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I was poking around the internets today, looking for stuff on megahouses that are supposedly taking over Seattle’s neighborhoods, (check out what Paul, a fellow HA blogger, had to say about the issue here) when I came something else.

I ran across the minutes of a Laurelhurst Community Council meeting, at which skateparks were under discussion:

Dillana Crawford emailed on 9/18 to express strong opposition to a skatepark at the Playfield (she lives across the street). She thought a skatepark would bring more traffic and pointed out that there are already parking and speeding problems. She was concerned that a skatepark would become another place for teenagers to hangout in the evening and lead to more nighttime disruption and underage drinking. She also had concerns about noise and graffiti. Stacy Graves emailed on 9/19 to say she hoped there would be no skatepark anywhere near Laurelhurst. She said that kids that hang out at skateparks look like delinquents. She is worried about property vandalism and negative role models for neighborhood children.

I know Laurelhurst to be one of those WASP neighborhoods where Jews weren’t allowed to live until about 1958. Lots of WASPs who gave birth to children, and those children turned into rich, bored kids, who spent their weekends drinking themselves into oblivion. So the idea that a skatepark might bring in underage drinking… well. I’ve probably been to house parties in these people’s basements.

While these comments are somewhat ignorant, I DO like the old folks who go to bat for a skatepark:

Fred Wemer emailed on 9/20 to say he likes the idea of a skatepark in the neighborhood. He is 68 years old and said he wouldn’t use it, but maybe his grandchildren would use it instead of watching television. Mimi Winslow emailed on the same day and said she also supported a skatepark. Debbie Jenner emailed on 9/25 to express strong support for a neighborhood skatepark. She is an ex-skateboarder and mother of three school age children (12, 10 and 7) who are avid skateboarders. The only options are skateboarding in Ballard, in Fremont where it costs $8 per person or on the street. Jenner thinks that a skatepark in the neighborhood would bring kids from Laurelhurst Elementary, Eckstein, Villa, Assumption and nearby high schools together to socialize.

It’s funny that the people who have an inkling of what skateboarding really is have no problem with a skatepark in their neighborhood. Especially that 68 y/o guy (bless his pea-pickin’ heart). Don’t sell yourself short, Fred.

Really. These guys are nuts. Totally fucking nuts. And any politician who curries their favor or seeks their endorsement should be asked to condemn them and return their dirty money.

Last month BIAW Stormwater Field Representative Mark Musser had the poor judgment to compare the state Department of Ecology to Nazi Germany, but if you thought he might follow up with an apology, think again, for in the latest issue of the BIAW’s newsletter Building Insight, Musser actually defends his comparison by offering readers a little history lesson: “Hitler’s Nazi party: They were eco extremists.” I kid you not.

Knowing my parallel would illicit screams of protest—how politically incorrect of me to mention Hitler and Nazis in the same breath as DOE or the environmental lobby—I explored the actual connection between environmental extremism and Hitler’s Nazi party.

You mean the modern environmental movement has its roots in Nazism? You know, the way the modern Northwest militia and Christian identity movements have their roots in the BIAW? Fill us in on the details, Mark.

The German Nazi party expressed many of the ecological refrains we hear today. Nazis were the vanguard of conservationism—they sought to remedy the increasing alienation of people from the natural world, deforestation, urban sprawl, the destruction of ecosystem balance, the extinction of species and the indiscriminate slaughter of animals.Hitler himself was a sometime vegetarian and an animal lover, and the Nazi government implemented some of the first laws protecting animal rights.

Hence, all vegetarians and animal lovers must be Nazis! (Well, maybe the folks at the Sierra Club.) Mark’s a logical guy.

The Nazis also blamed capitalism for destroying the European continent and believed environmental holism was the solution. They investigated sustainable forestry and institutionalized organic farming to advance experimental homeopathic cures and medicines.

I’m not sure if that stuff about sustainable forestry is true, or what the alleged connection is between organic farming and homeopathy, but I’m confused… is Musser trying to slander environmentalists or rehabilitate Hitler? (And, oh, by the way Mark, when he wasn’t weaving hemp or raising free-range chickens, I think Hitler also started a world war, firebombed London and exterminated six million Jews. I’m sure there’s a footnote in your history book about that stuff somewhere. Look it up.)

Nazi bioengineers were also very concerned about construction maintaining harmony with the natural landscape—the autobahn freeway in Germany was designed by Nazis with the utmost ecological care in mind and presented as a way to bring Germans closer to nature.

I hadn’t realized the autobahn was “bioengineered,” or that environmentalists were so into building freeways. Huh. I guess you learn something every day.

The Nazis also came up with far reaching land use restrictions and centralized environmental planning for the same purposes, and were very zealous about protecting wetlands and other ecological sensitive areas.

You know, just like Ron Sims. Ergo, Ron Sims must be a Nazi.

Thus green building and smart growth ideas are not something new.

Again, I’m not conceding anything to Musser on the facts, but is he implying that “smart” growth ideas are a bad thing?

Another familiar refrain—the Nazis complained the degradation of German soil was due to the landless, capitalistic, greedy Jews who pillaged and raped the European landscape for money and power. Today’s environmentalists still blame capitalism for the destruction of the natural world—greedy builders are routinely accused of pillaging and raping the landscape for money.

So, um, what you’re saying Mark, is that BIAW members today, under the regulatory regime of the Democrats in Olympia, have it as bad as my grandparents’ extended family did under the Nazi occupation in Poland and the Ukraine? Really? See, last time I checked, nobody was rounding up contractors into camps, starving them, gassing them, and shoving their bodies into ovens. But then, Europe’s Jewry didn’t have to contend with DOE’s stormwater regulations, so I guess they had it easy.

Of course, this Nazi environmental zealotry was insanely tied to German nationalism (racism), which relied heavily on the ideals of social Darwinism, a doctrine which some environmentalists have kept alive in spite of its evil reputation. When radical environmentalists oppose famine relief, medical aid and sanctuary for refugees because of overpopulation concerns, the whiff of Nazism is unmistakable.

Mark, are you sure you’re not getting environmentalists confused with your friends in the militia movement, you know, like all this local Minutemen with long ties to the BIAW?

Less vocally strident enviros are not quite sure what to do about overpopulation, aside from an insane obsession with anti-development, urban sprawl land use restrictions. Hitler, of course, had his own solution—wipe out the Slavs so the Germans could enjoy greater ecological health. Himmler had all kinds of grandiose ecological plans in mind for a depopulated Poland, Ukraine, and Belarus.

Again, no mention of Hitler wiping out six million Jews. Must not be in Musser’s history book.

What environmentalists offer today, instead of the racist German National Socialism that defined the Nazi party, is an international environmental socialism, an amalgam of Nazism and communism—an international environmental socialism with a centralized planning scheme. But this amalgam is increasingly at odds with itself, causing a rift within the environmental lobby, with builders caught in the middle.

I was at a Washington Conservation Voters workshop this summer at Islandwood, and the tension between the neo-Nazi wing of the movement and the neo-Stalinists was palpable.

Case in point: Builders in Washington State are being squeezed by an environmental movement which extols ecofascism on the one hand (where the most important thing on the construction jobsite is not a house but “Earth First”), while on the other hand they are micromanaged to death by an ecological bureaucracy that would make any Soviet commissar green with envy. This communistic ecological micromanagement is perfectly exemplified in DOE’s breathtakingly detailed, 976-page stormwater manual and BMPs.

It’s not so much a stormwater “manual” as it is a manifesto.

So, much like Stalin and Hitler were divided on how to best go about their socialistic schemes, environmentalists are also divided over how to best go about their socialistic scheme of controlling human development—either by burning houses down with Molotov cocktails, or slowly squeezing the life out of it through extensive, Sovietesque micromanagement. Homebuilders are thus caught between militant ecofascism (radical environmentalists like ELF) and communistic bureaucracy (DOE).

Yup, that pretty much sums up the entire environmental movement: we’re all either ecofascist terrorists, or Stalinist butchers. Some of us are even both.

For the time being, it is the suffocating Soviet version which is winning this war, but the recent arsons claimed by ELF, and the mainstream environmentalists’ refusal to denounce them, demonstrate the other side’s “ecological blitzkrieg” approach could be gaining traction.

I checked; it’s the March issue of Building Insight, not an April Fool’s edition. But either way, over-the-top, fantastical hatemongering like this, coming from one of the most powerful political organizations in the state, is no laughing matter. Musser’s BIAW sanctioned paranoid rants are not only batshit crazy, they are downright offensive.

As a Jew whose entire extended family in Eastern Europe was exterminated by the Nazis, along with most of the rest of European Jewry, I take personal offense at efforts to diminish Hitler’s historically unparalleled war crimes in the service of rank political partisanship. How dare the BIAW trivialize the deaths of tens of millions by comparing the DOE to a psychotic war machine that tossed babies into mass graves in the name of racial purity and lebensraum?

And how dare our elected officials — in both parties — grant credibility to the insane, hateful and extremist rhetoric of the lunatic fringe at the BIAW by appearing at their functions and pocketing their money.

If our political and media establishment continue to ignore the BIAW’s violent rhetoric, then eventually it will be deemed an acceptable part of our political discourse. And eventually, some crazed nutcase will act on it.

With 44 Democratic challengers now having signed on to the Responsible Plan for ending the war in Iraq, the national media is beginning to pay attention not only to the Plan, but to the “infectiously energetic” force behind it: Darcy Burner. From today’s Washington Post, page A3:

Rejecting their party leaders’ assertions that economic troubles have become the top issue on voters’ minds, leaders of the coalition of 38 House and four Senate candidates pledged to make immediate withdrawal from Iraq the centerpiece of their campaigns.

“The people inside the Beltway don’t seem to get how big an issue this is,” said Darcy Burner, a repeat candidate who narrowly lost to Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) in 2006.

From MSNBC:

One criticism of Democrats in past elections is that they have railed against President Bush on Iraq without having a plan of their own. But 38 Democratic House challengers along with four Senate contenders have decided to run on a common platform outlining a strategy of withdrawal from Iraq.

[…] The plan was introduced about a week and a half ago, after six months of preparation. The plan combines existing legislation in Congress, packaged by Darcy Burner, a candidate for Washington’s eighth congressional district, with assistance from national security experts and retired generals.

And from The Nation:

At the plan’s unveiling, Burner–articulate, impressive and infectiously energetic–refused to be pessimistic. Despite the White House’s indifference, despite the war’s diminished presence on the front page, the people want the war to end.

“We can do this,” she said.

This fall, Rep. Dave Reichert will attempt to run as a Beltway outsider, fighting the entrenched D.C. establishment, while characterizing Darcy as just another Nancy Pelosi clone, blindly adhering to the Democratic party line. Don’t you believe it. Darcy is obviously not your typical politician — that’s what so endears her to the netroots, and that’s what’s beginning to endear her to the national press.

There’s a great piece in the New York Times laying out the many woes facing NRCC chair Tom Cole, including this particular gem illustrating the lack of enthusiasm amongst the Republican base:

Many conservative activists have become so dissatisfied with the party’s heresies, particularly on immigration and government spending, that as Cole’s staff took over, the committee’s fund-raising pleas were being ignored and, on at least one occasion, returned in an envelope stuffed with feces.

Because, of course, stuffing an envelope with shit is one of those “conservative values” we hear so much about. It is a fascinating (if lengthy) read, and I’ll probably come back to it in a later post, but I just wanted to highlight the following tidbit regarding a meeting Cole held with an unnamed Congressional challenger:

Cole began to talk through Republican figures who might be brought in to help raise cash. If McCain were the nominee, Cole and the candidate agreed, donors would turn out for a fund-raiser he headlined. Cole mentioned Bush, but everyone thought that would be a mistake. “I think this cycle he and the vice president are going to be doing a lot of fund-raisers in the South and the Plains,” he said, and everyone guffawed in agreement. Even for an audience of Republican donors, in politically contested parts of the country, the president provokes complicated feelings. On another occasion Cole said to me, “I love the president, but his appeal isn’t universal.”

Huh. It would be “a mistake” to bring the President of the United States in to raise money for a Republican candidate. I wonder where they got that idea?

Back in August, when a coalition of national and local bloggers set an ambitious $100,000 fundraising target to help Darcy Burner counter President Bush’s funder on behalf of Dave Reichert, I was very clear about our objective:

Sure it’s a lot of money, but money seems to be the only political currency Republicans understand. Reaching our target will not only send a strong message that we want our troops out of Iraq, it will also teach other Republicans that bringing in Bush isn’t worth the financial and political cost, thus neutralizing the GOP’s most effective fundraiser.

In fact, we raised $123,000 from over 3,400 donors… and President Bush virtually disappeared from the Congressional fundraising scene. Mission accomplished.

I know there are some in the netroots who worry about turning their blogs into online ATMs, but I’m not one of them. The money we raise, and our growing ability to focus national resources into local races, is absolutely crucial to extending our influence and challenging the longstanding political hegemony of corporate America. We may never be able to get money out of politics, but at least we’re beginning to even the playing field. And the powers that be are beginning to take notice.

Speaking of which, it’s the end of the quarter, so please show Darcy some love.

Another installment of “The Best of Goldy”:

David Irons Jr.’s mother has mixed emotions about her son. On the upside, she says he’s “very good with his hands.” On the downside, she claims he’s used them to beat her.

An HA classic if there ever was one, read more of “Raging Bullshitter: the sad twisted tale of the Irons family feud.”

If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that Goldy’s show on KIRO got the ax not too long ago. KIRO dumped all of their weekend live and local talk not too long ago. While this might be new to local talk radio, it’s nothing new to commercial music stations.

The dirty details:

KNDD-FM/107.7 laid off two staff members and is making a style change in its midday show. Gone from the modern/alternative rock station are assistant program director Jim Keller and midday host DJ No Name.

The new midday show is “Radio Impulse,” in which listeners are encouraged to use e-mails and phone text messages to request songs and get responses on whether and when that request will be played. The interactive show is an attempt “to come up with a midday show that speaks to our audience,” said Jerry McKenna, Entercom’s vice president and market manager.

Radio stations all over the country are dumping real live deejays in favor of these mass-produced, low overhead syndicated programming like “Radio Impulse.” In a drive to better relate to their younger audience, radio stations are trying to be more like an iPod, all the while not realizing that people listen to the radio because it’s not like their iPod.

As a long time The End listener, I’m pretty much done with the station. I grew up with Marco Collins, stuck with them through their fascination with “rap metal,” and stuck with them after they fired No Name the first time. But I’m done. They’re killing everything I like about radio, everything worth turning off my iPod for.

UPDATE:

If you want to help out our buddy DJ No Name, check this out:

DJ W. NONAME PRESENTS: RADIO IS AWESOME!

An evening of comedy, stories, surprise local celebrities and one of Noname’s favorite bands to close down the show. Event will be immediately followed by an Audience Q&A where attendees can ask DJ W. Noname anything they want!

WEDNESDAY APRIL 9TH

MAINSTAGE COMEDY AND MUSIC CLUB. 315 1ST AVE N. SEATTLE WA 98109. 206-217-3700

Doors 7pm, Show 8pm

Tickets $20

Or

$40 for VIP (includes priority seating and champagne reception at 6pm with Noname and Friends)

Tix available Friday at 5pm at Mainstage Box Office or by calling

206-217-3700

Five more Democratic challengers have officially signed on to the Responsible Plan to end the war in Iraq, including Alan Grayson (FL-08), Harry Taylor (NC-09), Leslie Byrne (VA-11), Bill O’Neill (OH-14), and Greg Fischer (KY-Senate). That brings the total number of endorsers to 25 from 16 states, with several more expected shortly.

On this week’s podcast, the Seattle P-I’s Joel Connelly explains that challengers are generally loathe to get out in front on issues like this because the safer strategy is to make the campaign less about themselves and more about the incumbent. So why are so many challengers willing to stick their necks out on the Responsible Plan? Well, it could just be that the Plan is surprisingly, well, responsible.

In a commentary posted to Democracy Arsenal, Moira Whelan of the National Security Network addresses the understandable skepticism with which “national security wonks” and other experts generally greet any candidate plan: “… you roll your eyes [and] you know it’s not wonky enough to meet your standards… right?” But, she continues, “Not so with this plan…”

Folks at NSN have become pretty familiar with this plan in the last few weeks. When we got a call asking us to meet with Darcy Burner, who drafted a plan, we thought of it as nothing new…after all, lots of candidates want to find the silver bullet to change things in Iraq, and often don’t have a feel for all of the moving pieces in Iraq and around the globe. Sometimes, candidates are more concerned with developing the plan that won’t get them in trouble, rather than the one that embodies their approach and forces real change. We were pleasantly surprised by Darcy.

Darcy laid in front of us 20 pages of a comprehensive approach to Iraq—a project that started after a conversation with General Paul Eaton. She’d done her research, and based her ideas on legislation already introduced in Congress. She went beyond the idea of troop deployments, and political stability to address more systemic problems with the US government that got us into this mess in the first place. The Responsible Plan for Ending the War in Iraq looks at things like media accountability, government transparency, torture, FISA and trade-offs on issues such as Afghanistan. She wrote the whole thing herself, and sought advice from “experts” as well as her fellow challengers. In other words…her plan is peer reviewed…and approved.

Two things make the plan especially compelling, and demonstrate a changing dynamic in elections that we’re surely going to see this cycle.

First, the people who drafted it—the 10 candidates who’ve attached their names to it so far—understand Iraq in very real ways. Burner’s brother served in Iraq. Donna Edwards is a military brat. Tom Periello worked in Iraq and Afghanistan doing development work. The list goes on and on. In other words, the idea that progressives “don’t get it” is completely blown out of the water based on those who are introducing it. Not only do they get it, they’ve embraced it and are now running for Congress to change the realities they see—that’s public service of which you can be proud. They’re actually walking the walk.

Second, voters and candidates care about Iraq and the rest of the world—in a detailed way. Contrary to what some political advisors are saying, these candidates started this strategy because “what are you going to do about Iraq?” is the top question they’re getting from their voters. It’s no longer sufficient for candidates to say they believe in ending the war, voters want to know how they’re going to do that. Voters are insisting on details because they know the details. In other words, our candidates and our voters are smarter on Iraq and the world we live in than we’ve seen in recent elections.

[…] A few months from now, people will look back on this crew with a “where it all started” approach. We’ll be counting this class as a new generation of leaders who are smarter and stronger on security than ever before. More will adopt their plan as a blueprint, and they’ll walk into the halls of Congress with a mission, with allies, and with knowledge.

Through his spokesman, Dave Reichert insists that he wants to bring our troops home from Iraq as well. The difference is, Darcy Burner is actually attempting to do something about it.

Another in our exciting lazy new series, The Best of Goldy: “Goldy responds to the Republican Governors Association.”

See, here in the other Washington, we have something we call “laws,” which are written by democratically elected legislators, not half-witted, cirrhotic PR hacks like you. And according to our laws, Christine Gregoire was duly elected governor. So rather than cynically laboring to undermine the electoral process of a state no Republican governor has called home for over twenty years, why don’t you just focus on something you’re good at… like helping your members devise new and exciting ways to deny poor children health care.

Read the whole thing. Or not.

Overheard at a DC restaurant, one Beltway insider to another on learning that Dino Rossi had once again hired GOP hatchet man Scott Howell to do his media:

“You think Dino Rossi knows that Gregoire isn’t a black man? Because that’s the only kind of race Scott wins lately.”

Howell is a notoriously vicious ad man who learned at the feet of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove. His credits include the notoriously race-baiting ads against Harold Ford Jr. in Tennessee’s 2006 US Senate race, and the infamous campaign against Sen. Max Cleland, who left both legs and an arm on the battlefield in Vietnam, only to see Howell run an ad morphing him into Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Howell also produced an ad for Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn that accused Democrat Brad Carson of being soft on welfare while showing two black hands counting cash, and ran an ad in Virginia claiming Gov. Tim Kaine wouldn’t have used the death penalty against Hitler.

As Max Blumenthal wrote on Huffington Post back in 2006:

If a political attack ad crosses boundaries of good taste, is emotionally manipulative, excessively ominous, twists facts, exploiting hot-button issues of race, sex and terror, and winds up being condemned by civil rights groups, the chances are that ad has been produced by Republican hitman Scott Howell.

Howell had a banner year in 2004, winning nearly every major race except Rossi’s. In 2006… not so much, the Tennessee race being his biggest victory. That Dino has hired Howell once again speaks volumes about Rossi and the the tone we can expect from his campaign.

UPDATE:
A source inside the Rossi campaign tells me that they have not in fact hired Howell: “I don’t want to get too deep into our negotiations, but we decided to go a different direction.”

Huh. I guess Rossi does know that Gregoire is not a black man. Good for him.

Nervous yet? The world’s central bankers certainly are, as the sudden collapse of Bear Stearns, the nation’s fifth largest investment firm, raises fears of a financial collapse unseen since the days of the Great Depression.

Bear Stearns Cos. reached an agreement to sell itself to J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., as worries grew that failing to find a buyer for the beleaguered investment bank could cause the crisis of confidence gripping Wall Street to worsen.

The deal calls for J.P. Morgan to pay $2 a share in a stock-swap transaction, with J.P. Morgan Chase exchanging 0.05473 share of its common stock for each Bear Stearns share. Both companies’ boards have approved the transaction, which values Bear Stearns at just $236 million based on the number of shares outstanding as of Feb. 16. At Friday’s close, Bear Stearns’s stock-market value was about $3.54 billion. It finished at $30 a share in 4 p.m. New York Stock Exchange composite trading Friday.

Wow. A 93% discount off of Friday’s close. Now that’s what I call a bargain, especially considering that Bear Stearns’ Manhattan office building is valued at around $1.2 billion, more the five times the price of the buyout. So… how much liability is J.P. Morgan assuming?

JPMorgan said that in addition to the loans extended to Bear on Friday, the Fed had agreed to fund up to $30bn of Bear’s less liquid assets – a move that will alleviate the need for a fire-sale of mortgage-backed securities.

That means you, dear taxpayer, are picking up the bulk of the risk, not J.P. Morgan. That’s the way things work in America: privatize the profits, socialize the losses.

Of course the Fed claims that Bear Stearns’ problems were unique, and that no other major US financial institution is on the verge of collapse, which I suppose is why they also cut interest rates a quarter point. On a Sunday. Ahead of an expected 1-point cut in the discount rate this Tuesday. And still, Asian markets and the dollar continue to fall… I wonder why?

As Bonddad wrote on Friday:

The only way to prevent this mess from happening again is to let some of the big banks fail. Then in the future when someone says, “let’s stop performing due diligence on borrowers” someone can respond with, “Bear Stearns tried that and they went belly up.” Now in 10 years, someone will say, “Let’s stop performing due diligence” someone will respond with “that’s a great idea. After the borrowers default, the Federal Reserve will bail us out.”

I guess that pull yourself up by your bootstraps, free market, rugged individualism stuff is only meant for us little guys.

UPDATE:

In Tokyo, the region’s largest stock exchange, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index was trading at an almost three-year low. By midday, the index dropped 4.2 percent to 11,726.99, falling below 12,000 for the first time since August 2005.

[…] The declines in Tokyo came even as the Japanese central bank, the Bank of Japan, moved to shore up financial markets by injecting $4.1 billion into short-term money markets.

Wow, talk about Rossi leaping into the conversation:

In a move stunning some of his conservative “family values” supporters, the former state senator Dino Rossi pledged this week that if elected governor he would use less expensive prostitutes than disgraced Gov. Eliot Spitzer, (D-NY).

“It’s just one more example of people in government spending the people’s hard earned tax money in an inefficient manner.”

Rossi declined to say if he would use prostitutes if elected governor, but said that if he did he wouldn’t spend as much “as that guy from New York.” He went on to blame Gov. Christine Gregoire for rising prices that have earned Washington state a reputation for having some of the most expensive hookers in the nation.

“This is just more proof of the awful business climate she’s responsible for,” added Rossi. “Thousands of whores leave this state every year for states with lower taxes and less regulation. If I’m elected, hookers are going to get the respect they deserve.”

A spokesman for Gregoire couldn’t stop laughing long enough to comment.

With 24 hours left in the 2008 session, state Sen. Brian Weinstein has issued the following press release:

Today, I communicated to the Speaker’s staff that I’ll agree in principle to Speaker Chopp’s three-point proposal with some minor technical and substantive changes, if he’ll agree to allow a homebuyer to bring a legal action against a builder who has violated a building code after giving the builder notice and an opportunity to fix it.

A builder is already required to comply with building codes, but Washington law affords a homebuyer no rights to enforce the building code. This is a bare minimal right that all Washingtonians must agree a homebuyer should have.

I know the Speaker is a man of his word, and I would only do this with a good faith representation from him that he will work diligently to expand the right of access to the courts to aggrieved homebuyers in the next Legislative Session.

Really… is that so much to ask for? The right to sue a builder if they violate a building code, and refuse to fix it? I invite the pro-BIAW trolls in the comment thread to justify to me why homebuyers should not have this right?

I don’t normally reprint emails forwarded my way without asking permission, but since this email from Attorney Sandy Levy to Rep. Mark Ericks was CC’d to a number of journalists, I think it’s pretty much fair game.

Dear Rep. Ericks:

Boy, was I a sucker. I believed you were an interested, impartial and objective task force chairman, appointed by Speaker Chopp to investigate problems in the homebuilding industry and to report to the Speaker with recommendations. You told me when we met in August of last year that you would convene your committee, bring me in to speak, and bring in homeowners to hear first hand the problems they were having. Instead, you never convened that group, at least not with any homeowners or their representatives.

Now I find out the following article, published today:

While some accounts explain that Chopp (who killed Sen. Weinstein’s bill late last week at the behest of the Building Industry Association of Washington) crafted his alternative proposal (a study!!) with Democratic Rep. Mark Ericks (D-1, Bothell), they fail to report that Rep. Ericks was the guest of honor at last Tuesday’s BIAW fund raiser at the BIAW’s offices in Olympia.

Mark, it’s not as though there were no homeowner groups with real complaints, with visible problems you could have visited yourself. One of them is just a few minutes away from the Capitol, such as the 130 unit Cooper Crest subdivision in Olympia. Yet you and the Speaker misinformed the public that you were leading an independent task force and you were meeting with stakeholders. I don’t know who the stakeholders were, other than BIAW. I know your committee didn’t meet with me, as you had promised. I guess money talks doesn’t it? Homeowners just don’t have the fat wallet that BIAW does to line legislative pockets. From the same article as above comes this illuminating piece of information:

Killing Sen. Weinstein’s bill—which would have guaranteed a warranty for consumers when they buy a new home (allowing consumers to sue contractors for faulty or shoddy work)—was the BIAW’s top legislative priority this year. The powerful conservative lobby—which bankrolls the GOP—also maxed out to Democratic Rep. Ericks last election cycle.

Misleading the public and trying to manipulate public opinion should be grounds for dismissal as a public official. What you have done is a disgrace to democracy. And, my representatives have abetted this trampling of citizen rights. Where is the guiding principle that you disclose any appearance of impropriety, any appearance of a conflict of interest. How do you take money from BIAW, then say you are an independent fact finder on a task force charged with analysis of a problem? Doesn’t that strike you as shocking?

Sandy Levy

The emphasis is Mr. Levy’s.

My personal outrage has never focused solely on the bill itself; there isn’t a session that goes by in which I’m not disappointed by the death of bills that didn’t even get a hearing, let alone a floor vote. Rather, my outrage, like that expressed by Levy, stems from the manner in which this bill has been consistently blocked by the militia-funding orca-killers at the BIAW, without anybody on the Democratic side having the balls to acknowledge the truth. I expect to be disappointed by the Democratic majority either because they genuinely disagree with me on issues of policy or on political strategy; I just don’t expect them to be shills for the enemy. I’ve got nothing against builders or contractors or their industry, but the organization that represents them is viciously anti-Democratic, and politically amoral at best. The BIAW is an organization dedicated to legislating the labor movement out of existence, and opposing all and every environmental regulation. And they have given every indication that they will stop at nothing to achieve their agenda.

If Rep. Ericks has a reply to Mr. Levy, in which amongst other things, he can defend his appearance as a “guest of honor” at a BIAW fundraiser, I’d be happy to post it here. But for the life of me, I can’t imagine what that defense might be.

“We Wuz Robbed” seems like an incredibly bankrupt campaign strategy to me. But bankruptcy hasn’t stopped Dino Rossi, who is still perpetuating the idea that he was cheated out of being Governor:

Residents heard from Attorney General Rob McKenna, who’s seeking re-election, and Dino Rossi, who’s back on the campaign trail as a candidate for governor, jokingly telling people he’s seeking re-election as well, after an extremely close vote the last time he ran.

The Sore Loser Express™ is currently steaming through Eastern Washington saying things like this:

“It’s a different campaign, completely different,” said Rossi. “Last time when I decided I was going to run for governor, I only had 12 percent name ID statewide. Almost everybody in this county thought Dino Rossi was some sort of wine.”

Of course, another difference is that, recently, Washington state has been rated one of the best managed states, and as having one of the best business climates in the country. He continues:

“If people want to, they can control every single election,” said Rossi. “If they get their aunt, who doesn’t think their vote counts anymore to vote, get their 18-year-olds registered to vote. Just get everybody out to vote. If you exercise the vote that you’re given, you can control every election.”

Yeah…that’s it, Dino. Get Aunt Matilda to go out and vote. You’d better just hope that Aunt Millie doesn’t remember the cries of election fraud that were found to be without merit by a Judge in one of the most conservative county in Washington. And hope that she doesn’t remember your un-statesmanlike slamming the Washington state Supreme Court when you begrudgingly ended the contest:

“With today’s decision, and because of the political makeup of the Washington state Supreme Court, which makes it almost impossible to overturn this ruling, I am ending the election contest

Because, even Aunt Millie knows a sore loser when she sees one!

Lots of people, myself included, thought that Gov. Gregoire would oppose Sound Transit going back to voters in ’08 if the Roads and Transit measure failed. We didn’t think Democrats would want to share the ballot with a big transportation measure.

Turns out I was wrong.

Gregoire has signaled that a ballot measure this fall has her OK, even if she has reservations about the area interest groups’ willingness to “saddle-up” for another campaign. Sound Transit chair Greg Nickels isn’t standing in the way, either. He’s cajoling his fellow board member to vote for a revised ST2 package, one that ditches light rail to Tacoma and puts that money into going east and north. It’s the kind of package that is aimed at the areas that vote “yes” on transit. It’s a good rebound package, something that could pass, on it’s own, this fall. Just when transit fans are stepping on the gas, some are riding the brake.

Namely, Ron Sims.

Yeah, that Ron Sims, the same Ron Sims who pledged, in ’07, that he’d fight to put a better transit-only package on the ballot this fall:

Is he willing to lead the fight and come back next year with a revised light rail package?

The answer was an unequivocal yes. “I’m into that. I’m back. I’m fully engaged. No question,” he said. “I don’t believe in letting waters stagnate. I want to come back with a package that reduces our impact on global warming that is less expensive. Yes. Light rail is a big part of that package. I will spend a lot of time and political capital on that.”

But Ron is willing to let the waters stagnate.

The most depressing thing is that he used to be one of Sound Transit’s biggest defenders. But ever since Sims left the post of Sound Transit chair, he’s shown his disdain for any public transportation investment that isn’t controlled by his office. Instead of light rail, Sims advocated for buses (or bus rapid transit). He even preempted Sound Transit’s bid for the ballot with a measure of his own.

“Transit Now,” an expansion of bus service paid for by a sales tax hike, took the place of light rail on the 2006 ballot. Like the dumbass liberal that I am, I voted for it, all the time thinking that this was just Sims’ opening salvo of transportation investment. It wasn’t, which makes Sims’ ’07 comments on light rail all the more vexing.

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The local blogosphere cut it’s teeth on the 2004 election battle, and a year later Goldy used the new medium to destroy the candidacy of Ron Sims’ opponent. I remember sitting in the audience as Ron debated Ken Hutcherson on the issue of gay marriage, and I was amazed at how Sims took him apart in a most dignified manner. When Sims, the bloggers, and the Stranger writers all went out for drinks afterwards, Ron put his arm around me and recalled specific blog posts I had written. The guy cared, and he impressed me in a way other local pols didn’t.

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As quoted in Erica’s great article about the board’s deliberations, several members are still undecided:

Opinion on the Eastside is reportedly more divided, with several representatives waiting to make up their minds. Redmond Mayor John Marchione, who took his seat on the Sound Transit board just two weeks ago, says he’s been busy “talking to other board members and constituents” about their concerns with the proposal. “I’m very cognizant of the economy and what it might do this year—bad economies don’t produce positive votes on tax increases.” Marchione says he’s “disappointed that light rail doesn’t reach all the way to Microsoft,” but adds, “it might be a political necessity. People want to build this system in smaller bites and they want to see some success” before moving forward. Fred Butler, the deputy council president of Issaquah, meanwhile, says he’s “not really prepared to say one way or another,” although if pressured, “I’d probably say I lean just a little bit more toward 2008. But I have certainly not made up my mind and probably will not do so until I have to, in late March.”

No plan is perfect. In fact, one board member’s perfect plan is somebody else’s nightmare. Light rail won’t get to Redmond without getting across the lake first. Light rail won’t get to Everett without going to Northgate (and 145th St) first. I understand guys like Marchione and Butler. They’re looking out for their constituents, but Sound Transit has a regional mission.

Larry Phillips, from the Stranger’s story:

The only outliers among the King County delegation are reportedly King County Council Member Julia Patterson (who did not return a call for comment) and King County Executive Ron Sims, who has not been attending Sound Transit meetings. “He’s waiting for the perfect plan,” Phillips says derisively. Sims did not return a call for comment.

It was Ron himself who once said:

“You cannot tell people sitting in congestion that we’ll have another year of planning”

Time will tell if this is one more thing Ron has changed his mind about.