HorsesAss.Org

No, really… this is an editorial from the Seattle Times:

LISTENING to Republican senators mouth scripted lines opposing financial regulatory reforms is to hear them auditioning for jobs as industry lobbyists after Congress.

… [Senate Republican leader Mitch] McConnell and his colleagues do not offer any suggestions or ideas about how to rein in the most reckless — and lucrative — behavior by commercial and investment banks.

Nor do Republicans offer any leadership in providing American consumers and investors with trustworthy, accessible information about investment products, and their hazards to the treasury. How or why the GOP would oppose such elementary transparency must puzzle voters.

Huh. And on a similar note, how or why the Times would consistently endorse such Republicans must puzzle its readers.

The unsigned editorial goes on to laud U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell for her leadership on this issue, a Democrat whose candidacy the Times has twice opposed despite the fact that during the run up to her 2006 reelection the editorial board agreed with Cantwell on nearly every single issue except her opposition to repealing the estate tax.

Does anyone believe that had Times-endorsed, insurance industry executive Mike McGavick won the 2006 campaign, he’d cast anything but a party-line vote against financial regulatory reform, let alone provide the kind of effective legislative leadership we’ve seen from Cantwell? I don’t think so.

The Times’ endorsements have proven incredibly predictable in recent years, even the Democratic bones they toss readers in an effort to maintain a semblance of nonpartisanship. (This cycle it will be Patty Murray, even if Dino Rossi enters the race. Mark my words.) So if they’re going to complain about “Republicans missing in action,” shouldn’t they be focusing on Western Washington’s only congressional Republican, Rep. Dave Reichert, who recently voted against financial regulatory reform along with every single other House Republican?

No doubt when they endorse him again next October, the Times will praise Reichert for his moderation and bipartisanship — you know, his “conscience-driven independence” — but apart from some environmental issues, and that one vote on Terri Schiavo, when has he ever bucked his party leadership when it really mattered?

The Times implies that Republican opposition to financial regulatory reform stems from greed — the lure of an eventual windfall as a Wall Street lobbyist — and who am I to dispute such a cynical assertion? But given the bigger picture, one in which House and Senate Republicans vote as a unified block against nearly everything President Obama proposes or supports, one can only understand their uncompromising obstructionism as part of an even more cynical political strategy.

So the question is, at what point will Republican boosters like the Times editorial board hold the candidates they endorse responsible for the votes they cast? At what point, instead of simply castigating Republicans in general, will the Times call out Republican Reichert for his own lockstep politics and lack of leadership?

Personally, I’m not holding my breath.

(And you can find plenty more of the week’s best media at Hominid Views.)

Yesterday I asked for your financial support to help keep me blogging through the end of the year, and 31 loyal readers quickly responded with $1,515 in individual contributions over just the first 24 hours. And SEIU 775, the long-term care workers union, just became HA’s first institutional sponsor, pledging to purchase $2,500 in advertising over the remaining year.

Thank you all for generosity.

That’s a great start to my first fundraising drive in two years, but we’re still a long ways from our $25,000 goal. $25K may seem like a lot of money, but not when you’re living on it, and it’s the bare minimum I need to keep the lights on and the mortgage paid over the next 8 months.

Am I worth it? You decide. Was it worth having me blogging when I exposed failed FEMA Director Mike Brown’s emergency management “experience” as consisting of supervising horse show judges for the International Arabian Horse Association, a post that moved national headlines and ultimately led to his ouster? Was I worth your support when I knocked David Irons out of the 2005 King County Executive race with my exposé on his physically violent family feud?

Is it worth having me here to watchdog the out-of-touch and condescending editors at the Seattle Times, and to help set the media frame on any number of local issues?

If it is, then I need your support, because without it I simply cannot continue blogging. It’s not a threat, it’s not a complaint… it’s just a simple economic reality. So if you want to maintain HA as one of the best written, best read and most surprisingly influential local political blogs in the nation, please give generously today. And then badger your fellow travelers to do the same.

While Jon focused solely on the WA-03 money race, Publicola brings us the numbers from WA-08, where Republican incumbent Dave Reichert reportedly raised about $350,000 in the first quarter and is sitting on about $700,000, while Democratic challenger Suzan DelBene raised $225,000 in the quarter for $840,000 cash on hand.

But in attempting to clarify these numbers, Publicola only muddles things up:

Footnote on DelBene: She spent $160,000 this quarter and has almost $400,000 in liabilities, which means she actually has about $460,000 in cash after having raised $920,000 overall. Reichert, who’s raised about $1 million overall, has over $700,000 in cash after liabilities.

Yeah, well, not really. DelBene’s “almost $400,000 in liabilities” largely refers to a $350,000 personal loan. From a financial strength perspective, whether she pays herself back or not really isn’t an issue as long as she doesn’t pay herself back until after the election.

Reichert, although lacking the resources to self-finance, similarly benefits from loans of a sort, routinely spending his campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt, which he eventually pays off with money raised for the next campaign. That’s why, while raising over $1.3 million this cycle (not the “$920,000” total Publicola reports), Reichert only has $715,000 cash on hand; most of the rest of the money went to paying off last election’s debt.

So an apple to apple comparison does indeed show that DelBene currently enjoys an $839K to $715K cash on hand advantage over the incumbent. As for fundraising strength and enthusiasm, yes, DelBene’s totals are inflated by about $534K in self-financing, but that’s roughly equivalent to Reichert’s advantage in big money contributions from PACs. Overall, Reichert has raised only slightly more in individual contributions, while DelBene enjoys more individual contributors.

In other words, it looks like Reichert is facing yet another competitive challenger, as opposed to our state delegation’s other seven incumbents, who by comparison, all currently enjoy a better than five to one money advantage over their closest opponent.

No, actually, Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna isn’t filing a lawsuit challenging President Barack Obama’s executive order mandating that all U.S. hospitals that accept Medicare/Medicaid funding (and that’s pretty much all of them) must extend visitation and other rights to same-sex couples, but if he was intellectually consistent, he would. I mean, how is this legally different from the HCR Medicaid mandates that McKenna disingenuously claims exceed the fed’s constitutional authority under the Commerce Clause and the Tenth Amendment?

Or does McKenna only spend our state tax dollars on constitutional challenges to federal laws and regulations that he finds politically advantageous to challenge? In which case, a little free political advice to McKenna: considering the homophobic bent of the Republican primary voters you are clearly attempting woo, perhaps you should take the lead and file a lawsuit challenging the same-sex visitation mandate?  I guarantee you it would make you a star on Fox News, and rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from hateful homophobes nationwide.

Over at Publicola, Morning Fizz includes the fundraising totals in the third district race to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash. You can also peruse them yourself at the FEC, which is far more user friendly than it used to be some years ago.

For convenience sake, I’m going to list the major candidates from each party, their cash on hand (and their debt) in thousands. Easier to get a clearer picture of what is truly going on that way. I’ll round up or down from $500.

Jaime Herrera (R) 56k (3k)
David Castillo (R) 73k (3k)

Denny Heck (D) 532k (253k)
Craig Pridemore (D) 51k (5k)

Obviously, even subtracting Heck’s debt, which I believe to be $250k in loans to himself (the FEC link only shows $100k of loans,) he still looks good on paper. If the other $150k is not a loan to his own campaign, he’s not qualified to be in Congress because nobody could have spent that much on a campaign yet. I suppose he could have given the money to his campaign, which would be impressive, if rather rash.

But here’s the thing. Nobody is showing much of anything yet in terms of PACs. Heck’s money is all from wealthy political insiders and consultants. If you start clicking around at the FEC link you can find well-known names like Paul and Beth Berendt and Booth Gardner. For those outside the state, Paul Berendt was a long-time state party chair, and Heck worked for Gardner when he was governor. The individual names are really beside the point, because what’s happened is that a lot of these folks are going to reach the legal limit on contributions, and as far as I know nobody has yet asked Heck if he intends to kick his loans back to himself at some point.

The only conclusion one can reach is that Heck is trying to run Pridemore off by flashing his wallet. Here’s a hint for the Heck campaign: not gonna happen.

Contrast that with Pridemore’s totals. Whereas Heck lists several pages of wealthy donors, Pridemore has about six. Not six pages, six wealthy donors.

With little PAC money yet reported, that means Pridemore is getting the grassroots support. Right now at his Act Blue page, Pridemore shows 644 supporters have donated $26,539, or an average of about $41. (You know what’s easy, btw? Clicking through to Act Blue! But you knew that.)

Once endorsements really start rolling, and the money starts flowing, Pridemore looks to be in fine shape. The Pridemore campaign has more than enough money to keep the lights on and staff paid, so with the candidate released from the Legislature at long last, look for Craig to show why he’s not only better on the issues, he’s going to be better at political campaigning than a guy who last ran (and lost) a race for public office in 1988.

As often happens, some of our state’s incestuous little clique of Democratic insiders have bet on the wrong guy. The faint at heart started trembling like scared children in December because some Tea People were on the tee-vee, and naturally they sought comfort in the arms of their favorite thing in the entire world, money.

As anyone who has ever worked on a campaign knows, money is vital but there’s more to it than that. You need a guy who can campaign, and I’m telling you, Craig can really campaign. It would be foolish to make an absolute prediction, as obviously Heck can give Pridemore a race, but I like Craig’s chances in the final analysis, mostly because people like Craig. He’s principled and authentic, and people respond to that.

The political landscape has already changed since December, and it will likely change again before November, so I figure one might as well support the guy who would do the best job, both in the campaign and in Congress. I’m sticking with Pridemore.

Goldman Sachs has been charged with fraud:

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Goldman Sachs with defrauding investors by allegedly “misstating and omitting key facts” in the marketing of a financial product linked to the performance of subprime mortgages right as the housing crisis was beginning to unfold.

Essentially, Goldman made billions selling mortgage backed “collateralized debt obligations” (CDO’s), without informing investors that the hedge fund creating these shoddy securities was heavily shorting them in anticipation of their failure.

Which I suppose explains why Republicans so vehemently oppose Wall Street regulatory reform.

Sitting state Senator Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver, has secured the endorsement of the Sierra Club in the race to replace retiring Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash.

The SW Washington Sierra Club political chair, Holly Forrest, passed this information along in an email late yesterday afternoon. The group plans a rally for Pridemore this morning, Apr. 16, in Vancouver at 8:30 am on the Columbia River waterfront. The address is 115 Columbia Way, just east of Who Song and Larry’s, if you are in Vancouver. The group says it has over 25,000 members in Washington state.

Pridemore has a strong record on environmental issues, so it’s not a surprise. But it’s a major milestone for the campaign, as Pridemore himself has been locked down in the interminable special Legislative session until two days ago. I’d expect Pridemore will garner other important endorsements in the coming weeks, as the campaign heats up. Seeing as he has a 98% lifetime record with labor, I’m hopeful on that front as well.

The other major candidates in this race are former TVW head and Democrat Denny Heck, who last ran for office in 1988 and lost a race for state schools chief, and Republicans Jaime Herrera and David Castillo. Herrera is a state House member from Clark County who seems to have the backing of the GOP establishment/Slade Gorton crowd, and Castillo is a financial planner and former Bush administration official who seems to be garnering plenty of Tea Person support.

Don’t forget, national sports fans, Washington state has a top two primary now.

Gee… look at the company Dave Reichert keeps.

Teabaggers are rallying in cities across the nation today, while non-crazy folks are busily writing checks and rushing to the post office. Why? Well, it’s my birthday of course!

And since it’s my birthday, I’m going to use the opportunity to launch a long-delayed and much needed fund drive.

Indeed, it’s been two years since I last made a public plea for donations, not because I didn’t need the cash, but because I didn’t know how long I would continue blogging, and I didn’t want to take your money and run. But my finances are now edging from precarious to ruinous, so here’s the deal.

Two years ago I set a rather ambitious target of $6,000, and you all came through. It was both amazing and incredibly gratifying, but… well that’s not even enough to cover a couple months of expenses.

So this time I’m asking for $25,000.

Yeah, I know, that seems like an awful lot of money for a local political blogger to raise, but it’s not much to live on, and $25K plus a few thousand more in advertising revenue may just be enough to get me through the end of the year, or at the very least, the November election. And if I can’t raise that kinda money, well then, I suppose I’ll just have to move on.

The kinda blogging I do is a full time job, but frugal as I am, I have fixed expenses — mortgage, insurance, utilities, food, teenage daughter and all that — and I just can’t afford to continue doing this without something approaching a full time income. Hell, I’m 47 years old, and aside from the equity in my house and a few shares of Apple in my IRA, my retirement plans consist of setting myself out to sea on an ice floe.

I don’t mean this as a threat or a complaint, it’s just simple economic reality. So I’m asking you my readers, and all the progressive and Democratic organizations, activists, candidates and consultants who have benefited from my tireless efforts and my obnoxiously fearless and uniquely effective media presence, to either keep HA going… or… well… I suppose you could offer me a job.

If you believe, as I do, that I provide an invaluable service that simply can’t be replaced by any other media outlet or progressive organization, than please give as generously as you can. Those readers who can only afford twenty or thirty bucks, I understand. But those of you who routinely spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year on progressive candidates and causes — and there are many of you amongst my fans — I need that same sort of financial support if I’m going to continue in my present role.

Can we meet this $25,000 target? I don’t know. Certainly not without some big checks from institutional sponsors and wealthy donors. But if we can’t meet this goal, then I’ll just have to move on.

So please click on the Donate button below and show your support, or drop me an email or phone call if you want to discuss some more creative sponsorship options. I passionately love blogging, and am profoundly grateful for the encouragement and support I’ve received these past six years. But unfortunately love, passion and gratitude don’t pay the bills.

At a town hall meeting last week, after being asked about the possibility of going to jail for failing to buy health insurance, U.S. Tom Coburn (R-OK) warned the audience not to believe everything they hear, explaining “That makes for good TV news on FOX but that isn’t the intention.”

This of course got Fox host Bill O’Reilly’s undies in a knot, who castigated Coburn the other day, insisting that he “find one person on Fox News who told this audience that they would go to jail if they don’t buy health insurance.”

Well, Kate Pickert at Time Magazine’s Swampland blog took up the challenge, and who was the first person she found to spread this lie on Fox News? None other than our own Rep. Dave Reichert.

Ironically, Reichert himself recently went out of his way to warn supporters not to question the lies they hear on TV or read online:

“Don’t believe everything you hear. Find out the truth. And I’ll tell you why it’s so important to find out the truth. Because it has to do with keeping this country free. It has to do with keeping our country, our freedom. It has to do with us having that responsibility and gaining that knowledge. It will keep us free, because there are people who want to divide us. And we all know that a house divided will fall. And if we let ourselves become divided this country will fail, and for that and for the future of our children and our grandchildren we cannot allow it to happen.”

Which I guess is about the most useful advice we’ve heard from Reichert in while.

In an opinion piece published in the National Law Journal, Prof. Timothy Stoltzfus Jost of Washington and Lee University School of Law argues that the attorneys general lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is so frivolous, that the attorneys involved should be sanctioned, and made personally liable for paying the legal expenses of the federal government in defending itself.

This complaint not only represents shockingly shoddy lawyering but should be recognized by the courts for what it in fact is: A pleading whose key claims are without support in the law and the facts. The attorneys who brought this case — solely for political purposes — should have to bear personally the cost of defending this litigation that they are imposing on federal taxpayers.

Read the whole thing. Prof. Jost not only succinctly lays out the flaws in the attorneys’ constitutional arguments, but in their factual pleadings as well. The law simply doesn’t do what Rob McKenna and his cohorts claim it does. It’s kinda stunning.

But if the attorneys might be held liable for bearing the legal costs imposed on federal taxpayers, shouldn’t McKenna also be personally responsible for covering the legal costs he’s imposing on state taxpayers?

His office keeps trying to make the argument that the only cost to the state will be McKenna’s own time spent on the case… but of course it relentlessly makes this argument on the public dime. And now we learn that due to McKenna’s conflict of interest, the state will have to hire an outside attorney to represent Gov. Gregoire in her efforts on behalf of Washington citizens to oppose his lawsuit.

All this costs money. And if McKenna’s lawsuit is as legally frivolous as Prof. Jost says it is, I sure hope Gov. Gregoire has her attorney sue McKenna to recover the legal fees incurred.

So, even a narrow win in yesterday’s special election to replace Rep. Robert Wexler in FL-19 would have spelled electoral trouble for Democrats nationally, but a comfortable Democratic win is entirely meaningless…?

“A closer race would’ve added to Democratic paranoia about their chances this fall, but the fact that Deutch performed close to the average for a Democrat in the district does not lessen the fact that nationally, GOPers are still likely to enjoy big gains in the general election,” said Tim Sahd, editor of Washington-based House Race Hotline.

Funny how it works out that way, huh? Democratic victories in special elections — even pickups — are ignored by the pundits as foregone conclusions or outliers, whereas Republican victories are hailed as precursors of an electoral earthquake.

Seems to me that our media has something invested in creating a little drama this fall.

Bad news for Republicans hoping to ride a wave of economic discontent into office this November:

A flurry of reports out Wednesday suggested that many Americans are feeling better about the economic rebound.

Retail spending rose sharply and more than expected. Consumer inflation remains all but invisible. Businesses are boosting their stockpiles in anticipation of higher shopper demand.

Still, it’s not all gloom and doom for the Prefers GOP Party. While most economists expect a sustained recovery, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke cautioned that it would not have “enough strength to quickly reduce unemployment much.” That leaves plenty of opportunity for Republicans to exploit the well-justified anxiety of the job-insecure… which perhaps explains why they’re so eager to exacerbate this suffering by opposing an extension of unemployment benefits.

After six years of watching me bask in the fame and fortune of bloggery, my mother has decided that it’s time for her voice to be heard on the pressing issues of the day, sending the following Letter to the Editor, printed today in the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Who benefits from charter schools?

My friend, a dedicated, enthusiastic, and highly regarded guidance counselor for 15 years in the Philadelphia School District, has decided to look for a new job. Her school, which she loves, is becoming a charter school. Why in the midst of revelations of mismanagement and fraud is the city establishing at least nine more charter schools and displacing up to 200 teachers, and why does my friend want no part of it?

Charter school staff earn less than comparable staff in public schools. Could these be the real reason that the government is pushing charter schools? Yes, charter schools have the ability to exclude troublesome students and to insist on parental participation. If traditional public schools could exclude students and mandate parent involvement, then they, too, might see improved standardized test scores.

As we funnel money away from traditional public schools to charter schools, we leave our most vulnerable students behind, and see quality teachers fleeing. I ask, who is really benefiting?

Sylvia Goldstein Salvat

Merion

I couldn’t agree more, although I’d add at least one more cynical reason as to why Republicans, at least, support charter schools and vouchers: they want to destroy public education so as to destroy the public teachers unions.

Which brings me to a curious observation. Cynical as I am, I couldn’t help but read my mother’s letter with a cynic’s eye, and wonder how I, as a snarky blogger, might belittle her letter, were I on the other side of the issue. And what immediately jumped out at was the phrase “Could these be the real reason…?”

“Hah!” the righty critic might exclaim. “Learn how to write proper English before pontificating about education!”

Only problem is, that’s not what my mother, a retired Philadelphia school teacher herself, wrote. The Inquirer edited her letter and inserted the error. Here’s the original text my mother emailed me the other day:

My friend, a dedicated, enthusiastic, and highly regarded Guidance Counselor for 15 years in the Philadelphia School District, has decided to look for a new job. Her school, which she loves, is becoming a charter school. Why in the midst of revelations of mismanagement and fraud is the city establishing at least nine more charter schools and displacing up to 200 teachers, and why does my friend want no part of it? Charter school staff earn less than comparable staff in public schools, they have no pension (what a savings for the city and state!), and no union representation. Could these be the real reasons that the government is pushing charter schools? Yes, charter schools have the ability to exclude troublesome students and to insist on parental participation. If traditional public schools could exclude students and mandate parent involvement then they too might see improved standardized test scores as some charter schools report.

As we funnel money away from traditional public schools to charter schools, we leave our most vulnerable students behind, and see quality teachers  fleeing. I ask, who is really benefitting?

Sure, the Inquirer did a reasonable job breaking my mother’s letter up into smaller paragraphs, but look at what they chose to excise in the process. My mother’s stated “reasons” the government is pushing charter schools…

Charter school staff earn less than comparable staff in public schools, they have no pension (what a savings for the city and state!), and no union representation.

In the Inquirer’s editor’s hands became one “reason”….

Charter school staff earn less than comparable staff in public schools.

A much less compelling argument, that fails to document the district’s anti-union bias. Then the editors merely dropped the “s” from the word “reasons” while lazily forgetting to transform “these” into “this.”

Huh. Perhaps the Inquirer’s editor is a graduate of one of those charter schools? Or perhaps this is just the kind of editorial sloppiness that comes from being so hasty to cover up the inherent anti-union bias of the charter school movement?