HorsesAss.Org

Yesterday, Congress voted on the Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment. The Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment would have prevented the Federal Government from spending taxpayer dollars to arrest and prosecute medical marijuana patients in the states where it’s already been made legal (Washington is one of them, of course, passing a law via voter initiative in 1998). Now I expect the Republican Congressmen of this state to vote against it. We already know that Reichert, McMorris-Rogers, and Hastings don’t give a rats ass about the voters of this state. But three two Democratic Congressmen also voted against this bill. And one of them, Norm Dicks and Adam Smith, changed their vote from last year. Can we have an explanation from their offices for why they’ve decided in the past twelve months that the people of Washington State need to be protected from their own decisions? Can someone from either Norm Dicks’ or Adam Smith’s office explain why it’s so important for them him to have the federal government come here to overturn our laws? The second question also goes for Rick Larsen, who has consistently voted against this bill.

We are long past the point of where the old notions of “we need to protect the children” hold any water. In states where medical marijuana has been legalized, the numbers of underage marijuana users has actually decreased more than in other states. I think we deserve an explanation from our Representatives on this. There is absolutely no rational justification for voting against this bill, and they know it. The old days where votes like this aren’t noticed are over. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or not. When you vote against the sick and dying to advance the special interests of those who benefit from having more people flowing through our criminal justice system, we should know why.

UPDATE (–Goldy):
I just received an email from Derrick Crowe, Communications Director for Rep. Adam Smith:

We noticed the vote this morning and have a submitted a statement for the record to correct the error. Adam should have been a Yes on Rollcall vote 733, the Hinchey Amendment to HR 3093, the Departments of Commerce and Justice, and Science, and Related Agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008. Adam has consistently voted Yes on the Hinchey Amendment in years past.

So in fact, Rep. Smith voted for Hinchey-Rohrabacher. Not sure exactly how common it is for the House Clerk to get these things wrong, but apparently this time around he did. Apparently, Smith misheard the reading of the bill, and has since corrected his vote. Not sure how common that is either.

UPDATE 2: Dominic Holden has more, but still no word from Congressman Dicks…

The General has found a way to rid the nation of the homosexual scourge, and he’s asking our help to pass the following resolution in state legislatures nationwide. (Too bad Luke Esser is no longer in the state senate; this is exactly the type of resolution he would have sponsored.)

Whereas homosexuality is an abomination before God;

whereas Senator Tom Coburn has identified toilets as being critical habitat for homosexuals;

whereas it is common knowledge that homosexuals fear robots;

whereas Jim Naugle, the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, is using this knowledge to exclude homosexuals from the city’s beaches by installing robot toilets;

whereas the rest of our heterosexual nation would benefit if a similar approach were applied universally;

whereas Article I Section 8 of the United States Constitution empowers Congress to coin money and pay debts;

whereas official memos written by John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales, and Fred Fielding transfer all of the legislative powers found in Article I Section 8 to the President of the United States;

whereas the Vice President of the United State, using the blood of his hunting companions as ink, affixed his initials and a smiley face upon each of these official memos;

we, the citizens of the various states, beseech the President to order the demolition of all analog toilets, both public and private, and thereby destroy the homosexuals’ critical habitat;

furthermore, we, the citizens of the various states, respectably ask the President to command the Secretary of the Treasury to fund the construction of replacement pay toilets by a contractor of the Vice President’s choosing at a cost that shall not exceed 1.8 million dollars per unit.

Emory Bundy writes at the ‘cut:

[W]hat about the environmental costs and benefits of rail transit? Surprisingly, rail’s environmental costs are quite adverse.

The anti-light rail guys have been flogging this thing for so long that their arguments are changing. Only recently have they been employing certain Al Gore-like rhetoric to try to put the kibosh on rail. It’s funny, really.

Emory Bundy, Kemper Freeman Jr., and other anti-rail guys like to say they’re pro-transit. The like buses, they say. Or bike lines and van pools. Just anything but a train!

You can sometimes judge an argument by who flocks to it’s banner. You see, it’s no wonder why the lunatic right wing hate site Free Republic loves Bundy and his anti-rail screed. So don’t fall for the “we like transit” routine from the anti-rail folks.

Whoops. Rodney Tom supporters were likely buoyed by the list of endorsements his campaign emailed out last week when he announced his candidacy for Dave Reichert’s congressional seat in WA-08, but that list seems to be shrinking day by day. First King County Democratic Chair Susan Sheary denied she had endorsed Tom, and now 48th LD Chair Doug Hightower tells me he too should not have been included on the list.

I talked to Hightower today to get his take on the primary race between Tom and Darcy Burner, and he told me that he was “neutral,” and didn’t know how his name got on the endorsement list. Hightower insisted it was “too early” for party officials like him to take sides.

Consultant John Wyble graciously offered to “take the fall” for the erroneous email announcing Tom’s “run for Congresss [sic],” and I suppose it is only a minor embarrassment for both Tom and his campaign. Still, a candidate running mostly on the strength of his five years of experience in the state legislature should probably have enough campaign experience to know that it’s not such a good idea to claim endorsements until, um, you know… you actually have them.

King County Democratic Party Chairwoman Susan Sheary attended his campaign-kickoff announcement, and Tom — erroneously — claimed her endorsement, too.

He said later that support for him is obvious “when you’ve got the King County Democratic chair behind you,” and added, “She is fully behind me.”

Not so, Sheary said: “I have not endorsed anyone and will not. I was there only as a party leader because he had invited me. But I will stay neutral in the (primary) race.”

By the way, I’ve been talking to political insiders, pundits, wags and other members of the courtier class, trying to get a gauge on the conventional wisdom surrounding the Burner/Tom primary, and Hightower’s take was pretty much in line with the consensus: it’s good for the Democrats and a bad, bad sign for Reichert. Two term incumbents are usually unbeatable, yet Democrats are champing at the bit to take him on — compare that to Jennifer Dunn, who basically ran unopposed for much of her career.

And while Burner may not have wanted a primary opponent, almost everybody I’ve spoken with believes the challenge will be good for her… you know, with the possible exception of those few deluded folks who actually think Burner might lose.

At a campaign stop an “Idea Bank” forum in Longview yesterday, Republican gubernatorial candidate nonpartisan Forward Washington Foundation founder Dino Rossi “primed the pump” with his own ideas on how to turn around Washington’s fifth best business climate foundering economy. At the top of his list? Repealing Washington’s estate tax.

“It chases entrepreneurs out of our state,” he said. “It is better to die in any other state of the union than in Washington.”

He also called for reinstating the spending limit voters passed by initiative in 1993, which he said the Legislature repealed in 2005. He said the newest budget passed in Olympia had a 33 percent spending increase, which is unsustainable.

“I spent seven years in Olympia,” he said. “You’ll find a whole lot of people there who think they know all the answers. But the real solutions will come from people closest to the problems. We need an agenda that is people-driven, instead of coming from the top down.”

A “people-driven” agenda, huh? You mean like last year’s estate tax repeal initiative, I-920, which was rejected by voters in 36 of 39 counties, and by an overwhelming 62-percent to 38-percent margin statewide? Um… what exactly doesn’t Rossi understand about a 24-point landslide? “If he keeps talking like that,” one political wag quipped to me, “Rossi is going to become awfully familiar with the figure ’38-percent.'”

Rossi is pitching a solution voters have already rejected, to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. And apparently, he sees absolutely nothing inconsistent — or “top down” — about calling for reinstating a 1993 initiative at the same time he ignores the results of a ballot measure from 2006.

Talk about somebody who thinks he knows all the answers.

While sounding very much like someone on the campaign trail at Tuesday’s forum, Rossi said he is not a declared candidate for the 2008 gubernatorial race and won’t announce until December whether or not he will run.

Take your time, Dino. Take your time.

If there’s any lingering doubt that the U.S. Department of Justice is in a serious state of disrepair, this video from TPM of the Attorney General’s testimony from yesterday should put that to rest.

UPDATE: This is also an open thread.

There can be little disagreement that the Bush administration is badly tarnishing the Republican brand. But does this damage actually affect whether or not people identify themselves as a Republican?

That is the question I examined at Hominid Views using current and historical poll data that reports party affiliation of respondents. At the national level the fraction who claim to be Democrats has been relatively stable over the last 3.5 years. But the fraction claiming to be Republican has been declining with a corresponding increase in the number of independents.

In Washington state, however, a subtly different pattern emerges over the last two years. Democratic party identity has increased substantially while both Republican and independent identity have declined. The most recent SurveyUSA poll recorded a Democratic affiliation for 40% of the respondents and Republican affiliation for 21% of the respondents. If real, that is a remarkable 2:1 advantage for Democrats!

Is this just an outlier? Perhaps this is the consequence of damage brought on by BushCo? Or maybe the Washington State Republican’s antics are causing real damage to the party?

I report, you decide. The graphical tour begins here.

I had the chance to hear Rodney Tom speak before the 48th District Democrats last week, and while he touched on education and the Iraq war, he led off his nascent stump speech by arguing that the primary race was mostly about beating Dave Reichert. One of his main critiques of Darcy Burner’s 2006 campaign was her relatively poor showing in Pierce County, where she garnered only 42.6 percent of the vote. Tom argues that he is a better fit to this more conservative, blue collar part of the 8th Congressional District. (Apparently because these voters strongly identify with wealthy, Lexus-driving, Medina realtors, I guess.)

The Tacoma News Tribune picked up on this theme yesterday with an article titled “Pierce vote important to Reichert challengers.”

Last year, as she prepared to challenge Republican Dave Reichert for the U.S. House, Darcy Burner said it would take significant Pierce County support for her to win.

She was right. Burner received only 304 fewer votes than Reichert out of over 200,000 cast in King County. But the Pierce County part of the congressional district remained loyal to the Republican, giving Reichert some 7,000 more votes than his Democratic challenger.

Hmm. I know this may sound counterintuitive, but the fact is, Burner lost the race in King County, not Pierce, where despite losing by more than 7,000 votes, she came pretty damn close to meeting or beating expectations. It was the King County results that proved disappointing, and a look back at previous elections explains why.

In 2006 Burner captured 42.6 percent of the vote in Pierce County, more than any other 8th CD Democrat since 1990. In 2004 by comparison, Dave Ross received only 39.1 of the Pierce vote, less than a half-percent better than the best effort by the much maligned Heidi Behrens-Benedict. Burner knew that to beat Reichert she had to do substantially better than previous Democrats in Pierce County. And she did.

In fact according to campaign insiders, Burner’s 3.5 point improvement over Ross (and nearly 7 point improvement over the ten-year average,) was right on target. All it would have taken to win the race was a very attainable 51.8 percent of the vote in the more Democratic King County portion of the district. But it didn’t happen. Late absentees broke decidedly towards Reichert, and Burner ended up losing King County by a few hundred votes out of over 200,000 cast.

Clearly, Tom is more conservative than Darcy, but then so was Ross, and to argue that this somehow makes Tom more electable simply isn’t supported by the facts. Burner did relatively well in Pierce County, a Republican stronghold, and with high name ID, increased turnout and presidential coattails, she’ll likely do even better. Unless, of course, I’m totally underestimating Pierce County’s Lexus-driving Medina realtor vote.

And one more balloon to burst before I go:

Tom supporters note the anti-Republican wave that swept the nation last year and say Burner had her chance to ride it to victory.

What a load of crap. Republicans held 232 House seats going into the 2006 election, and only 22 incumbents lost. Only 22. The GOP poured everything it had into defending Reichert; Karl Rove made WA-08 his number one target. And yet a total unknown with no prior campaign experience came within a silver hair of defeating “the Sheriff.”

Underestimate Burner at your own risk.

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels will be stopping by tonight, so please join us for some hot conversation, washed down with some icy cold brew.

Not in Seattle? Liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities. A full listing of Washington’s eleven Drinking Liberally chapters is available here.

Yesterday I announced a break from my longstanding (near) zero-moderation policy, warning that blatantly off-topic comments, copyright violations and sock puppetry would no longer be tolerated. Today Slog announced a “new” comment moderation policy of its own:

The Stranger’s Blog Comments Policy

We remove comments that are off topic, threatening, or commercial in nature, and we do not allow sock-puppetry (impersonating someone else)—or any kind of puppetry, for that matter. We never censor comments based on ideology.

Define “threatening.” But other than that, that’s pretty much the same standard we intend to follow here on HA. Repeat violators will be banned, joining the infamous JCH in comment thread purgatory.

I’d say the HA community has been very cooperative, and overwhelmingly supportive. I’ve personally only deleted a single comment thus far… and that was a mistake. Thanks.

(Taken at Broadway and John on Capitol Hill by Dominic Holden of The Stranger)

Everytime I hear somebody say “instead of rail, let’s add more buses,” this is the image that pops into my mind: a line of buses snarled after a bus breaks down in an intersection.

This is an Open Thread.

Those were Sen. Joe Biden’s words at the end of the debate after the the candidates were subjected to another weird question from YouTube land.

Some thoughts on the candidates:

Gravel: Why is he still allowed into these debates?

Dodd: He’s growing on me. There isn’t a question he doesn’t want to answer. Years in the US Senate haven’t dulled his edge.

Edwards: He doesn’t attack well, and it shows in these “debates.” But, when given a chance, can find the thread and run with it in a passionate way.

Clinton: She’s the smartest, best equipped candidate in the race. She has a great grasp of issues. She’s in the lead because she hasn’t had to attack yet.

Obama: I don’t get how the nat’l media folks see him as naive. He’s not, but he does have a sort of “over-thinking” quality, reminiscent of Gore circa 2000. He needs to get out of his own way once in a while.

Richardson: I’m surprised how by how little I liked his performance. With the background he has, you’d think he’d be taking it to Obama and Edwards. He hasn’t. I get the “he’s running for VP” vibe from him. Still, I’m ready to see what he does later in the race.

Biden: He’s not afraid to say unpopular things. But what a mistake to openly mock the gun owner from MI! Still, Biden is relatively bullshit-free. Even though I know he’s a longtime pol, I don’t want to write him off. He could be a factor (but probably not) later on.

Kucinich: If ever there was a worse spokesman for his ideas, Dennis is it.

I thought Anderson Cooper did a pretty good job. They could have given some candidates more time. Some of the YouTube questions were overly schlocky and schmaltzy, but the format is here to stay.

But next time, Jon Stewart hosts! I wish.

I think you know how this works by now, so let’s get to it starting nationally:

* The bullshit artists sure like to make up things about presidential candidates and potential presidential candidates. Speaking of make up, the fact that Mitt Romney spent almost $700 on one makeup session proves that John Edwards’ haircut is horrible. Hillary Clinton wore clothing appropriate for DC in the summer, so clearly that’s bad. Obama supports teaching children age appropriate sex ed, the horror. And Al Gore’s daughter’s husband’s family had a food that has been available at Whole Foods since 1999, and was, you know, “from one of the world’s few well-managed, sustainable populations of toothfish, and caught and documented in compliance with Marine Stewardship Council regulations” so clearly he’s the devil.

* Hew Hughitt thinks that trying to end the war will hurt Democrats, you know, because he cares about helping us out politically. But maybe the horrible war is, you know, just branded wrong.

* And of course the democrats constantly need to have a Sister Souljah moment. No matter how wingnutty the rightwing base is, no matter how in lock step the top tier is on the most compellingly shitty foreign policy decision in this country in decades and possibly ever, only Democrats ever seem to need to distance themselves from their base. You know, anti-war folks who were either right all along, or who have since come to the right side long ago on again, the most important thing on the election by miles.

Locally,

* Dave Reichert still doesn’t have a record of bi-partisanship or independence. As if there was ever any doubt.

* Darryl and The Olympian are calling bullshit on one of Dino Rossi’s main campaign totally not a campaign themes.

* Will has already mentioned Gary Randall, but tee hee hee.