HorsesAss.Org

Awww, gee…I hate calling someone a liar.

Even as a degenerate “far left” liberal who grew up in a household colluding with Satan to destroy America (i.e. with a divorced parent), my mother taught me to give the benefit of the doubt. I call someone a liar only after other possibilities become implausible.

I can, in good conscience, call Tim Eyman a liar. I mean, he admitted to lying about taking donor money as personal compensation. Mike McGavick earned the moniker through a whole series of fibs and “parables” offered as fact (discussed here and here).

I’m not yet ready to pronounce Mr. Rossi a serial liar—even considering that he is (1) a Republican, (2) a Washington state Republican and (3) a real estate broker salesman. Not yet…but, man, Rossi and his campaign are sure trying my good will.

Yesterday Neil Modie at the PI reported on the misleading rate of fundraising that the Rossi campaign was boasting about.

His campaign reported last week that he brought in “over $463,300 during the month of October. He announced his candidacy for governor on October 25th.”

Curt Woodward of the AP adds:

In that fundraising statement, spokeswoman Jill Strait bragged about Rossi raising nearly $500,000 “in roughly one week.” The campaign refused to offer any supporting documentation.

So reporters from the mainstream media were duped into writing about the spectacular rate of fundraising—for example, take this post from, umm…Mr. Modie:

Rossi bursts rapidly out of the fund-raising gate

A lot of checkbooks were waiting to open once Dino Rossi declared his long-expected 2008 candidacy for governor Oct. 25.

In the week between his announcement and the end of October, the Republican raised more than $463,000 for his race against Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire, his campaign reported Thursday. And he raised an additional $110,000 the first two days of November.

Or, as Woodward explains:

Based on Strait’s statement and interviews, The Associated Press and other news organizations reported that Rossi’s initial fundraising burst began with his Oct. 25 campaign announcement.

The campaign never raised any issues of accuracy about those reports. But campaign officials knew, and never clarified, that Rossi had been collecting campaign donations for about two weeks by the time he officially announced his gubernatorial bid.

After examining the Rossi’s campaign finance records, Neil Modie learned that:

…[Rossi’s] campaign started accepting contributions Oct. 12 and took in $97,750 even before he announced his candidacy Oct. 25. Of that sum, $86,800 came in donations of $2,800 each, the maximum amount allowed by law for the primary and general elections combined.

An additional $60,873 came in on the day of the announcement, more than half of it in contributions of $2,800 each.

The campaign, seemingly coming to the realization that it’s not nice to fool political reporters, has now issued an apology.

“I apologize to you if you feel like you were misled,” Strait told the AP. “I agree that we could have clarified that the first check came in on the 12th.”

Yep…you could have, but you didn’t. Instead, in issuing the apology, the Rossi campaign lied to reporters again (my emphasis):

After apologizing, Strait claimed that “there was never a secret” that Rossi decided to run for governor on Oct. 11, the day before he collected his first donations.

That statement is untrue: when asked about an impending Rossi campaign shortly before the official Oct. 25 announcement, Strait refused to offer any details of Rossi’s plans, saying only that he would be talking about his political future.

Ouch! The publicly-disclosed Rossi campaign is less than a month old (or the not-secret-unless-you-asked campaign is just over a month old) and already the media is insinuating that the Rossi campaign is a pack of liars.

I’m guessing that one of the first things you learn in Becoming a Politician 101 is “Never, ever, ever piss off the press by getting caught lying to them.” (Lying to the people? Probably okay…but not the press.)

The rest of Woodward’s article sure reads like someone who feels betrayed:

The “nearly half a million dollars” raised in “roughly one week” actually referred to the approximately $365,000 Rossi collected in the last week of October, combined with some $110,000 the campaign says Rossi raised on the first two days of November.

The most recent campaign finance reports do not include November donations, making it impossible to immediately confirm whether Rossi actually raised that much money in the first two days of the month.

And Neil Modie seems a little peeved, too. In yesterday’s article deflating Rossi’s fundraising hyperbole, Neil meanders to the topic of a PDC investigation of illegal campaigning on the part of Rossi:

[Lori] Anderson [Spokeswoman for the state Public Disclosure Commission] said the commission is also investigating a Rossi campaign Web site, telldino.com, because it was registered Sept. 8, before Rossi says he decided to run. Strait, his spokeswoman, said a Rossi campaign volunteer, Thomas Swanson, registered it on his own without telling Rossi so that the Web address would be available if the candidate did decide to run.

Strait said Swanson took the action after he and J. Vander Stoep, a Rossi campaign adviser, discussed the idea of creating telldino.com to enable citizens to give Rossi their suggestions for improving government.

Wait a minute! That sure has the look and smell of a tenny-weeny little fib.

If Rossi had not decided to run by September 8th, what purpose would there be in discussing a new web site for folks to offer Rossi “suggestions for improving government?” Isn’t that exactly what The Washington Idea Bank (a wholly owned subsidiary of Forward Washington Foundation) was created for? The site has a web form for offering ideas…to Rossi’s pre-campaign organization.

Are we really to believe that on September 8th (three days before Rossi secretly resigned from Forward Washington Foundation) a (future?) campaign adviser had discussed creating a new “Rossi Idea Bank” site, but that was all “before Rossi says he decided to run,” and the site was registered for non-campaign purposes? Right.

Now the needle is pegged on my implausiometer.

One of two things is going on here: either Dave Reichert and his campaign staff are incompetent or they initiated a deliberate effort to mislead the public about their disastrous fundraising in recent months.”
— WA State Democratic Party Chair Dwight Pelz

You know, or both. Three months after President Bush came to town for what we were told at the time was a half million dollar fundraiser, we still can’t make heads or tales of Rep. Dave Reichert’s numbers, and so the WA State Dems filed an FEC complaint today alleging serious violations of federal election laws.

Proceeds from the $1,000 a head fundraiser were supposed to be placed in a special joint account, and then divided between the Reichert campaign and the WA State Republican Party, but most of the money appears to have been deposited directly into Reichert’s campaign account, a serious violation of federal law. One experienced campaign treasurer tells me he’s never seen such a sloppy FEC report, a report that has made it impossible to figure out exactly how much Reichert raised. Which may of course have been the point.

First the campaign claimed Reichert raised $500,000, then $230,000, and ultimately $185,000. The report itself claims the joint fundraiser raised only $135,000, but it is now unclear how much of that represents Reichert’s share. After all expenses are accounted for it is possible that Reichert may have actually lost money on the event, but we’ll never know for sure until the report is properly revised.

This is all the more embarrassing for Republicans considering the astounding success of the national netroots fund drive we held to help Democratic opponent Darcy Burner offset Reichert’s expected presidential windfall, raising $126,000 from over 3,400 contributors… over a weekend in August. Burner ultimately beat Reichert in Q3 in both dollars raised, and cash on hand; it is clear now that we kicked the president’s ass. No wonder no other Republican incumbent has dared to bring the president into town since the debacle in Bellevue.

In the comments down below, Daddy Love points to an article that debunks much of the conventional wisdom on what effect our military footprint is having in Iraq.

The British army says violence in Basra has fallen by 90% since it withdrew from the southern Iraqi city earlier this year.

Around 500 British soldiers left one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces in the heart of the city in early September and stopped conducting regular foot patrols.

A spokesman says the Iraqi security forces still come under attack from militants in Basra, but the overall level of violence is down 90% since the British troops left.

Britain is scheduled to return control of Basra province to Iraqi officials next month, officially ending Britain’s combat role in Iraq.

It sure is difficult covering Seattle local news from out of state when the local Seattle newspapers don’t seem to cover Seattle local news themselves. Sitting here next to me is the dead-tree edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer, which has five, count ’em, five front page stories this lazy Monday morning: three local news stories — a feature on yesterday’s Philadelphia Marathon, and an international story from the Washington Post — whereas the Times and the P-I have three headlines each, four of the six, features. The P-I is particularly shameless this morning, actually filling a chunk of its front page with a heartwarming feature about, you know… itself.

The one headline the two dailies share is that of missing ex-WSU and Garfield High basketball star Tony Harris, whose strangled body has apparently been found in Brazil. No criticism there — it is a compelling story, tinged with pathos and intrigue. But it is the only hard news story on the front page of either paper.

As usual, the online editions are much more informative. (Okay, a bit more informative. It’s all relative.)

The P-I’s Neil Modie reports that Dino Rossi has been, um, disingenuous, soliciting donations well before announcing his candidacy. Not exactly news, but it’s nice to see the local media acknowledging the obvious.

Rossi’s campaign finance records show the campaign started accepting contributions Oct. 12 and took in $97,750 even before he announced his candidacy Oct. 25. Of that sum, $86,800 came in donations of $2,800 each, the maximum amount allowed by law for the primary and general elections combined.

An additional $60,873 came in on the day of the announcement, more than half of it in contributions of $2,800 each.

Up until that time, the official line by the Rossi camp was that he hadn’t decided whether to run against Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire again next year. […] Without specifically saying so, Rossi left the impression last week that he raised money more quickly following his announcement than he actually had.

His campaign reported last week that he brought in “over $463,300 during the month of October. He announced his candidacy for governor on October 25th.” That prompted erroneous news reports that he had raised the entire sum within a week after the announcement.

Republicans have been touting Rossi’s early fundraising success, but $333,600 of the total raised was in “double-max” donations — contributors who have given the maximum $1,400 for both the primary and the general. That’s an awful lot of low hanging fruit, and not exactly an indication of broad, grassroots support.

Also not news is yet another Catholic priest sexual abuse settlement, this time $50 million in hush money in Alaska.

In some villages it is difficult to find an adult who was not sexually violated by the priests, who then used religion and their power to silence hundreds of children, Roosa said.

“Despite all this, no Catholic religious leader has yet to admit that problem priests were dumped in Alaska. For our clients, this settlement represents a long overdue acknowledgment of the truth of their stories of abuse, stories that until today were largely denied and belittled by apologists for the abusers,” he said.

Yeah, it represents acknowledgment of abuse, but by settling, it also prevents full public disclosure of the extent of the problem, just like in Seattle, where Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg has refused to investigate church records. Ah well… what we don’t know can’t hurt us, right?

Also not really news in the true sense of the word, Iraq bombing kills 20 as US reports decline in violence in Iraq, Detroit named America’s most dangerous city, and yet another man dies from a non-lethal taser strike. Shocking.

Al Gore is receiving yet another award. Stephen Colbert recently commented on this major threat to our planet.

Delicious philippic from SFGate: “It is now becoming increasingly easy to actually dare to think that, in less than one year’s time, Dubya will begin packing his bags, jamming into his Spongebob duffel his map of the world coloring book, English-to-English translation dictionaries, mangled pocket edition of the U.S. Constitution, Bibleman action figure set and a “Mission Accomplished!” sweatshirt, and heading off to face his destiny as one of the bleakest, most morally repellent chapters in all of American history…”

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently released a final report making a compelling case that human-induced global warming is happening and will have dire consequences. But maybe you don’t find the expertise of scientists trained in climatological science all that compelling. Here is another way of thinking about global warming:

(This and some seventy other media clips from the past week in politics are now posted at Hominid Views.)

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:

7PM: The Stranger Hour with Christopher Frizzelle
It’s politics as unusual tonight as we take a break from our usual political discourse for a more arts oriented conversation with Stranger editor Christopher Frizzelle. While other journalists focused on the tabloid intrigue of Washington native Amanda Knox’s involvement with the murder of her roommate in Italy, Frizzelle critiqued her creative writing. Tune in and find out what, if anything, that tells us about our region’s most talked about murder suspect.

8PM: “Changing the World, One Joke at a Time!”
That’s the slogan of local comedian Travis Simmons, who joins us in studio to share his own unique take on the region and current events.

9PM: Regional Blogger Roundup
TJ from Loaded Orygun and Jimmy from McCranium join us for our monthly roundup of news and politics from around the Northwest. Drivers licenses for illegal immigrants and a recap of Jimmy’s write-in campaign for Richland city council, will top the agenda, but first we’ll hear from recently defeated Yakima city councilman Ron Bonlender about the shameless case of sock-puppetry that might have done him in.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

Courtesy of RawStory, and of course, PBS.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has issued its fourth and final report, and it ain’t pretty.

Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level.

[…] It is very likely that over the past 50 years: cold days, cold nights and frosts have become less frequent over most land areas, and hot days and hot nights have become more frequent. It is likely that: heat waves have become more frequent over most land areas, the frequency of heavy precipitation events has increased over most areas, and since 1975 the incidence of extreme high sea level has increased worldwide. […] Average Northern Hemisphere temperatures during the second half of the 20th century were very likely higher than during any other 50-year period in the last 500 years and likely the highest in at least the past 1300 years.

The report warns that the impacts of anthropogenic warming could be “abrupt or irreversible”, including “metres of sea level rise, major changes in coastlines and inundation of low-lying areas.”

Contraction of the Greenland ice sheet is projected to continue to contribute to sea level rise after 2100. Current models suggest virtually complete elimination of the Greenland ice sheet and a resulting contribution to sea level rise of about 7 m if global average warming were sustained for millennia in excess of 1.9 to 4.6ºC relative to preindustrial values. The corresponding future temperatures in Greenland are comparable to those inferred for the last interglacial period 125,000 years ago…

Of course, what do they know? They’re just a bunch of Nobel Prize winning scientists. Better we should listen to real experts, like Dori and Stefan.

Ron Reagan was a big hit with the audience at state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles annual post-election panel and fundraiser last night, and several people came up to me afterwards asking why 710-KIRO dumped his show. I had no answer, except that radio is a tough, tough business. Former KVI host Bryan Suits knows this well, after being unceremoniously dumped from the dial last week, as does former Los Angeles police detective Mark Fuhrman (of O.J. Simpson murder trial fame,) whose show on Spokane’s KGA was suddenly canceled yesterday, probably to make room for cheaper, syndicated programming.

As an occasional guest of both Suits and Fuhrman, I wish them both well. Suits always treated me fairly, and Fuhrman, well, contrary to his popular image as a tough-talking, racist righty, he was perhaps the most polite and patient host I ever worked with, giving me wide latitude to make my case without interruption. My fellow liberals may cheer their demise, but in both cases their cancellation has resulted in less local content, and that’s almost always a bad thing, regardless of the ideological bent.

No doubt, barring a sudden career change or an untimely death, I will eventually lose my radio perch too — it’s a circle of life kinda thing — and when I do I expect my critics to be merciless in their taunting. Whatever. I’m not sure what’s more amazing, that I got my shot at all (and at a legacy station in a major market,) or that I’m still on the air 15 months later. That Reagan has been silenced while I’m still talking is more a testament to the relative value of our respective time slots than talent or competence, but whether my remaining tenure is ultimately measured in months or in years or in decades, I intend to make the most of the air-time I have.

PROGRAMMING NOTE:
Tomorrow night on 710-KIRO, The Stranger’s Christopher Frizzelle will join me at 7PM, local comedian Travis Simmons joins me at 8PM, and at 9PM we’ll discuss news and politics with bloggers from around the region. Phil “The News Junkie” will be filling in for me Sunday night.

Darcy Burner turned 37 this week, and in celebration the campaign is seeking to raise $18,500 in online contributions, $500 for each of her 37 years. Please give what you can.

Speaking of Darcy, she was in the audience at last night’s Democratic presidential debate in Las Vegas, and she’s posted her observations over on Daily Kos. It’s a fun read.