HorsesAss.Org

And now a follow up on this post from yesterday, which had its genesis in a Joe Turner article about the Senate killing an asbestos lawsuit bill in retaliation for newspaper ads runs by the firm employing former state senator Brian Weinstein.

Readers may recall that not only did Senators kill the asbestos bill, it looks like they also killed off the Homeowner’s Bill of Rights, something that Weinstein worked on very hard when he was in office. Here’s a nugget from Turner’s article yesterday, because scrolling down is so difficult:

In four years, he (Weinstein) never really learned a thing about how this place works,” Sen. Brian Hatfield, D-Raymond, said Saturday. Hatfield was supporting a couple changes that Kastama and Haugen wanted to make to the original bill, changes that Weinstein’s firm did not want.

How “this place” works is this: Not only did the senators kill SB 5964, they also killed the so-called Homeowners Bill of Rights, a measure that Weinstein had championed for most of term in the Legislature and which he nearly got passed. It passed the Senate, but died in the House.

I talked to Weinstein this morning, and he sounded pretty incredulous at the turn of events, especially when it comes to the current Homeowner’s Bill of Rights.

“I’ve never lobbied for the current bill, I didn’t go testify, I haven’t even read the bill,” said Weinstein.

Over at Publicola, Josh reports that an “insider” offered the “conjecture” that a vote on the HBR is being put on hold because they “Just gotta wash the Weinstein off.” To which one can only offer a shake of the head, and the all too frequent observation that a lot of politicians have their heads where the sun don’t shine if this is how they view things that impact regular citizens. Talk about losing sight of why they were elected in the first place.

Weinstein pointed out this moring how nuts this all has become. “It’s totally absurd for the Senate to be punishing homebuyers by trying to punish me when I had nothing to do with this (current) bill.”

Indeed. We all know what needs washing, and it’s ain’t Brian Weinstein. The insider, frat-boy-sorority girl behavior may be acceptable and common in OIympia, but frankly given the economic calamity facing this state it’s pretty offensive.

Now tell me why I need to support a tax increase, Legislators. Or are you going to kill that bill to teach me a lesson?

Yet another name once bandied about as a potential challenger to Mayor Greg Nickels has officially dropped from contention, with Nick Licata announcing that he will instead seek another term on the Seattle City Council:

“After considerable reflection on how to best serve the community I love, I am happy to announce that I will run for re-election to the City Council.  A number of you urged me to run for Mayor, but I feel my role as a legislator, writing the laws that govern our city, is the one that suits me best.”

Greg Smith, Richard Conlin, Tim Burgess and Licata had all floated the idea of challenging Nickels, and all have backed down. According to the local rumor mills, that leaves only one potential serious contender left with a chance of unseating Boss Nickels this November:  popular former City Councilmember Peter Steinbrueck, who reportedly beats Nickels in at least one private poll… for whatever that’s worth.

Now that would be an interesting race.

UPDATE:
Of course, just as I hit the publish button, Publicola posts that former Sonics star, and current city council candidate James Donaldson is about to jump into the mayor’s race.  I dunno.  Doesn’t seem like a smart political move to me, and while I’ve never met him, everybody tells me that Donaldson is smart.

McClatchy is laying off the equivalent of 1,600 workers, and others are having salaries cut as part of a restructuring.

The four McClatchy newspapers in Washington state are The Olympian, The News-Tribune, The Bellingham Herald and Tri-City Herald.

Some well-known papers owned by the firm around the country include The Kansas City Star, The Sacramento Bee and The Miama Herald.

McClatchy has some very fine reporters here, around the country, and in its DC bureau. This is a shame.

Last week’s contest was won by 2cents. The location was Mississauga, ON. Here’s this week’s, good luck…

Still trying to wrap my head around this one. Joe Turner of the News-Tribune has an article posted about the death of SB 5964, which had something or other to do with asbestos lawsuits. Some mean lawyers ran newspaper ads trying to stop changes to the bill, so the Senate has apparently just spiked it. Or at least that’s what it sounds like from Turner’s report. Check out this bit:

The targeted senators lay most of the blame on a former colleague, Brian Weinstein, a Mercer Island lawyer who until December had been a Democratic senator representing King County’s Eastside communities. Weinstein is now a member of Bergman Draper & Frockt, the Seattle law firm that paid for the ads and which has been lobbying for passage of the bill.

“In four years, he (Weinstein) never really learned a thing about how this place works,” Sen. Brian Hatfield, D-Raymond, said Saturday. Hatfield was supporting a couple changes that Kastama and Haugen wanted to make to the original bill, changes that Weinstein’s firm did not want.

How “this place” works is this: Not only did the senators kill SB 5964, they also killed the so-called Homeowners Bill of Rights, a measure that Weinstein had championed for most of term in the Legislature and which he nearly got passed. It passed the Senate, but died in the House.

Let’s review how being a citizen works in this state, shall we?

Citizens bring up needed consumer protection legislation, and then it never ever ever ever fucking gets passed.

Geebus. Notice how the Legislature doesn’t ever pass bills, especially consumer protection bills, in retaliation for over the top political advertising (cough cough BIAW cough cough.)

Democrats: a circular firing squad of cats who won’t be herded towards a gun safety class where free tuna is being served.

Oh this is hilarious.

According to the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, sales of Atlas Shrugged hit an all-time high last year, and have “almost tripled” in the first seven weeks of 2009 against last year.

Michelle Malkin is the Norma Rae of this Galt moment, walking the virtual shop floors of the country’s “wealth producers,” but instead of “Strike!” her sign reads “Going Galt!”

I’m not so sure Norma Rae is the correct analogy. Maybe more like “The Creature From the Black Lagoon” meets “Risky Business,” with a soupçon of “Weird Science” thrown in, with Malkin in the role of the tormenting brother.

This would be so awesome. What’s stopping them? Anyone stupid enough to “go Galt” is likely a drag on the economy in the first place. Go ahead, righties, go Galt! Ha ha ha ha. In this economy there will be twenty people to take your place. Dear me, who on earth will we get to cook up new derivatives schemes? We’d most likely need to search the prisons for that skill set.

It’s always breathtaking how the most privileged (and often crooked) are always the victims in rightist mythology. Ayn Rand. Bwhaaaaaha ha ha ha. I needed a good belly laugh.

From The Big Picture:

Yesterday, in Backdoor Bailouts for Goldman Sachs?, we noted that GS, as well as Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, and Deutsche Bank, were all made whole on their bad bets with AIG.

That’s right, what was misleadingly described as systemic risk turned out to be in large part little more than a counter-party bailout — money for the very same people who helped cause the problem.

Only the $25 billion figure I mentioned was off by 100% — the WSJ is reporting this morning it was $50 billion dollars, almost a third of $173 billion total AIG loot:

Here is the link to the WSJ article.

Meanwhile, what has become known as The Scariest Chart Ever has been updated (props to The American Prospect:)

Here’s the link to Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s Flickr posting of the chart.

Someone should make a chart projecting sales growth in pitchforks, which is my growth industry of the day. (In best lunatic stock picker-screamer voice: “People, I am telling you to buy stock in pitchforks, now, because there is only one way pitchfork stocks are going, and that is up up up up up.”

If the Obama administration thinks they can continue the Paulson plan while employment goes off a cliff I’m afraid they are sadly mistaken. My crystal ball is being tuned up so I can hopefully get another 10-15,000 miles out of it somehow, but the “let them eat cake” aspect of this crisis is getting hard to dismiss. Sure, it’s early in the administration, and yes, the stimulus package, flaws and all, did get passed. But good Lord. Exactly how long are the American people supposed to stand for this outlandish thievery by Wall Street?

Is the RICO statute still around?

Freedom Bank of Georgia, Commerce, GA.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbJxMd3Pls8[/youtube]

I can haz financial newz? LOL!

The state legislature may have cut Seattle entirely out of federal transportation stimulus dollars, but at least we’re getting our fair share of the much smaller stimulus program aimed at criminal justice services:  $2.7 million of the $14.3 million being distributed to Washington state municipalities.  Of course, that’s only because the money is being divied up nationally according to a federal formula based on population and crime statistics, rather than the “Fuck Seattle” politics that tends to dominate Olympia these days.

(Hat tip, TNT)

The Seattle Times editorial board’s lack of empathy and curiosity is on display once again, this time in a smirk of an unsigned op-ed that dismissively rolls its eyes at families fighting to save their neighborhood schools from closure.

WASHINGTON law allows those who feel wronged by school boards or school officials to seek legal recourse.

The statute gives legal cover to the four lawsuits filed this week against the Seattle School District over its school-closures plan. But it does not hide their lack of substance.

[…] When it comes to government, the public must have a route to appeal, and in the case of harm, seek remedy. But a foundation held up by taxpayers has a high threshold. Nuisance lawsuits and those that seek not to remedy, but to obstruct, should be swiftly ferreted out and dismissed.

Shorter Seattle Times:  those who feel wronged have the right to seek legal recourse, you know, except when it gets in the way of saving money.

It is particularly irritating to see the Times pontificate on school closures knowing their credulous coverage of the issue over the past three rounds. The Times, which has been quick to criticize the district on other issues, simply accepts the school closure data—enrollment, budget, cost savings and performance numbers—as a matter of fact, while dismissing objections from parents as nothing but a “nuisance” and an effort to “obstruct.” And for a paper that is often so vociferously suspicious of government and government officials when it comes to property rights, public disclosure, transportation planning, the raising and spending of taxpayer dollars and almost every other issue, it is more than a bit ironic to see them urging parents to just shut up and sacrifice their own children’s education for the good of the district.

If the plan results in better-resourced schools, more successful students and district efficiencies that free up the money to pay for it, those children are being singled out for something good.

How very Mr. Spock of them.  If I didn’t know better, I’d say this editorial was written by a goddamn socialist.

While I haven’t educated myself nearly as well on the specifics of this closure plan, I know from past experience how “arbitrary and capricious” the district can be in justifying one proposal over another, and then suddenly changing course.  My own neighborhood school, Graham Hill Elementary, was slandered by the district during the 2006 closure process on nearly every metric evaluated.  Academic performance, neighborhood support, even something supposedly as concrete as our enrollment numbers were intentionally deflated in an effort to justify our school’s closure.  And when we presented our own numbers (including a detailed analysis from a forensic accountant) to the Times, they responded with public silence and private accusations of NIMBYism.

Had we followed the Times’ sage advice, and just shut up and accepted the district’s decision for the good of the many, Graham Hill would be shuttered today instead of over-enrolled and winning awards.  But we didn’t.  As with most aspects of our capitalist-inspired society, this is an adversarial process.  So we fought hard for our school, and we won.  And I applaud those communities who are doing the same for their neighborhood schools, in the face of overwhelming odds and the elitist admonishments of know-it-all editorial boards.

In fact, I’d argue that it is those parents who refuse to fight who deserve to be admonished, for if all parents fought as hard for their children’s education as those who are bringing these lawsuits, the needs of the many would surely be better served.

It’s March, so you know what that means, right?

Right?

No?

It’s time for the Municipal League of King County’s 50th Annual Civic Awards!

Still nothing?

Allow me to explain… The Muni League has been around for a long time. They’re known for their candidate ratings, their independent research, and their quiche. Every year they give out awards to people who have done something useful for the community. They invite everyone in Sen. Fred Jarrett’s rolodex over to a nice venue for finger food and $9.00 Diet Cokes.

WHERE: Seattle Art Museum
WHEN: March 25 from 6 to 8:30 p.m
HOW MUCH: $70 general admission, $60 Municipal League Members

(Admission includes 2009 Membership and a “Jim Vesely column Decoder Ring,” beer, wine, passed hors d’ouevres and a dessert gift bag at the end of the evening.)

Tonya Harding, Clark County’s most beloved celebrity, speaks out about Barack Obama.

Unfortunately.

Maybe she’ll stay up in the hills for another decade.

This is all over the Internet Tubes today, but in case you missed it, check out Jon Stewart completely owning Clown-NBC and Rick Santelli.

[flash]http://media.mtvnservices.com/mgid:cms:item:comedycentral.com:220252[/flash]

Further proof that the best journalists in the country are—comedians, especially Stewart and Colbert, since they seem to be the ones consistently pointing out how utterly and consistently wrong conservatives have been about everything. The Daily Show clip really is an instant classic.

I know Frank Blethen keeps saying that the impending demise of the P-I will be a boon to his rival Times, but apparently not everybody is that optimistic…

The McClatchy Co., which owns 49.5 percent of The Seattle Times Co., has again cut the value of its share of the Seattle newspaper company — this time to nothing.

Because of The Seattle Times Co’s. “comprehensive loss related to its retirement plan liabilities” in 2008, McClatchy’s investment was zero as of Dec. 28, McClatchy said in its most recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Huh.  I’m not exactly certain what a 49.5 percent stake in HA would be worth, but I’m pretty sure it’s worth more than nothing.