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As any regular reader here knows, one of my favorite subjects is the intersection between the war on drugs and the war on terror. And as we now get sucked into the lawlessness of Yemen, it provides another subject matter. Qat (also spelled ‘khat’) – a plant that can be chewed for its stimulant effects – is extremely popular in Yemen, among all strata of their society from rural villagers to government officials. I’ve even read one report out of Yemen that much of the country shuts down in the early afternoon as many people use qat as a daily ritual. I’m not sure how much of an exaggeration that is, but it’s safe to say that chewing qat is a fairly significant part of daily life in that country.

Here in the United States however, and even here in Seattle, qat is an illegal substance. This has caused a significant backlash from this area’s Somali immigrants, who feel they should have the right to partake in a custom that was commonplace in their homeland and does not harm others.

With that in mind, I noticed this passage from a blog specifically devoted to dealing with Yemen:

The US must be much more active in presenting its views to the Yemeni public. This does not mean giving interviews to the Yemen Observer or the Yemen Times or even al-Hurra, which is at least in Arabic. It means writing and placing op-eds in Arabic in widely read Yemeni newspapers like al-Thawra. I detailed a golden opportunity that the US missed with the Shaykh Muhammad al-Mu’ayyad case in August in a report I wrote for the CTC Sentinel (which is available on the sidebar). This also means allowing US diplomats to go to qat chews in Yemen – and even, perish the thought, chew qat with Yemenis. The US should be honest about what qat is and what it does and not hide behind antiquated rules that penalize a version of the stimulant that does not exist in Yemen. Whether or not the US knows it, it is engaged in a propaganda war with al-Qaeda in Yemen and it is losing and losing badly. US public diplomacy is all defense and no offense in Yemen, this has to change or the results of the past few years will remain the roadmap for the future. And that future will witness an increasingly strong al-Qaeda presence in Yemen.

As we’ve already seen in Afghanistan, an overzealous drug war can severely undermine attempts to combat Islamic radicalism when we’re not realistic about both cultural differences and economic realities when it comes to drugs. It’s definitely something to keep an eye on in Yemen because if we deal with qat there the way we’ve been dealing with it here, it has the potential to really blow up in our face.

Back in November, I posted the following:

Remember the big push a few years back after the Terri Schiavo mess to encourage people to have a living will for such situations? If you were one of the people who did that, make sure you avoid Catholic health care institutions as they’ve been ordered by the United States Council of Catholic Bishops to ignore people’s wishes and keep patients alive regardless of the circumstance.

When I posted this, I didn’t think it was too terribly daring a thing to post about (although I certainly could have been more specific about the relevant circumstances, which are fairly rare), but for Joel Connelly of the Seattle PI, it apparently struck a nerve, as he left this comment for me:

Would you please spare us your anti-Catholic bigotry? It was disgusting during the I-2000 [sic] campaign. It is despicable now.
A simple call to Providence administrators, or the boss up at St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham, would have given you honest material with which to work. You could have asked about living wills — in which a person’s wishes get laid out — which are strongly encouraged.
You could have asked about the provision for hospice care, available to everyone regardless of ability to pay.
Or you could have delved into what they’d do in the case of a patient wishing to exercise his/her “right” to end life.
Instead, we get an ignorant screech.
Apparently, on Horsesass.org, one form of religious prejudice is not only acceptable but encouraged.

After reading this, I was genuinely worried that the folks at Compassion and Choices might have overstated their case and that maybe I was being a little too harsh in my post. So I tried to contact a number of local Catholic hospitals via email asking if Connelly was right and that they would refuse the directive that C&C was referencing, but I got nothing back. Then I contacted Connelly directly to see if he could point me to a facility who would “give me honest material with which to work”. Oddly, when I did this, Connelly sent me the name of a hospital administrator to contact, then started walking back his claims after I posted an update to HorsesAss.

By this point, though, I was already starting to become well aware that Connelly was full of shit. In fact, the hospital administrator whose name he gave me wasn’t the only name he passed along. He also sent me the name of a hospital administrator in Canada, despite the fact that this directive was from the United States Council of Catholic Bishops. Connelly apparently knew nothing about the updated directive or the legal and ethical issues involved and simply didn’t care. As far as I can tell, he just assumed that Compassion and Choices was full of it because he doesn’t like them. And he was confident enough about this blind assertion to call me a bigot over it.

Barbara Coombs Lee from Compassion and Choices, however, does know what she’s talking about and does understand the issues involved here. Her latest post details more of the legal and ethical issues behind this decree and points to this article, which quotes from someone a bit more qualified than Connelly:

Alan Meisel, founder and director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Bioethics and Health Law, wonders if Catholic hospitals could be compelled by law to respect patients’ advance directives, regardless of the Church’s moral stance. He says it is not clear whether the legally binding power of an advance directive would outweigh the Church’s right to administer medicine in accordance with its beliefs.

…

“[If] the hospital seeks to impose a treatment on a patient which that person does not want, to impose that treatment is battery,” he says,but adds a caveat: “One could say since you’ve admitted yourself to a Catholic hospital, that’s a form of consent.

“If I were a patient with a directive,” he continues, “I would probably add to it that I didn’t want to be taken to a Catholic hospital.”

I’m sure Joel Connelly will get his typewriter out now and send Meisel a little note informing him that he needs to spare us all his anti-Catholic bigotry.

UPDATE: In somewhat related news, the Montana Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that legalizes death with dignity in that state.

Sometimes you find stuff out pretty much because of who you happen to know. In this case, the “strange case” of one Canopy Financial, Inc., which dealt in health savings accounts (HSA’s,) is made known to me because another Clark County blogger is among the victims of alleged financial fraud involving Canopy’s health care savings accounts. From Politics is a Blood Sport:

HSA’s were once touted as the market oriented solution to putting the consumer in charge of health care decisions. You see, in libertarian-land, the consumer would have more skin in the game since it was their pre-tax dollars combined with a high deductible insurance policy, and would thus magically drive down prices. And since the individual insurance market is broken anyway, why not get some tax benefit being self-employed?

Instead, what we’re left with is the CEO class absconding with the funds, both from investors and HSA account holders. In Canopy’s letter to me they “deeply regret this development”. Well, they’re going to deeply regret messing with the thousands of HSA account holders after all is said and done. Eventually, Canopy Financial’s insurance will have to foot the bill, but that’s probably months away. In the meantime, it’s time to raise a ruckus, with a class action lawsuit.

The mind boggles at the outright theft. From Dow Jones Venture Wire:

Venture-backed Canopy saw its once-positive reputation come crashing down after it was discovered in early November that a KPMG audit of the company was falsified. That discovery led the Securities and Exchange Commission to file a fraud suit against the company, naming only President and Chief Operating Officer Jeremy Blackburn, who is also the subject of criminal charges. The Chicago-based company has also let go most of its 100-plus member staff and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company’s downfall followed about $75 million in equity investments through Foundation Capital, GGV Capital and Spectrum Equity Investors.

In its recorded statement to customers, Canopy didn’t state a reason how these funds could have disappeared.

“All of the funds for these savings accounts were supposed to be held in custodial bank accounts. We regret to inform you that most or all of the funds were misappropriated from the bank accounts and are now missing,” Canopy said. “As a result, Canopy can no longer process customer transactions for the health savings accounts maintained through these providers or the health savings accounts maintained by Canopy for its Wellfund customers. At present, all of these accounts have been frozen.”

Canopy states that the affected health savings account holders will be listed as creditors in its bankruptcy case, while the company cannot offer immediate access to those funds.

So even while we’re debating whether the current health care “reform” proposals deserve to become law, we’re seeing that previous laws crafted by the very same industry lobbyists have, in this case, resulted in outright theft.

While Chris Bassett of Politics is a Blood Sport has already received some inquiries from other consumers who have been ripped off, you kind of wonder what it might take to get this story further into the traditional media. I mean, if I walked off from a convenience store after stealing $75 million I would at least expect to get my mug on the tee-vee for my trouble.

This is a story that is just begging for some enterprising reporter(s) and other bloggers to start piecing together who all the victims are. Bassett tells me he lost a relatively paltry amount of money, but he’s hearing from folks who lost thousands. And while criminal indictments are nice, that doesn’t really do much if you have cancer or something and your money has been stolen.

Hell, this ought to be a campaign issue. The glibertarians never get called out on their failures, and this is a massive and timely example.

Ever been sick on an airplane? I have, once while flying back from Mexico, and it was awful. But at least the flight crew didn’t have me hauled away in handcuffs at the end of the flight:

A Nigerian man who became ill on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit — the same flight involved in Friday’s terrorism attempt — triggered a security alert at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after the pilots requested emergency assistance upon landing, the Department of Homeland Security announced on Sunday. The department said that the response to Sunday’s incident, which included informing President Obama, was “an abundance of caution.”

Earlier in the afternoon, Delta Airlines, which acquired Northwest last year, said in a statement that the crew had requested police assistance on the ground because a passenger was “verbally disruptive.” The Transportation Safety Administration said in a statement that it had been alerted to a “disruptive passenger on board” Flight 253. The T.S.A. said that the flight landed safely at Detroit International Airport at approximately 12:35 p.m. Eastern “without incident.”

Homeland Security press secretary, Sara Kuban, released a statement, sorting out what had happened on the flight.

“A passenger on today’s Northwest flight 253 from Amsterdam to Detroit spent an unusually long time in the aircraft lavatory,” she said in the statement.

And then, according to other reports, the passenger became “verbally abusive” (whatever that means) after the flight crew kicked open the bathroom door. For that he was handcuffed and arrested.

In related news, airline stocks are down sharply in the wake of this weekend’s events, and I can understand why. I myself was preparing to make reservations for our annual February trip to take my daughter to visit Grandma in Florida, but have been given serious pause… not due to fears of increased terrorism, but due to fears of the TSA and airline industry response.

There was a time when airline personnel would attempt to deal with sick and/or legitimately disgruntled passengers by offering them an upgrade or a free drink or perhaps just a pillow, a blanket or a smile. Now they increasingly pull the security card at the slightest provocation, as happened to me last year near the end of a particularly torturous travel day.

Yes, there was a time when the airlines treated us like customers, but no more. And that has made an already uncomfortable and stressful experience downright dreadful. Thinking back to that godawful, intestinally challenged flight from Mexico, at least the flight attendants were sympathetic and accommodating. Had I been forced to remain in my seat for the last hour of the flight, as new regulations now require on international flights landing in the U.S., I can assure you I would have literally shit my pants. Explosively.

The fact is, as scary as the Christmas Day incident was, it was unsuccessful, as has been every other attempted airline attack since 9/11. By all means, we should remain vigilant, as the the passengers and crew of Flight 253 clearly were in subduing the alleged terrorist and extinguishing his incendiary device. But let’s not lose perspective.

The goal of the terrorists is, after all, to instill terror. Let’s not do their job for them in the guise of TSA theater.

In summarizing The Year’s Most Underreported Stories over at Publicola, Erica writes:

4) The political demise of Tim Eyman and those that brung him.

Obviously, Tim Eyman isn’t going away–the former watch salesman’s entire livelihood depends on bringing in new contributions, and new contributions require new campaigns. But this year’s stunning defeat of his latest tax-slashing measure, Initiative 1033 (his first tax measure, importantly, to be defeated) spells doom for future Eyman initiatives. Voters don’t have to be told that taxes pay for things they need anymore–they can see it all around them, in the state’s crumbling infrastructure, the closure of county parks, and the ongoing budget crisis at the city, state, and county levels.

Moreover–to paraphrase Josh–Eyman’s defeat this year is good news for Democrats in general, suggesting that last summer’s anti-government, anti-Obama backlash was overblown.

Yeah, well—to paraphrase Mark Twain—the reports of Tim Eyman’s death have been greatly exaggerated.

It’s not that I-1033 didn’t go down to a crushing defeat, even in much of traditionally pro-Eyman/anti-tax Eastern Washington. But it’s not like Eyman initiatives haven’t been defeated before… and besides, it kinda misses the point of what Eyman does.

Eyman doesn’t run initiative campaigns; he gets initiatives on the ballot. In recent years, those of his initiatives that have generated a sufficiently well-financed No campaign have been defeated, while those that have gone unopposed have not.

From a business perspective, it really doesn’t matter all that much to Eyman whether he wins or loses. Sure, he needs an occasional win or near-win to maintain the shred of relevance necessary to garner media attention, but Eyman has long been a kept man of a single sugar daddy, and as long as Woodinville investment banker Michael Dunmire continues to finance his signature drives, Eyman will continue to qualify initiatives for the ballot, and continue to make a nice living in the process.

And from a political perspective, as long as Eyman continues to qualify initiatives for the ballot, he’ll continue to put Democrats on the defensive.

Just take a look at I-1033. Sure, it lost by a whopping 18-point margin, and in 24 of 39 counties… but only after the No campaign spent over $3.5 million to defeat it. $3.5 million. That’s money, largely from progressive donors, that could have been spent on a more proactive agenda, such as enacting tax restructuring or education finance reform or something productive like that. That’s $3.5 million that won’t be available, for example, to help elect progressive Democrats in 2010.

If you believe Eyman’s primary objective is to pass stuff, well then, yeah, I guess I-1033’s defeat must look pretty bad for him. But if you understand Eyman for what he really is—our state’s biggest political monkey, wielding our state’s biggest political monkey wrench (the initiative process)—well then, 2009 wasn’t such a bad year for him after all.

And a pretty damn profitable one at that.

The most disturbing tidbit from yesterday’s airplane terror attempt:

Although transportation officials had not announced new security measures yet, Air Canada said the Transportation Security Agency would make significant changes to the way passengers are able to move about on aircraft. During the final hour of flight, customers will have to remain seated, will not be allowed access to carry-on baggage and cannot have personal belongings or other items on their laps, according to a notice on Air Canada’s Web site.

In effect, that means passengers on flights of about 90 minutes or less will not be able to get out of their seats, since they are not allowed to move about while an airplane is climbing to its cruising altitude.

Air Canada also told its United States bound customers that they would be limited to a single carry-on item and that they would be subjected to personal and baggage searches at security check points and in the gate area. It said this would result in significant delays, canceled flights and missed connections.

As if passengers aren’t already terrorized enough by the airlines as it is.

Of course, the most effective air travel security measure is to discourage people from traveling by air, so I guess at least in that sense, such an over-reaction would be effective.

For quite some time, Darryl has been urging me to do something about longtime troll Marvin Stamn, who appeared to be spamming the open threads with links to right-wing sites. Well, today was the final straw, as Stamn essentially admitted to such:

34. Politically Incorrect spews:
Marvin,
Give it a rest.

Can’t. I’m making a couple extra bucks propagandizing today.

Well, no more. The purpose of the open threads is to give the HA community — even the hateful trolls — the opportunity to talk about whatever they want, without driving the other comment threads off topic. The purpose is not to provide a handy (and profitable) tool for upping the Google ranking of right-wing sites.

So Stamn, who has apparently been making more money off my blog than I have, has joined the execrable JCH as only the second commenter to be permanently banned, and we’re prepared to ban anybody else who routinely violates the letter or spirit of our comment policy.

To which, I suppose, I should add the following explicit addendum: no spam.

And if that policy strikes some as unfairly subjective… well… it’s my blog, so fuck you.

From Roll Call:

The Office of Congressional Ethics has closed its investigation into Reps. John Murtha (D-Pa.), Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) and Jim Moran (D-Va.) and their relationships to the lobbying firm PMA Group, and the OCE advised against a formal House ethics investigation, the lawmakers’ offices said Friday.

George Behan, Dicks’ chief of staff, said the OCE, which reviews potential rules violations and refers investigations to the House ethics committee, informed the Washington lawmaker on Dec. 2 that it had recommended the inquiry be dismissed.

“In his case, there was never anything there,” Behan said.

A couple weeks ago Lee put up a post attempting to extrapolate data on how Washington State might feel about reforming our marijuana laws from a national survey. As it turns out, I was at a meet and greet with the 36th legislative district legislators, and during Q&A someone asked Mary Lou Dickerson about her proposed law to legalize Marijuana, and after she said her piece, she asked a representative of the ACLU of Washington to say a few words, and she mentioned that they had conducted a poll a while ago.

The poll was taken in 2006 among 1200 registered voters in WA with a sampling error of +/- 2.8%. The question was asked at the beginning and end of the poll.

Some people think we should make marijuana legal for adults while others say we should not. In your view, should we a) continue to send adults to jail for marijuana possession, b) make marijuana possession a finable non-criminal offense, or c) make marijuana possession LEGAL for adults?

In the beginning the results were:

Continue to send adults to jail for marijuana possession………………………………….. 29%
Make marijuana possession a finable non-criminal offense ……………………………… 30%
Make marijuana possession LEGAL for adults ………………………………………………. 37%
Don’t know……………….4%

And at the end:

Continue to send adults to jail for marijuana possession………………………………….. 22%
Make marijuana possession a finable non-criminal offense ……………………………… 34%
Make marijuana possession LEGAL for adults ………………………………………………. 40%
Don’t know………………………….4%

More recently they asked just people in Puget Sound counties 2008. 500 registered voters +/- 4.5% and they only asked the question once.

Continue to send adults to jail for marijuana possession………………………………….. 26%
Make marijuana possession a finable non-criminal offense ……………………………… 33%
Make marijuana possession LEGAL for adults ………………………………………………. 32%
Don’t know……………………. 10%

So, a couple caveats: obviously the poll is for an organization that’s pushing specific policies. While I don’t think the Washington ACLU is in the business of deluding themselves, I wouldn’t have heard of it, and I don’t know if they’d have let me see it if there had been a lot of support for locking people up. Also, obviously, one statewide poll and one poll of a region in the state are hardly conclusive of how an initiative campaign or legislative session might play out.

…Argh. Insert not very funny posting while high joke here (although in reality worse, just sloppy writing, and poor editing and trying to rush it out). The polls got reversed in the original post, and this has been updated significantly for clarity and my being an idiot.

Brad Shannon has an article focusing on Denny Heck, the former legislator and founder of TVW. Heck is giving serious consideration to running for the seat to be vacated by Rep. Brian Baird, D- Wash. (WA-03), at the end of the term.

“I am doing a bunch to get myself ready so I can hit the ground running. Having said that, I have not pulled the trigger,’’ Heck said Wednesday. “This is a big, big, big decision and it bears serious deliberation. I’ve set a hard deadline of this weekend, and I will stick by that deadline” for deciding.

As Shannon notes, Heck has “fronted” $100,000 of his own money for a potential run.

The district certainly has the potential to be one of the top targets in the country, so large sums of money flowing into the district are a certainty. A candidate who can fund some of the expense himself is going to get attention. As to how much the race will cost, numbers like $3-$5 million per general election candidate seem likely. It’s great news for the companies that own Portland tee-vee and radio stations.

The announced big names on the Democratic side are state Rep. Deb Wallace, D-Vancouver (18th LD,) and state Sen. Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver (49th LD.) Some other folks have made a little noise, including state Sen. Brian Hatfield, D-Raymond (19th LD,) and former state Sen. Mark Doumit, a Democrat from Cathlamet who now works for the Washington Forest Protection Association. While it pains me to say it, having once lived in Longview, the latter two would face an uphill climb in the district trying to get attention in Clark County with Pridemore and Wallace both from Clark. Olympia activist Cheryl Crist, who received just shy of 13% in the 2008 top-two primary, has also declared she is in the race for 2010.

If Heck gets in, there would be at least four Democrats running, three of them with a decent chance of moving through to the general. Heck justifiably seems to have a lot of people who admire him, and has more recently spent time in the private sector. Personally I think he’d also have an uphill climb against two sitting Legislators who currently reside in Clark County, but I’m biased. (As I’ve stated from the outset, I am supporting Pridemore.) Then again, money talks, as they say.

On the Republican side, so far you have state Rep. Jaime Herrera, R-Ridgefield (18th LD,) former Bush administration official and current private sector financial adviser David Castillo of the Olympia area, Washougal city council member Jon Russell and yelling Marine guy David Hedrick. While Herrera, a former staffer for U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. (WA-05,) was parachuted in to take the 18th LD state House seat vacated after the Richard Curtis sex scandal, she’s only in her first full term and is pretty young by political standards at 31.

Castillo seems to bring a serious campaign style, and good communication skills, and I wouldn’t discount him.

Russell failed to get the endorsement of evangelical leader Joe Fuiten, who went with Castillo, even though Russell is a Faith and Freedom guy. Hedrick is, well, Hedrick.

So, at this point, if the Democratic field turns out to be:

Wallace
Pridemore
Heck
Crist

And the Republicans wind up being:

Castillo
Herrera
Russell
Hedrick

I think I would like our chances a lot.

From The Columbian:

“I’ve never been so fired up for a campaign in my life,” said Pridemore, D-Vancouver, who is serving his second term in the state Senate. “It’s 320 days to Election Day, and the clock has started.”

Pridemore said he has assembled a strong campaign team and will begin raising money immediately, even as he prepares for a grueling 60-day legislative session in January.

So there you have it.

Cherisse Luxa has passed away. I didn’t know Cherisse, but others did. Condolences to her family.

Andrew at NPI:

This morning, Washington’s netroots community lost one of its most wonderful and spirited activists when Cherisse Luxa, the founder of Burien Drinking Liberally, succumbed to stomach cancer. Cherisse was sixty two. She resided in the 34th LD, known for its strong and vibrant Democratic Party organization.

Cafecito at Daily Kos:

If you have ever attended Drinking Liberally, you almost certainly know of Cherisse’s incredible energy and her unstoppable drive to make our community a better place. From her decades as a King County Sheriff’s Deputy to her impressive track record as an activist an advocate, Cherisse made a huge difference, both for Burien and for the broader community.

Cherisse, like many of us, got religion with Howard Dean’s run.

Cherisse touched thousands of lives and was a role model for many of us. We will sorely miss her.

Barbara Coombs Lee has a follow-up diary at Daily Kos on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ directive that mandates that Catholic health care facilities employ feeding tubes and other life-prolonging measures even when an individual’s living will specifically prohibits it. When I last posted on this, I’d sent out an email to a number of Catholic hospitals and hospices across the state to see if any of them were planning to ignore the directive.

It’s been five days, and I haven’t heard any responses from any of the 10 contacts I was able to find. In the comments of the original post on this, Joel Connelly claimed to have spoken with an administrator who says her facility will ignore the directive. I got that person’s name from Connelly today and emailed her directly. I’m still waiting for a reply.

UPDATE: Joel Connelly is up to some more shenanigans in the comments. He writes:

After asking for my assistance today, you deliberately distort what I heard up at the Bellingham City Club forum.

Absolutely not. I’ve distorted nothing. Here’s what you said to me, with a link to the comment:

As one with a living will, I’ve been told several times by Catholic hospital administrators that my wish not to be kept alive by artificial means would be fully respected.

I emailed you today with the following request:

I emailed as many Catholic hospitals and hospices as I could find contact emails for and not a single one has emailed me back saying that they will ignore the end-of-life instructions given to them by the bishops. If you have contact info for the person or persons who told you so, please forward that on to me.

You wrote back with the name of the person I then emailed. Either you’re not following what you’re saying to me or you’re deliberately trying to lie. Which is it?

I just received a news release announcing that state Rep. Deb Wallace, D-Vancouver (17th LD,) is definitely running for Congress for the third district seat that will be vacated at the end of the term by U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash. Here’s a sample quote.

“From day one, I’ve been committed to being open and accessible to my constituents and being responsive to their needs. My focus has been investing prudently and in a fiscally responsible manner to improve education, modernize our transportation network, encourage economic development and job growth and ensuring public safety. I’ve always believed that government should live within its means, just like our families do and I will bring that same approach to Congress,” added Wallace.

Wallace would seem to be a strong candidate and potentially a good fit for the district. Her resume would stack up well against Republican state Rep. Jaime Herrera, R-Ridgefield (18th LD,) who announced her candidacy yesterday within hours of Baird’s announcement that he will not run again.

Wallace’s 17th LD is definitely the most swing district in Clark County. Encompassing the sprawling eastern areas, the other legislators are Rep. Tim Probst, D-Vancouver, and Sen. Don Benton, R-Vancouver. It’s an area high in strip malls, low information voters, and some amount of far right nutballs, although it’s nothing like the 18th LD in that regard. One can make a reasonable argument that the ability to win in the 17th is a decent credential for trying to win district-wide.

While there have been plenty of names other than Wallace floating around the rumor-sphere on the Democratic side, Wallace has moved the fastest, and apparently has hired a consulting firm, based on the where the news release came from.

UPDATE ON THE GOP SIDE—State Rep. Jaime Herrera, R-Ridgefield (18th LD,) told The Columbian that she will make an official announcement next week. She might just be getting her ducks in a row, but this appears to be a step back from yesterday’s news that she was definitely running.

Herrera, R-Ridgefield, announced this morning that she will give the idea “serious consideration” and make an official announcement about her plans next week.

I suppose someone should tell Politico.

Columbian editor emeritus Tom Koenninger serves up a stinking dung bowl of war on Christmas bullshit in an opinion articled headlined, “Despite PC Crowd, Merry Christmas!”

If you want to view a school Christmas program this year, you may have to go to the Inchelium School District on the Colville Indian Reservation. That’s 90 miles north of Spokane. You won’t find such a program in Clark County’s public schools, at least not by that title.

Santa and Christmas are banned in the schools because they are politically incorrect. The legal beagles declare they are constitutionally incorrect, a violation of church and state separation, even though the American Center for Law and Justice pointed out in 2004: “It is important to note that nothing in the U.S. Constitution prohibits students in public schools from exercising their constitutional rights to express their religious beliefs, especially during the Christmas season.” That goes for the public square, too, they maintain.

Or if you wanted to see a Christmas play at a school you could go see one at a local Christian school, there are over eight thousand of them in Clark County alone. Bet Tom never considered that basic fact, or more accurately, he deliberately chose to bitch and moan about not being able to shove his religion down my kids’ throats.

So to his “Merry Christmas” I issue a cheerful, “Go Fuck Yourself with a Holly Branch, Tom.” Pass the eggnog.

As for the “legal beagles” Koenninger laments, I think they’re called “The Supreme Court of the United States.” The dirty fucking hippies have to live by any horrid decision they make, like Bush v. Gore, but somehow upholding the separation of church and state is worthy of contempt. There are fine distinctions to be made, but that may be why the place is made out of marble I guess.

Koenninger goes on to complain about various examples of how poor, poor picked-upon Christians have to deal with things like sorting out whether a Christmas tree should be in a public school. Granted, there are reasonable positions to discuss, but that would require some small attempt at empathy, something always in short supply for righties this time of year.

Striving for the PC Christmas, a lot of self-proclaimed do-gooders have done silly things. Last week, an elementary school principal in Ashland, Ore., removed an artificial Christmas “giving tree,” which held tags requesting gifts for needy children, after a family complained it was a religious symbol. Dozens of parents were upset, noting the tree was not a religious symbol but a way to celebrate the season and help those in need. Last year, the director of Seattle Schools Department of Equity and Race, Caprice D. Hollins, distributed a letter suggesting Thanksgiving is a difficult time for “many of our Native students.” She referred staff to a Web site that declared the holiday “is a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship.” Oh, those rotten Pilgrims!

Those rotten liberals, asking people to do unto others as they would have done unto them, it’s offensive.

The War on Christmas idiots complain endlessly about some vague threat against Christmas, but Christmas is everywhere you look right now. I was taught it’s in the heart, but I guess that’s not good enough for some people.

Hell, some of us might be tempted to come back to the organized religion if it weren’t for petty, narrow-minded fools like Koennigner. That’s about the last thing I need on Sunday morning, listening to some self-righteous prick tell me the difference between good and evil, knowing that the prick’s newspaper works tirelessly to fuck regular working people over the other six days of the week.

If someone gets cancer without health care they’ll be comforted if they can watch second graders sing “Silent Night” on public school grounds, because nothing is more comforting than the tribal culture war against liberals. People may go bankrupt, lose their houses and lives, but it’s all worth it just to generate animosity towards those who try to defend Constitutional principles that conservatives find troublesome, ie all the ones that don’t involve guns.

I say we put a Hindu “giving cow” on top of the new Columbian building and see what folks say. Well, we’d have to ask the bank that actually owns the new Columbian building first I suppose. Nobody could have predicted…