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In what can only be called a stunning decision, a conservative Republican Governor is taking a stand against cervical cancer, even when his political “base” is against his position:

Mr. Perry’s action, praised by health advocates, caught many by surprise in a largely conservative state where sexual politics is often a battleground.

[…]

Under the order, girls and women from 9 to 21 eligible for public assistance could get free shots immediately. The governor’s office said parents could opt out of the school program “for reasons of conscience, including religious beliefs.”

“Requiring young girls to get vaccinated before they come into contact with HPV is responsible health and fiscal policy that has the potential to significantly reduce cases of cervical cancer and mitigate future medical costs,” said Mr. Perry, who was re-elected to his second full term last November.

HPV, affecting 20 million people nationally, including one in four 15-to-24-year-olds, is the nation’s most common sexually transmitted disease. Texas has the second-highest number of women with cervical cancer, with nearly 400 deaths last year, the governor’s statement noted.

The vaccine, approved for ages 9 to 26, is given in three shots over eight months. The shots are effective for at least five years, and together cost $360, said Curtis Allen, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This is amazing news. But there’s more:

Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass state laws across the country mandating Gardasil for girls as young as 11 or 12. It doubled its lobbying budget in Texas and has funneled money through Women in Government, an advocacy group made up of female state legislators around the country.

Perry has ties to Merck and Women in Government. One of the drug company’s three lobbyists in Texas is Mike Toomey, Perry’s former chief of staff. His current chief of staff’s mother-in-law, Texas Republican state Rep. Dianne White Delisi, is a state director for Women in Government.

The governor also received $6,000 from Merck’s political action committee during his re-election campaign.

Some of my “left-of-center” buddies were quick to accuse Perry of doing the bidding of a big donor. It may very well be the case.

But does that change things? Even if Gov. Rick Perry has “sold out” to the drug lobby, isn’t that OK if it saves hundreds of lives? I’m all for voting out the crooks, but lets get some perspective. If Merck’s influence over the Governor of Texas will save even one young woman’s life, then I say God bless him. Most Christian conservatives are against the vaccine; they say it’ll make girls more likely to have sex. They’d rather seen women die, I guess.

Republicans are like Labradors; I’m inclined to reward them for good behavior. In Gov. Rick Perry’s case, he gets a Milkbone from me for showing some “enlightenment.”

From the Give ‘Em Enough Rope and They’ll Hang Themselves Department, Darren McKinney of the American Tort Reform Association eloquently makes the conservative argument against public financing of elections:

The Jan. 24 letter to the editor from Nick Nyhart and Chellie Pingree (“Full public funding of elections proven to work in states, cities,”), respective presidents of Public Campaign and Common Cause, lament the lack of public financing for all American political campaigns: “A democracy should be about all of us and not just about those who can write huge checks.”

But if Nyhart and Pingree had their way, black helicopter conspiracy theorists off their meds, the dysfunctionally unemployed, irresponsible young men and women who have multiple babies out-of-wedlock, repeat felons and various other burdens to society without means might have as much to say about our nation’s political leadership and direction as folks who soberly get up every morning, lovingly raise their children, productively hold jobs, responsibly pay taxes, and occasionally write checks, huge or otherwise, to the political campaigns of their choosing.

[…] There’s a lot to be said […] for having most of our big political decisions influenced in greater measure by those who have succeeded in life and thus have a better sense of what it’ll take for our nation to succeed in the future.

Well… um… you gotta respect his honesty.

Conservatives like to accuse liberals of being elitist, but as we continue to debate Governor Gregoire’s proposal to publicly finance state Supreme Court races, remember that at least some of the opposition stems from the concern that us average folk simply aren’t as qualified to participate in the democratic process as the wealthy. Uh-huh.

In what can only be called the upset political victory of the year, Diane Tebelius was defeated in a vote of 71-43 for the position of party chair. The winner? A pulled-pork sandwich from Seattle area restaurant Longhorn Barbeque.

While the biggest challenge to Tebelius was thought to come from former state Senator Luke Esser, the sandwich from Seattle was able to convince wavering delegates that was time for a different form of leadership.

“I don’t care if he’s from Seattle, that sandwich has what it takes,” said Earl Murtt from Tonasket.

“The GOP got whomped last year. I figure a hamburger bun stuffed with delicious meat could get out the vote better than (Tebelius and Esser),” said Fay Wingenhauser from Liberty Lake.

Some aren’t excited that the Washington State Republican Party will be lead by an entrée. Former chair Chris Vance said, “I know a sandwich sounds good, but will it be able to appeal to swing voters in the suburbs?” State Senator Pam Roach had questions too. “I’ll do what I can to work with the sandwich, but as we all know, savory meats have a well-known liberal bias. Who’s hungry for that? Certainly not me”

Not every Republican insider was as skeptical. Radio host (and 2000 candidate for governor) John Carlson noted, “When I ran for governor, I was told- repeatedly, by great numbers of people- than a potted plant had a better chance to unseat Gov. Gary Locke. While a pulled-pork sandwich doesn’t have the media skills of a ficus, I’m excited to see what the little guy can do.”

Visit Horse’s Ass in the next several days for an exclusive interview with the pulled-pork sandwich.

For other updates on the pulled-pork sandwich, visit Longhorn Barbeque.

In the 24 hours since I launched my first annual HA Pledge Week, 38 readers have contributed nearly $1,400, bringing me more than a third of the way towards my one-week goal of $3,500. That’s an amazing start, and I thank all 38 of you for your generous support. (As for the other 2100 readers who visited HA today, well… you know who you are.)

Still, not everyone reacted so positively to my pledge drive. I expected the usual personal attacks belittling me as stupid or lazy or a societal leech, and my trolls didn’t disappoint. But by far the nastiest comments came via email, where one pseudonymous righty lectured that my “shameless panhandling” made me an “unfit parent,” and claimed to have copied the email to DSHS along with my street address and phone number.

Whatever.

Of course, if I were a righty blogger with a comparable impact on local politics and media coverage (and yes, I know that requires a leap of imagination on both counts) I probably wouldn’t be reduced to begging — at least not publicly. The right has developed institutions to nurture and support up-and-coming talking heads, and help build and promote their profiles. Faced with the prospect of losing a right-wing voice like mine, a faux-think-tank like the EFF might find me some cushy job, or a friendly publisher might offer me a generous book deal. Nobody on the right would expect me to continue doing what I do for as long as I’ve done it without some sort of steady income.

And yet that’s exactly the status quo on the left. This despite the fact that us netroots bloggers have not only become an integral part of the Democratic Party’s messaging machine, but have raised hundreds of millions of dollars for Democratic candidates.

Chris Bowers writes about the “one-way flow of progressive movement money,” and he comes off sounding rather pissed. And rightly so.

In a painful and disturbing irony, the same Democratic political consultant structure that the netroots seek to reform–and which Markos and Jerome called “The Consultant Con” in Crashing the Gate–is actually being funded, reinforced, and strengthened by the netroots. Roughly one-third of the money that went to Democratic campaign consultants in the 2003-2004 election cycle came from netroots activists….

[…] While I don’t think the netroots should regret any of the money it raised for Democratic candidates during 2003-2006 […] we needed to do more to help support the underfunded people, institutions and ideas that make the progressive movement possible. Just lining the pockets of already well compensated consultants is no way to build a movement over the long term.

My partner at BlogPac, Matt Stoller, has previously written about examples of full-time progressive movement activists who receive little or no compensation for their work. Maria Leavey, who did not have health insurance, passed away last month as the result of a heart attack a doctor could have identified. […] Local progressive bloggers typically lose money on blogging every year, even as they help transform local media and activist scenes. Even a prominent blogger such as myself, who helped raise around $2 million for Democratic candidates and committees in the 2005-2006 cycle (and transfer another $3 million into competitive races through Use It Or Lose It), spent the entire 2005-2006 cycle without health insurance. Quite frankly, it is pretty brainless for someone such as myself to help so much money flow into the hands of a small number of highly paid consultants without simultaneously raising money to meet my own basic needs, such as health insurance. What the hell was I doing?

But I am not just angry at myself, or the general lack of funding currently available to the people, institutions, and ideas that make the progressive movement so vital. I am also pissed off at the Democratic and progressive establishment that is funded with our dollars, but which refuses to fund us in return.

I’m not ashamed to be asking for your contributions, but I don’t particularly relish doing it, and I realize that long term this is an unsustainable way to support my work. My personal goal is to integrate my blogging and activism into a fulltime radio gig or some other kind of paid media venture. But my personal finances aside, the larger deficit is institutional, and if we want the progressive blogosphere to continue to grow in size and influence, the progressive community is going to have to step up and find a way to support bloggers of merit. This means labor, environment, pro-choice and all the traditional private and institutional backers of progressive candidates and causes are going to have to dedicate resources to funding bloggers like me. You can’t expect us to do this work, unpaid, indefinitely… and in the long run, you get what you pay for.

But in the meanwhile, I need your help. If you value what I do, if you would miss this blog if it were to suddenly go away, if you look forward to the impact I might have on future elections, I ask you to please reach into your pocket and throw a few bucks my way. I don’t do what I do for the money, but the bank that holds my mortgage does.

Six days and $2,100 to go. Thank you in advance for your generous support.

I visited the new Sculpture Park yesterday. I have to say, it’s awesome. The view of the Puget Sound is wicked, as is the view of the new gleaming condo towers of my native Belltown. I’m not art guy (velvet Elvis, anyone?), but our new outdoor art museum is heads and shoulders above its ugly-ass companion at 1st and University Street downtown.

Some of the sculptures are better than others. Weird-looking wheel thing? Check. Big, orange swoopy deal? Check. Artwork designed for the sole purpose of giving Dori Monson something to talk about? Check. Perhaps the best of it is the part that isn’t finished. The grass hasn’t grown in yet (its winter) and it’s too muddy to finish some of the shoreline stuff, but it looks like a winner. When it’s all done folks will be able to walk on the beach where Elliot Bay meets Seattle. A natural waterfront where you can dip your toes in? What a deal!

To think this whole place used to be owned by Unocal. The site was polluted as hell, so they had their work cut out for them. Thanks to private donors and some federal monies sent home by my home-girl Patty, the whole idea became reality. If that’s pork, well, gimme some mo’!

There are some downsides. The hot dog cart I saw probably won’t be there in a month, which is too bad. We need more hot dog carts in Seattle, and not just the ones that are open at night in Belltown and Pioneer Square. Thankfully the park has a little cafe where you can get a salad and, uh, a panini. I’m not dissin’ them, I’m just saying… Would it kill you do put some meat on a grill? Some of that kick-ass deli mustard with onions and kraut would be awesome. I’ll have to settle for “line caught tuna, roasted peppers, arugula, hard boiled egg, butter lettuce & lemon remoulade on herb-sea salt baguette.” Sigh.

I didn’t see any basketball courts at the new park. You might be saying to yourself, “you’re an idiot, Will. It’s a friggin’ sculpture park. Of course there’s no hardtop.” That’s not the point! As Seattle is graying population wise, our city leaders don’t see the need to build soccer fields, baseball diamonds, or basketball courts like they used to. Park space is much more likely to be used as so-called “green space”, for “non-specific, non-programmed” uses.

The basketball court at the Regrade Park was decommissioned in favor of a dog park. While the change was welcomed in the neighborhood (the dogs chased the crack heads away), I’m lamenting the fact that there is just a single basketball court in the general downtown area meant for public use. Sure, sculptures are nice, but I need someplace to shoot hoops. Lots of other big cities make a point of building parks designed for “active use”, but after Seattle was hounded by a bunch of old folks for trying to build lots of sports fields at Magnuson Park, I don’t see anything happening soon.

Shortcomings aside, the new park is pretty damn cool, and it’s worth visiting. I’m sure Knute Berger will write a column about how we should have built a tank farm there (oops, looks like he already did!). Joel Connelly mostly likes the park, but got a bit irritated with all the “fawning over” and attention it’s getting. Personally, I don’t care if some architecture writer in New York likes it. Those folks like anything that’s weird and new (just read the reviews of our Downtown Seattle Public Library. Those NYC folks loved it. Meanwhile, I STILL can’t find the fucking fiction section. Yeesh.) Joel can take heart that if the Seattle P-I folds, they can just roll that big shiny globe south a block and he’ll be able to visit it anytime he wants.

Take heart, people of the Emerald City: when private fundraising with no help from Seattle City Hall can do something as amazing as the Olympic Sculpture Park, just think of the possibilities…

Seattle Art Museum Sculpture Monorail anyone?

Twice now I’ve mentioned “war crimes” and the Bush administration in the same sentence, acts of deliberate provocation that sure tied the righties’ panties in a knot. But contrary to the screaming headlines of the all-knowing Orb, I have never explicitly called Donald Rumsfeld a war criminal — and out-of-work radio host Brian Maloney doesn’t do his job prospects any good with his incoherent and (and fictional) assertion that I have twice called for administration officials to be executed.

Gimme a break.

But given the recent show trial of Saddam Hussein and his top aides, and their subsequent “fumbled” executions (I suppose Bush was referring to the moment Barzan Ibrahim’s severed head hit the ground,) I think it quite an appropriate time to stop and consider the very notion of “war crimes,” especially considering the inherently violent and unforgiving nature of war itself. As Americans, we are quick to examine Saddam’s murderous life and discard him as a monstrous dictator undeserving of mercy… and that very well may be true. But at the same time, President Bush — our Commander in Chief — has himself been directly responsible for the death and dismemberment of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, not to mention the destabilization of Iraq into a bloody civil war that claims hundreds more lives every day.

Perhaps such “collateral damage” is an unavoidable and thus acceptable consequence of war, and perhaps our unprovoked “preemptive” invasion of Iraq is both morally and legally justified.

But… even if one disagrees with the notion that our own government is guilty of war crimes itself, it should at the very least be possible to empathize with the hundreds of millions of Muslims who may view the administration’s actions less charitably. We invaded Iraq, allegedly in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction that were not there, and possibly with high government officials fully cognizant that the publicly touted intelligence was false and/or deliberately misleading. We tortured, humiliated and perhaps murdered defenseless Iraqi prisoners. President Bush’s decisions have undoubtedly resulted in death, destruction and untold human misery.

I’m not saying that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld committed war crimes, or that they should be brought before an international tribunal. But I certainly believe it to be a proper subject of debate, for moral introspection — even self-recrimination — is a worthy and absolutely necessary exercise within a functioning democracy. So for those of you who would attempt to silence this debate, who would denounce any mention of the subject as an act of treason or terrorism, well… I strongly suggest you stay away from the Citizens’ Hearing on the Legality of U.S. Actions in Iraq being held this weekend in Tacoma:

The Citizens’ Hearing on the Legality of U.S. Actions in Iraq will be held on January 20-21, 2007, in Tacoma, Washington, two weeks before the Feb. 5 court martial of Lieutenant Ehren Watada at Fort Lewis.. The Citizens’ Hearing will function as a tribunal to put the Iraq War on trial, in response to the Army putting Lt. Watada on trial as the first U.S. military officer to refuse deployment to Iraq.

[…] The hearing will present the case that Lt. Watada would, if allowed, make at his court martial. His defense attorneys maintain that the war on Iraq is illegal under international treaties and under Article Six of the U.S. Constitution. Further, Lt. Watada’s defense argues that the Nuremberg Principles and U.S. military regulations require soldiers to follow only “lawful orders.” In Lt. Watada’s view, deployment to Iraq would have made him party to the crimes that permeate the structure and conduct of military operations there.

The format of the Citizens’ Hearing will resemble that of a congressional committee, employing a dignified approach to gathering information. Testimony will be offered by Iraq War veterans, experts in international law and war crimes, and human rights advocates. Your gift of funds (or frequent flyer miles) will enable more of these clear voices to be heard by people around the country and the world. Among the figures that have committed to testify are:

• Daniel Ellsberg, military analyst who released the Pentagon Papers in the Vietnam War;
• Denis Halliday, Former UN Assistant Secretary General, coordinated Iraq humanitarian aid;
• Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University;
• Stacy Bannerman Military Families Speak Out; author of “When the War Came Home”
• Harvey Tharp, former U.S. Navy Lieutenant and JAG stationed in Iraq;
• Antonia Juhasz, policy-analyst and author on U.S. economic policies in Iraq;
• John Burroughs, Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy executive director;
• Benjamin G. Davis, Assoc. Law Prof., Univ. of Toledo; expert on law of war;
• Eman Khammas, Iraqi human rights advocate (via video).
• Geoffrey Millard, 8 years in NY Army National Guard; stationed in Ground Zero, Kuwait, Iraq.
• Ann Wright, Retired Army Colonel and State Department official
• Darrell Anderson, Army 1st Armored Division in Baghdad & Najaf; awarded Purple Heart
• Dennis Kyne, 15 years as Army medic & drill sergeant; trained in NBC warfare; Gulf War I.
• Francis Boyle, Professor of International Law at University of Illinois (video testimony)
• Chanan Suarez-Diaz, Former Navy hospital corpsman; awarded Purple Heart & Commendation with Valor.

A panel of citizens will hear the testimony, examine witnesses, and issue a fact-finding report. The panel will be comprised of veterans, members of military families, high school students, union members, and representatives of local governments, academia, and religious organizations. David Krieger, Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Former Army 2nd Lieutenant stationed in Hawaii during the Vietnam War, and a member of the Jury of Conscience at the 2005 World Tribunal on Iraq (in Istanbul) will serve as panel chair.

Panelists’ questioning will focus on the legality of the war and whether or not the invasion of Iraq in 2003 constituted a “crime against the peace,” whether the military occupation and economic constriction of Iraq constitutes a “crime against humanity,” and whether individual soldiers have an obligation or duty to refuse unlawful orders. We expect that this hearing will focus attention on the role of the U.S. government–rather than that of individual soldiers–in perpetrating the crimes of the Iraq War.

If you find the very notion of such a mock war tribunal offensive, then absolutely don’t attend Friday Jan 20 and Saturday Jan 21 at Evergreen State College’s Tacoma Campus, 1210 6th AVE. And absolutely don’t tune in to my show on 710-KIRO Saturday night at 8PM, when I’ll have Daniel Ellsberg on to discuss the Watada case and the conduct of our war in Iraq.

It’s been a bannering year for the Federal Way School Board, which is now considering banning cell phones and other electronic devices:

Federal Way School Board is exploring a ban on iPods, MP3 players, CD players and electronic games from campuses. Cell phones still could be brought to school, but they’d have to be turned off and stored in backpacks or otherwise out of sight.

Why ban cell phones, an object as integral to the lives of modern teens as weird piercings and moodiness? School board members have been coy, but one district insider tells me that the real concern is that too many Federal Way High School students have been using their cell phones to call Al Gore.

After years of fawning coverage in local media, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was backpedaling last week. It had help.

The reason was a two-part investigative story by the Los Angeles Times, begun on Sunday, 1-7-07, and reprinted on the front page of the Seattle Times, which reported that

“…the Gates Foundation has holdings in many companies that have failed tests of social responsibility because of environmental lapses, employment discrimination, disregard for worker rights, or unethical practices…. hundreds of Gates Foundation investments – totaling at least 41% of its assets – have been in companies that countered the foundation’s charitable goals or socially concerned philosophy.”

The practices of many of those companies, we learned, “are hurting many of the people its grants aim to help….”

The high-powered local executives running the world’s largest charitable organization, with some $70 billion or more in existing or pledged assets, might not have paid much attention to bad ethical investing. But they act quickly when bad publicity strikes. Wednesday, in an exclusive interview, we learned in the Seattle Times that:

“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is planning a systematic review of its investments to determine whether it should pull its money out of companies that are doing harm to society…”

So far, so good. Only one problem: the Seattle Times pulled a major punch. It made no mention of one of the major threads of the L.A. Times stories:

“…investing in destructive or unethical companies is not what is most harmful….Worse is investing purely for profit, without attempting to improve a company’s way of operating.”

Gates, in responding to the bad publicity, made no mention of whether it would join the movement in American philanthropy to push companies to change their business practices. By their silence, we could presume the foundation would continue to keep its highly influential hands off the companies it invested in. And the Seattle Times let Gates get away with it.

And, it turns out, there was another problem: talk is cheap, and, it quietly emerged, fully retractable. Two days after that, on Friday, the web site NewsCloud.com broke a story bluntly headlined “Gates Foundation Revokes Pledge to Review Portfolio.” Our beneficent local philanthropists got their message out, and then changed it. Or, as NewsCloud put it:

“Shortly after that [Seattle Times] interview, the Gates Foundation took down their public statement on this [from their web site] and replaced it with a significantly altered version which seems to say that investing responsibly would just be too complex for them and that they need to focus on their core mission: ‘There are dozens of factors that could be considered, almost all of which are outside the foundation’s areas of expertise.’…”

The Seattle Times, however, was not done making up for the error of its ways. Yesterday, our local apologist for all things Bill Gates featured what seemed to be something like an official’s makeup call in sports: a makeup feature for having reprinted the L.A. Times expose the previous Sunday. Sympathetically titled “Gates Foundation faces multibillion-dollar dilemma,” the article literally let our heroes have it both ways:

“As the Gates Foundation embarks upon a review of how its $32 billion endowment is invested, officials insist they won’t change their basic investment philosophy.”

Aside from greatly understating the Gates’ endowment, this sentence raises a rather basic dilemma of its own: what’s the point of “a systematic review of investments” if foundation officials “won’t change their basic investment philosophy”?

Let’s review, then: caught in a well-researched investigative piece, published by one of the nation’s most prominent newspapers, that looked (and was) really bad, a beloved local institution scrambles to put a good face on things. It announces this good face through the ever-pliant hometown paper, which already has probably fired an editor or two for reprinting the expose in the first place. It then promptly issues a meek, Gilda Radneresque “Never mind!,” which our local paper utterly ignores in a makeup feature devoted to those hard, hard, hard choices wealthy philanthropists must sometimes make.

What we have, then, is a massive investment firm (embedded in a multi-billion dollar philanthropy) smoothly reassuring the public while changing its odious practices not a whit; and the hometown paper first publicizing the odious practices and then, obediently, helping make it all right and sunshiney again.

The only losers are the millions of people around the globe victimized by the practices of firms invested in by the Gates Foundation; and local news consumers who think that the Seattle Times, for once, cast an unfettered, critical eye on a feelgood local institution. In both cases, it’s bad news.

In writing about the Black Rock project it wasn’t really my intent to trash the notion of a new Yakima basin reservoir. Mainly, I saw the $2 billion miscalculation as an opportunity to chide Eastern Washington voters for constantly complaining about tax dollars flowing East to West (they don’t) when in fact the irrigation, electrification and transportation infrastructure that makes their economy possible was large built courtesy of huge state and federal subsidies.

I understand the imperative to maintain the Yakima region as a productive agricultural center in the face of the increasing strain placed on the water supply by climate change and population growth, so I don’t want to dwell on the negative side of this project without sufficiently educating myself on the details. But an astute observation by HA regular Roger Rabbit deserves broader consideration. In the comment thread Roger asks what should have been an obvious question: “Is Black Rock a Perpetual Motion Machine?”

One of the alleged “benefits” touted by Black Rock promoters is hydroelectric generation. Apart from the 600% error in calculating power sales, let’s examine where the water that generates the power will come from in the first place.

It will be pumped UP to Black Rock Reservoir, elevation 1778 feet, from Priest Rapids Dam, elevation 390 feet. Then it will flow through turbines at Black Rock dam and into the Yakima River, which flows into the Columbia River below McNary Dam, elevation 340 feet.

Someone please explain how you get net power generation from pumping the water that generates the power uphill in order to generate the power? Are these folks saying the water in Black Rock Reservoir will generate more power than is consumed getting the water up there?

[…] When they talk about Black Rock hydropower generation, all they’re talking about is recapturing a small percentage of the energy that was used to get the water up to the reservoir.

The Yakima Basin Storage Alliance originally touted revenue from power generation at $2.4 billion over forty years, but after discovering a calculation error, revised that figure downwards to only $412 million. But if the Black Rock Reservoir sits at a higher elevation than its source, then any power generated by Black Rock’s turbines could only amount to a fraction of the power it takes to pump the water into the reservoir in the first place. Indeed, the Bureau of Reclamation estimates the annual energy costs alone for operating the pumps at $62 million — that’s $2.48 billion over the same forty year period. (I asked my 9-year-old daughter, and she assures me that $412 million is indeed less than $2.48 billion.)

But this post isn’t really about math. It’s about honesty.

Understand that whatever their accuracy, the YBSA’s power revenue projections were put forth within the context of a discussion over recouping the estimated $4.2 billion cost of construction. But since the laws of physics dictate that it will take more energy to pump the water into the reservoir ($62 million annually) than could possibly be generated drawing the water out ($10.1 million annually,) any discussion of energy “benefits” within this context is entirely bogus. And always has been.

Yet it took the sometimes rabid Roger Rabbit to do the minimal legwork necessary to dispel the YBSA’s misinformation — legwork that consisted of little more than browsing the source documents and applying a little logic. For even after the YBSA admitted a 600 percent miscalculation, the journalists covering this story never bothered to challenge the underlying assumption that energy revenues could be used to offset the cost of construction.

I thank my friends in the legacy media for calling this story to my attention. But chalk one up for the blogosphere for setting the record straight.

Earlier today you may have seen the post by Rep. Adam Smith, in which he explains his reasoning for opposing escalation in Iraq:

After the meeting I considered the President’s argument and reviewed the available information, including the Iraq Study Group report. In the end, even though I gave the President’s argument due consideration, I don’t find it persuasive. A troop surge is not the answer in Iraq.

But the big question is whether or not Rep. Smith is willing to use Congress’ constitutional power of the purse to limit the President’s ability to send additional troops to Iraq. [See the update below]

I don’t want to put the troops in a political fight between Congress and the President, and Congress should carefully consider the consequences of any attempts to block funds for a surge. We cannot put our forces in Iraq at greater risk. But a troop surge is not the answer in Iraq.

But Congressman, it is the President who has put the troops in this fight between himself and Congress! Let’s be clear: Democrats should fund the troops who are currently engaged, but not a single soldier more. Let’s draw a line in the sand. I think the working class folks of the 9th District would appreciate a congressman who sticks up (and always has, I might add) for the grunts who could be shipped out in a “surge.” Let’s make sure Rep. Adam Smith knows we’ve got his back on this!

Speaking of ‘speaking out,’ I’m seeing a trend starting to work its way around the blogosphere. Lefties are flying off the handle at perceived slights and sins of omission. Like this:

Our Senators have been remarkably quiet about Iraq for a long time. Until lately, Iraq wasn’t even on Patty Murray’s website. They’re doing better lately, but I was disappointed that they had no thoughts about the most important issue facing the country.
Did I miss something? I thought the Republicans were supposed to come up with right wing ideas, and Democrats were supposed to come up with left wing ideas. Instead, Murray and Cantwell are letting Bush and Cheney do all the thinking (no, I can’t read that with a straight face either). They are content to respond.

I’m getting worn out with folks runnin’ off half-cocked, with goofy ideas about exactly what senators and congressfolk ought to say and when they ought to say it. Senators Murray and Cantwell have some power to wield. Attention Democrats!! We’ve got power now!! This means it doesn’t matter what they say so much as what they do. As Kos says, just because Murray and Cantwell aren’t angrily denoucing Bush’s plan before he releases it doesn’t mean they’re not ready for a fight.

And in this fight, even the soldiers are with us.

UPDATE:

Rep. Adam Smith was on KUOW today and said it was “appropriate to place limits” on the President regarding the increase of troop levels. He’s open to the idea, but is concerned that it might not be possible. He wants to make sure such a move doesn’t hurt the troops, which is his first concern (as it should be).

Rep. Adam Smith / Guest post:

Yesterday several of my colleagues and I met with President Bush and senior members of the Administration to discuss his plans for a “troop surge”. The meeting included the Vice President, Secretary Rice, Secretary Gates, and Karl Rove. Other members of Congress present included Representatives Skelton, Harman, Edwards, Reyes, Lantos, Dicks, and Berman.

I went to the meeting highly skeptical that escalating our troop presence in Iraq by approximately 20,000 personnel is the right answer in Iraq. I hoped to learn more about the administration’s thinking and to ask tough questions about his rationale. The President and his advisors laid out a plan to use a troop surge to support an Iraqi-led effort to “clear and hold” areas of Baghdad to help restore credibility for the Iraq government. They are obviously committed to their plan, but it was clear that they understand the hole they are in. There was no swagger – but it remains to be seen if they truly listen to Congress and to the American people who have deep and justified concerns about such an escalation.

After the meeting I considered the President’s argument and reviewed the available information, including the Iraq Study Group report. In the end, even though I gave the President’s argument due consideration, I don’t find it persuasive. A troop surge is not the answer in Iraq.

I’m concerned that the President continues to view this as a military problem, not a political problem. We have tried troop increases in Baghdad before with very limited results. We need to see from the Administration a real commitment to a broader diplomatic and political effort if we are to have any sense of minimal stability in Iraq. So far, the Administration has talked about such efforts, but not backed them up with resources and action. We simply cannot afford more of the same.

We also have to keep in mind that the global war on terror is exactly that: global. How does our commitment in Iraq affect our ability to prosecute the wider war? As I said yesterday in an interview, the recent air strikes against al-Qaeda targets in Somalia are a reminder that Iraq does not constitute the entire war on terror, and we have to remember that the battle in Iraq does not necessarily determine success or failure in the broader struggle.

In the weeks ahead, I’ll have the opportunity to participate in Armed Services Committee hearings, especially in the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities (which I will chair) to more fully examine the President’s plan.

I don’t want to put the troops in a political fight between Congress and the President, and Congress should carefully consider the consequences of any attempts to block funds for a surge. We cannot put our forces in Iraq at greater risk. But a troop surge is not the answer in Iraq.

Rep. Adam Smith
[Rep. Smith is a Democrat, representing Washington’s 9th Congressional District]

Some folks like to knock Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Seattle) for not being like other congressmen, for not being a log-roller or a guy who “brings home the bacon.” The guy is very vocal on Iraq, and does lots of good work on Africa, and pushes a good healthcare plan that will likely never become law, but he doesn’t do things the same way some of his colleagues do them. Some folks (Josh Feit, Joel Connelly and, uh, me) have mused openly about how we’d like to see the guy retire sometime soon in favor of some new blood.

With all of this taken into account, I come across this at Postman:

Congressman Jim McDermott was on his way to an “Open House to Celebrate the People’s House” this morning to celebrate the new Democratic majority and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ascension.

But he also had some business to do. He was looking to corner Pelosi or Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., to lobby to get 2nd District Rep. Rick Larsen a permanent seat on the Agriculture Committee.

Just then Miller walked by on his way into the Cannon Caucus Room. Or tried to. McDermott grabbed him, pulled out some notes, and gave Miller the pitch: Larsen would be the only Northwest representative on the committee and he’s a good guy doing a good job.
Miller said he’d do what he could. And that was good enough for McDermott. “If you want to make sure Nancy hears it, tell George,” he said.

Fuckin’ nice! A liberal guy like McDermott doing what he can to help out a super centrist like Larsen, that’s class. What’s so great about this move? Rep. Rick Larsen represents the only district west of the Cascades that has lots of agricultural business. This means he’s Washington’s only Democrat to represent agriculture in Washington D.C. This will do good things for Larsen as far as keeping the GOP out of the 2nd District, which also happens to be (I heard this somewhere, correct me if I’m wrong) the only Democratic-held district in WA that is actually trending towards the GOP.

If Jim shows he’s playing the game this well in the majority, we’ll just have to postpone that retirement party.

Note: Jim! Come to Drinking Liberally when you’re back in town! We want war stories!

On Saturday I documented some ways that the Special Iraqi Criminal Tribunal—the extra-judicial Tribunal under which Saddam Hussein was convicted—was a sham. The root of the problem is that the U.S., while acting as an occupying power, needed to create the Tribunal for ideological reasons: to avoid the International Criminal Court so despised by Bush, and to ensure that capital punishment would be on the menu. The Tribunal was a sham in numerous ways:

1. The Tribunal was created by an occupying power, which is prohibited by long-standing treaties and conventions
2. The Tribunal’s process was an American style adversary-accusatorial system rather than an Iraqi style inquisitorial system (modeled after French law)
3. The Tribunal’s charges were in violation of the nullum crimen legal principle (and Article 19 of the Iraqi Constitution)
4. The implementation of the tribunal included numerous procedural flaws like an indictment issued seven months into the trial

My point wasn’t to defend Hussein. Rather, I argued that the U.S. and Iraqis, in prosecuting a dictator for his abuse of judicial power, should have taken the moral and legal high ground, and set an example for the world of good democracy. The prosecution of Hussein should have been unimpeachable—not for Hussein’s sake, but for the sake of restoring some credibility for American democracy (you know, after illegally invading a sovereign nation under false pretenses) and to empirically establish legitimacy for the new Iraqi government.

So, we missed that badly needed opportunity.

Today’s New York Times further documents illegitimacy in carrying out the sentence:

The American role extended beyond providing the helicopter that carried Mr. Hussein home. Iraqi and American officials who have discussed the intrigue and confusion that preceded the decision late on Friday to rush Mr. Hussein to the gallows have said that it was the Americans who questioned the political wisdom—and justice—of expediting the execution, in ways that required Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to override constitutional and religious precepts that might have assured Mr. Hussein a more dignified passage to his end.

Uh-huh. The U.S. government had concerns and questions about what was going on. But, in the end, they handed over Hussein anyway.

That works for me about as well as the excuse “but…but…but, Your Honor, I really did have concerns and questions about the legitimacy of robbing that bank….”

One political concern was realized during the execution. A video of the hanging showed an…

…unruly, mocking atmosphere in the execution chamber.

This continued, on the video, through the actual hanging itself, with a shout of “The tyrant has fallen! May God curse him!” as Mr. Hussein hung lifeless, his neck snapped back and his glassy eyes open.

The cacophony from those gathered before the gallows included a shout of “Go to hell!” as the former ruler stood with the noose around his neck in the final moments, and his riposte, barely audible above the bedlam, which included the words “gallows of shame.” It continued despite appeals from an official-sounding voice, possibly Munir Haddad, the judge who presided at the hanging, saying, “Please no! The man is about to die.”

The Shiites who predominated at the hanging began a refrain at one point of “Moktada! Moktada! Moktada!”— the name of a volatile cleric whose private militia has spawned death squads that have made an indiscriminate industry of killing Sunnis — appending it to a Muslim imprecation for blessings on the Prophet Muhammad. “Moktada,” Mr. Hussein replied, smiling contemptuously. “Is this how real men behave?”

Of course, the issue isn’t about dignity for Hussein. The concern was that by coming off as a Shi’ite lynch mob, the execution further contributes to the sectarian divide in Iraq. It will fuel the civil war. It will translate into more dead and maimed Iraqis and U.S. soldiers. And that Hussein came off as dignified in the face of a lynch mob is a symbolic failure for the U.S. in “fostering democracy” in the Mideast.

The U.S. was correct when it…

…counseled caution in the way the Iraqis carried out the hanging. The issues uppermost in the Americans’ minds, these officials said, were a provision in Iraq’s new Constitution that required the three-man presidency council to approve hangings, and a stipulation in a longstanding Iraqi law that no executions can be carried out during the Id al-Adha holiday, which began for Iraqi Sunnis on Saturday and Shiites on Sunday.

It was Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki who pushed for an immediate execution. The largest snag for Maliki was that, by the Iraq constitution, he needed

…a decree from President Jalal Talabani, signed jointly by his two vice presidents, upholding the death sentence, and a letter from the chief judge of the Iraqi High Tribunal, the court that tried Mr. Hussein, certifying the verdict. But Mr. Talabani, a Kurd, made it known that he objected to the death penalty on principle.

Rather than adhering to the Iraqi constitution and law, Maliki developed a work-around.

The Maliki government spent much of Friday working on legal mechanisms to meet the American demands. From Mr. Talabani, they obtained a letter saying that while he would not sign a decree approving the hanging, he had no objections. The Iraqi official said Mr. Talabani first asked the tribunal’s judges for an opinion on whether the constitutional requirement for presidential approval applied to a death sentence handed down by the tribunal, a special court operating outside Iraq’s main judicial system. The judges said the requirement was void.

Apparently, everyone was willing to be convinced by the Tribunal judges who opined that the legislation creating the Tribunal (Law No. 10, passed on 9 Oct 2005) took precedence over Article 70 of the Iraqi constitution that requires the President to “[r]atify death sentences issued by the competent courts.” But, the Tribunal cannot override the Constitution; Article 92 prohibits “Special or exceptional courts.”

Without presidential ratification, the hanging violated the clear rule of law (as codified in the Iraqi constitution). It really was a lynching.

The fact that Iraqi law prohibits executions on holidays was never fully addressed. Instead, the Iraqis used simple psychological tricks on us to secure Hussein:

‘Who is going to execute him, anyway, you or us?’ The Americans replied by saying that obviously, it was the Iraqis who would carry out the hanging. So the Iraqis said, ‘This is our problem and we will handle the consequences. If there is any damage done, it is we who will be damaged, not you.’”

To this, the Iraqis added what has often been their trump card in tricky political situations: they telephoned officials of the marjaiya, the supreme religious body in Iraqi Shiism, composed of ayatollahs in the holy city of Najaf. The ayatollahs approved.

It is untrue that there would be no damage to the U.S. The U.S. needed the trial and execution of Hussein to be above reproach. There is only one way that the U.S. can achieve something resembling a “victory” in Iraq, and that would be to leave behind a functioning democracy.

Instead, we have replaced a lawless Sunni dictator with a lawless Shi’ite theocracy. And Iraq is led by a Prime Minister who has now committed one of the crimes that Hussein was guilty of: a lawless execution.

And to what end? What difference would it have made if Hussein’s execution had to wait for a week or wait for several years until a new President was elected?

None of the Iraqi officials were able to explain why Mr. Maliki had been unwilling to allow the execution to wait.
[…]

But the explanation may have lain in something that Bassam al-Husseini, a Maliki aide closely involved in arrangements for the hanging, said to the BBC later. Mr. Husseini, who has American citizenship, described the hanging as “an Id gift to the Iraqi people.”

Hey, well, you know…whatever it takes for Happy Holidays.

Saddam Hussein was hanged early this morning in Baghdad. (He was hanged, not hung—big difference there.)

President Bush said he was “executed after receiving a fair trial.”

Fair trial, my ass.

Hussein was found guilty of crimes against 148 Iraqis from al-Dujail who were accused of trying to assassinate him in 1982. The people were convicted, sentenced to execution, and then executed. Hussein admitted that he ordering the trial of the 148 individuals, but argued that he was entitled to do so under the laws of Iraq. Apparently, Hussein’s crime was to use his powers as dictator to deny justice to these individuals. The 149 people were convicted by a court that likely failed judicial independence—in short, a kangaroo court.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not defending Saddam for any of his crimes. Hussein had a well-deserved reputation as a murderous and brutal dictator. It seems likely that he committed numerous crimes that warrant execution.

My problem with Hussein’s conviction and execution is that he was tried in a kangaroo court. The judicial process that Hussein was tried and executed under was highly flawed—essentially, little better than the kangaroo court Hussein used to execute other people.

Let me take a moment here for a preemptive strike against our treasured Wingnut readers. My arguments here involve complex issues of international law and the Iraq legal system. If you are not willing to read this essay carefully, just shut the fuck up and go smoke your little green footballs or whatever it is you do to maintain a postmodern haze over reality. If you read carefully, you will learn that this essay isn’t about Hussein. Rather, it is about flaws in the process used to convict him—a process ill conceived by the arrogance and stupidity of the Bush administration. They fucked up another opportunity to offer Iraq some semblance of legitimacy.

All Americans have common ground in wishing for a peaceful, legitimate Iraq. It would solve our collective needs to get the hell out of Iraq and stop hemorrhaging money and American lives in support of the Bush administration’s past mistakes. Until late 2006, the Neocons wanted to pretend that Iraq was stabilizing, that the government was achieving legitimacy within and outside of Iraq, and that the U.S. had made the right decisions for post invasion Iraq. No more.

Last July when Bush held a joint press conference with Putin, he said (video):

I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world, like Iraq where there’s a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same.

To which an incredulous Putin sniped back:

We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy that they have in Iraq…quite honestly.

Free press and free religion is a joke for a nation under the grip of violence and chaos. (That Bush would even suggest something so idiotic to Putin is beyond belief!)

The Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (SICT or Tribunal), likewise, has caused harm to any semblance of legitimacy that the Iraqi government may have had. There are many reasons for this. Some reasons result from the execution of the Tribunal itself, but ultimately the problems boil down to (1) uninformed decisions made under the rule of the Coalition Provisional Authority (i.e. while the U.S. occupied Iraq), (2) prior “issues” the Bush administration had with the International Criminal Court (ICC), and (3) rotten decisions made under the fog of wingnuttery.

The realization of the Tribunal was a debacle from the get-go. We all cringed in embarrassment as Hussein managed to make a mockery of the court’s early proceedings. The whole world squirmed as events unfolded. We squirmed as two defense lawyers were killed—not just because the murder of a defense lawyer is unconscionable (although “spraying” one in the face with bird shot can be pretty darned entertaining), but because replacement of a defense lawyer threatens the integrity of the defense. Didn’t we all want to take the high-road by convicting Hussein through an unimpeachable process? We squirmed when one judge was killed. Finally, we flinched in embarrassment as the Iraqi government removed the chief judge in a second Tribunal for making minor statements that appeared sympathetic to Hussein. What integrity remains knowing that the government removed a judge for some minor statements? Can we really believe that judges in the first trial were completely free to weigh the evidence for and against Hussein with judicial disinterest?

In fact, the SICT was established outside the normal Iraqi judicial system. It was enacted on 10 Dec 2003 as the Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST) under Order No. 48 of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). The Iraqi government later abolished the IST and reestablished it, nearly wholesale, as the SICT under Law No. 10 on 9 Oct 2005.

The IST is at the root of the court’s kangarooness. The laws under which Hussein was tried were, largely, a U.S. concoction that fails standards of international law, Iraqi law, and even U.S. law.

You may recall an awkward period following the capture of Hussein when the Coalition had no idea what to do with their prized prisoner. Would there be an international tribunal in The Hague (a la Bosnia)? Would there be an Iraqi tribunal with assistance of the International Criminal Court (a la Rwanda Sierra Leone)?

In fact, neither of these happened. The Coalition (i.e. the U.S.) could not accept oversight by an international court for a number of political reasons, like the fact that the Bush administration had been openly hostile to and attempted to undermine the ICC, and eventually withdrew from the treaty. Perhaps the most important political consideration, though, was that any oversight by the ICC would exclude the death penalty for Saddam Hussein. That was “unacceptable to the Iraqi people,” as the Bush administration told us. But more importantly it was unacceptable to the Bush administration.

Instead of relying on the ICC, BushCo decided to “roll their own” and they established a Tribunal that took an unprecedented, and legally questionable, track: they established an Iraqi national extra-judicial process to prosecute Hussein and others for international crimes. This had never been done before. In fact, such special additions to a national judicial system by an occupying power are explicitly prohibited by article 23 of the Hague Regulations of 1907 and Convention IV of the Fourth Geneva conventions of 1949. The short story is that these binding international conventions prohibit occupying powers (i.e. the U.S. at the time) from changing the legal system, changing the status of judges, changing the penal system, changing any tribunals, or even prosecuting anyone for acts committed prior to occupation. In legal parlance, the construction of the IST effectively made it an instrument of victor’s justice, the very thing that international laws attempt to prohibit.

Finally, the Tribunal violates the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that requires fairness, openness, and competence in trials, requires independent and impartial justice, that is conducted by established applicable law (i.e. it explicitly prohibits special tribunals). As I explain below, the Tribunal bore no real resemblance to Iraqi law.

The Tribunal’s difficulties began immediately. Salem Chalabi, nephew of the infamous Ahmed Chalabi, was appointed General Director of the IST upon its establishment in May of 2004. He, in turn, created the structure for the IST, and appointed the initial panel of seven judges and prosecutors. Whether or not Salem Chalabi was qualified for the position (he is a U.S. educated lawyer), his appointment by the Executive branch, and the nepotism, certainly gave the appearance that the U.S. was running the show. This was confounded by serious conflicts of interest in his U.S. business and ties to “Neocon Central”—The Project for a New American Century. In August, 2004, an arrest warrant for suspicion murder was issued against Salem Chalabi while he was in London. The charges were later dropped, but Chalabi resigned as the IST General Director. The U.S. took over administration for the duration of the IST, a clear violation of judicial independence that further undermined any sense of legitimacy.

With much fanfare, Paul Bremer announced that the IST would be funded by $75 million from the U.S., a figure that was to double. The U.S. Department of Justice subsequently provided teams of investigators and prosecutors to collect evidence and develop legal strategies. The U.S. trained all the Iraqi judges and prosecutors.

In 2005, the Iraqi government took the IST decree and passed it legislatively as the Iraqi Special Criminal Tribunal, thus lending the Tribunal some legitimacy. The damage was done, however. A Tribunal initiated in violation of international and domestic law is a pariah, and can, at best, achieve bastard status in the eyes of Iraqis and the international community after being patched. Unfortunately, the ISCT was not changed to be consistent with the Iraqi system of laws. Nor did it correct other legal problems as they existed in the IST. As the courtroom drama played out, there was nothing to dispel the perception that the victor’s justice was being served.

An immediate concern with the Tribunal law was that Iraqi law had no prior provisions for crimes against humanity, war crimes, or some other crimes that the Tribunal was charged with investigating. Thus, the Tribunal violates the nullum crimen principle that is fundamental to every modern legal system. This principle prevents retroactive application of criminal laws against a defendant. If the laws were not on the books prior to 2003, Hussein and his henchmen cannot be prosecuted for violations of a law decreed (by the occupying power) in 2003 and passed legislatively in 2005. Note that if the ICC had prosecuted the case, this would not be an issue, since these laws were established internationally. But, international prosecution would have excluded a capital sentence. Here is a clear example where a Bush administration political requirement undermined the integrity of the process.

A huge difficulty with the Tribunal is that its procedures bear no resemblance to the Iraqi legal system. Rather, it is based on the U.S. legal system. Iraq’s laws are based on the Egyptian legal system which, in turn, is modeled after the French legal system. Under the French inquisitorial system, the judge acts as an investigator, using evidence provided by prosecutors prior to trial. The U.S. legal system is an adversary-accusatorial system complete with introduction of new evidence and cross-examination occurring during the trial. The roles of judge, prosecutor, and defense lawyer differ significantly under the two systems.

It can hardly be surprising then that the Tribunal started off with an air of incompetence. None of the participants had any experience with the American-style legal system. And it showed. As one scholar described it:

The proceedings were choreographed as an American hearing where an investigative judge read an indictment and asked the defendant to plead guilty or not guilty, and was thus more American than Iraqi. There is no such procedure in the Iraqi criminal justice system. The investigative judge, sitting behind a table facing Saddam, was obviously uncomfortable. On the table where he sat facing Saddam Hussein was a copy of the 1971 Iraqi Code of Criminal Procedure, which does not provide for such an American-style arraignment procedure. The investigative judge asked Saddam to enter a plea, something unknown in the Iraqi system, and Saddam, who has a law degree, realized this.

As a result, Hussein not only succeeded in disrupting the proceedings, but he succeeded in undermining the court’s credibility. Imposing a system so foreign enforced the idea that this was a kangaroo court. When the arraignment took place on 1 Jul 2004, both supporters and detractors saw an illegal concoction, created by an occupying power, and designed simply to convict and execute Hussein and other Ba’ath party officials.

This view was reinforced by numerous anomalies in this case. For example, the indictment against Hussein was apparently not handed down until 15 May 2006, almost two years after the arraignment and seven months into the trial. This violates all legal principles (including International and Iraq domestic law). Due process demands that a defendant be promptly notified of the charges brought against him prior to the start of trail.

It is easy to say that Saddam Hussein got what he had coming to him. However, the Tribunal, to be successful, had to administer real justice in a way that lent credibility to the fledgling (but now failing) Iraqi government. Instead, Saddam Hussein was convicted and executed under a cloud of illegitimacy not unlike that he used to execute 147 residents of al-Dujail in 1982. Sadly, his execution will make him a martyr to some and will deepen the civil war.

What bothers me about this is that it could have been done correctly. An international court exists and has the experience and mandate to prosecute crimes against humanity and war crimes. A conviction in that court (with the likely outcome of permanent incarceration) would have avoided making Hussein a martyr and likely would have been far less disruptive of the Iraqi government. Now it’s too late.

Chalk it up to another massive fuck-up by a Bush administration driven by incompetence and ideological extremism.

I remember when it happened.

It was the fall of ’04. In the P-I was a puff piece about Mariners players and how they were going to vote in the presidential election. No surprise, as the team favored Bush by a large margin. Mariners second baseman Bret Boone was quoted saying this:

“I wouldn’t say I’m a hard-core conservative, but I don’t like a lot of Democratic views,” second baseman Bret Boone said. “I don’t like big government. I like small government.”

Considering Boone’s former workplace, Safeco Field, is a publicly funded facility, you have to ask: was this guy hit in the head a few too many times? Does he understand that a “big government” handout provided him a means to make a salary? What a goof!

So, that’s “when it happened,” or in other words, when I stopped supporting government subsidies for professional sports.

It wasn’t always that way for me. I supported the Mariners and the Seahawks in their effort to build new stadiums. After all, the Kingdome was a dump. It was an awful place to watch baseball. For football, it was only slightly better than Memorial Stadium. I felt the argument could be made that they needed new digs. I also believed, erroneously it turned out, that pro sports were a boost to the economy. In any case, I like baseball and football, so who cares, right?

The Sonics were too busy winning during the 90’s to worry about asking for public money for a new stadium. Still, in 1996, they got one. Key Arena opened, with all the idiots in City Hall and the newspapers talking about how great it was that an arena could be financed so “creatively.” Turns out it was a bunch of bullshit, and that the Sonics couldn’t keep making payments out of their luxury boxes because, well, they couldn’t sell many of them at Sonics home games. See, the deal was that the Sonics would pay rent from revenues produced trough selling certain amenities at Key Arena like luxury boxes. This worked well during the “Reign Man” and “The Glove” era. Boxes are easy to sell when the team is winning. But when the team started sucking, new ownership, in the form of coffee dork Howard Schultz, wanted out of the deal.

Schultz saw how much money was being made around the NBA by owners with teams in pimped-out, ultra-modern facilities. Howard also wanted the revenue earned by the arena when the Sonics weren’t even playing (like a Paul McCartney concert, or a comic book convention, or whatever). Other owners in other cities were able to sweet talk government into paying for these arenas, making them even more profitable for ownership. (Read lots more about the reality of pro basketball stadiums here)

When Schultz went to Olympia to get his money for a new building, he was turned down, and went home in a huff. He and his group sold out to Oklahoma City business folks headed by Clay Bennett. I don’t hold any ill will against Bennett for buying the team and subsequently doing his best to get public money to build an arena in Renton or Bellevue, but I still don’t want to give it to him. I’m not of the same mind as Goldy; I don’t think that a dollar used to refurbish a stadium is necessarily a dollar taken out of a Washington state classroom, but it’s starting to feel that way. When Rep. Ross Hunter rules out any kind of state income tax on election night while some government leaders are jumping out of their skins at the chance to fork over public dough to sports teams (hello, Sen. Margarita Prentice!), a guy can get a little pissed off.

Here’s the new plan. Until the NBA can fix it’s business model, no public dough. If it means the Sonics are gone to OKC, that that’s a-OK with me. Oklahoma City is dying for a team (they wanted to keep the New Orleans Hornets, but they flew home after the flood). Let them have the headache of pro sports. I’m finished with assholes likes David Stern who come into our house trying to shake us down for cash. Fuck him. If the NBA can do without Seattle, then Seattle can do without the NBA. Same goes for those NASCAR guys. Until their plan for a speedway in Kitsap County looks less like a pyramid scheme and more like a good investment, no money should be spent.

If we’re going to subsidize sports, let’s put some cash into Chehalis’ rodeo park (whatever the fuck that is). Let’s build that hockey venue in Kent so the Seattle Thunderbirds can ditch the Key Arena, which has always sucked for hockey. We should fix up baseball stadiums in Yakima and Spokane. Pierce County and Tacoma should look into a new ballpark, with the State Legislature chipping in. How about a new ballpark right down by the water, near downtown? We could extend that dope streetcar right to the ballpark. Tacoma folks, chime in and tell me what’s what.

Our leaders should never close the door to investing in sports, but we’ve got to draw the line somewhere. Let’s say “no” to whoring ourselves to the NBA and say “yes” to our minor league teams and the cities that host them. At twenty bucks for a family of four, Tacoma Rainiers baseball at Cheney Stadium is a mighty fine deal. That’s where I’ll be this spring. With a cold one, of course.