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In his commentary this morning on Weekend Edition, NPR news analyst Daniel Schorr highlighted a fact that has been glossed over by the Bush Administration in its push for private accounts: one-third of Social Security beneficiaries are not retirees… and many of them are children.

Social Security is more than just an old-age pension fund, it is a family insurance program… the primary, if not only source of support preventing low income families from falling into poverty. Citing statistics from the National Center for Children in Poverty, Schorr points out that Social Security is in fact the largest children’s program America has:

• One in 15 beneficiaries of Social Security is a child under 18
  

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A couple days ago KING-5 sent a camera to my house to interview me for this Sunday’s edition of “Up Front With Robert Mak.” I was told the subject was blogging, and I assume I’ll be on the show, though I caught a promo last night that featured a shadowy shot of Stefan at his computer, so who knows how much. It’ll air Sunday on KING-5 at 4:30 PM, and again on KONG-16 at 10:30 PM.

Anyway, I’ve got a dirty little secret to tell, that I’m not sure I shared on camera… I don’t really read the blogs all that much. In fact, before I started blogging myself, I hardly read them at all. My main reason for turning HorsesAss.org into a blog was to force myself to write every day. (Be careful what you wish for.) Nobody was more surprised than me that HA developed such a large audience so quickly.

So I feel a little weird being presented on TV as the voice of liberal blogging in WA state, when I’m really such a newcomer to the blogosphere.

Fortunately, many of my readers are old hands, and they’re constantly pointing me towards good stuff that I otherwise might miss. For example, several readers have pointed me towards Balloon Juice, a conservative blog that has responded to the Schiavo Memo controversy and other current events with some serious introspection.

What I see going on around me is that my party is in power. We control the Presidency. We control the House and the Senate. Republican appointees outnumber Democratic ones on the Supreme Court, and we are poised to add more. We own talk radio. Cable news tends to be neutral to conservative (it certainly is not liberal or progressive- some outfits may have anti-Republican reflexes). We have all but eliminated partisan debate in congress, playing by rules much tougher than anything that was in place. Where there were once no conservative (or few) newspapers, there are now several. We have numerous conservative online journals. Hundreds of publications that all push the same point and pass on the same message.

And it still isn’t enough. Everything is under attack if it does not toe the same hard-right line. The university, the institution of marriage, journalism as an enterprise, the medical community, the legal community, every foreign institution, the United Nations- anything, that doesn’t cater to the conservative need for instant gratification in the form of message adherence and submission to the new doctronaire must be destroyed. Look at the recent behavior of Republicans in Congress towards REPUBLICAN APPOINTED CONSERVATIVE JUDGES. Forget ‘screw me once, shame on you.’ This new breed of fanatacism is “Slight me in any discernable way, even a mild disagreement, and I will publicly destroy you.”

Well, that’s the excerpt that seems to be getting the most interest from my fellow liberals, and I think it speaks for itself without further comment. But I’d also like to draw your attention to another sentiment that I think is too often overlooked by bloggers on both sides of the ideological divide. (You know… the few I actually bother to read.)

…most people who read blogs understand that this medium is by nature personal, opinionated, and partisan, and as such, each blogger should be read with the level of credibility they deserve.

Hate to sound like a broken record, but when it comes to blogging, caveat emptor.

G.O.P. Consultant’s Marriage Is a Gay One

Tom DeLay. (That should start things off.)

So, what’s my response to the recent events surrounding last November’s contested gubernatorial election?

Big whoops.

I’ve already discussed the 93 absentee ballots discovered amidst trays of empty envelopes. Sloppy work to be sure, but let’s have some perspective: that’s 93 out of over a half-million absentee ballots. And while more of these ballots came from pro-Rossi precincts than from pro-Gregoire (59 to 32), a proportional analysis would only give Rossi a pick-up of about four votes. Hardly grounds for setting aside the election.

And so I was a bit surprised to see former U.S. Sen. Slade Gorton, suddenly coming forth to put an ugly face on what has already been an incredibly uglier and mean propaganda campaign. Slade the Blade is also a lawyer — a former State Attorney General — and thus you’d think he’d be embarrassed to use such flimsy and inconsequential evidence as these 93 ballots as the basis for asking the U.S. Justice Department to launch a criminal investigation… and to do so with such reprehensible and over-the-top rhetoric.

The mistake could have been fraud or “colossal incompetence,” he said.

“I think it’s appropriate to come to the conclusion that King County has the worst election administration in any county in the United States of America

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I was going to blog about all those election “bombshells” and stuff, but it’s late, I’m tired, and I’ve got too much to say. So I’m going to bed, and I’ll finish my rant in the morning.

In the meanwhile I’d just like to briefly follow up on the cowardly parliamentary maneuver by a couple of conservative Democrats — and all 23 Republican state senators — to avoid a floor vote on HB 1515, a bill that would have added “sexual orientation” to our anti-discrimination laws. They don’t want to go on the record voting for the bill, because that would offend their Dominionist constituencies. But they don’t want to go on the record voting against the bill, because that would look like they endorse discriminating against gays and lesbians. So political chicken-shits that they are, the Republican caucus did what it has done in past years… avoided a floor vote entirely.

Yesterday’s satirical commentary apparently went over the heads of some of my readers, so I want to make it absolutely clear that I was only joking when I said that “Sen. Hargrove and I have secretly been lovers for well over a decade.” A more accurate description would be “casual fuck-buddies.”

But perhaps my irreverent approach isn’t for everybody, so I’d like to point you to a very straight editorial supporting HB 1515, from the very straight Seattle Times: “A simple question about gay rights.”

The bill is not about gay marriage. It does not confer special rights on gays and lesbians.
…
Senate Republicans and sidekicks Hargrove and Sheldon ought to stop playing games with a serious topic. Passage of HB 1515 is way overdue.

Can’t get much more straight forward or straight shooting than that. And if you’re looking for another serious-minded discussion of the topic, link on over to Orcinus, where Dave Neiwert challenges Republican claims that homosexuality is a “chosen behavior,” taking the argument to its logical conclusion, that we should also permit discrimination against “creed”… a chosen behavior if I ever saw one.

The point is, there are are gay people, and they are discriminated against. The Times says that this is a simple question about gay rights, and as I see it, the question is: “Why do we allow this discrimination to continue?”

I strongly believe that the intimate details of a politician’s personal life should have absolutely no place in the public debate… unless that politician acts so hypocritically as to make these details relevant.

I have reluctantly concluded that such is the case with State Sen. Jim Hargrove (D-Hoquiam), one of the ringleaders of a procedural move to keep the Senate from voting on HB 1515. By siding with all 23 senate Republicans, Hargrove has cynically blocked a bill that would have added sexual orientation to Washington’s anti-discrimination law… an indefensible display of legislative bias that effectively endorses discrimination against gays and lesbians.

I direct you to OlyScoop for excellent coverage of this bill, and the cowardly parliamentary maneuver used to kill it. But I feel compelled to express my personal disgust at this incident, in light of the fact that Sen. Hargrove and I have secretly been lovers for well over a decade.

Yes, underneath that harsh, conservative exterior, Jim (or “Sen. Hardgrove” as he likes me to call him) is as gay as the day is long. Thus his opposition to HB 1515 is at least as surprising as that of his fellow conservative Democrat, Sen. Tim Sheldon (D-Potlatch), an openly practicing homosexual with whom I have also carried on a torrid and passionate affair.

Coincidentally, I have also slept with Sen. Luke Esser (R-Bellevue) who initiated the parliamentary maneuver. Come to think of it, there isn’t a member of the Senate Republican caucus, male or female, with whom I have not had homosexual relations at one time or another.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: In light of the apparent failure of HB 1515, I would like to make clear to any potential, future employers, lenders or landlords, that despite my occasional indiscretions with cross-dressing, conservative lawmakers, I am not gay. But who can resist the exotic allure of a man in drag… especially the always yummy Sen. Pam Roach?]

Sen. Hardgrove and I rarely see eye-to-eye. But later, after we’ve showered and dressed, we can usually discuss politics in a civil and constructive manner. Thus I find it hard to understand why he would vote to allow himself to be subject to discrimination, simply because some people, for some reason, might suspect him of being gay? I feel bad about outing Jim, Tim, Luke and their queer colleagues in the Senate Republican caucus (or as the Capitol press corps jokingly calls them, the “Olympia Men’s Chorus,”) but I thought that if they were forced to acknowledge a tiniest bit of the fear, hatred, and ridicule routinely targeted at gays and lesbians, they might not be so quick to allow and endorse the kind of discrimination in employment, housing, lending and insurance that occurs every day.

Hey… remember that controversial memo that made the rounds of Republican lawmakers, touting the Schiavo controversy as “a great political issue” that would excite “the pro-life base”…? And remember how right-wing bloggers immediately went about “proving” that it was a forgery, claiming that it was Democratic dirty trick? And remember how the usual suspects and their unblinking followers were so quick to take the bloggers’ debunking as gospel, with the American Spectator going so far as to call it “Rathergate all over again,” and Rush Limbaugh accusing Democrats of politicizing Terri Schiavo?

Yeah, well… eat me, Rush!

Senator Mel Martinez, Republican of Florida, said Wednesday that a senior member of his staff had written an unsigned memorandum about the partisan political advantages of intervening in the case of Terri Schiavo that became a controversial footnote to the debate over the wisdom and motives of Congress’s actions.

In a statement on Wednesday night, Mr. Martinez said that he had just learned that the memorandum originated in his office and that its author had resigned. He did not name the author, but aides said it was Brian Darling, his counsel.

So reports the New York Times.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say again: us bloggers… we have an agenda. And anybody who naively relies on the blogosphere for their news, because they somehow believe we are more accurate, honest and unbiased… is fucking idiot. We’re not better than the mainstream media… we’re just different.

Caveat emptor.

I am unapologetic for expending so many pixels on the admittedly tedious topic of taxation, but in doing so I am afraid that I may have given short shrift to the other hobgoblin of conservative politics: regulation. It might be fair to say that right-wing apparatchiks from the EFF and BIAW are even more anti-regulatory than they are anti-tax.

And so I would like to call your attention to a news item that illustrates both the need for regulation, and the fine work of individual regulators. Evergreen International, one of the world’s largest shipping lines, has pleaded guilty to more than two dozen criminal counts of illegally dumping oil, altering records and obstructing Coast Guard investigations, and has been fined $25 million. The plot was uncovered by the keen eye of a regulator from the Washington Department of Ecology.

Amid the crazy-quilt tangle of pipes and machinery in the cargo ship’s engine room, the inspector’s attention was drawn to two bolts — two bolts among hundreds.

The paint was missing.

That sharp-eyed scrutiny by a Washington Department of Ecology inspector triggered a chain of events that culminated yesterday in one of the largest fines ever imposed on a company that deliberately polluted the ocean.

The investigation followed a 500 gallon oil spill in the Columbia River; a nationwide inquiry revealed falsified logbooks, and a three year, company-wide practice of illegally discharging waste oil into local and international waters. And it would still be going on today, if not for the work of WA Dept. of Ecology inspector Dodge Kenyon.

That’s right, this was the work of a state government employee, regulating private industry. You know… the kind of employee right-wingers usually denounce as a bloated leach, and the kind of regulations commonly railed against as an unreasonable economic hardship. (This was also a fine example of your tax dollars at work.)

There is a world view perpetrated by some on the right, where captains of industry should always be trusted and honored, while our elected officials should not… where regulatory agencies spring fully formed from the cunning minds of labor unions, eager to create cushy, make-work jobs for their members, while simultaneously harassing businesses owners and screwing the taxpayers, if only for sport.

But this libertarian fantasy is just that. In the real world, the competitive pressures of the market place often tempt businesses to choose profit or convenience over ethics, with such transgressions quickly becoming industry practice as competitors struggle to adapt or die. An unregulated market is thus a surefire path towards the tragedy of the commons.

And so when right-wingers decry overbearing regulations and wasteful public employees, as if all regulatory agencies are overbearing and wasteful, it is important to remember that there is no such thing as a free market, and that the costs of maintaining our regulations are often far less than the costs of the chaos that would occur without them. It is fashionable to balk at the expense of the kind of modern government our modern economy demands, but this neo-con chic purposely ignores the myriad of government regulations and workers who invisibly labor to keep our waters clean, our food safe, and our homes, offices and bridges from falling down around us… not to mention the many other public services on which our economy and civil society depend.

$12 billion a year is a lot of money, and surely the state could raise it fairer and spend it wiser. But the anti-tax/anti-regulatory forces are not proponents of incremental change; their goal is to starve the beast, as Grover Nordquist says, to the point were government is small enough to “drown it in a bathtub.”

One of the fundamental differences between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats like me genuinely believe in government. And when I see public employees like Dodge Kenyon preventing a multinational corporation from clogging the Columbia River with oily sludge, my faith in government is rewarded.

As I’m sure you have now all been made aware by the 24/7 media coverage, Prince Rainier of Monaco tragically died yesterday at the age of 81. Flipping through the channels this morning, it seemed every network had preempted their regular programming to cover the death of this much beloved monarch — except, ironically, for FCDN (the Fox Celebrity Death Network) which for some reason was showing a documentary on Vince Foster. Even PBS Kids got into the act by rerunning a classic episode of Arthur, in which Prince Ranier helps Muffy set up a charity casino night at Elwood Elementary School.

World leaders are rearranging their schedules to attend the fallen monarch’s funeral this Friday. I think President Bush summed up our national grief best when he said, “Who could not help touch the man, or be touched by him? It’s sad… sad work.” With public sentiment like this, we should expect wall-to-wall media coverage to continue for days to come, pushing all other news off the air, and out of the newspapers.

FYI, I’ve heard a rumor that the Pope died. Great man with a complicated legacy. If anybody has any further details on his death, please forward me a link.

I don’t generally read Liz Taylor’s “Growing Older” column in the Seattle Times, which she describes as intended for middle-aged and older people who are concerned about the needs of their aging parents, and themselves. I guess I should read it, because a) I am growing older, and b) this week’s column puts a human dimension on the tax debate, in a way our typically more wonkish discussions never can. [State’s broken tax system means society is worse off]

Liz starts by saying that nobody likes to pay taxes, but…

Growing up in the 1950s and ’60s, I remember my mom saying we did it for the common good: good schools, police and fire protection, clean water and decent roads. Even people without children pay taxes for schools, she said

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Chelan County Superior Court Judge John Bridges has set a May 23 trial date for Dino Rossi’s challenge of the 2004 gubernatorial election. The trial will last two weeks.

He denied the Democrats request to wait six months. Well… you can’t blame their lawyers for trying.

UPDATE:
I had a brief email chat with Lawyer X, who filled me in on some of the details. Rossi’s attorneys must “lock their claims” and disclose all their witnesses by April 15; the Democrats have until May 6. On May 2, the judge will rule on whether the Republicans can use their proportional analysis method to prove their case.

Lawyer X also points out that Judge Bridges set a two week trial time, so as to reserve time for the Republicans to prove how each voter voted. That would suggest that he certainly hasn’t accepted proportional analysis, at least as of the moment.

Drinking Liberally meets again tonight (and every Tuesday) at 8pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Ave. E., and author David Neiwert of the blog Orcinus will be there to discuss his books, old and new. David has written about hate-crime policy, the roots of the Northwest’s “Patriot” movement, and most recently, Bellevue’s Japanese-American community that was destroyed by WWII interment.

I may be a little late, but I definitely plan to attend.

UPDATE:
Great turnout last night, and even greater conversation of with Dave Neiwert. As I emailed him afterwards, I’m going to have to start reading his books, instead of just reading about them.

I also had the opportunity to meet prolific HA commentator Dubyasux, and a couple unknown lurkers. Good beer, good conversation.

We spend an awful lot of time in the comment threads here on HA arguing about taxes. And at the heart of most of the antitax sentiment is the unchallenged assumption that taxes are bad for the economy.

There’s just one problem, though. Despite the widespread notion that taxes harm the economy, no one has actually been able to back that up. It’s not that taxes have no effect; they are a major part of the American economic system and affect planning and behavior in many ways. Taxes influence who wins and who loses in a competitive society. But over all, there is surprisingly little evidence that tax rates are an important factor in determining the nation’s economic prosperity.

Anna Bernasek writing in the New York Times explores the notion that taxes are bad for the economy, and discovers that it is exactly that: “a notion not backed by strong evidence.” The economic theory is that taxes have a negative effect on behavior by reducing the incentive to do whatever is taxed.

That’s the theory, anyway. In practice, how many Americans will work less if their taxes rise? With mortgage bills, college tuition and car payments looming, who can afford to work less? Relatively few have the option of cutting back without risking the loss of their jobs.

So just because taxes can discourage productive behavior doesn’t mean that they do. Too many other factors are involved – like social pressures, financial needs and a job market that isn’t entirely flexible.

And then there’s the evidence. Over the last 30 years, economists have undertaken hundreds of studies to determine whether taxes hurt the economy. So far, they’ve turned up little to convict taxes of the charge. After reviewing the literature on the topic in 1993, two economists, William Easterly of New York University and Sergio Rebelo of Northwestern, concluded in a joint paper that “the evidence that tax rates matter for growth is disturbingly fragile.”

As it turns out, history shows that throughout the 20th century, in the U.S. and other developed nations, a rising tax burden goes hand in hand with rising prosperity. In fact, between 1950 and 2002, the strongest productivity growth actually occurred when the top tax rates were the highest. And on average, the highest taxed countries are also the most affluent.

Nobody is making the case that high tax rates are a recipe for growth, although certainly the things taxes pay for — public investment in education, research, health and infrastructure — are essential to a prosperous and stable economy.

But as we continue to discuss tax reform in Washington state it is important to do so without being hindered by unscientific assumptions… no matter how intuitive they might at first appear. Taxes are not antithetical to prosperity. And we shouldn’t structure our tax system or our government based on a notion that experience simply doesn’t back up.

King County Councilmember Raymond Shaw Reagan Dunn (R-Manchuria) sent a letter yesterday to Elections Director Dean Logan:

I am asking that you resign your post and give over the operation of your department to someone who will be better able to manage it, who will be more forthright in admitting mistakes, and who will have the trust and confidence of the people.

Hmmm. I nominate Shaw Dunn for the job. After all, his qualifications to be Elections Director are at least as impressive as his qualifications to sit on the county council, which last I checked consisted of the following extensive resume:

“Mommy.”

Shaw Dunn accuses Logan of mismanagement, but really… how the fuck would he know? As far as I can see, the only thing Shaw Dunn has ever managed, is to get appointed to a series of federal jobs on the strength of his mother’s political connections and reputation.

Yeah, I know… I know… I should show more respect for our elected officials… but oh wait… his mommy had him appointed to the King County Council too!

So Shaw Dunn, who has never run anything in his life (not even a campaign for the office he’s held for little more than a month,) is suddenly an expert at running county elections… you know, the way Daniel Snyder is an expert at running football teams. And like Snyder, Shaw’s Dunn’s first and only solution is to fire the coach, turning King County Elections into the bureaucratic equivalent of the Washington Redskins.

As Adams County Auditor Nancy McBroom told me, “it’s hard to wave your wand or twitch your nose and fix everything at one time.” But I guess it’s even harder to show a little patience when you’re accustomed to mommy giving you everything you want.

(Deep breath.)

I apologize for getting so personal (well… sort of) but I really find Shaw’s Dunn’s letter to be downright offensive, accusing Logan of a “cover-up” without ever alleging what exactly it is that Logan is trying to cover up. Shaw Dunn attacks Logan for not informing the council sooner about the “87” additional absentee ballots found by staff during a seven-day search through approximately 375 archival boxes of over 565,000 absentee envelopes, ignoring Logan’s explanation that he was waiting to release the information until after the search was completed.

“Otherwise, experience has shown that the story will indicate a number, and a follow-up story will claim the county was incomplete in its process and disclosure,” [Logan] said in an e-mail. “The public interest is best served by assuring an open, thorough and complete accounting. That will be done.”

As it turns out, there were 93 unopened absentee envelopes, not the 87 that Shaw Dunn prematurely alleged. And as predicted, the predictable folks over at (un)Sound Politics quickly ridiculed the changing numbers.

I’d say this is all the worst sort of political grandstanding, but that honor probably belongs to the other letter Dunn sent out yesterday… this one to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, requesting a federal investigation of the 2004 election.

Whatever.

You can be sure he’ll get his investigation (you don’t think he’d have made the request public if mommy hadn’t already arranged it,) and I say bring it on. And when its all over, and the feds don’t find a scrap of evidence suggesting corruption, I’ll be the first one demanding that Shaw Dunn send another letter to Logan. An apology.

SPECIAL BONUS: Separated at birth?