Goldy

I know I’m a couple of days late on this, but anyone else notice that there were absolutely zero column inches in the Sunday Seattle Times on the failure of the DREAM Act in the US Senate? I mean zilch, bubkes, nada. Not a word.

I’d provide a link, but there’s nothing to link to.

A couple folks have asked me recently if I’ve heard anything about Rep. Dave Reichert stepping down. A couple other folks have asked me if I’ve heard anything about Reichert challenging Sen. Maria Cantwell in 2012. Unless Reichert’s head injury is giving him more trouble than he admits, the latter seems more likely, but it has me thinking that perhaps the two rumors might be conflated.

What does seem clear is that WA-08 will very likely become a bit bluer in 2012, losing a chunk of its Republican-leaning southern part of the district, as WA-10 inevitably squeezes its northern neighbors from the south. So it might not be a bad time for Reichert to make an honorable exit.

The U.S. Census Bureau released its latest numbers this morning, confirming that Washington state is in line to gain a tenth congressional district, starting in 2012.

That’ll be fun. Not only will this create a brand new open seat, likely in a swingy district carved out of Southwest Washington, it will also squeeze the boundaries of the other seven western districts, possibly shifting the red-blue balance here and there.

Unlike most other states, Washington’s got a relatively reasonable redistricting process, led by a bipartisan commission and a fairly strict set of guidelines, so we won’t get the sort of blatantly partisan gerrymandering we’ll surely see elsewhere. That said, it was heartening to see the Senate Dems recently select former Mayor Nickels henchman Tim Ceis as their representative on the commission. Whatever you think about Ceis, he’s about as Machiavellian as they come around these parts, so it’s good to see him part of the mix.

Oh, and in case you’re wondering, Washington’s population grew 14.1 percent over the past decade, to 6,724,540… well off the blistering 21 percent growth rate between 1990 and 2000.

Having digested the remains of the Seattle P-I’s print audience, the Seattle Times is bleeding readership again, its paid circulation dropping 4.51 percent over the previous six month period, pretty much in line with the industry average. If worse for the industry is the decline in advertising revenue, down another 8.7 percent to $16.3 billion… less than half the industry total only two years ago.

Personally, I have serious doubts as to whether print remains a viable medium for delivering daily news in all but the largest markets. But I guess time will tell.

I’m a bit preoccupied this morning reading the sweet, sweet anguish of the New York media over my Philadelphia Eagles stunning, come-from-behind, 38-31 victory over the hated New York Giants. Michael Vick’s fourth-quarter performance was so amazing, even my dog is becoming a reluctant fan.

Trailing 31-10, and having been manhandled by the Giant’s aggressive defense all day, Vick simply took over the game, throwing two touchdowns and running for ninety-some yards and another touchdown, all in a seven minute span, just before DeSean Jackson scored the final tally with a 65-yard punt return TD with no time remaining. And while I’m sure Seattle fans would have been thrilled by a similar Seahawks performance, I’m not sure if folks here can quite grok the sense of absolute joy that swept through Philadelphia as Jackson (eventually) crossed the goal line. Yeah sure, we’d just witnessed one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history, but more importantly, we’d come back against the hated Giants, not just crushing the hearts of their fans, but grinding the bloody pulp into the sidewalk.

Is there a sports rivalry in Seattle that comes anywhere close to rivaling the palpable animosity between the teams and fans of the NFC East? I don’t think so.

Which means you underprivileged Seahawks fans just can’t possibly enjoy football as much as we Iggles fans do. Or… suffer from it.

Matthew 21:18-19
Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. 19 Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered.

Discuss.

But… but… if gays can now serve openly in the military, next thing you know we’ll be letting dogs serve openly too!

Oh… wait.

In case you already didn’t know it, the latest census numbers confirm that Seattle has one of the lowest rates of households with children in the nation. Which is why, over on Slog today, I make the argument again for not just building a playground at the Seattle Center, but a Really Kick-Ass Playground.

Um…

Anyone looking for Central Park can walk Seattle’s numerous other parks — Seward, Lincoln and Discovery parks.

Jesus… could the Seattle Times editorial board get any more condescending? Or stupid?

I mean, I’m not particularly advocating that Seattle Center should or even could be the Seattle equivalent of New York’s Central Park, but as far as parks go, it is Seattle’s most central, whereas Seward, Lincoln and Discovery… not so much. And Central Park’s centrality, well, that’s kinda its point.

So perhaps the Times’ editors should leave the snark to the professionals. Either that, or they should fuck off.

I don’t want to make excuses for Gov. Christine Gregoire; she fought for our state’s top job, so the buck surely stops at her desk. But she certainly doesn’t seem too happy about balancing the budget primarily on the backs of the poor, the sick and the young:

“I hate my budget,” she said, tearing up. “I hate it because in some places, I don’t even think it’s moral.”

Can’t argue with that. But the Republicans…?

Sen. Joe Zarelli of Ridgefield, the Republican’s chief budget expert in the Senate, called the budget a step in the right direction…

What Gov. Gregoire calls immoral, Sen. Zarelli calls a step in the right direction… you couldn’t ask for starker ideological contrast. And you also couldn’t ask for a better opportunity for Republicans to ultimately prove that they are not the heartless, Social Darwinist bastards that I think they are.

I mean, it sure does appear that, unlike Gov. Gregoire, Sen. Zarelli really does want to cut a couple billion dollars from education, and 100,000 people or so from the health care rolls… that he believes it’s a step in the right direction to impose a couple more years of double-digit tuition inflation, and to zero out funding for state parks. In fact it sounds like he would have preferred the governor gone even further.

But if he doesn’t, well, there is something he can do about it. It wouldn’t be easy, but with enough support from Zarelli and his fellow Republicans, the legislature could pass a bipartisan revenue package intended to soften the harshest blows, and the governor would sign it. Unconstitutional as I-1053 may be, its supermajority requirement does put control of revenue proposals in the hands of the Republican minority, so let’s be absolutely clear: regardless of who is its putative author, this immoral all-cuts/no-new-revenue budget is a Republican budget.

This is the kind of budgeting philosophy that they campaign on, and thanks to Republican-backed I-1053, this is the kind of budget that we’ll get. 35 kids in a kindergarten classroom? That’s a Republican kindergarten. Tens of thousands of children with no health insurance? That’s Republican health care. College tuition rising out of reach of the middle class? That’s a Republican university system.

Or if it’s not, Republicans know exactly what to do to prove me wrong.

Over on Slog, I somehow manage to combine baseball and transportation planning in the same post. Give it a read.

Gov. Christine Gregoire released her all-cuts budget today, and in closing a $4.6 billion shortfall without offending beverage companies and editorial boards, it surely makes for a meaner, poorer, less healthy and less well educated state. It also shows up all of us—the governor, the legislature, the Seattle Times editorial board, the business community and voters—as a bunch of big, fat hypocrites when it comes to education.

The governor proposes to continue suspension of the class-size reduction initiative, I-728, to save $860 million. The same is true for I-732, which mandates annual raises for teachers, pegged to inflation. That saves another $253 million.

The K-12 cuts don’t stop there. Gregoire’s budget saves: $216 million by eliminating funding to reduce class sizes in kindergarten through forth grade; $99.5 million by suspending bonuses to teachers who go through national teacher certification; and $56 million by suspending incremental step increases for teachers.

To put that in perspective, that’s nearly $1.5 billion in K-12 education cuts, or roughly $740 a year for every public school student in the state. You know, imagine what your typical elementary school might do with an extra quarter of a million dollars a year. Now imagine everything your kid’s school can’t do, because it doesn’t get this money.

Oh, politicians and editorial boards and corporate executives talk a good talk about education—incoming House Minority Leader John Boehner even cries a good cry about it. But without the willingness to actually fund education reforms, it’s all talk, and nothing else.

I mean, if it’s a choice between raising taxes and fucking over school children, well, the message is clear. Fuck the kids. And God Bless America.

Apparently because our national debt and the long term stability of Social Security are our nation’s top priorities, the Senate just passed a Republican-crafted tax cut package that will make both dramatically worse.

I wouldn’t want to suggest that all teabaggers are fascists, but clearly, some of them are…

The government should censor news agencies that report on US documents leaked by websites like WikiLeaks, according to a tea party-backed Republican who will soon represent the 22th district congressional of Florida.

Speaking with an online radio station, Rep.-elect Allen West said that attacks on the US were not limited to “a bomb or an airplane flying into a building,” but could occur “through cyber attacks” or “through leaking of very sensitive classified information.”

“Regardless of whether you think it causes any harm, the fact that here is an individual that is not an American citizen first and foremost, for whatever reason gotten his hands on classified American material and put it out there in the public domain,” West continued. “And I think that we also should be censoring the American news agencies which enabled him to do this and also supported him and applauding him for the efforts. So that’s kind of aiding and abetting of a serious crime.”

Uh-huh.

So the question is, does Rep.-elect West not understand the First Amendment, or does he simply feel no need to honor it? Or perhaps West’s opposition to a free press is more calculated…?

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) has also supported the secrets outlet, saying that “if the public doesn’t know what’s going on, then they can’t vote intelligently.”

The inability to “vote intelligently,” huh? I suppose that would explain West’s election.