HorsesAss.Org

North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan will not seek reelection.

Anybody who thinks the Dems won’t have fewer seats in both houses next year than they have this year is crazy, and anybody who thinks we’ll get a better health care reform bill with fewer Dems than with more, is out of their fucking mind.

It would have been nice if the Senate leadership had the balls to go nuclear and do away with the filibuster, but they don’t and they won’t. So the bill we get out of conference is the bill we get. And if we don’t pass anything, the Democratic loses next November will be even steeper than they otherwise would be.

Time to pass health care reform, claim victory, and then start the arduous process of incrementally improving on it bit by bit.

Folks around these parts sure do love the illusion of nonpartisanship, but as demonstrated by yesterday’s Mercer Island mayoral brouhaha, it is in practice exactly that.

The putatively nonpartisan Mercer Island City Council met yesterday to select a new mayor, and under much pressure, the council split on party lines to elect not-so-secret Democrat Jim Pearman to another term. Everybody knows who the four Democrats and three Republicans are, so the outcome should not have been a surprise, but not-so-secret Democrat Dan Grausz, unhappy with Pearman’s performance in office, had strongly signaled that he was planning to vote for not-so-secret Republican Steve Litzow.

It’s not like the mayor does all that much other than chair city council meetings, so one wouldn’t think such a fit of party line crossing would be such a big deal. But the mayorship has proven a valuable bullet point on one’s political resume, and a reliable steppingstone to higher office. Both state Sen. Fred Jarrett and state Rep. Judy Clibborn are former Mercer Island mayors, as have been other past 41st District legislators. And Litzow clearly has his heart set on higher office.

So the biggest issue before the city council yesterday was not really about who would get to chair the meetings over the next two years, as it was about whether they would give Litzow a big leg up in his campaign this November. Last year, Litzow ran as a Republican against freshman Rep. Marcie Maxwell for her seat, and this year he is widely expected to pursue the open senate seat Jarrett is vacating. However disappointed Grausz was with the way Pearman runs the meetings, did he really want to be responsible for potentially helping Republicans pick up a seat in the state senate?

Apparently not. And as much as some might bemoan the incursion of partisan politics into the deliberations of a nonpartisan council, well, welcome to the real world.

Politics is an adversarial process. Deal with it.

Tell them you’re taking them to the Fun Forest at the Seattle Center to go on the rides, only to show up and find that it’s gone.

They’ll look back and laugh, someday.

Let’s see… so the Seattle Times consistently opposes spending tax dollars to build a light rail system approved by a popular vote of the people, yet it supports spending tax dollars to build a passenger terminal at Everett’s Paine Field to support commercial airline service that is widely opposed by the surrounding neighborhoods.

Good to see that they are clearly in touch with the values of their community.

Allen Quist, a Republican former state representative challenging U.S. Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN), explains why he’s running for office:

“It’s because I, like you, have seen that our country is being destroyed. I mean, this is — every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom. This is our fight. And this is our time. This is it. Terrorism, yes — but that’s not the big battle. The big battle is in D.C., with the radicals. They aren’t liberals, they’re radicals. Obama, Pelosi, Walz — they’re not liberals, they’re radicals. They are destroying our country. And people all over are figuring that out.”

Hear that? The big battle isn’t against the terrorists… it’s against us liberals. Because, I suppose, we’re, um, worse than the terrorists.

It’s good to see that Republicans haven’t lost their perspective.

With former Seattle City Council member Jan Drago appointed as a caretaker to fill Dow Constantine’s vacated King County Council seat through the end of the year, the rest of the dominoes are beginning to fall into place.

State Sen. Joe McDermott (D-34), the first choice of Democrats on the council as well as West Seattle party loyalists, will return to Olympia for the coming session, before running to fill the seat permanently next November. No doubt state Rep. Zack Hudgins (D-11) will be awfully tempted to take a crack at the race too, but at this point you gotta consider McDermott the frontrunner.

And with Constantine’s seat settled, and a Democratic majority back in control of the council, the once crowded field to replace state Sen. Fred Jarrett (D-41) is starting to clear out. Last week Vicki Orrico withdrew her name from consideration, and today Maureen Judge (who I call “Mo” and my daughter calls “mom”) announced her withdrawal too:

I have decided today that I am withdrawing my name from consideration for the 41st State Senate appointment.

Because these are difficult times, because we face so many challenges throughout the district and state, I feel my most vital and important contribution to our community is in my current role role as Executive Director of the Washington Toxics Coalition and getting the Safe Baby Bottle Act of 2010 passed in Washington state.

The only inside information I’ll pass on is that it wasn’t an easy decision, but it’s probably for the best… at least for me. Mo would have made a great progressive addition to the state senate, but I have to admit a little selfish relief at her withdrawal. Had she won the appointment, the next two months would have been rather hellish from a scheduling perspective, and then once the session was done the campaign would begin.

As for the rest of the field, considering the number of endorsements and commitments he’s already locked up, you gotta consider Randy Gordon the clear frontrunner in tomorrow’s vote of 41st District Democratic PCOs. And as a matter of protocol, the council almost always goes with the PCO’s first choice.

Over at Crosscut, real Ted Van Dyk laments the decline in public civility.

We face unacceptable losses of civility. The in-your-face insults characteristic of many blogs and even traditional media reflect a general loss of respect for each other. The old political dictum, “Tough on issues; soft on people,” has long since been breeched. How many angry print or on-line columns, broadcast commentaries, or political rants have you seen in recent months, flowing from mention of the names Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, Joe Lieberman, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, George W. Bush, Barney Frank or, locally, Tim Eyman? Not critiques of their policy views but insulting personal attacks and characterizations. The communications flowing from partisan political committees and true believing single-issue groups are often toxic.

Yeah… well… um… in your face, Van Dyk!

First of all, as our state’s best known purveyor of insulting personal attacks on Tim Eyman, I just want to calmly and maturely point out that he started it. If not for Eyman’s own infamous lack of civility, my tit for tat response would never have garnered so many headlines in return. As I explained at the time, in seeking to officially proclaim Eyman a “horse’s ass,” I was not making a mockery of the initiative process; rather, I was just pointing out the mockery that Eyman had already made of it. Eyman is a horse’s ass, and that’s the uncomfortable truth that made my initiative both funny and compelling.

Furthermore, as I have well demonstrated, it is possible to methodically and rationally critique one’s policies, while simultaneously indulging in personal attacks. Indeed, I’d wager that nobody has written more substantively and at greater length on the policy implications of Eyman’s various initiatives than I have over the past six years. Do I resort to name-calling and hyperbole from time to time? Sure. Timmy deserves it. But when it comes to a factual and substantive debate on tax structure issues, I consistently kick Eyman’s sound-bite-repeating equine ass. (Which, by the way, is why Tim won’t even make eye contact with me anymore, let alone engage me in live debate.)

Likewise, it is also possible to maintain an air of civility while, intentionally or not, consistently repeating the same pack of discredited lies, as Van Dyk has relentlessly done in opposing Sound Transit. I suppose Van Dyk might be offended by such bluntness of opinion, but I personally prefer rude truths to polite lies, and unlike him I strive never to conflate solemnity with seriousness, nor civility with being civic-minded.

No doubt Van Dyk pines for the oh-so-civil, bipartisan days when political operatives from both parties might deliver a suitcase full of $100 bills to Richard Nixon, but not me. For if that’s what civility looks like, I want nothing to do with it.

You know, because Christians never get involved in self-destructive sex scandals.

Star Wars on Facebook

As any regular reader here knows, one of my favorite subjects is the intersection between the war on drugs and the war on terror. And as we now get sucked into the lawlessness of Yemen, it provides another subject matter. Qat (also spelled ‘khat’) – a plant that can be chewed for its stimulant effects – is extremely popular in Yemen, among all strata of their society from rural villagers to government officials. I’ve even read one report out of Yemen that much of the country shuts down in the early afternoon as many people use qat as a daily ritual. I’m not sure how much of an exaggeration that is, but it’s safe to say that chewing qat is a fairly significant part of daily life in that country.

Here in the United States however, and even here in Seattle, qat is an illegal substance. This has caused a significant backlash from this area’s Somali immigrants, who feel they should have the right to partake in a custom that was commonplace in their homeland and does not harm others.

With that in mind, I noticed this passage from a blog specifically devoted to dealing with Yemen:

The US must be much more active in presenting its views to the Yemeni public. This does not mean giving interviews to the Yemen Observer or the Yemen Times or even al-Hurra, which is at least in Arabic. It means writing and placing op-eds in Arabic in widely read Yemeni newspapers like al-Thawra. I detailed a golden opportunity that the US missed with the Shaykh Muhammad al-Mu’ayyad case in August in a report I wrote for the CTC Sentinel (which is available on the sidebar). This also means allowing US diplomats to go to qat chews in Yemen – and even, perish the thought, chew qat with Yemenis. The US should be honest about what qat is and what it does and not hide behind antiquated rules that penalize a version of the stimulant that does not exist in Yemen. Whether or not the US knows it, it is engaged in a propaganda war with al-Qaeda in Yemen and it is losing and losing badly. US public diplomacy is all defense and no offense in Yemen, this has to change or the results of the past few years will remain the roadmap for the future. And that future will witness an increasingly strong al-Qaeda presence in Yemen.

As we’ve already seen in Afghanistan, an overzealous drug war can severely undermine attempts to combat Islamic radicalism when we’re not realistic about both cultural differences and economic realities when it comes to drugs. It’s definitely something to keep an eye on in Yemen because if we deal with qat there the way we’ve been dealing with it here, it has the potential to really blow up in our face.

Last week’s contest was won by Gman. It was Columbus, Ohio (thanks to Daniel K for posting the link).

Here’s this week’s, good luck!

Luke 14:26

If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple.

Family values? Discuss.

Penny Coleman in AlterNet writes about the growing awareness among Iraq and Afghanistan war vets about the efficacy of marijuana in treating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). A recent study out of Israel confirms what many returning American soldiers are finding out on their own.

In a column in the Seattle Times today, the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer explains exactly how to appease al-Qaeda and then excoriates President Obama for not doing it:

The reason the country is uneasy about the Obama administration’s response to this attack is a distinct sense of not just incompetence but incomprehension. From the very beginning, President Obama has relentlessly tried to downplay and deny the nature of the terrorist threat we continue to face.

This is so far beyond false, I don’t even know where to begin. Obama has not only expanded the war in Afghanistan, he’s also broadened the scope of our international fight against terrorism to Pakistan and Yemen. His approach to terrorism has been just as bellicose as his predecessor’s.

Obama reassured the nation that this “suspect” had been charged. Reassurance? The president should be saying: We have captured an enemy combatant — an illegal combatant under the laws of war: no uniform, direct attack on civilians — and now to prevent future attacks, he is being interrogated regarding information he may have about al-Qaida in Yemen.

Instead, Abdulmutallab is dispatched to some Detroit-area jail and immediately lawyered up. At which point — surprise! — he stops talking.

What? When Abdulmutallab was arrested, he did spill the beans on the connections he had to al-Qaeda in Yemen. He didn’t need to be waterboarded or denied due process. And giving him a lawyer didn’t all-of-a-sudden cause him to clam up and refuse to cooperate.

There are a few more inaccuracies and examples of bad logic, but I want to cut to the heart of Krauthammer’s fallacy:

The president said that this incident highlights “the nature of those who threaten our homeland.” But the president is constantly denying the nature of those who threaten our homeland. On Tuesday, he referred five times to Abdulmutallab (and his terrorist ilk) as “extremist(s).”

A man who shoots abortion doctors is an extremist. An eco-fanatic who torches logging sites is an extremist. Abdulmutallab is not one of these. He is a jihadist. And unlike the guys who shoot abortion doctors, jihadists have cells all over the world; they blow up trains in London, nightclubs in Bali and airplanes over Detroit (if they can); and are openly pledged to war on America.

This is a distinction without a difference. In fact, it may not even be a distinction at all, considering that environmental extremism exists throughout the world. A jihadist is an extremist, just a particular flavor of extremist. And there’s no rationale for treating them – and their movement – any differently than we treat eco-terrorists or the way we treated Timothy McVeigh and his movement.

Al-Qaeda is not a single organization with a heirarchy. It’s a movement based upon extreme views about America’s power in the world. And it thrives whenever America’s actions play into certain paranoid stereotypes about us. But Krauthammer argues that we should be doing exactly the kinds of things that play into those stereotypes. It’s hard to imagine a worse way to deal with the problem of jihadism.

The root of what makes people like Abdulmuttalab into willing jihadists is a feeling of powerlessness. To overinflate the reality of their own potency is to appease that desire. In the past, we’ve dealt with Richard Reid and Zacarias Moussaoui by trying them in criminal court, treating them just like any other criminal, and that properly squashed their desires to be seen as some special kind of threat that America needs to treat differently.

The goal of radical Islamic extremists is to have a war between the Muslim world and the United States. It’s not a rational goal by any stretch, but that’s what makes them extremists. The worst thing we can do is to convince ourselves that these small groups of nutjobs are sufficiently powerful enough to force us to change our own way of life and our own customs. But Krauthammer is arguing just that. He’s asking us to change the way we handle criminals simply because he’s as afraid of them as they want all of us to be. His attempts to overinflate their importance is nothing more than appeasing them, making them into the powerful people they aspire to be.

The Seattle Times editorial board endorses the new Seattle-Tacoma International Airport contract with Yellow Cab, for amongst other things, improving the quality of the cabs serving the airport:

To the credit of the Port and other entities working on taxi policy, cabs serving the airport are no longer grungy and filled with house pets and cookery. A big improvement.

“House pets and cookery”…?  Um… did the Times editorial board just make some sort of ethnic slur against the Sikh cabbies who dominate STITA, the taxi association that previously held the Sea-Tac contract?

I’ve been in my fair share of STITA cabs, and while I guess you could describe a few as grungy, they were no more or less so than other Seattle cabs, let alone those I was familiar with from New York and Philadelphia. And I certainly don’t remember any cabbies cooking curry in the front seat, with or without a four-legged companion.

Considering how closely the public associates STITA cabs with our region’s growing Sikh community, “house pets and cookery” just strikes me as an odd and inappropriate turn of phrase coming from the Times… the kinda rude hyperbole more at home on, say, a lowly blog, than the editorial pages of a major daily newspaper.

Not that I don’t welcome the competition.