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According to CBS News, Bush’s job approval rating has fallen to 28%, a new low. By comparison, at this point in his presidency, Bill Clinton’s job approval stood at 65%… and that was during the height of the impeachment proceedings.

UPDATE:
If you really can’t wait for the speech, the White House has already released talking points and excerpts.

Our regular Tuesday night gathering of the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets two hours earlier tonight, 6PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E… so we can all watch the President’s State of the Union address in the comfort of friends and alcohol.

We’ll be playing the State of the Union Drinking Game and SOTU Bingo, so please join us for some politically inspired cheers, jeers and beers. (Oh… and our fearless leader Nick implores, no swearing! It’s a family restaurant.)

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

The Seattle Times editorial board joins the unimaginative chorus of “responsible” politicians and business leaders calling for closing the “Internet sales-tax loophole.”

With the rise of Internet purchases, what used to be a small leak of should-be tax revenues has become a hemorrhage. A state Department of Revenue spokesman said about $794 million in state and local use tax goes unpaid every year. The Washington Legislature should plug the hole by changing a law so the state can become a full member of the multistate Streamlined Sales Tax project. Twenty-one states are participating so far, and about 1,000 retailers have agreed to collect sales taxes.

Yes, this loss of revenue is a huge problem which will only get worse as more commerce shifts to the Internet. And no, I’ve got absolutely nothing against forcing buyers to pay use tax on mail-order purchases.

But the system the Times is supporting would be an absolute disaster to hundreds of thousands of small business people nationwide, essentially making interstate commerce the exclusive realm of only the largest corporations.

I founded and operated a small mom-and-pop software company where the vast majority of our product shipped out of state. About $30,000 a year of that business, and the bulk of my profits, came in the form of individual sales of $50 or less, shipped directly to households in every state in the union. Had I not been able to sell direct to my customers, I couldn’t have stayed in business as long as I did. Had I been forced to file quarterly returns in every goddamn state with a sales tax, I couldn’t have afforded to sell direct.

The accounting burden imposed by the Times’ preferred solution is simply too great for truly small businesses to bear, and makes no workable provision for small businesses like mine. There were some states to which I might sell only a handful of units a year; tell me, how can I afford to file quarterly taxes — even a return with nothing due — over a stinking $14.95 upgrade? And the alternative, forcing us into the maws of some third-party fulfillment and/or tax accounting service would eat up too big a chunk of the revenues to make such small mail-order and Internet businesses worthwhile.

I never would have started my business had this burden been in place. This is a proposal that crushes innovation and entrepreneurship, and discourages the creation of home-based, Internet businesses.

And it completely ignores the real problem.

The real problem is not that WA residents aren’t paying sales tax. The problem is that WA state and local governments rely too heavily on sales taxes to produce revenues.

If WA had a balanced tax system that included an income tax, this would be a much less dire issue. But instead of addressing the real problem and responsibly talking about tax restructuring, our politicians and our state’s paper of record prefer to fiddle around the edges of our broken tax system, willfully oblivious to the unintended consequences of their actions. It’s not that most small Internet businesses don’t want to charge their customers sales tax — it’s that we simply can’t afford to turn ourselves into fulltime tax collecters.

We need bold action on tax restructuring, not cowardly avoidance of the real issues at hand.

Hmm. Clay Bennett paid about $350 million to buy the Sonics and the Storm, and now he wants the state to build him a $530 million “multiplex” from which he would reap all the profits from all events. Nice deal for him.

Um… but wouldn’t it have been cheaper for us taxpayers if we had simply bought the teams and kept them at Key Arena, which as far as I can tell, is still a pretty damn nice place to watch a basketball game? It’s a shame we can’t just force a sale of the teams via eminent domain. Sure, we might lose a few million dollars a year operating the clubs (though who really knows when it comes to professional sports accounting?) but that’s a helluva lot less than the cost of paying off the bonds on a half-billion-dollar arena. Plus, a state-owned team would be a much better investment of public monies, as sports franchises seem to constantly go up in value regardless of their performance, while flashy new arenas and stadia apparently become worthless hunks of junk the minute we drive them off the lot.

The fact is, publicly financed stadia just don’t make economic sense, but at twice the price of other new arenas Bennett’s latest proposal is particularly crazy. Crazy as a fox.

See, when Bennett and his partners bring the Sonics back home with them to Oklahoma City they’ll be greeted as conquering heroes. That’s why they bought the team. But if they come right out and say it, they’ll lose dump trucks full of cash between now and the 2010 expiration of their Key Arena lease as local fans abandon the team in droves. So Bennett has to at least make a show of wanting to stay.

In that context a $530 million arena proposal makes perfect sense. The dream of a Renton multiplex is just enough to keep hope alive and fans in the seats… but more than crazy enough to assure that it’s a political nonstarter.

At least, I sure hope it’s more than crazy enough to be a political nonstarter — though when it comes to publicly financed stadia, you never know.

The other day Fox News smeared Sen. Barack Obama, implying that the Indonesian elementary school he attended as a six-year-old was an Islamic madrassa. Fox chose to repeat this pile of right-wing bullshit, without any confirmation or further investigation. But not CNN.

Wolf Blitzer righteously smacks down his cable “news” rivals:

“CNN did what any serious news organization is supposed to do in this kind of a situation… actually investigate and learn the facts.”

Yep, they actually sent a reporter to Indonesia and reported the truth, because unlike FOX, CNN considers itself a “serious news organization.” You can view the clip here.

     AN ACT Relating to allowing dogs in bars; and adding a new section to chapter 66.24 RCW.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

     NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. A new section is added to chapter 66.24 RCW to read as follows:
     The holder of a spirits, beer, and wine restaurant license, a beer and/or wine restaurant license, or a tavern license may allow well-behaved leashed dogs accompanied by their owners on the premises during business hours. The board shall develop rules to implement this section.

Honestly, I totally support SB 5484 — as does my dog — and I thank state senators Jacobsen, Kline, Murray and Poulsen for their legislative leadership. But, ohmygod… the punchline generating potential of this bill is so absofucking ginormous, how can I possibly resist making fun of it?

It’s so overwhelming, I just don’t know where to start. Let’s see, something about the sponsors being tools of the Irish Setter lobby…. No wait… will lapdogs have to follow the four-foot rule? Oh… I know there just has to be a joke in here somewhere involving the phrase “coyote ugly.”

And here’s one for my Republican friends: “If they don’t already allow dogs in bars, how did [insert name of female Democratic politician here] ever snag her husband?”

Anyway, use the comment thread to come up with your own joke regarding this bill — or your favorite “dog walks into a bar” joke — and if we get enough good ones perhaps I’ll hold a poll to pick the winner.

UPDATE:
I guess WA state bars better start stocking up on Kwispelbier.

The headline reads “Sexism’s alive and well on the right“, but the Seattle P-I’s Joel Connelly’s mostly skewers his colleagues in the media, both old and new.

Connelly writes about the sexist characterizations the right-wing media uses to describe powerful women like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, and Senators Hillary Clinton and Barbara Boxer, and he attributes a political motive: “an early-starting effort to attack the new Congress by demonizing its prominent Democratic women.” This is a theme, Connelly notes, that his been enthusiastically picked up by our local discharge conduit in the national, right-wing media sewer system:

We’ve had a dose of the same out here, with the far-right Soundpolitics.com Web site directing ceaseless, often personal nastiness at Gov. Chris Gregoire. […] The anti-Gregoire taunts are amateur stuff.

Ouch.

And if by cue, our good friend Stefan accommodates Connelly, bolstering his thesis today by describing the eight declared Democratic candidates for president as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.”

Uh-huh.

Connelly’s right, sexism isn’t dead in America… at least not as long as the right can use it to divert the American public and demonize their political opposition.

It’s double the fun on the AM dial, as “The David Goldstein Show” officially expands to two nights a week! Join me tonight from 7PM to 10PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO. I like to go with the flow, so things could change, but here’s what I have lined up for tonight’s show:

7PM: Are state Dems plotting to impose an income tax? Or does one state Dem simply want to start a responsible dialog? State Sen. Rosa Franklin (D-Tacoma) introduced two bills last week (SB8209 and SB5150) that would pave the way to a state income tax… with little if any support from her fellow Democrats. Sen. Franklin will join me to discuss her proposal and dispel some myths.

8PM: TBA

9PM: TBA

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

Blatherwatch: Vote for who’s next to get canned! (Look to the right sidebar)

Electoral Math: Nick Beaudrot on how the Sonics ownership want loads of cash for a new arena, and compares the deal to others around the league.

Washblog: Apparently, the Iraq War was illegal. Whodathunkit? Also, who knew Evergreen had a campus in Tacoma? I’m just playin’. Go read the live-blogging event of the year (so far).

A question to all you bloggers (political and otherwise) out there: Do you use so-called “social networking” sites? Friendster? MySpace? Why or why not?

I visited the new Sculpture Park yesterday. I have to say, it’s awesome. The view of the Puget Sound is wicked, as is the view of the new gleaming condo towers of my native Belltown. I’m not art guy (velvet Elvis, anyone?), but our new outdoor art museum is heads and shoulders above its ugly-ass companion at 1st and University Street downtown.

Some of the sculptures are better than others. Weird-looking wheel thing? Check. Big, orange swoopy deal? Check. Artwork designed for the sole purpose of giving Dori Monson something to talk about? Check. Perhaps the best of it is the part that isn’t finished. The grass hasn’t grown in yet (its winter) and it’s too muddy to finish some of the shoreline stuff, but it looks like a winner. When it’s all done folks will be able to walk on the beach where Elliot Bay meets Seattle. A natural waterfront where you can dip your toes in? What a deal!

To think this whole place used to be owned by Unocal. The site was polluted as hell, so they had their work cut out for them. Thanks to private donors and some federal monies sent home by my home-girl Patty, the whole idea became reality. If that’s pork, well, gimme some mo’!

There are some downsides. The hot dog cart I saw probably won’t be there in a month, which is too bad. We need more hot dog carts in Seattle, and not just the ones that are open at night in Belltown and Pioneer Square. Thankfully the park has a little cafe where you can get a salad and, uh, a panini. I’m not dissin’ them, I’m just saying… Would it kill you do put some meat on a grill? Some of that kick-ass deli mustard with onions and kraut would be awesome. I’ll have to settle for “line caught tuna, roasted peppers, arugula, hard boiled egg, butter lettuce & lemon remoulade on herb-sea salt baguette.” Sigh.

I didn’t see any basketball courts at the new park. You might be saying to yourself, “you’re an idiot, Will. It’s a friggin’ sculpture park. Of course there’s no hardtop.” That’s not the point! As Seattle is graying population wise, our city leaders don’t see the need to build soccer fields, baseball diamonds, or basketball courts like they used to. Park space is much more likely to be used as so-called “green space”, for “non-specific, non-programmed” uses.

The basketball court at the Regrade Park was decommissioned in favor of a dog park. While the change was welcomed in the neighborhood (the dogs chased the crack heads away), I’m lamenting the fact that there is just a single basketball court in the general downtown area meant for public use. Sure, sculptures are nice, but I need someplace to shoot hoops. Lots of other big cities make a point of building parks designed for “active use”, but after Seattle was hounded by a bunch of old folks for trying to build lots of sports fields at Magnuson Park, I don’t see anything happening soon.

Shortcomings aside, the new park is pretty damn cool, and it’s worth visiting. I’m sure Knute Berger will write a column about how we should have built a tank farm there (oops, looks like he already did!). Joel Connelly mostly likes the park, but got a bit irritated with all the “fawning over” and attention it’s getting. Personally, I don’t care if some architecture writer in New York likes it. Those folks like anything that’s weird and new (just read the reviews of our Downtown Seattle Public Library. Those NYC folks loved it. Meanwhile, I STILL can’t find the fucking fiction section. Yeesh.) Joel can take heart that if the Seattle P-I folds, they can just roll that big shiny globe south a block and he’ll be able to visit it anytime he wants.

Take heart, people of the Emerald City: when private fundraising with no help from Seattle City Hall can do something as amazing as the Olympic Sculpture Park, just think of the possibilities…

Seattle Art Museum Sculpture Monorail anyone?

It’s double the fun on the AM dial, as “The David Goldstein Show” officially expands to two nights a week! Join me tonight from 7PM to 10PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO. I like to go with the flow, so things could change, but here’s what I have lined up for tonight’s show:

7PM: Rail-to-trail or Rail nor Trail? Is King County Executive Ron Sims’ proposal to acquire Burlington Northern’s Renton-Snohomish rail corridor a clever subterfuge to build commuter rail on the line, or a clever subterfuge to kill it? Rail booster (and former Seattle mayoral candidate) Al Runte joins me in the studio to argue for commuter rail now, while Sims’ spokesman Sandeep Kaushik calls in to defend his boss’s proposal.

8PM: Is the US conducting an illegal war in Iraq? Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame joins me by phone to discuss the case of Lt. Ehren Watada, and the state of the US war in Iraq. Ellsberg is in town to testify at the Citizens Hearing on the Legality of U.S. Actions in Iraq being held this weekend in Tacoma; he is most recently the author of SECRETS: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.

9PM: TBA

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

PROGRAM NOTE:
Join me Sunday night at 7PM when I’ll be talking to state Sen. Rosa Franklin about her bill to enact a state income tax.

When King County Executive Ron Sims proposed acquiring a 47-mile rail corridor from Renton to Snohomish, and converting much of it to a recreational trail, he instantly made himself a target of pro-rail activists. And yesterday’s approval of the plan by a regional advisory committee has done little to lesson the controversy.

The 24-member Puget Sound Regional Council (PSRC) rail-corridor advisory committee recommended that the corridor be converted into a trail for most of its length. The real decisions will be made by the county, but that didn’t stop about 15 protesters from standing in the rain to support keeping the railroad tracks, or committee members from arguing over the future of the corridor.

King County Executive Ron Sims wants to buy the corridor as part of a complicated land swap and convert the line to a trail within county limits and a trail-rail combo from Woodinville to Snohomish. The advisory committee, meeting in Redmond, approved the same plan, while leaving open the possibility the corridor could revert to train use in 20 to 40 years.

[…]Members of All Aboard Washington, a Seattle pro-rail group, protested that idea. They stood with signs reading “Trains are Green” and “Do the Obvious … Use These Tracks Now!” […] “Why are we the last city in the United States of America to be catching on [to rail transit]?” asked Al Runte, a group member and former Seattle mayoral candidate.

The pro-rail group wants the corridor to be converted to commuter rail now, using the existing tracks, but transit experts who have studied the route insist that it just isn’t economical. The tracks themselves have been neglected over the years and would require expensive upgrades, while current commuter patterns simply won’t support much of the route. Or at least, that’s what I’ve been privately told.

I suppose one can argue over the facts and the analysis — indeed, we should argue over them. If Al Runte can make the argument for commuter rail now, I’m all for it. But the pro-rail folks need to keep the big picture in sight, and be careful their opposition now doesn’t scuttle the hope of a commuter rail line in the future.

The deal is complicated. The corridor is owned and operated by Burlington Northern, which currently runs a few thousand containers a day a year on the line, a volume it has decided is uneconomical. Under Sims proposal, the Port of Seattle would purchase the corridor from Burlington Northern, and then swap it to King County in exchange for Boeing Field. King County would then pull up the tracks along much of the route and replace it with a trail… thus saving the corridor intact for possible conversion back to rail at some point in the future.

But if the deal falls through, Burlington Northern will sell the corridor to private developers who will subdivide the land into parcels, thus removing the corridor forever.

The important thing to remember is that one way or the other, Burlington Northern is shutting down this freight line, and there is no potential buyer on the market with a promise and a plan to keep it operating. So if pro-rail opponents manage to nix the purchase and swap agreement because they oppose the rail-to-trail proposal, they will destroy any chance of building commuter rail on the corridor in the future.

First and foremost, the Sims proposal saves the Renton to Snohomish corridor for future commuter rail use — indeed, much of the corridor is wide enough to support both rail and trail side by side, and there are engineering options available to accommodate the two uses where the corridor narrows. But one way or the other, Burlington Northern is absolutely going to shut down the line, so if the deal falls through the corridor will end up being parceled off to private developers.

So here’s my suggestion to Al and the entire pro-rail group: continue to make the argument for commuter rail now (that is, if you have a good argument to make,) but make it absolutely clear that you wholeheartedly support the county acquiring the corridor. For if, through your efforts, the deal is scuttled, the region will end up with neither rail nor trail.

Twice now I’ve mentioned “war crimes” and the Bush administration in the same sentence, acts of deliberate provocation that sure tied the righties’ panties in a knot. But contrary to the screaming headlines of the all-knowing Orb, I have never explicitly called Donald Rumsfeld a war criminal — and out-of-work radio host Brian Maloney doesn’t do his job prospects any good with his incoherent and (and fictional) assertion that I have twice called for administration officials to be executed.

Gimme a break.

But given the recent show trial of Saddam Hussein and his top aides, and their subsequent “fumbled” executions (I suppose Bush was referring to the moment Barzan Ibrahim’s severed head hit the ground,) I think it quite an appropriate time to stop and consider the very notion of “war crimes,” especially considering the inherently violent and unforgiving nature of war itself. As Americans, we are quick to examine Saddam’s murderous life and discard him as a monstrous dictator undeserving of mercy… and that very well may be true. But at the same time, President Bush — our Commander in Chief — has himself been directly responsible for the death and dismemberment of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, not to mention the destabilization of Iraq into a bloody civil war that claims hundreds more lives every day.

Perhaps such “collateral damage” is an unavoidable and thus acceptable consequence of war, and perhaps our unprovoked “preemptive” invasion of Iraq is both morally and legally justified.

But… even if one disagrees with the notion that our own government is guilty of war crimes itself, it should at the very least be possible to empathize with the hundreds of millions of Muslims who may view the administration’s actions less charitably. We invaded Iraq, allegedly in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that were not there, and possibly with high government officials fully cognizant that the publicly touted intelligence was false and/or deliberately misleading. We tortured, humiliated and perhaps murdered defenseless Iraqi prisoners. President Bush’s decisions have undoubtedly resulted in death, destruction and untold human misery.

I’m not saying that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld committed war crimes, or that they should be brought before an international tribunal. But I certainly believe it to be a proper subject of debate, for moral introspection — even self-recrimination — is a worthy and absolutely necessary exercise within a functioning democracy. So for those of you who would attempt to silence this debate, who would denounce any mention of the subject as an act of treason or terrorism, well… I strongly suggest you stay away from the Citizens’ Hearing on the Legality of U.S. Actions in Iraq being held this weekend in Tacoma:

The Citizens’ Hearing on the Legality of U.S. Actions in Iraq will be held on January 20-21, 2007, in Tacoma, Washington, two weeks before the Feb. 5 court martial of Lieutenant Ehren Watada at Fort Lewis.. The Citizens’ Hearing will function as a tribunal to put the Iraq War on trial, in response to the Army putting Lt. Watada on trial as the first U.S. military officer to refuse deployment to Iraq.

[…] The hearing will present the case that Lt. Watada would, if allowed, make at his court martial. His defense attorneys maintain that the war on Iraq is illegal under international treaties and under Article Six of the U.S. Constitution. Further, Lt. Watada’s defense argues that the Nuremberg Principles and U.S. military regulations require soldiers to follow only “lawful orders.” In Lt. Watada’s view, deployment to Iraq would have made him party to the crimes that permeate the structure and conduct of military operations there.

The format of the Citizens’ Hearing will resemble that of a congressional committee, employing a dignified approach to gathering information. Testimony will be offered by Iraq War veterans, experts in international law and war crimes, and human rights advocates. Your gift of funds (or frequent flyer miles) will enable more of these clear voices to be heard by people around the country and the world. Among the figures that have committed to testify are:

• Daniel Ellsberg, military analyst who released the Pentagon Papers in the Vietnam War;
• Denis Halliday, Former UN Assistant Secretary General, coordinated Iraq humanitarian aid;
• Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University;
• Stacy Bannerman Military Families Speak Out; author of “When the War Came Home”
• Harvey Tharp, former U.S. Navy Lieutenant and JAG stationed in Iraq;
• Antonia Juhasz, policy-analyst and author on U.S. economic policies in Iraq;
• John Burroughs, Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy executive director;
• Benjamin G. Davis, Assoc. Law Prof., Univ. of Toledo; expert on law of war;
• Eman Khammas, Iraqi human rights advocate (via video).
• Geoffrey Millard, 8 years in NY Army National Guard; stationed in Ground Zero, Kuwait, Iraq.
• Ann Wright, Retired Army Colonel and State Department official
• Darrell Anderson, Army 1st Armored Division in Baghdad & Najaf; awarded Purple Heart
• Dennis Kyne, 15 years as Army medic & drill sergeant; trained in NBC warfare; Gulf War I.
• Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law at University of Illinois (video testimony)
• Chanan Suarez-Diaz, Former Navy hospital corpsman; awarded Purple Heart & Commendation with Valor.

A panel of citizens will hear the testimony, examine witnesses, and issue a fact-finding report. The panel will be comprised of veterans, members of military families, high school students, union members, and representatives of local governments, academia, and religious organizations. David Krieger, Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Former Army 2nd Lieutenant stationed in Hawaii during the Vietnam War, and a member of the Jury of Conscience at the 2005 World Tribunal on Iraq (in Istanbul) will serve as panel chair.

Panelists’ questioning will focus on the legality of the war and whether or not the invasion of Iraq in 2003 constituted a “crime against the peace,” whether the military occupation and economic constriction of Iraq constitutes a “crime against humanity,” and whether individual soldiers have an obligation or duty to refuse unlawful orders. We expect that this hearing will focus attention on the role of the U.S. government–rather than that of individual soldiers–in perpetrating the crimes of the Iraq War.

If you find the very notion of such a mock war tribunal offensive, then absolutely don’t attend Friday Jan 20 and Saturday Jan 21 at Evergreen State College’s Tacoma Campus, 1210 6th AVE. And absolutely don’t tune in to my show on 710-KIRO Saturday night at 8PM, when I’ll have Daniel Ellsberg on to discuss the Watada case and the conduct of our war in Iraq.

You say you’re looking for an internet-based outlet for political activism and you just can find that sweet domain name?

And you say you’ve got too much disposable income on hand and you’ve got no good outlet for using it?

Is that what’s troubling you Bunky?

Well, hold your head up high and make a bid for impeachbush.com.

Bid, bid, bid, and never give up, never give up, never give up…that ship!

It’s been a bannering year for the Federal Way School Board, which is now considering banning cell phones and other electronic devices:

Federal Way School Board is exploring a ban on iPods, MP3 players, CD players and electronic games from campuses. Cell phones still could be brought to school, but they’d have to be turned off and stored in backpacks or otherwise out of sight.

Why ban cell phones, an object as integral to the lives of modern teens as weird piercings and moodiness? School board members have been coy, but one district insider tells me that the real concern is that too many Federal Way High School students have been using their cell phones to call Al Gore.