HorsesAss.Org

Human Events, a “national conservative weekly,” wants to set the record straight about former FEMA Director Michael Brown. So who did they choose to write their “exclusive” expose “Media Maelstrom Over Michael Brown“…? None other than Brownie’s longtime attorney and personal friend, Andy Lester.

In a section entitled “Distorting the Truth” Lester once again accuses me of lying:

The sharks smelled blood. It was time to dig up dirt. The blogosphere came to the rescue.

Suddenly, a swirl of stories appeared that Brown had been forced out of his last job. Who broke the story? Not the major media. It was a website, aptly named HorsesAss.org. The story was false. But the media picked it up, ran with it, and kept repeating it.

Hmm. Only problem is, the story was true. Invective aside, let’s take a look at what I wrote in that original post:

Yes, that’s right… the man responsible for directing federal relief operations in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, sharpened his emergency management skills as the “Judges and Stewards Commissioner” for the International Arabian Horses Association… a position from which he was forced to resign in the face of mounting litigation and financial disarray.

Both Brown and Lester apparently believe that my post played a significant role in his downfall, but they entirely miss the significance of what I wrote. Forget for a moment the question of whether Brown resigned under pressure in the face of mounting and costly litigation… although this was well documented in industry newsletters at the time, and corroborated by reporters following up on my post.

The story I broke — the story that turned Brown into the butt of jokes about Bush administration cronyism — was simply that Brown’s work experience immediately prior to joining FEMA was a decade serving as Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the IAHA… an indisputable fact. In the context of FEMA’s disastrous performance in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Brown’s utter lack of emergency management experience became a big story.

Lester argues that his friend Brown was the victim of an unscrupulous blogger and an irresponsible press corps, a critique as familiar as it is disingenuous. Indeed, even the title of his expose includes a calculated lie, in the claim that it is an “exclusive.” In fact, most of the piece was lifted word for word from a guest column Lester wrote back in September, 2005 for the ironically named Accuracy in Media.

Whatever the extenuating circumstances of the federal government’s failed response to Katrina (and there is plenty of blame to go around) there remains little doubt that Brownie brought to FEMA a resume with absolutely no qualifications to recommend him for the job. Lester can offhandedly malign HA all he wants, but it doesn’t change the facts.

Clearly, there’s nothing more threatening to homeland security than pacifists.

The latest edition of Podcasting Liberally is now available for your listening pleasure. Joining me at our weekly beer-inspired political gabfest was Lee, Gavin, Mollie, Will, and Seattle Weekly / Eat the State writer Geov Parrish.

Topics of discussion included South Dakota’s asinine abortion ban and what this means to Democratic prospects in 2006 and beyond (sorry Dino), what the fuck is wrong with the Greens, Sen. Russ Feingold’s censure motion, and the state of state’s newspaper industry.

And we closed the show by announcing our brand spanking new PodcastingLiberally.com website. Our weekly podcasts from DL are now online, archived, and conveniently packaged into an RSS feed… so subscribe away. We have big plans to expand our programming over time, so if you’re interested in joining our lineup, let’s chat.

Big thanks to Gavin and Richard for producing our show and for putting together the new website. And be sure to listen to their latest edition of Confab.

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. I’ll be there, knocking back a couple of pints of Manny’s, and recording the latest edition of Podcasting Liberally.

And don’t forget, the Tri-Cities chapter of DL, also meets Tuesdays from 5:30 onwards, Tuscany Lounge, 1515 George Washington Way, Richland. Ask Jimmy for more info.

48th District Rep. Rodney Tom, a two-term Republican from Bellevue, has announced that he will seek the Democratic nomination to challenge incumbent Republican state Sen. Luke Esser.

“Senator Luke Esser and the Republicans in Olympia have moved so far to the right they no longer represent the interests of mainstream voters. They have become more focused on partisan politics than real results,” said Tom. “Running and serving in the Senate as a Democrat will allow me to be more effective at solving problems, making smart investments in education and transportation and ensuring fiscal responsibility.”

While I appreciate his sentiment, and welcome him to the Democratic Party, I simply cannot endorse his candidacy… not in this district, not at this time. Not only is Esser out of touch with mainstream voters in the 48th, judging from his voting record, so is Tom. And besides, the Dems already have a strong challenger to Esser in Debi Golden.

In fact, Golden, a former teacher and current curriculum and course designer for Bellevue Community College, nearly beat Tom two years ago, despite a late start and no prior campaign experience. She’s also yet another alum of my class at Camp Wellstone, which includes such rising stars as 8th CD congressional candidate Darcy Burner and 45th LD senate candidate Eric Oemig.

There is a common misconception that the 48th LD is a Republican district, but don’t let the likes of Esser and Tom fool you. In 2004 John Kerry got 56 percent of the vote district wide, and Dave Ross carried most of the precincts as well. Clearly, the changing demographics of the district, plus a strong challenge for his own seat from former Kirkland mayor Deb Eddy, are the primary forces behind Tom’s move.

Given the choice between a progressive Democrat like Golden or a moderate ex-Republican like Tom, I’m choosing Golden. And I’m guessing that in a closed primary, 48th district Democrats will choose Golden as well.

Still, I look at Tom’s flipping as a sign of things to come. Over the coming months, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a couple more suburban R’s either switch parties or decline to seek reelection. The realignment is well under way.

Writing in the Conservative Voice, the Rev. Jerry Falwell makes a “gracious correction” to an article in the Jerusalem Post, that had claimed he had accepted the doctrine of “dual covenant.”

Earlier today, reports began circulating across the globe that I have recently stated that Jews can go to heaven without being converted to Jesus Christ. This is categorically untrue.
[…]
While I am a strong supporter of the State of Israel and dearly love the Jewish people and believe them to be the chosen people of God, I continue to stand on the foundational biblical principle that all people

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Here’s a starting point for all those who prefer the Viaduct rebuild option because you just love those sweeping views from your car… there won’t be any.

When I saw the piece in today’s Seattle Times about foreign language ballots, I just knew this was something our good friend Stefan would weigh in on, and sure enough, he didn’t disappoint.

The federal Voting Rights Act is scheduled to expire this year, and with it the section that requires ballots be printed in foreign languages when minority speakers comprise a minimum percentage of eligible voters. It is under this provision that King County prints ballots in Chinese, and three other WA counties print ballots in Spanish.

Stefan’s take was pretty much what I expected:

The foreign language ballot provisions of the Voting Rights Act should be allowed to expire next year. Universal voting in English is central to our melting pot. Let alone the expense and distraction of duplicating infrastructure to cater to tiny minorities. The last thing this country needs is to cater to linguistic minorities and give immigrants more incentives not to assimilate.

‘Cause you know, nothing threatens our democracy more than “linguistic minorities” like, um… my great-grandmother, who emigrated from Eastern Europe as a teen, worked hard all her life, raised a family, helped start and run a small retail shop that fed and clothed three generations… and mostly spoke Yiddish until her dying day. Yeah.. helping people like my bubbie vote represents everything that’s wrong with America.

This was exactly the sort of sentiment I’ve come to expect from Stefan, who consistently opposes any effort to make the franchise more accessible. Of course, his position reflects a certain cynical, electoral calculus, but I think this passionate opposition to multilingual ballots — as echoed by some of the comments in his thread — is more… how shall we say… genuine.

For example, one commenter expressed distress at what she called “uncertified ‘photo-copied’ Americans,” lamenting:

We have enough of the Little China, Little Italy and the Little India districts…. Will we need to create a Little America district someday?

Well, where else will we find all those great American restaurants?

And of course, my favorite comment had to be the one that derided our nation’s tolerance of non-native speakers:

We give them no incentive at all to become part of what had made the USA great: E Pluribus Unum.

Yup… I can’t think of a better way to argue the primacy of the English language than to do it in Latin.

And then there is the argument that multilingual ballots are unnecessary because English proficiency is a prerequisite of naturalization. Well, that’s simply not true. Our naturalization laws include broad exemptions due to age or disability; for example, English proficiency is waived for those over 50, with 20 years of permanent residence. Which I suppose explains why the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services official Guide to Naturalization is printed in five languages… including Tagalog.

Personally, I’m willing to consider a cost-benefit analysis in determining whether translating and printing multilingual ballots is worth the expense in time and money. Obviously, if there wasn’t a point of diminishing returns, we’d be printing ballots in dozens of languages.

But I find it hard to accept the assertion that making ballots accessible to non-English speakers somehow constitutes bad public policy. The right to vote is the most basic right of citizenship, and to withhold it as an incentive towards forced, cultural assimilation, strikes me as downright un-American.

Looking for something to chat about? Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) will introduce a resolution today to officially censure President Bush for breaking the law (specifically, FISA) by conducting illegal, domestic wiretaps… and he writes about it in a diary on Daily Kos.

As Jon Stahl points out on Evergreen Politics, Emmett O’Connell is just jonesing for 8.5 x 11 inch initiative petitions. Current state law dictates the minimum size of petitions as 11 x 17.

O’Connell argues that allowing petitions on standard, letter size paper would democratize the process, allowing anybody to just print off a petition and start collecting signatures… making signature gathering all the more affordable to grassroots organizations.

Sure would. And it would also make signature gathering less expensive to profiteers like Tim Eyman, partisan propaganda mills like the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, and right-wing, pro-business front groups like the Washington Farm Bureau.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against letter-sized petitions as part of a broader initiative reform package. In fact, I-831 (my “Tim Eyman is a Horse’s Ass” initiative) was one of the first initiative campaigns to make PDF versions of its petition available for download, and I lamented at the time the hassle of meeting the paper-size requirement. But anything that makes it easier to gather signatures without forcing sponsors to be more honest and responsible, is simply going to multiply the number of dishonest and irresponsible initiatives.

I recently suggested a number of reforms to the initiative process, and it would certainly be worth adding O’Connell’s proposal to the list. But enacting this change on its own will only serve to make our existing initiative industry more efficient and profitable.

Every once and a while I write a post pointing out the parallels between current political trends and those in 1920’s Germany… not suggesting that we are on our way to becoming a fascist dictatorship, but that the possibility is certainly not out of the question. And when I do, I do so in the full knowledge that I will be subjecting myself to ridicule from my righty trolls, who dismissively reject any historical comparisons as pure paranoia.

Well, look who’s paranoid too.

Sandra Day O’Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the party’s rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary.

[…]

Ms O’Connor, nominated by Ronald Reagan as the first woman supreme court justice, declared: “We must be ever-vigilant against those who would strong-arm the judiciary.”

She pointed to autocracies in the developing world and former Communist countries as lessons on where interference with the judiciary might lead. “It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings.”

Go ahead… dismiss O’Connor as a wacko too. Though I’m guessing those of you who do, probably wouldn’t mind a dictatorship all that much… assuming you had the right man as dictator.

Here’s an idea for discussion… how about McGavick’s support for oil drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, because as we all know, with modern technology, there’s nearly zero change of a massive oil spill threatening enivronmentally sensitive areas.

King County Election Director Dean Logan sent out a press release yesterday, reminding voters that they do not need to re-register in order to vote this fall. Why would Logan feel the need to remind voters of something that they shouldn’t need reminding of?

This week, King County received phone calls from a handful of alarmed voters who received blank voter registration forms in the mail with a notation suggesting that they were not registered to vote. Election officials across the state have received similar calls from voters concerned about the status of their registrations.

“The voters we’ve heard from are properly registered,” said Logan. “They participate in every election and haven’t moved or changed their voting information so the message in the mailing is particularly disconcerting.”

In one incident, a King County voter reported receiving a recorded phone call from a national political campaign committee stating their records indicate she might not be properly registered at her address. The county’s official voter registration records show the woman properly registered.

In fact, I’ve been hearing scattered reports of these robo-calls for the past couple weeks, and it’s not exactly clear what the motive is. Is this some kind of incompetent GOP GOTV campaign? Or is it yet another ham-fisted example of Republican voter intimidation and suppression?

We’ve all heard about the Republican National Committee’s “sophisticated” data mining operations, but if they are trolling for unregistered households with GOP-leaning demographics, they sure seem to be hitting an awful lot of registered Democrats. And whether the intent is voter registration or voter intimidation… March seems to be an awfully odd time to attempt either.

Whatever. Here’s a transcript of the phone message that’s been going around Washington State:

“This is the Republican National Committee with an important alert. Our records show that you may not be properly registered to vote in your district. These elections are very important.

You have the opportunity to vote for republicans who will stand up for your values or liberals who will fight for their own special interests.

Please take a moment to look into whether or not you are properly registered to vote, and if you are not, please take the time to fill out the form and send it in.”

A number of county auditors from around the state have reported receiving angry phone calls from confused voters, wondering why they need to re-register… and in most every case, there is absolutely nothing wrong with their registration.

And it’s not just happening in Washington State. The DNC has recently received reports of the same robo-call message hitting registered Democrats in Nebraska… and the RNC apparently tested a similar campaign in 2005 during the closely contested governor’s race in Virginia.

Hello, this is an important election alert. Our records indicate that you may not be properly registered to vote at this address. The race for Virginia’s next governor will be close. Every vote will count. That’s why it is so important that you are properly registered to vote. You’ll be receiving a form in the mail in the next couple of days. Please, take a moment to fill it out and return it by October 11 so you can exercise your right in the upcoming election on November 8. Paid for and authorized by the Republican National Committee 05077. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee.

Regardless of intent, these calls can’t help but sow confusion. Listen to the audio; no wonder this robo-call had dozens of Virginians calling registrars, elected officials, and attorneys to find out if some change in the law required them to re-register to vote. And considering the recent noise here over plans by the GOP propaganda mill Evergreen Freedom Foundation to run an initiative requiring exactly that, it’s no surprise this recent round of robo-calls has WA state voters coming to the same conclusion.

Considering last fall’s voter registration challenge debacle, it is reasonable to be suspicious of any GOP outreach on such issues. Perhaps there really is no nefarious intent behind these robo-calls, but if you’re going to warn voters that they may not be properly registered, the least you could do is cross-check your list with the publicly available voter registration records.

In any case, it doesn’t seem to bother the GOP that their efforts are leaving hundreds — possibly thousands — of voters unnecessarily confused about their registration status. It’s the type of callous gamesmanship we’ve now come to expect from a party that views voter suppression as just another tool in their arsenal.

[Cross-posted to Daily Kos]

And just a reminder, today’s the last day to vote for HA as Best State & Local Blog in the Koufax Awards. Just link on over and leave “HorsesAss.org” in the comment thread. (Hey… the other contestants are campaigning, why not me?)

Um… exactly which party’s nomination is U.S. Senate candidate Aaron Dixon seeking?

“We welcome his candidacy,” state Republican Chairwoman Diane Tebelius said.

Dixon, a community activist and co-founder of the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party, announced earlier this week that he would challenge Sen. Maria Cantwell on the Green Party ticket… and boy are Republicans excited!

“I think that the Republican Party has learned from its excesses in the past that it’s not good to have a third-party candidate out there who could siphon away votes from their main candidates,” Tebelius said. “So I would think it could be a problem for the Democrats.”

For his part, Dixon seems to totally understand his role in this election:

If both he and Cantwell lose, Dixon said: “I won’t feel bad at all. Maria votes like a Republican.”

Uh-huh. No wonder the National Republican Senatorial Committee is absolutely kvelling over Dixon’s candidacy, ironically suggesting that the way to beat Cantwell is to “challenge her from the left.”

Dixon’s entry into the race means that Cantwell is going to have to fight for her Democrat base. He has the potential to peel away liberal votes from Cantwell, thereby boosting McGavick’s.

Sure, I suppose. But first McGavick is going to have to close the gap enough for Dixon to make a difference… something McGavick has so far proven incapable of doing.

Which leads me to believe that the best strategy for both Dixon and the Republicans would be to simply drop the pretense, dump McGavick, and put Dixon on the GOP ticket.

UPDATE:
I could swear I just heard Dixon on KUOW say that he was being paid by the Green Party to run for the Senate. Sweet. I could use some extra cash. Perhaps I’ll run for the Green Party nomination too?