Search Results for: drinking liberally

I’ll be at tonight’s Drinking Liberally at the Montlake Ale House, and I’ll be staying late because I have no radio show to go home to. If you are going to DL, read my question and think about it, and then we’ll argue about it tonight.

Question: Is universal healthcare the same as single-payer healthcare to you? That is, do those two mean the same things to you? Also, would you accept a healthcare compromise that used “conservative” means (ie, the free market, etc) to reach “liberal” ends (affordable, good quality healthcare for every American)?

Think about it, and I’ll see you tonight @ 8pm.

***UPDATE***

Good answers, everybody! Although the turnout was a bit low at tonight’s DL, there were some good answers to the question. Even the right-wing trolls got in on the act. I especially like this answer:

And by the way… nobody is entitled to anything in this world. Nothing. Including health care.

If you want good health care, get off your ass and earn it. It really is that fucking simple…

Unfortunately, lots of the folks without insurance are full time workers, not the “lazy poor”:

Today over 70 percent of the 41 million uninsured Americans come from families where there is at least one full-time worker.

But good try, folks!

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!

(Notice! This post is not by Goldy. Read the byline!)

John Madden, the famous football coach, once said about Packers quarterback Brett Favre, “he’s so good, he could beat you with yours.” You see, Favre is so good, he could be swapped to the other and lead the other guys to victory. With all the recent introspection by right-wing bloggers, I’d be a failing our conservative friends if I didn’t put forth my own ideas. Does this Democrat think he could beat Democrats with his own ideas? Hey it’s worth a shot. If they don’t like my ideas they can go back to those bullshit sex offender mailings!

First off, my GOP friends, who’s running things back at HQ? Mike Hargrove? After Chris Vance quit as party chief, the GOP base passed on the ‘establishment’ candidate to replace him and picked Diane Tebelius. She was supposed to be a departure from “Vance-style centrism,” which irritated the base. While Tebelius can’t be blamed for everything, she has to go. A huge loss like this must result someone (other than your candidates) losing their job.

Education. Here’s a haymaker you can use on Democrats. Why not call their bluff on teacher pay and per pupil funding? Try this: Increase teacher pay by 100%, but make it much, much easier to fire the bad ones. Pay science and math teachers more than others. Keep superstar teachers from leaving their field for higher paying jobs at Microsoft. Young teachers will love it, and good teachers will earn more money.

While money isn’t everything, our per pupil spending is too low. We’re at about $9,000. Instead of bumping it up a few hundred bucks, let’s really show folks we’re serious about educating our kids by boosting that number up to, say, $15,000. Now hold your (Gold)water, my conservative friends. Instead of sending that money directly to school districts, let’s send it to the parents of school children so they can choose which school is best for their kids. Contrary to the fears of liberals, most parents won’t leave their public schools. Parents with kids stuck in bad schools with have a real ‘out.’ The problem with most GOP voucher plans is that they are stingy with the money!

Speaking of money, let’s talk taxes. Let’s say it: Income tax. Folks, it’s coming whether we like it or not. This stuff is complicated, but one thing is sure. Our tax system sucks. Let’s swap the B&O tax for a state income tax (one that WA taxpayers can write off on April 15th). Let’s do like Rep. Toby Nixon said: a flat income tax with plenty of write-offs for poor and middle class folks. Liberals will yelp that it’s not progressive, but that’s the beauty of it. If you get there first, you can set the terms of the debate. The Democrats can’t amend the state constitution without your votes, so bargain hard and make ’em squeal.

One final note, and it’s on transportation. You guys got murdered in the suburbs. No wonder… THEY LIKE ROADS, AND THEY LIKE TRANSIT!!! I know how much you guys hate Sound Transit, but face it, dudes; it’s looking a lot better these days. Do like the GOP did in Denver: approve big increases in the sales tax to build light rail to the suburbs. When moderates, swing-voter suburbanites start taking the train, they’ll reward the folks who brought it to them. Make sure that’s Reagan Dunn and not Ron Sims! While GOP stalwarts like Kemper Freeman may not like light rail, try this instead: run light rail right under Bellevue Square! It’ll bring folks to his mall! As for highways… well, you’re going to have to give up on I-605, or any such nonsense. We’re out of the freeway business, boys. It’s better to focus on keeping current infrastructure maintained.

I hope ya’ll find this useful. It’s the best I can do. If you want to discuss this more, feel free to drop by Seattle’s Drinking Liberally every Tuesday at 8:00pm. I’ll be there… with the rest of the winning team.

The polls just closed in parts of Indiana and Kentucky, and I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve the first night of Chanukah. I’ll be starting my evening around 5PM at the Montlake Alehouse where our Tuesday night gathering of Drinking Liberally will be meeting a few hours early to watch the East Coast returns, and I invite you all to join me. I’ll then set out party-hopping, before ending the night in Bellevue with Darcy Burner.

I’m not sure how much I’ll be blogging throughout the night, so I think I’ll just start this running thread where I can post occasional updates and observations. Tune in throughout the night for what I hope to be some well-deserved gloating.

3:43 PM
Dems are pretty optimistic in Louisville, where John Yarmuth (D) is leading Rep. Anne Northup (R) in KY-03 51.1 to 47.6 with 15 percent of precincts reporting. Interestingly, exit polls showed Yarmuth winning by, tada… 51-47.

Why am I so interested in KY-03. Well, it’s the only competitive race reporting, but it’s also a bit of bellweather as it only recently moved into the “toss-up” category during the last couple weeks, and Hotline only rated it the 36th most competitive House race. If Dems are comfortably beating incumbents in Kentucky, well… we’ll see.

4:07 PM
More exits polls show close Senate races in Tennesee, Missouri and Arizona, and the Dems running away most everywhere else. (Lieberman is apparently winning by 5 points in CT… I’m not sure what party he is.) And… Vermonters have just elected our nation’s first Socialist Senator, Bernie Sanders.

4:31 PM
I’m heading to the Alehouse. So far, I’ve heard nothing that indicates we aren’t in the midst of a big blue wave. We’ll know a lot more over the next hour.

5:31 PM
I’m at the Alehouse, and they just called the PA Senate seat for Bob Casey. Rick Santorum has been retired. Congratulations Dan Savage, we owe it all to you.

5:55 PM
I’m sharing a pitcher of beer with Stefan Sharkansky. He bought. I guess I’m a beer whore.

As for the election, Ken Blackwell didn’t win the governor’s race in Ohio. So I guess we still have a democracy afterall.

7:02PM
Still at DL. Santorum just conceded. The crowd here broke into chants of “dog on man.”

10:14PM
Nationally, it’s a wave. The Dems have taken the House, and most likely the Senate. I’m at the Dem party at the Sheraton, and everbody is hopped, but I’m heading out to Bellevue where Darcy is currently behind in a tight race. I’ve got no idea where any of the numbers are coming from, so I don’t know what her prospects are, but as always, I’d rather be ahead than behind. Cantwell won, the bad initiatives lost, and we’re picking up a bunch of seats in the state legislature. Darcy would be the icing on the cake… but the cake’s pretty damn tasty on its own.

It’s been a bird-free day — no Seahawks, no Eagles — so tune in for some political football tonight on “The David Goldstein Show” on Newsradio 710-KIRO, from 7PM to 10PM.

7PM: Do Republicans have a prayer? Seattle P-I political columnist Joel Connelly spent the day checking out the spirit at some of our local mega-churches, and he joins me in the studio to talk about Tuesday’s midterm election, and how the latest sex scandal might impact its outcome. We’ll also be getting a field report from fellow blogger TJ of Loaded Orygun, whose been following some very interesting ballot return trends that could have the red team feeling awfully blue down in the Beaver State.

8PM: Is flipping off the President a fireable offense? An Issaquah school bus driver gave President Bush the finger, and his fellow Republicans cheered when Rep. Dave Reichert took credit for getting the woman fired… credit which Reichert now says he doesn’t deserve. Taking Reichert at his word (that is, his latest word) what does this say about the first-term congressman’s character that he would actually brag about getting the single, working mom fired, when he says he had nothing to do with it? Chris Dugovich from the Washington State Council of County and City Employees will call in to give the driver’s side of the story, and we’ll be playing audio and taking your calls.

9PM: What do you get when you pack four drunken bloggers into the KIRO studio? Will, Mollie and Carl join me almost every week on Podcasting Liberally, recorded live at Seattle’s Montlake Alehouse, and they’ll be joining me in the studio for a Drinking Liberally roundtable discussion of electoral push. Is this the year a big blue wave sweeps the Democrats into power? Or will Karl Rove prove that American democracy is dead, and that nothing short of a violent revolution can dislodge the GOP from the reigns of power? Give us a call and let us know what you think, before all of us liberal bloggers are shipped off to Gitmo.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

For those who missed this week’s “The David Goldstein Show” (Newsradio 710-KIRO, Sunday nights from 7PM to 10PM,) the commercial-free podcasts are now available for your offline listening pleasure.

Hour 1: Are we on the brink of an historic military defeat in Iraq? Philip Gold is a former Senior Fellow in National Security Affairs at the conservative Seattle-based think tank the Discovery Institute. He predicted a Jihadist terrorist attack on US soil months before 9/11, and was one of the first prominent conservatives to warn that an Iraq invasion would lead to disaster. Now he fears that our current foreign policy could lead to our biggest ground defeat since the loss of the Philippines in 1942. Tune in and find out why this “former lifelong Republican” will be voting a straight Democratic ticket.

Hour 2: Q&A with Darcy and Peter. Two of the hottest House races in the nation are right here in Washington state, and both Democratic challengers, Darcy Burner and Peter Goldmark, joined me to talk about the election and their legislative agenda.

Hour 3: Do you believe what you read in the papers? Well, maybe the comics. Former Seattle Weekly columnist Geov Parrish came into the studio to give his kiss-and-tell account of the alt-weekly’s recent political purge, and to join me in ragging on the local media in general. Believe it or not, we had some harsh things to say about the Seattle Times editorial board. Go figure.

We will soon make full archives available online at PodcastingLiberally.com, where you can always find my weekly podcast for the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally.

SEIU president Andy Stern will be stopping by a special Monday night edition of Drinking Liberally, from 5:30PM to 7PM, to talk about his new book, A Country That Works. So please join me tonight at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E, for a pint of beer, free appetizers, and some fascinating conversation with one of the modern labor movement’s most influential leaders.

Don’t know who Andy Stern is, or what the letters SEIU stand for? Check out David Postman’s latest post.

Missed last night’s show? Starting last week, 710-KIRO is now podcasting my eponymously named “David Goldstein Show” so you can listen to me rant and rave at your leisure. Each commercial-free hour comes in at a manageable 35 minutes.

Hour 1: Is it time to stop electing judges? Former WA State Insurance Commissioner Deborah Senn joined me to discuss the hundreds of millions of dollars the US Chamber of Commerce is spending to influence local judicial races, and what we can possibly do to stop a corporatist takeover of our courts.

Hour 2: Tunnel, rebuild or no-build… can we afford to replace the Alaska Way Viaduct? The Stranger’s senior political correspondent Erica C. Barnett joined me in the studio to discuss the stunning new cost estimates on the Viaduct and 520 Floating Bridge replacement projects, while represents from the People’s Waterfront Coalition and the Sierra Club phoned in to present the case for a surface-street option.

Hour 3: Is torture an American value? National blogger Dave Neiwert joined me to discuss pending legislation that would permit the US soldiers and intelligence officers to commit acts of torture banned by international law and accepted norms of common decency.

We will soon make full archives available online at PodcastingLiberally.com, where you can always find my weekly podcast for the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally.

Token-Republican Jim Nobles showed up at Drinking Liberally last night, as promised, breathalyzer in hand. Now all we needed was a victim test subject to conduct our scientific experiment to see exactly how many drinks it takes to score a .17 blood-alcohol level — what the Urban Dictionary will one day define as “Mike McGavick Drunk.”

Sandeep’s years at The Stranger certainly left him well trained for the event, but he was too sleight of frame to approximate a 35-year-old McGavick, whereas as Nigel, at 240 pounds, was definitely too big. As for me, I’m too much of a pussy; I don’t think I could get through a six pack with throwing up.

Then in walked a newbie, Patrick: about 30-years-old, 185 pounds, and brashly proud of his Irish heritage (“I could drink McGavick under the table,” he bragged when I challenged him to donate his liver to science.) Best of all, he arrived with his own designated driver, his wife Tara. We’d found our man.

Patrick raised his first Mac & Jack’s at 8:25, and determinedly worked his way through four pints over the next hour with nothing but a hummus plate and some roasted garlic to buffer the alcohol. “I’m definitely drunk… I shouldn’t be driving” he told us at 9:25, before he courageously knocked back another pint.

At 9:35, five beers and an hour and ten minutes into the experiment, Patrick blew a 0.125, well past the legal limit of 0.08, but far short of McGavick’s state title.

At this point, I should take a moment to talk about what constitutes “a beer” or “a drink.” In my earlier posts on McGavick’s DUI I pointed out that all the online blood-alcohol calculators and charts suggest that it would take 8 to 9 drinks over the course of any hour for a 200 pound man to reach a 0.17, but of course, different beers have different alcohol content. For example, a Pyramid Snowcap might pack a 7.0% alcohol wallop, while it may surprise you to learn that at 4.0% Guinness has one of the lowest alcohol contents of any beer.

McGavick claims to have been drinking beer that fateful night, and we can be pretty damn sure that back in circa 1993 DC, he wasn’t drinking hopped up microbrews. Corona and Rolling Rock were pretty hip with the East Coast in crowd back then, both of which come in at 4.5% alcohol, while imports like Becks, Heineken and St. Pauli Girl top out at about 5.0% (as do standards like Coors, Budweiser and Miller.) So for the sake of comparison, let’s just assume that McGavick was drinking a 5.0% beer.

Patrick on the other hand was drinking a heftier, 5.5% alcohol Mac & Jack’s… at least he was until 9:48 when half-way through a sixth pint he switched to whiskey because he was getting too full.

10:05, halfway through a generous double Jack & Coke, Tara notes that her hubby of four months was “gettin’ loud,” and at 10:12, 1 hour and 37 minutes, and 7.5 drinks into the evening, Patrick blew a disappointing 0.14.

Patrick was clearly having trouble keeping up with his liver’s alcohol-processing capacity. Squinty-eyed, he started to question the test results

“I’m drunk… I’m so drunk you don’t even know,” Patrick slurred. “If I got in your car right now, I’d hit the car in front and behind me. FURTHERMORE, we need to look at how far he drove, because I couldn’t even make it a block.”

But drunk as he clearly was, he still wasn’t Mike McGavick Drunk, because he still had the common sense to know that he shouldn’t drive.

Still, nothing gets an Irishman’s Irish up like a challenge unmet and a drink undrunk, and so Patrick soldiered through yet another Jack & Coke. Finally, at 10:55, two hours, 30 minutes, and 8.5 drinks into our experiment, Patrick blew a .216.

Considering that McGavick blew his .17 nearly 90 minutes after being pulled over, we considered Patrick’s goal to have been met. Plus, we started to feel sorry for him, so we called the experiment a success.

Adjusting for alcohol content, I’d say Patrick’s 5 and a half nearly-topped-off pints of Mac & Jack’s was approximately equivalent to about 7 12-ounce bottles of Heineken, giving Patrick a McGavick-adjusted total of 10 drinks over 2 and a half hours. But what makes McGavick’s accomplishment all the more impressive is that he maintained his BAC over several hours, and still managed to blow a .17 at least an hour and half after he stopped drinking.

But however you want to compare the two’s alcohol consumption, there is one thing our little experiment proved beyond a shadow of a doubt: .17 is stinking drunk… well beyond the level of intoxication that even a drunk man would consider to be within the safe driving range. McGavick had been quoted as saying that he knew he shouldn’t have been behind the wheel the minute he was pulled over. But I’m pretty sure he knew he shouldn’t have been behind the wheel the minute he got behind it.

As for me, after my usual three Manny’s (5.5%) over a typical two and a half hour evening, I blew a .039%, less than half the legal limit. So there.

I’d like to perform an experiment, and I’m looking for a couple of volunteers.

First, I need somebody with a good quality, professional “breathalyzer.”

Second, I need an approximately 200-pound man, willing and able to consume eight drinks in a single hour. (Sorry Sandeep, you don’t meet the weight requirement.)

If we can get both of these to this Tuesday’s Drinking Liberally, I’d like to see exactly how many drinks it takes to achieve a 0.17 percent blood-alcohol level, and a general idea of the associated level of impairment. In fact, in the interest of accuracy, I am graciously extending an invitation to Mike!™ McGavick to join us as our test subject.

Send me an email if you can volunteer either or both. Drinks are on me, as is the ride home.

There’s lots of news besides the McGavick lawsuit to talk about….

• Catch Richard Wright on KUOW (94.9 FM) this morning
• A former Bush White House policy adviser will plead guilty to theft
• Examine this progress report on the reconstruction efforts in Iraq. Man…and Wingnuts complain about WSDOT!
• A Reichert ad with a veracity “issue” gets fixed
• Kansas science education isn’t in Kansas anymore
• I-Seattle Times (a.k.a. I-920) qualifies for the ballot
• (not) Breaking News: The President’s ignorance is dangerous
• In Pennsylvania, the Green Party is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Republican Party
• The dot-blog bubble bursts: Washington State Political Report folds
• Remember the collective gasp (followed by a reluctant sigh of relief) when we learned that Dick Cheney boldly ordered United Flight 93 to be shot down if necessary? It was a total fucking lie! Listen to the NORAD recordings for yourself
• In related news, the 9/11 commission felt deceived by the Pentagon (hat tip: Upper Left)
• My excellent adventure with Willy J.
• Andrew at NPI has a pile of other news

Update: This week’s Podcasting Liberally was hosted by Will with guests Mollie, Gavin, Nick, and Carl. The 57:06, 39.4 MB show is available here (mp3). The show was recorded at Seattle’s Drinking Liberally and produced by Confab creators Gavin and Richard.

Today is a day full of accomplishments for Goldy. The only problem is, he is largely unplugged and off in the boondocks somewhere trying to vacation or something.

First, he has the distinction of appearing in two pieces in the Seattle Weekly today. The Weekly came out with their Best of Seattle issue, and it looks like, once again, HorsesAss has been voted the Best Local Blog.

David Goldstein’s HORSESASS.ORG blog is the one you like best, presumably because it is reliably liberal, ruthless, and funny. Goldstein also helps host and promote the local Drinking Liberally club gatherings at the Montlake Alehouse, where pols and wonks make regular appearances. Those events are recorded and disseminated via podcast. And this year, Goldstein expanded his liberal empire to the airwaves of KIRO-AM (710), where he holds forth Sunday evenings.

“Liberal empire.” Cool!

Last year, Goldy ran something of a campaign to win the honor. This year, however, I didn’t hear a peep out of Mr. Goldstein about it.

I noticed that Tim Eyman was voted Best Fish Market this year. Oh…wait… that was Best activist/hell-raiser. WTF? I guess voting took place before the I-917 debacle. Feel the love:

TIM EYMAN? You voted for Tim Eyman? The washed-up, citizens-initiative-addicted watch salesman whose obsession with monkey-wrenching worthy public spending knows no bounds? The guy who recently delivered petitions in Olympia wearing a Buzz Lightyear costume? This is some sort of counterintuitive subliminal message you’re sending, right?

Given his spectacular string of failures lately, I suspect this will be Tim’s last “activist award” for awhile. Well…unless he uses The Force….

Speaking of Hell Raisers! Goldy also made the front page of the Weekly online edition for another reason:

Democratic activist, blogger, and KIRO-AM radio host David Goldstein confirms that he played a role in the lawsuit filed on Tues., Aug. 1, against Republican U.S. Senate candidate and former Safeco CEO Mike McGavick. KING-5’s Robert Mak first reported that Goldstein had provided a crucial nexus in the lawsuit.

Wow…Goldy is now a “crucial nexus!”

David Postman at the Seattle Times follows the story up with some incredible journalism!

(Speaking of Postman, he was awarded the Weekly’s Critics’ Pick for Best Mainstream-Media Blog. Congratulations!)

Back to Goldy. If all that isn’t enough, I noticed today that sometime within the last 24 hours, HorsesAss had its millionth visitor (937,000 tallied visitors plus an estimated 63,000 before Sitemeter was installed).

Man…you guys really do like Goldy!

I can’t stand the heat so I’m getting into a cool, air-conditioned studio tonight on “The David Goldstein Show” — Newsradio 710-KIRO, from 7PM to 10PM. Here’s the line-up, but as always, things could change depending on breaking news and guest availability.

7PM: Hot enough for you? Sure feels like global warming. Is modern society to blame for our massive carbon emissions? Or perhaps “God has already started punishing us” for abandoning his ways? We’re gonna talk about the weather… and if that doesn’t get folks hot underneath the collar, perhaps we’ll spend a little time talking about the escalating war in Lebanon.

8PM: Is our democracy being undermined by greedy corporate interests? Political strategist, journalist and blogger David Sirota joins me to discuss his bestselling book HOSTILE TAKEOVER: How Big Money & Corruption Conquered Our Government — And How We take It Back. Sirota has served as a press secretary for Rep. Bernie Sanders, a fellow at the Center for American Progress and as a senior strategist to Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana. He is a frequent contributor to several national publications and a twice-weekly guest on The Al Franken Show. Sirota will be speaking and signing books Thursday, July 27, 7:30 PM at Seattle’s Town Hall.

9PM: Has the Republican Party abandoned its libertarian base? Are small “l” libertarians abandoning the Republican Party? Joining me to answer that question is local blogger Lee Rosenberg (Blog Reload,) a self-described libertarian and the co-host of the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Huh? How can he be both? In a lengthy and oddly titled post, Lee explores the inherent contradictions of economic libertarian absolutism, and describes how an increasingly authoritarian Republican Party is driving social libertarians to support Democrats. Also, be sure to check out Glenn Greenwald’s controversial post: Libertarians and the Republican Party — Irreconcilable Differences.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

…Of course, that goes without saying. We all know I need help, and recognizing this is the first step towards recovery.

Specifically, what I need is some technical help.

Like many of you, I’m sick and tired of my own comment threads. Sure, they can be amusing at times, and certainly the trolls contributed to HA’s early success (inadvertently) in their own weird way. But I work hard on many of my posts, and once in a while I’d like to generate a little substantive discussion. It would also be awfully nice to finally expand some of the functionality on HA to enable user “diaries” or something like that.

But I just don’t have the time or the money to get to where I want to go.

Perhaps I just need some help to complete the final 10 percent of the transition to SoapBlox I started in February? Or maybe something like CivicSpace would be a better solution? Or maybe I should go all the way to Scoop? Or maybe there’s some other better solution out there I haven’t even heard of?

Anyway, if you want to play a role in moving HA to v2.0 (and by that I mean do a lot of work for no money,) please drop me an email or show up at Drinking Liberally sometime and let’s chat. I can’t pay you, but I can barter you some valuable promotional space on one of the most widely read local liberal blogs in the nation.

(Oh… and if you’re a top-notch graphic designer, I could probably use some help in that department too.)

Looks like a pretty typical piece of campaign literature, huh? An oversized, glossy, folded pamphlet touting Rep. Dave Reichert’s reelection.

Only it’s not a piece of campaign literature, it’s a piece of congressional franking, paid for with our taxpayer dollars, and a clear violation of the spirit of the franking rules, if not the law itself. Oh… and it’s only one of six such mailings Reichert’s office has recently sent to voters.

Indeed, Reichert’s mailings have been raising eyebrows and filling mailboxes for months. At last night’s Drinking Liberally an experienced campaign staffer actually laughed when he saw the congressional seal on the pamphlet, while another knowledgeable politico rolled his eyes in disbelief. And this morning I corresponded with a longtime Republican consultant who confided that there’s a pretty blurry line between what is or is not a legitimate use of franking privilege, but that this one “crosses it by a mile.”

But it’s not just the content of Reichert’s mailings that pushes the limits of the franking rules. House members are prohibited from franking mass mailings to constituents within 90 days before an election; with a September 19 primary date, that means the last day this latest mailing should have been postmarked was Tuesday, June 20th. Yet this latest flyer didn’t start hitting mailboxes until Monday, June 26th.

Of course, presorted standard mailings like this can take over a week to go cross country, but since the cost is distance sensitive and the mailing was likely produced by local consultant Bruce Boram, chances are it was printed locally and mailed from the USPS’s Seattle Bulk Mail Center.

So the question is… when did this mailing drop? If it actually went out after June 20th, then Reichert broke the franking rules. Not exactly the kind of disregard for the law you’d expect from an ex-sheriff.