right-wing whack-job who writes for Washington State Wire “also lacked campaign-approved credentials, but Reagan Dunn personally ushered him in.” So…it wasn’t that Goldy showed up uninvited (as did Smith)…it was that Goldy and The Stranger are specifically blacklisted.
Here is the audio Goldy captured beginning a few seconds into the conversation:
[audio:http://www.thestranger.com/images/blogimages/2011/06/09/1307655150-faber.mp3]Goldy muses:
It’s an odd idea that candidates for public office (let alone an open government champion) should get to pick and choose which professional journalists get to attend their press conferences—and yes, that paycheck I get from The Stranger makes me a professional journalist, so suck it up. Granted, I haven’t exactly written glowing prose about McKenna, but politics is a tough business, and besides, it’s not like denying me access is going to stop me from writing.
An interesting irony in this exchange comes at about 1:50:
Goldy: And I could have been at the Tom Skerritt happy hour this evening…
Faber: Well…he looked great on that cover you had the other day.
Huh…So Adam Faber, the communications coordinator, reads (or at a minimum checks out the cover of) The Stranger—the publication his campaign has blacklisted?!?
What a bunch of hypocritical assholes!
There are warning signs here. The McKenna campaign, right out of the starting gate, is engaging in thuggery. “Open government champion,” my ass. This feel a hell of a lot like the tactics of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker….
I start a new job tomorrow. As it goes with these things, I never know how much time I’ll still have to write up posts (that likely depends on whether or not I start taking the bus). So if I stay pretty quiet for a while here, that’s why. Either way, I should be able to keep the Bird’s Eye View Contests going every Sunday.
– Sensible Washington is having a week-long money bomb. Please donate!
– Law Enforcement Against Prohibition will be holding a press conference on June 14 to mark the 40th anniversary of the “war on drugs” and call for its end.
Wouldn’t it be hilarious if the hooker that diapered and fucked Sen. Vitter was also sexting with Rep. Weiner?
(H/T Slog)
In 2004, King County Superior Court Judge William Downing issued a controversial ruling that same-sex couples could marry. The Seattle Times, sprung to action to find out where candidates in state-wide races stood:
…King County Councilman Rob McKenna, criticized the ruling’s wording as too broad and said its argument that there is no compelling state interest to deny marriage to two people in a committed relationship could leave marriage open to blood relatives or those practicing polygamy.
“It threatens to destroy all standards we apply to the right of marriage,” he said.
McKenna didn’t quite go as far as describing “man-on-dog” relationships, but the rest sure sounds like the nutty rhetoric of former Sen. Rick Santorum:
Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. […] In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing. And when you destroy that you have a dramatic impact on the quality — […]
The idea is that the state doesn’t have rights to limit individuals’ wants and passions. I disagree with that.
For what it is worth, the American Anthropological Association—you know, the folks who study humans and their cultures, cross-culturally and historically—take exception to both Santorum’s and McKenna’s narrow, conservative view of marriage and family:
The results of more than a century of anthropological research on households, kinship relationships, and families, across cultures and through time, provide no support whatsoever for the view that either civilization or viable social orders depend upon marriage as an exclusively heterosexual institution. Rather, anthropological research supports the conclusion that a vast array of family types, including families built upon same-sex partnerships, can contribute to stable and humane societies.
But back in 2004, McKenna could express his inner-Santorum because he had an easy out:
McKenna said that although he agrees with the Defense of Marriage Act, his personal opinions would not enter into how he argued a court case.
That was then…this is now. As Governor McKenna, Rob’s personal opinions would have a huge impact on the lives of Washingtonians. His opinion would help inform decisions to sign or veto bills and how the legislation is executed. He would have the bully pulpit for setting the legislative agenda.
We are on the journey to learn whether Washingtonians are ready and willing to put a little Santorum in the governor’s mansion.
(h/t)
Update: In which Stranger reporter and HorsesAss religion correspondent David (Goldy) Goldstein gets pissed on by the McKenna campaign.
I can think of one circumstance under which Rep. Weiner should resign: he makes a pact with Sen. Vitter and they both fall on their swords (figuratively) and go away.
Think about it. The calculus is right. Weiner flirted at a distance with women. Vitter hired a prostitute to play out his diaper fantasies. Roughly speaking, Vitter’s crime (yes…he actually broke the law) is many times worse than Weiner’s stupid, ill-advised, boorish, but not illegal, e-flirting.
A simplistic model would value a Senate seat as worth about 4.38 (=438/100) times the value of a house seats, giving the paired resignations impacts roughly commensurate with the respective offenses.
You know what is totally unacceptable?
Answer: Assholes calling for Rep. Weiner’s resignation without applying the same moral standards to Sen. Vitter. Because that is blatant, ugly, stupid, repulsive hypocrisy.
Rep. Reince Priebus is an asshole for his blatant, ugly, stupid, repulsive hypocrisy.
And to be clear, by “same moral standards”, I mean standards that consider the seriousness of the allegations. Vitter broke the law at the same time he was committing adultery by fucking a prostitute. Maybe you believe sexting is a form of adultery. I believe most people would recognize sexting as less of a violation of ones vows in partnership than physically fucking a prostitute—which, at the very minimum, has the potential for more serious complications like STDs or extramarital pregnancies. Honest politicians and pundits shouldn’t treat Weiner any worse, for an offence far less serious, than they have (or will) treat Vitter.
I’ll call for neither of them to resign…as happened in 2010 for Vitter, we should leave it to the voters to decide.
Unless, of course, Weiner and Vitter agree to resign together.
– Here’s the Families and Education Levy website.
– Dori Monson is an awful person.
– Paying for a college education is going to be harder and harder (PS, while this article itself is worth reading, I’m not sure when Publicola decides to label things “other blogs.”
– I don’t know what’s more surprising about the Arizona Diamondbacks: the how many former Mariners they have or how well they’re doing (PS on the Podcast, I love how many different ways they pronounce “JJ Putz”).
– While I’m generally opposed to using nouns as verbs, I totally use MacGyver to mean make something on the fly.
Please join us tonight for an evening of politics under the influence 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 feel free to join some of us for an earlier dinner.
Every time Sarah Palin makes a statement to the media, God kills an historian:
Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 228 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.
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!