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Brian Deagle, a senior attorney at Microsoft, was unanimously appointed to fill a vacancy on the Issaquah School Board. But it almost didn’t happen.

The board initially deadlocked: two in favor of candidate Leigh Stokes and two in favor of candidate David Irons.

After further discussion in closed session, the board returned with undivided support for Deagle.

I understand that Irons‘ next attempt at a political comeback will be a run for dogcatcher.

You can’t get much more old school than Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly, the curmudgeonly dean of Washington state’s political press corps, and a walking history book of the region’s political lore. So when this old media stalwart throws the new media a compliment, you can bet that he didn’t toss it off lightly.

In today’s column — “Democrats show signs of life in inland West” — Connelly laments how the Democratic establishment abandoned once-blue, rural, Western districts. But he sees a ray of hope.

Lately, prodded by blog sites, the party has begun to notice the 5th District in Eastern Washington — where rancher Peter Goldmark is opposing freshman GOP Rep. Cathy McMorris — and the open 1st District in Idaho.

Connelly sees a trend, in which “rural, moderate-to-conservative Democrats” might be brought back from the brink of extinction. Some of this renewed opportunity is being generated by a crop of extraordinary candidates like Peter Goldmark and Larry Grant, and some of it represents a backlash to hard-line Republican ideology and congressional corruption. But Connelly also credits the netroots.

The re-emergence of Democrats in the inland Northwest has a number of rich ironies.

The region was initially ignored by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and its chief, Rep. Rahm Emmanuel, D-Ill.

One who did notice was Markos “Kos” Moulitsas Zuniga, cheeky proprietor of the popular DailyKos Web site. It is read by thousands of Democrats across the country and has helped Goldmark and Grant raise the bucks needed to contend.

While the national Democratic establishment may still look on the netroots movement with suspicion, local observers like Connelly, who live and breath local politics, clearly see our impact. Democrats may not pick off McMorris, Sali, Pombo and Doolittle in this cycle, but the fact that these races are so competitive is a confirmation of the 50-state strategy the netroots have championed. Every dollar the NRCC spends protecting supposedly safe Republican districts is a dollar they’re not spending fending off Democratic challengers like Darcy Burner.

Sure, as Connelly makes clear, it’s only a “trend.” But as trends go, it’s a pretty damn good one.

[Cross-posted to Daily Kos, please recommend.]

From Talking Points Memo:

Okay, we’ve got an answer for Rep. Dave Reichert [R] of Washington’s 8th district. He says he doesn’t want to take a stand on Hastert until after an investigation has been completed.

Pussy.

When a poll came out earlier this month showing Democrat Larry Grant leading Republican Bill Sali in Idaho’s 1st Congressional District of all places, a lot of people were stunned, if not downright dubious. The Sali campaign immediately issued a press release attacking the poll, and claiming it was totally out of whack with its own internal polling… a poll they refused to release.

But if the GOP is not concerned about Sali’s chances in this predominantly Republican district, they’ve got a funny way of showing it. First the NRCC starts running attack ads against Grant. Then they spend over $16,000 to conduct a new poll in ID-01. (Guess that internal poll wasn’t so comforting afterall.) And now they’re sending RNC Chair Ken Melhman to Idaho to rally the troops.

Subject: **MEDIA ADVISORY** Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman Visits Idaho
Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2006 12:14:28 -0400
From: “RNCommunications”

WHAT: Rally for Bill Sali for Congress Campaign

WHO: Chairman Ken Mehlman, Gov. Bill Risch, Rep. Butch Otter & Republican-candidate Bill Sali

WHERE: Idaho Republican Party Headquarters
912 West Jefferson Street
Boise, Idaho

WHEN: Thursday, October 5, 2006 at 3:30 p.m. MDT

Wow. That’s some “rally.” Gee, I wonder how many people they can fit in there?

Yup, nothing screams grassroots enthusiasm like holding a rally in an office cubicle.

The next stop on Mehlman’s whirlwind “District’s We’re Gonna Lose” National Tour? WA-08. (5PM, Bellevue Community Center… just in case you want to help out.)

Over on Slog, Eli Sanders has been holding Rep. Dave Reichert’s feet to the fire (here and here) over the congressman’s flexuous ramblings on the subject of global warming. First “Doubting Dave” told the Seattle Times that he questions the existence of global warming:

“The problem is, you have some scientists who say it’s happening, and some who say it’s not happening. The problem is the Sierra Club says that every scientist says it is,” said Reichert, a member of the House Science Committee.

“I’m going to wait until all the facts are in. There were many scientists who used to say the world was flat.”

Um, actually, scientists never said the world was flat. Only anti-scientific, religious nutcases did. But I digress.

Reichert said global warming is a “possibility” but views the science with the same sense of skepticism he held as a homicide detective for the King County Sheriff’s Office.

“I will be convinced when I’m convinced,” he said. “As an investigator, I’ve not been conclusively convinced.”

Uh-huh. Just like the skepticism Reichert showed when he had the Green River Killer in custody, but let him go, only to nab him again a decade or so later when the Sheriff was “conclusively convinced” by the DNA evidence.

But wait… I’m not being fair to Reichert, because according to his folks, the papers got it all wrong! In fact, the papers got it so wrong that “Reichert campaign spokeswoman” Kimberly Cadena actually called up Sanders to ask for an interview, so she could set the record straight, informing Sanders that he read something into the Times piece that simply wasn’t there:

Reichert has never questioned the existence of global warming. […] He continues to investigate the cause of global warming. Global warming exists. That’s the reality.

That’s right, and I’m sure Reichert will eventually finger the perpetrator, oh, saaaaay, sometime around the year 2024… or maybe not until the Cascade snowpack runs dry and the Southcenter Mall lies under six feet of water?

Look, we all know that Reichert’s not the brightest bulb in the GOP caucus (and from recent events, that’s saying something) so we expect him to say stupid things he doesn’t really mean… to say in public. But if I was Sanders I’d be little insulted by Cadena, who clearly doesn’t respect him as a reporter. What… did she think? Sanders would just accept that explanation and print a retraction? No, he did exactly what you’d expect a self-respecting journalist to do… he asked Times reporter Jonathan Martin to clarify exactly what he asked the congressman, and exactly what the congressman answered. Martin said he asked a two-part question: does Reichert believe global warming exists, and if so, what does he believe is causing it?

I tried to be as clear as possible in asking the question in a two-part way. It’s possible he may have misunderstood the essence of my questions, but I went back on the issue with him at least twice during our interview. His position on global warming was crystal clear to me. He just hadn’t been convinced of its existence. I think that’s what the article says. […] He said the existence of global warming, and human’s role in it, was a possibility, but that he hadn’t seen conclusive evidence to satisfy him on either of the questions.

Hmm. Not really a position you want to take in such an environmentally conscious district like the 8th. Which I suppose is why Reichert staffers stopped letting him speak on the issue, instead sending in Cadena to do damage control. What this tells me is that Reichert’s folks don’t have much faith in their candidate’s ability to accurately explicate his own stance on the issue. (Or perhaps, maybe they’re afraid he will.) You know… they think he’s stupid. Or wrong. Or both.

But the Times’ David Postman is more charitable. He gives the campaign brownie points for aggressively pursuing this:

Good on Cadena, too, for making the effort with Sanders. The Stranger isn’t necessarily a friendly place for Reichert, and others might not have bothered.

Hmm. Only thing is, there’s something that both Postman and Sanders have missed. Cadena isn’t Reichert’s campaign spokesperson. She’s his Congressional office press secretary. (At least she was a couple of days ago.) And to have an office staffer doing campaign work like this is a real ethical and legal no-no.

And while I suppose it’s possible that by the time Cadena contacted Sanders she had taken a leave from the office and officially joined the campaign, that doesn’t excuse the press release she posted to Reichert’s congressional website “in response to media reports.”

To me, that’s a pretty damn clear use of a government website for campaign purposes. Though if I’ve got it wrong, I invite Cadena to give me a call and clear things up.

UPDATE:
In the comment thread, Cadena clarifies:

I’m pleased to clarify, David. I took a leave of absence from Congressman Reichert’s congressional office beginning on Saturday, September 30th. As of Tuesday, October 3rd, I officially assumed the role of campaign spokesperson on Congressman Reichert’s reelection campaign. The press was notified of the change. I hope that clarifies any question you had, David.

Kimberly Cadena
Spokesperson for the Reelect Dave Reichert Campaign

Thanks for being such an avid reader, Cadena. I suppose I should have asked her directly, but the campaign has been so unresponsive to my queries in the past that thought didn’t even occur to me. And like I said, it still doesn’t explain the press release.

And by the way, when campaigns shake up their staff just five weeks before an election, it’s usually an indicator that they’re a little nervous. I’m just saying.

October 4, 2006

Dear Rep. McMorris:

I have been disturbed and outraged by the news coming from Congress this past week. I believe I must take action to express the growing concerns of voters in the Fifth Congressional District.

With this letter, I am officially asking you to take a public stand in calling for the resignation of House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Hastert has apparently not only failed to protect House pages from further abuse by a member of the House, he also failed to hold that member accountable for his actions. His apparent willingness to suppress potentially criminal activity among House members makes him unfit for leadership.

I believe it is your duty to speak out on this matter at once to help cleanse Congress of a cloud of deep distrust.

Sincerely,

Peter Goldmark

My God was it busy at Drinking Liberally last night. So busy that we had to record the podcast in three separate segments. So busy, that Congressman Jim McDermott was in the house and we didn’t even manage to fit him in. So you’ll just have to settle for Congressman Jay Inslee talking about the Mark Foley scandal, and peace activist Cindy Sheehan living up to Podcasting Liberally’s high journalistic standards, and saying the word "fuck." And oh yeah, we talked about a couple statewide initiatives too.

Joining me in an inebriated, round-robin dialectic were Mollie, Lee, Carl, and Chad. In our first segment Rep. Inslee joined us to discuss the dramatic unraveling of the House Republican leadership in the wake of the Foley scandal. Then Sandeep Kaushik and 43rd LD shoe-in Jamie Pedersen sat down to argue against initiatives 920 and 933, respectively. And finally, Cindy sat down for an enlightenng and informal conversation about her accidental activism, and her new book "Peace Mom: a Mother’s Journey Through Heartache to Activism." And she said the word "fuck."

The show is 01:11:20, and is available here as a 53 MB MP3. Please visit PodcastingLiberally.com for complete archives and RSS feeds.

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for producing the show.

Rep. Cathy McMorris is back in Spokane, facing a tougher reelection campaign than I’m sure she ever imagined.

Peter Goldmark signs are sprouting like wheat across farm country, and campaign sources tell me that he closed the third quarter $80,000 ahead of his fundraising target. Goldmark didn’t jump into the race until April, yet he’s on track to raise over $1 million by election day, the vast majority of it from individual donors. Meanwhile, I’m hearing whispers through the grapevine that some independent expenditures could be coming into the 5th CD, further leveling the playing field. If that’s not a sign of growing confidence in Goldmark’s surging candidacy, I don’t know what is.

Anybody who expects a McMorris cakewalk simply isn’t paying attention. Goldmark is perhaps the best Democratic challenger in decades, and there hasn’t been an anti-incumbent mood like this in the district since 1994. President Bush’s approval ratings are now negative and trending downward in Eastern Washington, a dramatic illustration of the political climate change that is impacting reliably Republican districts nationwide. And if all that weren’t tough enough, McMorris comes home with her party mired in the ever-widening Predatorgate scandal.

Don’t think the backlash to the House Leadership’s coddling of a sexual predator can reach all the way into the Goldmark/McMorris race? Well, it depends on how McMorris handles it. If she unequivocally calls for Hastert, Boehner, Reynolds and others who shielded Rep. Foley to immediately step down from their leadership roles — and pledges to support new leadership should she be reelected — then perhaps McMorris can immunize herself. But turning on the GOP leadership can be a difficult thing to do, especially for McMorris who has been widely touted as on the leadership track herself. Throwing her party leaders under a bus could flatten McMorris’s leadership prospects as well.

Predatorgate changes the entire tenor of the race. Voters are losing faith in the ability of GOP to lead our nation — even voters in reliably Republican Eastern WA — and McMorris’s close ties to the House leadership has been transformed from a strength into a weakness. Now, even seemingly innocuous comments and public statements can end up raising issues McMorris would prefer not to raise. For example, on September 28, one day before the Foley scandal broke wide open, McMorris issued a press release touting her law enforcement credentials, which included the following bullet point:

• Co-sponsored the Child Safety Act to protect children from sex offenders

Yeah… co-sponsored the Child Safety Act with Mark Foley. (And to be fair, 87 other House members, but you get the point.)

On September 28 there was no downside to a boast like that. But since September 29 it raises the question of exactly what McMorris has really done to safeguard our nation’s children, that could possibly make up for her personal and professional support of the GOP House leaders who enabled Foley’s sexual predation?

Hastert, Boehner, Reynolds, Alexander and Shimkus all knew the rumors about Foley — that he was a closeted homosexual who indiscreetly showered attention on young, male pages — and they clearly understood his “overly friendly” emails in that context… for why else would they have attempted to cover them up? When push came to shove, the Republican leadership chose to stand by a sexual predator.

Now McMorris needs to tell her constituents whether she stands by her Republican leaders.

Mr. Vice President… I think your policies in Iraq are reprehensible. Hell, I think your policies in the U.S. are reprehensible. I think you are reprehensible. So there!

(Note to Secret Service: Please email me so I can give you directions to my house. And if it’s okay with you, I’d like to arrange a time for my arrest when you can handcuff me without my daughter being present. Thanks.)

From The Agonist:

A goodly portion of the reason gas prices have plunged lately, and a 38% decline meets my definition of a plunge, is due to the fact that Goldman Sachs tweaked the weighting on their commodity index. So what, right? Well, all the folks out their running managed futures funds, hedge funds and other various and sundry financial types, all had to go out and change their weighting of actual holdings in gasoline because that’s the benchmark their performance is measure by.

Here’s another analogy. The Dow 30 is composed of 30 stocks. There are a lot of mutual funds that own “the index” as we call it. All 30 stocks. But what happens when the Dow 30 changes the stocks that make up the index like they did in 2002. They removed AT&T, Kodak and International Paper and replaced them with AIG, Pfizer and Verizon. Now, all the stocks the index dumped took a dive, right? Because all the mutual funds, hedge funds and asset managers that hold the index dumped those stocks.

It’s the same with Goldman’s Commodities Index. If they reduce the percentage of gasoline in the index all the folks who follow the index’s weightings do the same and voila! Gas plunges.

Great timing too.

Which leads to three questions: what’s the economic rationale of making gasoline a smaller portion of overall commodoties in such a gasoline centric economy?

Why now?

And finally, who made the call to do so?

Might it have anything to do with the fact that the new Treasury Secretary used to be the Chairman of Goldman Sachs?

October 3, 2006

Congressman Dave Reichert
2737 78th Ave SE
Suite 202, Second Floor
Mercer Island, WA 98040

Dear Congressman Reichert,

I write to you today as a constituent and mother. We cannot compromise the safety of our children and the integrity of the House of Representatives, so we must set partisanship aside and stand together on principle.

The disgraceful acts committed by former Congressman Mark Foley are a black mark on the halls of the people’s House. The inaction of the House leadership in addressing the issue only makes it worse.

Today you released a statement in support of an investigation of this matter. An investigation is called for, but insufficient. An investigation is certainly in order, so is the immediate resignation of those House leaders who knew about Mark Foley’s grossly inappropriate communications with young pages.

Today the editorial board of the Washington Times called on Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert to resign. The paper writes “Either he was grossly negligent for not taking the red flags fully into account and ordering a swift investigation, for not even remembering the order of events leading up to last week’s revelations — or he deliberately looked the other way in hopes that a brewing scandal would simply blow away…. Mr. Hastert has forfeited the confidence of the public and his party, and he cannot preside over the necessary coming investigation, an investigation that must examine his own inept performance.”

Dennis Hastert’s ineffective handling of this issue follows numerous other scandals that have plagued our Congress under his watch, including the indictment of former House Speaker Tom DeLay, the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and the conviction of Rep. Duke Cunningham. There’s no more room for excuses. We need a substantial change in the leadership of the House of Representatives.

I ask you to join me in calling for the resignation of Speaker Dennis Hastert.

Sincerely,
Darcy Burner

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. And oh man do we have a busy schedule tonight.

Aaron Toso and Sandeep Kaushik will be urging you to vote No on initiatives 933 (lying developers) and 920 (estate tax repeal)… but they’re sure to be overshadowed by Congressman Jay Inslee, who will be stopping by to plug I-937, the renewable energy initiative. Then later in the evening, after she’s finished speaking at Town Hall, nationally renowned anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan will be joining us for a nightcap and a little bit of chat on the podcast.

And if that lineup’s not enough of a draw, the folks from Foolproof will be stopping by to raffle off a dozen free tickets to the big show Saturday night at Town Hall, in which Jeanine Garofalo, Atrios, the Seattle Times’ David Postman and I will be talking about politics and the press. That’s right… FREE TICKETS. Can’t beat that.

Not in Seattle? Washington liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities. Here’s a full run down of WA’s ten Drinking Liberally chapters:

	Where:	When:	Next Meeting:
Burien:	Mick Kelly’s Irish Pub, 435 SW 152nd St	Fourth Wednesday of each month, 7:00 pm onward	October 25
Kirkland:	Valhalla Bar & Grill, 8544 122nd Ave NE	Every Thursday, 7:00 pm onward	October 5
Monroe:	Eddie’s Trackside Bar and Grill, 214 N Lewis St	Second Wednesday of each month, 7:00 PM onward	October 11
Olympia:	The Tumwater Valley Bar and Grill, 4611 Tumwater Valley Drive South	First and third Monday of each month, 7:00-9:00 pm	October 16
Seattle:	Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Ave E	Every Tuesday, 8:00 pm onward	October 3
Spokane:	Red Lion BBQ & Pub, 126 N Division St	Every Wednesday, 7:00 pm	October 4
Tacoma:	Meconi’s Pub, 709 Pacific Ave	Every Wednesday, 8:00 pm onward	October 4
Tri-Cities:	Atomic Ale, 1015 Lee Blvd, Richland	Every Tuesday, 7:00 pm onward	October 3
Vancouver:	Hazel Dell Brew Pub, 8513 NE Highway 99	Second and fourth Tuesday of each month, 7:00 pm onward	October 10
Walla Walla:	The Green Lantern, 1606 E Isaacs Ave	First Friday of each month, 8:00 pm onward	October 6

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued its much anticipated “Kentucky River Decision” today, and it pretty much went exactly as expected. Voting along party lines, the Republican dominated NLRB gutted long-time federal labor laws by allowing employers to reclassify up to 8 million workers as “supervisors,” thus prohibiting them from forming unions.

That’s right, millions of American workers have just lost their fundamental right to organize. Lost it. Completely. It will now be illegal for them to join unions.

I could spend pages wonkishly boring you with the legal details, but why bother reinventing the wheel when Stephen Colbert has already done such a fine job of summarizing the larger issue?

The labor movement is directly responsible for winning American workers the rights and standards we all enjoy today… you know, little things like a living wage (well, some of us,) workplace safety, the 40-hour work week, um… the weekend. In fact, many historians would argue that the labor movement played a pivotal role in saving our nation from the threat of Communism during the 1930’s — certainly, many Communist historians might argue this, seeing as one of the first thing totalitarian regimes do is ban independent labor unions. (Remember how Solidarity helped bring down the Polish government, and led the way for the rest of the Eastern Block? That’s what they’re afraid of.)

No wonder then that Human Rights Watch lists the US alongside many Third World nations as a violator of basic human rights, due to the degree to which we restrict the freedom of association and the freedom to form unions.

Each year thousands of workers in the United States are spied on, harassed, pressured, threatened, suspended, fired, deported or otherwise victimized by employers in reprisal for their exercise of the right to freedom of association. In the 1950’s, victims numbered in the hundreds each year. In 1969, the number was more than 6,000. By the 1990’s, more than 20,000 workers each year were dismissed or otherwise victims of discrimination serious enough for the government-appointed National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to issue a reinstatement and “back-pay” or other remedial order…

Loophole-ridden laws, paralyzing delays, and feeble enforcement have created a culture of impunity in many areas of U.S. labor law and practice. Employers intent on resisting workers’ self-organization can drag out legal proceedings for years, fearing little more than an order to post a written notice in the workplace promising not to repeat unlawful conduct.

Human Rights Watch found that millions of workers, including farm workers, household domestic workers, and low-level supervisors, were expressly excluded from protection under the law guaranteeing the right of workers to organize. In Washington and North Carolina, Human Rights Watch found evidence of campaigns of intimidation against migrant workers.

Other findings included: one-sided rules for union organizing that unfairly favor employers over workers, allowing such tactics as “captive-audience meetings” where managers predict workplace closures if workers vote for union representation; workers being caught up in a web of labor contracting and subcontracting that effectively denied them the right to organize and bargain with the employers holding the real power over their jobs and working conditions; employers having the legal power to permanently replace workers who exercise the right to strike; and harsh rules against “secondary boycotts” that frustrate worker solidarity efforts.

The Kentucky River Decision is a direct assault on the right to organize that will have an immediate impact on workers nationwide, and will likely lead to disruptive, wildcat strikes. Locally, Virginia Mason has already announced plans to reclassify its 600 registered nurses as “supervisors,” effectively busting the state nurses union. Nationally, as many as 300,000 nurses face a similar fate.

While this is what surely comes from the Republicans’ relentless efforts to permanently tilt the playing field to the advantage of their corporatist sponsors, their primary motivation is actually much simpler.

Democrats, already at a distinct fundraising disadvantage, heavily rely on Labor money to support their issues and candidates. Destroy labor and you defund the Democratic Party. Defund the Democratic Party and you effectively buy yourself a one-party state. To the Republicans on the NLRB, Kentucky River isn’t about workers’ rights, it’s about political domination.

Majorities matter.