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Another former Seattle Times reader cancels their subscription:

To whom it may concern,

Independently, within hours of Attorney General Rob McKenna’s announcement Monday of his lawsuit to stop federal health care reform, both my wife and I had joined Facebook groups and signed petitions opposing the lawsuit. We did so because we were appalled and angry that an elected official would unilaterally take a step, for crass political purposes, so completely at odds with the desires of a vast majority of the constituents he has taken an oath to serve, as well as almost all of the federal officials (8 of 11) those constituents have elected.

And today I open up our copy of the Seattle Times to see, in the first sentence of your editorial supporting McKenna, the anger and revulsion we have had in common with pretty much everyone I’ve talked with this week sneered at, in the editorial’s very first words, as a “politically orchestrated hiss.”

Fuck. You. Please cancel our subscription immediately.

Of course, Mr. Blethen, and his sycophants on the Times editorial board, have every right to espouse editorial opinions at odds with the majority of people in the city whose name stains your masthead. (Have you considered “Lubbock”? It’s a better fit.) We’ve come to expect it, particularly since the demise of the P-I. What you do *not* have the right to do is gratuitiously insult us, and expect that we will remain your customers, even as your news staff and coverage continues to shrink and other media outlets emerge that do a better job of covering almost everything you publish.

We have remained home delivery subscribers out of loyalty. This is how you view your loyal customers?

No wonder your business is failing. Don’t let us stop you. Please add us to your list of disgusted former customers.

If you’ve canceled your Seattle Times subscription, send a copy to me, or relate your phone conversation, and I’ll post it here on HA, with or without attribution.

It’s so awesome how we continue to get petulant lectures (from the people who nearly destroyed capitalism) about how capitalism should be. They drove us off a cliff, and now they’re complaining about the airbags.

Rep. Jay Inslee on Attorney General Rob McKenna’s “absurd” lawsuit against health care reform:

“If Ronald Reagan’s Solicitor General can figure out it’s absurd, why can’t Rob McKenna?”

Yeah, I suppose Marcelas Owens would kick McKenna’s ass, but it’s the debate between Inslee and McKenna that I’m really looking forward to.

Hundreds of supporters gathered today to celebrate and defend health care reform, though I doubt the Seattle Times will bother to report on it, as it’s not like two governors, two U.S. Senators, and two U.S. Representatives were there or anything.

Now if there had been some angry handmade signs or something, now that would’ve been news.

A reader CC’d me on their email to the Seattle Times:

Michael Sheehan, Director of Circulation Operations

Please cancel my subscription to the Seattle Times as I now find it far too biased toward the National Chamber of Commerce agenda and that of the far right ideology. Balance has been missing for a long time and there is no longer the Seattle P-I as the local default newspaper. Plus, why is there a Business Section and no Labor Section in this publication. As a lifelong independent voter who has split my vote between the two major political parties (local and national) I can no longer justify spending my hard earned money on your source and content of news.

Copy or forward me your email canceling your subscription to the Seattle Times, and I’ll be happy to post it on HA, with or without attribution.

Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky in less than 10 minutes. It was Missoula, MT.

I have a feeling this week’s won’t take too long either, good luck!

Come celebrate and defend health care reform today with Gov. Chris Gregoire, Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, Representatives Jay Inslee and Brian Baird, and 11-year-old activist Marcelas Owens, who stood at President Obama’s side during the bill signing. 3 P.M., Machinists District 751 Hall, 9125 15th Place S., Seattle.

Then let’s all go out for a drink afterwards and plot our continued assault on the American way of life.

Leviticus 11:12
Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.

Leviticus 11:7
And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.

Clams Casino
1 doz. Littleneck clams
4 slices bacon
4 tbsp. red pepper, minced
3 tbsp. bread crumbs
4 tbsp. garlic butter (see below)
3 tbsp. Parmesan cheese, grated

Yum. Discuss.

– I started to fully understand the root cause of the infighting at Fox News over Glenn Beck after his insane interview with Eric Massa. The problem is that – unlike pure con artists like O’Reilly and Hannity – Beck actually believes his own bullshit. What he does isn’t an act. He’s an emotionally disturbed person working through various psychological issues while trying to confront an inability to comprehend both the rationale and the popularity of progressive politics. But while the average teabaggers are being exposed as ideologically incoherent buffoons in relative obscurity, Beck is going through that journey in front of millions of television viewers every day. It’s been quite the spectacle.

– Glenn Greenwald has written some good posts recently on our special relationship with Israel. Maybe Americans are finally starting to recognize that the way the Israelis have been treating the Palestinians doesn’t quite jibe with our nation’s historic emphasis on the importance of property rights.

– As always, lots of drug war news to pass along. Paul Armentano debates former Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey about California’s approved ballot measure to legalize marijuana. Scott Morgan writes about the NFL and pot. Radley Balko on the Jonathan Ayers case. Officials in Texas are still waging war against KopBusters creator Barry Cooper. And Pete Guither on the enemy within.

– I’ve recently been checking out the Analytics X competition, a contest that offers up a small prize for anyone who can use analytics to most accurately predict the incidence of homicides across the city of Philadelphia.

– Good to read something from this guy again.

Join U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, along with Rep. Jay Inslee, 11-year-old Marcelas Owens and others at a rally in defense of health care reform, this Sunday, March 28, 3 p.m. at the Machinist 751 Hall, 9125 15th Place S., Seattle.

Rob McKenna, the Teabaggers and other opponents of reform don’t believe this fight is over, and neither should we, so I urge you all to turn out to thank our elected officials who passed reform, and show the media that we’re just as passionate as the angry rabble on the other side. Hope to see you all there, and then maybe go out for a beer afterwards.

Just a provide even more of an exclamation point on Rob McKenna’s hypocrisy over the Commerce Clause, here’s a page that the Marijuana Policy Project put up shortly after the Gonzales v. Raich decision came down. In Gonzales v. Raich, the Supreme Court ruled that the Commerce Clause gives the federal government the right to arrest people who are following their state’s medical marijuana law. This decision (which was agreed upon by both the more liberal members of the court and Scalia) is why most legal experts believe that the challenge to the health care reform bill’s mandates will rejected.

What’s interesting about that page is that, of the 10 states that had medical marijuana laws at the time of the decision, all but two of the respective state Attorney Generals publicly affirmed that their state medical marijuana laws were still valid despite the ruling. One of the two who sat silent was Rob McKenna. In fact, I can’t find a single public statement from McKenna at that time standing up for the Washington voters who’d voted overwhelmingly to allow marijuana use among seriously ill individuals. This is why the Seattle Times editorial claiming that McKenna’s opposition is somehow rooted in his deep convictions about the Constitution is such a joke.

Instead, Josh Feit gets this one exactly right:

I’ll tell you exactly what Rob McKenna was thinking: Charlie Crist.

Sure McKenna may have jeopardized his shot at winning the governor’s race in 2012, but he has to make it through the primary to even have a chance. And even in a top-two primary (or especially in a top two primary), he needs the Republican base.

Feit thinks that McKenna’s gamble could work and get him to the Governor’s Mansion. I’m not so sure. But for the Seattle Times not to be able to see through his transparent bullshit – well, that’s pretty much what we’ve come to expect from them.

I’ll get to the rest of their editorial later, but I just want to start off briefly with the lede of the Seattle Times ass-licking defense of Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna’s blatantly political ploy:

“THE politically orchestrated hiss at Rob McKenna has not been convincing.”

Hear that? The 17,688 people who spontaneously joined the “Washington Tax Payers OPT OUT of Rob McKenna’s Lawsuit” Facebook group in a matter of days…? We’re just a politically orchestrated hiss.

So the question remains: why on earth would you still hand over your money to Frank Blethen and his editorial cronies when this is what they think of you? In their opinion, our opinion doesn’t count. We’re not real Americans. We’re not the real grassroots. We’re just a politically orchestrated hiss.

A hiss. That’s the noise a snake makes.

I mean really… fuck that.

There isn’t anything in the print version of the Times that you can’t get online for free, and most of that you can get better from another source. So if we’re just an orchestrated political hiss, let’s orchestrate something the Blethens understand. Cancel your subscription and let them know why: that you’re sick and tired of handing over your hard earned money to folks who so clearly disrespect you.

Now that’s a hiss they won’t find so easy to dis, orchestrated or not.

“Hell No, you can’t!”

(And there are almost fifty more media clips from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)

They finally editorialize: “AG Rob McKenna has a case to challenge the health-care law’s individual mandate.”

Need I say more?

UPDATE:

(And we promise not to spend any the money raised buying advertising from the Seattle Times.)

I couldn’t make it down there myself, but I’m told a healthy media contingent showed up to watch the protesters drop off petitions at the Attorney General’s office, presumably on the off chance that there might be a little drama.

I’d say that was well played on my part, but, you know, one can only go to that particular well so many times.

When several thousand health care reform backers packed into Westlake Park last September the rally earned relatively little media coverage and absolutely zero ink in the Seattle Times. Yet when maybe a hundred or so Teabaggers gathered on a street corner to mark the anniversary of their so-called “movement,” the Times deemed that worthy of a reporter, a photographer and twenty column inches.

Why? Media bias, of course, though not necessarily of the kind you might think.

Yeah, sure, our media’s corporate owners are biased toward the right-wing agenda and away from ours, but outside of, say, Fox News and handful of other ridiculously partisan media outlets, that only explains a small part of the disproportionate coverage the Teabaggers have enjoyed. No, what the media is really institutionally biased toward is a good story. And the angry, crazy, froth-at-mouth Teabaggers are nothing if not a good story.

Peacefully dropping off a bunch of petitions on the other hand, not so much… not at least unless you’re Tim Eyman prancing about in a rented costume, and spouting off his usual anti-tax/anti-government sound bites. But up the ante a little — provoke the AG’s office into ordering a lockdown, for example — and voila… three TV cameras show up. You know, just in case.

Am I proud that it took turning up the angry rhetoric a couple notches to spark some attention? Not particularly, but neither am I ashamed. I’ve been at this too long not to know how this game is played.

In my emails today with AG communications director Janelle Guthrie, she wrote: “It doesn’t have to be as ugly and contentious as you seem to like to make it. Reasonable people can have reasonable discussions.”

Yeah, well, reasonable people can have reasonable discussions, but apparently, if you want the media to pay attention, it does unfortunately have to be a little ugly and contentious. After all, my long time readers know that at my core, I’m a policy wonk who often digresses into lengthy, technical policy discussions, only to be completely ignored by the legacy press. But break a bit of dirty muckraking — or vaguely threaten to vaguely threaten a public disturbance — and that catches the media’s attention.

I’m a smart critic, an entertaining writer and a damn fine analyst with long track record of getting stuff right, but honestly, I know what my main role is: publicly saying the things respectable folk wish they could publicly say, if they weren’t so cautious and polite. That’s why folks read me, because I’m willing to call a spade a fuckin’ spade. And there’s something naturally cathartic in that.

But like I said, one can only go to that particular well so many times before it runs dry, and if I’m the only person around here expressing any real emotion, the media will continue to largely ignore our side of the story while heaping outsized coverage on the handful of loud, angry wingnuts across the street.

And for those in the media who take issue with my assessment of what it takes to manipulate you, well, actions speak louder than words. (Or at least, actions would speak louder than words, if only there was anybody around to report on them.)