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The other Niger scandal

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Valerie Plame was outed as a CIA operative in retaliation for her husband publicly debunking the Bush administration lie that Iraq had attempted to obtain “yellow cake” uranium from Niger. But there’s another scandal involving Niger that has been getting much less press… the famine striking 2.5 million people, and the 150,000 children who could starve to death as a result.

Of course, droughts and locust plagues happen, so it’s not the famine that is the scandal, but rather the failure of the rest of the world to respond to it in a timely fashion. According to Jan Egeland, a top UN aid official, this tragedy was widely expected and months in the making, yet the international community acted slowly, if at all.

“Niger is the example of a neglected emergency, where early warnings went unheeded,” Mr Egeland told the BBC.
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“The world wakes up when we see images on the TV and when we see children dying.”

Well, if pictures of starving children in Niger are what it takes to get the world’s attention, here you go:

Starving child in Niger

I’m not sure what to do about this tragedy, but Doctors Without Borders has volunteers on the ground, and is taking donations.

Um… anybody wanna run for School Board?

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There’s a great job opening that offers long hours, zero pay, and frequent angry emails from the public. No, I’m not talking about blogging (though the description matches)… I’m talking about Seattle School Board. Unlike previous, hotly contested elections, two of three open seats are uncontested, and…

What stumps School Board observers is the District 5 seat, occupied by Mary Bass. Neither she nor anyone else has announced an intent to run.

So… are people really that satisfied with the performance of the Seattle Public Schools, or have we just given up all hope?

Don’t get me wrong, I love my neighborhood school, despite the constant funding shortfall and the apparent cluelessness of a distant, district administration. I come from a part of the country where urban school districts are often little more than holding pens for future prisoners. Compared to cities like Philadelphia and New York, Seattle schools are a paradise.

But that’s setting the bar awfully damn low.

We can do better, and that requires better, more creative leadership. So if you’re interested in running for school board, I’d be happy to hook you up with people who can provide some real campaign advice. But hurry up… the filing period opened this morning, and closes Friday at 4:30 pm.

What did the President know, and when did he know it?

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Some of the most illuminating writing on the outing of Valerie Plame and the ensuing cover-up, has come from NY Times columnist Frank Rich. This week he delves into the timeline of the scandal, and reveals that its first casualty may likely have been the Supreme Court ambitions of longtime Bush friend, Alberto Gonzales.

In the days following Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s retirement, the President’s vigorous defense of Gonzales, from attacks from both the right and the left, had many Washington insiders expecting the nomination of the nation’s first Hispanic justice. But as the conspiracy quickly unraveled over the past couple weeks, Gonzales’ own role in the scandal made the prospect of a confirmation hearing too much to handle for an already jittery White House.

As White House counsel, he was the one first notified that the Justice Department, at the request of the C.I.A., had opened an investigation into the outing of Joseph Wilson’s wife. That notification came at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2003, but it took Mr. Gonzales 12 more hours to inform the White House staff that it must “preserve all materials” relevant to the investigation. This 12-hour delay, he has said, was sanctioned by the Justice Department, but since the department was then run by John Ashcroft, a Bush loyalist who refused to recuse himself from the Plame case, inquiring Senate Democrats would examine this 12-hour delay as closely as an 18

Sunday afternoon outing

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Ken Vogel has a thoughtful piece in today’s Tacoma News Tribune, discussing the ethics of outing closeted gay politicians who actively oppose extending civil rights legislation to the gay community. The recent controversy was sparked by a letter WA state Sen. Ken Jacobsen sent to NY Times The Ethicist columnist Randy Cohen… and I freely admit that I have intentionally fanned the flames in my posts here on HA.

I was interviewed for the article, and Vogel quotes me accurately and in context. I stand by my comments.

David Goldstein, a liberal Seattle-based blogger, disagreed. He wrote on his blog, www.horsesass.org, that he’d consider outing a specific Republican state senator who opposed the gay rights bill if it would help pass the legislation next session.

That senator “should think twice before casting another hypocritical vote in opposition,” warned Goldstein’s post, which did not name the senator.

The post prompted a spirited debate among his readers in the comments field of his blog. Some accused him of blackmail or of practicing the type of intolerance advocates say the gay rights bill would outlaw.

Others asserted that aggressive politics by Republicans, mostly at the national level, justified outing gay Republican politicians at the state level.

But in interviews, Goldstein and Jacobsen said they’d rather not be involved in an outing

Costco versus Wal-Mart

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There was a great article in the NY Times this week on warehouse retailer Costco, and how its generous salaries and employee benefits have made it the “anti-Wal-Mart.” Costco shareholders enjoy one of the highest price-to-earnings ratios in the industry, but apparently, that’s not good enough for some investors.

Some Wall Street analysts assert that Mr. Sinegal is overly generous not only to Costco’s customers but to its workers as well.

Costco’s average pay, for example, is $17 an hour, 42 percent higher than its fiercest rival, Sam’s Club. And Costco’s health plan makes those at many other retailers look Scroogish. One analyst, Bill Dreher of Deutsche Bank, complained last year that at Costco “it’s better to be an employee or a customer than a shareholder.”

Mr. Sinegal begs to differ. He rejects Wall Street’s assumption that to succeed in discount retailing, companies must pay poorly and skimp on benefits, or must ratchet up prices to meet Wall Street’s profit demands.

Good wages and benefits are why Costco has extremely low rates of turnover and theft by employees, he said. And Costco’s customers, who are more affluent than other warehouse store shoppers, stay loyal because they like that low prices do not come at the workers’ expense. “This is not altruistic,” he said. “This is good business.”

Costco’s health plan includes extensive dental benefits, and part-time workers are eligible to join after just six months on the job, versus two years at Wal-Mart. As a result, 85% of Costco’s workers enjoy health insurance, compared to less than half of Wal-Mart employees. Costco also contributes generously to workers’ 401(k) plans, starting at 3% of salary after two years, and rising up to 9% after 25.

“When Jim talks to us about setting wages and benefits, he doesn’t want us to be better than everyone else, he wants us to be demonstrably better,” said John Matthews, Costco’s senior vice president for human resources.

The Wall Street response?

Emme Kozloff, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, faulted Mr. Sinegal as being too generous to employees, noting that when analysts complained that Costco’s workers were paying just 4 percent toward their health costs, he raised that percentage only to 8 percent, when the retail average is 25 percent.

“He has been too benevolent,” she said. “He’s right that a happy employee is a productive long-term employee, but he could force employees to pick up a little more of the burden.”

It is typical of the angry righties in my comment threads to fling accusations of communism and socialism when unable to formulate a more reasoned rebuttal, but of course, that’s just plain silly. (Debating Tip: the Cold War’s over.) I’ve worked for a number of start-ups, including one of my own, and embrace the entrepreneurial spirit that has built the U.S. into the greatest economic power in history. But I find our nation’s focus on maximizing short-term profits to be cruel, selfish, and in the long run… stupid.

The current winner-take-all attitude of many of our business leaders is not an essential part of a market economy… indeed, I have always believed that the best business transaction is one in which (gasp) both sides benefit. In my own business, I eventually tired of software retailers trying to screw me into one-sided co-op advertising deals, simply because they could. Longtime vendors would eagerly drive me into bankruptcy in a heartbeat if only I were stupid enough to sign the wrong deal — in the end, I pulled back from the consumer market because I refused to work with salespeople who I could never trust to treat me honestly and fairly. Hundreds of other small, independent developers pulled back, sold out, or gave up too, and as a result, the software catalogs are now a shadow of their former selves.

Happy customers are repeat customers. Happy employees are loyal, productive workers. And both are key ingredients to building a stabile, profitable business. Costco CEO Jim Sinegal clearly understands this.

“On Wall Street, they’re in the business of making money between now and next Thursday,” he said. “I don’t say that with any bitterness, but we can’t take that view. We want to build a company that will still be here 50 and 60 years from now.”

Hmmm. Personally, I hate the warehouse shopping experience, but it almost makes me want to renew my lapsed Costco membership.

Outing update

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The other day I explored the ethics of outing closeted gay and lesbian politicians who vocally and hypocritically oppose gay rights legislation. Wherever you stand on this issue (and I myself am ambivalent,) I think that in the current political and media climate, such outings are inevitable. There is at least one WA legislator for whom the rumors appear well supported and widely known, and it should come as no surprise if some blogger or gay rights activist — or even a fellow legislator — were to publicly reveal his or her secret life.

Under these circumstances, I do not think the MSM could resist covering the ensuing controversy. Any hint of scandal is good for the business, and once the story breaks, extended coverage can easily be rationalized, if not entirely justified. After all, when a politician makes a career out of appealing to family values conservatives, it is hard to argue that his or her non-traditional lifestyle is not germane to the public debate. Voters have a right to know when their elected officials fail to walk the talk, and journalists have the responsibility to inform them.

Indeed, there seems to be growing media interest in the issue. The day after I addressed the subject, Danny Westneat devoted his Seattle Times column to Sen. Ken Jacobsen’s letter to The Ethicist. I have since been contacted by other journalists, interested in discussing the broader ethical issues, and/or the specific rumors themselves. I refused to name names, but my sense is that I don’t have to. The Legislature is likely to have another openly gay member by the start of the next session… if reluctantly so.

For those of you who strongly believe that a person’s private life should remain private, and that sexual orientation should not leave one vulnerable at the polls, I absolutely agree. But then, neither should sexual orientation leave one vulnerable to discrimination in employment, housing, finance and insurance. One would think that politicians who find it necessary to hide their sexual orientation in order to win public office, would be more sensitive to the need to protect others from similar discrimination.

Oregon speaker kills civil unions bill

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Washington isn’t the only state where Republican lawmakers are playing politics with the civil rights of the gay community. As Carla reports on Preemptive Karma, Oregon House Speaker Karen Minnis has gutted a civil union bill, effectively killing it for the current session.

The problem isn’t really that Minnis thinks civil unions are too much like marriage. The problem is that Minnis is hungering for higher office. Achieving higher office in Oregon requires getting through a primary. Republican primaries have lately been won by ultra conservatives…who find themselves on the losing end of a moderate to liberal Democrat.

The moral to this story? Don’t rely on Karen Minnis if you’re looking for good public policy in the State of Oregon. However if you’re looking for an individual willing to sell Oregonians down the river in an attempt to get to a higher office, Minnis is your girl.

Civil union is not marriage… it merely extends to committed, unmarried couples (gay or straight) some of the same legal rights and benefits taken for granted by married couples. It is a legal contract, nothing more, that deals with everyday issues like child custody, medical visitation and decisions, inheritance and more. It doesn’t “sanctify” anything.

And if it were not for Minnis’ cynical parliamentary maneuvers, it would likely pass the Oregon legislature. There is no sound public policy rationale for denying couples these basic legal rights… that the Oregon speaker would scuttle this bill so as to curry favor with a gay-bashing minority in her own party, is both disappointing and disgusting. And as Carla suggests, it will only hurt Republicans in the long run.

Note to self: never lie to special prosecutors

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Did Karl Rove and Scooter Libby lie to the grand jury?

Two top White House aides have given accounts to a special prosecutor about how reporters first told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to people familiar with the case.
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These discrepancies may be important because Fitzgerald is investigating whether Libby, Rove or other administration officials made false statements during the course of the investigation.

So of course, the big question on everybody’s mind… if Rove and Libby share a jail cell, which one will be the bitch?

Shameless self-promotion, Part II

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As it turns out, there’s another bogus “best of” poll going on, the NWsource “People’s Picks”, and tomorrow, July 22 is the last day to vote. So if you feel like it, why not click on the link, select the “Blog” category (under “Entertainment & Nightlife” for some reason,) and vote for HorsesAss.org. (But whatever you do, don’t repeatedly erase your cookie and vote again. That would be dishonest.)

GOP leaders piss on WA grassroots

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While GOPolitburo Chair Chris Vance was anointing Mike McGavick’s brow with oil, the party faithful were not necessarily celebrating his unchallenged ascension to thrown of presumptive nominee. Indeed, according to an article in The Hill, there’s not much rank-and-file consensus over the “consensus candidate” to challenge US Senator Maria Cantwell. [GOP grassroots say they’re getting mowed down in Washington state]

Conservative activists in Washington state say GOP leaders in the nation’s capital and at state party headquarters are trying to anoint a candidate, sidelining the poll workers, phone-bank volunteers and precinct canvassers who form the backbone of the Republican Party

Off the Wahl

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National Attention Deficit

I am pleased to announce that I have worked out an arrangement to post the work of Andrew Wahl, the editorial cartoonist for the Wenatchee World. The arrangement is this: he has granted me non-exclusive rights to select from his portfolio of cartoons on national and local issues, and in return… I pay him absolutely nothing. Works for me.

Sometimes I’ll post his cartoons on their own, sometimes to illustrate a longer post… I’m not really sure. But I thought I’d lead off with one from a couple weeks ago, which I found particularly amusing… and disturbing. It’s also a touch timely again, what with more explosions today in London.

“(S)” is for “secret”

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Gee, that quickie of a Supreme Court appointment really did a great job knocking “Rove-gate” out of the headlines, huh? Washington Post, page one, top of the fold:

A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked “(S)” for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.
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The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the “secret” level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as “secret” the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.

Hmm. I wonder who leaked this memo to the WaPo? Kos has a suggestion:

It’s the CIA. Funny how those guys don’t like their covers blown.

Why is Rob McKenna persecuting Julie Anne Kempf?

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I have sat by quietly over the past couple weeks as our friend Stefan over at (un)Sound Politics has tried to spin the tribulations of former King County Superintendent of Elections Julie Anne Kempf into some sort of Democratic conspiracy to silence a whistle blower. I have had several pleasant emails with Julie on unrelated subjects, and did not want to add on to her troubles. But when Stefan starts making his Zimbabwe comparisons again, he goes too far… and so I just can’t resist pointing out his intellectual dishonesty (or laziness… your pick.)

Stefan, who has previously slurred King County Executive Ron Sims by calling him “the Robert Mugabe of Washington politics” (thus comparing the most powerful African American elected official in the state to a brutal, African dictator), is now accusing Sims and Elections Director Dean Logan of having Kempf arrested on “trumped up” charges.

It appears that Kempf’s “arrest” … may have been timed to deflect from the bad news that the truly independent members of the task force are about to deliver.

Um… “trumped up” and “timed” by whom? Investigations like this are normally conducted by the Sheriff’s office under the direction of the County Prosecutor… but Prosecutor Norm Maleng (a Republican) was so concerned about any perceived conflict of interest, that he passed on control of the investigation to state Attorney General Rob McKenna (an uber-Republican.) So for this to be a conspiracy, you’d have to believe McKenna is now going around arresting innocents to protect his pals Ron and Dean.

Yeah… like that’s gonna happen.

The real question is, why is Stefan going out of his way to champion a long time Democratic operative? Why? Because during the election contest she refuted statements and assertions made by King County Elections officials… and Stefan finds that rhetorically useful. This is all about trying to impugn Sims and Logan at whatever cost… even the truth.

To imply that Ron Sims is behaving like an African dictator — arresting innocent people for political ends — is not only shameless and disgusting… given the facts, it’s totally nuts. And nobody but a hardcore, whacko nut-case should believe it.

Primaries are secondary when choosing good candidates

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I don’t often agree with the Seattle Times editorial board, but today’s editorial, “Try again to save Washington’s primary“… well… I don’t agree with that either. On the other hand, the guest column by regular Times contributor Floyd J. McKay, pretty much hits the issue right on the button: “It’s time for state’s voters to move on — to Montana.”

The Times once again pines for the days of the blanket primary, a nominating system whose special place in the hearts of WA voters is derived, as far as I can tell, from the fact that that’s the way we’ve always done it.

Zilly’s ruling is another defeat for voters who want to choose among the best candidates, not between partisan extremes. Last year, the state Legislature approved a top-two primary to replace the blanket primary.

But former Gov. Gary Locke gutted it with a veto, leaving in place a primary where voters had to pick a partisan ballot for the first time in almost 70 years.

Voters disliked it so much, they approved the top-two primary initiative. But the state’s major political parties sued to seize the people’s primary for their own partisan ends.

Um… the state’s major political parties sued in federal court, and the top-two was ruled unconstitutional. The Times thinks Judge Zilly should not have the final word, and perhaps he won’t. In an interview on KUOW this afternoon, Assistant Secretary of State Steve Excell said the Montana primary will be used this fall, but that the ruling would likely be appealed. He sounded pretty passionate about it too.

Sure. Whatever. Change can be uncomfortable. But as McKay wisely points out in his column, “tradition is wonderful, but sometimes you just have to move on.”

I’ve never quite understood why some people get so angry at the thought of voting a partisan ballot in a partisan primary; it seems far from the greatest threat to our democracy. McKay agrees that it is the electorate, not the system, that determines the quality of our elected officials, and if we want better politicians then we all have to get more involved. He also zeros in on a truly worrisome trend:

Perhaps the most disturbing electoral development in Washington in the past few years is not the endless primary battle but the extent to which party leaders and bankrollers want to control the nomination process.

Saturday’s paper, announcing Judge Zilly’s ruling, also contained the news that Dino Rossi is out of the Republican race for U.S. Senate next year, and Safeco CEO Mike McGavick is “the first choice of party leaders.”

That’s fine; McGavick looks like an excellent candidate and party leaders certainly have the right to express an opinion. But what happened in the gubernatorial and Senate races in 2004 was wrong

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