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It’s a Drinking Liberally double feature for me tonight as the Columbia City chapter meets from 6PM to 8PM at the Columbia City Theater, 4916 Rainier AVE S. (next door to Tutta Bella’s), followed by the Seattle chapter which meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM onward at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Stop on by for some hoppy beer and hopped up conversation.

Not in Seattle? Liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities. A full listing of Washington’s thirteen Drinking Liberally chapters is available here.

Gov. Chris Gregoire is up on Daily Kos again with another diary, this time exposing to a national audience cozy relationship between Dino Rossi and his Orca-killing buddies at the BIAW:  “Obama and all Democrats face attacks from all directions.”

Each election year, we see more ads from these groups, generally negative attacks, and I have a feeling that 2008 is going to set records.  It’s a safe bet that John McCain’s campaign, unable to compete with Sen. Barack Obama’s broad, grassroots support, will receive millions in support from 527 groups in this election.

In Washington state, my Republican opponent has already given the green light to his special interest friends.  The Building Industry Association of Washington (BIAW) is the most powerful special interest lobby in Washington. Despite their benign name, the BIAW’s tactics and policies are anything but.

The BIAW’s values don’t match up with the voters of Washington. As you can see here, here, and here, local bloggers agree.  The BIAW has opposed cleaning up toxics in the Puget Sound, opposed fighting global warming and even opposed protecting orca whales.  My opponent voted with them 99% of the time while he was a State Senator.

This special interest lobby is my opponent’s biggest backer, and has already spent spent $500,000 on radio attack ads that distort my record, and challenge my integrity as a governor and a mother – and it’s only June.

Please read the whole thing and take the time to recommend Gov. Gregoire’s diary; the longer we keep this in the recommended list, the louder her message.

Yesterday I was driving back to Seattle from the Eastside. I hopped on SR-520 at north Bellevue, and immediately took my place in the line of cars waiting to cross the bridge. The freeway was at a total standstill.

Without AC, my ’88 Chevy POS was getting hotter and hotter. At the same time, I was getting more and more pissed off. I never got this pissed off when riding the commuter bus across the lake. The longer I waited in traffic, the more my mind started to wander.

Right-wingers see transit as an attempt by the “elite” to “force” people into making choices they wouldn’t otherwise make. In the Puget Sound region, our two options are bus or car (or commuter train, for some people). Since our transit system is built on buses which get stuck in traffic, there is little incentive to leave your car at home. Because of this, I’ve been “socially engineered” back into my Chevy. So it’s really the anti-transit folks who take away my choices, and limit my freedom.

We lose productivity and efficiency when we have people in hour-long backups on our freeways. The absence of real alternatives to driving takes away freedom from hardworking folks. Looking at the Sound Transit maps of East Link, I would have been 3/4 of a mile away from a train station, easily in walking distance from my Eastside starting point. Studies show that people will walk much further to a train station than they will a bus stop. From that still-only-on-paper light rail station, it would have been a scant 20 minutes to downtown Seattle.

When we spend big bucks on transit infrastructure, we increase freedom, not decrease it. And you know who understands this better than any Seattle lefty? Try a born-again culture warrior:

Various free market think tanks state that Americans love their automobiles and do not desire rail systems as an alternative. Really?

Each year Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), D.C.’s subway and bus system, reaches a new high in ridership. I have an employee who drove to work. He often was upset upon his arrival. He now lives less than one block from a Metrorail station. He comes to work smiling and continually points to the virtues of the Metrorail system. Metrorail carries close to 600,000 riders per day. Some are tourists but most are workers. If these riders were stranded on the streets of Washington there would be gridlock beyond comprehension.

Many of Free Congress Foundation’s visitors live in the suburbs and take Metrorail and Metrobus. They sing the praises of mass transit. Sure, Americans love their cars. But cars are only good when they are moving.

In this episode, Goldy and his panel take on the BIAW, say “amen” to overly-sensitive journalists, explore issues of secret ballots and voter integrity, note how the top-two primary leads to absurdities like a “Grand Old Party Party,” and tackle our region’s tough mass transit problems.

Goldy was joined by Democratic candidate for Secretary of State Jason Osgood, Seattle P-I columnist Joel Connelly, HorsesAss and EFFin’ Unsound’s Carl Ballard and HorsesAss’ blogger emeritus Will.

The show is 49:31, and is available here as an MP3.

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_june_10_2008.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the site.]

Gov. Chris Gregoire has another post up on Daily Kos:  “Republicans refuse to take on climate change.”

Another Republican failure of leadership on renewable energy and climate change happened yesterday in the U.S. Senate. The “drill first and ask questions later” policy of Big Oil and Republicans has not served citizens paying at the pump and won’t in the future. We need to think bigger. What’s wrong with investing some of those wind-fall profits into renewable energy? Energy independence and a cleaner environment sound like things we should be trying to achieve.

[…]

My Republican opponent’s environmental record shows his commitment to fighting climate change is simply political lip service. John McCain came to our state touting the need to fight global warming, but George Bush Republicans like my opponent and those in the U.S. Senate killed the climate change bill and killed a bill today to make Big Oil invest in renewable energy.

While fighting climate change should be a nonpartisan issue, Republicans in Washington have shown us that if we really want to fight climate change, we need to elect Democrats in November.

We are a nation of innovators, and we are in a crisis. I am confident that with a Democratic partner in the other Washington, we can work together to develop the next generation of clean technology and put policies in place that will move us to a greener tomorrow.

Gov. Gregoire makes a blunt point that too many in our media refuse to acknowledge:  in the current political climate, if you care about climate change, if you care about the environment, then you can’t trust the Republicans to get the job done.  On this, as on many other progressive issues, and with few exceptions, the most important thing you need to know about a candidate is the little “D” or “R” next to their name on the ballot.  (You know, except here in WA where our bullshit top-two primary doesn’t even give voters that important piece of information.)

Help Gov. Gregoire get her message out to a wider audience, and recommend her post on Daily Kos.

According McCain campaign internal polling, the Iraq war remains the number one issue for northwest voters:

Davis says that campaign polling shows that nationwide, the economy is the top issue voters are concerned about, with the Iraq war No. 2, and energy and gas costs in third place. But in the northwest, the war is the top issue. That’s true in only a few regions in the country, according to the McCain campaign. Here, the economy is second and gas prices are third.

One of the taunts routinely launched at Darcy Burner and her Responsible Plan to end the war in Iraq, is that she’s still running the last campaign, foolishly focusing on a war that most voters really don’t care all that much about anymore.  But Darcy has never stopped talking with voters since narrowly losing in 2006, and she’ll be the first to tell you that this is the issue voters most often bring up when talking with her.

Huh.  Turns out, they’re telling the same thing to McCain’s pollsters.  Who’d a thunk?

From the Bellingham Herald:

Less than a week after he swore off earmarks, U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert visited the new 911 dispatch center for eastern King County, where he was publicly thanked by local officials for helping secure $1.7 million in earmarks for the center.

The Washington state Republican announced in March that he wouldn’t seek any earmarks this year, because the system was out of control and in need of serious overhaul. But he says that doesn’t mean he wasn’t going to take credit for the $27 million in earmarks he secured last year.

“You’re doggone right I was there,” said the two-term congressman, who faces what’s expected to be a tough re-election campaign. “I am not ashamed to take credit for something we worked hard on. Shoot, I’d be stupid not to.”

So let me get this right… Dave Reichert takes credit for swearing off earmarks, and securing them, at the same time… and nobody laughs in his face? No journalist asks him to explain why, if earmarks are so valuable and justifiable, he’d deny them to his district for the sake of a rhetorical gesture; or if earmarks are such a waste of taxpayer money as to warrant his pledge, why he’s not a tiny bit ashamed to take credit for them?

And Kate Riley accuses Darcy Burner of a “lack of authenticity” …? Dollars to donuts when Riley writes the second in her series of viciously dishonest Reichert endorsements, she’ll cite his bullshit earmark pledge in lauding him for his fiscal responsibility. But then, what do you expect from the amen editorialists at the Seattle Times?

It takes the UK’s Daily Mail to report on the presidential campaign story the US media refuses to cover:

McCain likes to illustrate his moral fibre by referring to his five years as a prisoner-of-war in Vietnam. And to demonstrate his commitment to family values, the 71-year-old former US Navy pilot pays warm tribute to his beautiful blonde wife, Cindy, with whom he has four children.

But there is another Mrs McCain who casts a ghostly shadow over the Senator’s presidential campaign. She is seldom seen and rarely written about, despite being mother to McCain’s three eldest children.

And yet, had events turned out differently, it would be she, rather than Cindy, who would be vying to be First Lady. She is McCain’s first wife, Carol, who was a famous beauty and a successful swimwear model when they married in 1965.

She was the woman McCain dreamed of during his long incarceration and torture in Vietnam’s infamous ‘Hanoi Hilton’ prison and the woman who faithfully stayed at home looking after the children and waiting anxiously for news.

But when McCain returned to America in 1973 to a fanfare of publicity and a handshake from Richard Nixon, he discovered his wife had been disfigured in a terrible car crash three years earlier … In order to save her legs, surgeons had been forced to cut away huge sections of shattered bone, taking with it her tall, willowy figure. She was confined to a wheelchair and was forced to use a catheter.

Through sheer hard work, Carol learned to walk again. But when John McCain came home from Vietnam, she had gained a lot of weight and bore little resemblance to her old self.

And so McCain did what any honorable, loving, family man would do: he immediately started cheating on his faithful wife before eventually dumping her to marry a beautiful heiress 18 years his junior.

For her part, Carol McCain sounds philosophical:

“My marriage ended because John McCain didn’t want to be 40, he wanted to be 25. You know that happens…it just does.”

But former friends and acquaintances are not so forgiving….

They portray the politician as a self-centred womaniser who effectively abandoned his crippled wife to ‘play the field’. They accuse him of finally settling on Cindy, a former rodeo beauty queen, for financial reasons.

Of course this is America, where everyone has the right to pursue happiness, and if McCain couldn’t be happy married to a woman who wasn’t tall, beautiful and wealthy, then perhaps it was best for him, Carol and their children to end the marriage. But really… enough of this family values character crap for a man who abandoned his crippled wife when she needed him most. One can assume the only reason he’s remained married to Cindy this long is that she’s managed to retain her height, looks, wealth and bladder.

In the words of Ross Perot (who paid Carol’s extensive medical bills while her husband was a prisoner of war):

“McCain is the classic opportunist. He’s always reaching for attention and glory,’ he said.

“After he came home, Carol walked with a limp. So he threw her over for a poster girl with big money from Arizona. And the rest is history.”

A history most Americans will never learn.

BlueNC (via Postman) picks Rep. Adam Smith as the winner of the longshot category in the Democratic VP sweepstakes:

An early Obama backer and effective surrogate he’s shown he can handle himself well with the media.

Really? Postman should know better than to repeat speculation like this without reporting the fatal biographical detail that absolutely removes Rep. Smith for consideration for the VP slot: he’s authored a couple posts here on HA.

And as everybody knows, foul-mouthed amen bloggers like me and Rep. Smith simply cannot be taken seriously.

George Friedman at Stratfor, a publication by current and retired intelligence officials, lays out the stark reality of what’s happening in Mexico right now, warning of that country’s potential to become a failed state. The root of the crisis is the growing influence of the cartels who operate an approximately $40 billion a year industry in illegal drugs, nearly all of which is consumed in the United States. Friedman sees a possibility that the cartels, who already dominate most of northern Mexico, could soon become powerful enough to usurp the power of the elected government in Mexico City as well.

The recent violence from Mexico has been staggering. Over a thousand people, including hundreds of police, have already been killed this year in fighting between federal officials and the cartels. The cartels operate with such impunity in parts of the country that they’re able to publicly advertise for recruits. Some Mexican police officers in the border region are even attempting to flee to the United States.

Friedman makes the appropriate comparison to 1920s alcohol prohibition, reminding us that during that time, the city of Chicago had a failed government. And had Al Capone and his men become powerful enough to defeat the federal agents, America could have become a failed state. Thankfully, America only allowed its doomed experiment in alcohol prohibition to last for just over a decade. Our current prohibition, however, has been going on for several decades now and has turned all of Mexico into an even more extreme version of 1920s Chicago with modern weapons.

Occasionally, we see some intelligent discussion of this growing problem in the traditional media (like this column from Neal Peirce in the Seattle Times last week). But in the political realm, there are no solutions on the horizon. The only thing being proposed is the Merida Initiative, a laughable effort to provide Mexico with $1.4 billion that the Mexican government might even turn down because of the strings attached.

I’m sure that much will be made over the disagreements between the Democrats and the Republicans in Congress over the Merida Initiative, but neither party has the political courage to do what Friedman explains is the only realistic solution:

One way to deal with the problem would be ending the artificial price of drugs by legalizing them. This would rapidly lower the price of drugs and vastly reduce the money to be made in smuggling them. Nothing hurt the American cartels more than the repeal of Prohibition, and nothing helped them more than Prohibition itself. Nevertheless, from an objective point of view, drug legalization isn’t going to happen. There is no visible political coalition of substantial size advocating this solution. Therefore, U.S. drug policy will continue to raise the price of drugs artificially, effective interdiction will be impossible, and the Mexican cartels will prosper and make war on each other and on the Mexican state.

I’ve been asked recently why I focus so much on the topic of drug policy when most of the country still considers it a political minefield. It’s because even though it’s a political minefield, that doesn’t mean it’s any less urgent to fix. Our current approach to dealing with the drug trade in Mexico is piñata policy, put on a blindfold and swing a big stick hoping that you hit something and a bunch of candy falls out. Many people think that we can do this forever, just pretending that it’s the best way while allowing us to keep from breaking free from the drug war mindset. They’re wrong. And the damage in Mexico (not to mention Afghanistan, Colombia, and in our inner cities) is the proof that they’re wrong. The millions of refugees from this war who have already fled to the United States from Mexico should be a good indication of that.

This country needs to develop a viable constituency that demands from the next American administration that we start dismantling the international drug war and to deal with the problem of drug addiction in a way that doesn’t bring a country of 100 million people to the verge of becoming a failed state. Yeah, I talk about the drug war a lot. I do it because we can’t afford not to any more.

[h/t to Transform for the link]

Gov. Christine Gregoire comments on Obama’s apparent victory:

We have just witnessed an historic primary season where ideas and ideals rose to the forefront of the debate in our country. The candidates and voters should all be commended. Now it’s time we all stand together and unite behind our Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. Barack Obama.

Many years ago, I was inspired by a man who offered a similar message of hope and belief as Barack Obama does today. Then, it was John F. Kennedy, a man whose words and actions led to my career in public service. Today, I feel similarly toward Sen. Obama. He offers this country a vision of positive change and leadership we can stand behind.

Our country is about its people, and for the last eight years we’ve been divided and moving in the wrong direction at home and abroad. It’s time to stand proud and take back this country. Sen. Barack Obama is the right person to lead us.

We need a partner in the other Washington that believes it is our responsibility to provide healthcare to children, fund a world-class education system and fight global climate change. While we’ve gotten results for families in our state over the last four years, imagine even greater possibilities with the barriers down and a partner in place in our nation’s capitol.

It’s time to renew our country’s economy. It’s time our nation recommits to every working man and woman. It’s time for good quality, affordable, accessible health care. It’s time that we tell every child to dream as big as they possibly can, and that dreams really can come true. It’s time to eliminate hopelessness and poverty and give the great people of this nation a vision worth believing in.

Indeed…to me, this vision is like a breath of fresh air—a beam of sunlight breaking through—after 7.5 years under a cloud of incompetence, immorality, deception, and scandal in the White House.

Unsaid in my critique of the Washington State Republican Party platform and its call to repeal the birthright citizenship provision of the 14th Amendment, is that their xenophobic, anti-immigration rhetoric is actually right in line with that of their national party leadership. Which I suppose explains why the RNC has named a charmer like Chris Gulugian-Taylor to head Washington State’s “Victory 2008” committee, the organization responsible for spending national party money on the statewide GOTV effort.

Guligian-Taylor was Rudy Giuliani’s regional political director for Western states (um… Giuliani had a Western states campaign?) and was the executive director of the Nevada Republican Party in 2006… before resigning his position in the midst of a mini-scandal, a month before election day.

It seems Chris Gulugian-Taylor sent out the announcement of a Minuteman rally (subject line: “Help stop the illegal invasion”) to the GOP’s e-mail list, complete with nasty little digs like this:

“If you are tired of seeing illegals catered to, then join us to send these Un-American corporations a message.

“We’ll not allow these illegals destroy our country. We’ll not permit corporations like Chicago Title, Wells Fargo Bank, and Miller Brewing promote [sic] and financially support the take over [sic] of America by the Illegal Invaders.

“Your voice is needed to let these Un-American companies know we will not tolerate them supporting illegals over law abiding citizens.”

Ouch, baby. That’s got to hurt, especially if your party is trying to appeal to Latino voters and not alienate them.

[…] Look, we don’t want to be dicks about this, but are you really surprised? Hell, we’re talking about the party that wanted to make felons out of illegal immigrants, and to declare (in contravention of the U.S. Constitution) that children born to illegal immigrants should not be U.S. citizens…

Yup, it sounds like the WSRP’s newest political guest worker is going to fit right in with the locals.

WA superdelegate David McDonald has endorsed Barack Obama. The end is nigh tomorrow.

UPDATE:
Here’s McDonald’s statement:

As you know, I serve on the Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee.  Many months ago I made a personal choice to stay neutral as a super-delegate in the presidential nominating contest until the RBC had resolved all significant issues likely to come before it.  On Saturday the RBC resolved the last of those issues.  After a day of sightseeing in Washington DC, a long, cell-phone free plane ride home and some sleep, I have decided to cast my vote as a member of the Democratic National Committee for Senator Barack Obama.

The Democratic Party has been blessed this year with a century’s worth of great candidates for President.  This was not an easy choice.  Both of the candidates who remain in contention are capable of winning the general election and would likely do so if selected as the nominee.  The policy differences between them are relatively minor compared to the gulf between the Bush-McCain Republican team and the needs of the American people.  I cannot stress enough how proud I am to be associated with a political party that has brought to the forefront this incredible pair of final contenders.

It has been apparent to me over the months, however, that Senator Obama’s candidacy has brought astounding new energy and hope to the Democratic Party nationwide.  He has shown a remarkable ability to organize and mobilize Democratic voters and focus their efforts on the key task of persuading independent voters around the country to join us in changing the White House agenda.  His leadership provides, I believe, a unique opportunity to continue to expand this party, to continue our long term agenda of contesting—and converting—the “red” areas of the country, and to continue our task of making conditions better for Americans everywhere.  It is an opportunity that I want to help turn into a reality.

I couldn’t agree with him more.