HorsesAss.Org

It is do or die time on healthcare reform, and with Republicans promising not a single vote in favor of the Democratic plan, it is time for us here in the Pacific Northwest to let our Democratic representatives know that if they don’t support us, we won’t support them.

For example, Rep. Kurt Shrader, from Oregon’s 5th Congressional District has recently made it known that he would oppose the House bill, despite consistent polls showing that his constituents support it. Sure, you could just call the Congressional switchboard at 1-866-220-0044, and ask to be connected to Shrader’s office, but that would be easier to dismiss as just run of the mill public pressure. Wouldn’t it make more of an impact to disrupt the day to day workings of his office by calling a more direct line?

Fortunately, I’ve just been forwarded the number of Rep. Shrader’s Legislative Director, Chris Huckleberry. Give him a call at 1-xxx-xxx-xxx, and let him know where we the people stand on healthcare reform, particularly if you live in Shrader’s district.

On a similar note, Rep. Brian Baird, representing Washington’s 3rd Congressional District has also recently stated his intent to vote against the bill in its current form. You can call his office and register your complaint at the following published phone numbers, but if anybody out there has a more direct line into Rep. Baird’s office, I’d be happy to post it here.

Washington D.C. – (202) 225-3536
Olympia – (360) 352-9768
Vancouver – (360) 695-6292

UPDATE:
Rep. Shrader voted Yes, so I’ve removed his legislative director’s phone number. I don’t know if he always planned to vote yes (he never made a public statement), or if constituent pressure persuaded him, and frankly I don’t really care. He voted the right way, and I thank him.

Rep. Baird on the other hand… well, his vote with the Republicans was a mistake, both as policy and as politics.

(And there are 40 other media clips from the past week in politics posted at Hominid Views.)

Democratic Rep. Brian Baird (WA-03) says he’ll vote against health care reform, no word on Rep. Adam Smith (WA-09). Brad Shannon has the story, along with a statement from Dwight Pelz encouraging members of the delegation to support reform.

Baird cited, among other things, wanting more information from CBO. Okay then. Let’s summarize the financial situation: trillions for empire, trillions for banksters, trillions for anyone but regular people who need a fair shake.

At a certain point you’re not even trying, you’re just kind of there because you’re there.

Yes, the health bill is flawed. Cry me a river. Our system boils things down to a dichotomy, and you have to choose.

Citizens have to choose every time we mark and mail our ballots, if we get around to it.

Details are starting to emerge about suspected cop-killer Christopher Monfort, and not surprisingly, he sounds a little crazy. And as it turns out, he’s also a pretty crappy artist.

Really. Those are images from a 2003 art exhibit of Monfort’s titled “No War” at Highline Community College. Kinda creepy.

From the exhibit’s web page:

Chris Monfort has been seriously painting for two years, and plans to continue throughout his life. He does not believe in any particular set of rules as far as artistic expression is concerned, and his work portrays this freedom. He has a love for color and motion, particularly during long gloomy winters. His apartment is full of colorful paintings. He says, “they give me the energy that’s missing from our sunless winters!”

Monfort plans to complete two degrees before leaving Highline; a transfer degree and a degree in Administration of Justice. He then plans to earn a bachelors degree and possibly head for Harvard Law School. His alternate plan is to earn a Masters degree and teach at a college somewhere warm!

I guess life didn’t turn out quite the way Monfort expected. It rarely does. But disappointment doesn’t lead most of us to cold blooded murder.

Stephen Gutwillig gets to the real heart of the matter:

How can the notion that marijuana is “here to stay” coexist with these rates of marijuana arrests? Apparently because the people caught in the crossfire aren’t considered part of the mainstream. In California, African-Americans are three times as likely as whites to be arrested for a pot crime, according to the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice. If you’re young and nonwhite, you are especially targeted.

The increase in marijuana possession arrests of California teenagers of color since 1990 is quadruple that group’s population growth.

In New York City, blacks and Latinos — who represent about half the city’s population — accounted for 86 percent of everyone charged with pot possession in 2008. The NYCLU report says federal studies show young whites use marijuana at higher rates than blacks and Latinos.

Supporters of marijuana prohibition often argue that few possession busts lead to incarceration. First, that argument ignores the countless parolees and probationers sent back to jail and prison nationwide for failing drug tests or being caught with a joint. And it seriously diminishes the lifelong stigma any criminal conviction has for many young people of color, whose educational and professional opportunities are severely curtailed as a result of racist enforcement.

[via Pete Guither]

King County Elections just dropped another 19,562 Seattle ballots, and these went strongly for Mike McGinn, 53.2% to 46.8% for Joe Mallahan, once again doubling McGinn’s lead to a 2,384 vote margin.

Mike McGinn	85,416	50.31%
Joe Mallahan	83,032	48.91%

Based on today’s earlier drop, I think it’s fair to say that this is the trend we had all expected, and that Mike McGinn has just been elected Seattle’s new mayor.

UPDATE:
What I said yesterday:

With today’s drop, KCE should have finally worked its way through the ballots it had already received and sorted as of 5PM Friday, and while ballots are not necessarily tallied in any sort of chronological order, we can be somewhat certain that the remaining ballots consist mostly of those that were mailed during the final days of the campaign. So if there is a trend, liberal or conservative, for McGinn or for Mallahan, it should start making itself known tomorrow.

And it did. This thing’s over.

Mike McGinn padded his margin by an additional 694 votes this afternoon, more than doubling his narrow lead over Joe Mallahan to 1209 votes:

Mike McGinn	75,657	49.99%
Joe Mallahan	74,448	49.19%

This represents McGinn’s largest numerical lead thus far, and while not conclusive, bodes well for those anticipating a trend toward McGinn amongst late voters.

In this latest drop, King County Elections added 21,691 Seattle ballots to the total, of which McGinn won 51.7% of the vote… his best performance in any of the batches thus far. KCE will drop a smaller batch of ballots later tonight, and that will give us a better idea of whether a McGinn trend is revealing itself.

Regardless, these new numbers don’t look good for Mallahan. McGinn’s margin of victory is now outside the 0.5% range that would trigger an automatic recount, and as the number of ballots outstanding diminishes, so do the odds of a Mallahan comeback. If the turnout projections hold true, Mallahan would have to win about 51.2% of the remaining ballots. This is certainly doable — Mallahan won 51.1% of the Wednesday afternoon drop, his best showing thus far — I just don’t know of any solid reason to suggest a late Mallahan surge.

UPDATE:
And in the county executive race, Dow Constantine continues to expand his lead over Susan Hutchison, who now trails by a nearly 17-point margin. That’s worse than David Irons.

Washington’s best political satire site is without a doubt, Red County, a pitch-perfect, Colbert-esque parody of the angry, deluded, self-denial that tends to fill the right-wing blogs. And it doesn’t get any better than their frenetic mock analysis of the King County Executive race:

The general election result that shattered any hope of Republican resurgence in the state was the King County Executive’s race. Councilman Dow Constantine smashed blue dog, moderate Democrat Susan Hutchinson in that election contest. Republicans in King County now go down in defeat again in their attempt to elect someone other than radical, leftwing, crackpots like Constantine. Many are questioning why the King County Republican Party backed Susan and not a principled conservative in the first place!

Susan Hutchison is a “blue dog, moderate Democrat” who lost because she wasn’t conservative enough? Absolutely brilliant! And delivered with such unwavering deadpan and stereotypically stilted cadence, you can almost hear the (u)SP crowd angrily cheering along.

Funny stuff.

I feel snubbed…

Locally, an iron triangle of left interest groups (e.g. NARAL) liberal media (The Stranger, PubliCola) and the labor left (SEIU) seek to impose ideological requirements while slamming any Democrat who hints at moderation.

What am I… chopped liver?

Other than that, I kinda agree with Joel.

So, how crazy is Susan Hutchison’s letter to supporters, hinting that a U.S. Senate run might lay in her future? Not so crazy that I hadn’t predicted exactly that just a couple weeks back.

Ken Camp at NPI Advocate notices that Rep. Adam Smith (WA-09) and Rep. Brian Baird (WA-03) need to get some phone calls of encouragement regarding the pending health care bill. There might be a vote this weekend.

Feel free to click through to NPI Advocate for more information.

Separately, a reliable source tells me calls are being forwarded to Congressional offices by some group or other that is deliberately targeting seniors and trying to scare them, so why not take a few moments if you live in either district and make your own legitimate call to your elected representative? You’ll feel good about it all day, and then you will smile at other people.

A lot of folks deserve credit for the defeat passage of Referendum 71, but when it comes to the underlying strategy that got us this far, it’s hard to argue that anybody has played a bigger role than state Sen. Ed Murray.

Murray says the state’s organizing networks now are stronger as a result of the R-71 campaign. “The vote affirms that the strategy we tried in Washington state was the right one,” he says, referring to passing three incremental domestic partnership bills, each one granting more marriage rights to same-sex couples. “We engage citizens in conversions about what it means, survivor benefits and funeral arrangements, instead of just focusing on one word.”

And it wasn’t just this vote in Washington that proved the strategy right, but the failed vote in Maine that would have approved full blown same-sex marriage there. Maine voters just weren’t quite ready to approve gay marriage, and most likely voters aren’t quite ready to do the same here. But by acting incrementally and forcing a public conversation about marriage equality, our voters have been willing to go further toward marriage equality than voters in any other state.

In fact, ironically, by forcing the issue onto the ballot, the opponents of R-71 have likely advanced the cause of marriage equality in Washington state by accelerating the conversation, and by reassuring legislators that they have the support of the people. In a few years, after more voters have grown comfortable with the new status quo, Washington will be ready to take that last step.

It took a couple decades for Washington to finally pass legislation extending our state’s anti-discrimination laws to gays and lesbians, but only a few more years to achieve “everything but marriage.” And Murray deserves a hearty congratulations for a legislative strategy well executed.

Yeah, I know, there’s a tea party at the Capitol, and a tragic mass shooting at Fort Hood, but still, you’d think the House healthcare reform bill being endorsed by the AMA of all organizations, not to mention the AARP, would be much bigger news.

Whoooo, pretty radical groups there. The Blue Dogs better be careful deciding whether or not they want to join forces with such questionable allies on an idea as unpopular as healthcare reform. Seriously, check out all the fringe groups supporting the bill. Seriously, those wacky pediatricians on on there, and the American Medical Colleges, hotbeds of radical politics that they are. And you know that the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons are communist cells. Don’t even get me started on the Consumers Union or Easter Seals.

I mean, this is the AMA for chrisakes, the organization, historically, that is probably as responsible as any other for killing past healthcare reform efforts. You know, those same doctors who are being asked to deal with all those goddamn government bureaucrats.

But, well, Republicans won gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, so I guess healthcare reform is dead.