Oh no! Mike!™ McGavick has become a victim of negative politics! Heaven forfend!
According to the Seattle P-I’s Joel Connelly:
Vilification of McGavick, the most talented Senate candidate recruited by Republicans in 2006, stands as a model for the bipartisan tactics of debasement infecting American politics.
I like and respect Joel, and often agree with his analysis, but this time… not so much.
First of all, I don’t believe that by contemporary standards Mike!™ has been all that vilified. (Yet.) We’ve called him a “lobbyist” — he was one. We’ve ridiculed him for prevaricating on several controversial issues — and he has. We’ve characterized the $28.3 million golden parachute he negotiated after announcing his resignation from SAFECO as “obscene” — I think many shareholders, policyholders and laid-off employees would agree that it is.
What we haven’t done is accused him of killing one of his best friends, or of being a coward and a traitor who hates America. We haven’t morphed him into a terrorist or accused him of caring more about sex offenders than about innocent children. We haven’t publicly debated the unusual shape of his penis.
What we haven’t done is lied. And we haven’t delved into his divorce or other areas of his personal life… not that it should necessarily be off limits. So I don’t quite understand Joel’s characterization of a handful of snarky press releases and a shareholder lawsuit as a “mean, low-down attack.” These are political attacks… which is exactly what you expect to see against a guy running for political office.
My second point of contention with Joel is the notion that in discussing the “debasement” of American politics he could possible talk about my blog in the same breath as he talks about the tactics of the US Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the past half-decade (yes, hundreds of millions) running smear campaigns in local elections. In 2004 they spent $1.5 million torpedoing Deborah Senn’s run for Attorney General, and just this past week they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on TV ads thanking Dave Reichert for a bill that passed before he was elected to Congress.
Meanwhile, I’m just some local blogger with a couple thousand readers who can barely pay my own bills. Sure, when it comes to influencing politics I get more bang for my buck, but let’s keep this in perspective: I don’t have any bucks. If I manage to have more of an impact than the folks over on the right-wing blog, well that’s an accomplishment of which I’m pretty damn proud. But don’t lump me in with Karl Rove or the US Chamber. Even if I aspired to embrace the dark side I don’t have the resources or the opportunity to even begin to make the impact these Republican sleaze masters achieve with a simple wave of their hands.
My only contribution to the shareholder lawsuit was a brief post that helped hook up the attorney with the plaintiff, and hell… Craig’s List probably would have gotten a larger response. It was no different from a similar query over on (u)SP (other than the fact that I didn’t attempt to sneakily hide my tracks by deleting the original text,) and hardly a poisonous, Rovian tactic of political debasement.
Finally, I have to take issue with Joel for calling me out in his closing paragraphs:
On the horsesass.org Web site, which helped spawn the lawsuit, founder David Goldstein held forth last Thursday: “McGavick’s midlife conversion to ‘civility’ is a joke to anyone who remembers the vicious campaign he ran on behalf of Slade Gorton.”
Not true, Goldie, and you didn’t even live here then.
No Joel, I didn’t live in the state back then, and even if I did I wouldn’t pretend to have the impressive institutional memory you possess. But you know me well enough to know that I am curious and inquisitive about my adopted state’s political history, and I’ve heard enough stories and read enough newspaper accounts to convince me that Mike!™ was no angel.
Civility isn’t a campaign theme. It’s an excuse. A shield. A feeble attempt to ward off all criticism or unfavorable analysis or probing questions as poisonous political debasement, all the while freeing his own surrogates to attack at will. But on this point I’m more than happy to agree to disagree.
See, I can forgive Joel for conflating unflattering facts and snark with character assassination. I can forgive Joel for lumping me in with some of the evil masters of the Republican attack machine. I can even forgive Joel for publicly accusing me of being wrong about Mike!™’s reputation as a political operative.
But there’s one final transgression for which I’m not quite sure I can ever forgive Joel.
It’s spelled “Goldy” with a “y.”
“Goldie” with an “ie” is the feminine spelling, and as a nom de guerre for an evil, political muckraker like me, that would just plain look silly.
Methinks you protest too much.
Goldy: “I’ve heard enough stories and read enough newspaper accounts to convince me that Mike!™ was no angel.”
With Reuters photos to match?
You know, I’ve read enough stories and enough newspaper accounts to lead me to believe that you are a paid operative of the Democratic Party and that this whole “poor blogger crusading for
proregressive values” is a sham.Right on, Goldy. Go get im! I am 100 per cent in your camp
DickGidner
Past Chair of 41st District Democrats
Yeah, that ie thing was bad Joel. You owe Goldy an apology for that.
perhaps he’s confusing you with “Goldies on 45th?”
On the horsesass.org Web site, which helped spawn the lawsuit, founder David Goldstein held forth last Thursday: “McGavick’s midlife conversion to ‘civility’ is a joke to anyone who remembers the vicious campaign he ran on behalf of Slade Gorton.”
Not true, Goldie, and you didn’t even live here then.
But I was living here in 1986 and 1988. The Gorton campaign in both of those years was low and dirty. The trench coats ads was called an new low in Washington by both the times and the P-I. The anti-Seattle campaign in 1988 was the start of the divides that are still being felt today. McGavick help with both of those campaigns. Me thinks that Joel Connelly is the one that does not know what he is talking about.
If you’re vile, and a villain, you deserve to be vilified. I was here way back when, Joel, and remember well the campaign engineered by McGavick who’d been hired as Slade Gorton’s snake handler. They not only attempted to make Maria Cantwell look like a floozy, but denounced Seattleites as misguided, amoral, socialist, yuppy lunatics. McGavick now cleaves unto sweet love for Seattle voters because he knows he’s got to do a lot better than the 24% of Seattle his former boss got in 2000. He will fail despite even you, Joel.
The Real Mark @ 2
“You know, I’ve read enough stories and enough newspaper accounts to lead me to believe that you are a paid operative of the Democratic Party and that this whole “poor blogger crusading for proregressive values” is a sham.”
But then you are a fucking idiot.
HAD ENOUGH YET?— , Do you miss Democrat hero Tookie Williams? I’ll bet he misses your rectum!
Isn’t it about time Maria Cantwell starts to explain her no permanent bases in Iraq position . Permanent being forever , not permanent is a very undefined and elusive goal .
The long war promises to bog down U S troops for perhaps 10 more years in Iraq , or until it is “stable” . Let’s start talking the issues and quit having to have Maria’s interpretor’s be her mouthpieces’ . How has Maria’s war position changed , she still votes for every bullet , bomb , and barrel of white phosphorus used to “liberate ” the Iraqi people , and now unleashed on the the Lebonese civilian population . 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians , 2500 dead US soldiers , trillions wasted on this war , Progressive values are never going forward as long as this war goes on . Senator , stop the war .
dj @ 8
As the kids used to say, “oooohhhh… burrrrnnnnn!”
Gosh, I don’t know how one would ever recover from such a blisteringly intellectual comment. From its deep content, I can only presume that you help the Dems with their messaging & positioning strategy.
speaking of dirty; don’t ya’ll remember Maria’s fake oil derricks in Ellitot Bay ads..
used to run those in trying to get re-elected to House back in her Pre sugar daddy Glaser days….
The Real Mark @ 11
“Gosh, I don’t know how one would ever recover from such a blisteringly intellectual comment. From its deep content, I can only presume that you help the Dems with their messaging & positioning strategy.”
…more signs of idiocy.
I’ve made clear numerous times on HA that I am not (and never have been) a Democrat. When I lived in states that required declaring a party to vote in the primary, I declined to participate in primaries.
Your willingness to make-up and, apparently, believe in some vast left-wing conspiracy foretells mental illness. Get help, punk.
Goldy,
Joel just doesn’t like the competition from you. Anyway, since Mike!™ is trying to do a Rossi and get elected based on being “such a nice guy”, the lame media have to give him any help they can.
I’m with Bl’am @7 and BigGlen@6. My family was here when the Portland came to town with the 1,000 0z. nugget from the Klondike, and have hated Gorton and his slimy ways since he oozed his carpetbag in to town. Skeletor, the IndianSlayer!.
Well it would appear finally the American people are starting to believe the truth about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. You do know that weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, don’t you? The media and the Democrats like to push the lie that none have been found, but that’s not true.
A recent poll says a full half of Americans believe Iraq had the WMD when troops invaded 3 1/2 years ago. This of course leaves the left wringing their hands. How could people believe such lies! Well, for the uninitiated, here is a list of the weapons of mass destruction that have been found in Iraq since Operation Iraqi Freedom began:
A 155-millimeter artillery round containing Sarin nerve agent was found, which is a weapon of mass destruction. [Also remember MIG-29s [top line nuclear capable delivery weapon systems] buried in the desert?
U.S. military units have discovered mustard gas that was used in an IED, or improvised explosive device. Mustard gas is a weapon of mass destruction.
In all, some 500 weapons containing mustard gas or Sarin nerve agent have been found in Iraq since the invasion. Again, both of these are weapons of mass destruction.
What sort of a lame excuse does the left come up with to explain away these findings? Try this …. These were weapons Saddam had before 1991 … so they don’t count. Now does that make sense to you? We have nuclear bombs we’ve had since before 1991. Do they not count? If we dropped on on Iran, do you think the world would give us a pass because we had the weapon before 1991?
“misguided, amoral, socialist, yuppy lunatics”
Pink Pigs, a statue of Lenin, a monorail that almost ran, dozens of Starbucks, naked people cruising through the streets on bicycles……….
“sounds like misguided, amoral, socialist, yuppy lunatics to me, but then I live in Lacey by Olympia and we got all of that and then some in Olympia.
It looks like Mark “the Redneck” Kennedy (R-MN) is going down.
You should have made good on your bet, asshole!
What a bunch of WATYB’s.
Scratch a republican these days and all you get…besides a fingernail full of stinking pus…is a whining crybaby.
Hey! Lookit!
Maybe…if you hadn’t fucked things up so bad…and then been such ASSHOLES about it we’d treat you different.
So y’all can dish it out and you can’t take it.
Too fucking bad.
Payback IS a bitch.
Now Goldie–
You seem very defensive about your many feminine attributes.
Connelly spelled your name with an -ie on purpose cuz you are such a pussy!
Joel Connelly is maintaining his “access”. Or just getting a bit sloppy?
Surreal Mark is getting more surreal. Very “civil” of you Mark. Walk the walk former journalist. Prove it. Or is it just easier to smear the messenger?
BOZO – welcome back! NOT..
In regard to the the Middle East, there is nothing the West can do to improve the situation in that area until Islam has the equivalent of a Protestant Reformation.
As it is now, the Middle East is stuck firmly in the 7th Century and has no intention of leaving. Islam is a backward-looking religion, pining over a time when Muslims occupied Northern Africa and most of Spain. In my view, Islam has been a dis-service to its adherents, who, before Islam took hold, were scholars and educated people, taveling and trading in many far-away places. Their rage against Israel is mostly envy because their blind adherence to their religion has kept them down and they secretly know this but won’t admit it.
With that said, we must recognize that the US and the West can doe NOTHING to change them. Islam has to change on itself. I’m sure many readers will consider my opinions chauvanistic, but I gotta call it as I see it.
“I like to say I was born in Seattle when you weren’t embarrassed to say you were from Seattle.” – Mike? McGavick
How very civil of him.
What we haven’t done is accused him killing one of his best friends, or of being a coward and a traitor who hates America. We haven’t morphed him into a terrorist or accused him of caring more about sex offenders than about innocent children. We haven’t publicly debated the unusual shape of his penis. What we haven’t done is lied. And we haven’t delved into his divorce or other areas of his personal life…”
Republicans have done ALL of these things, yet you don’t see the media taking the GOP to task for it. The press, by and large, gives Republicans a free pass no matter how low-down, dirty, and mean they get.
So much for the “liberal bias” in the media — which, of course, is owned by rich Republicans.
I used to be fairly deeply entrenched in the center, more of a Harry Truman/Scoop Jackson Democrat, devoted to fiscal conservatism, a strong defense, but still protective of the working man from Conservative attempts to wrest that last nickle from their pockets.
But the last few years have pushed me pretty firmily to the left. The hypocracy of the Republican camp, who dared to be offended at questioning regarding Bush’s National Guard service, while they would finance a smear campaign against a real Vietnam War combat veteran, made me sick to my stomach. And I never thought I would see the day when elections would be manipulated the way the Republicans did in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004, and the recent attacks on King County in 2004 ~ 2005. The more I learn about Karl Rove and his history of slander/manipulation, the more offended I am when McGavick pretends to take the “high road”, because we know what’s coming next.
“If I manage to have more of an impact than the folks over on the right-wing blog, well that’s an accomplishment of which I’m pretty damn proud. But don’t lump me in with Karl Rove or the US Chamber.”
That’s not hard to do. The pathetic little competing blog has been losing readers ever since its owner-operator ripped off the generous donors to his “legal action fund” who paid for his lawsuit against King County. He’s only got a few readers left, and they’re all named Kevin Carns. Hell, he doesn’t even read his own blog — he reads this one, as his occasional postings here attest.
So … Stefan … when are you going to share your winnings from the litigation lottery with the generous donors to your “legal action fund” who helped pay for your lawsuit against King County?
“’Goldie’ with an ‘ie’ is the feminine spelling”
Absolute proof that somebody got to Connelly! The smoking gun that Joel sold his soul to the devil. I see exactly how it came down:
Editor: Do you like working here?
Joel: Sure. Why?
Editor: If you want to keep your job, there’s something the rich Republican owners of this newspaper asked me to ask you to do …
Congrats, Goldy. You’re on their radar screen. The GOP Noise Machine is worried enough about you to take countermeasures. And they know damn well reporters and columnists can be gotten to — after all, they employ every one of them.
Hey Joel — just kidding!!! I know you’re not for sale. Just playing with ya … all in good, clean, fun! Okay, so I have a rough idea of “fun.” Well, I am, after all, a rodent with razor sharp claws, and a partisan hack. And if you’re wondering where my mean streak comes from, the answer is — I used to be a Republican.
C’mon Joel, cantcha take a fucking joke! Ouch! Ow! My ears! You’re gonna pull my cottontail off! Owie!!!
Hey Goldy, if you want to stay in Joel’s good graces, I’ll do the dirty work for you. I’m low enough and mean enough to do it.
3
Hey Dick! Welcome to HA! In case you haven’t noticed, these comment threads are a cesspool. That’s because neo-nazis hang out here, and wherever they go, their stench follows them. Let me acquaint you with the informal posting rules:
1. This is a liberal blog
2. Anyone can post here
3. There is no censorship
4. As liberals, our job is to kick the living shit out of the fascist fucks who post here
5. No mercy for the unpatriotic America-hating wingnut trolls
6. Our terms are unconditional surrender
2
Any of us would be more than happy to be paid shills for the Democratic Party. Right now, we’re all unpaid shills for the Democratic Party. Yeah, GOP shills like you are paid better than us, but you’ve sold your souls to the Devil, and in the end your employers will fuck you over like they fuck everyone over.
10 ‘ The long war promises to bog down U S troops for perhaps 10 more years in Iraq , or until it is “stable” .’
So, let’s not do it, huh?
Fuck, if the mightiest nation on the planet can’t go make war on a couple of little jerk-off third-rate desert pestholes without taking a God-damned decade to kill off every last potential non-cooperative dork and turn them into some sort of vacation playgrounds, we might as well give up the whole thing right now.
12
We need to do more fake ads. We should gin up a fake “intern affair” for the Sludge Report and “photoshop” photos of McGavick posing with a Nazi flag. We should circulate photos of mansions he doesn’t own and jet planes he doesn’t fly in. We should publish a list of all the people he’s had murdered. In short, we should take all the rightwing lies your side has used against our candidates and bite you in the ass with them.
Maybe if liberals behaved more like conservatives, conservatives would behave more like liberals.
13
“Get help, punk.” Commentby dj— 8/7/06@ 11:42 am
You sure sound liberal to me, dj. I’m not into this warm-and-fuzzy therapy stuff. I think he should throw himself off a building.
STATES LEGALIZE SHOOTING REPUBLICANS
“15 States Expand Right to Shoot in Self-Defense
“By ADAM LIPTAK, The New York Times
“(Aug. 7) — In the last year, 15 states have enacted laws that expand the right of self-defense, allowing crime victims to use deadly force in situations that might formerly have subjected them to prosecution for murder.”
This article is quoted under the Fair Use doctrine; for complete story and/or copyright info, see
This is actually a pretty weak law. It doesn’t allow us to hunt them down and exterminate them, like Ann Coulter wants to do to us. It’s self defense only when they come to my burrow and bring a gun.
Roger Rabbit thinks “gun control” is aiming good enough to drop the Republican with one shot (in the lawful exercise of self defense, of course).
Hey all you snarky Republican sons of bitches — I’m just kidding!!! hahahahaha If Coulter can tell sick, violent, bad jokes why can’t I? Why should Republicans have a monopoly on sick, violent, bad jokes? Republicans want a monopoly on every fucking thing.
Liberals must arm!
It is always a mistake when Joel tries to be “fair and balanced.” What you do, Goldy, pales in comparison to what the Republicans do. I was kind of surprised that Joel didn’t mention the ads that the Republican Party ran against Dave Ross in last year’s congressional race. Remember those scenes of atomic devastation that they called “Dave Ross’s World?”
http://www.homesteadbook.com/blog
18
Click here for photo of what Redneck would look like if he welshed on a mob bookie. http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/US/S.....y.body.jpg
20
Where ya been, Cynical? I thought maybe the Mrs. clubbed you in your sleep and dismembered you in the bath tub with a chain saw then fed you to the sand sharks.
So … you finally raised bail?
ROGER RABBIT POLL
Who would make the best governor of Washington?
[ ] 1. “Honest Chris” Gregoire
[ ] 2. Dino “Dead Votes” Rossi
ROGER RABBIT POLL
Who is the most credible poster on HorsesAss?
[ ] 1. A human pretending to be a rabbit
[ ] 2. Rats pretending to be human
Hey Joel, while we’re talking about incivility, let’s not forget who started the crap-slinging:
In 1988, Newt Gingrich exhorted his fellow Republicans that politics ” … is a civil war, that … has to be fought with the scale and duration and savagery that is only true of civil wars. While we are lucky in this country that our civil wars are fought at the ballot box, not on the battlefields, nonetheless it is a civil war.”
And as David Brock wrote, “Newt also introduced a new style of Republicanism, based on confronting and demonizing the liberal culture that supported the big government idea. Newt understood that conservatism thrives only when it has an enemy …. No longer would the Democrats simply be opposed; they would be destroyed. … Newt’s overarching strategy was to portray the differences between the two parties as … moral, not political, laying the rhetorical groundwork for an offensive …. He used certain outrageously stigmatizing language … to caricature the opposition as … evil. … Newt called Democrats ‘sick,’ ‘grotesque,’ ‘loony,’ ‘stupid,’ ‘corrupt,’ ‘anti-family,’ and ‘traitors.’ … ”
In Esquire, magazine, John Taylor wrote, “Gingrich offers up a history of American values in a scheme so hysterically partisan, so transparently dishonest, so willfully stupid, that it’s impossible to believe even Newt himself would expect anyone to take it seriously.” But, as Brock writes, “Newt did take himself seriously, as did legions of other right-wingers across the country ….”
Source: David Brock, “Blinded by the Right,” pp. 51, 65-67.
The rats all seem pretty obvious, are they really attempting to act human?
Joel’s misspelling is a terrible faux pas (something I was once almost guilty of myself). And it definitely does diminish your nom de guerre as you put it. But don’t be afraid to embrace your feminine side. There is strength there too.
At anyrate, I think Joel’s basic points are correct, especially about Clinton. And Goldy you are correct in that the McGavick campaign has not reached vilification status yet. But the important lesson is that we keep guard against using second rate copies of the attack tactics the right uses on us. Nietzsche said it best when he said:
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 146
33
Hey Roger, how come I didn’t get a copy of Da Rules when I first started posting here? Granted I didn’t need them because I’d been reading the blog for months, but still, I feel so left out. *sniff*
16
Dr JCH
Oh Jesus H. Christ. Are you really buying into that crap about WMDs?
You know, a bullet is a WMD if you shoot enough of them.
The “WMDs” that were found weren’t even viable.
You conservatives want so badly for Bush to be right, for the US to be completely flawless that you’re wearing blinders.
Now how many times has this happened in history, where the citizens blindly believe their leaders because it’s just too painful to admit that the leaders FUCKED up and are really Evil son’s of bitches.
You mean to say Mike has been (Boo Hoo)”victimized?”
Y’all should relate to that.
Besides being a good moonbat, what EXACTLY has Cantwell done for this state?
Either way, don’t get your moonbat selves into a tizzy: KC Elections is Cantwell’s ace in the hole.
Alaska’s US Senate candidate won’t do a thing for Washington if he some how manages to steal the election. By the way, no republican in Washington state history has won a seat fair and square. If the republican end up in office here, it’s because he took lessons from the George AWOL Bush school of vote stealing!
We haven’t publicly debated the unusual shape of his penis.
Since on has accused him of showing it to them in a situation that is questionable, why would you?
I mean honestly….
;)
RR at 45:
Ms. Chickenhawk had been a bad boy, and his mom took away his internet privileges for downloading too much porn. Unfortunately, being stuck in his room with nothing to read but the bible for a few weeks hasn’t made him any more intelligent.
JCH Limbaugh:
Again, you focus on anal sex even though it has nothing to do with the thread. Telling, no? Still having a hard time to find a big black man to dominate you?
And even with your clapped out brain, I’m amazed you are following for Hannity’s “Look, there are WMD!” routine like so much Santorum out your backside. The Iraqi survey group said that there were a few degraded weapons that had not been accounted for, but that they were not viable weapons and that Iraq had gotten rid of there weapons of mass destruction. That is why the Bush Administration is not claiming to have found anything. Finding 500 shells that had been forgotten about over the years doesn’t mean anything. No one could use them, as they were even more decayed than what’s left of the grey matter in your brain.
But it is nice to know that you are so desperate to make a point in your favor that you are sticking with a story that every Republican except the most desperate are running from.
ROGER RABBIT POLL
Who is the most credible poster on HorsesAss?
[ ] 1. A human pretending to be a rabbit
[ ] 2. Rats pretending to be human
Commentby Roger Rabbit— 8/7/06@ 1:37 pm
The selections are redundant.
The D’RATs like to pretend to be human when in fact they are indeed furry rabid rodents.
You don’t know (Jack) @ 53:
what EXACTLY has Cantwell done for this state?
Well, she opposed opening up Puget Sound to Super Tankers, an idea of Ted Stevens (“The internet is a series of tubes! . . . My staff sent me an internet the other day”) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiZ-TqvVdGM , and the oil industry. Mike!(tm) is fully funded subsidiary of Ted Stevens and the Oil Industry. Why do you think that Alaska deserves three senators?
And, while you are on it, what has Mike!(tm) done for this state other than help divide it when he worked for Slade Gorton?
err, jdb, no state can have 3 senators, you did know that right?
So waht are you implying here? I guess my coffee wore off cuz I do not follow you?
Or am I just being picky?
Sven:
Exactly my point. So why should we vote for a guy that has sucked up and been supported by Ted Stevens and the Oil Industry and that will vote Alaska’s interest over our own?
RWB@52 IF THEY WERE NOT VIABLE WHY DONT YOU OPEN ONE UP AND TAKE A GOOD WIFF.YOU FUCKIN IDIOT.
I bet those hundreds of thousands of poor, murdered dead folks in all those mass graves would attest to the viability of those WMDs…. but to a liberal they don’t count unless they can vote.
God, every single day I’m amazed at the prescience la goldie had in naming his little blog HORSESASS considering that so very many of his mindless groupies are.
53
The only thing that happened in KC Elections is …
(a) The voting machines didn’t change Rossi votes to Gregoire, like they did up in Snohomish County, and
(b) King County, unlike Ohio and Florida, counted all the votes.
And guess what? Every time we have an honest election and all the votes are counted, the Republicans lose. Why do Republicans steal elections? Because they know they can’t win an honest election – and they know if they ever lose an election and are ejected from power, they’ll all end up in jail or in front of a firing squad.
55
Since on has accused him of showing it to them in a situation that is questionable …” Commentby sven— 8/7/06@ 2:42 pm
Obviously you don’t read the papers and have no idea how many Republicans are in jail for child molesting.
56
“Ms. Chickenhawk had been a bad boy, and his mom took away his internet privileges for downloading too much porn. Unfortunately, being stuck in his room with nothing to read but the bible for a few weeks hasn’t made him any more intelligent.”
Makes sense, sorta, but what I don’t understand is why his mom didn’t abort him.
59
I think he’s implying that Mike? Who is a buddy of Ted Stevens and would represent Alaska’s interests more than his Washington constituents’ interests, but that may be too deep for you.
He sure as hell wouldn’t represent Washington’s waitresses.
61
Give it a rest. The stuff Bush’s old man sold to Saddam is past its shelf life. All it’s good for now is removing rust from fenders.
Maria represents them so well, when she bald faced lied about the tip income deduction?
She penalized workers in 43 states over the false accusation about the workers in hers.
The tip exclusion would not be taken away. The US DOL has confirmed it and even saisd the bill would require enforcement.
So she lied about the reasons for her vote.
There were other aspects of the bill worth not liking it for, but she focused on the hot button issues. Like a good politician.
ahh the lovely stink of comment spam.
Sven:
You shouldn’t just repeat talking points you hear from the Republicans unless you like looking foolish like JCH or Mark the Yellowback.
While Mike?(tm) said that the law would not effect tip employees in Washington, here is what the Department of Labor actually said:
Under our preliminary analysis, this proposal, in effect, appears to nullify an employer’s obligation to pay the minimum wage rate in RCW 49.46.020 with regard to tipped employees. This means that Washington workers who receive tips – typically service industry workers – would see a decrease in income. However, the proposal does give states the right to amend their laws to specifically reinstate their current minimum wage rate laws. Until and unless the Washington State Legislature amends the minimum wage act to reinstate the current minimum wage rate provision for tipped employees, it would diminish workers’ rights in Washington State.
http://www.thestranger.com/blo....._no_to.php
So it would appear that it is Mike?(tm) and his lackeys that are lying, not Cantwell. Clearly, if the law passed, Washington’s employees who work for tips would take a hit to their pocketbook. And all of this in the desire to provide Paris Hilton with a tax break for doing nothing.
Sucks to be you, eh?
the US Dept of labor refutes that. That quote which maria used selectively is from the state DOL.
the US DOL said this:
You have asked for the views of the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Divisions (WHD) regarding Section 402 of the Estate Tax and Extension of Tax Relief act of 2006 (the act). If Section 402 (“tipped Wage Fairness”) were passed into law, WHD would read Section 402 as protecting the minimum wage of the tipped employees in the seven states t now exclude a tipped employee’s tips from being considered as wages because to do otherwise would be inconsistent with what we understand to be the intent of Congress and the Fair Labor Standards Act, which WHD enforces.
Sorry, Maria lied.
61 I could be a fucking idiot but at least I didn’t vote for the fucking idiot in the White House who happens to be:
THE
WORST
PRESIDENT
EVER
Sven:
Again, you need to stop relying on talking points. As it has already been seen that the Bush administration will gladly say one thing and then do another when they want something, and are more than happy to attach a signing statement saying that they don’t care what congress actually wants, they will simply do what they feel like, a last ditch letter the night before the vote is hardly persuasive.
It is strange how you forgot to quote this part of the letter:
[W]e are aware that some have argued that section 402 is ambiguous. We would be pleased to work with Congress to clarify that the intent of Congress is to protect the current minimum wages of tipped employees.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....st8206.pdf
So, why didn’t the GOP just drop section 402, if that was the trouble?
Nope, it would seem that it is Mike?(tm) and Frist who are having a little trouble with the truth. I know as a Republican, Sven, that facts are just inconveniences that you would rather ignore, but do you really like to be made to look so foolish by those you are trying to support?
Of course, if you really believe in the minimum wage and tax cuts, why not bring them up for separate votes? Why are Republican’s so scared about a straight out vote on the minimum wage?
Point is she raised it as a stopper when it isnt. I know you want to defend her and thats fuine, but the fact remains in her blog, she mislead ehr audience by claiming she was acting in protection of people who did not need it.
We call that lies.
They call it Nuance.
As for seperate votes, nothign would please me further then to have congress start doign things in single issues not laundry lists of spoecial interest and pork additions, but both sides of the aisle are way too entrenched in that.
Dont blame this on a republican issue, laundry listr bills has been status quo for decades.
Sven:
Again, how was she lying? Washington would interpret the law as pre-empting the state law, and the Feds admit that it is ambiguous. Again, it is the GOP and Mike?(tm) that are the ones that say “trust us, we don’t really mean what we say.” Cantwell is simply taking them at their word.
You are right about laundry list bills. Still, it says something about how unpopular an estate tax repeal is that the Republicans have to throw a ton of goodies at the Dems to even get it closed to being passed.
again, the DOL did not say it was ambiguous. They clearly said they would enforce the existing laws.
What they said was many people thought it was ambiguous.
According to the email threads, there was plenty of effort to clarify it. It does not appear she was open to said efforts, but that is perception so I will give her a pass on it.
But the blog she wrote was clearly spinning this as hard as she could against the republicans by playing up false fears.
She never indicated anywhere that the State legislature could, under the worst case scenario, simply reinstate the exclusion. She never bother to point out that the US DOL supported the existing exclusions as being permissable.
Instead she climbed on a high horse of her own creation to poitn out what a noble thing she had done, when in fact she did nothing.
That is as disappointing to me as her stance on the war is to some others.
“She never indicated anywhere that the State legislature could, under the worst case scenario, simply reinstate the exclusion. She never bother to point out that the US DOL supported the existing exclusions as being permissable.”
Commentby sven— 8/7/06@ 6:31 pm
Couldn’t the Legislature make the Min Wage Tip Issue an EMERGENCY???? They did with the gas tax….Remember the Gov running around screaming the VIADUCT is FALLING, the VIADUCT is FALLING !! It’s still standing, but us taxpayers don’t know any better, leave it to the expert politicians…..
Hell the Democrats do it in this state every day….Ms Cantwell needs to pay attention to her own state politics…..
She stonewalled and we all know it….
You go, Goldy. The next time Connelly pouts about the outcome of the War of Spanish Succession, we can just reply (with snark), “But Joel, how would you know, you weren’t even there.”
Does laziness get paid more by the column inch?
Good one Goldy. Keep after ’em. Since they react so strongly, there is probably paydirt in the digging.
Maybe someone should look into Mr. McGavick’s support of Enron when he worked for Senator Gorton. Even Mr. Connelly could do some research on that one since he was the DC Correspondent at the time. Gorton thought it would be great to have competition and break up the utility monopolies and Enron made it as far as Portland, Oregon. McGavick was right there with his boss. Oops, maybe that is negative campaigning and Mr. Connelly wouldn’t like that. Bad me, bad me.
dj @ 13
Don’t know if you’ll ever see this, considering the vast amount of Bunny Boy’s verbal vomit in this thread, but…
I’m gonna talk reeeeel slow… so’s you kin unnerstan’ what um sayin’…
dj: “I’ve made clear numerous times on HA that I am not (and never have been) a Democrat.”
And what does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Just because you won’t admit to sleeping with the enemy (of this great state and country), doesn’t mean you couldn’t or wouldn’t help them shape their “message” (which usually sounds a lot like your first comment in terms of maturity and intellect).
dj: “Your willingness to make-up and, apparently, believe in some vast left-wing conspiracy foretells mental illness.”
Here’s where you’re going to have to go back and read Goldy’s post and my comment reeeeeeelll slow-like. Compare and contrast Goldy’s comment about reading up on McGavick and my equally citation-free comment about Goldy.
As for the comment about Goldy being a cog in the Dem machine… I think you’re splitting some mighty fine hairs when you try to separate the skullduggery of Goldy’s activist blogging and his active participation in the overall skullduggery of the Dem Party.
Hey, Surreal Mark, I really admire the high standards to which you hold Goldy.
I get it. We’re all to supposed just watch the TV commercials. Everything else is “skullduggery”. Dino, Mike :( and David Irons Jr. are great guys, just like the TV says. Vote for them.
Gee it just ends up making things so much easier and much more “mainstream”.
hey@72 i see you took a good wiff asshole.guess you never heard of Jimmy CARTER.FUCK YOU
Clueless @ 81
It didn’t say anything of the sort. In fact, if you get your main information from commercials or Goldy’s blog (or Sharkansky’s), I’ve got a bridge I’d love to sell ya.
I still want to know just how far up Gold(ie)’s skirt the Dem Party’s hand is. Or is he more of a Muppet or marionette?
84 – Well get out the pen and pad and ask some questions former journalist. Maybe Don Ward can help you. Walk the walk.
Who is the most credible poster on HorsesAss?
[ ] 1. A human pretending to be a rabbit
[X] 2. DemocRats pretending to be human
Commentby Roger Rabbit— 8/7/06@ 1:37 pm
Darth Gold[ie|y]?
Don’t you mean Darth Eyman?
Joel Connoley was wrong about Slade’s campaign. I can only assume his longstanding insider-status has affected his memory.
And you don’t have to have lived here back then to know that.
I’ve lived here since 1959. I remember the Gorton campaign just fine, thanks. It was fucking ugly, and Connelly knows it. Damn, Connelly bends over so far to try to be “bipartisan” that he ends up burying his head halfway to his large intestine on some of his contortions. All the whispered innuendo about Cantwell’s sexuality, among other things, date from that campaign.
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More please about Joel’s role as Seattle’s own Cokie Roberts.
Who knew Seattle had a beltway that matched Joel’s waistline.