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When Goldy asked if I wanted to help him fill an hour of his radio show Saturday night, I knew I had a good excuse to get back on the saddle (of my bike). Even if that saddle was causing some, um, soreness.

Getting out of Belltown was easy enough, except for the Torchlight Parade. I had to wait to cross, just like the Metro buses who were behind me. When I got the “all clear,” it was a mad dash to get through the intersection before the buses edged me out.

I have a feeling that Dexter Ave N is a bicyclist’s best friend. It was very a convenient route to get to South Lake Union. Which reminds me…

Be VERY careful around construction. (But you already knew that, right?) The streetcar construction made things dicey through Valley Street, and I chickened-out a bit and walked my bike across the crosswalk at Fairview. Better safe than… dead.

The stretch from Hooters up the hill to the studio was a piece of cake. I even had a chance to figure out the whole “shifting” thing. It’s all about gear ratios, right?

Finally, some questions:

For riding at night, or a less-than-optimal lighting conditions, what’s a good strategy for making sure I’m visible to idiot drivers? Are some lights better than others?

Also, while I love love LOVE my Kryptonite U-Lock, the thingy that attaches to my bike that holds my bike lock… it keeps failing me. I tried to secure it per the installation instructions, but it still moves around a bit on me when the U-Lock is attached to it. I tightened it so much that the plastic split. I’m going to have to get another one from those guys. (This’ll be the second one I’ve had to get sent to me special delivery. Those guys at Kryptonite are very understanding.) Anybody else have this problem?

State House Republicans are holding a news conference today at 1PM in Federal Way to call for a “special legislative session to address deficiencies in the state’s sex offender laws.”

What a bunch of assholes.

Or at the very least, what a bunch of idiots. I dunno, perhaps their motives are pure, but coming fresh on the heels of Zina Linnik’s murder, it sure does look like a base attempt to exploit the tragedy for political gain — and given the House Republicans’ recent bogus sex offender postcard escapade, you’d have to be an even bigger idiot to instantly give them the benefit of the doubt.

“Our state has some effective sex offender laws on the books – but others are outdated and incapable of properly protecting the public. Our goal is to identify weak laws, discuss them with the public, and collectively propose solutions,” said Priest. “There are thirteen known registered sex offenders living within five miles of where the news conference will be held – which is a public park. In King County, there are more than 400 sex offenders with no known address. This problem is everywhere and the time to act is now – not later. The forum will help all of us gauge where the public stands and take action accordingly.”

[…] “It’s clear that certain sex offenders are falling though the cracks of our system and the public wants answers and solutions – not excuses. People are demanding action now – and they deserve nothing less. That’s why we are creating a legislative package that we think the public will support,” said House Republican Leader Richard DeBolt.

Yeah, well… we could shoot them all. Cut off their balls. Make every sex offense — no matter how minor, no matter what the circumstances — a mandatory life sentence. No doubt, that’s the kind of “legislative package … the public will support.” And that’s about as comprehensive and thoughtful a package as you’re going to get in a politically charged, two-day special session, coming on the heels of this brutal murder.

Of course, the Republicans know they’re not going to get a special session, and so their grandstanding on this issue is all the more offensive. Most people looked at Zina’s murder and saw a terrible, heart wrenching tragedy. But like our good friend Stefan, the House Republican caucus looked at the murder and immediately saw a political opportunity.

Former WSRP chair Chris Vance recently offered some suggestions to state Republicans on how they might turn around their political fortunes, but he missed the most obvious piece of advice: stop being such a bunch of conniving, mean-spirited, ham-fisted assholes. Playing politics with tax cuts is one thing, but playing politics with the sexual assault and murder of a little girl is simply despicable.

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

7PM: Should pharmacists be required to, um, you know… do their job?
New state rules went into effect this week requiring pharmacies to fill valid prescriptions, and several pharmacists immediately sued, claiming dispensing some forms of birth control would violate their religious beliefs. NARAL/Pro-Choice Washington Executive Direct Karen Cooper joins me for the hour to discuss this and other threats to women’s reproductive rights.

8PM: Should felons have the right to vote?
The state Supreme Court this week upheld WA’s felon voter laws, some of the most restrictive in the nation. Aaron Kaplan from the ACLU and Assistant Secretary of State Nick Handy join me to discuss what impact of laws that have permanently disenfranchised over 160,000 Washingtonians and one-quarter of the state’s African American men.

9PM: TBA

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

PROGRAMMING NOTE:
I’ll be filling in for Frank Shiers this week, Monday through Friday, 9PM to 1AM. Join me Monday at 9PM when Brian Robinson from Save Our Sonics, and Chris Van Dyk from Citizens for More Important Things join me to discuss their strange new alliance.

At first I was pleasantly shocked when I read the headline “Sherman gets nod“… but then I realized they were only talking about the Democratic primary:

Sherman has worked in the prosecutor’s office since 2003. He was a deputy prosecuting attorney in its Domestic Violence Unit before going on leave to conduct his campaign. He has prosecuted sexual-assault cases, gun crimes and juvenile crimes, and says he will focus attention on repeat offenders involved in drugs or domestic violence, will overhaul the fraud division and expand the offerings under victims’ services.

Sherman is smart and well-spoken, though in a race among lawyers to become King County’s top prosecutor, being well-spoken is expected.

The Times editorial board is nothing if not establishmentarian, and insists on leaning Republican despite being the largest paper in this deep blue region of the state (ergo its ridiculous endorsement of Mike McGavick.) And you can’t get much more Republican or establishment than the late Norm Maleng’s 17-year chief of staff, Dan Satterberg — so I’ll streak naked across Frank Blethen’s front lawn if Sherman actually captures the Times’ endorsement in the general election. (Notice how carefully the Times avoided providing Sherman’s media people a single, usable subjective quote?)

Still, I suppose nice words in July make it all the more difficult to turn nasty in October. Difficult, but not impossible.

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

7PM: The Stranger Hour with ECB
The Stranger’s Erica C. Barnett joins me for the hour for a round-up of the week in state and local politics, including bike plans, nightlife licenses, city council races and more.

8PM: TBA

9PM: What’s up with Will?
Fellow HA blogger Will Kelley-Kamp joins me for the hour for a no holds barred discussion of local and national current events.

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

Iraq:

The extent of the deterioration in US-Saudi relations was exposed for the first time today when Washington accused Riyadh of working to undermine the Iraqi government.

The Bush administration sent a warning to Saudi Arabia, until this year one of its closest allies, to stop undermining the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki.

The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates, are scheduled to visit Jeddah next week. A diplomat in Washington said of the two governments: “There is a lot of bad blood between the two.”

Saudi Arabia:

The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve arms sales totaling $20 billions over the next decade for Saudi Arabia and its neighbours, The New York Times reported in Saturday editions.

Coming as some U.S. officials contend that the Saudi government is not helping the situation in Iraq, the proposal for advanced weapons for Saudi Arabia has stoked concern in Israel and among its U.S. backers, the Times said. The package of advanced weaponry includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades for its fighters and new naval vessels.

Israel:

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmad Abul Gheit said Saturday that Arab countries were waiting for a clear indication from Israel that it was interested in discussing peace with its neighbors.

Speaking to Al-Ahram newspaper, Abul Gheit said an Arab peace-for-land initiative that offers Israel normalization with the Arab world in return for a full withdrawal from land occupied during the 1967 Israeli-Arab war was aimed at establishing a Palestinian state through negotiations.

Abul Gheit said opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu told him during talks in Jerusalem earlier this week that he was not opposed to the initiative. Netanyahu was said to be opposed to the Arab peace plan because he redeemed it dangerous to Israel’s security.

I know what you’re saying right now. Wait a second, Lee, that last item doesn’t sound so bad. It’s not. Here’s some more details from occasional neocon supporter Amir Taheri:

The plan is the brainchild of Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah who unveiled its basic principles almost five years ago. At the time, Israel dismissed the plan as nothing but a public relations exercise by the Saudis who wished to divert attention from the 9/11 attacks in the United States. Five years later, Israel’s President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert admit that the plan is a serious diplomatic proposal, and should be treated with something other than disdain.

The lesson to be learned here is that the people who have been saying all along that the Arab world can’t be trusted in the peace process have never really understood the real motivations of the leaders in that part of the world. September 11 didn’t just change how we perceive terrorism. It changed how the leaders in the Arab world saw it as well. It was no longer a local problem for them, it became a much more serious liability. And the Saudis, despite their many faults, understood that they were entering a time where they might not be able to use their longstanding trump card, antagonism of Israel, as much as they use to, if at all.

In 2002, when the Saudis first unveiled this proposal, Dick Cheney visited the Middle East with his own mission, to convince the Saudis and others to be on our side in the invasion of Iraq. At the time, two of the most prominent neocons, Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol, slammed Cheney’s efforts:

Nor is it entirely clear what message Cheney delivered to his Arab friends, even in private. We had hoped Cheney would approach the Saudi royal family with the same tough choice the administration presented Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf a few months ago: You’re either with us, or you’re with the terrorists. You decide.

Instead, Cheney seems to have avoided putting the Arabs on the spot. He told Arab leaders both publicly and privately that the United States had made no decisions regarding Iraq. This relieved the Arab leaders of the need to make a choice, at least for now. We have no doubt that Cheney made clear America’s grave concerns about Iraqi weapons programs, and he described the kind of inspections regime the United States wants in Iraq. But this was hardly news to Arab leaders. Probably the most surprising aspect of Cheney’s message, to those leaders, was that the United States still didn’t know what it wanted to do. As the vice president himself put it at a press conference with President Bush this past Thursday, “I went out there to consult with them, to seek their advice and counsel to be able to report back to the president on how we might best proceed to deal with that mutual problem.” Funny, that’s just what Warren Christopher said on his failed trip to Europe.

The Arab leaders, meanwhile, had their own game plan for the Cheney trip, and they stuck to it with impressive unity and determination. On the eve of Cheney’s arrival, Arab officials outlined their strategy to the Washington Post: “They intend to press the United States hard . . . to shelve any plan for a military strike against Iraq and to concentrate instead on [the Saudi peace plan] and on easing the violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories.” The goal was not to listen to American plans, but to change them, to force the United States to “re-examine” its policies in the Middle East. As one Saudi official told the Post, “The U.S. is concerned with an old issue, Iraq. They are making it a priority when it should not be. . . . Iraq can afford to be delayed. The other issue cannot.” In the tiny United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan al-Nahayan told Cheney he was against a strike on Iraq and demanded that the Bush administration “stop the grave and continued Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.” Just about every other Arab leader told Cheney much the same thing.

So while we’re now stuck in Iraq, spending billions of dollars to arm the country that’s trying to overthrow a government that we’re spending billions of dollars to prop up, the rest of the Arab world is still trying to continue moving forward on an Israeli peace proposal that all the very serious people mistakenly thought was just a ruse. And it should be obvious to even the most casual observer that if we’d just listened to the leaders in the region in 2002 and focused on solving the problem that they wanted to solve, rather than assuming that they had ulterior motives, we’d be in a much better state of affairs today.

It took a Democratic Congress to finally implement most of the remaining 9/11 Commission proposals.

Congress gave final approval Friday to legislation that requires tighter screening of air and sea cargo, and shifts more federal anti-terrorism grants to high-risk areas such as New York and Washington, delivering on a pledge by Democrats to implement additional recommendations of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks.

Voting 371-40, the House followed the Senate, which voted 85-8 Thursday night, to send the measure to the White House…

But…

… after dropping a controversial provision that would have extended union protection to 45,000 federal airport screeners. That language had prompted a veto threat from President Bush.

That’s right. President Bush would have vetoed a vital Homeland Security bill if it extended union rights to airport screeners. Because nothing threatens our national security more than organized labor.

Rep. Jim McDermott speaks…and offers silence:

(Also: The Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza is up.)

Don Ward:

Odds are the Sound Transit/RTID proposal is going to be shot down this November under the weight of its own hubris. In 2008 (or sooner) Republican candidates need to all get together in one big ceremony, focusing on one big issue, relieving traffic congestion, with one big list of transportation priorities they will pass when elected. And pound it over and over again.

It needs to be a list of specific projects that people see and understand. The 405/167 interchange, 520 floating bridge, adding lanes to I-5 in Everett. (Others can chime in here) Just as long as there is some funding for multimodal transportation options – increased bus service, ride-share, carpool, etc. – it should be a winner.

Don hasn’t read the Sound Transit/RTID package. How do I know?

Because all that stuff is in it. Whether it’s 520, 167, 405, more buses, more carpool lanes, more ridesharing, it’s already in the package. Don hasn’t read the package, but you can.

If you want to know what’s in the Sound Transit/RTID package, you can look here, here, or here.

Don wants to wait until 2008 to address these critical roads projects. If the 2007 ST/RTID package fails at the polls, don’t expect to see another ballot measure for four more years. I seriously doubt a single lawmaker will want to go to voters on a “roads only” package in a presidential/gubernatorial election year.

Besides, Don doesn’t know his history. Referendum 51 failed miserably at the polls because lefty environmental groups and anti-tax activists opposed it. The whole reason Sound Transit and RTID were joined was to make sure the asphalt guys and the transit guys had to support it! That’s why Reagan Dunn and Shawn Bunney, both conservatives, are supporting the package. Meanwhile, light rail is planned to go north to Lynnwood, south to Tacoma, and east to Redmond (or at least Overlake, depending on how much money has to be spent in Bellevue).

Instead of supporting a package that does the things he wants done, Don would rather scrap it for a plan that’ll never happen. The GOP base will never acquiesce to more taxes to fix roads and build transit infrastructure. They don’t have to.

Because the voters will.

Vice President Dick Cheney will have his pacemaker battery replaced on Saturday. To replace the battery, the entire pacemaker must be removed, requiring minor surgery.

Under the terms of the 25th Amendment, President George Bush will temporarily assume command while Cheney is under anesthesia.

I was out of the house for most of the day, and came home the next morning to find my cat at the back door, wheezing, gagging, foaming at the mouth, and clearly in a great deal of physical distress. He had been perfectly healthy the day before, so my first thought was that he had suffered some sort of catastrophic injury or poisoning in my absence.

I tried to examine him as best I could, despite his protestations, and noticed a small piece of grass sticking out of his nose. Several claw wounds later I grabbed the grass and yanked, ending up with a seven-inch blade between my fingers, and a suddenly symptom-free cat in my bloodied arms. I’m guessing my cat must have been eating grass when he somehow sneezed or coughed up the blade, lodging it in his nose and throat.

God knows how many hours my cat suffered from this painful and debilitating, yet easily remedied mishap? And it got me thinking. How many hundreds of thousands of Americans were suffering at that very moment from some easily treated illness or injury, simply because they lacked the money to pay for medical care? How much debilitating pain was shooting through their brains? How many moans and cries were ignored? How many tears were shed?

If our debate over universal healthcare was informed as much by empathy as it is by economics, I wonder how quickly it would inevitably devolve into the usual ideological battle over the relative efficiencies of the market?

Tuesday’s Drinking Liberally with Mayor Greg Nickels was a hoot. If you missed it, I’m sorry. This is the first time Nickels has graced our presence at the Montlake Ale House, and it was worth the wait.

I asked Hizzoner, “how do you keep a straight face on your Seattle Channel call-in show? I mean, the questions people ask, they’re nuts sometimes. Somebody called in about moving sidewalks or something.”

Nickels said, “You have to respect what folks have to say.”

I don’t know if politicians get enough credit for putting up with the Richard Lee’s of the world. I can tell you that if I was heckled by morons on a public TV show, I’d drop the f-bomb and resign my office.

************

Also, it turns out the mayor knows my grandfather. Just like Phil Talmadge, Nickels is a longtime West Seattle Democrat. My grampa was a PCO for years and years in White Center.

Me: “This may seem like a weird quesiton, Mr. Mayor, but I was wondering if you knew my grandfather. His name is Bill Kamp.”

Hizzoner: “Bill, yeah I remember Bill. His wife was…”

Me: I’m about to say “Mildred”, but Nickels beats me to it.

Hizzoner: “Yes, I knew them.”

I turn to Nick and say, “it’s a good day, a good day indeed.”

************

My grampa and grandma had six kids, and none of them have the interest in politics that I share with my late grampa (he passed away in 1998; my grandmother in 2003). I was only 17 when my grandfather died, so I didn’t have a chance to learn from his experience when I started in Democratic politics. I’m convinced there is a generation of politicians and old-time Democrats who knew my grandfather well. Only now am I learning that my grandfather knew Greg Nickels before he was mayor (and perhaps even before he was elected to the King County Council).

Not only did my grampa know Greg Nickels and Phil Talmadge, but (according to my family) also Mike Lowry, who was active in King County politics for a long time, and was in Congress from the 7th district for a few terms. My grandfather also knew Senator Henry “Scoop” Jackson. Since Scoop and my grandfather have passed on, I’m out of luck in gaining a little insight in Washington’s more controversial figures.

************

As I get more involved in Democratic politics, I can look forward to discovering more about my grandfather’s involvement. I’m sure there are old timers out there with stories about my grandfather, the kind of things you don’t always learn form family. Which side was he on when the Democratic Party went through serious turmoil during the 1970’s? How did my grandfather, a Catholic with traditional cultural views, not bolt the party like so many others during the the 70’s and 80’s?

My grandfather, Bill Kamp, passed away during the summer of ’98, but he lives on in the memories of the Democrats who knew him.

From the one story, two headlines department:

Seattle Times: “Seven charged in vote-fraud scheme”
Seattle PI: “Voter-registration workers charged with submitting bogus registrations”

Of course, the Seattle PI headline is more accurate. It was voter-registration fraud, not vote fraud. There was never any attempt or intent to actually cast a fraudulent ballot, and to suggest otherwise is simply hyperbole.

That said, I’m glad the perpetrators are being prosecuted. But rather than celebrate the permanent disenfranchisement of seven more US citizens, I thought I’d just use this story as a springboard to talk about one of my personal pet peeves: paid initiative signature gathering.

But the scheme had nothing to do with an attempt to manipulate elections and everything to do with the workers’ efforts to keep their $8-an-hour jobs, prosecutors said.

[…] “The defendants … cheated their employers to get paid for work they did not actually perform,” Satterberg said. “The defendants simply realized that making up names was easier than actually canvassing the streets.”

And if you think this sort of cheating never occurs in the $2-$5 per-signature world of the highly profitable initiative industry, I’ve got a bridge I’d like to sell you. In WA state it is not uncommon for 20-percent of initiative signatures to be rejected on closer review, and in some states the rejection rate has exceeded 50-percent. There is no evidence we even come close to catching all the fraudulent signatures, and we have no mechanism for tracing them back to individual, paid signature gatherers.

We have created strong economic incentives for cheating, and the result is a nationwide initiative industry that is rife with fraud and corruption. But for some reason the “clean elections” hawks on the right, who would gladly wipe 100,000 legitimate voters from the rolls in hope of eliminating a couple felons, consider it anti-democratic to suggest any reform that might better protect the integrity of initiative petitions.

Go figure.

Max Blumenthal hangs out with the craziest people on earth (thanks to FishinCurt for the link).

This week’s Birds Eye View Contest is posted, and reigning champion N in Seattle is out of town, so you all have a chance.