HorsesAss.Org

I don’t generally make a habit of passing on third-hand accounts from unnamed sources, but this source is so credible, the account so believable and the timing so impeccable that I just can’t resist.

My source, who travels in high circles within the sports/entertainment industry, was talking to an executive with an NBA team, when the subject of the Sonics came up. My source expressed the opinion that he couldn’t believe the owners would let the Sonics move from a market like Seattle to Oklahoma City, and the executive replied that the decision had already been made. (My source emailed me the news half a day before NBA commissioner David Stern made his recent public comments, so you understand why the timing strikes me as so impeccable.)

The executive went on to say that his own boss wasn’t too thrilled about the prospect of the Sonics moving to such a smaller market, but that Stern had insisted that Seattle “must be made an example of.” Essentially Stern had determined from the moment Clay Bennett bought the team that there wasn’t much chance of keeping the Sonics in Seattle, so he decided to use it as an opportunity to teach other cities a lesson that if they don’t play ball with NBA owners, the owners will take their ball and, um… go to a different home.

Yeah sure, it’s a little bit of whisper down the lane — Stern to an NBA owner to the executive to my source to me — but it sure does explain one of the most confusing aspects of this whole sorry affair: Stern’s absolute failure to intervene constructively in an effort to keep the Sonics in Seattle. From day one Stern’s manner has wavered between standoffish and heavy-handed, ignoring Seattle fans and their plight when he wasn’t issuing an ultimatum or a threat. Seattle’s business and media establishment been waiting patiently for Stern to put aside the tough guy act and finally broker a deal, but it’s never happened; indeed, the commissioner has seemed determined to scuttle the few hopeful developments that have occasionally popped up.

So Stern wants to “make an example” of Seattle, as a warning to uppity taxpayers in other cities. He tells us that if we let the Sonics go (as if it was ever up to us), we’ll never get another NBA team. Well I think it is time for the citizens of Seattle to tell Commissioner Stern that his product sucks, his business model is broken and quite frankly, he needs our market more than we need him. The NBA’s loss will be the Huskies and the Cougars and the Storm’s gain, not to mention the hundreds of other businesses that are happy to vie for our entertainment dollars. I think it is time to tell Stern that if he takes the Sonics away, we’ll never take the NBA back… at least not while he is still commissioner.

If Stern wants to make an example of Seattle, I say we happily oblige. Let’s make Key Arena the heart of a revitalized Seattle Center, and work to fill those 40-some dates of sorry-ass playground hoops with other events. Let’s show other cities that there is life after the NBA, and that our culture can flourish and our economy prosper without paying half a billion dollars of taxpayer money into the league’s arena ponzi scheme. Let’s shrug our shoulders and say goodbye, and wait for the league to come crawling back to what is, after all, one of the most dynamic, prosperous and trend-setting regions in the nation. It may take a decade or two before we see Seattle atop the NBA standings again (…hell, it may have taken that long regardless), but if Los Angeles could survive just fine without an NFL franchise, we can surely thrive without the Sonics.

As I was finishing up my recent post on religion, I put off raising this issue that Josh Marshall posts about today:

Here’s one other point I want to raise about Wright. Having watched the full sermons that his sound bites were grabbed out of, it’s pretty clear to me that the snippets running on Youtube were taken out of context and heavily distorted. (But that’s life, to a degree — political hits don’t usually come packaged with extenuating context) I’m also not going to get into the business of full-scale defenses of someone who has apparently suggested that the US government had some role in “inventing the HIV virus as a means of genocide against people of color.”

But in the debate about Wright, which Sen. Clinton has just reignited, it seems to be spoken of now as an unquestioned assumption that Wright traffics in racist rhetoric or hate speech. But is that really true? I’ve seen some stuff that strikes me as whacky. I’ve heard soundbites that critics would not have much trouble spinning as anti-American. But are there really quotes that justify the charge of racism? I’m not saying that purely as a rhetorical question. I have not made myself a full Wrightologist. But I do get the sense that a lot of people believe he’s so radioactive that it makes no sense to point out when others are treating as granted claims that appear demonstrably false.

I often get annoyed at how easily some liberals throw out the racist tag when it’s not deserved (see: Imus, Don), but this looks a case where the shoe is on the other foot. Criticizing America, even being insanely paranoid about our own government, isn’t the same thing as racism. Has Wright said anything that qualifies as being racist? If so, what?

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. We meet at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E—some of us show up a little early to sample from the terrific menu.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally . Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

(Courtesy of DownWithTyranny!)

Darcy Burner has an op-ed in the Seattle Times today on our disastrous five-year occupation of Iraq, and her Responsible Plan to end it: “Five years is long enough.” My understanding is that the Times offered Burner the opportunity to write an op-ed, unprompted, which suggests to me a possible shift in attitude from the powers that be at a paper that once attacked her in perhaps the most viciously one-sided, mean-spirited and dishonest editorial endorsement I have ever had the misfortune of reading. We’ll see.

One of the most persistent attacks on Burner has always been her supposed lack of experience, as epitomized in Reichert’s mockingly sexist (and apparently effective) job interview ad. (How a two-year AA degree and a police career prepares one to be an effective legislator, I’ll never know.) But Burner’s leadership in developing and promoting the Responsible Plan puts that canard to rest:

Over the past six months, I have worked with military and national-security experts such as retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, who was a predecessor of Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq, to create a clear path forward for our country. […] The response has been phenomenal. More than 30 House and Senate candidates from across the country have signed on — including both Democratic U.S. Senate challengers in Oregon — and the list is growing. Some of the leading minds in the national-security establishment have reviewed and endorsed the plan, including Lawrence Korb, a former assistant secretary of defense under President Reagan, and Rand Beers, a counterterrorism expert who served on the National Security Council under Presidents Reagan, Clinton and both Bushes.

What Burner has demonstrated as a mere candidate is exactly the kind of legislative leadership, initiative and effectiveness we have never seen from Reichert — who GOP Beltway insider Robert Novak describes as having “not distinguished himself during three years in Congress.” She consulted closely with national security experts, drafted a proposal, sought additional input from fellow candidates and other interested parties, and ultimately built consensus around a comprehensive Plan so credible that it has already earned the endorsement of 37 Democratic challengers, only one week since its introduction. That is effective leadership. That is exactly the process by which one successfully crafts and passes legislation. And that is also exactly the kind of job Burner was trained to do as a high-level manager at Microsoft.

Anybody who has worked in the product development cycle can recognize in Burner’s efforts creating and promoting the Responsible Plan, the skill set necessary to successfully bring a product to market on time and on budget. As a longtime Macintosh partisan it pains me to suggest this… but couldn’t we use a little bit of that Microsoft culture in the House of Representatives? Perhaps Darcy’s high-tech experience is at least as applicable to the job of representing the interests of the 8th Congressional District as Reichert’s 18-year investigation of the Green River Killer?

And if our editorial boards are going to place such an emphasis on experience, perhaps it is time to ask Dave Reichert what he has to show for his three years in Congress?

My series of posts in tribute to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode “Space Mutiny” continues after a long break. The latest is called Rising Up Against Captain Santa Claus and it covers religion, the first 5 years of the Iraq War, and other topics.

Previous posts in the series can be found here:
1 – Mutinyblogging Pours the First Drink
2 – Seattle vs. Jakarta: The Monorail Challenge – Part 11
3 – The Mutiny

I cut my blogging teeth covering the contested results of the 2004 gubernatorial election, and I’m particularly proud of the legal analysis I provided throughout the court proceedings. And so for today’s installment of the The Best of Goldy, I’m linking all the way back to February of 2005, when I essentially called the case for the Democrats, four months before Judge Bridges ultimately dismissed it with prejudice: “Stick a Foulkes in it, this case is done!”

Go back and read Judge Bridges’ decision and I think you’ll find that I was not only right, I was right on the money. But the real eye-opener for me was going back and reading the comment thread. My comment threads have always been a nasty place, but I was surprised by the amount of substantive conversation that actually took place back then. Makes me a little wistful. And all the more ready to clamp down on abusive comments from all sides the ideological divide.

Yet another McCain Moment™. Back before Super Tuesday, Yahoo News asked each of the Republican nominees what kind of computer they used, Mac or PC. Huckabee… PC. Paul… PC. Romney… PC (though in his typical all things to all people style, he said that his sons swear by their Macs, so he’ll “probably convert.”) And McCain…?

“Neither. I am an illiterate who has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance I can get.”

I guess that’s one advantage to marrying a woman 18 years your junior. But see what I mean when I say that McCain is too old to be president?

UPDATE:
My apologies to Sen. McCain; looks like he does know how to use a computer. In fact, it looks like he’s just written his very first blog post.

Apparently, state Senate Minority Leader Mike Hewitt (R-Buttcrack) did indeed moon Sen. Pam Roach, as she alleged… at least according to yet another inflammatory intraparty email, this one from Sen. Don Benton:

“First, the fact that our elected leader, Senator Hewitt screamed uncontrollably at both Senator Roach and myself during the meeting was degrading and embarrassing. I believe it made everyone in the room feel uncomfortable. No one wants to attend a meeting like that and perhaps that is his goal since we are in such dire straights. His immature and vulgar display of lifting his coat and showing his rear end to Senator Roach may be comical to some but was over the top and most certainly behavior unbecoming any senator let alone the leader of our caucus.”

I sure find it “comical,” but not necessarily in the way that Sen. Hewitt intended. As for those “dire straights” Sen. Benton writes about…?

“I was shocked to discover at the meeting that $300,000 of the $400,000 raised in 2007 was also spent in 2007 even though we had no races that year at all. It appears that no attempt whatsoever was made to conserve funds for the crucial 2008 election cycle. This is greatly disturbing. A statewide mailing list composed of only 2600 donors is pathetic. And I hope you caught the fact that $100,000 was spent on direct mail to break even and only add 200 or so additional names to our list. If this wasn’t so sad it would be laughable.

[…] The other serious concern after spending over $300,000 last year is the fact that we still have no candidates recruited for 14 of the 16 “D” seats that are up this cycle. The filing period is only 2 months away. In fact, we only have two candidates, one of which found us. This is a sad commentary on the effectiveness of our whole team in recruiting candidates.”

A “sad commentary”…? Gee… ya think?

Read the whole email over at the TNT’s Political Buzz.

Nico Pitney | Huffington Post

As most of you have heard by now, America reached a tragic milestone yesterday when the 4000th U.S. soldier was killed in Iraq. Less well publicized is the fact that 97% of American casualties have occurred since President Bush declared “mission accomplished,” and that the 4000 mark was hit after a two-week surge in violence which saw the deaths of 25 American servicemen… the highest two-week death toll since last summer.

4000. 97. 25. In the abstract, they’re just numbers, but to the family and friends of the dead and wounded, each increment represents a personal tragedy.

But there’s another number that offers a glimmer of hope. 33 Democratic challengers have now signed on to the Responsible Plan to end the war in Iraq that Darcy Burner introduced last week in Washington D.C., and the momentum seems to be building day by day. 33 candidates, working outside the purview of the Beltway establishment, have come together to offer a comprehensive legislative framework for leaving Iraq responsibly, applying the diplomatic, political and economic surge necessary to stabilize the region, and reinforcing constitutional safeguards that might prevent a fiasco like this from happening again in the future.

I’m not so naive as to think that the Responsible Plan is so perfect that it can’t be improved upon, or that it will likely be approved by Congress as is, in toto. But it represents a genuine grassroots and grasstips effort to change the conversation on national security and move us toward a responsible end to this disastrous occupation. While Dave Reichert continues to wait to see if the surge is successful before considering changing course, Burner is leading an effort to address the real-world reality enunciated by Gen. David Petraeus: “There is no military solution to a problem like that in Iraq.”

33 fellow challengers have now joined Burner in her efforts. And counting.

Postman makes humorous observation:

“There’s no certainty in this mortal coil.” State GOP Chairman Luke Esser talking about his count of Republican caucus votes.

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
Hamlet, Act III, scene I

The title of Postman’s blog entry is “The Republican book club,” which made me think of a few jokes, one of which included a certain Bush fave. But I’ll pose a question:

What books do you think they read in Republican book clubs?

Leave your answers in the comments.

(PS: What happens if, say, John McCain writes a book about his years in the US Senate and titles it “My Struggle”? Does the German publisher have to change the name, or do they just purposely translate it wrong to avoid certain, um, issues?)

Another in a series of The Best of Goldy, I reprint for your reading pleasure this Easter Sunday a bit of theological verse I wrote upon the death of Rev. Jerry Falwell: “Falwell That Ends Well (An Ode To The Mortal Majority).”

Reverend Falwell, fond farewell:
Your soul has fled its mortal shell
And flown across the great divide
To savor at your Savior’s side.
Or so you think… um… so you thought,
Well, so, at least, your Bible taught,
While unbelievers who deny
Eternal afterlife, like I,
Think when you’re dead, well, you just die.

But if, when I give up the fight,
I’m strangely drawn into the light?
And there your reverent form I see?
Don’t laugh sir, that the joke’s on me,
For since I’ve never claimed nor known
Your Savior Jesus as my own,
If you should meet this faithless Jew
In Heaven or in Hell’s review,
Well, either way… the joke’s on you.

Unfortunately for bowling fans in Ballard, Sunset Bowl was not built in the Googie architectural style. It’s scheduled for demolition this year to make way for new condos, but Sunset’s regulars are trying to figure out how to keep on bowling:

Jim Bristow knows he can’t save Sunset from the wrecking ball but he’s hoping to pick up a spare. Bristow is collecting signatures on a petition in hopes of convincing the developers to build a bowling alley on the first floor of their new condo project.

It’s a solution that allows for the builders to move forward while keeping the ball rolling too.

“We are allowing more and more buildings and thousands of people to come into the neighborhoods but there is less and less for us to do,” said Bristow.

The developer, Avalon Bay, recently had a meeting with the Save Sunset Bowl group. They are considering the proposal and looking into the feasibility of incorporating a bowling alley into the condo project. However, they aren’t making any promises.

Via Think Progress:

Last week Sen. John McCain repeatedly and falsely claimed that Iran was training al Qaeda in Iraq. Watch FOX News’ Brit Hume defend McCain’s blip as merely a “senior moment.”

Ouch. If even McCain’s most ardent boosters acknowledge his age is an issue, that doesn’t bode well for McCain or the nation. A President McCain would turn 76 before the end of his first term, and 80 before the end of his second, making him the oldest man ever to be elected president of the United States, and potentially the oldest man ever to serve. I emphasize “potentially” because nearly three-quarters of our previous 43 presidents failed to see their 80th birthday.

And this certainly wasn’t McCain’s only “blip” on the campaign trail, where he has at times appeared angry, unstable, confused, out-of-touch, and well… just plain old. None of this is necessarily a sign of encroaching dementia or Alzheimers per se, but most of us who have watched our parents, grandparents and great-grandparents grow old understand that mental changes, if not actual decline are a familiar part of aging, and that such “McCain Moments” are not all that uncommon. My own mother is about McCain’s age, and while I love her dearly, I wouldn’t elect her president, and I sure as hell wouldn’t want her finger on the button. (My 11-year-old daughter isn’t too keen even about having her grandparents behind the wheel of a car.)

Anybody who remembers the Reagan administration must admit that there was a noticeable mental decline over his eight years in office… and Reagan was three years younger than McCain will be on election day. I’m just sayin’.

Mother Jones on “The Peace Movement and Darcy Burner.”

In all, five anti-war leaders spoke during the Take Back America panel discussion and not one of them devoted more than a half-sentence to the surge, which any reality-based observer would admit seriously complicates the anti-war movement’s efforts to generate popular opposition to the war. And none made any mention of how America ought to withdraw.

But then Darcy Burner spoke.

A former Microsoft middle manager who is taking her second run at Congress in Washington State, Burner said that she was fed up with telling voters she wanted to end the war, only to be stymied by the question of how she planned to do so. So she met with Paul Eaton, the retired army general responsible for training the Iraqi military between 2003 and 2004, and developed a comprehensive withdrawal plan.

On the key issue of removing troops, Burner’s 30-page plan, dubbed “A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq,” glosses over the details. It notes that “troop draw-downs should begin immediately and continue until no more troops remain in Iraq,” but the timeframe for the withdrawal and the path(s) out of the country aren’t described. Eventually, they will be “based on planning provided by our military leadership.”

But the plan is comprehensive in every other respect. Using a combination of Iraq Study Group recommendations and legislation already before Congress, the plan provides for refugee assistance and a diplomatic surge that would bring together regional leaders and aims to initiate political reconciliation within the country. It would create non-military Provincial Reconstruction Teams that would “strengthen the capacity of towns and villages to resist the insurgency” and would reach the “entirety of the Iraqi population.” It calls for the departments of State, Agriculture, Commerce, Transportation, Justice, and the Treasury to work with international groups to rebuild the country. In short, it de-militarizes the occupation.

The plan also aims to restore habeas corpus to detainees, make extraordinary rendition illegal, and phase out the use of private military contractors. (It can be read in full here.)

It is far from a perfect plan, and it would likely get seriously reworked if it were introduced in Congress, no matter how large the Democratic majority. But it recognizes the anti-war movement’s need to add depth to its rhetoric. For that, Darcy Burner has done folks like Cagan, Chaudhury, and Swan a great service.

At last count, 29 Democratic challengers have already signed on to the Responsible Plan, with more to follow shortly. I’ll post a complete update tomorrow.