HorsesAss.Org

Let’s see how many facts Crosscut’s Ted Van Dyk can get wrong in a single sentence:

Whoa! The present light rail plan, narrowly passed in 2008, calls for $23 billion, and probably more, in tax increases for a three-county light rail system — the largest local-level tax increase in U.S. history.

Um, the package actually cost $17.9 billion by the same accounting standards used to calculate the cost of similar projects; the “largest local tax increase ever” meme is totally unsupported rhetorical bullshit originally fabricated for the previous year’s “roads and transit” measure; and “narrowly passed”…? Really Ted? Narrowly passed? Yeah, I guess, if by “narrow” you mean 57% within the Sound Transit taxing district as a whole, 61% in King County, and a whopping 68% within Seattle.

That’s right, Seattle voters went for Prop 1 by an overwhelming two to one margin, and Van Dyk attempts to dismiss Mike McGinn’s ambitious rail expansion proposal by claiming that the previous one only “narrowly passed.” My ass!

Is Van Dyk an idiot, or does he just think everybody else is?

Successful leadership requires both vision and execution, and judging from the bold, light rail expansion proposal he announced Wednesday, mayoral wannabe Mike McGinn appears to be getting the first part down pat. As for the second part… well, that’s the question, isn’t it?

You can read the instant analysis from the transit geeks at Publicola, Seattle Transit Blog and elsewhere, though to be honest, there isn’t all that much in the way of detailed analysis because the announcement itself is pretty thin on details.  But that’s okay, because rather than etching a light rail plan in stone, McGinn appears to really just be saying, “hey… we’ve been studying these neighborhood extensions since 1920… now let’s get our shit together and build it!” Though, not exactly in those words.

McGinn’s proposal calls for developing a plan within his first two years as mayor to connect high density neighborhoods — Wallingford, Fremont, Ballard, Queen Anne, Belltown and West Seattle — to our existing regional light rail system using compatible technology. The plan and all taxes to fund it would be put before Seattle voters, and construction and operations would likely be handled by Sound Transit.

And as we all know from previous transit debates and controversies, there’s nothing new about the idea of these neighborhood extensions. Indeed, much of it has already been extensively studied by Sound Transit as part of its long range planning process.

You’ll notice the West Seattle to Ballard route is not included in this 2005 map, because ST had basically backed off the Monorail’s bailiwick, but they’ve studied that route too. Somewhere in the archives you’ll find plenty of estimates, however preliminary, of both ridership and cost, along a number of possible routes. In fact, the only truly novel idea in McGinn’s proposal is the suggestion that we might actually build it, and sometime in the first half of this century.

So can we?

Given the political will and the money, of course we can. And that’s where part two of the leadership equation comes in.

McGinn suggests that we “use existing city and/or Transportation Benefit District taxing authority” to finance the project (voters permitting, of course), but as Ben at STB points out, that doesn’t raise very much money. Or perhaps McGinn is thinking of the MVET authority previously granted the Monorail? Maybe, but the problem is, we don’t appear to have the authority to use that authority in the way that McGinn proposes, so Seattle would first have to receive permission from the legislature to tax itself to build the neighborhood extensions it wants. That’s a little political reality McGinn should keep in mind should he butt heads with Olympia over the deep bore tunnel he so feverishly opposes… a political reality complicated by the fact that the powers that be covet what little unused taxing capacity remains within Seattle as a means of funding highway improvements throughout the rest of the region. That’s largely why they opposed putting ST Phase II on the ballot.

Even then, it’s not clear that the MVET alone would provide enough revenue to build out the full neighborhood system in any sort of a  timely fashion — say, fifteen years versus fifty — especially if multiple costly water crossings are included. Annual revenues determine how much you can bond, and the amount you can bond determines how fast you can build… and that, after all, was the final nail in the Monorail’s coffin: a 30-percent shortfall between the revenues needed to properly bond the project and the revenues actually being collected. So how does McGinn get from here to there?

As Ben points out, one approach would be to build a lower cost system more along the lines of Portland’s MAX and ST’s Rainier Valley alignment, mostly at grade, with little in the way of fancy stations. Such a system would be cheaper and faster to build, much of it running along existing city right-of-way, but it would also be slower and provide less maximum capacity than the grade-separated route along much of the Central Link. Topography won’t allow this approach in some places, but one can certainly imagine an at-grade alignment down Elliot AVE and and 15th AVE W, for example.

But another comparison to Portland also needs to be made, in that, unlike the doomed Monorail, MAX’s various lines have been built with as much as 83% federal funding, along with a steady stream of dollars from the state, whereas the Seattle Monorail was budgeted to receive virtually zilch in state and federal money. You can pretty much rule out state funding from a legislature that has determined that fucking Seattle is always an effective election-year strategy, but it’s hard to imagine such an ambitious build-out being achieved without a substantial infusion of federal funds.

In reality, it’s hard to see McGinn realizing his vision without some combination of all of the above. He’s going to have to cajole the legislature into giving Seattle additional authority, convince Seattle voters to tax themselves while tamping down expectations in terms of the type of system and/or time of delivery, and effectively work the state’s congressional delegation into doing their all to squeeze a substantial contribution out of the federal budget. Meanwhile, he’ll have to do all that in the face of a Seattle Times editorial board hostile to both rail and taxation, and a city council that may actually attempt to finally reassert itself against a novice mayor. And all that’s assuming that Sound Transit is willing and able to take on the project. That makes for a lot of ifs.

And, oh yeah… he first has to defeat Joe Mallahan in November.

Is McGinn up to the leadership challenge? I dunno. That’s the conundrum voters are going to have figure out for themselves.

A poor economy and, of all things, political wrangling (!) have created an uncertain future for the Columbia River Crossing project, the effort to build a new bridge between Portland and Vancouver.

From The Oregonian:

In an interview with The Oregonian late Thursday, Portland Mayor Sam Adams said he would release a statement today saying he will suspend his support for a bridge of up to 12 lanes, a compromise deal he helped write with Vancouver Mayor Royce E. Pollard in February. That deal helped get Portland City Council agreement for a bridge of up to 12 lanes, something Vancouver wanted in exchange for its support of Portland’s much-desired light rail extension across the bridge.

“I’ll respect the will of the voters in Vancouver and Clark County on light rail,” Adams said. “I just want to make it real clear: No tolls, no bridge. No light rail, no support from me on the Columbia River Crossing.”

Translation: there will be no “grand compromise,” and there likely won’t be a new bridge. At least that’s how I see it. They’ll fool around eliminating interchange improvements and such, but this thing has been leaking water for quite a while, and that’s a shame. Hooking Clark County up to Portland’s already extensive light rail system would be a forward thinking and perhaps vital transportation achievement for the region, especially when oil prices skyrocket again.

As The Oregonian article notes, possible tolls on a new span have become a hot issue in the race for Vancouver mayor, which pits long-time incumbent Royce Pollard against sitting council member and developer-toady Tim Leavitt.

A lot of folks bemoan the duplicity of politicians, so it’s kind of demoralizing to see Pollard receiving such a strong challenge mainly because Leavitt has seized upon populist opposition to tolls to advance his campaign, while Pollard has been intellectually honest about them for years. With state and federal transportation funds drying up, it does seem wildly unlikely a new bridge will be built without them.

I’ve long held that tolls should only be used for construction and maintenance costs, not “traffic demand management,” as a recognition that the public might see TDM as unfairly punitive to low and moderate income folks. Tolling bridges to pay for construction costs is such a common practice historically that you kind of wonder why anyone would even question it, other than this region has little experience with tolls compared to the east coast and midwest.

So here we are about one year after the worst financial shock since the Great Depression, with the official unemployment rate in Clark County at 13.9%, and we can’t build a bridge. What should have happened, of course, was that construction should have started on Jan. 30, and as thousands of construction jobs were created the regional economy would have received a tremendous boost; a jump-start if you will.

That’s not realistic, as it would have taken longer even if any kind of decision had been made, but really. Enough is enough. The region needs to have the I-5 spans replaced, and woe to the region if Leavitt unseats Pollard and has to stick to his anti-tolling position.

Our ancestors built the Golden Gate bridge, essentially putting their own homes at risk to finance it, in the midst of the Depression, but that was another time and place. We can’t build any bridges now, over water, over land or to the same definition of reality.

The ultimate irony to me, as someone who fought for better school funding and for making developers pay their fair share during the housing bubble, is that the nihilistic approach would be to oppose any new bridge, because as congestion continues to mount fewer people will want to endure the hassle of commuting from Clark County. The existing spans become, in effect, a de facto toll measured in hours wasted, which will mean fewer jobs and fewer houses in Clark County.

But silly me, I hope to have a vital, functioning economy in this region for my kids to enjoy, and a big part of that is making sure goods and people can be transported smoothly back and forth across the river, and the current spans simply aren’t up to the job.

Which states have the worst record in reproductive health?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYHJwkWfMTc[/youtube]

Oh man, do I feel dirty. Yesterday I agreed with Seattle Times editorial columnist Bruce Ramsey. And today I agree with (ugh) Katie Riley, as she argues in support of former US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s crusade to end judicial elections.

Washington voters will remember the bruising supreme court justice races in 2006, when the Building Industry Association of Washington targeted the well-respected Chief Justice Gerry Alexander with unseemly and misleading ads. Alexander prevailed but the experience left many observers of Washington’s judicial elections uneasy at the close call — except, interestingly enough, the chief justice himself, who remains strongly in favor of judicial elections.

Advocates argue the system worked, that the nasty campaign spawned a voter backlash that saved Alexander. But I agree with those who argue the conversation would be much different if Alexander had been ousted.

[…]

However, the surprising truth about Washington’s judicial election system is that most judges aren’t elected. They arrive on the bench through a gubernatorial appointment. Of the state’s 218 elected judges on the supreme, appeals and superior courts, 60 percent of them were appointed by the governor, according to a 2009 study by Washington State University professors. And when they come up for re-election, 84 percent of incumbent judges are unchallenged.

Count me with those who think a citizen-based nominating commission, similar to that recommended by the 1996 Walsh Commission, would be a better way. The nominating commission would vet candidates and recommend the best to the governor for appointment. The judges would stand for retention elections.

My recollection is, that’s the way we did it in Pennsylvania, and as irritating as it may be for some folks out here to hear, there are things to be learned from other states… even East Coast ones.

Problem is, one of my rules of political thumb is that nobody ever votes for less democracy, and that’s exactly how such sensible reform would be misrepresented by opponents should it ever come to the ballot. That’s why I don’t find it surprising to hear Justice Alexander voice his support for the current system; he is, after all, subject to it, and any perceived opposition to direct election of judges could be effectively used against him in the next election. So the leadership to address this issue before it corrupts our judicial system must come from the governor and the legislature, as well as the editorial boards and other opinion leaders.

Over the past decade the US Chamber of Commerce alone has spent hundreds of millions of dollars influencing local judicial elections, an effort that has successfully flipped the ideological balance at the Supreme Court and appellate level in several states. I just don’t think that’s what the framers of Washington’s constitution had in mind when they enacted judicial elections as a safeguard against the railroad barons and bankers who had previously dominated the region’s government.

For those of you eagerly waiting for a blogger like me to be financially ruined in a libel suit, all I can say is, this ain’t England:

The libel laws of England and Wales are notorious. Libel cases cost little to bring — you can make a no-win-no-fee arrangement with your lawyer — but a lot to defend. According to a recent report, the average cost of defending a libel case in England and Wales is 140 times greater than it is in most of the rest of Europe.

Moreover, English libel law favors the claimant — the person who says he or she has been defamed — in several ways. For one, the range of defenses is more limited than in other jurisdictions. For another, in English libel cases, the burden of proof is effectively on the defendant. In other words, the defamatory statement is presumed to be false unless the defendant can prove it is true.

[…] The problem the libel laws create is not so much that critical stories can’t be written, but that they won’t be. As the conversations I had this summer show, for many journalists and their employers the potential for a libel case is a powerful deterrent to criticism: the pieces aren’t worth the hassle.

Yup, if you long for our libel laws to be used to slap down a few of us meddlesome bloggers, that’s exactly the type of journalistic climate of fear you obviously hope to create. But unfortunately for you, here in the U.S., we have something called the First Amendment. So eat me.

Oh geebus.

Protesters who attended Saturday’s Tea Party rally in Washington found a new reason to be upset: Apparently they are unhappy with the level of service provided by the subway system.

Rep. Kevin Brady called for a government investigation into whether the government-run subway system adequately prepared for this weekend’s rally to protest government spending and government services.

Seriously.

Please note that the above item is from the Wall Street Journal, that complete communist-socialist-Hawaiian rag.

I’ll type slowly, so conservatives can follow along.

Anti-government protesters and their supporters are complaining about a government service that delivered them to their anti-government protest.

It’s exactly like what happened to the barefoot soldiers at Valley Forge, except the soldiers at Valley Forge couldn’t go home and stock up on frozen meatballs at a Wal-Mart in suburban Virginia.

(Props to Eschaton.)

Susan Hutchison points to a handful of so-called “Democratic” endorsers to bolster her claims of bipartisanship, but delve a little deeper under the scarlet “D” and an interesting pattern emerges:

Former US Rep. Don Bonker (D-WA)… generally considered to be a conservative Dem, who “opposes abortion as a matter of personal philosophy.”

Former US Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-IN)… generally considered to be a conservative Dem, who was widely thought to have lost a shot at the VP spot on Bill Clinton’s 1992 ticket due to his support of restrictions on abortion rights.

Democratic Lt. Governor Brad Owen… widely considered to be one of the most conservative Democrats in the Washington State Senate during his tenure there, and who not surprisingly, is anti-choice.

Notice the pattern? As for Hutchison’s other two “Democratic” endorsers, former Seattle Mayor Wes Uhlman and State Auditor Brian Sonntag, well, I don’t know where either one stands on reproductive rights, though I’ve emailed Sonntag bluntly asking him the question. But, I do know that Uhlman has a history of endorsing Republicans, while Sonntag, given his penchant for conspiring with Tim Eyman, speaking at teabagger rallies and publicly endorsing conservative Republicans like Hutchison… well… I take personal offense at him continuing to call himself a Democrat.

Let’s be clear, when I vigorously opposed the campaign of Republican Dan Satterberg for King County Prosecutor, I was endlessly frustrated by the impressive list of prominent Democrats who endorsed him… but only because he managed to garner an actual impressive list of Democratic endorsements. By comparison, Hutchison’s claim of bipartisan support is a total sham, consisting of three, long-retired politicians, and two of the most conservative and disloyal Democratic elected officials in the state.

Thanks to the bullshit initiative making county elections officially nonpartisan, Hutchison’s chances aren’t handicapped by being forced to put an “R” next to her name, but that doesn’t make her any less of a conservative Republican. And any cooperation she gets from our local media in perpetrating this lie would be a disservice to King County voters.

UPDATE:
According to his 2008 KC Dems candidate questionnaire, Sonntag says he’s pro-choice. But he’s sure as hell wrong about Hutchison.

It should also be noted, by the way, that of Hutchison’s five Democratic endorsers, only Uhlman is a native or resident of King County.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVgOl3cETb4[/youtube]

Folks are poking fun at mayoral candidate Mike McGinn for a press release giving the address of the Columbia City light rail station as Empire Way S and S Edmunds St., pointing out that Empire Way was renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Way after a contentious battle back in 1983.

But I just checked the trusty Map app on my iPhone and it insists that MLK Jr. Way only runs southbound, while the northbound lanes are correctly called Empire Way… and since Google surely would have fixed their maps had they been given two-and-a-half years notice, I can only assume that the Google is right, and everybody else is wrong.

I hate to say it, but I agree with Bruce Ramsey and Rev. Joe Fuiten. Sorta.

In May, the Rev. Joe Fuiten of Cedar Park Church, Bothell, appealed to his fellow conservative Christians not to challenge the state’s new domestic-partnership law for same-sex couples.

Yes, they could collect signatures and put the law on the ballot and hope to overturn it. That is the right of referendum. But the polls, he said, “show us behind.” Fuiten warned: “If we make a referendum effort and fail, the other side will conclude the public is with them.”

Yes, they will — and the fight will be over.

Absolutely.

The bird-in-the-hand side of me would have preferred R-71 hadn’t qualified for the ballot (and in fact, I’m not entirely convinced it legitimately did), but I nonetheless believe that it stands a strong chance of passing. And if it does, it will rightly be perceived as a referendum on full-blown same-sex marriage itself.

How could it not? The anti-gay-rights forces will use the slippery slope argument as they always do, when they’re not outright misrepresenting the measure as doing more than it really does. And by branding the bill as the “Everything But Marriage Act,” the pro-gay-right side has virtually assured that the measure will be conflated with same-sex marriage in the minds of many voters… “don’t think of an elephant,” and all that.

So while R-71 really doesn’t give same-sex couples the same rights the rest of us enjoy, its passage at the polls would likely give legislators the backbone they need to move faster toward that final step. And as a connoisseur of irony, that’s an outcome I sure would enjoy.

From page two of a Politico piece this morning, concerning the Mad Max Blue Cross Defense Act of 2009:

The bill requires individuals to buy insurance, or else face penalties as high as $3,800 for a family. It would not mandate businesses to provide coverage for their employees – as the House bills do – but it would require them to defray the cost of any government subsidies for which their employees would qualify.

So with the lame “co-ops” instead of the public option, meaning no way to control costs or create meaningful competition, many Americans would be forced under threat of monetary fine to hand their money over to the same robber barons who have been ripping them off all along.

Unless progressives hold firm in the House, and start doing some effective work in the Senate, then all regular Americans should stock up on tea bags.

I mean, It’s okay to ask if half of a loaf of bread is better than none, but clearly half of a turd is not a half loaf of bread, it’s just a piece of shit.

The irony is simply rich, and breathtaking. Conservatives got all freaked out by stuff that either wasn’t in legislation or was not what they claimed, and the resulting hysteria has been used to create a Frankenstein monster that has drawn absolutely zero Republican support, not even from alleged moderate Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. Never, ever take a Democrat with you to buy a car, people, you’ll wind up paying thousands over MSRP and you’ll probably have to fill it with oil and wash it yourself.

Republicans are assailing the Baucus Turd, so forgive my non-D.C. confusion, but WTF? We’re negotiating a compromise that the other side of the aisle is rejecting so we can either play filibuster or reconciliation games?

A few updates from around the area:

– As the extradition date for Canadian seed-seller Marc Emery approaches (he’s expected to be sentenced here in Seattle on Monday, September 28), a rally to protest his looming incarceration is being organized for this Saturday, September 19 at 10am, starting at the Space Needle.

– Medical marijuana patients protested the raids on Spokane’s dispensaries.

– The Tri-City Herald investigates an incident that shows that storylines from The Wire can happen even out in rural Eastern Washington as well. Wherever you go, the drug war inevitably leads to corruption.

– What’s wrong with Tom Carr? If you care about making sure he’s no longer our City Attorney after this year, his opponent in November, Pete Holmes, is having a fundraiser tomorrow (Wednesday) in downtown Seattle.

Please join us tonight for some politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. The festivities take place at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at 8:00 pm.

It’s a good night for some scintillating conversation, a refreshing pint of beer, and a plate full of Resolutions of Disapproval.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2jZonQkTiE[/youtube]

Not in Seattle? The Drinking Liberally web site has dates and times for 337 other chapters of Drinking Liberally for you to shoot for.

I think I may have broken the law. Or maybe not. I’m not sure.

With my daughter vegging around the house Sunday, desperately avoiding her homework, I decided to watch a little bit of the Eagles-Panthers game, the problem being, the game wasn’t on TV. Still, I figured, nearly everything is available streaming online these days, and it didn’t take me too long to find what I was looking for.

Sure, I had to boot up my cranky old copy of Parallels/XP, and download some awkward piece of Windows software, but ten minutes later my MacBook was hooked up to my TV, and I was watching Donovan McNabb getting his ribs fractured in a live, if somewhat pixelated, full-screen picture. I would have paid for an easier, higher quality streaming option, but since the NFL wasn’t offering me one, I joined the thousands of other expatriate football fans willing to do what it takes to follow their out-of-market teams.

And following my team has been exceedingly difficult since moving to Seattle in 1992, the problem only exacerbated by the Seahawk’s 2002 move to the NFC West. The Eagles, perennial contenders, tend to be featured in a few nationally broadcast games each season, but during the intervening weeks the pickings are slim; even when the Eagles are featured in one of the weekly regional match-ups, Channel 13 tends to opt for something geographically closer.

Two or three times a year I trudge to a local sports bar to root on my Eagles, but I wasn’t about to drag my daughter to a bar, particularly at 10 in the morning. And I’m sure as hell not gonna pay the $1000-plus a year it would cost to both subscribe to DirectTV and purchase its NFL Sunday Ticket package, just for the privilege of watching maybe an additional dozen games at most.

So while Sunday’s stream kinda sucked, if the quality were a tad better I could imagine it becoming a bit of a habit.

Which raises the question… how fucking stupid must the NFL and the media companies be to drive potential paying customers like me into the arms of pirates, hackers and cheats? They certainly could stream games, but I suppose that would threaten Rupert Murdoch’s out-of-market monopoly. So instead, by refusing to address the demand that is already there, they are creating a market for free streaming that is technically impossible to quash, and will be very difficult to compete against once fans become conditioned to paying nothing.

Furthermore, it’s not at all clear that my private viewing of a live stream of an Over-The-Air broadcast from a Philadelphia station is even illegal. The unauthorized retransmission of this broadcast, that can’t be kosher, but my viewing of it on the Internet? I’m not so sure. How is this different from viewing infringing material on YouTube? And as for the ethical issues, it’s hard to feel guilty about watching an otherwise free, OTA broadcast, commercials and all, even if the NFL and News Corp. would rather I not.

I don’t know if I’ll watch another stream like this, but the point is I can, and there’s nothing the NFL can do to stop it. So rather than pretending these new technologies don’t exist, wouldn’t the NFL be better off offering a higher-quality, reasonably priced, paid streaming alternative, that didn’t turn avid fans into avid pirates? Hasn’t the rest of the entertainment industry learned anything from the mistakes of the music industry and its disastrously failed efforts to maintain the status quo?

It doesn’t take more than a few minutes of Googling to realize that nearly everything remotely streamable is available for streaming on the Internet, authorized or not, and yet Hollywood has its panties in a knot over the growing dominance of RedBox and its $1.00 rentals, while consumers in most of the rest of the world are exploiting the anarchy that is the Internet to remove themselves from the sales channel entirely.

If the studios are worried that $1.00 rentals might decimate their DVD sales, just imagine how hard they’ll find it to compete with free. The solution of course is to out-compete both RedBox and the pirates by aggressively putting their libraries online for streaming at competitive prices, before consumers learn habits that they’ll find very difficult to unlearn. Because one way or another, their content, just like the NFL’s is going to find its way online. The only question is who, if anybody, is going to profit from it.