– Another chance for Pierce Transit voters to vote for a sales tax increase to help their system.
– Paid signature gathering, what could go wrong?
– I haven’t had a chance to watch the Revitalizing State and Local Blogging panel at Netroots Nation, but the tweets were interesting.
– Olympia High School‘s response to Westboro Baptist Church. [h/t, and while you’re there, check out the Calvin Johnson walking tour of Olympia]
– I’m the guy in the video. LOL forever.
I like Joel Connelly, but in his coverage this back and forth between the Association of Washington Business and the Inslee campaign, he misses the larger point.
“As you can imagine, accepting $100,000 from a major oil company openly supporting Mr. McKenna leaves the impression that the money is intended for eventual use on behalf of Mr. McKenna against Jay Inslee,” Shimomura wrote to the AWB.
“This raises serious concerns for us, and we imagine it will raise concerns for many viewers and voters as well.” Shimomura urged the Association of Washington Business to “return Tesoro’s contribution.”
One problem: Tesoro and Equilon (Shell) were using the AWB PAC not to support McKenna, but to pass through money to Tim Eyman’s Initiative 1185. Seattlepi.com and Northwest Progressive Institute both posted stories May 11 on the pass-through. Eyman, too, explained the arrangement in a letter to his followers.
Four big oil companies, BP ($100,000), ConocoPhillips ($100,000) Tesoro ($100,000) and Equilon ($50,000) are underwriting the I-1185 signature campaign while Eyman delivers populist sound bites. BP and ConocoPhillips gave directly to the campaign.
Maybe. But I think the larger point is still holy shit, the global warming industry is throwing around how much money, again? The fact that these companies — and they are anti-Inslee companies — freely spend this much money is a huge problem. For huge companies to spend more than what most people make in a year like it’s Monopoly money is a disgrace. I realize Joel covered it before, but for that to be an aside is taking your eye off the ball.
– These people aren’t advocating for “life.” They are advocating a political strategy that stigmatizes a legal medical procedure in order to punish those they see as sexually transgressive with either death or the financial instability that follows from a lack of reproductive choice. [h/t]
– The gun violence problem is in Seattle. The solution is in Olympia. Maybe, but let’s not ignore what Seattle can do and let’s also not ignore the gun violence in the rest of the state.
– Lord knows I’m a terrible speller. But Amercia?
– I found this piece on dead pigeons quite fascinating, but note there were some graphic videos/pictures.
– Sometimes I listen to Mariners games on the other team’s feed (you get a different assessment than from the Seattle announcers). Early this season, when they were playing the A’s, the radio guy said that there was another event at the same time as the game the following day, so everybody take public transportation. It wasn’t a wishy-washy you might want to consider type of thing. I don’t know if we need a system as comprehensive as BART before we can not be worried about getting stuck in traffic when we build sports stadiums.
These anti-choice acts of violence that have nothing to do with any other act of violence have come fast these last few days.
A New Orleans women’s health organization was destroyed last week by an unknown arsonist, becoming the latest target of attacks on women’s health clinics in the south.
The organization, Women With A Vision, was likely singled out because it offers AIDS prevention help, HIV testing, and substance abuse assistance to sex workers, transgender women, poor women, and women of color. The clinic also does community outreach and education on those issues. Like two incidents in Georgia last week, no one was injured in the fire, but the clinic lost a good share of its resources.
This incident and the countless — unrelated — ones like it that have nothing whatever to do with the political rhetoric that opposing women’s rights to control their own bodies. It certainly has nothing to do with a climate of violence.
[h/t]
Leviticus 18:17
Do not have sexual relations with both a woman and her daughter. Do not have sexual relations with either her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter; they are her close relatives. That is wickedness.
Discuss.
The Post Office should be run more like a business than a lot of government agencies. But it still has a need to serve everyone in a way business never would. The Tacoma News Tribune disagrees about any of that public service crap.
The world changes. Heaven forbid that the U.S. Postal Service should change with it.
You can go on the Internet and print stamps right now. You can then go over and schedule a pickup. Just like when Franklin made it! If only they would advance with the times.
The USPS is supposed to operate like a business – which includes adapting to the real world – but the U.S. Senate has again made certain that it operate as a vehicle for patronage and political pandering. It has just pressured the organization into abandoning an emergency-cost cutting plan to close hundreds of money-losing post offices and mail-sorting centers nationwide, including several offices in Pierce County and the processing center on Pine Street in Tacoma.
What business funds its pension obligations 75 years into the future? But, no, the post office doesn’t have to be run just like a business. If they were, they’d probably try to stop FedEx and UPS from using zip codes because they’re propriety. Stamps would probably be a significant amount more. And the Postmaster general would be paid in the 7 or 8 figures. The Post Office is a public good that’s very different from a business. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t hard choices: there are. It just means that the calculus is different than if it were a private business.
Result: The postal unions and the nation’s remaining snail mail fans are happy. And the Postal Service – which has been losing $25 million a DAY – will keep on running immense losses unless Congress permits it to restructure itself for the 21st century.
And a result of the bad economy. Businesses are shipping less to fewer locations. The Internet exists so people aren’t sending as much mail (although I still get plenty of mail, including junk mail and legit correspondence). I doubt other shipping interests are doing well either, but they don’t work in the public interest.
On hold, too, is the USPS plan to end Saturday mail delivery – another fossil from the age when snail mail was the only game in town. Ending that tradition would have saved the system – and ultimately the taxpayers – royal sums of money. It would also have antagonized the people who don’t the status quo to change, ever.
Fair enough, but there are real consequences if the post office doesn’t run on Saturdays. Also, does whoever wrote this think the taxpayers are on the hook for the Post Office? Because, that’s not how it works:
In 1982, U.S. postage stamps became “postal products,” rather than a form of taxation. Since then, The bulk of the cost of operating the postal system has been paid for by customers through the sale of “postal products” and services rather than taxes.
Each class of mail is also expected to cover its share of the costs, a requirement that causes the percentage rate adjustments to vary in different classes of mail, according the costs associated with the processing and delivery characteristics of each class.
So I guess the good news is that the Post Office is already run more like a business than this article calling for it to be run like a business thinks. Anyway, I’m getting bored, but I’ll give you a terrible metaphor.
Communities defend their post offices like Rottweilers, and they terrify members of Congress who otherwise wouldn’t spend a penny bailing out an archaic mail system.
Rottweilers are well known for defending post offices and terrifying members of Congress.
It’s been a long time since I done these analyses—just over a month. I quit doing them after Mitt Romney became the presumptive nominee. I pointed out that:
The effective end of the Republican primary this week should mark a change in the dynamics of this race. Expect Romney’s chances to improve considerably as new polls roll in. The full effect may not be seen for another month (depending on the frequency and diversity of polling).
Since Pres. Obama was beating Romney in 100% of the simulated elections, with an average electoral vote total of 347 to 191, it seemed silly to keep doing these analyses until the race looked a bit more “post-primary.”
Since that last analysis, 50 new polls have come out, covering 26 different states. (Still no new S.C. poll…sorry.) I guess it’s time to see how Obama and Romney stack up.
First, I should mention that the National polls make the race appear to be very close. The Real Clear Politics average of national polls has Obama leading Romney by +1.7%. The problem is, the national polls reflect the national vote. And as we remember all too well from 2000, the national vote does not always go the way of the Electoral College.
That is why I do these analyses. I collect only the state head-to-head polls and use them to infer the winner of the Electoral College. So, with an (apparently) close popular vote, how does the election look?
After 100,000 simulated elections, Obama wins 99,890 times and Romney wins 110 times (and we even give him the 12 ties). Obama receives (on average) 333 to Romney’s 205 electoral votes. In an election held now, Obama would be expected to win with a 99.9% probability to Romney’s 0.1% probability.
Huh…the “post-primary” election has hardly changed.
| Obama | Romney |
| 99.9% probability of winning | 0.1% probability of winning |
| Mean of 333 electoral votes | Mean of 205 electoral votes |
Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
[Read more…]
– I know Reichert is safe, but the 8th Congressional District’s right turn has prompted a challenge from the right.
– Dennis Kucinich won’t run for Congress, so now people covering the 1st district will have to cover the actual candidates in the race.
– Americans Elect isn’t working out so well.
– Maybe after his book on economic growth, George W. Bush can write a book about not going to war in Iraq.
A day following passage of Amendment 1 in North Carolina, banning same-sex marriage in the state, Obama finally reaches the tipping point in his evolution toward support of same-sex marriage:
So what was the response “across the isle?”
RNC Chair Renee Blatherspoon (or whatever the fuck his name is): “…President Obama has played politics on this issue…”
Ahhh…Obama, who has been talking about his position “evolving” on this issue has, like an evil genius, picked THIS moment to capitalize on the issue for maximum political advantage!
And elsewhere:
Ralph Reed, a top organizer among religious conservatives, said Obama’s announcement was a “gift to the Romney campaign.” […] “The Obama campaign doesn’t have to worry about New York and California,” Reed said. “They have to worry about Ohio, Florida and Virginia and I don’t’ see evidence that it’s a winning issue in those states.”
and
“This decision may have made Barack Obama a one-term president,” Bob Vander Plaats the head of The Family Leader, a conservative faith group focused on politics in Iowa, said. This will stoke a part of the religious base even more against Obama, Vander Plaats said. “They were already fired up to get rid of Obama. This will only make them more on fire to get rid of Obama. And if I’m Romney today, I’m smiling,” he said.
In other words…this move was political suicide.
A politically shrewed move AND political suicide at the same time.
Clearly, Obama is Master of the Jedi mind trick….
Revelation 9:7-10
The locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. They had what looked like gold crowns on their heads, and their faces looked like human faces. They had hair like women’s hair and teeth like the teeth of a lion. They wore armor made of iron, and their wings roared like an army of chariots rushing into battle. They had tails that stung like scorpions, and for five months they had the power to torment people.
Discuss.
Dwight Pelz has pulled his support for the the marriage equality plank of the federal platform. He claims the problem is that this is an effort to embarrass Obama.
“I was unhappy to see them throw up some press release out there making it like this insurrection within the party,” Pelz says. “I wasn’t happy with them using my name,” he says, explaining that he didn’t like their tactics. “I didn’t realize it was part of a strategy to start a fight within the party and embarrass the President.”
“Frankly, I felt sandbagged.”
I appreciate that Pelz wants to support President Obama more than he cares about any particular plank in the platform. But if Obama can’t support a marriage equality plank, he deserves to be embarrassed. He’s on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of basic human decency.*
Furthermore, the Washington State Democratic platform will support marriage equality because most Washington State Democrats support marriage equality. Most of the caucus in the last session of the legislature supported marriage equality. We need a chair who will support for those values at the national level. I realize that party activists have the freedom to get ahead of elected officials on these sorts of issues, I just hope Pelz remembers that he’s an activist, not an elected official, now.
– Well, it’s nice to see a few people in the beltway calling them out. But it’s been true for decades that the GOP is the problem.
– The Real McKenna.
– Maple Leaf is getting itself a brand-new art walk
What the hell, Cathy McMorris Rodgers?
The bad news is that Republicans in the House, led by Washington State Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA, 5) are pushing an alternative proposal—which McMorris Rodgers, incredibly, said will protect “the true victims of domestic violence and sexual assault”—that does not provide any of the Senate version’s protections for Native American women, gay women, rural women, and some illegal immigrants. (The latter provision is aimed largely at protecting so-called child and mail-order brides brought into the country illegally and under false pretenses.)
McMorris Rodgers’ statement is worth repeating. “House Republicans are committed to protecting the true victims of domestic violence and sexual assault,” she said. “True” victims—those worthy of protection—in other words, do not include Native American women, women who live in remote rural areas, children and women sold into sex slavery, or lesbians.
I realize this is a few days old now, but Rob McKenna, backed into a corner with his not an answer answer, on the Reproductive Parity Act, finally decided he has an opinion on it after all. Fortunately pro-choice groups see right through it.
McKenna falsely claimed today that the Reproductive Parity Act will “put federal funding of women’s health care at risk” by addressing the Weldon Amendment. However, if he read the current legislation he would see that the Weldon Amendment was raised during the legislative session and is fully addressed in the bill as it stands. Under the Weldon Amendment, states may not “discriminate” against providers who do not offer abortion services.
The Reproductive Parity Act has been drafted specifically to protect insurance carriers in the state of Washington against discrimination and will keep our state compliant with the federal requirements of the Weldon Amendment. Every carrier currently selling in Washington covers abortion, and they have no objection to the RPA. Washington has an existing conscience clause for new providers wishing to be admitted into the state that do not want to include abortion in any of their health plans.
In fact, pro-choice leaders Jay Inslee, then a Congressman in the 1st, and Congressmen Jim McDermott (D-7) and Adam Smith (D-9) already sent this letter that you can download here to President Obama addressing the Weldon Amendment and supporting access to women’s health care coverage and the Reproductive Parity Act (HB 2330).
While so much of the nation is going backwards (h/t to Geov) on these issues, it’s good that Washington has the chance to go in the right direction.
Another small bit of good news, Tacoma only has to fill an $11 million dollar gap.
In essence, the city has spent a bit less and collected a bit more than expected through the first three months of this year. Much of the extra money comes from a surge in revenue from licensing and permits – but it’s a mistake to pick any single trend and call it a cause, according to Bob Biles, the city’s finance director, who relayed the pleasant news to council members.
Obviously, there’s a lot of work still to do, and more cuts after several years of economic shit won’t help the city. I wouldn’t say it’s a sign that things are good, but at least things are moving in the right direction.
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!