Goldy

It snowed yesterday in Seattle, apparently for the first time ever! A dusting of frozen water fell from the sky in the form of fluffy, white flakes, making the roads slippery! Who the hell can drive in that?!

And in breaking news, today it is going to rain! A lot. Expect flooding. Again, something apparently that has never, ever happened here before.

Will wonders never cease?

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:

7PM: Special Session or Special Olympics?
Our Democratic leadership sure is “special” aren’t they, if they think a revenue cap below the rate of inflation is either good politics or good policy? The Stranger’s Josh Feit was down in Olympia for Thursday’s debacle and he joins us in studio for his first hand take and a discussion of the inevitable fallout.

8PM: Does WalMart have an obligation to treat its workers fairly?
A class action suit was filed this week, alleging as many as 75,000 were illegally denied overtime pay and work breaks. Tough shit for the workers? Or does WalMart have an obligation to treat them fairly?

9PM: Are we squandering America?
Robert Kuttner is the co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect magazine, and the author of a new book, “The Squandering of America: How the Failure of Our Politics Undermines Our Prosperity,” and he joins us in studio for the hour. With wages stagnating and the gap between the very rich and everybody else growing ever wider, Kuttner argues for a return to the “managed capitalism” that guided the great economic expansion from 1948 to 1973, an era during which the U.S. economy, wages, and incomes flourished, and a rising tide really did lift all boats. Kuttner appears tomorrow night, 7:30 PM at Seattle’s Town Hall, for a book reading and signing.

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

I’ll save the venting for tomorrow night’s show when The Stranger’s Josh Feit will join me in studio to give his first-hand account of the proceedings at yesterday’s special session, and the inevitable fallout from the Dems’ boneheaded political blunder. But I just want to take time to thank those Democratic legislators who stood up to the political pressure, and voted against rashly reinstating I-747’s unsustainable and irresponsible one-percent cap on regular levy revenue growth.

Yesterday I wrote, “I’d be surprised if a majority of the Seattle delegation didn’t vote to approve the governor’s plan,” and, well… I was wrong. There are six legislative districts that represent Seattle, for a total of twelve representatives and six senators. Of those, only one senator and four representatives voted for the bill, with two representatives excused and not voting. A total of eleven Seattle legislators cast votes against the bill: Senators Ken Jacobsen, Adam Kline, Jeanne Kohl-Welles, Joe McDermott and Ed Murray, along with Representatives Mary Lou Dickerson, Sharon Nelson, Jamie Pedersen, Eric Pettigrew, Sharon Tomiko Santos, and Helen Sommers. I was particularly proud that my entire 37th Legislative District Delegation — Kline, Pettigrew and Santos — voted against the bill.

Only a handful of non-Seattle legislators bucked the governor’s pressure to quickly pass dumb policy. In the House, special kudos go to Rep. Geoff Simpson of Covington, who voted his conscience despite the fact that his district overwhelmingly supported I-747, and despite the fact that he feared this vote could potentially end his political career.

“I’m not here to make decisions based on whether or not I’ll get re-elected,” he said. “I’m here to make decisions that are good public policy … 747 is not good public policy.”

Simpson said local government can’t be expected to provide high quality services when revenues are not keeping pace with the rate of inflation.

While he was aware of the risks, Simpson said he hoped voters in his district would consider the sum of his voting record, not just this one vote.

That’s what representative democracy is all about. In the Senate, Craig Pridemore of Vancouver made a similar principled stand, again, knowing the political risks coming from a district that overwhelmingly supported I-747:

“I’m a former county commissioner. I know the impacts this will have on local government, law enforcement abilities, and all of the other critical local services. I can’t vote yes for that,” he says.

No doubt Pridemore and Simpson’s opponents will attack them as arrogant and out of touch, but this is exactly the sort of principled leadership voters so often decry as missing in our elected officials. If we want our legislators to mimic the polls rather than make informed decisions, we might as well just eliminate the Legislature entirely.

The Gregoire/Eyman bill passed the House 86-8, while an amendment proposed by Sen. Eric Oemig that would have put it up for referendum in 2008 failed to pass through the Senate Ways & Means Committee. I think Postman is dead on in summing things up:

The special session is a victory for Republicans, those in the Legislature and the one running for governor, Dino Rossi. They were out front calling for the emergency session and the governor and Democratic lawmakers followed.

Republicans win by portraying Democrats as weak, and it sure doesn’t help us when we prove them right.

As the state legislature meets in special session to reinstate I-747’s irresponsible one-percent annual cap on growth in regular local levies, I’d like to remind members of the Democratic caucus that the rallying cry of the progressive netroots — “More and Better Democrats!” — has two clauses. So while the leadership may safely if cynically gamble that bloggers and other grassroots activists would never dare threaten their majority over something as petty as, well… getting totally fucked… individual members should not feel so secure.

Yes, the modern progressive movement is still in its nascent stages, and yes, I agree with Carl that it is not yet clear that we have the strength in numbers, resources or influence to successfully primary a Democratic incumbent… but that doesn’t prevent us from trying. The state House in particular is in many ways a shit job that doesn’t pay nearly enough money to do it right, but it would be all the more shittier if incumbents faced a serious primary challenge every two years. All that fundraising, doorbelling, coffee klatches and boring, boring meetings… it doesn’t leave much time to earn a decent living, let alone enjoy your family. See, we don’t have to actually win a primary to be effective. We just have to make the incumbent’s life miserable.

Clearly the governor has no qualms about screwing her party’s progressive base, a political miscalculation mired in a profound lack of understanding of what it is, exactly, the base actually does. (Hint: we don’t just vote.) But our local representatives, who are, theoretically, more in touch with their constituents… they should know better. I’d wager there isn’t a legislative district Democratic organization in Seattle that would endorse reinstating I-747, and yet I’d be surprised if a majority of the Seattle delegation didn’t vote to approve the governor’s plan. I’ll be counting. And I won’t be the only one.

Oh, it’s not like most of us progressive activists would ever abandon the party, or refuse to cordially work with representatives who cross us, it’s just that I want to make it absolutely clear that those who accuse bloggers like me of being “tools of the Democratic Party” have it exactly backwards: the Democratic Party is our tool, and we intend to use it to enact our agenda. And that’s how it should be.

I know there are many who are disheartened by the Democrats’ ill-advised capitulation on I-747, but it only makes me more defiant, and even more committed to the cause of “More and Better Democrats.” In presenting the history of the phrase, Daily Kos diarist Major Danby sums up the mix of passion and political pragmatism that drives our movement:

I see support for the motivating principle of “More and Better Democrats” as being a lot like the commitment to freedom of speech: it is most important when it is hardest to justify.

It’s easy to support free speech when things are going your way, when nothing offensive is being said, etc. Most people can do it, across the political spectrum. It’s easy to profess because it’s meaningless, it’s ineffectual, it’s cheap words. What matters is how much you support free speech when it’s hard, when it means being confronted with something offensive. […] That is when free speech is most in danger; that is when you just have to take a breath, buckle down, and do it.

It’s important to believe it then — to believe that when we get tackled we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and get back to work — because it is at that exact moment when support for the principle is in greatest danger. It’s when people are screwing us over, acting like the “Republicrat Party,” that we have to tell them that there is nothing they can do to keep us from making sure that, ultimately, we will not only have enough Democrats to keep the other side out of power, but enough good Democrats to enact our own agenda.

In Mozambique’s drive for political independence from South Africa, the slogan was “A Luta Continua” (“the struggle continues.”) In the Spanish Civil War, it was “¡No pasarán! (they shall not pass)” Of course, often they do pass, and the struggle often continues for decades or more. But the battle cry — for us, “More and Better Democrats,” meaning “we will keep on doing what we are doing until we defeat you” — sustains the movement. Yes, it involves a willful suspension of disbelief, it involves the prospect of complicity with those who fail us. But those, I submit, are better than ironic detachment or self-immolation, because in our world there is nowhere else to go. We need more and more people on our side. Better and better ones.

Given the political reality, there is only one way to enact a progressive agenda in both Washingtons: more and better Democrats. It won’t be easy and it won’t be quick, but our goal is nothing less than seizing control of the Democratic Party and putting it back in the hands of the people… people who are willing to use a legislative majority, and not just build it. More and better Democrats, that is what we are fighting for, and those Democratic representatives who don’t fit the bill will eventually have to start looking over their shoulders.

Photo Elaine Corets.

The folks at the Sierra Club are quite proud of their role in killing Prop 1, the Roads & Transit measure, grandiosely claiming:

“This is the first major public works proposal I know of to be defeated because it would worsen global warming.”

But according to a new poll conducted by EMC Research and Moore Information on behalf of Sound Transit… not so much. When asked to rate, from one to five, reasons for voting against the package, “global warming” came in dead last out of the eleven reasons offered, with only 20% of respondents rating it a four or five, compared to 75% for “blank check/no cost control” or 74% for “costs too much.” And when asked for the best reason to oppose Prop 1, only 1% of respondents chose the environment.

Yup, those cute kids in the polar bear costumes really got the environmental message out.

That’s not to say that the Sierra Club didn’t play an important role in defeating Prop 1 — it did — but it did so mostly by lending its name and credibility to the dishonest campaign of Kemper Freeman Jr. and the rest of the anti-rail/pro-roads camp. Cost and taxes were by far the top reasons given for rejecting Prop 1, a frame that makes passage of any future rail-only ballot measure all the more difficult. Rail isn’t cheap, and due to “sub-area equity” issues, Sound Transit can’t easily break it down into smaller projects. And when it comes to funding, Sound Transit is particularly hamstrung: only 23% of respondents support raising the sales tax to fund transportation improvements (compared to 51% for the MVET,) yet that is the only additional taxing authority available to Sound Transit under current law. Sure, there’s some talk of transit money eventually coming from congestion pricing (40% support,) but it would take years to implement such a plan, if ever.

The short term reality is that while light rail expansion remains popular in theory, its cost and available funding mechanisms do not, and it appears to be far from the region’s number one transportation priority, with 91% of respondents emphasizing the need to fix unsafe roads and bridges, compared to only 55% prioritizing building light rail east to Bellevue and Redmond. (Though ironically, only 57% of respondents prioritize replacing the 520 bridge. Go figure.) Light rail continues to substantially out-poll “bus rapid transit” in all five sub-areas, but without an adequate funding mechanism and a unified pro-rail campaign from the environmental community, it’s likely that BRT — whatever that ultimately means — might be all us common folk get.

How diesel buses choking in traffic on our existing roadways is supposed to save polar bears, I’ll never know. But if the ideological purists at the Sierra Club really have a viable plan for building a 21st century transit system in the Puget Sound region — and getting it approved by voters sometime before the 22nd century — now is the time for them to step forward and take the lead. They are the ones responsible for blowing apart the environmental coalition on transit, and they are the ones with the onus of putting it back together. If Sound Transit attempts to come back in 2008 with a rail-only proposition — and unless the legislature stops them, I’m not sure what choice they have other than gradually dismantling themselves — then the Sierra Club damn well better be prepared to spend the blood, sweat and money necessary to fix the damage caused by its collaboration with the Freemanites.

FYI…
The poll was conducted by phone, November 11-15, and is based on 1,013 respondents, +/- 3.1%. You can read the key findings here.

In an effort to reduce my own carbon footprint, I topped off my home heating oil tank with 242 gallons of B30 biodiesel… back on October 1 of 2006. It had been about a year and a half between refills, and I can probably make it through most of this winter with what I have left in the tank.

As you can tell, I’m pretty stingy with the heat, but I don’t feel like I’ve sacrificed all that much comfort. It’s 55 degrees in my living room right now, but with a rugby shirt, a fleece pullover, and a flannel shirt on top, plus my signature fisherman gloves (fingertip free to allow me to type) I’m cozy enough. I turn the thermostat up to about 62 degrees when my daughter’s around, and she sleeps with one of those little oil-filled electric space heaters in her bedroom, but the furnace is off all night with nothing to keep me warm in bed on most nights than a thick down comforter and a dog. I sometimes heat the house back up to around 60 in the morning, but except during the occasional cold snap I keep the furnace off most of the day when I’m home alone.

No doubt my friends and family think I’m a little nuts, but I’ve grown accustomed to the cool temperature and the $3.40/gallon it saves me. And while I don’t really expect many others to go to such an extreme, my own example does illustrate how rather small lifestyle changes are much easier than people expect. Most Americans balk at the simple energy saving tip of turning the thermostat down to 68 degrees during the winter, but that’s only because they haven’t really tried tried acclimate. Put on a sweater and dial it down to 62 degrees for a few weeks, and 68 will feel like a fucking sauna. Really.

As the climate forecasts grow gloomier and the immensity of the impending catastrophe sinks in, there is a tendency for folk to simply give up in despair, but in fact there is something we can all do to at least mitigate the impact of climate change, if not prevent it altogether. We can substantially reduce our individual carbon emissions without spending much money or dramatically reducing our standard of living. And if we all reduce our own carbon emissions a little bit, we’ll reduce worldwide emissions a helluva lot.

I’ve made no secret of my disdain for the special session Gov. Gregoire has called for this Thursday to reinstate I-747’s vindictive one-percent cap on regular local levies. From a policy perspective, a hard cap on revenue growth below the rate of inflation is simply irresponsible. From a political perspective, this cowardly and ill advised capitulation not only makes the governor look weak at a time she needs to project strength, but it will make it very difficult for some in the Democratic base to generate the kind of enthusiasm Gregoire might need if Dino Rossi doesn’t stumble. I’m just sayin’.

Of course, the governor doesn’t deserve all the blame, as I doubt she would have called this special session if she didn’t believe she had the backing of the Democratic leadership. Here we had a golden opportunity to debate and propose progressive property tax reform that would truly benefit those homeowners who need it most, and Frank Chopp and company seem happy to just quickly sweep the issue under the rug and get back to the business of expanding the Democratic majority. Um… to what end?

That said, there does seem to be some good news coming out of the state Senate, where more than a few Democratic senators are voicing their concern over rushing through the governor’s emergency legislation. After talking with several senators and staffers, it appears support is now coalescing around a proposal to temporarily reinstate I-747’s limits through January of 2009, giving the legislature the time to hold the kind of public hearings the initiative never received, while fully debating various alternatives. This is a proposal I and many other tax fairness advocates could support, as it provides adequate time for careful deliberation. It is also a reasonable and responsible compromise that allows Democrats to reject I-747’s permanent reinstatement without handing Gov. Gregoire and embarrassing defeat.

Under one scenario being discussed, the legislature would ultimately put a referendum on the 2008 ballot, giving voters a choice between the existing one-percent cap and a comprehensive package that might include a circuit breaker or property tax homestead exemption that targets substantial benefits to the majority of homeowners. Personally, I’d rather legislators just do their job and legislate, but I can understand the political advantages of a referendum.

But whatever the final package, it couldn’t be much worse than what the governor is proposing: a below-inflation cap and a deferral program that provides only a short term bandaid, and to very few households. The problem is not that our taxes are broadly too high, but that they are too regressive, imposing the greatest burden on those who can afford to pay the least, and unless we address this core issue, our state and local governments will never be able to adequately address the many pressing issues facing the citizens of Washington state.

In talking about congestion pricing on my show Saturday night, I couldn’t contain a brief outburst over how our local media and political elite continue to take seriously the Discovery Institute’s transportation proposals in light of its embarrassing role in promoting Creationism Intelligent Design. My frustration stems not simply from the fact that Intelligent Design is ridiculous anti-science, or that it is part of a well planned and executed multi-year campaign to undermine science education in the US at a time we face growing global economic competition… but that it has been promoted in such a shamelessly dishonest manner.

The Discovery Institute has proven again and again that it makes no distinction between scholarship and propaganda, and that there is no ethical boundary it will not cross in the interest of foisting its Christianist agenda on the American people. This blatant disregard for the most basic rigors of academia — or even fair play — was highlighted recently by a virologist/blogger who discovered that DI fellows had stolen and manipulated a Harvard University/XVIVO video for use in their own presentations, without attribution, permission or license.

Here is the original Harvard/XVIVO video, “The inner life of a cell”, with its scientifically accurate narration intact:

And here is a clip from a Discovery Institute presentation that features an excerpt of the video, now redubbed and retitled “The Cell as an Automated City.” Notice how the presenter describes the video as “state of the art computer animation,” implying that it is somehow the work of the institute:

As ERV points out in his her post, this isn’t just a naive case of copyright infringement. The Discovery Institute has plenty of lawyers on staff and on retainer, so they sure as hell know that scrubbing the Harvard/XVIVO copyright and credits off the video is not only dishonest, but illegal.

Maybe they think it is ‘okay’ because they gave the animation a new title (‘Inner life of a cell’ became ‘The cell as an automated city’) and an extraordinarily unprofessional new narration (alternate alternate title– ‘ Big Gay Al takes a tour of a cell!’). Harvard/XVIVOs narration, all of the science, is whisked away and replaced with a ‘surrealistic lilliputian realm’– ‘robots’, ‘manufacturing’, ‘circuitry’, ‘nano moters’, ‘UPS labels’. Maybe they think it is ‘okay’ because they turned all of Harvards science into ‘MAGIC!’

Hmm. From my point of view, as a virologist and former teaching assistant, this isn’t just copyright infringement. This is theft and plagiarism. Taking someone else’s work without their consent, manipulating it without their consent, pretending it supports ID Creationists distorted views of reality, and presenting it as DI’s work.

ERV further points out that if the DI fellows responsible for this were at his her university, they would be expelled for their plagiarism.

But this is just business as usual at the Discovery Institute, and it raises a question: if the Discovery Institute can’t be trusted to produce independent academic scholarship on its signature issue, Intelligent Design, how can its Cascadia Center be trusted to produce independent academic scholarship on regional transportation planning? Of course, it can’t, and the media, business and political elites who ignore the institute’s established track record of distorting scholarship and science in the single-minded pursuit of its own private agenda, are little more than willful dupes.

Our region’s transportation planning is too important to be trusted to a faux “think tank” with such a shameful and embarrassing record, and every time one of our local media outlets unskeptically cites one of its reports or recommendations, it grants the Discovery Institute credibility it simply does not deserve. Unlike a real think tank, the Discovery Institute produces “scholarship” to support its existing agenda, not the other way around, and thus it cannot and should not be considered a trusted partner in planning our region’s transportation future.

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:

7PM: Are we prepared for pandemic flu?
“Radio Kos” returns to KIRO, as Daily Kos front page editor Greg Dworkin — better known as DemFromCT — joins us by phone to talk about the latest news on avian flu, and what we need to do to prepare for the next global flu pandemic. While the flu pandemic of 1918-1919 was killing an estimated 40 million worldwide, Seattle was relatively spared when Mayor Ole Hanson shut down schools, theaters and other public places… and was run out of town in the process. Are we willing and able to do the right thing when the inevitable happens?

8PM: Are we ready for a state income tax?
In a recent editorial the Spokane Spokesman-Review wrote that “since Eyman fancies himself a defender of the powerless, he ought to advocate an income tax.” Yes, that was in the Spokesman-Review. If some of our most conservative editorialists are beginning to call for progressive tax restructuring, isn’t it time our Democratic legislators call for it too? we’ll ask that question, but first we’ll talk with Cheri Marusa, one of many former Dino Rossi donors who are now giving money to Gov. Chris Gregoire.

9PM: Do atheists need Sunday school?
I was a born atheist, but that didn’t stop my equally non-believing parents from sending me to Hebrew school to learn my religious and cultural heritage. Was that experience necessary to shaping my moral and ethical universe? Will my own daughter’s lack of a formal religious education make her less moral? Do children need something to reject?

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

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on News/Talk 710-KIRO:

7PM: The Stranger has a science writer?
A promising HIV vaccine trial based out of Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center goes awry, actually increasing some subjects’ chances of developing AIDS. Stranger science writer Jonathan Golob (yes, The Stranger actually has a science writer) takes a break from explaining hangovers and female orgasms to join me by phone to discuss the ramifications of this failed trial.

8PM: Saturday night comedy with Justin Rupple
We continue our experiment with live comedy as local comedian Justin Rupple joins us for the hour to give us his unique take on current events and the world around us.

9PM: TBA
The usual liberal propaganda.

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

Flying back from Philadelphia last night I sat next to a man suffering through the second leg of a grueling transatlantic journey from Germany to Seattle, shoehorned into a seat that seemed designed to taunt his 6-foot, 4-inch frame. I suppose I should have shown him more mercy considering his sleep deprived state, but I couldn’t help myself, and so we ended up talking politics. He was on a rare trip back to the states after spending most of the past three decades as a civilian military employee in Germany, and I just had to ask about the German attitude towards the US these days.

“They hate us,” he replied without hesitation. And not just the Germans he said, but throughout Europe, the United States as a nation (as opposed to individual Americans) is feared and loathed. Thank you Mr. Bush.

Since squandering the near global goodwill lavished on us in the tragic aftermath of 9/11, the US has become a nation without political allies. Indeed, being identified as an ally of President Bush has become a recipe for political suicide, with first the UK’s Tony Blair biting the dust, and then Poland’s hateful Kaczynski twins. And yesterday it was Australian voters’ turn to repudiate Bush’s disastrous policies:

Bush’s closest ally, Australian neanderthal John Howard “suffered a humiliating defeat” today. Kevin Rudd, a moderate left candidate will be the new prime minister and he has promised to overturn the ultra-reactionary Bush-like policies of his predecessor, particularly in regard to Global Warming and Iraq. Bush’s only ally left in the entire world on Global Warming is now Oklahoma crazy right-wing senator, James Inhofe. Rudd won a clear parliamentary majority and it looks like Howard may actually lose his own suburban Sydney seat to boot! […] Rudd campaigned on promises that “his first acts as prime minister will include pushing for the ratification of the Kyoto climate agreement and to negotiate the withdrawal of Australian combat troops from Iraq,” both seen as repudiations of George Bush’s embarrassing leadership.

And oh yeah, with Rudd’s victory it now seems likely that Midnight Oil singer (and Senator) Peter Garrett will join the new cabinet as Environmental Minister.

The last time I enjoyed regular home delivery of a daily newspaper was back in 2003, when I ended a three-month subscription to the Seattle P-I after accumulating stacks of recycling and a six-inch diameter rubber band ball. It’s not that I didn’t read the P-I, it’s just that I mostly read it online, and the satisfying hand-feel of the dead-tree edition simply wasn’t worth the extra clutter or cost. And so it was with some nostalgia this week that I drank my morning tea while shuffling through the pages of the Philadelphia Inquirer, a big city paper that despite a noticeable decline over the past couple decades, still puts its smaller Seattle cousins to shame.

Even on this notoriously slow news day, the Inquirer’s front page once again finds room for five stories, four with bylines from staff reporters, while the Seattle Times features two articles from the LA Times, one from USA Today, and a column by Jerry Brewer. I’m just sayin’. The P-I’s front page is a bit more encouraging, with all three articles sporting bylines from staff reporters, including one actual local news story. Wow.

But it’s not the news or the op/eds that caught my attention this week, but rather the ads. Of course today is “Black Friday,” and the Inquirer was so chock full of ads and inserts yesterday that it had to be bagged and delivered in two parts. I’ve written before about the experiential difference between reading a paper online versus reading it in print — they often emphasize entirely different headlines — but online readers almost entirely miss the usual Sunday circulars, let alone the deluge of holiday advertising. And I’m guessing online publishers miss the revenue windfall from the holiday season as well.

This highlights just one of the many challenges facing publishers and the communities they serve as the newspaper industry continues to transition from print to web. Unless newspapers can find a way to maintain or replace such traditional revenue sources, newsrooms will continue to experience cuts, and overall quality will continue to decline. Meanwhile, consumers and retailers alike risk losing what is after all, a valuable service. No, I don’t particularly like having my living room cluttered up with circulars for stuff I’ll never buy, but I don’t mind learning about a 32″ LCD HDTV for $399, or an 8GB USB flash drive for $28.95.

Happy Black Friday Frank Blethen and Roger Olgesby.

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