Today is the first day of the new legislative session, and I can’t tell you how much I dread writing about it.
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Goldy said:
“Today is the first day of the new legislative session, and I can’t tell you how much I dread writing about it.”
Well, skip it then. Go see a movie or several movies over the legislative session. Read some books you’ve always wanted to read. Go to the gym. It ain’t written anywhere that you’ve got to write about Washington’s legislative session.
So, when are you going to call for the resignation of Reid as a rascist, Goldy? I’ll pause for the deafening silence, as this only happens if a conservative makes a rascist comment, never with a liberal.
@2,
Everyone is a racist in one form or another. Anyone who won’t admit it is simply lying to themselves.
Harry Reid is not a racist. And that’s why no one but Republicans are calling on him to resign “as a racist.”
And you should learn how to spell “racist,” because it gives away your sock puppets.
And you should probably also learn the difference betwen supporting the election of our first black president and supporting the election of a segregationist.
Re 4
And you should learn the difference between the polite non-statements people make at private birthday parties and rascist statements. Libs have a double standard, and are simply unwilling to admit it.
Fun fact:
Strom Thurmond ran for president in 1948 on a platform that declared, “We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race.”
Fun fact:
Trent Lott, in a televised tribute to Sen. Strom Thurmond for his 100th birthday, said: “I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years, either.”
Sorry, racist, not that the content doesn’t matter more than an inadvertency. Oh, yeah, with liberals it does.
Daddy Love in brief-
I hate conservatives and will use this hatres to blind myself to basic facts. I won’t examine my party in any way or question any of its’ policies. I am in fact a partisan hack without any original content to my thought.
Have a nice day.
Let me have a try at it:
First 1/3 of Legislative Session: Lots of hand-wringing about the budget. Some popular programs are put on the chopping block, and their supporters try to rally the troops to save those programs. Tax increases are offered as an alternative, and a few brave souls point out that what is needed in this state is comprehensive tax reform, not band-aids.
Second 2/3 of legislative session: lots of back-room deals being made, some programs quit being discusses as budget fodder, some tax increases are added, the few brave souls keep arguing for tax reform which is taken up by a few bloggers and columnists as being the real answer to the state’s long-term budget problems. Republicans sharpen their knives with glee, preparing their TV ads to run against any legislater who even mentions in passing that there might be a tax increase or (heaven forbid) an income tax in the state’s future.
Final 1/3 of the legislative session: Governor and key party leaders say real tax reform can’t be accomplished in the time provided (as if any of them would want to fight that battle anyway). A small tax increase which would impact the smallest number of voters that nobody likes anyway (another sin tax?) might be enacted. Repulicans finalize their negative ads anyway. Biggest change might be an impetus to legalize and tax marijuana, the only thing yet untried to raise funds. Lots of small budget cuts which cause further deterioration in the parks, schools, basic health plans, etc., with promises to restore the funding after a couple of years when the economy improves (same promise made year-after-year).
So, Goldy, how close do you think I’ll get in these projections?
By the way, Daddy Love, where’s your outrage about Bidens’ racist comments? Yeah, thought so.
Don’t bother. The Seattle Times and publicola.net got it covered.
Lost, the shorter version:
ivan sez that “dread” is really l-a-z-y.
re 8: Conflating a statement of support for a segregationist presidential candidate with calling Obama a negro makes no sense.
You also have to take into consideration the age of the speaker. The first time when I was young and my peers said, “I didn’t know your mother was a negro!”
I asked them why they had to call her a negro. They replied that they were just trying to be polite. For a youth in AZ in 1968, saying that ny mother was a negro was their attempt at showing respect.
Please explain how Trent Lott’s comment expressed respect for negroes?
Sorry, I owe Daddy Love an apology. The double standard employed by progressives annoys me, and I took it out on him. Usually his posts are intelligent and interesting to read, whether I agree with him or not.
The point is still the same. Anyone with whom you folks agree gets a pass, anyone with whom you disagree gets lambasted.
Hypocrisy isn’t limited to the left, but it sure thrives there.
@10: The 1st order of business had better be repeal of 960’s 2/3rds vote requirement for repeal of tax breaks, otherwise we’re fucked.
Special interest tax breaks are where the money is — at least 15 BILLION according to WA-DOR.
Why?
I mean, it’s going to be awful, but it’s been awful for years.
Joan Walsh on Reid v. Lott (via TPM):
Re 15
“Please explain how Trent Lott’s comment expressed respect for negroes?”
It didn’t. It didn’t have anything to do with racial politics at all.
Haven’t you folks ever been at a big public party honoring someone? Those chosen to speak get up, say a few generally meaningless nice things, and sit back down. It was just an inadvertent comment made at a party, and should have been treated as such.
But it isn’t enough for some folks to disagree. They have to engage in character assasination and attack the person rather than the idea.
I think Kings’ vision of judging people by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin is the ideal. Until then picking those who are racist and not by political affiliation is simply dishonest.
15 b2n
For the record, Harry Reid did not call Barack Obama a negro. He described a dialect as “negro” sayin that Barack Obama did not speak in that dialect, “unless he wanted to have one” in Reid’s words.
He was observing (back in 2006) that although America is still very troubled racially, America was ready for a black president and the Obama’s chances were very good.
Today’s Republicans have to pounce upon every mention of racism and describe it as racist because it is their way of trying to obfuscate and bluster their way around the fact of the blatant racism that exists just about everywhere in their party. “Honest Injun.”
I’m with PI on this one.
Other than their continuing fight to dismantle I-937, there’s not going to be much worth bothering to report on going on down in Olympia this year anyway.
11 lost
I don’t know of any.
I find it fascinating that most of the ostensibly “liberal-biased” media have jumped on the Reid gaffe like a flock of vultures–hell, even the Pacifica network had a couple of people going on and on and on this morning over whether he should resign! Meanwhile, at least the 60 minutes crew gave some attention to some of the other embarrassing aspects of the 2008 campaign covered by the same book. Notable were the details, confirmed by former McCain campaign officials, of how the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate was a desperate last-minute decision, that her vetting consisted of “a lawyer doing some Googling”, and that she really didn’t know her ass from a hole in the ground–and had no interest whatsoever in trying to learn anything.
Dear state legislators,
Dismantling I-937 is a fools errand. Anything you undo we will redo via the initiative process. Please don’t waste your/our time.
Sincerely,
Michael
this will answer all your race relations issues (at 17:00):
http://www.hulu.com/watch/1198.....es-barkley
BTW,
The Obama admin., which isn’t fighting the war on terror, has three more terrorists up on charges.
@27
Oops, make that four.
20 lost
BTW, you’ve been misspelling racist consistently for weeks. It was not inadvertent; it was lazy or ignorant or both. But you do seem to be trying now, so I’ll assume ignorance.
Anyway, to your comments:
No, of course not. Stom Thurmond never ran for president on an explicitly segregationist ticket SOLELY because he oppsed the Democratic Party’s support for civil rights. Oh no, I guess he did. But Trent Lott never expressed support for or pride in his segregationaist candidacy. Oh, that’s right, I guess he did. But Strom Thurmond came from Lott’s home state, so of course Lott would say nice things about his segregationist candidacy. Oh, I guess s Strom was from SC and Lott from MS.
Well, but Trent Lott was unused to speaking in public and just MISTAKENLY supported the explicitly segregationist candidacy that he said he was PROUD to have supported. Oh, that’s right, he served in the Congress for 34 years before he made that statement.
Your aassertions of Lott’s innocence are ridiculous on their face. Check out Lott’s civli rights record then Harry Reid’s. Not that you care about the facts.
Blah, blah, blah. Tretn Lott was in the public eye his entire life, and was on television at the time. He could have said, “Strom Thurmond has served his state and his country long and well and I’m proud that he’s a Republican.” But he didn’t, did he?
No, he treated us to a dissertation on how pruod he and his state were of Strom’s segregationist run for the presidency and how much BETTER OFF the country would be if the segregationist had won in 1948 instead of Harry Truman.
Seems to me we’re attacking the idea.
Of course you do. Republicans ALWAYS bring up that one King quote every time they want to cover for their party’s endemic racism. I don’t blame you guys–you are reluctant to insult a big part of your power/voter base. Well, welcome to the real world. That’s what Democrats did before the bigots left them for teh Republicans. I wasn’t there for most of it, but I’m not proud of it. I am honest about it, though. You should try that. Your present stance doesn’t make you are racist but it does make you an apologist for racists.
Oh, but back to MLK, he also supported labor unions. He opposed the draft and the war in Vietnam. Saint Ronnie called him a “near-communist” and LIFE magazine called his last anti-war speech (4/21/67) “demagogic slander” and “a script for Radio Hanoi.”
MLK on affirmative action (though the term did not yet exist:
– In 1964, he was writing in Why We Can’t Wait: “Whenever the issue of compensatory treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he should ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic.”
– As he put it, “A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the Negro” to compete on a just and equal basis (quoted in Let the Trumpet Sound, by Stephen Oates).
– In a 1965 Playboy interview, King compared affirmative action-style policies to the GI Bill: “Within common law we have ample precedents for special compensatory programs…. And you will remember that America adopted a policy of special treatment for her millions of veterans after the war.”
My partner is black. He thought the Reed comment was badly worded but true. No way America would have elected a dark skinned black man who spoke with strong dialect. You honestly think America was ready to elected a Snoop Dog?
Obama did everything he could during the election to NOT come across as an Angry Black Man(TM).
You conservatives know that! You are just having great fun spreading dissent.
How Chinese Dollars Are Repatriated To The U.S.
This legislative session might not be so bad after all. The economy is $50 billion richer than we thought. Here’s how it works.
We buy stuff from China and send them dollars. Chinese officials steal the money and flee to the U.S. The dollars are then recirculated in the American economy.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....ption.html
In other news, since the beginning of the year we’ve had a shooting at a federal building in Las Vegas, two killed, one wounded (the shooter had a history of being nutters AND was an ex-con.). A shooting in Utah that left a deputy sheriff dead and a drive-by shooting of an officer in a marked patrol car in Anchorage. The officer involved in the Anchorage shooting is supposed to recover.
But nah, we don’t need to review our gun laws or anything. We don’t need to close down ammo sales over the internet or do instant background checks on ammo purchases.
Air travel keeps getting crazier. Last month, a first-class passenger on American Airlines was warned by a flight attendant that his in-flight request for a glass of orange juice was “inappropriate” and told him he “must be new to first class.” When the passenger replied that he found this remark condescending, she issued him a written warning threatening him with criminal prosecution for “interfering with a flight crew.” Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....ity11.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: The last time I flew American Airlines, the ticket seller refused to sell me a first-class ticket, telling me it wasn’t worth the extra money. Boy, was he ever right! I’m gonna stick with the cheap seats so I don’t have to deal with that airline’s first-class cabin Nazis.
@2 More silly GOP grandstanding. Yawn.
Background:
I participate in some history discussion boards. Last year one of those boards was dominated by one particular poster who flooded the boards with posts about how the states were always sovereign, how the absence of a specific prohibition in the Constitution against secession evidenced the founder’s intent in favor of secession, and that the 10th Amendment settled the question.
Nothing wrong with him holding that opinion. Of course, there are also plenty of good arguments going the other way, in favor of states not having the right of secession once they joined the Union. There were plenty of southerners who held that “Indissoluble Union” position, including President Andrew Jackson.
But when people failed to bow down to what he felt was his “superior intellect” and “convincing logic”, this particular poster went off the deep end. He recently argued in multiple posts, among other things, that Abraham Lincoln was worse than Adolf Hitler, that he was responsible for a war of conquest and genocide against the South, and that his policies created an unbroken chain of events which resulted in WWI, WWII, and communism in China. Clearly this guy needs some balance in his life and a clearer sense of perspective.
Today’s Events:
So when I first noticed the news reports of Michael Steel demanding the resignation of Harry Reid, and today’s posts claiming that somehow Trent Lott’s situation and those of Harry Reid are similar, I immediately thought about how these comments were similar to those of the poster I described in the history discussion boards.
Connection:
Comparing Harry Reid’s comments to Trent Lott’s comments and arguing that they are equivilents is much like that poster arguing that Abraham Lincoln’s policies and those of Adolph Hitler were similar. It’s a distortion of context, scale, and intent far beyond reality, solely in order to score a political point.
@3 I’m not a racist. I’m prejudiced against all humans. When your stupid species is gone, we rabbits are gonna fill your niche and take over this place. It won’t be long.
@8 You don’t understand. Content-wise, you guys are hopeless, but we think there’s a chance we can help you with your spelling. Think of us as literacy volunteers. Think of us as literacy volunteers.
@9 “I am in fact a partisan hack without any original content to my thought.”
Part of your problem is you assume too much. For example, I’m a partisan hack, but there’s plenty of original content in my thought.
Half of conservatives’ difficulty is they assume things that aren’t true, and the other half is they draw illogical conclusions from their assumptions.
Of course, what is really sad is that Steele, the leader of the Republican Party, is willing to make such statements with a straight face. The Republicans I knew in my youth would have been ashamed to make such an argument; to do so would have revealed either a failure of eduction, intellect, or ethics.
re 20: Strom Thurmond did a lot of things in his lifetime (including fathering a negro child and never publicly acknowledging her) — some good — some bad.
It is impossible for a reasonable person to believe that of all of the things that Thurmond did in his life, the thing that immediately came to mind in paying his respects was his segregationist presidential bid.
How much better it would have been to note that although Strom Thurmond never publicly acknowledged his daughter, he supported her financially and communicated with her on important occasions.
All of this he did even while knowing that the discovery of his indiscretion would have meant his political ruin in a part of the country that to this very day has prominent politicians that applaud Thurmond’s segregationist past.
Lott couls have mentioned that and bestowed some real honor on Thurmond — but he chose to celebrate segregation instead.
Looks to me like you need to have some standards in the first place before you can talk to others about their double standards.
I think the state is headed for big trouble. As Goldy has posted previously, state revenues are caught in a long-term structural decline.
And last week, Business Week came out with an article saying all workers will be part-time, on-call, temps in the future, further reducing their disposable income, which will make it even harder to raise Washington’s regressive taxes.
With the combined state/local sales tax approaching double digits, I suspect the point of diminishing returns has already been reached. There already is massive tax avoidance going on and this behavior will only intensify if legislators try to raise or extend sales taxes further. The number of small business people who simply don’t collect or remit the tax will grow, and consumers will ramp up their online purchasing to avoid sales taxes.
As I’ve said before, Washington’s budgetary problems can’t be fixed until the tax structure is reformed, and tax reform must come first. Some of my liberal friends say we have to raise regressive taxes to pay for things we need because the sales tax is the only tax that can legally be used for those needs. But the basic economics I learned in my college courses argues that, at some point, raising that tax will produce less, not more, total revenue. Frankly, I think we’re either there, or on the verge, of seeing sales tax revenues plunge.
In fact, it’s inevitable that sales tax revenues will decline in the future, for at least two reasons. One, the sales tax taxes goods, not services, and the ratio of goods in the goods-services mix of our economy is declining. Two, consumers will have less spending money in the future, which inevitably means consumption-based taxes must decline.
The state eventually will have to grapple with declining sales tax revenues. That declines is going to accelerate, perhaps rapidly, in the not-so-distant future. As reluctant as legislators are to face the necessity of tax reform, they’ll have to do it sooner or later — or preside over a collapse in public services — so they may as well talk about it now.
@16 “The point is still the same. Anyone with whom you folks agree gets a pass, anyone with whom you disagree gets lambasted.”
Gee, and you don’t think that happens on conservative blogs?
Were you saying something about hypocrisy?
Funny how Republicans are always outraged when we behave like them.
@40 “How much better it would have been to note that although Strom Thurmond never publicly acknowledged his daughter, he supported her financially and communicated with her on important occasions.”
Gee, how big of him. How would you like going through life without your teachers, friends, or neighbors knowing who your dad was, because he would feel embarrassed if people knew? If I were put in that position, I’d be tempted to shoot the philandering bastard.*
* Just kidding! NRA joke.
Strom Thurmond bears a striking resemblance to Robert Mitchum’s character in the movie “Home From The Hill.”
Oil is $82 a barrel right now and when you have $82 barrel oil you have a smaller economy than when you have $40 a barrel oil. The state ledg. needs to wrap their brains around that and figure out how to restructure things so that people are safe, warm, fed and educated in a much, much smaller economy.
Step 1. Cancel the big dig up in Seattle. We don’t have the kind of cash you need to pay for mega projects laying around anymore. We have 4 million fewer cars in America at the start of 2010 than we did at the start of 2009. 70% of cars in America are purchased on credit our credit markets have imploded; who’s going to get a loan to buy a car? Per capita VMT in the Puget Sound Basin was going down even before The Big Implosion. $80 a barrel oil also means reduced shipping in the ports.
No more mega projects!
Step 2.???
Of course the state’s economy is in trouble.
Too much socialist fluff eco tripe in college and not enough Economics.
Do they even teach Economics in Law School?
@46
I should note that I was speaking about mega-projects as related to Happy Motoring.
http://www.treehugger.com/file.....nstler.php
@47
There are a couple of folks, I think in the house, that are trying to ramp up spending on trade programs. From what I read in the paper their ideas sounded pretty solid.
Personally, I don’t have a problem with giving people that are studying in fields that we really need more people in and keep up good grades a rebate on their tuition.
They wouldn’t pay more to be an fine arts major. But, if they’re in special ed, nursing, or one of WSU’s organic agriculture programs and keep up a 3.0 or better we’d give them couple hundred bucks back at the beginning of every quarter.
http://afs.wsu.edu/majors/organic.htm
Fun fact
During the 1948 presidential campaign Strom Thurmond said:
I’m sure it was “inadvertent.” A mere slip of the tongue–the kind of thing ANYONE might do by mistake if they got up to make a speech while running for president.
Yay!!!! We’re bringing back the Pecora Commission!!!
The HA flying monkey-types can now get a daily dose of the Quitta from Wasilla.
“I am thrilled to be joining the great talent and management team at Fox News,” Palin said in a statement posted on the network’s Web site. “It’s wonderful to be part of a place that so values fair and balanced news.”
Re Daddy Love ad nauseam-
I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, that you found speeches espousing racism in the South in 1948. If you’ve got time for some extensive research you might try to find evidence of an oil based economy in Alaska. There are rumors about it, but you know how rumors are….
Really, try to keep up. Got a beef with Strom Thurmonds’ political career and fond of speaking ill of the dead? Go after him. Otherwise read post 5.
Think Lott is a racist? Prove it. His legislative career didn’t demonstrate it. And before you say it, not supporting affirmative action isn’t racism. It’s good public policy. If anything affirmative action advances racism and sexism. The best comment I ever heard on this came from a black co-worker. (I refuse to say ‘African American’ of someone whose ancestors came here 6 generations ago. I don’t call myself Welsh American. Either you’re American or not, without the stupid hyphen.) He wanted to earn his career advancement, not have some condescending jerk give it to him on account of a genetic accident.
As for your MLK references, I don’t recall ever saying the man was perfect. This may come as a shock, but I can enjoy Thomas Aquinas without converting to catholicism, or see minor merit in some points of Das Kapital without thinking communism is a good idea. MLK was a great civil rights leader with a marvelous gift of eloquence. That doesn’t mean I have to agree with everything he ever said.
re 44: As many a wag has pointed out, it was better than a sharp stick in the eye.
re 46: Step two would be to build longhouses and start living like the Iroquois.
re 53: The shock was in Trent Lott endorsing the segregationists in the 21st century — not what Thurmond said in 1948.
It is obvious that you are either an idiot or a congenital liar. Not being one to doubt your intelligence, it must be the latter.
Re 56
There’s a middle ground between idiocy and pathological objections to the truth. Look at Lotts’ record over the years he was in Congress. Determine his racism or lack thereof from that, rather than from some offhand remark.
But that’s not what was wanted. Lotts’ political enemies wanted him out, and that’s what they pushed for.
re 57: Life’s a bitch. Better choose your battles more carefully.
You just sound whiny that comparing Lott’s endoesement of 1948 segregationist policy in the 21st century is akin to Reid’s rather bland negro comment is a hard sell.
Just take a look at the people you have convinced of the truth of your accusation and ask yourself: “Can Republicans rebuild their credibility with these fellow travellers?”
@55
You’re not from around here are you. We’d be living like Puyallup’s, the Lummi’s, the Nisqually’s… And we’d be speaking Lushootseed.
Bring on the potlatch!