Rep. Jay Inslee (WA-1) want to be your next Governor. In this interview, he talks jobs, jobs, jobs, and a bit of medical marijuana. The interview is followed by a round-table discussion with Chris Vance, Joel Connelly, Cathy Allen, and Joni Balter:
Watch October 21, 2011 on PBS. See more from KCTS 9 Connects.
When the Washington State Democrats hold their annual “Maggies” (Warren G. Magnuson Awards dinner/fundraiser) on Saturday, the keynote speaker will be former two-term Pennsylvania Congressman Joe Sestak. In and of itself, that’s not particularly notable … the WA Dems bring in an out-of-stater every year. Last year it was Iowa’s Senator Tom Harkin, and previous speakers include Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean.
Joe Sestak is a different kind of politician. I refer not only to his biography — the highest-ranked military officer ever elected to Congress (he was a three-star Vice Admiral), commander of a carrier strike group in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, deputy to the Chief of Naval Operations, National Security Council liaison, director of a top-secret Navy counterterrorism unit — but to some unusual-for-a-politician attributes.
I’ve been a Sestak fan for quite some time. Not long after he first decided to run for Congress in 2006, he participated in the YearlyKos (now Netroots Nation) gathering in Las Vegas. In his post-YK diary post, I wrote the following comment:
thank you, Admiral
I knew very little about you before attending YK, but since returning home I’ve made a (very small, alas) contribution to your campaign through ActBlue.
I don’t want to sound like I’m dissing Eric Massa, your colleague on the panel at YK, because I appreciate his fire. But I found your quiet, measured, from-the-soul passion far more compelling than his fervor. I can imagine that in a debate against Curt Weldon’s delusional bombast, your approach will be all the more effective.
Your words carry immense authority. As a non-military person, I find myself reassessing my views on the military if a man with a style such as yours can so successfully command a carrier battle group.
I grew up across the Delaware, in Cherry Hill. So most of the towns and locations you mentioned are familiar to me. I wish you the best of luck in your campaign, and hope that I’ll be able to put together the funds to send along some additional tangible $upport.
At that YearlyKos panel, Massa strutted and shouted, even tearing off his dress shirt at one point to reveal some clever (he thought) t-shirt. Though I had no idea he’d turn out to be so wacky, it was readily apparent to me that he was hiding behind all the noise he made. On the other hand, Sestak spoke slowly and carefully, but it was evidently from the heart and deeply personal. The authority and passion of his presentation made it clear how such a soft-spoken man could have inspired sailors in a combat zone.
I made small contributions as well to Sestak’s 2008 re-election campaign and to his Senate campaign in 2010. In that one, he edged Republican Democratic incumbent Arlen Specter in the primary but lost narrowly to Club For Growth teahadist Pat Toomey in November.
As a longtime backer, I wasn’t particularly surprised when I received an email from Sestak a couple of weeks ago. After all, I get messages daily, from dozens and dozens of candidates, legislators, and interest groups. The content, however, was completely unexpected. Noting that he’d soon be here in Seattle (though he didn’t mention the reason for the visit), he invited me and his other Washington supporters to join him for coffee on Saturday so that he could thank us for our help. That was all … just to thank us, just to meet us. No request for a check or Paypal or credit card, not even to “retire his campaign debt”. There was no “ask” of any sort.
To say this action was unusual is a vast understatement. I don’t recall anything remotely like it in my years of political activities. Politicians don’t go out of their way to thank (or even notice) small donors like me. Hell, they don’t take a step from morning to night without pleading for cash. Yet here’s Joe Sestak, 3000 miles from home, who wants to spend an hour or so doing precisely the opposite.
Not to suggest a deeper meaning, I’m macabrely amused by the keynoter choices of the WA Dems and WA GOP at their big fundraisers. On Tuesday, the WSRP’s Fall Dinner featured political trickster/Plame unmasker/US Attorney firer/Dubya inventor/secret superPAC creator Karl Rove. The guy whose friend Dubya calls him Turd Blossom. The guy who, through his shadowy American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS organizations, funneled nearly $5,000,000 into last year’s Murray-Rossi race.
Make of the Sestak vs. Rove comparison what you will. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to shooting the shit with Joe on Saturday.
Robert Mac hosts a debate between incumbent King County Council member Jane Hague and her challenger Richard Mitchell:
Publicola has a brief recap but, man, it’s worth watching the whole thing.
Who do you think does better, and why?
TPM reports that some dumb-ass Florida state Rep. wants to eliminate lethal injection as a method to kill death row inmates…and replace it with execution by firing squad.
Drake said…his bill is a response to debate over the effectiveness of the cocktail of drugs currently used for lethal injections. “So, I say let’s end the debate,” he said. “We still have Old Sparky. And if that doesn’t suit the criminal, then we will provide them a .45 caliber lead cocktail instead.”
Some states, like Florida, still allow death row inmates to choose between electrocution and lethal injection. Drake’s bill would replace the lethal injection option with a firing squad.
Hmmm…if lethal injection is controversial because it may, potentially, be ineffective, how could a bullet to the head (or heart) be any less controversial from the perspective of effectiveness? There are numerous recorded cases of individuals surviving a firing squad, and in some cases, going on to recover from their injuries.
Man…those Floridians sound like a bunch of fucking barbarians to even think about such a method!
Oh wait….
At 12:17 a.m. Friday, convicted killer Ronnie Lee Gardner was pronounced dead after a Utah firing squad fired a volley of bullets into the murderer’s chest, where a target was pinned over his heart. It was the first execution by firing squad in the United States in 14 years.
That was in June of 2010!
I think Jon Huntsman would see an immediate rise in his poll numbers by pointing out that he was Governor of the state until about a year before this execution. Oh…and that, as Governor, he would have personally joined the firing squad.
Man…I’m glad I don’t live in one of those barbaric states like Florida or Utah. I mean, we don’t do shit like firing squads, do we?
Washington utilizes two methods of execution: lethal injection and hanging. Lethal injection is used unless the inmate under sentence of death chooses hanging as the preferred execution method.
Oh.
Well…if it’s good enough for Iran, Iraq and the KKK, I guess it’s good enough for us.
At least we’re pro-choice barbarians! I mean how often was the KKK all like, “Hey Boy, y’all prefer to be lynched by hangin’, by firing squad, or by gettin’ dragged behind a pick-up truck?”
Yes…we’re definitely superior.
Pap: No-tax, no-regulation Tea Partiers are killing America.
Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.
Young Turks: Turning your dead relatives into bullets.
Obama: The American Jobs Act.
The Republican Primary Asylum:
Thom: Eric Cantor…no jobs bill, no safety net, no regulations…no! no! no!.
Young Turks: Did Senator Reid screw Senate Dems?
White House: West Wing Week.
Pap: The GOP’s cult mentality.
Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber on the American Jobs Act.
Stephen: Obamacare and the Supremes.
Fleeced Palinistas:
Young Turks: FAUX News—we hire hot women for ratings.
Taxes on the wealthy: Reagan and Obama (via ThinkProgress).
Pap: Chris Christie’s Koch addiction.
Thom: Proof the Heritage Foundation flip flopped on ObamaCare:
GOP supporters take honors as Worst Person in the World.
Young Turks: Meghan McCain vs. Red State.
The Demise of al Qaeda Operative Anwar al-Awlaki:
Newsy: DNA clears Texas killer after 25 years in prison.
Thom with some Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.
Hartmann: The Romney Rule vs. Buffet Rule.
Glenn Beck is back in the saddle as Worst Person in the World.
Occupied:
The Tea Party’s not-so-funny comedian.
Young Turks: Scott Brown gets a bit sexist.
Pap: The GOP’s plan to raise taxes on the middle class.
Thom with another episode of The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.
Liberal Viewer: What does our jails say about us?
Rep. Wasserman Schultz talks about Eric Cantor’s comments on the American Jobs Act .
Hank and Hitler:
Obama hosts the 1985 Chicago Bears.
Young Turks: Koch Brother’s benzene emissions.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
From earlier this year:
A botched gun-trafficking investigation that allowed suspected criminals to purchase roughly 2,000 firearms — many which later crossed the border into Mexico — came under renewed criticism on Tuesday as federal officials responsible for implementing and overseeing the operation testified before Congress.
The hearing came just hours after the release of a joint House and Senate report providing new details on the investigation, code-named “Operation Fast and Furious.” According to the report, at least 122 guns tied to the operation have been found by Mexican authorities at crime scenes or were recovered during police action against drug cartels.
The operation was “a perfect storm of idiocy,” Carlos Canino, a senior ATF agent in Mexico, said in the report. Other current and former ATF agents testified at the hearing that the operation violated basic agency protocols.
The “Fast and Furious” operation first ignited controversy in March after whistleblowers within the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms revealed to the media and members of Congress that a gun tied to the program had been found last December among a cache of weapons at the murder scene of a Border Patrol agent.
From yesterday:
Firearms dealers in states that allow medical marijuana can’t sell guns or ammunition to registered users of the drug, a policy that marijuana and gun-rights groups say denies Second Amendment rights to individuals who are following state law.
Federal law already makes it illegal for someone to possess a gun if he or she is “an unlawful user of, or addicted to” marijuana or other controlled substances. A Sept. 21 letter from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, issued in response to numerous inquiries from gun dealers, clarifies that medical marijuana patients are included in that definition.
So let me get this straight. Gun sales to people who are widely expected to use those guns to kill people are ok (as long as the ATF thinks that there’s a chance that it could help them bring down Mexico’s drug trafficking organizations), but gun sales to people who have permission from their doctor to use a medicinal plant that makes you more passive are not.
Every time I think members of our government have managed to do the dumbest thing possible, they always top it.
More and more Seattle folks are biking to work. From Seattle Bike Blog:
Seattle rose to the number two spot among major US cities in terms of the number of people commuting to work by bike in 2010. The percentage of people using a bicycle as their primary mode of getting to work in Seattle increased 22 percent between 2009 and 2010, according to the annual American Communities Survey conducted by the US Census.
This data confirms the city’s 2010 downtown bike commute count, which measured an increase of 21.4 percent in the same time period.
Between 2005 and 2010, the percentage of people commuting by bike in Seattle increased 57 percent. Between 2000 and 2010, it increased 93 percent.
On top of what it says about the infrastructure improvements in the last decade or so, I think there is a cultural aspect that gets lost in the war on cars nonsense. And that’s that most Seattle drivers are perfectly willing to share the road with bikes.
Yes, there are asshole drivers. Yes, the recent spate of bicyclist deaths has been tragic. Yes, several media outlets have invested themselves in a story of a clash between driving and riding a bike. Yes, I’ve read the comment threads whenever there’s a bike story in the paper. But for the most part, drivers are willing to give you a bit of room and to slow down if they can’t. Speaking personally, I’ve had pleasant chats with people in cars with the windows down who just started talking to me when we were both stuck at red lights. Probably more than people yelling at me or honking their horns.
And while I don’t have any hard data, lots of Seattle drivers also ride bikes. There’s certanily some self interest for me when I’m driving and I see a bike. On top of wanting to make sure not to hit the person, I also feel that I’d better give room and slow down, etc. to put kindness to bicyclists out into the world.
Yee Haw! The first ever “Tea Party Presidential Debate” is starting on CNN, staring Wolf Blitzer!?!
So break out your pitchforks and anti-Obama Nazi-inspired signs and cheer along to the crazy!
5:05 (PDT): I may add some comments as the debate progresses. But, really, is there any point? My hunch is that the sheer crazy will be stand-alone entertaining.
5:11: Did Newt Gingrich REALLY just suggest that the teabagger battle against the government is really like the War on Terror?!? So…Newt believes the U.S. government is like al Qaeda?
5:14: Perry says that nobody has the “courage to fix [Social Security].” I think a former Texas Governor might disagree with that. Of course, Americans rejected that attempt.
5:16: Mitt’s decided he’ll take over asking questions for the debate.
5:18: Ron Paul claims that Social Security IS broke. I guess it depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.
5:21: Newt Gingrich favors scaring the American people because “Obama frightens them every day.” In other words, “Obama is a scary black man.”
5:23: Rick Santorum, “I came out in 1994….”
PROMOTED COMMENT Via Michael: Huntsman goes for the non-existent righty grunge vote with a Curt Cobain reference! [Darryl: Yeah…that was really awkward.]
5:37: Rick Perry just claimed the stimulus created ZERO jobs!?! That is provably false.
5:39: Bachmann, “I said, ‘Don’t raise the debt ceiling….Don’t give the President a $2.5T blank check.” Somebody should point out to Michele that there was no blank check…the $2.5T was already spent.
5:41: Mittster recycles his pay-phone/cell phone quarter-jamming line.
5:43: Mitt sure knows a lot about Texas Economics. Mitt on Perry’s job growth record, “If your dealt 4 aces, it doesn’t necessary make you a great poker player.” Yeah…like Mitt hasn’t been dealt 4 aces in his life….
5:45: Perry wants to kick all the trial lawyers out. He might need to pass a constitutional amendment first….
5:46: Perry has a strong record of cutting taxes in Texas. Sure…and then filling in the missing revenue from Obama’s stimulus funds.
5:54: Wolf Blitzer misquotes Perry. Perry did not suggest Bernanke be “tried for treason” he suggested that “printing more money” would be treasonous. Sheesh!
6:03: Mitt briefly turned liberal, as he criticizes the “fair tax” for being too regressive.
6:06: Man…Bachmann sure goes off the deep end on HPV vaccine discussion.
6:09: Rick Perry is insulted by the suggestion he can be bribed for $5000. Right…it takes a hell of a lot more money than that!
6:18: Ron Paul: The churches will pay for the heath care costs of the uninsured!
6:28: Santorum and Newt are having a love fest between them this debate.
6:30: Wow…Perry may have just lost the entire bunch of teabaggers with his affirmation in support for out-of-state tuition for undocumented residents.
6:32: Huntsman says Perry’s statement on securing the border is treasonous. What the fuck debate is he listening to? I’m not judging the merits of Perry’s statement, but it sure the hell didn’t approach treason!
6:34: Huntsman is babbling nearly as badly as Bachmann tonight. Is he fucking stoned?!?
6:43: Huntsman: More American “shine” will liberate the oppressed women of Afghanistan.
6:49: The “what would you bring to the White House” question was a complete waste of time. Wait…the whole debate doesn’t really qualify as a great use of time. About as “valuable” as watching a typical sitcom.
Conclusion:
I used to think that Huntsman was the least crazy of the bunch. Now I think he has a drug problem.
Perry worked very hard to come off as a moderate. I guess his days as a shit-kickin’ Texan are over. Huh…that strategy seems vaguely familiar….
Mitt began the debate all worked up and then quickly faded to just another right-wing talking point machine.
Michele…Oh, those eyes and their crazy hypnotic spinning!
Newt still demands he be called, “Mr. Speaker.”
Herman Cain…slogan city. And he closes the debate by, essentially, saying that Americans are lacking in humor.
Santorum…eeewwwww, YUCK!
Paul…the same unelectable, semi-babbling person who isn’t afraid to call it like he sees it.
One of the things that doesn’t get discussed enough in politics is the fact that we don’t know what the future will hold. I think we all know this in the general sense, but we tend to discount it when discussing policy making.
It struck me recently after the debt crisis. We were told the debt ceiling would have to be raised to avoid downgrading US debt and keep the stock market from going crazy. Well, the debt ceiling was raised and the debt was downgraded (by one agency) and the market went crazy. There were also all sorts of possibilities before the vote about what might happen if we had defaulted from it wouldn’t be so bad to it would have been horrible.
So who was right and who was wrong? Well, we know what happened after we passed the debt ceiling, obviously. But we don’t know what would have happened if a better deal had been reached or if we’d defaulted. We can make educated guesses, but in an unprecedented situation like a default, it’s only a guess.
And the same holds true in international affairs. At the start of the Libya conflict, Lee wrote about the potential humanitarian catastrophe there, and “the possibility of a massacre that could’ve taken 100,000 lives” had we done nothing. Not to put any faith in Gaddafi, and certainly not to dismiss the possibility, but we don’t know if it would have been 100,000 or far fewer people. And while the war is hopefully reaching its end now, it was tough to know how it would end a few months ago. We also won’t know for some time how the administration’s arguments about the War Powers Act will be used by the next president.
The point here isn’t that we can’t make decisions or move forward. Of course we can. I just wish we’d acknowledge some uncertainty at the start.
It’s an election night! This time it’s in Washington (but Wisconsin, too). So get that ballot postmarked by today or take it to a drop box. Then, please join us for another evening of election-watching under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally.
We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but a few folks will show up before then for dinner.
Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Drinking Liberally Tacoma meets this Thursday, 7:00pm at the Hub Restaurant. The Shelton Drinking Liberally meets next Monday 6:30pm at the Grove Street Brewhouse. And the Everett chapter of Drinking Liberally meets at the Buzz Inn in Snohomish next Monday at 7:00 pm. There are 234 chapters of Living Liberally, including thirteen in Washington state and six more in Oregon.
It’s an election night!
Not so much in Washington. But it is in Wisconsin, where a series of recall elections are taking place against six Republican incumbent state Senators. The latest polls suggest that two, and maybe three, Democrats will win. But the elections are unprecedented in the modern era of polling, so anything could happen.
Please join us tonight for an evening of election-watching under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but a few folks will show up before then for dinner and early election returns.
Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? There are 233 chapters of Living Liberally, including thirteen in Washington state and six more in Oregon. Here are some other meetings over the next week:
If none of these works for you, consider starting a new chapter that does.
When Bill Clinton left office in 2000, he left us with a roadmap to paying off the U.S. debt by 2009.
George W. Bush came into office and he decided to defer on paying off the debt. He proposed and got huge tax breaks. And we fell back into deficit spending.
Not only that, but Republicans went on an unprecedented spending spree. They started a couple of costly wars without doing the responsible thing and take in new revenues to cover the costs. They massively increased military spending. They passed an unfunded health care reform (the Medicare prescription drug benefit). Essentially, under Bush, Republicans spent like a pack of meth addicts with a pile of stolen credit cards.
By 2008, the Republicans had failed to follow Clinton’s roadmap toward a debt-free U.S. In fact they had added $4 trillion to the national debt. And the economy tanked.
Whether you believe the economic collapse was completely Bushes fault or not, the inability to implement a proper economic recovery was the fault of Republican policies during the Bush years. The $10 trillion debt that George Bush left us with placed severe constraints on, and even foreclosed upon, many possibilities for using our credit for a bold recovery effort.
Under Obama, the Republicans have done almost nothing beneficial for American. Their sole goal has been to obstruct Obama, even when their actions are terrible for America. Most recently, they held us all hostage, taking us to the brink of a debt default.
Republicans, through their recklessness, have failed to be good stewards of our country. They have placed Republican political gain ahead of America.
Today S&P cut the long-term U.S. credit rating by one notch from AAA to AA-plus. S&P cited a lack of faith in the political process as part of their downgrade decision.
Nice job Republicans! You fucked up the debt repayment, you spent us into the ground, you trashed the economy, and now you’ve fucked up the credit rating of the U.S.
al Qaeda must be proud of you!
So…why is it that Republicans are not considered enemies of the United States?
King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg writes about the recent tragic death of Google engineer Steve Lacey:
Steve Lacey was on his way to Costco on Sunday afternoon, July 24, and was sitting in traffic, waiting for a light to change when his life ended. A minute before he was tragically killed, a 52-year old driver, Patrick Rexroat, was allegedly speeding southbound on I-405, carrying three and a half times the legal limit of alcohol in his bloodstream, and chasing a car that he thought had cut him off in traffic. While in hot and drunk pursuit of the other driver, Rexroat failed to negotiate the turn he attempted at high speed and slammed into the driver’s side door of Steve Lacey’s car, killing him instantly.
Witnesses report that the 52-year old Rexroat got out of his car and pounded his chest in a defiant gesture. When he was told that he had killed another person he shrugged his shoulders and started to walk away.
…
What sort of justice awaits the victim’s family, the community and the defendant in this case? The answer is as infuriating as the crime. Under Washington State sentencing guidelines, the killer of Steve Lacey faces no more than 41 months in prison, minus one-third of the sentence that will almost certainly be reduced for good behavior. That means that vehicular homicide offenders actually are removed from our streets for less than 2 and half years.
Want to be even more infuriated? Compare that to this:
The owners of two medical marijuana dispensaries in Spokane have been indicted by a federal grand jury.
Charles Wesley Wright and Jon Richard Vivian, owners of the THC Pharmacy on South Perry Street, and Jerry Wayne Laberdee and Dennis Lewis Whited, owners of Medical Herb Providers, face time in federal prison under multi-count indictments filed today in U.S. District Court.
…
Wright and Vivian face [up to 20 years] if found guilty of maintaining a drug-involved premise near a school. THC Pharmacy was located at 1108 S. Perry St. – which is less than 1,000 feet from Grant Elementary School.
Wright and Vivian are also charged with distribution of marijuana near a school, possession with intent to distribute marijuana near a school, manufacture of marijuana near a school. Each charge carries not less than a year and no more than 10 years.
As with anyone, I’m in favor of having zoning laws that keep dispensaries away from schools, but just to provide clarification on the seriousness of that offense, here’s a map of the neighborhood:
Of the five Spokane defendants, Wright is the only one I’ve communicated with so far. He sent me a rather desperate email yesterday about his situation. He’s in the process of selling all his possessions in order to defend himself (his dispensary was only open for a very short period of time and it never actually made any money). Unlike the caricature that law enforcement likes to present, these folks weren’t high rollers raking in the dough. They’re generally patients themselves who had the resources and entrepreneurial drive to provide for the growing numbers of authorized medical marijuana patients in the Spokane area who couldn’t provide for themselves.
Comparing that to the circumstances and likely sentence of the man who murdered Steve Lacey is enough to make one ill. Long after Patrick Rexroat has served his time and is once again a free man, Charles Wright will almost certainly remain behind bars, never seeing his two kids (who are now 10 and 12) grow up. You may not agree with Wright’s choices, or his defiance after being told to close up shop, but you lack a soul if you find any of this to be acceptable for a civilized society. And that comment is directed most pointedly at Eastern Washington U.S. Attorney Michael Ormsby and his office.
Next Tuesday, August 9, 1:30pm at the federal courthouse in Spokane is Wright arraignment. There are some preliminary plans for protests both here in Seattle and in Spokane. If anyone would like to participate, please feel free to email myself or contact the CDC.
Something on your mind these days? We’ll be raising the ceiling tonight at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally. Stop by…you know you need to talk about it.
There are unsubstantiated rumors that one or two Seattle City Council challengers will be dropping by, as well.
So please joins us for drinks, conversation and politics under the influence. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00 pm, but a few folks show up earlier for dinner.
Can’t make it tonight? Drinking Liberally Tacoma meets this Thursday at the Hub Restaurant. Starting time is 7:00pm. And with 231 chapters of Living Liberally, including seven in Washington state and seven more in Oregon, chances are excellent there is a chapter near you.
If there was any redeeming moment, any bright spot in this ugly terrorist/hostage situation that has unfolded in Washington D.C. over the past couple of months, this was it:
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!