Search Results for: 10,000

As the state Legislature enters the final days of the session, one of the pressing issues they are addressing is SB 6533, which would provide restaurants a B&O tax credit on fifty percent of the $1/gallon tax on carbonated soft drink syrup?

WTF?

Not only would this tax break drain $10 million a year from state coffers — money that could be used, say… to provide health coverage for 10,000 children — it would incentivize businesses to sell and market a product that is harmful to children’s health.

This is not just a classic example of special interest tax legislation, it is just plain stupid… and the Children’s Alliance wants you to tell your legislators to vote no. They’ve set up a Take Action form that makes it easy for you to send an email to Gov. Gregoire and your own district representatives, asking them to oppose thus unnecessary tax credit. It is always more effective if you write your own personal message in the available field, but all you really need to do is just fill in your address information and click send.

Let’s send a message that if businesses want to talk about tax breaks, they need to do so in the context of broader tax restructuring. I’ve sent my email. Please send yours.

The gambling industry wants David Irons elected King County Executive…? Who’d have thunk?

Well, if you are a regular HA reader, you‘d have thunk, because I wrote about the $10,000 in campaign contributions he received from gaming interests, way back on September 8: “David Irons… gambling industry lapdog?” Now, thanks to an article in today’s Seattle Times (“Minicasino owners donate to Irons’ campaign“), a couple hundred thousand other voters are aware of what they might lose should Irons win.

A soon-to-open minicasino opposed by King County Executive Ron Sims has given more than $4,000 to David Irons, Sims’ opponent in the Nov. 8 election.

Kingsgate residents who oppose both the cardroom business and its efforts to obtain a liquor license are pressing Irons to detail his position on this cardroom, to be called Casino Caribbean, and on any expansion of gambling in unincorporated King County.

“We’re waiting for him to take a stand,” said Brad Roetcisoender, a neighbor of the casino and an organizer of the opposition group, Stop Neighborhood Casinos.

Don’t hold your breath, Brad. Irons is not going to come out and publicly support expanding gambling, but you know he wouldn’t be the beneficiary of such gaming industry largesse if he hadn’t privately assured his donors that he would, at the very least, step out of their way. Don’t get me wrong… I’m not saying that a political contribution is necessarily an indication of a politician’s stand on one issue or another… but in Irons’ case, he has a proven track record of privately telling donors and supporters what they want to hear, even as he maintains public silence.

Of course, Irons could prove me wrong, and unequivocally state that he opposes expanding gambling, and that he will work as hard as Ron Sims did to block the Kingsgate casino — which stands in the midst of a residential neighborhood, 500 feet from a day care facility and 700 feet from a community swimming pool — from getting a liquor license.

But he won’t.

Anybody who lives in the Kingsgate community, who opposes this casino, but votes for David Irons, is voting against their self interest… as would be every other King County resident who would object to having a casino or cardroom in their neighborhood. The decision to locate Casino Caribbean in a residential neighborhood is not accidental or unusual… it is part of an industry strategy that another Irons contributor, the Great Canadian Gaming Corporation, describes in a video to investors as “community based gaming.”

In the video, Great Canadian CFO Anthony Martin explains that people tend to game “in close proximity to where they live,” and so they have placed their casinos in the “bedroom communities” surrounding Seattle. He goes on to explain how these “local community casinos” were all purpose built to accommodate the slot machines that I-892 would have allowed. Last year’s failed Eyman initiative was entirely sponsored by the gambling industry, and Great Canadian was its largest donor.

What should be absolutely clear to voters is that the gambling industry — tribal and commercial — has a long history of using its money to manipulate WA’s state and local politics… and they wouldn’t be backing Irons if they didn’t expect to get something in return. That something may in fact be nothing, for all they need is a county executive, unlike Sims, who is willing to quietly sit back and not interfere with their efforts to expand gambling into our local communities.

Quite frankly, the residents of Kingsgate and the rest of King County simply can’t afford to gamble on David Irons.

Like most major corporations, Microsoft has a habit of covering its bases by giving to both parties; the goal is to have access to the halls of government, regardless of who holds power. But Microsoft has been decidedly one-sided this election season, giving $25,000 to the WA State GOP and $5,000 to the King County GOP… while giving the Democratic Party zilch.

I find this awfully curious in light of the Gates Foundation’s inexcusable support of the Discovery Institute, and Microsoft’s embarrassing flip-flop-flip on HB 1515, a bill that would have extended protections against discrimination in housing, lending and employment to gays and lesbians… a bill that failed by one vote. I also find this favoritism ironic, considering that Microsoft’s only other contribution was $10,000 to oppose I-912, an initiative the WA State GOP has officially endorsed.

In a political system so heavily influenced by money, Microsoft has the financial might to completely skew the balance of power in WA state. Considering its recent political track record, and its close ties to conservative Republican operatives like Ralph Reed, I think it’s time that Microsoft’s customers, employees and shareholders start questioning how Gates & Company plans to wield this power.

Hey… speaking of David Irons and quid pro quos, one has to wonder what Irons has promised the local gambling industry in exchange for over $10,000 of contributions towards his futile campaign for King County executive?

Casino Caribbean		$4,050.00
Roman Casino		$1,350.00
Iron Horse Casino		$1,000.00
Tim Iszley		$675.00
Vito Checci		$500.00
Great American Gaming		$500.00
Steve Michels		$500.00
Cascade Lanes Casino		$250.00
Roxbury Lanes		$500.00
Pinnacle Gaming		$250.00
Magic Lanes		$500.00

Iron’s biggest contributor is Casino Caribbean and its owner, Michael Marquess of Yakima, who has been stubbornly pushing to build a new casino in the Kingsgate neighborhood, against the strong objections of the surrounding communities.

Hmm. I’m betting the 2000 concerned citizens who signed a petition opposing the casino might be interested in Irons’ position on building an 11,000 square foot casino and lounge in a residential neighborhood, within 500 feet of a day care facility and 700 feet of a community swimming pool. Surely, Irons must have a position on this controversy; the Kingsgate Neighborhood Association has been very aggressive in getting their concerns before elected officials. Indeed, Irons’ King County Council colleague, Kathy Lambert, vocally opposes granting a liquor license to the proposed casino.

But money speaks louder than words, so barring a clear public statement to the contrary, it seems Irons has already privately assured his gambling industry patrons his unswerving support for expanding “community based gaming.” How else can you explain the largesse of companies like Casino Caribbean and the US subsidiary of the loan-sharking, drug-dealing, whore-mongering Great Canadian Gaming Corporation?

Hurricane Katrina has weakened slightly, but is still tracking straight for New Orleans, and is expected to hit landfall as a borderline Category 4/5 storm. I hope that when I awake in the morning, the news is not nearly as bad as it could be. In the meanwhile, if you want to help, probably the best you can do is give to the American Red Cross.

UPDATE: New Orleans dodges a bullet… sort of

I know it may sound odd considering the pictures of destruction coming from the Big Easy, but the city was spared the catastrophe of a “perfect storm.” Katrina weakened to a Category 4 hurricane before landfall, and most significantly, just skirted New Orleans to the East, with the most severe winds just E/NE of the eye wall.

The storm surge, once projected to be as high as 28 feet in spots, has reportedly maxed out at 15 to 17 feet. At least one levee was breached, causing six to eight feet of water in some parts of the city, but far from the devastating flooding that could have occurred. Gusts of up to 150 mph ripped a chunk off the roof of the Superdome, the “shelter of last resort” for about 10,000 residents, but it remains structurally sound.

Katrina continues to weaken as it moves over land, and has now been downgraded to a Cat 3 storm, but it is still quite powerful, and extremely large, so its danger has far from passed. There are now reports of storm-spawned tornadoes throughout the area. No reports yet of deaths or injuries, but they are sure to come, and the storm will certainly have caused hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars worth damage… a financial cost that will touch us all, as the price of crude oil has now surged over $70 a barrel.

The American Red Cross is the private group best equipped to deal with this crisis, and they are asking for cash donations. So if you want to help out, I urge you to click on the link above.

Careful Pam… keep up that animal rights rhetoric, and the FBI might label you a “terrorist.” It’s in the P-I:

Reports on an animal cruelty investigation at a farm near Enumclaw show Washington state needs a law against bestiality, state Sen. Pam Roach says.

Roach, R-Auburn, said Monday she plans to introduce legislation that would make it a Class C felony to have sex with an animal, punishable by as much as five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Hmm. I’m guessing Pam didn’t grow up on a farm in Georgia?

Of course, Pam has a long history of advocating against animal cruelty… which I suppose explains why a little more than two years after 63% of voters approved an initiative banning the cruel use of bait and hounds to hunt black bears and cougars, Pam testified in support of a House bill that would have allowed it. (Which, by the way, is yet another example of right-wing defenders of the initiative process honoring the “will of the people” only when the people agree with them.)

UPDATE:
Hey… nice catch by reader David, who noticed that HB 1012 included an emergency clause. Yeah, that’s right… hunting bears and cougars with bait and dogs was an emergency. What a bunch of hypocrites.

Frank Rich hits the nail on the head once again. In his Sunday column in the New York Times (“The Armstrong Williams NewsHour“), Rich points out that the current Republican assault on public broadcasting is different from those in the past. Nobody’s trying to do away with PBS or NPR, so Big Bird is far from an endangered species. But…

That doesn’t mean the right’s new assault on public broadcasting is toothless, far from it. But this time the game is far more insidious and ingenious. The intent is not to kill off PBS and NPR but to castrate them by quietly annexing their news and public affairs operations to the larger state propaganda machine that the Bush White House has been steadily constructing at taxpayers’ expense. If you liked the fake government news videos that ended up on local stations – or thrilled to the “journalism” of Armstrong Williams and other columnists who were covertly paid to promote administration policies – you’ll love the brave new world this crowd envisions for public TV and radio.

Rich advises that if you want to understand the Bush administration’s intentions you must “follow the money”… not the $100 million the House threatens to cut from public broadcasting’s budget, but rather the $14,170 that Corporation for Public Broadcasting chairman Kenneth Tomlinson secretly paid Fred Mann to monitor the political content of PBS and NPR shows.

Now, why would Mr. Tomlinson pay for information that any half-sentient viewer could track with TiVo? Why would he hire someone in Indiana? Why would he keep this contract a secret from his own board? Why, when a reporter exposed his secret, would he try to cover it up by falsely maintaining in a letter to an inquiring member of the Senate, Byron Dorgan, that another CPB executive had “approved and signed” the Mann contract when he had signed it himself? If there’s a news story that can be likened to the “third-rate burglary,” the canary in the coal mine that invited greater scrutiny of the Nixon administration’s darkest ambitions, this strange little sideshow could be it.

Mann’s report monitored the shows of Bill Moyers, Tavis Smiley and Diane Rehm.

Their guests were rated either L for liberal or C for conservative, and “anti-administration” was affixed to any segment raising questions about the Bush presidency. Thus was the conservative Republican Senator Chuck Hagel given the same L as Bill Clinton simply because he expressed doubts about Iraq in a discussion mainly devoted to praising Ronald Reagan. Three of The Washington Post’s star beat reporters (none of whom covers the White House or politics or writes opinion pieces) were similarly singled out simply for doing their job as journalists by asking questions about administration policies.

“It’s pretty scary stuff to judge media, particularly public media, by whether it’s pro or anti the president,” Senator Dorgan said. “It’s unbelievable.”

Not from this gang. Mr. Mann was hardly chosen by chance to assemble what smells like the rough draft of a blacklist. He long worked for a right-wing outfit called the National Journalism Center, whose director, M. Stanton Evans, is writing his own Ann Coulteresque book to ameliorate the reputation of Joe McCarthy. What we don’t know is whether the 50 pages handed over to Senator Dorgan is all there is to it, or how many other “monitors” may be out there compiling potential blacklists or Nixonian enemies lists on the taxpayers’ dime.

It turns out Mann is typical of CPB hires under Tomlinson. One of the two public ombudsmen Tomlinson recruited to monitor new broadcasts for PBS and NPR is William Schulz, “a former writer for the radio broadcaster Fulton Lewis Jr., a notorious Joe McCarthy loyalist.” Tomlinson also paid a $10,000 consulting fee to Brian Darling, the GOP operative who wrote the infamous Terri Schiavo memo instructing Republicans to milk the issue.

And now Patricia Harrison, a former co-chair of the Republican National Committee has been installed as CPB president. As an assistant secretary of state Harrison publicly praised the department’s fake news segments promoting America’s success in Afghanistan and Iraq… some of which have actually been broadcast by local TV stations as real news. Tomlinson’s hires represent a concerted effort to directly control the content of public broadcasting.

Mr. Tomlinson has maintained that his goal at CPB is to strengthen public broadcasting by restoring “balance” and stamping out “liberal bias.” But Mr. Moyers left “Now” six months ago. Mr. Tomlinson’s real, not-so-hidden agenda is to enforce a conservative bias or, more specifically, a Bush bias. To this end, he has not only turned CPB into a full-service employment program for apparatchiks but also helped initiate “The Journal Editorial Report,” the only public broadcasting show ever devoted to a single newspaper’s editorial page, that of the zealously pro-Bush Wall Street Journal. Unlike Mr. Moyers’s “Now” – which routinely balanced its host’s liberalism with conservative guests like Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Paul Gigot and Cal Thomas – The Journal’s program does not include liberals of comparable stature.

THIS is all in keeping with Mr. Tomlinson’s long career as a professional propagandist. During the Reagan administration he ran Voice of America. Then he moved on to edit Reader’s Digest, where, according to Peter Canning’s 1996 history of the magazine, “American Dreamers,” he was rumored to be “a kind of ‘Manchurian Candidate’ ” because of the ensuing spike in pro-C.I.A. spin in Digest articles. Today Mr. Tomlinson is chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the federal body that supervises all nonmilitary international United States propaganda outlets, Voice of America included. That the administration’s foremost propagandist would also be chairman of the board of CPB, the very organization meant to shield public broadcasting from government interference, is astonishing. But perhaps no more so than a White House press secretary month after month turning for softball questions to “Jeff Gannon,” a fake reporter for a fake news organization ultimately unmasked as a G.O.P. activist’s propaganda site.

The Bush administration and the Republican leadership are intent on turning the US into a one-party state, and nothing is more crucial to their totalitarian vision than complete and utter control of the broadcast news media, either directly, or through their corporate patrons. It may or may not be possible to save PBS from becoming the domestic equivalent of Voice of America, but the very fact that Republicans are attempting to subvert its independence in such a calculated manner is evidence that we can no longer rely on public broadcasting alone to provide balance to the corporate media.

What can we do? We must all come to public broadcasting’s defense, but we also need to create an alternative that is not vulnerable to similar manipulation. So again, I urge you to go to the Independent World Television News website, watch the introductory video, and please make a tax-deductible contribution. We need an independent media that cannot be controlled by corporate interests and government propagandists. And we need it now.

[NWPT52]I was listening to a report on NPR this morning about yesterday’s meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George Bush. Blair was asking the US to join major initiatives on global warming and aid for Africa. Of course, in appreciation for Blair’s toadying support for the Iraq war, Bush gave Blair a “cold shoulder.”

But what really stood out in the report, was the footnote on the “Downing Street Memo.”

I wrote about this secret memo way back on May 2, and the story is only now beginning to filter its way into the mainstream US media. Originally leaked to the British press just days before parliamentary elections, the memo reveals that the White House had already decided to invade Iraq as early as July of 2002, and that “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

Had this been a Democratic administration, impeachment hearings would already be under way, but so far the Republicans and their corporate media patrons have managed to keep this issue below the radar. However I’m beginning to see parallels between this story and the way the Watergate scandal slowly built to a media crescendo that brought down a corrupt presidency. The news media is a business, and at some point they simply can’t ignore a story the competition is running with.

Congress needs to investigate this memo so that Americans can learn the truth… and you can help. Rep. John Conyers is asking citizens to sign on to his letter to President Bush asking for full disclosure — over 110,000 have signed thus far. And Sen. Ted Kennedy is urging you to write your Senators and urge them to speak out on the Downing Street Memo.

The Bush White House sent American soldiers to die in the deserts of Iraq, based on a lie. There were no WMDs and there was no tie to 9/11 or Osama bin Laden. And Bush knew it.

If you read the headlines in the MSM on May 2, you might have thought Dino Rossi scored a major legal victory in his lawsuit seeking to overturn the November 2004 gubernatorial election. But after studying the transcript of Judge Bridges’ rulings, my initial impression hasn’t changed: it wasn’t a very good day for Dino. While the Judge hasn’t entirely shut the door on the election contest, he certainly clarified the enormous burden Rossi must overcome in order to prove his case. The Judge also seems quite conscious of the inevitable appeal to the state Supreme Court, and has carefully attempted to insulate his decisions from being overturned.

The first ruling of the day was the one everybody anticipated the most, and it’s the only one that didn’t go entirely against the Republicans. The Democrats had filed a motion to have evidence of a statistical analysis excluded from the proceedings, claiming that such proportioning would be inconsistent with the standard of proof required to invalidate an election. Judge Bridges denied the motion, concluding that neither the statutes nor the courts had established guidelines in this area, and thus he would consider such evidence, subject to a “Frye hearing.”

The AP immediately broadcast a headline that implied the court had accepted the Republicans “proportional deduction” methodology, ignoring Judge Bridges’ huge caveat:

However — and this is an important however. The denial of this motion should not be interpreted as a pretrial ruling adopting the statistical analysis methodology, so everyone understands that, and that’s the ruling of the Court.

As I had previously mentioned, my fly-on-the-wall reported that the first issue the Judge addressed in conference was scheduling the Frye hearing, at which the Democrats will argue that the GOP’s methodology is bad science, and thus inadmissible — an argument I don’t expect Judge Bridges’ to entirely accept. After all, we can all imagine a situation where some sort of statistical analysis makes perfect sense; for example, if Yakima County’s touch-screen voting machines had somehow randomly erased 10,000 votes, it would be absurd to argue that this error did not cost Rossi the election.

Thus I do not think the Judge will generally rule out the use of proportional deduction per se, but rather decide that the evidence is not “clear and convincing” in this particular case… a shrewd judicial move. If he were to reject proportional deduction as a point of law, it would leave his decision much more vulnerable to being overturned on appeal. But if he rejects its application as part of his evidentiary findings, the decision is virtually appeal-proof.

Clever.

If you are a Rossi supporter, that’s where the good news ends, such as it may be. The rest of the day’s rulings overwhelmingly favored the Democrats.

The next ruling concerned a motion by Democrats that the Republicans must actually prove a felon voted, by finding a signature in a poll book or on an absentee or provisional envelope, rather than simply relying on the voter crediting records. Judge Bridges ruled in favor of the Democrats, stating:

The process of crediting voters with having voted is a post-election administrative exercise that this Court determines does not bear upon the authenticity of election results….

Republicans shrugged off this ruling as little more than a procedural hassle, and indeed it’s likely the vast majority of felons alleged to have voted, probably did cast ballots. (How many were really illegal votes or not, is another question.)

But if Rossi had planned to argue the same case in a court of law as he has in the court of public opinion, then this ruling represents a huge defeat, for it entirely undermines what’s left of the “total mess” theory… that there were hundreds of unexplained “voterless ballots.” This charge was based on the discrepancy between the number of voters credited with voting and the number of ballots cast, but since the court has ruled that voter crediting has no bearing on the authenticity of election results, the so-called “voter credit discrepancy” is entirely meaningless. (And, I should mention, it also totally validates my refutation of the Snark’s OCD-like focus on this issue.)

In launching his contest, Rossi emphasized a number of allegations in support of his contention that the election was a “total mess,” including: that thousands of overseas military voters had been disenfranchised, that King County had illegally enhanced and duplicated tens of thousands of ballots, and that King County tallied hundreds more ballots than voters. It is telling that none of these allegations will be argued in court, their case almost entirely relying upon a statistical analysis of illegal votes by felons, and unverified provisionals.

“Total mess”… my ass.

After a recess the Court addressed two dueling, related motions, that due to some inexplicable bungling on the part of Rossi’s attorneys, resulted in the kind of ruling that legal malpractice cases are made of. The Republican’s motion argued that upon a prima facie showing that a voter is a felon that had not had his rights restored, the Democrats should bear the burden of proving that the vote was not invalid. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ motion asked the Court to exclude all evidence of illegal felon voters unless the R’s could prove six elements, that the voter was 1) convicted of felony, 2) as an adult, 3) had not received a deferred sentence 4) had not had their rights restored, 5) had cast a ballot, and 6) had marked the ballot to indicate a vote for governor.

But before issuing his rulings, Judge Bridges joined Jim West in sharing with us a glimpse of his bedroom fetishes.

As I was lying in bed last night, I had one of the fears that I think attorneys have had often, I’m sure, did I miss something. Am I going to get in court and realize that there is an issue that I just completely overlooked. Mr. Foreman started out his presentation a few minutes ago with the burden of proof argument, that is, is it by a preponderance of the evidence or is it clear, cogent and convincing evidence. And in actuality, I hadn’t anticipated specifically that that argument was before the Court, based on the written materials that the Court had been presented.

Ohmigod… did Rossi’s attorneys really raise the all important issue of burden of proof, without first briefing the Court? Uh-oh….

I’ll make a ruling. If counsel wish, however, to readdress the issue, I invite counsel to do that.

Translation of obtuse legalese: “You fucking morons.”

Up until this point, Judge Bridges rulings had been rather brief, but perhaps spurred on by the GOP’s amateur performance in arguing what, by any measure, was a truly stupid motion to begin with, he started lapsing into schoolmarm mode. In denying the Republican motion he ruled that “a felony conviction, coupled with the absence of a certificate of discharge… does not establish a prima facie case of illegal felon voting.” He then went on to lecture the GOP attorneys on some legal fundamentals, explaining why the burden of proof rests with the contesting party:

The reasons the burden of proof does not shift is grounded in both our case law as well as our statutes, and the Court, of course, as are counsel, we’re all mindful that the courts of this state presume the certified results of an election to be valid unless the contrary is clearly established. And unless an election is clearly invalid, when the people have spoken their verdict should not be disturbed by the courts.

Just to be sure the Republicans got the point, he then went on to cite statute that stated that registration is presumptive evidence of a person’s right to vote, and that when a voter’s right is challenged, the burden rests with the challenger, and must be proved by “clear and convincing evidence.” The same standard, the Judge ruled, should apply when election results are challenged under RCW 29A.68.020.

Inasmuch as voting is a constitutional right, no vote should be held illegal and discounted absent clear proof that the voter was legally disenfranchised.

Any questions? I didn’t think so.

Next the Judge denied the Democrats motion, but after doing so, issued guidelines for establishing that a felon vote was illegal, pretty much along the lines of what they had requested: that the individual was 1) convicted as an adult, 2) of a felony, not a misdemeanor, 3) was not given a deferred sentence, 4) did not have rights restored, 5) cast a ballot, and 6) marked the ballot for governor. Of course, number 6 is impossible, which the Judge duly notes, but says: try anyway.

And then came the killer. (Yes, it gets worse.)

With respect to and responding to Mr. Foreman as to simply what is the burden of proof, I’m going to say it’s clear and convincing.

At this point, while MSM headlines are still proclaiming a big Rossi victory, his attorneys are probably shitting in their pants. “Clear and convincing” is a very high standard, and it doesn’t just apply to illegal votes, but to the entire case. So for those of you still clinging to the fantasy that the legal definition of “appears” is “appears to Stefan,” it’s time to start moving towards the fifth stage of grief.

And it only gets worse, for now the Judge starts to get a little improvisational. Judge Bridges remarks that he’s notices a theme to the Republicans’ arguments — that an election may be invalidated where the number of illegal votes exceed the margin of victory, without proving which party was credited with illegal votes — and he wants to get this issue “out of the way.” Judge Bridges explains that,

Washington’s election contest statutes clearly require the contestant to show illegal votes or misconduct changed the election result based on RCW 29A.68.110 and .070.

He cites the much debated Foulkes v Hayes case, where the court set aside an election based on evidence that ballots were fraudulently altered, without requiring proof that the result had changed. But, Judge Bridges notes, that Foulkes does not mention these specific statutes. Neither, he notes, does Hill v. Howell, where the court also suggested that “such a showing might not be required where fraud, intimidation or a fundamental disregard of the law had occurred.” Indeed, there’s only be one case where the courts did not require “proof of causation,” and that was Foulkes, a case that involved fraud.

But in our case here today, the petitioners have never alleged, to the Court’s knowledge, or even alluded to fraud or voter intimidation.

Hmmm. I’m guessing that may come as a shock to those of you who have gotten all your election contest coverage from talk radio and the right-wing blogs. So if that describes you, you may not want to read the following:

The rule urged by petitioners may be a wise one and a tempting choice for the Court. However, the Washington legislature has, by enacting RCW 29A.68.110 and .070, removed this choice from this Court’s discretion. The statutory command is clear and the Court should not invalidate the election upon proof the number of illegal votes exceeded the margin of victory.

The final issue of the day was a Republican motion to exclude all Democratic evidence of offsetting illegal votes and other irregularities, a gambit that perhaps was not quite the stupidest motion of the day, but certainly vied for the title of “Most Desperate and Futile.” Needless to say, the Judge denied the motion.

Conclusions

Rossi is toast.

It doesn’t take a genius to see which way Judge Bridges is leaning on this one, and “leaning” is a dramatic understatement… he’s virtually horizontal. Furthermore, he’s carefully constructing a decision that will be extremely difficult to appeal. Every motion to exclude evidence on a point of law has been denied; instead, the decision will be made based on his evidentiary findings.

Of course, none of this is a surprise… to me. I never thought Rossi had much of a case. There had been some thoughtful analysis coming from the other side, but most of it was based on a misinterpretation of the Foulkes decision, as I have previously pointed out here and here. And now even Rossi supporters are beginning to admit the inevitable.

Anyway, sorry to get so wordy. Now that all the evidence is in, and the standards of proof settled, I’ll follow up sometime soon with a brief overview.

The Seattle P-I has a short report on what to expect from the dueling legal teams in Dino Rossi’s contest of the gubernatorial election: “Strategies in governor’s contest now clearer.” Actually, I think the strategies have been clear for some time, but the article does a nice job of summarizing the issues, and concluding that the GOP’s hopes may hinge on whether Judge Bridges accepts their “proportional analysis” argument.

One possible line of attack they have sketched out is what Lane calls proportional analysis. The idea is this: If Precinct A cast 60 percent of its votes for Gregoire and 40 percent for Rossi, but it turns out that 10 votes from there were illegal, the court can assume that six of those votes were for Gregoire and four for Rossi and deduct those amounts from their respective totals.

Given that most of the 1,000-plus supposed illegal votes the GOP has rounded up so far came from King County, where Gregoire beat Rossi by 58 percent to 40 percent (amounting to a 155,000-vote difference), that strategy holds lots of appeal for the Republicans. And that’s one reason they’re trying to dig up as many illegal votes as they can.

Personally, I could see a court accepting such an approach if the number of disputed ballots were massive compared to the margin of victory. For example, if there were 10,000 illegal votes in heavily Democratic King County (and nothing to offset them in Republican strongholds) I could understand a court ruling that a 129-vote margin just can’t hold up to scrutiny.

I could even understand the court applying proportional analysis to a much smaller number, if there was clear evidence of that these votes were the result of organized fraud or misconduct.

But such statistical analyses become much less useful the smaller the sample data set, and I just can’t imagine the court accepting such an approach with the number of illegal votes reported thus far. It would be inaccurate to proportion votes based on countywide margins, as different precincts produce dramatically different results. Yet when you deconstruct the analysis to the precinct level, it is statistically meaningless to proportion one or two votes per precinct.

Of course the Republican’s case has always been more of an emotional appeal than a legal one, hoping that public outrage might undermine Gregoire if not sway the courts. But their pleadings are increasingly being met with cynicism in the court of public opinion as well, with a recent Elway Poll showing that 63 percent of voters now say we should accept the results of the election and move on, and 74 percent agreeing that there is always going to be some error.

And move on we shall. Today, Governor Gregoire will introduce the first draft of her budget proposal, which I fully expect to include about $500 million in tax and fee increases, along with over a billion dollars in cuts and other savings. Rather than being cowed by Republican anger over the election, she appears to be reacting to the pragmatic reality that maintaining government services at the level taxpayers clearly demand, requires raising revenues commensurate with those demands.

Now if only we can get her to consider structural changes that will eliminate these shortfalls in the future, instead of just the stopgap measures we’re likely to see in the current budget.

UPDATE:
Well, it looks like I overestimated the tax increases. Gregoire has proposed a little over $200 million, coming from a $0.20 per pack hike in the cigarette tax, and reimposing the estate tax on non-farm estates worth over $2 million. More on the budget later.

Back on November 2, the gubernatorial election was far from my major concern.

I spent much of election day following the exit poll leaks, buoyed by what appeared to be record voter turnout nationwide and stronger than expected support for John Kerry in several key states. But as the polls started closing, reality set it — Ohio, which seemed certain to break Bush’s back, inexplicably broke Kerry’s instead. I never went downtown to the big Democratic “victory” party, instead choosing to watch the defeat unfold at home. That night, alone in my despair I blogged:

I never accepted the legitimacy of W’s first administration and I will never accept the legitimacy of his second. At this moment, I cannot imagine being convinced that this was a free and fair election. Quite simply, I fear for our democracy.

To which HA received its first mention from the kind folks over at (un)Sound Politics; a short, smug, snide, and perhaps deserved dig: “Yeah, whatever, aluminum hat boy.”

We had no history at that point, and I thought Stefan could have shown a bit more empathy, allowing me a brief moment to sit political shiva. But I recognized his comment as the kind of sarcastic cut I might make, and so I took it in stride, and replied in a self-deprecating manner in Stefan’s comment thread. (At that point, I still believed him to be a reasonable person with whom one could have a reasonable and lively — if somewhat insulting — debate.)

As to Ohio? Well, I’ve barely followed it, and have hardly mentioned it here since… partly because I prefer to make accusations of election fraud based on hard facts, and partly because I got sucked into covering events back home.

Ironically, it turned out to be Stefan who sported a chronic case of helmut-hair from his mind-control-ray-blocking headwear.

Even before the election, the (u)SP folks were steeling themselves for defeat, bandying about the reassuring notion that the Washington state GOP’s dismal history at the polls was more a result of “distributed vote fraud” than actual rejection by the electorate. And from the very first prolonged vote count, Stefan and his fellow travelers quickly established themselves as the gubernatorial election’s leading conspiracy theorists.

From the 10,000 “mystery” absentee ballots that screwed up Stefan’s spreadsheet during the first count, to the military ballot hoo-hah, to enhanced ballots, to provisionals, dead people and felons, die-hard Rossi supporters have been snapping up (u)SP’s conspiracies like they were iPods. Meanwhile, I confidently sat back and waited for each new theory to be debunked — as they all have been — secure in the knowledge that most conspiracy theories remain just that.

See, the main problem with your run-of-the-mill conspiracy theory is that it proposes an actual conspiracy… an exercise that typically proves to be considerably less daunting in theory than in practice. Conspiracies tend to be logistical nightmares. They require opportunity, planning, execution, and absolute secrecy. And above all, they require motive.

I’m not talking about the institutional motive of one party wanting to win an election over another… I’m talking about the individual conspirators, whose motives must be strong enough to balance the inevitable consequences of getting caught. For example, why would Dean Logan, a career civil servant, risk a lengthy prison sentence on behalf of Christine Gregoire? All ethical and moral considerations aside, we can assume that Logan would not participate in such a conspiracy unless the risk was small, the benefit large, and the objective achievable.

It is on that last point that I laugh off any suggestion that the improperly scanned provisional ballots are evidence of some organized vote fraud conspiracy, because it overwhelmingly fails the “why the fuck?” test, as in: “Why the fuck would you only stuff 660 ballots?”

Nobody expected this election to be anywhere near this close. If Gregoire had won by only 30,000 votes, surprised political pundits would have painted this a moral victory for Rossi and the Republicans, instantly marking Gregoire as vulnerable in 2008. But 129 votes? Get real.

Why bother risking the scandal of stuffing 400 or 600 or even 900 ballots when such numbers would have no reasonable expectation of impacting the election? Such a piddling conspiracy would be absolutely pointless without the hindsight we now have as to the extraordinary closeness of the actual results. And if anything, the Democrats were overconfident about the governor’s race.

Elections simply aren’t this close. Thus any conspiracy at the polls on election day would have to be massive to have any hope of impacting the outcome of a statewide election. Anything less would be just plain silly. I’m not absolutely precluding the possibility that somebody might be stupid enough to risk going to jail for stuffing a couple hundred votes in an election Gregoire expected to win by over 100,000… but it just doesn’t seem likely, does it?

So if you’re looking for corruption, it’s going to have to be of the official variety, and it would have had to occur post-election, during the recounts, by canvassing workers, election officials, even the canvassing board itself. And in the context of the recounts, people were looking for official corruption… and very carefully. Say what you want about the hand recount, but there is no arguing that it was an extraordinarily transparent operation, with bipartisan observers watching and participating in every detail. If Dean Logan managed to steal this election during the hand recount, without getting caught, then you’ve got to wonder what a fucking genius like Dean is doing in such a shit-ass job like his? A criminal mastermind like that should be selling tanker planes for Boeing… or working for Karl Rove… not sitting before the King County Council subjecting himself to misleading grandstanding from the likes of Raymond Shaw Reagan Dunn.

Whatever.

The point is, conspiracies are a helluva lot easier to theorize than they are to execute (or disprove;) to borrow a phrase from President Bush, they’re “hard work.” And that’s ignoring the fact that most people — even Democrats — are basically honest… and that even the most dishonest folk are reluctant to so blatantly break the law knowing that each and every one of their actions would be subjected to such microscopic scrutiny.

So my confidence that official corruption is the least likely explanation for the outcome of this election is not based on a naive trust in public officials, but rather on the simple logic that anybody who would be stupid enough to have engaged in such a conspiracy under these circumstances would have to be too stupid to have gotten away with it. If fraud occurred, the evidence is there, and you can be damn sure Rossi’s attorneys and the BIAW would have discovered it by now.

Were mistakes made during this election? Absolutely! Were election officials sometimes not as forthright as they could have been? Perhaps… but then, if I was in their shoes I might have been just as cautious.

If Rossi can prove that irregularities and illegal votes cost him the election, then the results will be set aside. But he has absolutely no evidence of organized fraud or corruption, and for people like EFF President Bob Williams to be squawking on talk radio that Dean Logan is a “crook” who should be jailed, is downright inexcusable.

The scary part is, that despite all the logical inconsistencies, and despite the months of sleuthing that has failed to turn up a single shred of evidence of official corruption, there are still people that are absolutely convinced that Democrats, actively, intentionally, and illegally stole this election. And to them I say: “Yeah, whatever, aluminum hat boy.”

Seattle’s own Rep. Jim McDermott has blogged on dailyKos today, commemorating the Iraq War’s second birthday on Saturday.

It is almost impossible to be coherent about the situation in Iraq. 1500 Americans dead. Over 10,000 maimed in mind and body. Too high a price for no increase in national security.

Rep. McDermott invites Seattle’s “peace community” to join him at rally this Saturday at noon, at the Seattle Center, before marching to the Westlake Center at 1:30. You are also welcome to join him at his 11th Annual Potato Festival fundraiser, 4:30 at Town Hall.

The folks at Sound Politics had some fun teasing me for my moment of post-election despair, in which I said “I cannot imagine being convinced that this was a free and fair election.” (I still can’t.) They called me aluminum hat boy.

That’s fine, fun is fun.

But looky what happens the moment the vote count doesn’t go their way:

What all this says about the credibility of our election system, should the favorite daughter of the Democrat machine which produced the 10,000 magical mystery ballots be declared the winner on the basis of these magical ballots, is for another day.

(Stefan… it’s the WIFI networks that are controlling our brains!!!)

Anyway, here’s what happened. The righty bloggers have been making the same projections I have. Only much more smugly.

Based on the distribution among the various counties of the ballots left to be counted, and the current vote margins therein, we were all projecting Dino Rossi to win by a 3000-plus vote margin. Not a comfortable victory but more than the 2000 vote spread that would trigger an automatic recount.

Our math is sound, and assuming the margins hold up and the numbers posted to the elections page on the Secretary of State’s web site are accurate, our projections should be sound too. But there was always something that made me suspect that the “Ballots Left to Count” numbers were estimates only:

Figures in the “Approx Ballots Left to Count” column are estimates only.

I might have missed this disclaimer entirely, if it didn’t appear prominently beneath a bold, red, all caps warning: “IMPORTANT: READ THIS FIRST!”

Of course Stefan and the other aluminum-hat-wearing whiners at Sound Politics were well aware that these were “estimates only.” In fact there was a discussion earlier today about Benton County overestimating the number by 2500 during the 2000 election.

So here’s where we stand. After today’s count, Gregoire is leading Rossi by 158 votes, while the projections still suggest a 1430 vote Rossi victory, and an automatic recount. But… adjust the ballots-left-to-count by 5000 in the right counties, and Gregoire keeps her lead.

So there’s the glimmer of hope some of you were asking for.

Since Tim Eyman places so much emphasis on following the money of campaign contributions, it is interesting to note once again that I-892’s biggest backer is Richmond B.C. based Great Canadian Gaming Corporation… to the tune of $210,000 (US) thus far. (That we know of.)

How important is I-892 to Great Canadian? Important enough that Canadian investment bankers are closely following the initiative.

How do I know? Web stats.

My web stats will sometimes show me the domains of visitors, and the search words they used to find my site. And lately I’ve noticed quite a few Canadian visitors, some clearly identifiable as financial institutions.

For example, today alone I’ve seen a number of visits from Toronto based TD Bank Financial Group, googling phrases like “initiative 892 latest poll” or “latest poll on washington state slots”.

TD Bank has a lot riding on this initiative. On September 30, 2004 they led a $150 million bond offering on behalf of Great Canadian, and agreed to provide an additional $100 million in credit. Some of that money will surely be used to finance Great Canadian’s plans to dominate the WA gambling market… and if I-892 passes, the return on investment will soar.

So if a Canadian bank with over CDN $300 billion in assets is following I-892 so closely, you get an idea of how profitable its passage would be for its corporate sponsors.

Speaking of lying sacks of shit, how about David Fretz, president of Great American Gaming, a wholly-owned subsidiary of loanshark-infested Great Canadian Gaming of Richmond, B.C., who operates four of Washington’s largest non-tribal casinos. When The Seattle Times asked him to comment on Initiative 892, he blustered:

“Why don’t you talk to Tim Eyman? It’s his initiative, OK?”

Ewwww… what’s that smell?

As I’ve previously explained, hiring Tim to front this steaming pile of legislative excrement may have been a clever exercise in branding, but I-892 has always been more a Great Canadian initiative than an Eyman one.

Great Canadian is I-892’s biggest financial backer… $210,000 thus far (that we know about.) Great Canadian has the most to gain from I-892… over $20 million a year from slots, at their four existing casinos. And Great Canadian has been pushing virtually identical legislation for the past three years, as one of the dominant forces behind the Recreational Gaming Association and the Entertainment Industry Association.

Great Canadian CFO Anthony Martin brags to investors that their Washington casinos were “purpose built” with a special raised floor, in the expectation that I-892 would introduce slot machines into their “local community casinos.” Really. It’s on video.

But it’s not simply the opportunity to expand their addictive wares into Washington neighborhoods that excites Great Canadian, it’s the fact that our ass-backwards gambling taxes would make Washington slots nearly three times more profitable than those north of the border.

In British Columbia, a monopoly market with limited licenses, the taxation rate is 61 percent on table games, and 75 percent on slots. Washington, with unlimited licenses and local gambling tax rates of up to 20 percent, is a land of opportunity by comparison.

By comparison, under I-892 the state taxes slots at 35%, cutting out local gambling taxes entirely.

The Canadian tax model is more the norm than the exception. Indeed, taxpayers in neighboring Oregon get 71% of the take from video poker machines, more than twice what I-892 gives Washingtonians.

Think about it. If this was truly an “Eyman initiative”, he could have doubled the promised tax break, by cutting taxpayers a larger share.

Instead, for a $47,000 salary he sold out to I-892’s real sponsor, Great Canadian. They got a sweet deal. But it sure does stink.