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You may be surprised to learn that I don’t necessarily disagree with today’s Seattle Times editorial urging voters to “stick with electing council members citywide.” But while there are strong arguments on both sides of the district elections issue, it’s too bad that the Times tends to focus on the weak ones.

The typical pitch for the change is to encourage more candidates who can raise sufficient campaign cash to run for office and let neighborhood voices be heard more clearly.

Election 2009 has more candidates running for council than any time in recent memory. At last count, 14 challengers were seeking two open seats or taking on incumbents. Many are solid candidates.

Define “solid candidate.” Nearly half of the challengers have declared for the same open seat, and most serious political observers would describe only a handful of the candidates as solid. And no disrespect to either Jesse Israel or David Ginsberg, but unless they can crank the fundraising up to eleven, I doubt incumbents Nick Licata and Richard Conlin will ever feel particularly threatened.

At best, this slate represents a triumph of quantity over quality, yet even with that caveat still qualifies as one of the strongest fields in years. For whatever reason, recruiting dynamic council candidates has proven more difficult than pulling teeth, and this cycle’s atypical surge in political lemmings does little to recommend the current citywide system.

The council is neither stagnant nor a place of minimum turnover. In 2007, Bruce Harrell and Tim Burgess joined after running citywide. Both are solid additions.

I forgot Bruce Harrell was even on the council, and while there’s no doubt that Tim Burgess ranks as one of the most competant challengers to run in recent memory, he defeated the polar opposite in the form of David Della. The 2007 cycle did not produce an inspiring field, and likewise does little to recommend citywide elections.

The city needs experts in broader, complicated areas, such as electricity and land use. Members elected by district are programmed to fight for a neighborhood, not a more encompassing citywide interest.

And we’re electing those electricity and land use experts now?  Successful politicians tend to be generalists, which is why they hire experts to advise them and run specific departments. Besides, why exactly would an expert be less likely to come from a neighborhood district?  Our neighborhoods don’t have electricity or land?

“The bedrock of good government is cooperation, not Balkanization,” said George Allen, senior vice president for government relations at the Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce.

Uh-oh… the business establishment is arguing to maintain the status quo. Now you’re really beginning to lose me.

I voted against district elections the last time it was on the ballot, but after reading this Times editorial I may be leaning the other way. This proposal is less drastic than the last, electing five council members by district, while retaining four at-large seats, so it theoretically balances the best and worst features of both systems. And I’m not so sure that adding a few narrowly focused neighborhood voices would be a bad thing for a council whose culture of polite cooperation has left it incapable of serving as a necessary check and balance on our politically adept mayor and his ruthless henchmen.

Or maybe not. The most dubious claim I’ve heard from district proponents is that it would help take the influence of money out of the election equation. Yeah… right. In fact, just the opposite might be true.  Smaller, lower profile, district elections would provide a juicy target for political consultants and wealthy special interests, creating demographically condensed races in which a large donation or an even larger independent expenditure could have a lot more impact than in a citywide contest.

But regardless of all the arguments pro and con, my instinct tells me that the debate may be moot. The previous measure just barely failed after little if any campaign on its behalf, and in our current, Obama-inspired, reformist political climate, I’m guessing that this new district/at-large hybrid proposal will be damn hard to beat without a well-financed campaign against it… and damn better rhetoric than we saw today in the Seattle Times.

Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray, both Washington state Democrats, make Firedoglake’s list of “Democrats for Loan Sharking” for voting against credit card rate caps.

In the old days charging absurdly high interest rates was called “usury” and it was a crime. Not so much any more. Wouldn’t want to spook the stock market or the bankster lobbyists. The vultures no longer need thugs and guns, they wear Armani suits and stalk elected officials.

Meanwhile, if you find yourself unable to pay off a credit card charging 21% or more interest, well, that’s just too damn bad for you. What are you going to do about it, ordinary American? Vote for someone else? Who would that be? The game is rigged, at least on the economic front.

Our chief product in this country is debt.

Newly confirmed drug czar Gil Kerlikowske sounds ready to start fixing the decades-long disaster known as the drug war:

The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting “a war on drugs,” a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.

In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation’s drug issues.

“Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them,” he said. “We’re not at war with people in this country.”

Mr. Kerlikowske’s comments are a signal that the Obama administration is set to follow a more moderate — and likely more controversial — stance on the nation’s drug problems. Prior administrations talked about pushing treatment and reducing demand while continuing to focus primarily on a tough criminal-justice approach.

The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment’s role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said.

I think Kerlikowske, the Obama Administration, and the traditional media are going to be surprised at how uncontroversial it is to take this stance. And not just here in Seattle, but across the country. People are sick and tired of this war and all the violence it causes. More and more Americans understand the relationship between the drug war and the unraveling of Mexico and recognize that what we’re dealing with is equivalent to what we dealt with during alcohol prohibition. You can tell how unpopular the drug war is becoming when news outlets have to resort to Stephen Baldwin to provide counterpoints against the reformers.

Seattle Port Commission candidate Rob Holland joins the podcast, prompting Goldy to ask, “What the hell is the Port of Seattle?” Rob offers an overview of the Port and shares his vision for the Port’s future.

The panel then takes on the outrageous, inflammatory, tasteless, over-the-top routine of Wanda Sykes at the White House Correspondents’ dinner. Doesn’t this just prove that Republicans flat-out lack a sense of humor?

What is this world coming to when a lawyer makes charges of libel and defamation against a lowly blogger and demands the removal of an old post? Get the inside story, in which Goldy graciously declines to both remove the post and “out” the offending attorney.

Goldy was joined by Seattle Port Commission candidate Rob Holland, Effin’ Unsound’s & Horsesass’s Carl Ballard, and Horsesass contributor (and brand new dad) Lee.

The show is 45:25, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_may_12_2009.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the Podcasting Liberally site.]

Not sure how I missed this, it’s probably because the ridiculous nature of Republican antics has reached such heights (or depths) that “self-parody” doesn’t even do it justice.

It seems the Republican National Committee is on the verge of passing a resolution “rebranding” the Democratic Party as (ahem) the “Democrat Socialist Party.”

And yippee, there’s a Washington State connection, in the form of Republican National committee member Jeff Kent. From The Democratic Strategist:

Here’s how the sponsor of the resolution, Jeff Kent from Washington State, explained its rationale a few weeks ago:

There is nothing more important for our party than bringing the truth to bear on the Democrats’ march to socialism. Just like Ronald Reagan identifying the U.S.S.R. as the evil empire was the beginning of the end to Soviet domination, we believe the American people will reject socialism when they hear the truth about how the Democrats are bankrupting our country and destroying our freedom and liberties.

I don’t know what’s more offensive: the idea of identifying the Democratic Party, which the American people elected to run Congress and the executive branch just six months ago, with the Soviet Union, or the idea that Ronald Reagan brought about the collapse of the Soviet bloc through a magic spell. All in all, the highly adolescent nature of Kent’s thinking is illustrated not only by this comic-book historical revisionism, but by his insistence on retaining in his version of the “Evil Empire” the little-boy-taunt of dropping the last syllable from the adjective “Democratic.”

What’s awesome, as Atrios points out, is that it’s not even worth getting mad about, and it would be even funnier if the media bites, because the more the GOP implodes like this, the more political space there may be someday for actual progressive reforms to take hold.

Every time you think “surely the Republicans will come to their senses at least a little bit,” it seems they just gin up a whole new level of crazy.

Thanks, Jeff, or should I say “Mr. Poobah?”

My guess is Jim Vesely retired as editorial page editor at The Seattle Times because he couldn’t take the socialism.

Gov. Chris Gregoire has approved a tax break for the state’s troubled newspaper industry.

The new law gives newspaper printers and publishers a 40 percent cut in the state’s main business tax. The discounted rate mirrors breaks given in years past to the Boeing Co. and the timber industry.

I’m sure there was nothing else that could have been done with the money.

It’s going to be entertaining as hell now to watch newspaper editorial boards in this state pump out their usual anti-union, anti-consumer pap now that they’re big-time freeloaders. The cognitive dissonance may put brains in jeopardy all over the state.

Also, kids, your tuition is going up 28%, but it’s okay, you can still get a job throwing dead trees. Our spot as a regressive-taxation, low-services state is very secure. You didn’t need a first rate education for that anyhow.

My crystal ball is digging out the sleeping bags in hopes of some Spring recreation, assuming any parks are still open, but in the past voters have sometimes become quite annoyed when the rich and powerful get special treatment from politicians. Voters tend to overlook it when the economy is humming along, not so much when they’re getting screwed by everyone from their employers to the credit card companies to the state government.

Oh well, we all knew one party rule can’t last forever. It’s a shame we couldn’t accomplish much on the economic front. But that’s what happens when power for its own sake becomes the overriding consideration, the power brokers win. Go figure.

But at least nobody “overreached,” because to do that you have to reach in the first place.

Now scoot your desk over and make room.

Seattle Times editorial page editor Jim Vesely is retiring Friday.

HA regulars might have started to suspect by now that, while I’m an avid reader, I’m not always a 100 percent fan of his editorial page’s opinions or rhetorical tactics. But I’ve never met the man, so I can’t really argue with Times’ publisher Frank Blethen when he describes Vesely as “one of the … most decent people I have had the privilege to work with.”  Enjoy the fly-fishing Jim.

But while I don’t have much to say about Vesely himself, I am intrigued by the closing line in the lengthy editorial heaping praise on the man and his career:

The Times has not yet named a successor for Vesely.

Hey Frank… I think it’s well past time for another mid-life crisis, and I’m exactly the person to lead your editorial page through it. Get in touch.  You know how to reach me.

UPDATE:
Over at Publicola, Sandeep’s got a good summation of the Times’ editorial leanings under Vesely, and where the page might move under his successor.

Former Navy Seal, professional wrestler, and Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura has some opinions about Bush, Cheney, Powell, and waterboarding:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoqmH49VBC0[/youtube]

Please join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. The festivities take place at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at 8:00 pm. Or stop by earlier for dinner.

Drinking Liberally is now an officially designated place of sanctuary in the Republican’s War on Empathy™.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZXCK-jQxLo[/youtube]

Not in Seattle? The Drinking Liberally web site has dates and times for 332 chapters of Drinking Liberally sprinkled across the globe.

My ass hurts.

I fell down the stairs last night. Or more exactly, both feet slid out from under me, landing me hard on my ass.

Anybody who has ever bruised their coccyx knows how painful the initial trauma can be, and as I lay at the bottom of the stairs for a few minutes, gasping for air and attempting to assess the true extent of my injury, I couldn’t help but think about how something as pedestrian as a comfy new pair of woolen socks slipping on the carpet could absolutely change a person’s life.

In a nation where access to health care has traditionally been tied to employment, even a relatively minor illness or household injury can set off a cascade of events that leads from a middle class lifestyle to despair.  Be it a tumble down the stairs, a slip in the bathtub or a torn up knee during a beer-belly softball match, everyday injuries can quickly put white and blue collar workers alike out of a job.  And with the loss of employment so too goes the health insurance… assuming you were fortunate enough to have health benefits in the first place.

One minute you’re kissing your daughter goodnight, and the next minute you’re writhing at the bottom of the stairs, having taken the first clumsy step toward toward economic uncertainty.

We hear a lot in the US about the need for individuals to take personal responsibility for their actions.  “Why should I have to pay for your child’s education?” we’re often asked. “Why should I have to pay for your health care, or your buses, or to regulate the safety of products you’re too stupid avoid?”

“I’ve worked hard for my money,” the familiar conservative refrain goes, “so why should I have to pay for the consequences of your bad choices?”

Bad choices. You know, like choosing to fall down the stairs.

As it turns out I’ve likely suffered little more than a couple of nasty contusions, so I guess I was lucky.  I don’t have statistics in front of me, so I don’t know how often a broken wrist or an injured back or a blown out knee ultimately leads to a person losing everything they’ve worked a lifetime to achieve, but you know it happens, and it happens every day.

So honestly, selfishly resent all you want the notion of a social welfare state, but don’t give me any of that personal responsiblity crap.  It’s a bigger pain in my ass than… well… my ass.

So, let’s say, a few years back, Joni Balter refinanced her house. She got a good, 30-year fixed rate, not one of those adjustable, sub-prime, pieces of crap, but today she gets a letter from the bank telling her that, you know, times are tough, profits are down, and they didn’t do so well on that stress test thing, so, sorry… that 6-percent mortgage we agreed on? We’re canceling that, and your new 7-percent mortgage starts next month.  Have a nice a day.

Or imagine you’re Kate Riley, and you just leased yourself a fancy new Cadillac Escalade, but GM, well, they’re struggling just to make it through the end of the month, so they deliver a Chevy Malibu instead.  But the $800/month lease payment? That stays the same. Oops… sorry.

Or let’s say you’re Frank Blethen, and you’ve got $70 million in loans coming due the end of the year… only the bank now says, on second thought, we need that money today. (You know, tough times, stress test, and all that.) And if you can’t afford to pay up right now, that’s okay, we’ll just take your family newspaper and your real estate holdings and we’ll liquidate them at auction.  C’est la vie.

Yeah, just imagine the howls of righteous outrage we’d hear from the Seattle Times editorial board should anybody unilaterally rewrite a legally binding contract on them.  A contract is a contract is a contract, after all.  Unless, of course, it’s signed between an employer and a labor union.

The letter from Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson states the district cannot renew the 182-day contract, but can offer a 181-day contract. Information on how to appeal the proposal is included.

Response by the teachers union, the Seattle Education Association, has been unhelpful and destructive. Union leaders are being purposely obtuse about the letter’s intent, even threatening legal action.

This strategy of killing the message by maligning the messenger shouldn’t work. This issue is less about the superintendent and more about tough state budget cuts.

Indeed, the letter could have been more artfully written…

Could have been more artfully written? Technically, the district just fired all 3,300 Seattle teachers… during Teacher Appreciation Week, no less!  And rather than attempting to renegotiate a contract that was bargained in good faith, the Superintendent chooses to bypass the union entirely, and go directly to the individual teachers, basically telling them to sign the new contract… or else.

And the union’s “ire is uncalled for and misdirected”…?

The issue here is not about tough state budget cuts; it’s about the complete and utter disregard the district (and the Times) has shown for a legally binding contract, and the collective bargaining rights of teachers. Nobody questions the dire financial straits in which the district now finds itself, but the proper and legal way to address this particular shortfall would be to renegotiate the contract with the union, not unilaterally shove a new contract directly down the throats of teachers.

Did the union refuse to give up that 182nd day? No, they weren’t even asked. The union was never given the opportunity to even earn a little public good will by working with the Superintendent… you know, the same way the Times thinks Bank of America should work with the Columbian to renegotiate its contractual obligations:

What makes the Columbian’s plight so sad is that Southwest Washington could lose its dominant news provider because Bank of America is apparently not willing to work with the company.

Get that? When you have a legally binding contract with a struggling newspaper publisher, you have a civic responsibility to work with the company to renegotiate the terms of the deal.  But when you have a legally binding contract with a labor union… well… screw them, those “unhelpful and destructive” DFH‘s.

Had the roles been reversed, had the union sent an unartful letter to Goodloe-Johnson declaring that teachers would no longer work that 182nd day, but would still be paid for it nonetheless, union officials would have been roundly ridiculed for their temerity. The Superintendent would never honor the demand, and no court would uphold such a unilateral violation of a collective bargaining agreement.  And you can rest assured that the Times would never characterize the district’s ire as “misdirected.”

No, the issue here is not the 182nd day, but rather the Superintendent’s blatant disregard for the collective bargaining rights of the teachers, and her absolute failure to view the union as a constructive partner during these tough budgetary times.  And I’m guessing that the Times’ own disregard for the collective bargaining rights of teachers, tells us everything we really need to know about their stance on education “reform.”

Paul Allen is selling off a couple of radio stations in Portland. From The Oregonian:

Paul Allen is selling his two Portland radio stations to a group led by former radio mogul Larry Wilson, who aims to make a fresh start in the business he left eight years ago.

The stations are talk-radio’s KXL (AM 750) and all-sports KXTG (“The Game,” 95.5 FM). They are among Oregon’s best-known broadcasters by virtue of their association with outspoken radio personalities and popular sports teams, including the Portland Trail Blazers. Wilson said Monday that he plans to maintain the format of each, and in conjunction with the sale signed an agreement to carry Blazers games for eight more years.

So just for the record, according to KXL’s web site, their “outspoken radio personalities” include Lars Larson, Glenn Beck and Michael Savage. There’s an ad for a t-shirt on Savage’s site that says “I’d rather be water-boarding.” Cute.

Larson is headlining an event called “Talkfest 5: Censorship,” which is billed as a discussion of “government censorship on the radio airwaves.” According to the KXL site, it’s sponsored by George Morlan Plumbing, IRA Advantage, Office Furniture Direct, Coors Light, Pilsner Urquell, Broadway Cigars, & Americans For Prosperity. That last one is yet another front group in the stink-tank pantheon, big surprise. I suppose they’ll get together and scream about how the Obama administration is going to shut them down, when declining ad revenues and a changing zeitgeist are their real enemy.

So hey, Paul Allen can buy and sell most things on the planet, that’s nothing new, and it’s not clear what his motivation is for selling the stations. Maybe he had a fit of conscience, or maybe it’s just routine business, as Allen’s spokesman David Postman implies in the Oregonian article.

What is clear is that Allen has had ownership of a station that disseminates the worst kind of paranoid right wing balderdash, which is his Constitutional right. But it sure doesn’t make me inclined to buy Blazers tickets, that’s for sure. The always fascinating and aggravating part of hate radio was that eventually some guy in a suit would say something like “It’s just a business,” as if the only possible niche market is conservative wingnuttery, and as if “business concerns” trump all moral and ethical responsibility for the product one puts out.

So thanks, Paul Allen, for all the years of Lars Larson and his brain-damaging stunts about Christmas trees and the “War on Christmas,” and especially thanks for mega-nuts Glenn Beck and Michael Savage. Rich folks don’t have to endure living in the regular world where actual morons believe the things they are told on stations like KXL, but the rest of us do. Instead of making the world a tiny bit better, you’ve made it just a little meaner and uglier.

Nice legacy.

– Reform-friendly Gil Kerlikowske was approved in a 91-1 vote by the Senate to be the new head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. A recent Zogby poll showed that a majority of Americans support legalizing marijuana. And Governor Schwarzenegger in California says it’s time for a debate about it. What can go wrong?

This:

A spokesman for U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Thursday U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., will serve as Crime and Drugs Subcommittee chairman.

…

An unidentified Democratic Party source told CNN the decision to give Specter the chairmanship of the subcommittee was intended to help him get re-elected and to avoid any conflict as the Judiciary Committee considers a Supreme Court nomination.

I’m trying to come up with a positive way to interpret that, but I can’t.

– Mexico is following the lead of Portugal and appears ready to decriminalize low-level drug possession. This won’t affect their war on the cartels since their customer base is up north, but it’s worth noting two things: 1) The Obama Administration isn’t interfering like the Bush Administration did the last time Mexico tried this; and 2) Mexico’s drug policy is now far more progressive than ours.

– After a vanity license plate in Colorado was rejected for potentially being interpreted as obscene, a state Senator lashed out at the ACLU by saying that he wanted a license plate that says ACLUSUX. The ACLU responded by saying that they’d represent him if the plate is rejected. I’ve always wondered why there’s so much animosity towards the ACLU, but I think I get it now. With so many people who demand to have a different set of rules for themselves than for everyone else, the most terrifying thing is an organization that prides itself on intellectual consistency with respect to our rights.

– The medical marijuana community in Seattle lost a very good friend recently. Longtime patient advocate Dennis Moyers passed away. I found Dennis to be one of the most interesting and thoughtful people to discuss medical marijuana with. His years as a patient himself gave him great insight into the battle that’s been waged to deny people from taking a medicine that they’ve discovered to be tremendously beneficial. His latest effort was to encourage the Obama Administration to set up liaison within the Federal government to meet with medical marijuana patients and develop smart policy. The online petition is here.

This morning I received an email from a local attorney, containing a link to a post on HA, with the following request:

Please remove the defamatory, false and libelous post about me on your blog.

Sigh.

And this was my instant response:

[Name redacted]

I have just reread [redacted]’s post, and it appears to be nothing but opinion, block-quotes and links.  I understand if you find his deft refutation of your Seattle Times column injurious to your reputation, but there is certainly nothing false nor libelous about it.  Perhaps a less adversarial approach might have been for you to request an opportunity to post a response on HA in your own defense? I am always happy to facilitate such dialog.

I want to assure you that I take requests like yours very seriously… in fact, apparently much more seriously than you do, judging from its spurious nature.  If you can provide what you believe to be clear examples of “defamatory, false and libelous” statements in [redacted]’s post, I will consider them, but a takedown request requires quite a bit more than a vaguely threatening email from an attorney. For obvious reasons central to the very nature and viability of the medium, [redacted] and I, and the many prominent national bloggers who would surely rally to our defense, do not take these sort of threats lightly.  And neither should you.

For the moment, as a courtesy, I will keep your identity anonymous in any post I might write about this issue.  But please understand that I have limited patience for attorneys who attempt to bully me into surrendering my First Amendment rights.

David Goldstein

I’m not sure what this attorney is attempting to accomplish.  Maybe eliminate critical commentary from the list of hits people might get when Googling the attorney’s name?  Yeah, well, that strategy didn’t work all that well for attorney Bradley Marshall, now did it?

The thing is, the minute bloggers like me start backing down to vague threats like this, merely out of fear of incurring the legal expense, is the minute blogging ceases to be an honest and viable medium.  And I’ve always believed that the day I stop writing fearlessly is the day I stop being a writer worth reading.

So let this post serve as a final warning to the litigiously itchy everywhere: I have a public platform at my disposal, and I’m not afraid to use it.  If you feel we are in error, let us know, and we’ll consider posting a correction.  But you better be damn confident about winning a defamation suit before idly threatening to bring one, or else it will be you who will ultimately regret your error, not the the other way around.