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Settled into those post-Christmukkah, pre-New Years doldrums? The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E.

I’ll bring a menorah, we’ll all say the barucha, and then we’ll unwrap a pitcher of Manny’s.

I thought it worth pointing towards today’s Seattle Times editorial on all-mail voting, mostly because it’s conclusion echoes the main point in my previous post on the subject:

FOR all the political huffing and puffing about a plan to make elections in King County all-mail voting, the key thing to remember is that voters chose the new system.
…
A vote-by-mail system is inevitable. Elected officials are catching up with the public.

28 of WA’s 39 counties voted by mail this November, and 5 others are in the process of making the change. Perhaps King County is making the switch a little sooner than we had expected, but the timing is right for a number of reasons.

The recommendations from three outside reviews of KC elections all focused on the immediate need to consolidate operations into a single elections center. But it makes absolutely no sense to design and build a new multi-million dollar elections center to handle an elections system (polling place voting) that is destined to become obsolete in a few short years.

No doubt the move to all-mail voting will be a challenge. While less than 30 percent of KC voters cast ballots at the polls last month, that still represents more ballots than cast by any means in any other single county in the state. To put this in perspective, moving us remaining, stubborn polling place voters to mail-in ballots will be like adding all of Pierce County into the system.

If the county council approves the switch (and with Bob “Swing Vote” Ferguson on board, that seems a sure thing) it must also appropriate the funds necessary to do the job right. That includes building the consolidated elections center everybody agrees is absolutely necessary. Now.

Another Christmas has passed, and alas, so has the Jewish secular humanist war on it… at least until next December. I spent the weekend in nonstop celebration with my daughter’s large Irish-Catholic family (in truth, the celebration continues later this morning with brunch), and I must glumly report from the front that we have once again lost the war. It was a joyous day for all. Damn.

A couple weeks back I wrote about the bogus “War on Christmas”, pointing out that it was far from just a harmless marketing ploy to bump ratings for Fox News. Such rhetoric cannot help but stir latent, anti-Semitic sentiments:

Gibson and O’Reilly are careful not to name the enemy, but the vile rhetoric and its impact are unchanged. For who else would wage a “war on Christmas” than Christianity’s favorite 2000-year-old enemy… the Jews?

The right’s war on the “war on Christmas” is a political strategy intended to divide the nation along religious and cultural lines, and like all wars, there will be victims. How many Fox viewers have openly and angrily derided this attack on Christian America, and how many Jewish children have already been harassed by their schoolmates as a result? Anybody who has ever been a child should understand that this sort of open hostility happens everyday, and that the subtle strains of discrimination that lie beneath the surface of 21st Century America are not so subtle to the children who are its target.

Okay… maybe I was wrong to warn that anti-Semitism lies just beneath the surface of American society. As several of my readers made clear in the comment threads, anti-Semitism and other forms of racial discrimination remain an open wound for all to see. Curiously, in addition to the usual gloating over my inevitable consignment to the fires of Hell, one of the Christian soldiers’ recurring themes was to question my Jewishness. I was dismissed as a “JINO”, accused of being an enemy of Israel… I was even compared to Hitler. (Unfavorably.) I suppose their tactic is to undermine my critique by destroying my credibility as a Jew… a stunning lack of insight that demonstrates by example the rarely understood fact that anti-Semitism is more about race than religion: it isn’t our Judaism that people hate, it’s our Jewishness.

But it’s not just old “Nazi behind every bush” Goldy who sees the “War on Christmas” for what it really is. In yesterday’s New York Times, my favorite columnist, Frank Rich, points out the obvious anti-Semitic undercurrents. [“I Saw Jackie Mason Kissing Santa Claus.”]

Rabble-rousing paranoia about a supposed assault on Christmas also has a strong anti-Semitic and far-right pedigree. In Salon, Ms. Goldberg noted that fulmination about supposed Jewish opposition to Christmas dates to Henry Ford’s infamous “The International Jew” of 1921. That chord is sounded in the very first anecdote in the book by the Fox News anchor John Gibson, “The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought”: a devastated father discovers that his 4-year-old son has brought home preschool artwork showing a Hanukkah menorah and Kwanzaa candles, rather than a Christmas tree. But Mr. Gibson goes on to add ecumenically that “not just Jewish people” are out to kill Christmas. As he elucidated on Christian radio, all non-Christians are “following the wrong religion,” though he reassures us that they will be tolerated “as long as they’re civil and behave.”

Well, I for one am not willing to be civil and behave, and some of my righty readers have shown their intolerance in response. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t hate Christmas. What I hate is the way assholes like Gibson and O’Reilly stir up hate and resentment towards minorities by perpetuating this cynical myth of an oppressed Christian majority.

[The first night of Chanukah falls on Christmas day this year, and so with apologies to the late, great Dr. Seuss (but not to the greedy, litigious bastards at Dr. Seuss Enterprises, LLC) I would like to honor the occasion by making an annual tradition out of reposting the enduring holiday classic, How the Kvetch Stole Chanukah. Happy Christmukah.]

Every Joo
Down in Joo-ville
Liked Chanukah as such…

But the Kvetch,
Who lived just north of Joo-ville,
… not so much.

The Kvetch hated Chanukah, the whole Chanukah season.
Now don’t ask me why. What? Should I know the reason?
It could be he wasn’t a mensch, that is all.
Or his petzel, perhaps, was two sizes too small.
Such meshug’as comes from one thing or another,
But like most Joo-ish boys, we should just blame his mother!

But,
The reason, whatever,
His mom or his putz,
The Kvetch hated Chanukah. Oy, what a yutz!
For he knew every Joo down in Joo-ville tonight
Was busy preparing menorahs to light.

“And they’re giving out gelt!” he sighed as he said
“I need waxy chocolate like holes in my head!”
Then he nervously whined as his fingers tapped horas,
“I MUST stop the Joos from igniting menorahs!”

For,
The Kvetch knew that soon…

… All the Joo girls and boys
Would say the baruch’ha, then unwrap their toys!
And then! Oh, the oys! Oh, the Oys! Oys! Oys! Oys!
If it’s not what they wanted, the OYS! OYS! OYS! OYS!

Then the Joos, young and old, would sit down for a nosh.
And they’d nosh! And they’d nosh!
And they’d NOSH! NOSH! NOSH! NOSH!
They would nosh on Joo-latkes, and Gefilte-Joo-Fish,
Which was surely the Kvetch’s least favorite dish!

And THEN
They’d do something
Which made the Kvetch plotz!
Every Joo down in Joo-ville, Bar Mitzvahed or not,
Would sit down together, their proud ponim’s grinning.
Then dreidels in hand, all the Joos would start spinning!

They’d spin! And they’d spin!
AND they’d SPIN! SPIN! SPIN! SPIN!
And the more the Kvetch thought of this Joo-Dreidel-Spin,
The more the Kvetch thought, “I can’t let this begin!
“Oy, for fifty-three years I’ve put up with it now!
“Chanukah, Schmanukah! Stop it!
… But HOW?”

Then he got an idea!
And the moment he had,
He said
“I’m no Einstein, but this… not half bad!”

“I know just what to do!” Then he donned an old sheet,
And dug up some sandals to wear on his feet.
“I’m the Prophet Elijiah! They’ve set me a plate!”
(For the Kvetch couldn’t keep Joo-ish holidays straight.)
“The Joos ‘ll oblige ol’ Elijiah, no doubt!
“I will simply walk in. Then I’ll clean the place out!”

“All I need is a camel…”
He looked far and near,
But this wasn’t the desert, and camels are dear.
Did that stop the old Kvetch…?
That pischer? No, never:
“If I can’t find a camel,” the Kvetch said, “…whatever.”
So he called his dog, Max. Then he took an old sack
And he tied a hump onto the front of his back.

THEN
He climbed on this
dog-dromedaryish mammal.
You never have seen
Such a schmuck on a camel.

Then the Kvetch cried “Oy vey!”
As old Max started down
Toward the homes, while the Joos
Where still schmoozing in town.

All their driveways were empty. Just SUV tracks.
All the Joos were out last-minute-shopping at Saks,
As he rode to a not-so-small house on old Max.
“It’s a good thing I brought” the old Prophet Kvetch thought,
“All these bags with to stuff all the stuff the Joos bought.”

Then he looked at the chimney. It seemed quite a stretch
That a fat goy like Santa could fit, thought the Kvetch,
“Still, the goyim believe stranger things, that’s for sure.”
Then the Kvetch shrugged his shoulders, and walked through the door
Where the little Joo dreidels were all strewn about.
“These dreidels,” he grinned, “are the first to go out!”

And he schvitzed, as he shlepped, with an odor unpleasant,
Around the whole house, as he took every present!
Barbie dolls! Mountain bikes! Brios! And blocks!
Pokemon! GameBoys! And all of that shlock!
And he stuffed them in bags. Then his arms spread akimbo,
He shlepped all the bags, one by one, out the wimbo!

Then he shlepped to the kitchen. He took every dish.
He took the Joo-latkes. The Gefilte-Joo-Fish.
He cleaned out the Sub-Zero so nimbly and neat,
Careful to separate dairy from meat.
Then he shlepped the Joo-nosh right out the front door-a.
“And NOW!” kvelled the Kvetch, “I will shlep the menorah!”

And he grabbed the menorah, and started to shlep on,
When he heard a whine, like a cat being stepped on.
He spun ‘round with shpilkes, and coming his way,
It was Ruth Levy-Joo, who was two, if a day.

The Kvetch had been caught by this small shaina maidel,
Who’d been watching TV on her big RCA’dle.
“The Prophet Elijiah?” she quizzed the old fool,
“You visit on Pesach, they taught us in shul.”

And although the old Kvetch was surprised and confused,
It’s not hard to lie to a girl in her twos.
“Bubbeleh… sweatheart…” he started his tale,
“Your dad paid full price, when this all was on sale!
“And like any good merchant, I just want to please ya.
“I’ll ring it up right, then I’ll refund your VISA.”

Then he patted her tush. Put a Barney tape in.
And she spaced-out as fast as the spindle could spin.
And as Ruth Levy-Joo watched her mauve dinosaura,
HE went to the door and shlepped out the menorah!

Then the match for the shamas
Was last to be filched!
Then he shlepped himself out to continue his pillage.
On the walls he left nothing at all. Bubkes. Zilch.
And the one speck of food
That he left in the house
Was a matzoh ball even too dense for a mouse.

Then
He did the same schtick
In the other Joo’s houses.

Leaving knaidlach
Too dense
For the other Joo’s mouses!

It was quarter to dusk…
All the Joos, still at Saks,
All the Joos, still a-shmooze
When he packed up old Max,
Packed him up with their presents! The gelt and the dreidels!
The chotchkes and latkes! The knish and the knaidels!

He hauled it all up to his condo in haste!
(A Grinch might have dumped it, but why go to waste?)
“Shtup you!” to the Joos, the Kvetch loudly cheered,
“They’re finding out Chanukah’s cancelled this year!
“They’re just coming home! I know just what they’ll say!
“They’ll ask their homeowners insurance to pay,
“Then the Joos down in Joo-ville will all cry OY VEY!”

“All those Oys,” kvelled the Kvetch,
“Now THIS I must hear!”
So he paused. And the Kvetch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising up from the shtetl.
It started to grow. Then the Kvetch grew unsettled…

Why the sound wasn’t sad,
It was more like the noise
Of a UPS trucker
Delivering toys!

He stared down at Joo-ville!
And then the Kvetch shook,
As truck after truck
Replaced all that he took!

Every Joo down in Joo-ville, the Golds and the Steins,
Re-ordered their presents by going online!

Chanukah HADN’T been cancelled!
IT CAME!
…On UPS trucks… but it came just the same!

Then the Kvetch, staring down at the gifts where they sat,
Stood kvitching and kvetching: “For this, I did that?
“It came without traffic! It came without tax!
“It came without shopping at Bloomie’s or Saks!”
And he kvetched on and on, til he started to shvitz,
Then the Kvetch thought of something which might make him rich!
“Maybe stores,” thought the Kvetch, “don’t need mortar and bricks.
“Maybe toys can be bought with a few well-placed clicks!”

And what happened then…?
Well… in Joo-ville they say
That the Kvetch raised
Ten million in venture that day!
And the minute his web site was ready to go,
He raised ten billion more on his new IPO!
He sold back the toys to the homes they came from!
And he…

… he the Kvetch…!
Founded YA-JOO.COM!

©2000 by David Goldstein
May not be distributed without permission

A little more of that iceberg is beginning to bob above the surface: “Spy Agency Mined Vast Data Trove, Officials Report.”

The National Security Agency has traced and analyzed large volumes of telephone and Internet communications flowing into and out of the United States as part of the eavesdropping program that President Bush approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to hunt for evidence of terrorist activity, according to current and former government officials.

The volume of information harvested from telecommunication data and voice networks, without court-approved warrants, is much larger than the White House has acknowledged, the officials said. It was collected by tapping directly into some of the American telecommunication system’s main arteries, they said.

Distracted by the bogus Iraq front in the so-called “War on Terror”, Americans are only beginning to notice how much of this war is being fought on our home soil, against our own citizens. Should our nation eventually ease itself into dictatorship (no doubt a uniquely American form of dictatorship), it may be impossible to look back and determine the exact turning point; like Nazi Germany before us, these things can happen gradually — even innocently — with good, well meaning citizens blindly handing over their freedom to a corrupt autocracy, out of a mix of fear and patriotism.

I know, I know… some of you will malign me as paranoid and hyperbolic for even imagining a United States sliding towards totalitarianism. Yet those who would put a tin-foil-hat on my head are the very same folk who choose to believe that the greatest economic, political, and military power in the history of the world, is so threatened by a bearded, turbaned, dialysis patient, that we should willingly surrender the fundamental liberties set forth in the Bill of Rights… the most sacred document a secular nation has ever produced.

Do not kid yourself that Americans are somehow special or that our system of government is somehow immune to the excesses of executive power, for our nation’s history is filled with examples of presidents unconstitutionally crushing our civil liberties, particularly in time of war: Adam’s Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus, Wilson’s notorious Espionage and Sedition Acts, and of course, Roosevelt’s shameful internment of Japanese-Americans. Those absolute defenders of Bush — those defenders of unbridled American empire — should study their history: Rome did not fall to barbarian invaders… it collapsed from within.

But enough of my pontificating. Instead, I’ll leave you with the pontificating of the New York Times editorial board, who warns today about Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, and recently released memos on illegal wiretaps and overriding legislative intent.

With the Bush administration claiming sweeping and often legally baseless authority to detain and spy on people, judges play a crucial role in underscoring the limits of presidential power. When the Senate begins hearings next month on Judge Samuel Alito, President Bush’s Supreme Court nominee, it should explore whether he understands where the Constitution sets those limits. New documents released yesterday provide more evidence that Judge Alito has a skewed view of the allocation of power among the three branches – skewed in favor of presidential power.
[…]
These memos are part of a broader pattern of elevating the presidency above the other branches of government. In his judicial opinions, Judge Alito has shown a lack of respect for Congressional power – notably when he voted to strike down Congress’s ban on machine guns as exceeding its constitutional authority. He has taken a cramped view of the Fourth Amendment and other constitutional provisions that limit executive power.

The Supreme Court and the lower federal courts have had to repeatedly pull the Bush administration back when it exceeded its constitutional powers. They have made clear that Americans cannot be held indefinitely without trial just because they are labeled “enemy combatants.” They have vindicated the right of Guantanamo Bay detainees to challenge their confinement. And they will no doubt have to correct the Bush administration’s latest assertions of power to spy domestically. The Senate should determine that Judge Alito is on the side of the Constitution in these battles, not on the side of the presidency – which the latest documents strongly question – before voting to confirm him.

Read the whole thing. And worry.

UPDATE:
In a powerful editorial that describes President Bush’s actions as “an invitation to tyranny,” conservative business weekly Barron’s (published by Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones), has printed an editorial calling for Congress to investigate impeachment:

Willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense. It is at least as impeachable as having a sexual escapade under the Oval Office desk and lying about it later. The members of the House Judiciary Committee who staged the impeachment of President Clinton ought to be as outraged at this situation. They ought to investigate it, consider it carefully and report either a bill that would change the wiretap laws to suit the president or a bill of impeachment.

I’d say when the folks at Dow Jones are talking impeachment, the shit has finally hit the fan.

Though really… you’d think most people would have something better to do this weekend than post here.

According to U.S. News & World Report, the Bush administration’s fear that brown people might have the bomb apparently trumps its respect of the 4th Amendment.

In search of a terrorist nuclear bomb, the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities, U.S. News has learned. In numerous cases, the monitoring required investigators to go on to the property under surveillance, although no search warrants or court orders were ever obtained, according to those with knowledge of the program. Some participants were threatened with loss of their jobs when they questioned the legality of the operation, according to these accounts.

The article names Seattle as one of the other cities in which mosques, offices and private residences have been monitored without warrants or court orders. How extensive is the President’s secret, domestic surveillance program? One gets the feeling that recent revelations are only the tip of the iceberg… and it’s an awfully chilly feeling.

Now, I’m not dissing the federal government for being vigilant about nuclear terrorism; many security experts agree that there is more than an outside chance that terrorists might eventually try to set off some kind of nuclear device in a major American city. My concern is our government’s growing habit of ignoring our constitutional protections against unreasonable searches and seizures.

If the federal authorities had probable cause, surely warrants could have been obtained (though I’m not so sure that being Muslim is probable cause in itself.) But this administration no longer even bothers to ask the courts for permission before invading an American citizen’s privacy. And just as disturbing as this lack of respect for our basic constitutional rights, is the reported threat of retaliation against Justice Department officials who questioned the operation’s legality.

In defending warrantless domestic surveillance, President Bush claims that his powers as a “wartime” Commander in Chief trump those of Congress, or even the Bill of Rights… a legal philosophy that smacks of dictatorship. In Bush’s post 9/11 America, U.S. citizens can now be spied on without warrant, held indefinitely without charge, tortured in custody, and tried without being given access to the “top secret” evidence against them.

Bush once accused the terrorists of “hating our freedom.” Well, a major tactic in his “War on Terror” seems to be to take away this motivation.

Thanks to Horse Whisperer for pointing me towards an article in today’s Washington Post, chronicling the disintegration of FEMA under Michael Brown’s watch: “Brown’s Turf Wars Sapped FEMA’s Strength.”

Katrina exposed FEMA as a dysfunctional organization, paralyzed in a crisis four years after the supposedly galvanizing attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. And it turned Brown — a former executive of the International Arabian Horse Association who had no emergency management experience before joining the Bush administration — into a symbol of government ineptitude. But Brown’s well-chronicled gaffes in Louisiana had less impact on FEMA than his little-known power struggles in Washington. Brown lost almost all of them — partly because he was widely despised at DHS for his relentless infighting — and FEMA paid a price in money, manpower, missions and prestige.

And of course, a big thanks to Horse Whisperer for tipping me off to Brown’s tumultuous tenure at the IAHA — a story that first broke here on HA — that came to symbolize the cronyism endemic in the Bush administration, and hastened Brown’s removal from office. (I say that with all modesty, as Brown blamed HA himself.)

While the article makes it clear that Brown is not the only incompetent Bush appointee to blame for FEMA’s decline, it certainly shows what inevitably happens when you put a man who fell victim to the inside politics of a horse association in charge of a major federal agency.

Joel Connelly’s got a list of nominations for 2005’s greatest exercises of political folly… and he saved the best for last:

The “Tantrum of the Year” Prize goes to Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, after losing his backdoor bid to open the arctic wildlife refuge to oil drilling.

Stevens took out after colleagues, claimed that he has been “pilloried by almost every newspaper in this country” and claimed he is “drawing a line now with a lot of people I’ve worked with before.”

“I’m going to every one of your states, and I’m going to tell them what you’ve done!” he vowed. “And I’m sure the senator from Washington will enjoy my visits to Washington, because I’m going to visit there often.”

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., should pay his airfare.

Absolutely. In fact, Cantwell should make Stevens honorary co-chair of her reelection campaign, as nobody has done a better job illustrating her value to WA voters.

The League of Conservation Voters has called Cantwell “one of our nation’s strongest environmental leaders in Congress” and made her reelection their number one priority during the 2006 season. As she proved once again this week, Cantwell is not only consistent in her support of the environment… she delivers.

Freshman Republican Rep. Dave Reichert (WA-8) has tried to carve a reputation for himself as a strong and independent leader by strategically casting a handful of well placed votes in opposition to the GOP leadership… mostly when it doesn’t count. But his role in the recent controversy over oil drilling in the pristine Alaska National Wildlife Refuge shows exactly how calculated and unprincipled these votes have been.

After making a big show earlier this year of opposing drilling in ANWR, Reichert rolled over when it really mattered, voting for the Defense Spending bill and its cynical provision without a peep of opposition. Meanwhile, Sen. Maria Cantwell staked her reputation — and perhaps her career — on threatening a filibuster… and successfully following through.

Cantwell deserves all the credit she’s getting for staring down Alaska’s powerful and vindictive Sen. Ted Stevens.

“This vote today is a tribute to her tenacity and skill,” said Jim Manley, a spokesman for Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “She stood up to a powerful member of the Senate. Today was a big win.”

Reid made Cantwell the Senate Democrats’ energy point-person in September, setting into motion Wednesday’s confrontation.

But as much credit as Cantwell deserves for her bold leadership in orchestrating this dramatic filibuster, Reichert deserves at least as much blame for weakly caving in to his party’s cynical parliamentary procedure. He cannot argue that nothing could be done to block the provision — something could be done, and Cantwell did it. The difference is, Cantwell really is a defender of the environment, whereas Reichert only gives it lip service.

In defending his previous stance, Reichert explained that phone calls and emails from constituents were overwhelmingly opposed to drilling in ANWR:

“They were running about 95 percent in favor of not drilling. You have to listen to the people you represent.”

But when push came to shove, it wasn’t “the people” he listened to.

Reichert’s district has been steadily trending Democrat, putting him on everybody’s short list of vulnerable Republicans… and I can’t wait for this issue to pop up during the 2006 campaign. What’s he going to tell the overwhelming majority of constituents who oppose drilling in ANWR? “I voted against drilling before I voted for it”…?

Reichert flip-flopped on ANWR, and he’s going to pay for it.

[Cross-posted to Daily Kos.]

The campaign for state Democratic Party chairman is really too inside politics for me… I’ve never fully understood what the party does, let alone it’s chair. But in case you’re curious, a party insider tells me “the fix is in” and the powers that be have already settled on Dwight Pelz.

Whatever.

I wasn’t about to endorse a candidate because a) I don’t feel particularly qualified to weigh in on the matter, b) I don’t want to back the wrong horse, miffing the eventual winner, and c) my endorsements aren’t worth shit.

However, I do want something from the new chair: innovation and access. Paul Berendt and the Dems did a great job fighting the legal battle in last year’s election contest, but they and the Gregoire campaign/administration did an absolutely disastrous job fighting the PR war. This time last year I was often beside myself with frustration at the lack of cooperation (and effort) coming from the party and the campaign, as they got their asses kicked by the relentless media war launched by the BIAW and the Republicans through paid media, talk radio, the right-wing blogs, and the rest of their media infrastructure. To this day, I’d bet a majority of WA voters still wrongly believe that Dino Rossi really won the election.

Why is Gov. Gregoire’s approval rating still languishing in the mid-forty’s instead of pushing toward sixty where it belongs? You need only read the headlines from last December to learn the answer. That Gov. Gregoire’s first year in office has been remarkably successful means little to those voters who still question her legitimacy.

Last January, after snagging a free ticket to the inauguration, I finally got a chance to confront a top Dem communications staffer, and used the opportunity to plead with them to find some money to spend on radio ads and direct mail to combat the GOP misinformation campaign. The response? The staffer turned towards the surrounding throng and incredulously asked, “Is he telling me how to do my job?”

Yes I was. I’m a blogger. That’s what we do.

Things have gotten a helluva lot better since then. Last year I couldn’t even get on the party’s press list; this year, I not only get press releases, but prompt responses when I follow up with a question or comment. Staffers are now even asking us bloggers for advice on how to exploit this new media to their advantage. But I’m not sure any of this new found respect is coming from the top.

What I want from the new chair is the understanding that the party’s success depends at least as much on communications as it does on money and lawyers, and that the media doesn’t quite work the same way it used to. I want a chair who embraces innovation, and who is able to see beyond the next election towards the media and political landscape of a decade from now. I want a chair who will support the efforts by the current communications staff as they explore new media ventures.

But mostly, I want a party chair who is willing to at least listen to bloggers like me tell him how to do his job, without incredulously dismissing us out of hand.

Okay, everybody here should know by now the way I feel about those stupid, lame-ass, online polls. But I must say that I do find it amusing — if not actually meaningful — that a stupid, lame-ass, MSNBC poll now shows 88% of 48997 respondents saying that President Bush should be impeached.

State GOPolitburo Chairman Chris Vance is either a liar or a fool… or both. Of course, this isn’t really news to anybody who has followed WA state politics over the past year or so, but it’s worth repeating, especially when he sends out one of those blatantly false press releases like yesterday’s doozy.

In response to the state Dems’ Santa stunt, in which they called attention to the $14.3 million parting gift Safeco is giving outgoing CEO Mike McGavick to kick off his Senate campaign, Vance accused the Dems of hypocrisy:

Maria Cantwell never resigned from Real Networks in 2000, she simply took a “leave of absence.” During 2000, the company paid her $10.5 million in salary and stock options. Cantwell then funded her campaign with this money.

That is a complete and utter load of crap.

The money Cantwell cashed out in 2000 came from the stock options she had vested during her four years working as a Vice President at Real Networks. Early Real Networks employees were granted generous, five-year option schedules with the first fifth vesting after one year, and the rest vesting in six-month increments. Because Real Networks was a tiny, risky startup at the time she joined — whose shares might have eventually been worthless — the strike price on her original option grant was only pennies a share.

Unlike McGavick, Cantwell’s vesting schedule was not accelerated when she left Real Networks, and she wasn’t granted any additional options. Vance’s claim relies on a single line in a 2001 article in The Olympian that clearly misunderstands the nature of these transactions. Option grants are not declared as income until they are exercised and the shares sold. The fact that Cantwell exercised these options in 2000 does not represent compensation for that calendar year, but rather the realization of the capital gains from the options she had previously vested throughout her tenure.

Quite simply, Vance lied. Real Networks most definitely did not pay Cantwell $10.5 million in 2000. She bet four years of her life on a risky startup, and while handsomely rewarded, anybody who has ever worked for Rob Glaser will tell you that she earned her money the hard way.

Clearly, Vance was just trying to deflect attention from the fact that Safeco is giving McGavick $14.3 million during an election year… money that he is then free to spend on his own campaign in unlimited quantities. McGavick, who has represented the insurance industry for years, is essentially being paid to run for office, and if elected would surely represent the industry’s interests over that of ordinary Washington citizens.

But I also want to point out to my friends in the media, that this is yet another instance where Vance has boldly and shamelessly lied to your face. He dishonestly fed you information that was factually wrong and easily disproved. He dissed you.

Any reporter who takes anything coming from the Vance-led state GOP at face value, is a chump.

The Senate just failed to close debate on the Defense Spending Bill, after the Democrats, led by Sen. Maria Cantwell, filibustered the cynical inclusion of a provision that would open the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. The motion failed 56 to 44; 60 votes were needed for cloture. Four Democrats voted yea, and three Republicans voted nay.

UPDATE:
The AP has a quote from the victorious Sen. Cantwell:

“This is nothing more than legislative blackmail,” fumed Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., an ardent opponent to opening the Alaska refuge to oil companies.

I hope Congress enjoys their holiday in session, courtesy of Alaska’s blackmailing Sen. Ted Stevens.

UPDATE, UPDATE:
The League of Conservation Voters has just issued a press release praising Cantwell’s leadership:

“We applaud Sen. Maria Cantwell for successfully leading the fight to reject this shameful political attempt to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.Today’s vote to protect the Arctic represents the triumph of democracy over greed. Cynical attempts to hold hostage funds to support our troops, offer relief to hurricane ravaged states and warm the cold, old and poor in order to benefit a select few failed before our eyes.

“In addition, Sen. Cantwell’s ongoing efforts to prevent unneeded and dirty drilling in our pristine wilderness areas is another example of her commitment to fighting for Washington families and standing up to the big oil companies

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It could be a very Merry Christmas Happy Holidays indeed for federal prosecutors, who are now negotiating a plea bargain with Republican uber-lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for his cooperation.

Mr. Abramoff is believed to have extensive knowledge of what prosecutors suspect is a wider pattern of corruption among lawmakers and Congressional staff members. One participant in the case who insisted on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations described him as a “unique resource.”

Other people involved in the case or who have been officially briefed on it said the talks had reached a tense phase, with each side mindful of the date Jan. 9, when Mr. Abramoff is scheduled to stand trial in Miami in a separate prosecution.

What began as a limited inquiry into $82 million of Indian casino lobbying by Mr. Abramoff and his closest partner, Michael Scanlon, has broadened into a far-reaching corruption investigation of mainly Republican lawmakers and aides suspected of accepting favors in exchange for legislative work.
…
Prosecutors are also looking at how some former Congressional staff members landed their lucrative lobbying positions and at the role the wives of several lobbyists and lawmakers may have had in any influence scheme, a piece of the puzzle that investigators have begun referring to privately as the “wives’ club.”

There are a lot of very nervous people in nation’s Capitol this morning… and most of them have an “R” next to their name.