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It is editorial endorsement season, and a loud round of cheers was reportedly heard the other day from the pro parks levy folks at Yes For Our Parks, when news broke that they had lost the endorsement from our friend Stefan over at (un)SoundPolitics. (u)SP is kinda the Chicago Cubs of local politics: perennial losers whose endorsement is considered the kiss of death by those who confuse cause with effect. This preeminent local righty blog is more of a looking glass than a window into mainstream political thought — a mirror image of public opinion that tends to reflect the proprietors’ own fantastical take on both policy and the polis.

Take the reliably anti-republican/pro-Republican Stefan, and his curious logic for rejecting the levies:

I like parks too, and am willing to pay a reasonable amount to support them. But the financing mechanism is flawed and the only chance of changing that is rejecting the levy.

The “financing mechanism”…? You mean going before voters for a special levy vote, rather than funding park maintenance and acquisition through the general fund? But isn’t this nickel-and-nickel approach exactly the kind of “direct democracy” for which Stefan and his cohorts routinely argue in their reflexive support for Tim Eyman and his anti-tax/anti-government initiatives?

When Eyman foisted I-747 on voters, with its arbitrary one-percent cap on growth in property tax revenues from existing construction — a rate that doesn’t even account for inflation let alone growth in demand for public services — he argued that local governments could always go directly to voters for special levies and lid lifts. Indeed, he argues that government should always go directly to voters to approve tax and fee increases. And by starving the general fund of adequate revenue growth, he got exactly what he wanted.

Local governments now routinely go to voters with special levies to fund popular and essential public services like parks, libraries and EMS, and while such dedicated levies may make for bad tax policy, elected officials really don’t have any other choice. Over 70-percent of King County’s general fund goes to the criminal justice system, so if Stefan is going to criticize the parks’ “financing mechanism,” he might want to offer up an alternative.

Perhaps he can find one through the looking glass.

I just finished reading Overkill, Radley Balko’s white paper from 2006 on the rise in SWAT-style policing. From the 1960s until now, paramilitary police units have gone from being rarely used specialty forces, only called when lives were in immediate danger, to being a routine way of serving drug warrants and a number of other situations with a non-violent offender. Balko has been studying this trend for years at the CATO Institute and is now a senior editor at Reason Magazine. I’ve been following his work for a long time, and I think he’s getting at the heart of a very problematic trend in this country, one that started with the drug war and is being continued with the war or terror. We’ve allowed greater militarization within our civil society because we’re at “war”.

Balko chronicles numerous instances of innocent people having their homes invaded and being physically harmed solely because police either got the address wrong or were lied to by an informant. The recent case of Kathryn Johnston in Atlanta, the innocent 88-year-old woman who was shot by invading police officers (one of whom was later charged with murder), was one of the first incidents to actually gather some widespread attention. Even while SWAT teams are glorified on TV, some high-level reflection on their use is starting to occur.

At the CATO Institute website, an interactive map is set up to review hundres of botched raids nationwide. Two from this area were particularly maddening:

In March 1992, police in Everett, Washington storm the home of Robin Pratt on a no-knock warrant. They are looking for her husband, who would later be released when the allegations in the warrant turned out to be false.

Though police had a key to the apartment, they instead choose to throw a 50-pound battering ram through the apartment’s sliding-glass door. Glass shards land inches away from the couple’s six-year-old daughter and five-year-old niece. One officer encounters Robin Pratt on the way to her bedroom. Hearing other SWAT team members yell “Get down!” Pratt falls to her knees. She then raises her head briefly to say, “Please don’t hurt my children.” At that point, Deputy Anthony Aston fires his weapon, putting a bullet in her neck, killing her.

Officers next entered the bedroom, where Dep. Aston then put the tip of his MP-5 assault submachine gun against Larry Pratt’s head. When Pratt asked if he could move, another officer said that if he did, he’d have his head blown off.

Though a subsequent investigation by a civilian inquest jury found the shooting “unjustified,” the officer who shot and killed Pratt was never charged.

And amazingly, one of them happened while they were filming an episode of Cops:

In May 1992, police in King County, Washington conduct a no-knock raid with cameras from the television show Cops in tow.

Police break open the door of the Glover family and their four children. They put a gun to Floyd Glover’s head and order him to the floor. Theresa Glover is handcuffed at gunpoint. Despite being half-dressed, and with the cameras still rolling, police at first refuse to let her cover up. Other officers then storm the children’s bedroom, screaming, “Everyone on the floor!”

Police had targeted the wrong home.

Cops would later decide not to air the raid. The same police department had conducted two other “wrong door” raids in the previous year.

I don’t know the full history of how SWAT teams have been used in the Seattle area (I moved here in 1997), but I do know that compared to the rest of the country, we’ve had way fewer incidences than other major cities since the early 90s. Someone will have to fill me in on whether there was ever a public debate over their use or whether police officials just realized their ineffectiveness and stopped the practice. (Or do they still continue to do them in some places with more oversight?)

This topic also leads to a related discussion that plays a role in paramilitary drug war policing – on confidential informants. When people talk about the Stop Snitching movement, they often confuse the real issue, even the clueless rappers who go on TV to defend it. In many cases like the one of Kathryn Johnston, the raid is predicated upon the word of a confidential informant, a person the police relies on to give them information on where drugs are being sold. In Johnston’s case in Atlanta, it was discovered that the police bypassed using an actual informant and then tried to get a former informant to lie for them to say they did. But in many cases, individuals will become confidential informants in order to make money or to take down a rival. They can very easily entrap others and send them to prison. In this context, the Stop Snitching movement isn’t the clear cut moral issue some believe it to be. But the distinction is often lost in the outrage when eyewitnesses to real crimes stay silent.

It’s not a surprise that much of this paramilitary policing goes on in poor, minority neighborhoods around the country. Some of it has been supported by those without racial animosity, but out of a belief that by attacking the drug trade in these communities we’d be helping them. As should be clear to anyone, knocking down people’s doors at 3AM doesn’t help anyone in any neighborhood. The list of tragedies chronicled by Balko in his white paper is terrifying. When you send police to serve basic drug warrants, especially at night, you invite violent confrontations rather than what the original intent of these team were, to diffuse them.

Finishing up a nine day broadcasting binge, I’m still in free-form mode tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO.

Seattle P-I political columnist Joel Connelly is scheduled to call in from Chicago during the 8PM hour, to give us the old guard, legacy media take on the events at the Yearly Kos convention, and I’ll be taking other YK reports as they come in. Other topics tonight include congressional Democrats caving on FISA, the well-greased global warming denial machine, and why millionaires just don’t feel rich anymore: “A few million doesn’t go as far as it used to.” Poor baby.

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

A few days ago I’d heard from somebody in the Darcy Burner camp that Dave Reichert was preparing to introduce legislation this coming week, adding 26,000 acres along the Pratt River to the Alpine Wilderness Area. Sounds like a pretty good idea to me, but it also sounds pretty damn cynical considering Reichert’s poor record on environmental issues, and his lockstep support of President Bush’s anti-wilderness policies. I’d meant to post preemptively, but Reichert’s staff beat me to it, feeding the story to the Seattle P-I’s Joel Connelly.

The curmudgeonly Connelly was the perfect choice: a nature enthusiast and wilderness advocate who longs for the days when the Republican notion of doing the “right” thing spoke more to rectitude of judgment than ideological correctness, Connelly holds an almost messianic faith in the second coming of moderate bipartisanship. Connelly also has a history of rewarding even the most reprobate Republicans for small steps toward the middle, and Reichert’s folks guessed right that their outreach to him might generate a little positive press. Which makes my failure to preempt Reichert’s announcement, putting it in its appropriate context, all the more disappointing.

For at the same time Reichert makes hay over his move to designate these 26,000 acres as protected wilderness, he refuses to oppose Bush administration rules that would open all two million acres of Washington’s remaining roadless national forest land — and 58.5 million acres nationwide — to road-building, logging, mining and other commercial development.

Rep. Jay Inslee and Sen. Maria Cantwell have introduced bipartisan legislation that would do exactly that, reinstating by law the Clinton-era “roadless rule” that the Bush administration summarily revoked. The House version of the National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Act has already secured 140 cosponsors from both sides of the aisle. But noticeably absent from this list of supporters is the suddenly “green” Dave Reichert.

Connelly kvelled that Reichert “took a bold step to embrace a Republican tradition that has lately been sinking out of sight.” Oy. So after rinsing the vomit out of my mouth, I asked Burner for comment. In response, the campaign sent the following statement:

“My family and I live in modest home outside of Carnation because we enjoy being close to the land. I grew up in rural areas, so a connection to open country is something I feel deep in my bones. Growing up, my dad spent several summers as a park ranger at Mt. Rainier National Park. We lived near the park while he worked to protect those areas so visitors from across the state could come and appreciate the great outdoors.

“I remain committed to conservation and to protecting our environment. Our pristine open spaces are disappearing before our eyes as the Bush administration guts the strong wilderness conservation protections established during the Clinton years. If we do not act now to reverse this situation, much of our wilderness will be lost forever.

“That is why I strongly support HR 2516, Senator Maria Cantwell’s and Rep. Jay Inslee’s Roadless Area Protection Act. Fifty-nine million acres of wilderness across the country are at risk – including 2 million acres in Washington State (accounting for more than a fifth of our National Forests here) – because of rule changes imposed by the Bush administration that amount to a giveaway of public lands to loggers, oil companies and the mining industry. Unfortunately, these are changes that Congressman Reichert seems to support, since he is notably absent as one of the 144 co-sponsors – including a number of Republicans – of this important legislation.

“Now I hear that Congressman Reichert, who is not even sure yet that global warming exists, intends to begin portraying himself as going ‘green.’ He is telling the press that he would like to consider designating 26,000 acres of federal land of the Pratt River Valley a wilderness area. Many in the environmental community would like to see this area conserved and so would I. So I applaud Congressman Reichert for taking a small step in the direction of wilderness conservation.

“But I would also hope that he would join so many of his colleagues in co-sponsoring the bipartisan Cantwell-Inslee legislation. Otherwise, his willingness to consider protecting one small area while threatening 2 million acres elsewhere in the state is the equivalent of focusing on a tree while losing sight of the fact that the forest is being chopped down around you.

“Moreover, I believe strongly that we can not forget to take care of what we already have. Congress must adequately fund the Parks Service so the horrible damage the winter storms did to Mt Rainier National Park can be put on a fast track for repair and restoration. When I am elected, the voters of the 8th District can be sure that conserving our untouched public lands, not just in one location but all across the state, will be one of my top priorities. I will move quickly to ensure that the environmental health of our entire region is preserved and enhanced.”

So before other reporters, columnists and editorialists gush over a minority congressman’s attempt to immunize himself on environmental issues by announcing plans to protect 26,000 acres (a bill he is powerless to push through on his own,) I hope they ask Reichert the hard question of whether he will or will not join Inslee and Cantwell in opposing President Bush, and reinstating roadless rules that would protect 58.5 million acres of pristine forest from commercial development.

PROGRAMMING NOTE:
Joel Connelly will be my guest tonight in the 8PM hour on “The David Goldstein Show.”

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

It’s Yearly Kos-apalooza tonight, with a host of hacks, flaks and would be elected officials calling in from the big progressive blogger convention in Chicago, including The Stranger’s Eli Sanders, blogger and Crosscut editor Dave Neiwert, WA-08 CD candidate Darcy Burner, Oregon US Senate candidate Steve Novick, Idaho US Senate candidate Larry LaRocco, blogger/author/activist David Sirota, blogger/radio host James Boyce, and more!

Nazis and KKK’ers all.

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

WAPO’s Chris Cillizza reports from Yearly Kos, where longtime Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg had some advice for the assembled progressive bloggers:

Think big. As in, big gains for Democrats in both the House and the Senate in 2008. “Do not think conservatively,” said Greenberg during a panel discussion on the impact of Iraq on polling and the coming election. “The idea of a 50-seat-plus majority is real.”

Greenberg wasn’t the only Democratic strategist predicting huge gains. Tom Mattzie, Washington director of MoveOn.org, insisted that a path existed to a 60-seat majority in the Senate after the 2008 election.

Why the rosy predictions?

Because the 2006 election in which Democrats regained majorities in the House and Senate was a “small point along the way,” according to Greenberg, and the data continues to suggest that the political environment is worsening almost daily for Republicans.

In making the case for Rodney Tom, he and his surrogates routinely dismiss Darcy Burner’s ’08 prospects. “She had her run,” state Rep. Chris Hurst smugly told the Seattle P-I, complaining that she “came up short … in what was probably the best year in 40 years to run as a Democrat.” The intended message to Democratic primary voters is two-fold: 1) Burner only did as well as she did because of unusual national trends; and 2) those trends won’t be present in 2008.

Yeah, um, that’s right… Burner went from complete unknown to within inches of victory, simply by riding the Democratic tide. It had absolutely nothing to do with her smart campaign, her relentless hard work, and a force of personality that won over hundreds of passionate grassroots volunteers. I could write dissertations refuting premise number one, but suffice it to say that it is just plain insulting, and I’m not so sure that Tom, Hurst and their buddies would derisively dis Burner like that if she wasn’t, you know, a girl.

But premise number 2 — the heart of the Tom campaign’s critique of Burner — is just flat out refuted by the numbers. Indeed, Greenberg’s polling data suggests a steadily deteriorating political climate for Reichert and his House colleagues:

The Republicans are in trouble – almost as much trouble as they were in 2006. Democrats are not only ahead in the most competitive Republican districts (Tier 1), but they also lead by 3 points in the second tier, less competitive Republican seats, which means there might well be additional Congressional seats at risk beyond the 35. The extent of Republicans’ vulnerabilities suggests that Democrats can take their advantage far into Republican territory in 2008. This pattern that allowed the Democrats to take 30 seats in the last mid-term election could well take Democrats up to 20 in the Presidential, unless confounded by intervening events. There really could be another wave election.

Unlike the Democratic incumbents, Republican members in competitive districts face a range of trends that are working against them, reflected in their deteriorating margin – a 10-point net swing against them since mid-June.

Tom and his boosters imply that Darcy blew it, repeating over and over again that the coming election will be nothing like the previous one, as if that were a fact. But if Tom and Hurst et al are such geniuses at predicting Democratic waves — or the absence thereof — why didn’t any of them run in 2006? By January of last year it had already become obvious to amateurs like me that something BIG was potentially coming in November, yet the DCCC failed to recruit a single experienced candidate to challenge the one-term Reichert.

Compare that to this cycle, with both Tom and Hurst drooling to get into the race after state Rep. Ross Hunter’s ill health knocked him out. If 2008 is gonna be such a tough year for Democrats, why were so many formerly timid Democrats suddenly so anxious to get into the race?

Because they know Reichert is vulnerable. Burner proved it. And now they just want to brush her aside in a cycle they assume will be very good for Democrats indeed.

I’m filling in all week for Frank Shiers, Monday through Friday, from 9PM to 1AM on Newsradio 710-KIRO. More updates from Yearly Kos throughout the night; expected callers include David Sirota and LiberalLucy, who will also give us the latest on the Michigan state senate blocking access to liberal blogs. Later in the show, fellow HA blogger Will comes into the studio to talk transportation and other local issues.

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

From The Other Side:

I feel bad for the people of Yakima. I can’t believe that they have to choose between Jim Clements and Curtis King. The Yakima Herald did a rundown of yesterday’s debate.

King lashed out at Clements for expanding health care coverage for kids. Then, he criticized Clements for making it easier for public schools to raise money.

While King is a cold hearted punk, Clements has his drawbacks. He totally blows it while pandering to the local GOP base with this one:

During a discussion on illegal immigration, Clements complained that the suspect in the recent abduction and murder of a 12-year-old Tacoma girl was a noncitizen with a criminal record who should have been “sent home” with Mexican president Vicente Fox following his historic visit to Yakima last year.

The suspect, however, is from Thailand.

Nice! Somebody get a map for the “porch dog.”

I just got an email from a minor Democratic mucky-muck complaining about my playful jabs at Rodney Tom, and warning that I shouldn’t be “interfering” in a local primary. The emailer flattered me by suggesting I had some “influence,” but then went on to chastise me for using it “irresponsibly.” Apparently, my aggressive support of Darcy Burner just “isn’t fair.”

Well, you know what…? Life isn’t fair. And in poking fun at Tom’s early missteps and misstatements, well, that’s kinda the point. We bloggers do have some influence these days, and we almost uniformly intend to use it in support of Darcy. Rodney Tom isn’t our guy, and for a candidate whose primary campaign theme seems to focus almost exclusively on electability, well, that’s not a very good place to be.

Tom’s boosters keep pushing the “Darcy can’t win in November” meme, but the real question mucky-mucks should be asking themselves is whether Tom has a path toward winning in August? Well, he ain’t gonna get any help here.

In the comments recently, I had a good discussion with Tuor about the wastefulness involved with sending American taxpayer dollars to places where corruption is rampant due to political leaders who aren’t held accountable because they have close ties to a lucrative natural resource. Places like Alaska:

Gravel will be in Alaska later this month for a speech in Anchorage. He will appear before an Anchorage civic group, Commonwealth North. He goes north with mixed feelings. He’s concerned about the corruption scandal and what that does to the state’s reputation nationally. He says Alaskans were too fast to embrace all the federal largesse Stevens sent home, wasted too much of the money and instead should have invested in creating a world-class education system.

Oops… almost forgot! I’m filling in all week for Frank Shiers, Monday through Friday, from 9PM to 1AM on Newsradio 710-KIRO.

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

Eric Earling offers up what passes for “insight” over at (u)SP:

Darcy Burner’s campaign actually did a pretty good job of hiding how liberal she actually is during the 2006 cycle. If you paid close attention to her campaign rhetoric and some interviews you could catch the fact she fits right into the netroots. But her campaign did a good job of keeping her on message, for what that was worth. What will happen now that it’s to her advantage to proclaim her liberal, progressive bona fides in order to win a primary?

In 2006 Reichert ran on his own record and against her lack of experience as well as against her position on taxes (one of the few topics about which she actually spilled the liberal beans). What happens when she proudly proclaims her position on health care, foreign affairs, etc. to secure her left flank in the primary season? What kind of ammunition will that provide for November 2008?

See, this is exactly why Republicans consistently lose races on the Eastside and statewide — because they have absolutely no idea where the political center is anymore. Eric’s pal Stefan likes to dismiss bloggers like me as the “nutroots,” as if repeatedly calling us crazy automatically makes it so, and while Eric, to his credit, avoids the puerile pun, he seems to have bought into Stefan’s definition. The right has so relentlessly demonized the word “liberal” over the past couple decades that they have no idea what it means anymore.

Consider Eric’s example of a perceived political minefield facing Burner in the 2008 cycle on the issues of “health care” and “foreign affairs.” Burner wants to bring our troops home, whereas Reichert continues to support the president’s failed policies in Iraq. Just last night Reichert backed the president again by voting nay on a bill that would extend health insurance to children of the working poor. And Burner…?

“Let me be absolutely clear: I would have voted differently. In Congress I will fight to provide health care for all Americans, particularly our children. Not only is expanding the Children’s Health Program the right thing to do, funding most of the increase through a hike in the cigarette tax is something that I know the people of the 8th Congressional District would support.”

Tell me, on these two major issues, which candidate is out of step with the district?

On Iraq, health care, reproductive rights, climate change, gay rights, protecting our wilderness, domestic wiretapping and any number of other hot button issues, Burner finds herself smack dab in the mainstream of 8th CD voters. There’s a reason why the Reichert campaign and their surrogates focused almost entirely on dismissing Burner as just some ditzy girl — if voters had voted on the issues, Burner would have won by a comfortable margin.

Next time Eric wants to provide a little insight into the 8th CD race, he might want to base his analysis on something other than outdated assumptions.

This week’s Birds Eye View Contest is posted.