HorsesAss.Org

From Wikipedia:

Saddam Hussein (28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was the fifth President of Iraq and Chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council from 1979 until his overthrow by US forces in 2003. He was executed after being found guilty of war crimes at his trial in 2006.

And you know what else? He’s a registered voter.

I blame Dean Logan, of course.

I was going to cross-post this, but it’s a bit long. Over at EffU, I’ve found a local hero who recently saved us all from impending peril.

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

7PM: The Stranger Hour with Josh & Erica
The Stranger’s Josh Feit and Erica Barnett join me for the hour for a round-up of the week in state and local politics, including Dino Rossi’s “idea” man, the continuing saga of the OPARBRBRBRB, and the latest on Seattle’s weird war on nightlife. Also, Erica plans to set me straight on something or other.

8PM: Can a godless atheist like me be a patriot?
In following the news of the “Christians and patriots” who loudly protested when a Hindu clergyman gave the US Senate’s morning prayer, I came across a quote from George H. W. Bush, (the President’s father,) given while he was running for president in 1987: “No, I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.” I’m an atheist. Can I be considered a patriot or even a citizen?

9PM: What’s going on south of the border?
TJ from Loaded Orygun joins me for our monthly round-up of what’s going on south of the Washington border.

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

PROGRAMMING NOTE:
Tune in tomorrow at 7PM for a live call-in with US Rep. Adam Smith. At 8PM, Tom Morello (from Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave), blogger and former recording industry executive Howie Klein and I will talk about the intersection between politics and music.

“Sound Transit says errors inflated cost of light-rail plan“

There are several ways to read this ambiguous headline from today’s Seattle Times, but I’m guessing that for the region’s transit skeptics the message is loud and clear: us taxpayers are gonna have to pick up the cost of yet another Sound Transit screw up.

But if you glanced at today’s Seattle P-I, you might come away with an entirely differently impression.

“Light rail estimate lowered“

Huh?

To be fair, both papers accurately report the story, as demonstrated by the Times’ succinct lede: “The long-term cost of extending light-rail beyond Seattle is about $7 billion less than Sound Transit previously said, according to revised figures the agency issued Friday.” But not every reader reads beyond the headline on every story.

I’m not implying any conscious bias or intent to mislead; the Times headline was most likely just a poor choice of words. But as I’ve previously argued (with little sympathy from my colleagues in the legacy media,) headlines and ledes do matter, and they shape the way readers interpret otherwise factual reporting. Most reporters and editors claim to be objective — and no doubt, most attempt to live up to that goal — but what they choose to report, what words they choose to use, which facts they emphasize and where these stories are placed in the paper are all subjective decisions.

I have no formal journalistic training apart from a single high school class and a couple years on the school paper, but I do remember being taught to put the most important information near the top (a rule I routinely violate, usually for literary reasons.) And, um… you can’t get much nearer the top than the headline.

Darcy Burner will be the Blue America special guest today on Firedoglake. Howie Klein will moderate, and Darcy will answer questions live in the comment thread, from 11AM to 1PM.

Howie had the chance to interview Darcy earlier in the week, and you can read his take over at his blog, Down With Tyranny. A former president of Reprise/Warner Bros. Records, Howie will also be my guest 8:30PM Sunday night on The David Goldstein Show talking about the intersection between music and politics.

UPDATE:
The post is now up on Firedoglake. Click here to join the conversation.

A 12-year-old girl was abducted and murdered, and what is our good friend Stefan’s response to the arrest of her suspected killer, Terapon Dang Adhahn? The headline: “And He’s a Registered Voter.”

Stefan likes to dismiss me and my fellow progressive bloggers as the crazy “nutroots,” but what kind of sane person would instantly respond to a heart-wrenching tragedy like this by looking up the suspect’s voter registration record? I guess, in Stefan’s mind, Dean Logan has yet more blood on his hands.

I’ve gotta throw my 2 cents in on Lou Guzzo. Carl has already given us some of the highlights of his blogging, but even the great video below doesn’t truly reveal the full range of batshit crazy this man is capable of. Maybe my all time favorite Guzzo “idea” is his “Foster Nation program”, which he describes as such:

The proposal is that the United States would immediately cancel every aspect of its foreign-aid program, stop sending any funds to all nations, and create a new program called the Foster Nation Program. Instead of sending our taxpayers’ billions to Second and Third World nations, most of which winds up in the pockets of the overlords, politicians, and theocratic dictators anyway, we would adopt the underdeveloped and poorest countries as America’s foster nations.

We would select those nations one by one. Instead of sending them our foreign-aid dollars, we would send them our best minds in a variety of fields — industrial development, agriculture, the professions, education, development of natural resources, new housing, transportation, communications, and every other field. Our goal would be to raise the standard of living in each of the foster nations and improve their economy to match ours. When our team of experts, adequately paid by us, finished its ground-breaking effort in one country and made certain that every field of endeavor was in capable hands, it would move on to another needy country.

It would mean we would have to develop an outstanding cadre of experts in each field, with substitutes trained and ready to take over at any time. A Foster Nation program would, of course, require sufficient governmental funds to attract the best minds and to keep the program going.

As I noted at Effu at the time, considering that we’ve basically been trying to do this in Afghanistan and Iraq for years and have gotten nowhere, doing it for each third-world country on earth one by one would probably take between 1000 and 2000 years to complete.

Guzzo isn’t just a lunatic when it comes to foreign policy, though, he has some interesting “ideas” when it comes to the nanny state as well:

That brings me to the main point of this commentary: I believe Congress and all 50 legislatures should act to ban professional, organized gambling everywhere in the U.S. and to order heavy fines and even prison terms for those who break the law and set up high-stakes gambling,

Considering his animosity for the entire state of Nevada (“Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised about anything that happens in Nevada, properly designated as the nation’s cesspool”), I’m kind of hoping that Rossi keeps him around for more ideas. Before long, Guzzo may be advocating that Washington state should invade Nevada and send our brightest minds down there to clean that place up.

Um… need I say more? (Via Slog.)

Via Radar Online, the type of incisive political reporting you’d expect to read over on Slog:

In the final days of his imploding candidacy, John McCain has taken a page out of Richard Nixon’s play book, finding increasingly bizarre explanations for his political failures. Strangest of all: He reportedly feels his handlers forced him to wear “gay sweaters.”

According to one insider, the knit-picking was the crescendo of a tirade by the Arizona senator, in which he blistered aides about the minutiae of the campaign. While many septuagenarians live in a perpetual state of sweater weather, McCain reportedly declared his frustration with being told to don the perceived homosexual outerwear in order to look younger and more approachable.

“He wasn’t happy being dictated to. The sweaters were part of that,” the source says.

[…] The McCain campaign did not officially respond for comment, but one source that has been close to the senator poses the question most J. Crew shoppers are no doubt asking: “How can a crew-neck sweater make you look gay? They make him look silly, sure. Old, too. But not gay. That’s Romney’s department.”

Naturally I was really busy on Thursday, on a news day replete with interesting Republican accomplishments. Here’s a recap….

First there was Bush’s report to Congress (and the nation) on “progress” in Iraq since the Surge™ began. Check out Fred Kaplin’s Slate piece on the “accomplishments” titled “You Call That Progress? The outrageous White House report on Iraq.” I sense skepticism.

President George W. Bush achieved something of his own “benchmark” when he tied Richard Nixon’s low mark in a recent Harris poll of presidential approval.

Florida Rep. Bob Allen (R-Men’s Room) shows that even Republicans can try earning $20 the good ol’ fashion way.

President George W. Bush creates more scandal by trying to fire someone.

Now 3600+ U.S. soldiers have given their life for Saddam’s WMD Saddam’s role in 9-11-2001 stopping the Iraqi humanitarian crisis ousting Saddam training…er…fighting them over there oil somethin’ or the other that is really, really worthwhile.

Daniel at On the Road to 2008 noticed that Rep. Dave Reichert’s web site has carefully documented Reichert’s “record of independence and bi-partisan leadership.” Mmmmmm….impressive!

Republicans show their fund raising prowess by finishing somewhere in the top five.

Wingnut Pundit Jack Burkman demonstrates his commitment to small businesses.

President George W. Bush finally takes credit for his administration’s accomplishments in the Valerie Wilson covert dissemination case.

You gotta give them wingnuts credit…they’re always accomplishing stuff….

…and unlike Goldy, I don’t have as cerebral a response:

The film was funny, it was moving, and yes, at times it was uplifting. I laughed out loud throughout, which those who know me well will tell you is a huge compliment indeed. The film also brought tears to my eyes on a number of occasions.

I laughed too, and at the end, when the Cuban firefighters honor the Americans who volunteered at Ground Zero on 9/11, the floodgates opened, and I wept. I surprised myself, and I was glad the theater wasn’t full. It was an especially touching moment.

I went in the theater as a healthcare reform moderate, a sort of “mend it, don’t end it” attitude towards our current health insurance system. (Matt Miller, a fellow at the Center for American Progress, has some creative ideas that fit this definition.) I did not support Congressman (and doctor) Jim McDermott’s health plan. After leaving the theater, I’m a changed guy.

It’s war. It’s the American people on one side, and the insurance companies and their DC lackeys on the other. What’s needed is an old timey ass whoopin’, a beating, a clock cleanin’. The for-profit health care system needs to become a historical curiosity, an urban legend, an anachronism. In 50 years at Drinking Liberally, I want young bloggers gathered around a “Joel Connelly” type character while he regales them with stories of how things used to be. You mean people used to go broke from medical bills? they’ll say. The wise, aged columnist will reply, It was a different time.

We need to blow up our current system and replace it with a government-run health care system that serves the needs of every American and is beholden to no corporate bottom line. Considering health care outcomes in America routinely trail those in other countries, I think it is only a matter of time until Americans get what they’ve paid for: a health care system that works.

Shameful behavior:

A Hindu clergyman made history Thursday by offering the Senate’s morning prayer, but only after police officers removed three shouting protesters from the visitors’ gallery.

Rajan Zed, director of interfaith relations at a Hindu temple in Reno, Nev., gave the brief prayer that opens each day’s Senate session. As he stood at the chamber’s podium in a bright orange and burgundy robe, two women and a man began shouting “this is an abomination” and other complaints from the gallery.

Police officers quickly arrested them and charged them disrupting Congress, a misdemeanor. The male protester told an AP reporter, “we are Christians and patriots” before police handcuffed them and led them away.

I’ll remember to mention this event the next time someone accuses a Democrat of being anti-religion.

For decades our government has been dominated by a conservative ideology that claims to despise big government, abhor regulation and adhere to an unswerving faith in the infinite wisdom of the market. Rick Perlstein dubs this philosophy “E. Coli Conservatism,” and in practice it is not only flawed but corrupt: a calculated conservative project intended to gut our regulatory systems in the interest of sheer corporate greed. We eat adulterated food not because we cannot adequately regulate the industry but because to do so would eat into the profits of the corporations our regulators serve.

In the six years since 9/11, food-borne pathogens and toxins have quietly killed ten times the number of Americans who died in the terrorist attacks. How many more Americans must conservatism kill before our leaders embrace a more responsible ideology?

That is the provocative conclusion to “Poison for Profit”, my new piece on food safety (or the lack thereof) in the July 30 edition of The Nation. The issue won’t hit newsstands until the end of the month, but you can read my contribution online now.

In case you’re wondering, America’s oldest continuously published weekly magazine pays even worse than The Stranger, but I’m told it’s a tad more prestigious. Yes, that’s right, a magazine that has published the likes of Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King, Jr., Gore Vidal, Hunter S. Thompson, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, John Steinbeck, and Jean-Paul Sartre, has now also published potty-mouthed Goldy. I know there are those who sneer that my love of foul language is symptomatic of some character, literary or mental defect that will forever relegate me to the role of mere blogger, but believe it or not, I managed to get through an entire essay without writing the words “fuck,” “shit,” “asshole” or “cocksucker” even once. Imagine that.

So a heads up to all you local publishers: I’d just love to supplement my meager income with a regular column. Come and get me while you can still afford me.

“I don’t think, quite frankly, that Darcy being in or out of the race will make that big a difference.”

That was state Rep. Christopher Hurst in today’s Seattle P-I, and while I’ve never met the guy, I have to wonder… is he an absolute moron?

He doesn’t think Darcy being in or out will make a difference? He thinks now that he’s decided not to run, the nomination is Rodney Tom’s for the taking? What planet does he live on?

“No disrespect to Darcy,” Hurst told the P-I, while totally dissing her, “but she had her run, in what was probably the best year in 40 years to run as a Democrat, and she came up short.”

That is the sort of simplistic analysis that may comfort the thumb-suckers in the GOP, but as the basis for a Democratic campaign, it is downright embarrassing. It is also insulting, as it implies that the only reason Burner came close in 2006 was a national trend beyond anybody’s control or power of prediction.

But there were many, many factors that played out in 2006, and the Big Blue Wave was only one of them. As Chris Bowers pointed out in a post over on Open Left, as good a year as 2006 was for Democrats in general, it was an oddly bad year for Democratic women:

In 2006, of the thirty Republican-held House seats most heavily targeted by Democratic Party committees and allied progressive organizations, twenty-one of the Democratic nominees challenging for those seats were male, and nine of the Democratic nominees challenging for those seats were female. With the elections over, twenty of the twenty-one men in that group are now serving in Congress. However, Kirsten Gillibrand in NY-20 is the only woman in that group who is now serving in Congress. For some reason, of the top thirty Democratic House targets in 2006, Democratic men won 95% of the time, while Democratic women won only 11% of the time.

I’m not exactly sure what is behind this statistical anomaly, but it is unlikely to be explained away by simple randomness alone. Something unusual happened in 2006 that we don’t fully understand, and it left Burner in some very good company.

Of course, each race is unique, and you have to look at both internal and external factors to understand the final outcome. As I mentioned yesterday, the Burner campaign made some tactical missteps during the final weeks of the campaign, and the late vote ended up breaking toward Reichert. Those mistakes won’t be repeated. Externally, second tier races like WA-08 drew the brunt of the GOP firepower, leaving Democrats to romp in the first and third tiers. Karl Rove’s now infamous PowerPoint presentation highlights the Reichert/Burner race as the RNC’s top example of a massive get-out-the-vote campaign that targeted 585,164 voter contacts into the 8th CD — 41,666 on election day alone. That’s over 100,000 more than the next closest district.

I suppose if Hurst had been the nominee, this never would have happened.

But perhaps the biggest factor that Hurst, Tom and other nay-sayers ignore is the most obvious one of all: turnout. Despite the national Democratic tide, turnout was actually much lighter than expected in WA-08. Only 251,383 people voted in in 2006, compared to 336,499 in 2004. Democrats simply don’t turn out in the same percentages as Republicans during non-presidential years, and thus with greater turnout and presidential coattails, we can expect that 2008 will be a very good year for the Democratic nominee. And with the war in Iraq continuing its tailspin into disaster, who’s to say that 2008 won’t be the “best year in 40 years to run as a Democrat”…?

Finally, wave or no wave, Burner started out with zero money, zero name ID, and zero support from the Democratic establishment. She worked hard to earn her credibility, and the media and institutional attention that made her viable, and she continues to work hard today. All of those disadvantages have been erased, and if Hurst really doesn’t understand how this changes the dynamics of the 2008 campaign, one has to wonder why anybody would take anything Hurst has to say seriously?

Hurst told the P-I that he and Tom “talked things over pretty extensively in the last six weeks or so.” If that’s true, it isn’t a very good sign for Rodney Tom fans.

This post is not about Seattle’s police this time. What recently happened to a Kent family is beyond a disgrace. From the NWCN website:

It was supposed to be a special trip for a Montana man and his 8-year-old granddaughter. But their truck broke down on Snoqualmie Pass and the grandfather was killed.

If this wasn’t tragic enough for an 8-year-old girl to see her grandfather get killed and be left stranded on I-90, this is what happened when the police brought her home:

The story took a strange turn when troopers were re-uniting the child with her parents in Kent. Police say they found illegal drugs. But the parents say it’s medical marijuana prescribed by a doctor.

…

The Osmans acknowledge growing marijuana. They say it’s prescribed by their doctors to treat symptoms of hepatitis C, chronic pain and other ailments.

They say the police didn’t care about the medical authorization forms signed by their doctors.

Even with the most recent medical marijuana bill passed, there still aren’t enough protections for patients under this state’s medical marijuana law. Raids like these are still common in the state, and legitimate medical marijuana patients don’t have any real protection under the law. The state board of health has been tasked with establishing what an acceptable medical supply should be, but until then, cops still have free reign to go after the sick and ailing.

The job of police is to protect and serve the public. In this case, the police have done neither. In the process of reuniting a horrified child with her parents, the child told them that her parents grew marijuana. Instead of trying to figure out whether or not her parents were medical marijuana users, this is what they did when they arrived at the house in Kent:

“(They) opened the door, immediately she was shoved inside, turned around and cuffed. Same thing happened to me. Dragged us onto the front porch,” said Bruce.

Lt. Sass says the Osmans had too many plants for personal use, but if Bruce Osman is correct about what happened above, the police certainly could not have known that at the time they dragged them onto the front porch and started tearing their apartment to shreds. Thankfully, the Osmans have a lawyer:

The Osmans’ attorney says police broke the law by seizing the marijuana, initially entering without a warrant, and for ransacking the couple’s apartment.

How is it that we’ve come to accept that wearing a police officer’s uniform is a valid excuse for acting like a degenerate? We overwhelmingly passed a law in this state in 1998 to allow for people with certain medical conditions to use marijuana if they and their doctor found it to be beneficial. The Osmans, like many others in this state, have a doctor’s authorization to use marijuana. What the police did in this situation is absolutely unacceptable. If there is any justice in this goddamn authoritarian hellhole of a society we’ve created for ourselves, the prosecutor should be deciding right now whether or not to charge the police officers with a crime, rather than the Osmans.

And at the national level, the Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment is going to be up for a vote in Congress next week. This bill would prohibit federal dollars from being spent to arrest and prosecute medical marijuana patients in states where it’s legal. Please write your Congressman, especially if you live in the 2nd or the 8th, as Congressmen Larsen and Reichert have both voted against this bill (and against the will of Washington voters) in previous years.

UPDATE: I made a minor correction at the top and Dominic Holden writes much more at Slog.