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One of these days I suppose we’ll read something negative in the national media about the Responsible Plan to end the war in Iraq, but this piece in The New Republic sure ain’t it:

What–a thoughtful plan for Iraq? Written by aspiring Democratic House members? Campaigning in highly competitive districts? Believe it.

Led by Darcy Burner, who’s gunning to represent Washington’s eighth district, ten Congressional challengers recently released a 36-page proposal called, simply, “A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq.” More than 40 candidates have now signed on to the document, which is a cross between a think tank report and a political platform.

On the face of it, this doesn’t seem like a big deal. For the past two years, Democrats have been offering plan after plan to end the war in Iraq. But this one is different.

[…] Beyond just being good policy, though, the plan exhibits a unique understanding of the legislative branch’s role in foreign policy. Too often, candidates running for Congress make very specific proposals about foreign policy that are far outside of their purview. […] “A Responsible Plan” would instead serve as the congressional corollary to a Democratic presidency. It doesn’t include elements over which Congress has little control, but it does push for 15 pieces of existing legislation, which focus on issues such as improving healthcare for a new generation of veterans and phasing out our reliance on military contractors such as Blackwater. Only the president can end the war in Iraq, but Congress can do its share by focusing on institutional repair and funding the right programs.

[…] In the end, the “Responsible Plan” is just a plan. It isn’t going to solve the slew of problems the United States will face over the next few years, as it begins to dig itself out of Iraq. But it is a good first step. And the fact that 48 Democratic challengers are willing to sign on to something this detailed, without the DCCC jumping up and down and telling them to stop, is a good sign that a consensus seems to be building in the Democratic party around a set of specific national security ideas.

I know I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, but something special is happening here. “Consensus seems to be building,” and around a plan created by Darcy Burner. That’s the kind of creativity and leadership 8th CD voters deserve, and that’s the kind of creativity and leadership they’ll get by electing Darcy to Congress.

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.

Tonight’s theme song is from The Clash’s album Cut the Crap….“Dirty Punk”.

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.

Apparently, former Republican party chair Ken Eikenberry is endorsing the candidacy of Democrat Chris Gregoire…

UPDATE

Postman has the details:

Eikenberry, once the GOP’s candidate for Governor and a stalwart of the moderate wing of the party, was ostracized by activists when he endorsed the “Simple Majority” campaign last year.

Read the whole thing.

Gov. Gregoire has signed the Working Families Credit, perhaps the most significant piece of legislation passed this session in terms of its real world impact on the 350,000 Washington families who will qualify for this tax break.

A national study released by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) found that Washingtonians with the lowest income pay five times as much as the wealthiest in taxes, as a share of their income.

“The Washington state tax structure is singularly regressive. It is unacceptable for the poor to pay a significantly higher proportion of their income in taxes than the wealthy,” said William H. Gates, Sr., Chair of the Washington State Tax Structure Study Committee. “The Working Families Credit will help bring equity to our state tax system. It’s an investment we really need to make.”

How about that, a tax break for working families for a change, instead of wealthy special interests with high priced lobbyists. It’s a small step toward addressing the most regressive tax structure in the nation… but a step in the right direction.

Finally, the media establishment is starting to wake up to the batshit crazy ways of the BIAW. Well, at least the Seattle P-I’s editorial board is starting to wake up, if only to rub a little sleep out of their eyes…

The Building Industry Association of Washington is influential. It’s also looking bizarre.

In the group’s March newsletter (no April Fool’s prank; area blogs started picking it up last week), there’s a full-page piece headlined: “Hitler’s Nazi party: They were eco extremists.” The writer makes a concession mid-ramble that Nazis were insanely racist but hurries to say that global environmentalism is “an amalgam of Nazism and communism.” Sure.

Elsewhere, BIAW President Brad Spears tries to draw a supposedly natural tie between mainstream environmentalists and eco-terrorism, especially home burning. “The older folks in the mainstream enviro groups,” he writes, “silently applaud this new and novel approach: If you build it, we will burn it.” Wow.

The newsletter is led by a piece hailing Democrats’ defeat of a “builder-hating bill,” on consumer protections to homebuyers. But sprinkled throughout the issue are adoring references to Republican Dino Rossi’s gubernatorial race. So maybe this hot talk is to gin up Rossi support. As readers learn, Gov. Chris Gregoire is possessed of “hate for the homebuilding industry.” There may be hate around, but the BIAW’s finger is pointed the wrong way.

The BIAW is “bizarre”…? Yeah, I guess. But that’s an awfully timid way to describe the BIAW’s unique brand of far-right extremist wing-nuttery hate-mongering. But at least that’s better than the Seattle Times, whose last mention of the BIAW was in a piece on the upcoming judicial races, and as usual, made them out to sound downright respectable:

Tom McCabe, head of the politically active Building Industry Association of Washington, said his organization considers the court races a high priority, right below the governor’s race. He said his group likely will be active in one or more court races, using public disclosure and property rights as two main issues.

“We’re really interested in the court, and the field is still shaking out,” he said. “If the right candidate emerges, I believe BIAW will participate, most likely in the Fairhurst seat.”

Yeah, sure… the BIAW is “politically active” and they “participate” in the process. And… um… they’re also fucking insane! In fact, they’re so insane that they have absolutely no fear of showing off their insanity in public. And yet our media and political establishment continue to grant them the same credibility normally afforded… you know… sane people. I mean really… the Times once saw fit to write an editorial condemning me for “successfully plac[ing] the phrase ‘horse’s ass’ into dozens of family newspapers” (as if I held a fucking gun to their heads), and yet the BIAW, one of the most powerful and influential “politically active” organizations in the state, equates environmentalism to Nazism, and stormwater regulations to Stalinist butchery… and all we hear are crickets chirping. Nice to know our state’s self-proclaimed paper of record recognizes the real threat to reasoned public discourse when they see it.

And believe you me, the BIAW’s violent rhetoric is intended as a threat, and they fully understand the potential consequences of pumping up the anger. One of these days somebody like me is going to get the shit beaten out them by somebody like them — they’ll be waiting for me late at night with baseball bats, or worse — and when that happens our media elite, who allowed the BIAW’s dangerous rhetoric to go unridiculed, unchallenged and unchecked for so long, will be just as culpable as batshit crazy bastards like Tom McCabe and Mark Musser.

As for elected officials like Rep. Mark Ericks (D-Bothell) Rep. Doug Ericksen (R-Whatcom), whose smiling photo from a BIAW awards banquet appears in the same issue as that crazed, hate-filled anti-environmentalism rant, it is either time for them to renounce the BIAW… or it is time for voters to renounce these officials at the polls, regardless of party.

UPDATE:
A reader corrects me via email:

A quick correction for you, though – the photo in the newsletter is Rep Doug Ericksen (R-Whatcom), not Rep Mark Ericks (D-Bothell). Although Rep Ericks was mentioned several times throughout the newsletter re: homebuilder bill.

My bad. Though I think Rep. Ericks has an obligation to renounce the BIAW as well.

The Stranger’s longtime reporter and news editor Josh Feit is stepping down and moving on…

It’s ironic, after nine years making a living hating on Seattle (and always with a plan to get back to the East Coast), I actually love it here these days (it has something to do with buying a fancy bike), and I’m angling to stay.

And Seattle will certainly miss hating on Josh. Of course, I’m sure Josh will quickly move on to bigger and better things, as the news biz is a thriving industry these days. (Or maybe he’ll just end up another sell-out, like Sandeep?)

47 Democratic challengers have now joined Darcy Burner in signing on to the Responsible Plan to end the war in Iraq, and she continues to rack up accolades in the national press, with Matthew Yglesias of The Atlantic Monthly the latest to chime in:

Now as [former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski] says, a serious effort to get out of Iraq is going to require a political and diplomatic component as well as the mere absence of U.S. troops. One of the good things about the Responsible Plan for Iraq from Darcy Burner and other House challengers is precisely its recommendation of the need for this kind of diplomatic engagement, which really is crucial to trying to minimize the inevitable fallout from the United States doing what needs to be done in military terms. I would note that on the diplomatic front, it’s probably easier to get Iraq’s neighbors to contribute constructively to stability in Iraq once we’ve decisively decided not to run together “stability in Iraq” with “Iraq becomes base for U.S. power projection and mad schemes to overthrow all the governments in the region.”

Of course, all this great national coverage lauding Darcy’s leadership won’t do her a hill of beans in November if she can’t get her message out locally, and as we all know, that requires the cash to compete with Reichert for airtime during the final weeks of the campaign… and lots of it. And with the end-of-quarter filing deadline approaching at midnight tonight, all eyes will quickly be turning toward the numbers.

So please help Darcy reach her targets and stay out in front as one of the leading Democratic challengers this election. Remember… the deadline is midnight tonight, so please give what you can to Darcy now!

Darcy Burner (WA-08)	$

I’m heading out now to Safeco Field for the opener. How do you like the M’s chances this year?

I know it’s kinda like pissing into the wind, but I strongly urge you all to read blatherWatch’s latest expose on the shameless myth-making behind Dave Reichert’s claim to fame as the man who allegedly caught the Green River Killer:

“[Dave Reichert] desecrated the victims. The public ought to know that,” says Seattle University journalism and criminal justice Professor Tomás Guillén… “He got elected based on Green River, when in fact, he didn’t solve it and he didn’t win against Gary Ridgway,” says Guillén who covered the Green River story for the Seattle Times from its beginnings and has written two books on the subject.

Really, the public ought to know, but they don’t, because our local media has been as complicit in perpetrating the myth as Reichert has himself, and they appear totally unwilling to admit their mistake. Reichert’s whole political career is built on a lie — a lie that permeates his discussion of nearly every issue…

Why is Reichert against choice for women? When asked, he’s told an interviewer: “I have a great respect for life. I’ve seen a lot of death in my career, worked Green River, seen lots of dead bodies.”

That’s just shameless, and quite frankly, our local reporters, who should know better, are doing themselves and their readers a great disservice when they let him get away with this. If Hillary Clinton’s presidential aspirations can be pronounced dead because she lied about the dangers on a tarmac in Bosnia — a tiny footnote in her personal biography — then surely Reichert’s political credibility should be called into question for fabricating his entire public persona.

Dave Reichert did NOT catch the Green River Killer! That is a fact. And our local media has an obligation to tell voters the truth.

Here’s part of a power point presentation that was delivered to the ST Board:

(The yellow is my editorial analysis)

The environmental benefits of building light rail, and of using mass transit, are pretty clear. But new riders don’t see the environmental bonus as something that’s changing their behavior. As much as we’d like people to clue-in to mass transit for carbon-related reasons, people have, and will, ride transit because it’s faster, cheaper, and more convenient than driving. Rather, when it’s faster and more convenient.

In another page of the power point, rider satisfaction is shown to dip slightly in 2006, just when the fuel crunch really hits, and ST buses (along with Metro buses and others) become packed with new riders. It’s the downside of transit popularity.

For those of you keeping track of Bush Administration officials and other top Republicans who have resigned due to criminal conduct, it is time to update your spreadsheet.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson announced Monday he was resigning after seven years on the job.

Jackson, 62, is under criminal investigation and has been fending off allegations of cronyism and favoritism involving HUD contractors for the past two years.

I was poking around the internets today, looking for stuff on megahouses that are supposedly taking over Seattle’s neighborhoods, (check out what Paul, a fellow HA blogger, had to say about the issue here) when I came something else.

I ran across the minutes of a Laurelhurst Community Council meeting, at which skateparks were under discussion:

Dillana Crawford emailed on 9/18 to express strong opposition to a skatepark at the Playfield (she lives across the street). She thought a skatepark would bring more traffic and pointed out that there are already parking and speeding problems. She was concerned that a skatepark would become another place for teenagers to hangout in the evening and lead to more nighttime disruption and underage drinking. She also had concerns about noise and graffiti. Stacy Graves emailed on 9/19 to say she hoped there would be no skatepark anywhere near Laurelhurst. She said that kids that hang out at skateparks look like delinquents. She is worried about property vandalism and negative role models for neighborhood children.

I know Laurelhurst to be one of those WASP neighborhoods where Jews weren’t allowed to live until about 1958. Lots of WASPs who gave birth to children, and those children turned into rich, bored kids, who spent their weekends drinking themselves into oblivion. So the idea that a skatepark might bring in underage drinking… well. I’ve probably been to house parties in these people’s basements.

While these comments are somewhat ignorant, I DO like the old folks who go to bat for a skatepark:

Fred Wemer emailed on 9/20 to say he likes the idea of a skatepark in the neighborhood. He is 68 years old and said he wouldn’t use it, but maybe his grandchildren would use it instead of watching television. Mimi Winslow emailed on the same day and said she also supported a skatepark. Debbie Jenner emailed on 9/25 to express strong support for a neighborhood skatepark. She is an ex-skateboarder and mother of three school age children (12, 10 and 7) who are avid skateboarders. The only options are skateboarding in Ballard, in Fremont where it costs $8 per person or on the street. Jenner thinks that a skatepark in the neighborhood would bring kids from Laurelhurst Elementary, Eckstein, Villa, Assumption and nearby high schools together to socialize.

It’s funny that the people who have an inkling of what skateboarding really is have no problem with a skatepark in their neighborhood. Especially that 68 y/o guy (bless his pea-pickin’ heart). Don’t sell yourself short, Fred.

Arianna Huffington explores one of life’s great mysteries… how John McCain — despite his recent gaffes on Iraq, his insistence that renewed violence is evidence “the surge is working,” and his promise to continue the war for another hundred years — leads both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in national polls on the question of who is most capable of dealing with the war in Iraq, in the face of overwhelming support for withdrawal.

So what the hell is going on here? What accounts for such a major — and potentially disastrous — disconnect?

In short, Democratic candidates up and down the ticket are facing a message gap when it comes to Iraq. McCain’s rah-rah pitch is very simple and upbeat: “Vote for me and I will win the war.” Democrats have a tougher time trying to answer the question: “What are you going to do about Iraq?”

Part of the problem is the unrealized promises of 2006. Dashed hopes often metastasize into cynicism and mistrust. So this time around, voters want to hear more than “I am going to end the war.” They want to know how. Specifically. Concretely. In detail.

Enter Darcy Burner, a Democratic challenger who is running for Congress in Washington state. Working with national security experts and retired military generals such as Major Gen. Paul Eaton, the officer in charge of training the Iraqi military immediately after the invasion in 2003 and 2004, she developed “A Responsible Plan to End the War,” a comprehensive approach to Iraq based on legislation already introduced in Congress.

And as for the 45 Democratic challengers who have now signed on to the Responsible Plan?

It’s worth noting that this is no collection of “make love, not war” pacifists. Massa is a 24-year Navy veteran. Edwards’ father was in the Air Force. Burner’s brother served in Iraq. And they are all clear that there are real threats facing America, and that our military needs to stop being distracted — and depleted — in Iraq, so it can better address the mounting dangers in Afghanistan and the areas of Pakistan where al-Qaeda has reconstituted itself. So, for national security reasons, they are united in their commitment to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq and begin to repair the damage the war has done to America’s standing in the world.

The idea is to band together a group of challengers running on a shared platform who, if elected, will be able to head into Congress armed with a mandate, supported by allies, and wielding a specific legislative agenda designed to end the war. Call it A Contract to Restore America.

It is also an effective way to let voters know that this is a group of Democrats who won’t cave in every time the GOP accuses them of cutting-and-running or not supporting the troops, or when the media once again float the “precipitous withdrawal” meme.

The national media is starting to show Darcy the love she deserves, so with only two days left in the reporting quarter, shouldn’t you show your love too? By helping Darcy and her fellow challengers beat their fundraising targets you’ll not only help a promising class of challengers reach Congress, you’ll also help convince more challengers to sign on to the Plan and promise to bring a responsible end to this disastrous occupation.
 

Support the original ten endorsers of the Responsible Plan:

Darcy Burner (WA-08)	$
Donna Edwards (MD-04)	$
Eric Massa (NY-29)	$
Tom Perriello (VA-05)	$
Chellie Pingree (ME-01)	$
Jared Polis (CO-02)	$
George Fearing (WA-04)	$
Larry Byrnes (FL-14)	$
Stephen A. Harrison (NY-13)	$
Sam Bennett (PA-15)	$

With the possibility of snow this evening, I may not get out tomorrow to pollute the wooded areas of a small patch of Western Washington with poorly struck Titleists, but it also reminded me of a conversation I had with my wife earlier this month.

She mentioned that when she was in elementary school in South King County, she was taught the famous adage that March goes in like a Lion, out like a Lamb. I was taught that too in Elementary school (in Pennsylvania), but I was kind of surprised that it was an expression here too. After all, the weather doesn’t change all that much over the month of March here. So I just looked up some numbers.

If you look at the average temperatures between February and April in other American cities, the expression makes sense:

New York
February – [avg temp (F)=33.6, avg extreme weather days (< 32 F)=20] April - [avg temp (F)=52.5, avg extreme weather days (< 32 F)=1] Chicago
February – [avg temp (F)=25.4, avg extreme weather days (< 32 F)=25] April - [avg temp (F)=48.6, avg extreme weather days (< 32 F)=7] Atlanta
February – [avg temp (F)=44.8, avg extreme weather days (< 32 F)=11] April - [avg temp (F)=61.5, avg extreme weather days (< 32 F)=0]

The changes from February and April in all three places are only matched by the reverse changes in November. But here, the average weather changes between February and April are less pronounced than several other three month swings:

Seattle
February – [avg temp (F)=44.3, avg extreme weather days (< 32 F)=4] April - [avg temp (F)=50.4, avg extreme weather days (< 32 F)=0]

So, I guess my question here is for the Seattle (and Washington State) natives. Is that a common expression here?