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U.S. Congressman Brian Baird (WA-03), who has recently become a favorite punching bag of local progressives (you know who I’m talking about, Jon), just announced that he will not seek reelection in 2010.

The time has now come to pursue other options, other ways of serving.   Hence, I am announcing today that I do not intend to seek reelection to Congress in 2010.  This is not an easy decision to be sure, but I believe it is the right decision at the right time.

One can only assume that those “other options” include becoming the Government Relations Director for some industry association or another, a much less demanding and much, much better paying gig than the U.S. House of Representatives.

WA-03 isn’t close to being a safe Democratic district (hell, I’m not even sure it is a Democratic district) so we’re likely to see an awfully competitive race in both parties to succeed Baird. I couldn’t begin to pick favorites on the Democratic side, but I’m rooting for State Rep. “Angry Ed” Orcutt to grab the Republican nomination, if only because he’d likely be the most fun to abuse.

News-Tribune has brief story and Baird’s statement.

A mixture of relief and some wistful thoughts for me, for certain. I wish him the very best.

As legislators struggle to close a 2.6 billion hole in this year’s budget, perhaps part of the solution might be to close loopholes like the billion dollar tax dodge Microsoft has been exploiting.  More information at MicrosoftTaxDodge.com.

Columbian editor emeritus Tom Koenninger serves up a stinking dung bowl of war on Christmas bullshit in an opinion articled headlined, “Despite PC Crowd, Merry Christmas!”

If you want to view a school Christmas program this year, you may have to go to the Inchelium School District on the Colville Indian Reservation. That’s 90 miles north of Spokane. You won’t find such a program in Clark County’s public schools, at least not by that title.

Santa and Christmas are banned in the schools because they are politically incorrect. The legal beagles declare they are constitutionally incorrect, a violation of church and state separation, even though the American Center for Law and Justice pointed out in 2004: “It is important to note that nothing in the U.S. Constitution prohibits students in public schools from exercising their constitutional rights to express their religious beliefs, especially during the Christmas season.” That goes for the public square, too, they maintain.

Or if you wanted to see a Christmas play at a school you could go see one at a local Christian school, there are over eight thousand of them in Clark County alone. Bet Tom never considered that basic fact, or more accurately, he deliberately chose to bitch and moan about not being able to shove his religion down my kids’ throats.

So to his “Merry Christmas” I issue a cheerful, “Go Fuck Yourself with a Holly Branch, Tom.” Pass the eggnog.

As for the “legal beagles” Koenninger laments, I think they’re called “The Supreme Court of the United States.” The dirty fucking hippies have to live by any horrid decision they make, like Bush v. Gore, but somehow upholding the separation of church and state is worthy of contempt. There are fine distinctions to be made, but that may be why the place is made out of marble I guess.

Koenninger goes on to complain about various examples of how poor, poor picked-upon Christians have to deal with things like sorting out whether a Christmas tree should be in a public school. Granted, there are reasonable positions to discuss, but that would require some small attempt at empathy, something always in short supply for righties this time of year.

Striving for the PC Christmas, a lot of self-proclaimed do-gooders have done silly things. Last week, an elementary school principal in Ashland, Ore., removed an artificial Christmas “giving tree,” which held tags requesting gifts for needy children, after a family complained it was a religious symbol. Dozens of parents were upset, noting the tree was not a religious symbol but a way to celebrate the season and help those in need. Last year, the director of Seattle Schools Department of Equity and Race, Caprice D. Hollins, distributed a letter suggesting Thanksgiving is a difficult time for “many of our Native students.” She referred staff to a Web site that declared the holiday “is a bitter reminder of 500 years of betrayal returned for friendship.” Oh, those rotten Pilgrims!

Those rotten liberals, asking people to do unto others as they would have done unto them, it’s offensive.

The War on Christmas idiots complain endlessly about some vague threat against Christmas, but Christmas is everywhere you look right now. I was taught it’s in the heart, but I guess that’s not good enough for some people.

Hell, some of us might be tempted to come back to the organized religion if it weren’t for petty, narrow-minded fools like Koennigner. That’s about the last thing I need on Sunday morning, listening to some self-righteous prick tell me the difference between good and evil, knowing that the prick’s newspaper works tirelessly to fuck regular working people over the other six days of the week.

If someone gets cancer without health care they’ll be comforted if they can watch second graders sing “Silent Night” on public school grounds, because nothing is more comforting than the tribal culture war against liberals. People may go bankrupt, lose their houses and lives, but it’s all worth it just to generate animosity towards those who try to defend Constitutional principles that conservatives find troublesome, ie all the ones that don’t involve guns.

I say we put a Hindu “giving cow” on top of the new Columbian building and see what folks say. Well, we’d have to ask the bank that actually owns the new Columbian building first I suppose. Nobody could have predicted…

A few years back, in covering the school closure controversy, I once quipped to a local elected official that the real problem with the city’s middle schools was all those damn middle school aged kids. If we could only get rid of all the students, I joked, the schools themselves wouldn’t be half bad, and there would certainly be a helluva lot more equity between them.

But I was joking.

The Seattle Times editorial board apparently is not, when they once again suggest that Boeing would be better off if they could only get rid of all those damn workers. Or something like that.

“Past strikes continue to influence Boeing decisions,” the Times headline reads, as the editors, as usual, blame organized labor for all of Boeings’ woes, including its misguided low-wage strategy.

A curious outsider might question the logic of Times editors who relentlessly berate the Machinists Union for costing the region jobs, while showing zero empathy for the workers whose jobs were lost, but it’s not cognitive dissonance that’s reflected in this morning’s headline as much as it is projection. For those of us familiar with the editorial page know full well that it’s Times publisher Frank Blethen’s own PTSD (Post Traumatic Strike Disorder) that has colored his paper’s negative coverage of labor issues ever since 2000’s contentious Newspaper Guild strike.

If Blethen and his editors really cared more about the economic welfare of our region than licking their own bitter wounds, they might have used their waning influence to urge Boeing executives to keep 787 assembly in the hands of the skilled workers who have built the company. Instead, they chose to provide cover to Boeing and it’s South Carolina strategy every step of the way, if not actively cheer them on.

Join us tonight for some heated debate over a hot beverage at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Festivities take place in the warm sanctuary of the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning about 8:00 pm. Or stop by earlier for dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 340 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

Yesterday, I once again made the argument for legalizing marijuana and taxing the hell out of it. Today, Publicola reports that Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson is collecting co-sponsors on a bill that would do exactly that.

How’s this for a magical pot of revenue to help fix the state’s $2.6 billion shortfall? Seattle state Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson (D-36) is collecting co-sponsors for a bill that would legalize marijuana. And tax it.

This is not a fringe proposal folks, and it’s past time to seriously debate it.

UPDATE [Lee]: The bill can be read here. I’ll be posting more about it later this week.

I’m in a meeting all day (and I mean all day… I hope my dog’s bladder is big enough), so it’s unlikely I’ll be doing much if any posting today.

Talk amongst yourselves.

In the comments of this EffU post, our friend Pudge is insisting that AirTran is lying about the Tedd Petruna email. This is an open thread.

The Washington State Bar Association has endorsed a bill that would decriminalize simple marijuana possession, reducing the maximum punishment from the current $1000 fine and 90 days in jail, to a $100 ticket.

Well… um… yawn.

It’s not that I don’t support the WSBA’s resolution, it’s just that it’s hard to get excited about a half-measure that’s at least twenty years behind the times, and fails to take full advantage of a budget crisis that could force legislators to take a new and creative look at our state’s antiquated drug policies. For as I’ve previously argued, it’s time to fully legalize marijuana, and sell it through our state stores.

Other states may be further along the political path toward de facto legalization, but no other state, with the exception of my native Pennsylvania, has a more robust system already in place for effectively executing it. Washington already heavily regulates the in-state manufacture of wine, beer and distilled spirits, and maintains an extensive statewide network of retail stores and distribution centers for the sole purpose of operating its exclusive monopoly on the retail sale of liquor. A similar monopoly on the legal sale of marijuana would not only be easily implemented, but highly profitable for taxpayers and state farmers alike.

At an estimated street value of over $1 billion a year, marijuana is already Washington’s number two cash crop, second only to apples, and consistently ranking us among the top five pot-producing states.  By legalizing and regulating a crop that is already being grown, the state could impose standards of consistency and quality on the product, and by setting prices as the only legal buyer for the crop, farmers could be assured a stable, legal income for their efforts.

And considering the existing federal ban on marijuana, and the federal government’s constitutional authority over interstate commerce, Washington’s State Stores, by necessity, would initially only be able to buy and sell state-grown product, thus nurturing a nascent hemp industry that would eventually produce a valuable export commodity once the ban is lifted nationally, perhaps even dominating the market.

According to the Office of Financial Management, decriminalizing marijuana could save state and local authorities as much as $16 million a year in law enforcement resources. But regulated growing, and a State Store monopoly, could contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to state and local coffers, with plenty left over to dramatically expand our treatment and prevention programs.

As Lee has extensively documented here on HA, our nation’s war on pot is an abject failure. It’s time for our nation to accept the reality that tens of millions of Americans choose to enjoy the recreational use of marijuana. And what better place to start than here in Washington state?

I guess as a Republican member of our “nonpartisan” King County Council, Jane Hague has an obligation to help out the King County Republican Party. But considering her own DUI problems, you gotta wonder if she was drunk at the time she contributed the following item to the KCGOP’s recent 2009 Liberty Dinner Auction:

“You can enjoy these tonight!”…? I mean, come on… I know Republicans tend to lack any sense of irony, but that’s just a setup in search of a punch line.

The estate tax is in the news again, and (surprise!) the Seattle Times is editorializing against it:

The supporters of this tax, which we call the death tax, like to talk about rich bankers, entertainers and other upper crustaceans who die with a moraine of stocks, bonds, cash and title deeds to ten-bathroom palaces. If these were the only payers of this tax, we might heartily support it.

The opponents of this tax, who we call the Blethen family, apparently would have no problem applying this tax to the estates of bankers and entertainers — you know, folks who supposedly earned their fortunes rather than inheriting it through multiple generations — they just don’t want to pay it themselves. So much for ideological consistency let alone the moral high ground. (Oh, and the next time an editorialist accuses somebody like me of advocating class warfare, I’ll be sure to remember that quote.)

The death-tax bill now goes to the Senate. We implore our senators to lighten the load of it, or to pass a one-year extension and save this issue until after the 2010 elections.

Yes, the issue should be put aside until after Republicans have a chance to gain some seats in 2010, and unless Sen. Patty Murray supports this self-serving proposal, the Times will no doubt endorse her opponent, no matter how unqualified.

Personally, if I were Frank, I’d be wary of any delays. Under current law the estate tax temporarily falls to zero in 2010, before rising to 55% in 2011. Assuming the family business is actually worth something (and 49.5% stakeholder McClatchy seems to think it isn’t,) the fifth generation heirs might just off the family patriarch in order to save a bundle on their tax bills.

And if they did, they’d have come by their mercenary ways honestly.

Last week’s contest was a tough one, but it was eventually won by Cascadian. The correct location was in Manchester, England.

Here’s this week’s, good luck!

Last week, Jeremy Scahill had a huge story detailing the secret operations being conducted in Pakistan by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and the private military outfit formerly known as Blackwater. The operations are primarily assassinations and kidnappings (“snatch and grabs”) of high-value targets. The agreement with Pakistan to allow for this to go on was allegedly done with the Pakistani government reserving the right to deny that they made any type of agreement at all.

Not surprisingly, this story is making things difficult for the Pakistani government. Pakistan’s interior minister has promised to resign if it’s true that Blackwater is operating there. Similar to Mexico, allowing for American troops to operate within the country is a major line that the public is reluctant to see crossed. Hillary Clinton got a taste of this when she last visited there.

Much of the illogic of what we’re doing in Pakistan echoes past failures in waging the drug war. In that “war”, we’ve tended to believe that we can just knock off a bunch of high-value targets and we win. This is how the drug war has been fought overseas for decades. We’ve even tolerated secret operations where American forces have become part of the drug trade in order to capture the head honcho, only to see the whole damn trade re-organize under a new head honcho. The lesson has been that you can’t eliminate the trade unless you deal with the underlying demand that drives the trade in the first place.

When it comes to terrorism, that underlying demand comes from anti-American sentiment. And in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, the enemies we’re fighting benefit from both that and drugs. The idea that we can defeat them by doing things that will increase anti-American sentiment (while doing nothing about the underlying demand for drugs) is dangerously foolish. Any time we take out a high-value target in a way that increases the level of radicalism among the Pakistanis, these organizations will simply re-organize under a new leader and continue the war. But that’s exactly what we’re doing, and it’s exactly what a number of people blindly accept as the ideal foreign policy move.

That’s why so many of these idiots are upset that Obama didn’t talk about “winning” or using the word “victory” in his speech at West Point. Obama, for his faults in this escalation, at least understands that Afghanistan is not a video game that you win after killing all the bad guys. There’s no such thing as “victory” in an occupation, just a long hard slog to improve stability. You “win” by convincing the people of that nation that your presence there is beneficial for them, or that your presence is temporary and that they will soon be autonomous again.

What becomes difficult for politicians in wars like this is that they genuinely fear being seen in conflict with those on the front lines in this war, regardless of its futility. The Obama Administration is no different, and their unwillingness to be seen as rejecting what the military wants is going to override everything else. That’s leading them down a dangerous path, both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and his intent to continue this conflict without increasing anti-American sentiment will be a significant challenge. And nothing can undermine that challenge more than believing that we can fight it under the cover of darkness. Those days are over.