Archives for 2010

Even as U.S. Senate Republicans hold a unified front in filibustering financial regulatory reform — reforms Wall Street is frantically lobbying to kill — they continue to make the bizarre assertion that the Democrats fighting to pass these reforms are… wait for it… in the pocket of Wall Street!

As Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid said about the GOP’s characterization of the bill as a Wall Street bailout, “This is as Orwellian as it gets.”

Not wanting to miss out on the fun, Washington State Republican Party chair Luke Esser is now criticizing Sen. Patty Murray for the half million dollars in political contributions she’s received from Wall Street over the past 18 years:

“Wall Street has taken good care of Sen. Patty Murray and today she returned the favor.”

Of course, Esser is referring to the vote Murray cast in favor of Wall Street reform… you know, the bill Wall Street opposes. Like I said, bizarre.

And as The Olympian’s Brad Shannon points out, that $514,925 Sen. Murray has received from financial industries is “less than 2 percent of the $36 million she’s received from all sources since 1989.” In fact, it’s less than 1.5 percent… exactly the kinda simple math I’m guessing Esser was hoping the press and the public wouldn’t do.

And you know what other kinda math Esser should have anticipated? The kind in which somebody adds up the total dollar value of the contributions Dino Rossi has received from the world of finance over the course of his political career… you know, like $361,882, or more than 1.9 percent of his $18 million total.

That’s right, Rossi, who we can count on to oppose Wall Street reform along with every other GOP senator, has long relied on Wall Street for a greater percentage of his campaign bankroll than Murray, who staunchly supports the very reforms Wall Street and its Republican surrogates oppose.

Oops.

(FYI, percentage wise, State Sen. Don Benton is even worse, routinely relying on the financial industry for between 12 and 20 percent of his campaign contributions.)

So when Republicans, who traditionally draw a disproportionate share of Wall Street support, work with Wall Street to kill reform legislation that Wall Street opposes, while boldly accusing Democrats of doing Wall Street’s bidding, one can only conclude that Republicans think voters are stupid.

I guess we’ll find out if they’re right or not come November.

The thing about fascists is they try to wear down the normal people. Good people with shit to do (jobs, kids, doing things that make being alive fun) grow tired of stuff like the Arizona abomination, and can start to weaken, figuring maybe if the fascists get this, they’ll calm down.

They won’t calm down, at least not until white people with R’s behind their names are completely in charge of everything, everywhere on the planet. And since that’s not going to happen, normal people have to be encouraged to beat these fascist bastards at the polls, and beat them badly.

Fuck Godwin’s Law, I’m done with that, it’s null and void. The Arizona law is fascist, and I hope to hell the DOJ is all over that miserable state government down there. Show me your papers, I’ll show you my papers. Here it is 2010 and someone is probably going to have to organize freedom rides. They’ve even got that fascist sheriff who would easily fall for the bait.

Funny thing about trying to uncork resentments as a political strategy: it can lead to unpredictable outcomes. In the right wing lizard brain, we’re all hippies who won’t stand up for anything, because the right wing lizard brain defines us as incapable of having true American values.

That’s why their heads exploded, and continue to explode, because we pointed out the debased assault on American values perpetrated by the Cheney-Bush administration. To them it was nothing more than an insult, no matter how many facts were presented, and they use it as a justification for whatever insults they care to issue to us, or more importantly, the Constitution. Then they parade around in costumes proclaiming their love of a document they don’t even understand.

They’ve always made that mistake, of course. And they’ve always lost, from Appomattox to Selma, but not without causing a whole lot of needless suffering. It’s their cultural heritage. USA! USA! USA!

A staunch civil libertarian myself, I’ve always thought of American libertarianism, taken to the extreme, as simplistic, silly and kinda stupid. That said, there are a lot of libertarians who I respect for their intellectual and ideological consistency. You know, even if they’re wrong.

That’s sorta the way I felt about the Seattle Times’ Bruce Ramsey… until now:

Maybe we need a national ID card which everyone would need to show before getting a job, opening a bank account or enrolling a child in school. I don’t like it, but there it is. I lived in Hong Kong for 3 years, and I had to carry such a card there at all times. It’s no different than carrying a driver’s license, or having a government license plate on your car. You get used to it.

Really, Bruce? If they do it that way in Hong Kong — you know, communist China — we could do it that way here too, and folks would just “get used to it”…?

Hey, for the sake of convenience, perhaps the government should just tattoo our social security numbers on our wrists? After all, it’s no different from having a government license plate on your car. You get used to it.

Maybe Ramsey doesn’t identify himself as a libertarian, I don’t know, though his columns generally read that way. But I’ll certainly never make the mistake of characterizing him that way again.

I assume I’m not the only one who loves Charles Mudede, as I assume the folks at the The Stranger keep don’t keep him on payroll out of sheer altruism. And it’s observations like this — in regards to the above-the-fold headline “Graffiti vandals cost public millions” in today’s Seattle Times — that only makes me love Charles more:

No, this is not really a problem for the public. It is a pseudo problem; a mere masking of the true problems the public faces. If The Seattle Times were not an ideological instrument for the interests of the ruling class, it would try to alarm us with this headline: Bankers Cost Public Billions.

Speaking of which, the Times’ Sunday circulation continues to slide, down another 5.2% from last year.

Last week’s I-1077 kickoff marked an unexpected change of tactics for Tim Eyman. He not only made eye contact with me for the first time in god-knows-when, he actually chatted jovially as we shared our mutual disdain for government by jaywalking together across Yesler.

And then moments after Bill Gates Sr. ended his remarks, Tim invited the media outside, where he attempted to establish himself as our state’s most visible and vocal opponent of a middle class tax cut.

Yes, that’s right, Tim Eyman, who’s made a career out of hawking tax cuts, is positioning himself to be the voice of the opposition to an initiative that would cut taxes for 97% of households, and 90% of businesses.

Huh?

So whose side is Tim on? The overwhelming majority of businesses who would see their B&O tax eliminated? The 97% of households who would see their taxes go down? Or the 3% of households — our state’s wealthiest — who will be asked to pick up a little more of the cost of maintaining the extraordinarily high quality of life in Washington state?

I would feel a lot more confident about Washington state’s chances of successfully defending the constitutionality of our Public Records Act before the U.S. Supreme Court this week… if we had a better lawyer arguing our case. I’m just sayin’.

It’s been making the rounds, but hell, I might as well link to this post too…

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters – the black protesters – spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protesters — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.

Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama.

Actually, I have imagined it, and have often mused about the political theater of say, putting together a group of largish, black men very publicly exercising their right to open carry, or perhaps filling the back of a pickup with rifle-toting Mexican-Americans to slowly drive by a teabagger rally.

But of course, that would be wrong. That would be provocative.

Last week’s winner was milwhcky. The correct location was Montreal.

As I mentioned last week, I’ve decided to add a twist to these contests. Instead of just being random locations, the locations I’ll be choosing from now on (including the one below) will be related to something in the news from the previous week. Here’s the first one, good luck!

Exodus 21:20-21
If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.

Sigh.

Perhaps I’ll eventually work up the energy to fully fisk the Seattle Times’ predictable, knee-jerk editorial slamming I-1077 as a jobs killer “Proposed state income tax will stymie job creation“, but for the moment, I’d just like to say that… really? We should be taking economic advice from the Times?

As far as tax increases go, I-1077 is relatively minor, only about $1 billion a year net, and falls only those who can most afford it… those top three percent of households who will still benefit from a somewhat less so, but still largely regressive tax structure. In return, we not only get desperately needed new funding for K-12 education and health care, but substantial middle class and small business tax breaks.

In fact, if anything, I-1077 actually improves Washington state’s already enviable business climate. As the Times explains, but does not understand:

The larger break goes to business owners. I-1077 gives every business $4,400 more in credits. A number of very small businesses would be exempt entirely from the business-and-occupations tax. But at companies in a position to create family-wage jobs, a $4,400 credit is not going to do anything.

This $4,400 credit will exempt 80 percent of Washington businesses from the state B&O tax, while lowering taxes on an additional 10%. How many times have we heard that small businesses are the engine of job creation, yet the Times editors dismiss 90 percent of businesses in the state as not being “in a position to create family-wage jobs”…?

How myopic could they get? Are they entirely clueless about how the new economy works? Do they have any idea how many people make their living these days as independent contractors or running mom & pop businesses? Do they understand that “very small businesses” sometimes grow into larger ones if given the opportunity to thrive, and that even a blogger begging for contributions to pay his bills means one less upward tick on the unemployment rolls?

Billions of dollars of extorted tax breaks for Boeing, that the Times can embrace, but a $261 million tax cut distributed to 90 percent of Washington businesses, well… I guess if the Blethens don’t rub elbows with them down at the Rainier Club, they don’t much matter.

I’m no economist, and my own entrepreneurial ventures haven’t made me rich, but hell if I’m gonna take seriously a lecture on job creation from a paper that has spent much of the past decade slashing its own staff.

UPDATE (from Geov)

I don’t post here often, but in conjunction with the Times’ whining that I-1077’s tax breaks don’t go to really big businesses, you know, the ones that matter, my friend Jeff Reifman reports that just yesterday, Microsoft got a doozy:

Struggling to close a $2.8 billion fiscal deficit, the Washington State Legislature ended its recent special session with two huge gifts for Microsoft:

1) It gave Microsoft an effective $100 million annual tax cut by revising the definition of the royalty tax. Under the old law, all of Microsoft’s $20.7 billion annual software licensing sales were taxable in Washington state at .484%. Under the new law, the royalty tax will be apportioned so that only the portion of sales to Washington State customers would be taxable, a tiny fraction of Microsoft’s taxable revenue.

2) It also gave Microsoft amnesty on an estimated $1.25 billion in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties that the company has avoided paying since 1997 by reporting this revenue from a small Reno, Nevada office. The state’s Department of Revenue has ignored this practice and refused to address precedents that call the legality of Microsoft’s accounting into question.

Most of the legislation was led by Chair of the Finance committee Rep. Ross Hunter, a 17 year veteran former employee of Microsoft.

Got that? While Olympia struggles to close a $2.8 billion shortfall, mostly by slashing services, it plants a big wet kiss on Microsoft, and it’s such business-as-usual the Times can’t be bothered mentioning it; but when citizens try to do the legislature’s job for it by offering a package that would give tax breaks to the majority of Washingtonians, the Times editorial board shrieks in horror.

Just in case you wondered where you stood.

Oh, and while I’m here: has anyone else noticed that Tim Eyman, who’s made a good living for the last decade exploiting middle class resentment over Washington’s regressive tax structure, is stridently opposing a measure that does far more to bring tax relief to his voting constituency than anything he’s ever done? Just in case you ever wondered whose side he’s on. (Hint: his own, and Mike Dunmire’s.)

I’m not much for crowded bars and loud music, but tonight I went out to the Sunset Tavern to hear Dan Bern play live. Loads of fun. And he played several songs I never heard before, including the one above: “Osama in Obamaland.”

Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes yesterday asked the Washington State Supreme Court to block Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna from using his office to challenge the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act recently enacted into law. And while as a layman, I have no particular insight into the legal grounds supporting Holmes’ petition, as a connoisseur of irony I give it my full endorsement.

1.     Petitioner seeks a writ of mandamus to compel Respondent Robert M. McKenna to withdraw the State of Washington from the case of State of Florida, et al. v. United States Department of Health and Human Services, et al., Case No. 3:10-cv-91, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida on March 23, 2010 (the “Florida lawsuit”), and to cease participating in that case. Petitioner seeks the writ on the grounds that the Attorney General exceeded his authority when he made the State of Washington a plaintiff in that case.

This is what comes from McKenna’s abuse of his office in the pursuit of partisan political gain: we now have a City Attorney, suing to bar a State Attorney General from suing the federal government on behalf of the state, while our Governor must hire an outside attorney to defend the federal government against her own attorney — the Attorney General — and his unauthorized lawsuit.

And of course, we the taxpayers are paying for all of this.

No doubt McKenna thought he would score some cheap political points with his party’s base by joining this lawsuit, but as every experienced attorney knows, there’s nothing cheap about their profession.

You’d think state Republicans might have learned a lesson from their previous clumsy efforts to win political advantage by outrageously accusing Democrats of coddling sex offenders, but not state Sen. Don Benton, who apparently intends to make such a cynical political ploy the strategic centerpiece of his floundering U.S. Senate campaign.

The political ad above, an offensive gesture in itself, takes a disturbingly lighthearted poke at sex crimes, featuring a man collecting donations for “Viagra for Sex Offenders.”

Hah-hah. Funny. You know, unless you or somebody you love has ever been the victim of a sex offender. Or maybe you just find sex offenses no laughing matter. But all that’s really beside the point.

No, the point of the ad is to inform voters that our awful Sen. Murray actually voted against an amendment that would have barred the use of taxpayer money to provide erectile dysfunction medication to convicted sex offenders.

Really?

Well, the amendment in question was little more than a stunt, one of several introduced by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) as part of GOP efforts to stall or kill health care reform. Of course there’s no evidence that taxpayer dollars have ever been used to purchase Viagra for sex offenders, but the Senate needed to pass the reconciliation bill unchanged to avoid sending it back to the House, so Republicans chose to do their worst to monkey-wrench the process by introducing bogus amendments like this one.

As Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) told his colleagues in urging them to vote no on the amendment:

“This is a serious bill. This is a serious debate. The amendment offered by the senator from Oklahoma makes a mockery of the Senate, the debate and the American people. It is not a serious amendment. It is a crass political stunt aimed at making 30-second commercials, not public policy.”

Baucus almost nailed it, but for the fact that Benton’s cynical internet ad runs a tedious 1 minute, 44 seconds.

I suppose Benton’s got to do something to grab attention away from the Rossi Watch, and… well… sex offenders it is. Just remember that the next time Republicans accuse Murray and the DSCC of playing dirty.

I’m guessing there were an awful lot of folks who were awfully surprised by yesterday’s KING5/SurveyUSA poll that showed 66% of respondents supporting I-1077’s high earners income tax, and only 27% opposed. That’s a better than two-to-one margin, similar to the last time an income tax measure hit the ballot back in 1973… only in reverse.

Of course, I-1077’s backers wouldn’t have gone forward with the initiative if they didn’t have polling data suggesting it stood a reasonable chance of success, but no doubt even they were pleased by the SurveyUSA results. The poll shows I-1077 passing, not just by an overwhelming margin, but in every single demographic group. 63% of independents, 57% of Republicans… even self-identified conservatives approved by a 50%-45% margin.

Over at Publicola Josh is intrigued that the measure actually draws more support in Eastern Washington than in Western, 66% and 63% respectively. But assuming respondents understand the initiative and who it impacts, such a result makes quite a bit of sense.

After all, the Puget Sound region isn’t just the population center of the state, it is also home to a disproportionate number of Washington’s high earners, so I-1077 doesn’t just tax the rich, it also taxes Seattle. Think folks out in Eastern Washington won’t take a bit of pleasure in that? Well think again.

Yeah, sure, it would be more than a little cynical for I-1077 proponents to co-opt Eastern Washington’s “fuck Seattle” attitude in an effort to win votes from the other side of the Cascades. But hell… whatever works.