The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. If Jane Hague shows up, the drinks are on me.
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.
King County Councilwoman Jane Hague has been hit with a new problem that, like her recently revealed drunken-driving charge, could be damaging politically as well as financially.
The staff of the state Public Disclosure Commission, in an administrative complaint Friday, accused her of multiple violations of campaign-finance laws.
It said the Bellevue Republican was late, sometimes by more than 13 months, in filing numerous reports of campaign contributions, expenditures and bank deposits; failed to disclose occupations and other required information about contributors; and accepted contributions in excess of the allowable limit of $700 from eight donors.
The complaint said Hague also violated laws governing surplus funds accounts, which are strictly regulated accounts for leftover campaign funds. It said she illegally filed several expenditure and fund-transfer reports late, some by as much as 15 months, and reimbursed herself for expenses — including campaign contributions to other politicians — for which surplus funds can’t be used.
The charges arose from and largely affirmed a voluminous complaint filed against the veteran politician by her election opponent, Richard Pope, a lawyer and perennial candidate who is running as a Democrat but without Democratic Party support.
He has brought successful public-disclosure complaints against previous election opponents but has never won an election.
And when our friend Richard Pope loses this election, I suggest the PDC hire him as an independent investigator to look for all the disclosure scofflaws the PDC doesn’t currently look for. He could probably make a good living just off commissions from the fines. That is, if he loses this election. At some point voters may just grow so fed up with this shit, they’ll throw Hague out of office regardless of her opponent.
And when she was arrested on the drunken-driving charge in Bellevue on June 2 — in an incident that wasn’t publicly known until Aug. 21, — an obscenity-spewing Hague reportedly blamed the arrest on her husband, Ed Springman. He was a passenger in her Mercedes convertible.
A state trooper said in a written report that Hague, 61, “became irate and (used) expletives” and “said it was her husband’s fault that she was in the back of a patrol car and being treated like a criminal, and her husband would have to find the best attorney” for her.
When the officer suggested she could speak to a public defender if her husband — a wealthy Eastside developer — couldn’t find her one, Hague reportedly “stated she would not talk to any second-rate attorney.”
A separate report written by a county sheriff’s deputy who arrested her said she declared in a slurred voice that he was wasting his time. He said she exclaimed, “This is fucking ridiculous, don’t you have rapists to take off the street?”
After she failed several roadside sobriety tests and the deputy transferred custody of the handcuffed councilwoman to the state trooper, the deputy’s report said she complained, “This is fucking ridiculous, I don’t need handcuffs.”
Too bad no quality Dem had the balls to file for this race. It would be a gimme.
On a curious side note, my good friend Stefan (fondly known by his pals at the local diner as “Mr. Pink“) has apparently been too busy defending his honor to read the papers, for I haven’t seen (u)SP mention Hague’s DUI even once. Odd for a blog that describes itself as a “sound commentary on current events in Seattle, Puget Sound and Washington State,” especially considering his hard stance on drunk driving, repeatedly mentioning state Supreme Court Justice Bobbe Bridge’s DUI, calling her a “drunken embarrassment,” and tenuously using the incident to attack Chief Justice Gerry Alexander.
Hmm.
Now that Idaho Senator Larry Craig has finally been discovered hiding in his closet, it’s becoming more and more obvious that there’s a segment of the Republican Party whose main motivation in politics appears to be making laws that are an attempt to keep themselves from their particular dysfunctional behaviors. We saw it with Mark Foley, who actually introduced legislation to punish the kind of behavior he engaged in. And strongly anti-gay Republicans like Ed Schrock and Jim West have supported and even pushed anti-gay legislation as they sat quietly in their closets.
As David Kurtz points out here, a website for the Idaho Values Alliance contains a remarkably familiar warning about what homosexuals do underneath a picture of family values champion Senator Craig (emphasis mine):
One of the tragic characteristics of the homosexual lifestyle is its emphasis on anonymous sex and multiple sexual partners. It is a little-acknowledged secret that many active homosexuals will have more than 1,000 sex partners over the course of a lifetime (the average among heterosexuals is seven – still six more than we were designed for). This sordid fact of homosexual life surfaced yesterday in an AP article yesterday that reports on the number of arrests police have made for indecent exposure and public sex acts in the restrooms at Atlanta’s airport, the busiest in the world. The increased restroom patrols, begun to apprehend luggage thieves, instead uncovered a rash of sex crimes. Airport restrooms have become so popular that men looking for anonymous sexual trysts with other men have advertised their airport availability on Craigslist. One such ad was from a man saying he was stuck at the airport for three hours and was looking for “discreet, quick action.”
You just can’t make this stuff up.
I’m heading off to Darcy Burner’s “Send a Message” Virtual Town Hall on Iraq, and this is the kind of performance I don’t expect to see:
Go to www.darcyburner.com at 3PM PST today and tune in to a real leader conducting a real forum on dealing with the mess in Iraq. And while you’re there, please put your money where your heart is. We’re only about $7,000 short of our ambitious $100,000 goal, but we’re trying to reach 3000 Act Blue donations by the end of the day.
So please do your part by joining 114 other HA readers in sending the message to Republican incumbents nationwide that they will not profit by toeing the Bush line on Iraq. Just five or ten bucks speaks volumes.
I was wrong. The big story today will be the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The question is, will Bush attempt to make a recess appointment? Can’t imagine he’d want to appoint anybody the Senate would want to confirm.
The big story today will be President Bush’s $10,000/person Bellevue fundraiser for Rep. Dave Reichert, but the real story behind the big story probably won’t make it onto the evening news or into the next morning’s headlines. Oh, you’ll see the usual pictures of rich folk lining up for a few seconds with the president, while protesters wave banners outside in a carefully quarantined “free speech zone.” And of course, there will be the traffic. Lots of traffic. But the real news will be taking place a few blocks down the street in a small conference room at the Westin, where Darcy Burner will be breaking new ground in the realm of electronic campaigning.
You’d think maybe, in one of the most tech-savvy regions of the nation, our media might recognize history in the making when they see it. But no, our newspapers, TV and radio have all but ignored the extraordinary new standards Burner is setting with her virtual town hall and the netroots fundraising drive that has organized around it.
Displaying the vision, leadership, boldness and technical expertise that have made her a netroots favorite, Darcy and her staff have used Bush’s visit as an opportunity to send a message on Iraq by creating an innovative “virtual town hall,” and attracting participants of national stature like Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton and Ambassador Joe Wilson.
Meanwhile, the netroots have seized on Darcy’s efforts, organizing around them an unprecedented $100,000 online fundraising drive intended to send a message of our own, that Republican incumbents won’t prosper by toeing the Bush line on Iraq. You will not find a single member of the political establishment who thought we had a snowball’s chance of coming anywhere near our goal, but in the first three days of the drive we have raised over $75,000 from over 2000 donors. Over a weekend. In August. Fourteen months out from the election.
If that’s not breaking new ground, I don’t know what is. And still, our local media refuses to take notice, even as history is being made in their own backyard. Go figure.
Well, somebody will notice… some national journalist will read the headlines at Daily Kos or Atrios today and scoop the Times and the P-I by recognizing that something special is unfolding in Seattle… that the dynamics of political campaigning are changing right before our eyes. Darcy isn’t just another Democrat, she’s a Democrat v2.0. Welcome to the future of politics.
So let the old guard media willfully ignore Darcy’s virtual town hall — you are invited to help us make history with or without them. Go to www.darcyburner.com, submit your question, and sign up to view the live stream. And if you haven’t already contributed via our Burn Bush Act Blue page, please join the 102 HA readers who already have. Let’s blow through our $100,000 target and give the political and media establishment the fright of their lives.
UPDATE:
Howie Klein has a great post on Darcy over at DownWithTyranny!
UPDATE (– Goldy):
In all fairness to Stefan and his reputation as a cheapskate, he paid for the pitcher. (Though I’ve got no idea what, if any he tipped.)
Here are a few videos to ease you into the new week…
Discuss.
Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:
7PM: Is President Bush coming to town to raise money for the Democrats?
President Bush is coming to Bellevue tomorrow for a high-dollar fundraiser for Dave Reichert, but there’s a good chance he could end up raising more money for Democratic challenger Darcy Burner than for the Republican incumbent. Burner will be in the studio with me to talk about her Virtual Town Hall on Iraq she’ll be holding tomorrow, just down the street from the President, and the $100,000 netroots fundraiser that’s been organized around. Panel moderator and Daily Kos front page blogger Joan McCarter will join us be phone, as will retired Major General Paul Eaton.
8PM: Primary wrap-up; general election preview
Democratic consultant Christian Sinderman and Republican consultant and former WA State GOP chair Chris Vance join me by phone for wrap up on Tuesdays primary and a look forward to the November general election. Will the Republicans continue their slide? Will voters approve roads and transit? Tune in and ask the experts.
9PM: TBA
Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).
PROGRAMMING NOTE:
My show will be preempted again by a Seahawks preseason game next Saturday.
Gen. Paul Eaton knows what’s at stake in Iraq, and he knows what’s at stake in the next election. That’s why he urges you “to join me in doing everything you can to elect Darcy Burner to Congress,” and to participate in tomorrow’s virtual town hall on Iraq. If you haven’t already signed up for the town hall and sent in your question or YouTube video, go to www.darcyburner.com and do so now. And if you haven’t already given generously to our ambitious $100,000 netroots fund drive, you’re running out of time.
The local media hasn’t seemed to realize it yet, but we’re on the verge of making history in their own backyard. By pulling together the national and local netroots in an unprecedented effort, we’re within striking distance of raising more money for Burner than Bush raises for Reichert. The DC establishment is already in shock at our success thus far — nearly $67,000 in less than three days. Together we can blow through our target and add a little awe to their shock.
Even a ten dollar donation brings us ten dollars closer.So please give today.
Several witnesses have confirmed to me that they once saw Stefan Sharkansky beat a homeless man to death with a tire iron. And if Stefan denies it, he and his wife are free to sue me for defamation.
Frightening as the two of us may find it, the Seattle Times editorial board and I are in complete agreement on electing King County’s elections director: opposed.
Should the King County elections director be chosen by voters? The correct answer is no, but this becomes a far more complicated question now that Initiative 25 has qualified for a ballot.
I-25 next goes to the County Council, which should do us all a favor and put this measure on the ballot in such a way that it changes the rules not for next year’s elections, but rather for elections in 2009 or 2010. King County switches to all-mail balloting in April 2008, in the middle of a huge election year, with a presidential contest, congressional races and legislative races on the ballot in the summer and fall.
The county does not need to make this change amid all of that. The county does not need to make this change, period.
I-25, if adopted by the council and approved by voters as a charter amendment this November, would hold a special election this February to name the first elections director, with no primary contest, and an abbreviated last minute campaign. I consider I-25 sponsor Toby Nixon a friend of HA and of my radio show, but I have to say that I find this provision at the very least ill-conceived if not downright sneaky. Republicans look at this as an opportunity to seize control of the county’s election machinery, but to do so, they have to win. And a rushed, low-profile, nonpartisan race where a sudden influx of cash can make all the difference, is just about the only way for Republicans to win a countywide election these days.
Much fuss has been made about how the elections director is not accountable to the public and how if the elections director had been directly accountable to the public in the 2004 governor’s race, election mistakes would not have been made.
This is by now trumped up hooey, and a judge in a Republican county said as much after a lengthy trial on behalf of Republican Dino Rossi.
The elections director currently is accountable to the county executive. Challenger David Irons tried to pin the foibles of the election on Ron Sims in the 2005 campaign for county executive. Voters didn’t buy it.
Unfortunately, this is one of those situations where rhetoric and reason aren’t on the same side of the debate. An appointed elections director is in fact more accountable than an elected one because the appointment must be approved by the council, and the director can be fired at any time. Likewise, it is hard to imagine how electing the elections director, rather than just hiring a qualified professional, is the obvious path toward keeping politics out of our elections.
That said, it is equally hard to imagine voters rejecting the deceptively simple appeal of “more democracy.”
My only hope is that Democrats wake up to the larger agenda of the GOP, which has focused relentlessly on controlling Secretary of State and Attorney General offices nationwide… and to possibly devastating effect in places like Ohio and Florida. As they did during the legal contest over the disputed 2004 gubernatorial election, WA’s Republican minority now controls the offices of the Secretary of State, the state Attorney General, the King County Prosecutor and the US Attorney. Should they control the elections office, they could have absolute control over elections in the largest and most Democratic county in the state, as well as all offices wielding administrative and legal oversight.
And just in time for a presidential election and the Gregoire-Rossi and Burner-Reichert rematches. How convenient.
I guess now we know what the Bush administration has been smoking…
Afghanistan produced record levels of opium in 2007 for the second straight year, led by a staggering 45 percent increase in the Taliban stronghold of Helmand Province, according to a new United Nations survey to be released Monday.
I’ve devoted a lot of bytes the past couple days to the Burn Bush for Burner online fund drive, because, well, the sad truth about politics is that money talks. And believe me, hitting our ambitious $100,000 target will be heard loud and clear in both Washingtons, so if you haven’t already given, please give now.
That said, this ambitious netroots fund drive was really only an afterthought a few of us bloggers put together around the Darcy Burner campaign’s ambitious plans to hold a virtual town hall on Iraq to coincide with President Bush’s $10,000/person funder for Dave Reichert. And I haven’t written nearly enough about the town hall itself.
The “Send a Message” Town Hall will be held Monday afternoon at 3pm PST at the Bellevue Westin, just three blocks from the Hyatt where Reichert and Bush will be holding their exclusive high-donor affair. Space is very limited, but don’t you worry because that’s where the word “virtual” comes in. The entire event will be streamed live a www.darcyburner.com, throughout Washington’s 8th Congressional District, the nation and the world. You are all invited to sign up, submit your questions, and then watch the town hall from the comfort of your own computer.
In addition to Burner, panelists will include:
Jon Soltz — the co-founder and chairman of VoteVets.org, Jon is a veteran of the Iraq War, where he served as a captain with the 1st Armored Division during Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is considered one of the country’s most authoritative voices on veterans and military issues and is a regular contributor to the MSNBC program “Countdown” with Keith Olbermann. He also blogs on military and veterans issues at the Huffington Post.
Navy Capt. Larry Seaquist (ret.) — a former US naval officer, Captain Seaquist commanded a number of warships including the battleship USS IOWA during his distinguished 32-year career. He also served as a senior security strategist in the Pentagon including an appointment as the Director of Policy Research in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. During the period leading up to the Gulf War he was Acting Assistant Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Planning. He currently serves in the Washington State legislature and writes regularly for major newspapers and defense journals.
Lorin Walker — serves as vice-president of VetPac, a political action committee dedicated to electing candidates who preserve the values for which veterans have served, fought and died. She is the daughter of Captain Bruce C. Walker USAF, MIA 1972. A resident of Washington State, she is active in veterans affairs and Democratic politics and works at Microsoft.
Professor Clark Lombardi — teaches comparative law at the University of Washington and is an expert on Islamic legal systems. He recently returned from a trip to Iraq, and speaks knowledgably about the difficulties the United States faces in Iraq in creating functioning civil institutions that are critical to the functioning of a stable and effective democracy.
Major General Paul D. Eaton (ret.), who went to Iraq in 2003 to lead the effort to recreate the Iraqi military from scratch, and who since his retirement has stepped forward to speak plainly about the Bush administration’s incompetence in conducting the Iraq War and callousness in treating its active duty forces and veterans, is unable to attend in person but has submitted a video statement for the “Send a Message” virtual town hall. The same is true of Ambassador Joe Wilson, who exposed the administration’s efforts to falsely hype the Iraqi regime’s efforts to acquire nuclear materials from Niger in the run-up to the war and has been forthright ever since in .
The participants will answer questions submitted over the web or via Youtube video clips and will offer their expertise on our current dilemma in Iraq and the impact it is having on our nation, our military, and our reputation in the world.
This first-of-its-kind forum promises to be as innovative and ground breaking as the netroots fund drive that sprang up around it. For further details about how you can participate, visit www.darcyburner.com today, and check regularly between now and Monday for updates.
And oh yeah… be sure to go to Burn Bush Act Blue page, and give whatever you can.
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!