HorsesAss.Org

Well, duh-uh…

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military for the first time Wednesday said in a new report that some of the violence in Iraq can be described as a civil war.

In its bleakest assessment of the war to date, a quarterly Pentagon report said that last October through December was the most violent three-month period since 2003. Attacks and casualties suffered by coalition and Iraqi forces and civilians were higher than any other similar time span, said the report.

Tim Eyman and I met with the Seattle P-I editorial board this morning to discuss initiative reform. I don’t think he likes me. Was it something I said?

The P-I describes the confrontation as “Initiative Fireworks!” Listen to the podcast and judge for yourself.

Tim asked for the meeting, but apparently expressed some reluctance once he learned I would be representing the opposing view. So I want to personally thank you Tim, for keeping our date — I’m always happy to let you ride my coattails.

No matter how you spin it (and God knows our friend Stefan is trying,) backers of both the rebuild and the tunnel were big losers yesterday, when Seattle voters decisively said “No” to both options of replacing the Alaskan Way Viaduct. And I’m not sure if surface-plus-transit supporters could declare victory either, as I’m guessing that might have been rejected too by an ornery electorate.

But there was one big winner yesterday: the election itself.

For all the effort to rile up a controversy over King County’s move to all vote-by-mail elections, yesterday’s first ever of that genre was a huge success, with election officials projecting a 55-percent turnout — a stunning number for a special election, let alone a non-binding advisory vote. And by all accounts, things went smoothly. Wasn’t it a treat to get election results by 8:15 PM, instead of waiting until the wee hours to be told that we wouldn’t really know for several more days?

Personally, I just couldn’t completely give up election day, and dropped my ballot off at the Rainer Community Center. (Saved a stamp, too.) But that’s just me, and I’m guessing that just like the vast majority of voters, I’ll adjust in time.

In decisive fashion, Seattle voters voted against putting another freeway on the waterfront.

I spent much of the night at the Spitfire. I’ll wait until tomorrow to weigh-in in depth, but here are some thoughts.

How much bigger would the “No Elevated” vote have been if Mayor Nickels had read the writing on the wall? The tunnel plan was blown away, over two-to-one. If the Mayor had pulled his support for the tunnel (an embarrassing thing for the Nickels team, I’m sure), they could have run up the score.

Stefan is funny. This is perhaps the “spinniest of spins” I’ve read thus far. A close second is Nick Licata:

City Council President Nick Licata, who supports another viaduct, called the nearly 45-percent vote in favor of it “a pretty solid base.”

It’s like when the Seahawks are down by three points at the end of the game. They didn’t really lose, they just have a good base, you know? It’s the new math, people.

In my humble opinion, here are the big political winners:

Cary Moon Does she want run for City Council? Folks at the Spitfire party said she’d be a shoe-in after going toe-to-toe with the big boys and kickin’ ass. Eric Earling As much as it pains me to say it, he was one of the first of the GOP to realize that the top two options were bad and worse. Cynara Lilly (and everyone else at Friends of Seattle) After fighting the monorail, she redeems herself by torpedoing the rebuild option. All is forgiven, says this old monorail die-hard. Enviros who ditched the tunnel for the surface option You know who you are. Gutsy. Peter Steinbrueck MVP (Most Valuable Pol) for standing up to Olympia without wavering. Danny Westneat Even though the Times endorsed a rebuild, Danny didn’t fall in line. Good on ya’.

Here are some political losers:

David Della He’s vulnerable, and he favors a rebuild. He’s up this year. The viaduct will be an issue. Greg Nickels Well, at least 30 percent agreed with him. Frank Chopp Will he ignore the vote and rebuild the viaduct? While Frank’s bulletproof, his viaduct ideas get weirder and weirder. The Seattle Times Editorial Page They’re wrong- again- on an issue concerning local Seattle politics. They guy aren’t even trying anymore. Cue a Joni Balter column on how “goofy” the vote was and how Gregoire should “be tough” on Seattle and build that freeway. Puh-leeeaze. Joel Connelly, Nick Licata, and Gene Hoglund These guys see rebuilding the viaduct as a part of Seattle’s “class struggle,” meaning we have to build another viaduct or the “little guy” gets screwed. While only five percent of the traffic on the viaduct is freight, you’d think it was a thousand percent. Sheesh. After all, Steinbrueck wants to give freight much higher priority in the surface plus transit plan.

Some folks who neither win, nor lose:

The Governor She got her vote, and now she’s heard the answer. It’s up to her to decide whether to cooperate with Seattle or fight it right up until Election Day. Here’s to hoping a little birdy by the name of Ed Murray or Ron Sims whispers in the Gov’s ear and says, “go with the third option.” Dino Rossi He’s too busy beating his kids at basketball to weigh-in. Remember, he’s not running for Supreme Court (they handle viaduct stuff, right? Right?) People who drive cars in the city Honestly, over time, things won’t change that much for folks who decide they can’t live without their cars. Traffic jams happen in other big cities. But those big cities tell complainers to take the fucking train (I really heard that from a local pol, seriously) Waterfront businesses Let’s face it: Ivar’s fish and chips will be delicious no matter what happens to the viaduct. It’s full of tourists now, and always will be. God bless’m!

Oh, and I forgot: David Sucher is neither a winner nor a loser. He’s just irrelevant. His odd comments (such as accusing Goldy of being for the tunnel) and cryptic personal attacks (read any Slog post on the viaduct to find one) have put me off to his argument (“Repair and Prepare”, which is actually quite good). If you want to win people to your side, to get them to think the way you do, do the opposite of everything Mr. Sucher has done concerning the viaduct.

Stay tuned!

Here are some numbers:

Tunnel:

Yes: 30.12%
No: 69.88%

Rebuild:

Yes: 44.52%
No: 55.48%

I’ll be drinking a “victory beer” with the winning team (No Elevated) and then with the Friends of Seattle.

What with Congress, the Legislature and the Governor’s office in Democratic hands, and their Dear Leader Bush in the midst of a massive political meltdown, the Washington State GOP hasn’t had much to laugh about these days. So Dems might want to stand up and take notice when an insider tells me that the folks at Camp McKenna were “cackling with glee” over passage of SB 5803, which would establish a regional transportation commission to take over transportation planning and transit operations in King, Snohomish, Pierce and Kitsap counties.

My unnamed source says some McKenna aides were literally laughing at the Dems for using their unchallenged political power to, well… give it away. According to critics the bill would create a commission that could potentially peel away the power of the counties, hand control to pro-roads/anti-transit Republicans, and blow up Sound Transit.

On that last point, SB 5803 sponsor Sen. Ed Murray (D-Seattle) doesn’t disagree. Long a critic of Sound Transit for what he sees as a suburban-centric focus, and for failing to build light rail stations in dense Seattle neighborhoods, Murray doesn’t seem to mind the prospect of the agency disappearing within a new regional commission. But he told me that his bill is intended to enable the region to seize more control of its transportation planning away from the state, and to foster the kind of inter-agency, intra-region cooperation and collaboration that has thus far been sorely lacking.

Worthy objectives to which I can’t voice much disagreement. But…

The devil is in the details — and there are an awful lot of details which the Dems seriously need to reconsider.

I’m not so sure that I want to see our region’s transit agencies rolled up in a commission that will also be responsible for building the region’s roads, as I’m tired of seeing increasingly popular transit projects politically tied to expensive, business-as-usual highway packages. (How’s that Sound Transit/RTID ballot measure working for you?)

But I’m most concerned by the provisions which seem to be painting the widest smiles on the faces of the anti-transit McKenna folk — political compromises that seem tailor made for Machiavellian Republicans and their wealthy backers. (And the fact that the bill is largely based on recommendations that came out of the –gack– Discovery Institute, doesn’t ease my cynicism.) Large, arbitrarily drawn districts that will almost surely promote political horse trading between urban, suburban and exurban areas, putatively “non-partisan” elected commissioners that give Republicans an opportunity to run for office without putting an “R” next to their names, and a bizarre veto provision that gives a single commissioner the power to block any proposal from going to voters — this is the making of a highly politicized commission that the pro-roads folks will surely attempt to game. And since there’s a helluva lot more money to be made pouring concrete than opposing it, game the system they will.

Sen. Murray assured me that these are provisions that can, and probably will be changed before final passage, and I came away from our conversation hopeful that the final bill might be something that I can support. But the version of SB 5803 that passed the Senate yesterday, well… that ain’t it.

Truth is, I hadn’t been paying much attention to this bill, and its sudden move through the Senate kind of took me by surprise. I’ll have to educate myself more on the details, talk to a few more backers and opponents, and then come back with a more thoughtful analysis. My sense has always been that funding not governance has been the resource most lacking from our regional transportation planning. Not to mention imagination. And I’m just not convinced this bill adequately addresses either one of these concerns, in exchange for what it gives up.

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Come join me in saying “Yes, Yes” to some hoppy beer as Seattle voters say “No, No” to the tunnel and the elevated Viaduct.

Not in Seattle? Liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities. A full listing of Washington’s eleven Drinking Liberally chapters is available here.

There’s an election today, folks. If you have a ballot sitting on your counter, fill it out and put it in the mail. It’s gotta be postmarked by today for it to count*.

Tonight you can join me and others as we get our “drink” on at the following election night parties:

Event #1

The Not Another Elevated Viaduct
7:00 PM
Edgewater Hotel on the waterfront
(2411 Alaskan Way # 67).

Event #2:

Spitfire Grill Party
2219 4th Ave
9:00 PM

Hope to see you there!

*I know, it’s an advisory vote. But still!

Yesterday I posted a video of Tacoma police tear-gassing peaceful protesters, and then opening fire with rubber bullets as the protesters scattered to avoid the gas. Seemed pretty clear to me that this represented an excessive use of force against protesters sitting in the street, singing.

Of course, as expected, some in the comment thread disagreed, arguing that the “scum” got what they deserved, and encouraging me to show the Tacoma police what a tough guy I am so that I could get what I deserve too. Commenters cited a KING-5 News report accusing protesters of provoking the violent response by hurling barricades at the line of police.

Yeah… well… if the TV news reports a police spokesperson saying something is so, then I guess it must be, huh?

Well, the amateur cameraman who posted the controversial clip apparently heard the same complaints too, and so he has posted a new clip containing the KING-5 report, and unedited video of the notably undramatic events that occurred during the five minutes prior to the assault. Perhaps the police just couldn’t take the singing anymore, but the action that triggered the attack appears to have been the protesters sitting down en masse — tear gas canisters and rubber bullets hail down on the singing protesters in response.

Yup… guess those “scum” got what they deserved.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Peter Pace, has his priorities in order:

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said Monday he considers homosexuality to be immoral and the military should not condone it by allowing gay personnel to serve openly, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace likened homosexuality to adultery, which he said was also immoral, the newspaper reported on its Web site.

“I do not believe the United States is well served by a policy that says it is OK to be immoral in any way,” Pace told the newspaper in a wide-ranging interview.

Pace, a native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and a 1967 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, said he based his views on his upbringing.

Oh, goodness! It’s based on his upbringing! Well, of course then! You know what, my folks brought me up to believe that if a man or woman is willing to shoulder a rifle, to stand post, to wear the uniform, well… it doesn’t much matter who they sleep with.

Here’s my favorite bit:

The newspaper said Pace did not address concerns raised by a 2005 government audit that showed some 10,000 troops, including more than 50 specialists in Arabic, have been discharged because of the policy. [emphasis mine]

These guys, I tell you. It’s like they want to lose the war.

UPDATE (–Goldy):
Gen. Pace’s statements are ripe for ridicule, but Will missed an opportunity to zero in on the most ridiculous statement of them all:

Marine Gen. Peter Pace likened homosexuality to adultery, which he said was also immoral,

I can’t seem to find “Thou shall not take it up the ass” anywhere in the Ten Commandments, but I’m surprised Gen. Pace missed this particular moral proscription: “Thou shall not kill.”

Hmm. Homosexuality is immoral, but apparently, the killing of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians in a preemptive war of aggression is not. A soldier openly loving another man… that is a sin. But a soldier unavoidably inflicting “collateral damage” — killing men, women and children — that is not.

I fully understand that the Seventh Commandment is only a prohibition against illegal killing, and that the morality of war is a complicated and nuanced subject. But I find it ironic that a man whose job it is to turn teenage boys into killers would claim to possess such moral clarity on issues of human sexuality.

This from Andrew at the NPI:

An under-the-radar bill that would profoundly alter Sound Transit and other municipal agencies currently tasked with planning, building, and operating transportation systems throughout Puget Sound is quickly moving through the state Senate[.]

SSB 5803 originates from an idea proposed years ago by the Discovery Institute, anti-transit ideologues, and conservative billionaire John Stanton, who was a key Dino Rossi supporter in 2004.

What SSB 5803 does is complicate and confuse the existing decision making process, which is already hard for many citizens to understand. The proposed law would stomp all over home rule and local control by essentially consolidating existing transportation agencies into one larger entity.

Basically, all of our regional transportation projects would be routed through this new mega-agency. Projects like light rail expansion or lane additions to I-405 would go through these new transportation gatekeepers. The board members would be elected from super-districts:

These new districts would be much larger than county council districts. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for candidates with grassroots campaigns to compete. But the elections would be a bonanza for big business, which would have an opportunity to try and sell handpicked loyalists to voters.

The positions would all be nonpartisan, allowing right wing ideologues to stealthily mask what they actually stand for in the hopes of getting on the commission. And once on, they wouldn’t have to worry about listening to constituents – the terms are six years, except for at the very beginning, when three commissioners would serve two year terms and another three would serve four year terms.

And with unanimous consent of the commission required for forwarding any future plans on to voters, one or two right wing, anti-transit members could refuse to sign on to any proposal not to their liking.

I don’t see this policy shift as benefiting transit. I see it as a calculated shift to balance the recent surge in transit support in the region. There’s a reason the RTID folks tied their roads package to Sound Transit 2: transit is actually more popular than roads these days.

Today the bill passed the Senate. Maybe Murray can explain why this change will benefit his district, a district that wants more transit, not less.

One of the arguments we repeatedly made during the late stages of the 2006 midterm election was that with Dems poised to take over the House, the region would be better served by a freshman Darcy Burner in the majority than a two-term Dave Reichert in the minority. Well that thesis was just neatly illustrated by Congress.org’s annual Congressional Power Rankings, which show The Sheriff dropping from a ranking of 166 in 2006 to a pathetic 419 in 2007.

That’s right, there are only handful of representatives with less power than Reichert, which if you look at his Power Point Breakdown, is mostly due to the fact that he scores giant goose-eggs for both Influence and Legislation. By comparison, his fellow WA Republican Cathy McMorris, who also arrived in Congress in the class of 2004, manages to maintain a more respectable ranking of 231.

In cynically concluding their unmitigated, lying load of bullshit endorsement of Reichert, the Seattle Times wrote:

“His goal should be to expand his influence and be a stronger voice for change.”

Hey Frank… how’s that working out for you?

Via Slog…

If this is how Tacoma police respond to a peaceful anti-war protest — tear gas and rubber bullets — imagine what might happen should protesters eventually be provoked into more aggressive actions?

This was a peaceful sit-in with the crowd chanting “give peace a chance.” The appropriate response to such a classic act of civil disobedience would have been to handcuff and arrest the protesters, carrying them off one by one. Instead, the police chose to respond with a physically violent short cut.

Authorities should be forewarned: violence breeds violence.

The Seattle P-I headline asks the rhetorical question, “Will Dino Rossi run again for governor?” — and then pretty much provides the answer in the lede:

As Dino Rossi ponders a possible 2008 election rematch against Gov. Chris Gregoire, he’s doing everything, at a state level, that a Republican candidate for president might do at the national level.

Everything, that is, except actually talk about issues.

For a man who promised to bring bold new leadership to the governor’s mansion, and whose 2008 campaign essentially kicked off in December of 2004, Rossi has been resolutely silent on absolutely every single contentious issue that has wracked the state these past few years.

The gas tax, I-912’s effort to repeal it, gay civil rights, the inheritance tax, the Viaduct, I-933’s attempt to dismantle land use regulation, and nearly every other editorial inducing issue… Dino Rossi, the titular leader of Washington Republicans, has refused to weigh in by publicly lending his voice of authority to one side or the other. You’ve got to admire his discipline and consistency.

But then, we shouldn’t really expect anything less from a man whose 2004 campaign was long on the promise of new leadership but short on any prior history thereof. After a legislative career distinguished mostly by the nastiness of his campaigns, Rossi adopted as his singular accomplishment his personal authorship of the 2003-2005 state budget, a bit of GOPropaganda repeatedly echoed by his patrons on the Seattle Times editorial page, though clearly contradicted by the Times’ own contemporaneous reporting:

The Republican budget has much in common with the all-cuts plan that Democratic Gov. Gary Locke unveiled in December. In fact, Rossi opened a press briefing yesterday with a PowerPoint presentation titled: “Following the Governor’s Lead.”

Yes, Rossi’s budget was a tad more draconian, eliminating health care for 46,000 children, but as Rossi made perfectly clear at the time, the fiscally conservative budget adopted that session was largely authored by a Democratic governor.

Apart from his business-friendly pronouncements and promise to shake up the state bureaucracy, Rossi’s 2004 campaign was short on substance, while his personal beliefs and political ideology were intentionally obfuscated. Even on abortion, the emotional issue that most vividly defines our nation’s Red/Blue divide, Rossi, a devout Catholic, refused to take a public stand. “None of us are running for the U.S. Supreme Court,” Rossi quipped, brushing aside the thorny issue by insisting that the governor had little power over Roe v. Wade.

That kind of non-denial denial is simply not going to fly in 2008 — and not just on the issue of abortion, which a far-right-wing Supreme Court is preparing to throw back to the states. Rossi and his advisors are relying on resentment over his narrow 2004 loss and the circumstances surrounding it, to cement his Republican base and bring back many of the independent and crossover voters who almost carried him to victory. But his bitterly fought election contest also gave rise to what is perhaps the most active, organized and influential local political blogosphere in the nation, and while our tactics may not always be appreciated by our friends in the legacy press, our reporting and our media criticism cannot be ignored.

The media landscape has changed — somewhat thanks to Rossi himself — and he simply will not be allowed to run the same sort of tabula rasa campaign that almost snuck him into the governor’s mansion in 2004. The danger in attempting to be all things to all people is that if you leave yourself undefined, your opponent will define you for you. The Gregoire campaign failed to do that in 2004, but I doubt they’ll make the same mistake twice. And this time around she will be aided by a maturing progressive media infrastructure that will push the political press corps to force Rossi to take a stand on substantive issues, or look foolish refusing to do so.

The 2004 Rossi campaign provided the boilerplate strategy for how Republicans might run and win in Washington State — specifically, try not to look so much like Republicans. That David Irons and Mike McGavick failed to successfully ride this strategy to victory is not necessarily due to the fact that they are inferior salesmen (though, they are,) but rather, an indication that both reporters and voters have grown hip to the strategy.

But even given a media time-warp Rossi would be hard pressed to duplicate his 2004 near-success in a 2008 campaign governed by an entirely new set of political dynamics. This time around Governor Gregoire has a record, and in attacking the specifics, Rossi will be forced to specifically enunciate what he would have done differently. Would he have brokered a gas tax increase, or allowed our transportation infrastructure to languish without it? Would he have vetoed the gay civil rights and domestic partnership bills? Would he have fought to put more money into education and children’s health care, or argue that fiscal constraints just don’t allow it? Would he have supported repealing the estate tax, and if so, what would he have cut from the budget to offset the loss of revenue?

Rossi’s conservative legislative record and political ideology puts him outside of the mainstream of Washington voters — and outside of the mainstream of many of the independents and so-called “Dinocrats” who voted for him last time around. I look forward to playing a small role in finally introducing the real Dino Rossi to Washington voters.

Get those ballots postmarked by the 13th (this Tuesday), people!

Governor Gregoire and WashDOT don’t care how you vote in this election, but I sure as hell do. After all, the Olympia Freeway Pimps are pro-freeway. Don’t listen to them.

Don’t listen to Bruce Carter of the Municipal League of King County. His idea to vote a ‘blank ballot’ is bullshit. The best way to “rethink” this project (as the Muni League wants) is to vote No-No.

Instead, listen to Ron Sims:

“[The Surface plus Transit option], which could potentially open up the waterfront while providing an affordable, environmentally friendly means of moving traffic through the city, has not yet been studied. The surface option that WSDOT briefly examined contained no transit element and bears little resemblance to what surface-transit advocates are proposing.

“If we are going to position Seattle as a vibrant world-class 21st century metropolis, we need to proceed with boldness and vision. We need to think beyond present-day categories, with an eye to the long-term. How we decide on the Viaduct today is a profound test of our commitment to a better, more enlightened future. The right sort of transit-friendly surface proposal could meet that test.”

This Tuesday, tell Olympia that you want better options.