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Air America Radio shut off its microphones today and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. It will continue to provide affiliates with “encore” programming through 9PM Monday, January 25, at which time its programming will end for good.

I suppose you could call Air America a failure, and from a business perspective it certainly was. It never operated in the black, and seemed to be in the midst of financial and management turmoil since before it launched in April of 2004.

But it helped catapult Al Franken into the U.S. Senate, and launched a then unknown Rachel Maddow on the path toward her own show on MSNBC, and will leave behind dozens of thriving progressive talk stations nationwide. And without the ecosystem that Air America spawned, Ed Schultz and other successful progressive talkers might never have had the opportunity to reach a national audience.

That’s a pretty impressive legacy, and one for which I at least am grateful.

Just to be absolutely clear, I think it is safe to argue that if there’s one thing on which a majority of Americans agree, it’s that corporations don’t have nearly enough influence in state, local and national politics. So we should all thank the courageous justices of the United States Supreme Court for correcting this imbalance.

If there is a Republican wave building momentum heading into the 2010 election, our state GOP caucus seems intent on doing everything possible to sink its own ship. First they kicked off the session with a parade of tentherist nonsense, and now they’re repeating Dino Rossi’s single biggest mistake from the 2008 gubernatorial election by introducing a bill that would reduce Washington’s minimum wage.

I mean, are they stupid, or what?

Yeah, sure, the last thing our state’s families need in the midst of this crappy economy is a cut in wages, but that simple logic aside, as a political strategy, this bill is just plain dumb. Voters overwhelmingly approved our current minimum wage statute via a citizens initiative, and it was Rossi’s public support for the notion of reducing the minimum wage that proved a turning point in the election, and provided Gov. Gregoire with one of her most potent political attacks.

As long as Republicans continue to stick to this losing strategy, it’s hard to imagine them seriously threatening the Democrats’ legislative majorities.

Of course, I’m not plotting to blow up the Supreme Court, despite the intentionally provocative headline, and anybody who would believe for moment that such constitutes an actual threat is a complete and utter idiot. But I wonder if the Republican majority on the Court who just voted to gut our campaign finance laws by throwing out a century of precedent, respect my right to free speech as much as they respect that of corporations?

No doubt there are some of you out there who believe this headline crosses a line for which I should be subject to criminal penalties. After all, to maintain a safe and civil society the First Amendment cannot possibly be absolute; you can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater, and all that. And yet I’m guessing that that those of you who would relish the thought of armed federal agents kicking down my door in the middle of night in response to a mere rhetorical device, are the same folks who are cheering the Court’s 5-4 decision to protect corporate America’s unfettered First Amendment right to corrupt our government through unlimited political spending.

No, I’m not plotting to blow up the Supreme Court, nor do I support or encourage such a radical revisionist agenda, because unlike the Court’s Republican majority, I actually respect the institution. But I fear for a nation whose highest court consistently grants money more free speech rights than speech itself.

I guess you get the Supreme Court you pay for:

In a ruling that radically reshapes campaign-finance law, the Supreme Court has struck down a key campaign-finance restriction that bars corporations and unions from pouring money into political ads.

The long-awaited 5-4 ruling, in the Citizens United v. FEC case, presents advocates of regulation with a major challenge in limiting the flow of corporate money into campaigns, and potentially opens the door for unrestricted amounts of corporate money to flow into American politics.

Good thing too, because if anybody is a victim in our current political system, it’s corporations. Good thing they’ll finally get their voices heard.

This site is preventing me from writing anything more substantial today.

UPDATE: SAFER, a popular Colorado-based marijuana law reform group that has run a number of initiatives, is launching a boycott of Starbucks over their support for an anti-marijuana law enforcement group that promotes and glorifies violence.

So, how crazy is the state Republican caucus in their sloppy embrace of their crazy, tenther, teabagger, state sovereignty agenda? So crazy that state Sen. Val Stevens has introduced a Joint Memorial calling for the repeal of the 17th Amendment… the amendment that mandates the direct popular election of U.S. Senators.

In its place, Stevens would have Senators once again appointed by their respective state legislators, only by a plurality vote, not a majority, thus giving Washington’s minority Republicans a better shot at electing a Senator than they do under our current, (small “d”) democratic system.

Really. I’m not kidding.

I guess that’s the Republican idea of “populism.”

The New York Times announced today that it intends to charge readers for frequent access to its website, starting in early 2011.

Starting in early 2011, visitors to NYTimes.com will get a certain number of articles free every month before being asked to pay a flat fee for unlimited access. Subscribers to the newspaper’s print edition will receive full access to the site without extra charge.

What exactly the NY Times considers “frequent,” and how much they will charge, not even the paper’s executives seem to know, but the move to squeeze subscription fees from online readers doesn’t come as much of a surprise.

Will it work? That is, will revenue from online subscribers substantially exceed the online advertising revenue lost due to the inevitable drop in page views? I dunno. The NY Times fills a kinda unique position in our media landscape as our nation’s undisputed paper of record. So, maybe.

But the big question for me is, successful or not, will this prove to be a viable business model that, say, the Seattle Times might follow in an effort to turn around its own declining financial prospects?

I don’t think so.

The Seattle Times simply does not play as vital and unique a role in our local community as their New York counterpart does nationally. While the NY Times consists almost entirely of original content from some of the best and most highly respected reporters and columnists in the nation, the Seattle Times relies heavily on the Associated Press and other newswires and syndication services to fill its pages. For example, two of the four articles on the front page of today’s dead-tree edition are newswire reprints, including an above-the-fold lead story culled from the pages of… the New York Times.

Why would I pay twice for the same story? Indeed, why would I pay at all for a newswire story I can read elsewhere for free?

Well, I might, because part of my schtick is critiquing the Seattle Times, but as an unrepentant news junkie, I’m the exception that proves the rule. Unless the news industry universally adopts the NY Times model, I just don’t see how dailies like the Seattle Times can demand a high enough flat-rate subscription fee to offset the inevitable loss of readership that would come from hiding their content behind a firewall.

Newspapers are kinda like information department stores, presenting a broad variety of content on a range of subjects and issues in one easy to consume package. But the hierarchy of the Internet is flat, and the barriers to entry relatively nonexistent in terms of capital and infrastructure investments, leaving publications like the Seattle Times vulnerable to specialized competitors.

In the old media technology, where folding a bunch of pages together into one convenient bundle was the most efficient means of distributing news and opinion, the Seattle Times merely needed to do everything well to fend off new competitors. But in the new media technology, being merely good is not good enough.

If The Stranger provides better coverage of the music and arts scene, and the neighborhood blogs provide better coverage of the neighborhoods, and Publicola provides more thorough coverage of Olympia, and HA provides more entertaining and relevant political commentary and analysis… what exactly is the economic incentive for consumers interested in those subjects to subscribe to the Seattle Times as a whole? Indeed, ironically, it is specialized news and opinion sites that have the more compelling argument for placing their content behind subscription firewalls, a model that has worked well for the Puget Sound Business Journal and other online trade publications.

I don’t mean to dis the valuable original reporting that the Seattle Times does produce, but I’m not sure there’s enough of it to make a flat-fee, all-you-can eat subscription a compelling product. I don’t subscribe to cable TV for the very same reason. Sure, there are networks I might purchase on an a la carte basis, were I given the option, but I’m not going to pay $60/month for 500 channels of stuff I’ll never watch. Especially not now, with so much equally compelling content available over the Internet.

No doubt Frank Blethen and his bean counters are encouraged by the NY Times pioneering effort, but they shouldn’t be. The Seattle Times simply is no NY Times, and I don’t see how the business model of one easily translates to the other.

I’m not sure what the solution is for the Seattle Times and other dailies. Hell, I’m not even sure there is one.

To repeat a comment I made a couple posts prior, the last thing voters want in their national leaders is weakness, and that’s exactly how Democrats are going to be perceived if they do not pass a health care reform bill after a year of endless talk and debate. President Obama promised change, and as ridiculous and unreasonable as the logic may be, considering that the Republicans have been the obstacle to change, if the Dems can’t produce it, voters will toss ’em out.

So the solution is obvious. The House needs to pass the Senate bill as-is, and then attempt to fix it as best they can through reconciliation and subsequent legislation. There’s no other choice. Anything else would be political suicide.

Progressives need to bite the bullet and pass a bill without a public option, that largely caves to the demands of the health care industry, and conservatives need to give up their demand for tougher restrictions on abortion. To do otherwise is to assure electoral disaster in November, and sacrifice our last best chance to turn this country around.

Not much reason to be optimistic about tomorrow’s votes in the State House. For optimism, though, we can still look to the polling trends.

Scott Horton reveals that the reported suicides of three Guantanamo detainees in June 2006 weren’t suicides at all:

This is the official story, adopted by NCIS and Guantánamo command and reiterated by the Justice Department in formal pleadings, by the Defense Department in briefings and press releases, and by the State Department. Now four members of the Military Intelligence unit assigned to guard Camp Delta, including a decorated non-commissioned Army officer who was on duty as sergeant of the guard the night of June 9–10, have furnished an account dramatically at odds with the NCIS report—a report for which they were neither interviewed nor approached.

All four soldiers say they were ordered by their commanding officer not to speak out, and all four soldiers provide evidence that authorities initiated a cover-up within hours of the prisoners’ deaths. Army Staff Sergeant Joseph Hickman and men under his supervision have disclosed evidence in interviews with Harper’s Magazine that strongly suggests that the three prisoners who died on June 9 had been transported to another location prior to their deaths. The guards’ accounts also reveal the existence of a previously unreported black site at Guantánamo where the deaths, or at least the events that led directly to the deaths, most likely occurred.

This is a giant story by any measure, but not a single major American newspaper has yet to print their own report on it. We often argue about media bias being liberal or conservative, but the bias in our traditional media is that they’re too chickenshit to take on powerful institutions.

UPDATE: It looks like it was covered on Countdown on MSNBC, but there’s still nothing on the MSNBC front page about this.

It’s Tuesday! And an interesting Tuesday at that. Please join us tonight for some election returns under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning about 8:00 pm. Or stop by earlier and join me for dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 341 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

One of my favorite perks of being a progressive blogger is my annual invitation to serve as a VIP judge at one of my favorite events, NARAL/Pro-Choice Washington’s annual Chocolate for Choice.

This year’s celebration of the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision will be held this Thursday, January 21, from 7PM to 9PM at the First Base Club at Safeco Field (take the pedestrian bridge from 5th floor of the garage across Edgar Martinez Drive), and features generous samplings from 40 of Seattle’s finest bakers, pastry chefs and chocolatiers. Admission starts at $40 ($45 at the door).

It’s also one of my daughter’s favorite events; no doubt as I’m filling out my scorecard, Katie will be busy filling up my carry-out box with chocolaty treats. Hope to see you all there.

Of course, I’m not plotting to blow up an airplane, despite the intentionally provocative headline above, and anybody who would believe for moment that such a headline constitutes a threat that should make me the subject of a terrorism investigation, let alone criminal proceedings is a complete and utter idiot.

And yet, that’s exactly what happened to Paul Chambers for venting his frustrations over airport delays with the following harmless tweet:

“Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high.”

And the thoughtful, calm response of British authorities?

He was held under the Terrorism Act on suspicion of conspiring to create a bomb hoax and questioned for seven hours.

Mr Chambers was eventually released on bail until February 11 pending further enquiries.

His Twitter post was deleted and his laptop, iPhone and home computer confiscated.

He also been banned from Robin Hood airport for life and suspended from his job while an internal investigation is launched.

Yeah, because we all know that real terrorists always publicly tweet their intentions before striking.

Now I know that some of you trolls will respond that a bomb threat is a bomb threat, and should be punished accordingly, regardless of whether this poor schmoe actually had the means or intention of carrying it out, but, well… get a life. It’s not even like this guy made the comment while sitting on an airplane, or standing in line at security, or even passing time in an airport bar. Context matters, and both the context and content of the tweet make it clear that there was no threat, implied or otherwise. (Is it actually possible to blow up an airport? And had he said the same thing, or worse, in a comedy sketch, would that have been equally prosecutable?) And yet in the name of security theater, Chambers now finds himself banned for life from his local airport, out of a job, and potentially facing huge legal bills if not an actual prison term.

Feel safer?

Reportedly, when Chambers tried to explain to investigators what Twitter is, and the context behind his tweet of exasperation, the officer merely responded “It is the world we live in.” A shameless cop-out if I ever heard one.

As the wise folks at Gizmodo opined:

Indeed, it’s the world we live in, giving up on all our civil liberties for a sense of false security, and allowing morons to run the world.

Well, if that’s the world we live in, I might just have to blow it sky high.

UPDATE:
The post has been up for four hours now, and I haven’t been arrested yet. I guess there are benefits to being an American.

UPDATE, UPDATE:
24 hours later, and the feds still haven’t busted down my door and hauled me away. What’s up with that?

I know it is cliche to say that with every crisis comes opportunity, but cliches have a habit of ringing true, as with our worst ever budget crisis facing Olympia, now in its second year of a three to four year run. Unfortunately, while Republicans are prepared to take advantage of this opportunity, Democrats apparently are not.

The all-cuts approach of last year’s budget, and the mostly cuts, plus more federal bailout, plus maybe a hundred million or so in odd revenue increases the governor is pushing in this year’s supplemental, is nothing if not a recipe for permanently shrinking the size and scope of state government. We’re not talking about merely squeezing out waste or cutting the fat or reprioritizing, although we’ll get a little of that too; we’re talking about redefining the role of government in Washington state… ensuring that not only does state government come out of this recession smaller as a percentage of the total economy, but that it will continue to shrink in such regards for perhaps decades to come.

This is, of course the Republican agenda, an agenda that they have been unable to win with at the polls, but which they will inevitably achieve nonetheless as long as our highly regressive and inadequate tax structure remains at status quo. And faced with an opportunity to at least move the debate forward, if not immediately enact substantial reforms, the Democrats have opted to cede the debate to the opposition, pretty much accepting their terms unchallenged.

Republicans and their surrogates in the legacy press (you know who I’m talking about, Seattle Times editorial board) have insisted that a down economy is the exact worst time to raise taxes, an assertion that many economists would challenge, but which our state Democratic leadership will not. So… um… when is the right time to raise taxes? When the economy is good? Does anybody really believe that there will be political support in the Legislature to raise taxes once state revenue starts to recover?

Of course not. But the problem is, barring another unsustainable economic bubble, state revenue will never recover to pre-recession levels compared to growth in demand for public services, and will certainly never grow as fast as the overall economy. Without substantial tax restructuring — without a shift away from our over-reliance on regressively taxing the sale of goods, a tax base that has been steadily shrinking for the past half century as a percentage of the total economy — our government can never grow fast enough to keep up with the economic, infrastructure and human investment and services our state needs to prosper in the 21st century.

Without substantial tax restructuring, our state government, the investments it makes and the services it provides, will be gradually dismantled, piece by piece by piece.

This was our inevitable future before the Great Recession, and it will be our inevitable future after. Which is a shame, because with their large majorities in both houses of the Legislature, and their control of the governor’s mansion, the Democratic leadership had an opportunity to use this crisis to guide us down the road toward the reforms necessary to at least sustain our current quality of life, if not enact a truly progressive agenda.

Unfortunately, it looks like we’ve had the wrong Democrats in leadership.