King County Democrats

We're Moving

2005-01-14T19:12:00.000-08:00

This blog is being incorporated into the main King County Democrats' site, which has moved.

The new King County Democrats' website is here for now.

Redistricting

2005-01-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

A Kos diarist gives their take on the King County redistricting proposal in what's probably approaching the final form.

Social Security

2005-01-05T23:11:00.000-08:00

Digby explains the motive for the Republican plan to kill Social Security:

...Their motive for destroying social security is that it puts the lie to their contention that government can't be trusted to do any positive social good. They are wrong and social security proves it. That's why they must create the lie that it won't work even while it's clearly working. As the quotes above prove, they've been crying wolf for decades and yet the program continues to provide millions of old and disabled people a bare minimum of income when they are past their working years and it will continue to be funded, fairly painlessly, for at least another forty years. It's very existence is a slap in the face to the Republican philosophy. That's why they must destroy it. ...

That's the why, and the post talks about the recently leaked Republican memo that outlines their plan to axe our social safety net. Write your representatives in the House and Senate and ask them to fight this.

Army Reserve

2005-01-05T22:38:00.000-08:00

The story sort of speaks for itself:

The head of the Army Reserve has sent a sharply worded memo to other military leaders expressing "deepening concern" about the continued readiness of his troops, who have been used heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan, and warning that his branch of 200,000 soldiers "is rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force."

...His pointed remarks represent the latest in a chorus of warnings from military officers and civilian defense specialists that the strains of overseas missions are badly fraying the U.S. Army. The distress has appeared most evident in reservist ranks. Both the Army Reserve and the National Guard last month disclosed significant recruiting slumps.

...Designed to fill key support roles during wartime, the Army Reserve has been heavily taxed by the demands of Iraq and Afghanistan. About 50,000 Reserve members are now on active duty, the majority of them in the United States freeing up other forces for overseas assignments. But many Reserve troops are abroad -- 17,000 total in Iraq and Kuwait, 2,000 in Afghanistan -- serving as military police, truck drivers, engineers, medics and civil affairs specialists.

...Highlighting the dwindling number of Reserve troops available for future deployments, Helmly included computations showing that only 37,515 remain out of 200,366 soldiers in the Army Reserve.

Go read the whole thing, it's disturbing.

Recount Review

2005-01-05T09:53:00.000-08:00

David Neiwert of Orcinus is back from holiday break with a detailed review of the governor's race. Partial excerpt:

...Let's be clear: At every step of the process, the Democrats followed the letter of Washington law. The state's election statutes are very clear that there are three potential counts of the vote: If, after the general-election tally, a race remains within 1 percent of the total vote, a machine recount occurs automatically. If, after that count, one of the candidates requests it, a manual recount of all ballots occurs. The candidate, however, has to put up a deposit for the costs of the recount, which is reimbursed if the challenge is successful.

Those are the rules. And the most important one is this: Whoever comes out ahead in the final, manual tally is the winner. Period.

And, indeed, Gregoire promised to accept the outcome of the manual recount, even if Rossi won by only a single vote. Rossi, however, refused to match her pledge. That, of course, was the giveaway to what followed.

...Washington Republicans pretty early on resurrected the phony memes of the Florida debacle, particularly those that favored maintaining the original vote outcome giving Rossi the slender victory. This included the outrageous claim that machine recounts are "more accurate" than hand recounts, which turns all established precedents regarding vote counts on its head.

The anti-democratic nature of the party, though, really came to the surface when election officials in King County -- home to more than a third of the state's entire votes -- announced the discovery of several hundred ballots that had been improperly disallowed in the first count.

Now, this is the kind of clear mistake that manual recounts are intended to correct, and ordinarily it would be considered uncontroversial for them to be included in the recounts. Indeed, similar mistakes were uncovered in other counties and the votes, logically, counted.

But King County was one of the few places where the votes trended Gregoire's way, so Republicans -- playing the same kind of cherry-picking tactics they had earlier accused Democrats of using -- decided to contest the counting of those ballots in that county only, by filing a suit to prevent it. So much for having faith in the voters, not lawyers.

What was especially noteworthy was that all of the discoveries of mistakes in King County were mistakes that heavily favored Rossi. That is, what they actually signalled was the possibility that Republican operatives within the elections office had made "mistakes" that gave Rossi an illegitimate win and let him claim an initial victory. But using the reverse offense tactics that became famous in Florida, Republicans took to the airwaves charging that the discovery of these mistakes could only be explained by fraud or incompetence on the part of Democrats. ...

The post continues on to explain the so-called 'phantom votes' which the Republicans haven't even looked for in counties that favored Rossi.

News for the New Year

2005-01-04T09:13:00.000-08:00

Hi there! Hope your holidays were all festive and that you got to enjoy the clear weather we've had for most of the last couple weeks. But getting back to our regular routine, here are some top stories from the Seattle Times & PI.

Four plans have been proposed for the voter approved shrinkage of the King County Council. There's still time to attend one of the two remaining redistricting meetings.

Rossi's team gets fresh hope over what they claim are glaring inconsistencies, though county level election workers disagree.

'Temporary' King County taxes designed to pay for upgrading Seattle's sporting facilities could be made permanent if the professional sport franchises get their way.

Controversy is rising over the Alberto Gonzalez torture memo, wherein the current nominee for US Attorney General attempted to legally justify torture. The memo is part of the chain of evidence linking the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay directly back to the White House.

The founder of VoteHere, an election auditing company, writes an editorial on vote security.

IAEA finds evidence of a nuclear research program in Egypt.

Walmart's unhealthy relationship with its workers and community.

The year ahead for Microsoft.

Please Help Tsunami Victims

2004-12-30T17:07:00.000-08:00

I don't expect many people to be reading this page, considering the previously announced hiatus until the new year, but if you are...

Here's a list of aid funds for tsunami victims (including Doctors Without Borders), here are a few more, and here's Amazon's one-click donation form for the Red Cross emergency appeal.

This is a time for Americans to prove their generosity when other countries are in need, when over 100,000 people have been suddenly killed, and many more are in danger from a lack of food or sanitation. This is a time to say thank you for the outpouring of kindness and sympathy extended to us after 9/11.

Please donate today, please help.

130 Votes

2004-12-23T21:03:00.000-08:00

Well, my Christmas will be just a touch merrier now.

Seattle for Dean has the links. The P-I runs a retrospective on recount rhetoric, thought you'd enjoy these:

"We're going to make sure, in this recount, every single vote counts."

-Democrat Christine Gregoire, Nov. 17.

"We're going to be going across the state demanding they make every vote count."

-Rossi spokeswoman Mary Lane, Dec. 23

What a difference a month makes. Anyway, don't ever let anyone tell you that a single vote doesn't matter. We need to scrounge for every last vote, every single race.

Anyway, unless some major and unexpected event completely changes things, I'll see you in January.

Happy Holidays

2004-12-23T14:16:00.000-08:00

Just in case you weren't hanging on the outcome of the governor's race to enjoy the season with your loved ones, the King County Democrats' blog would like to wish you and yours the merriest of holidays and a happy new year.

As soon as the outcome is clear, I'll be making my last post for the year in congratulations or condolences, and return sometime around January 2nd. Can't believe it's almost 2005. Where does the time go?

Anyway, spread goodwill, drive safe, be of good cheer, and don't do anything you wouldn't want to do twice. Trust me on that last bit ;)

Facing The Future

2004-12-23T13:53:00.000-08:00

Republicans are flipping out after yesterday's court verdict and the likelihood that Gregoire didn't need it to win. That said, the election still hasn't been certified, and it will almost certainly face more court challenges from the Rossi camp. You know, the people who trust the voters more than the lawyers, or so they said when they were on top.

At any rate, whoever wins the governorship, they're going to have to deal with this. I'm not sure how, but my name wasn't on the ballot in November, and aren't we all lucky for that:

...A national report released yesterday, called "Out of Reach 2004," states that a full-time worker in King County must earn $16.04 an hour -- more than twice the state minimum wage of $7.16 -- in order to rent a modest two-bedroom apartment.

This "housing wage" is the amount a person working full-time must earn to afford the fair-market rent on a two-bedroom unit without paying more than 30 percent of his or her income in rent.

Minimum-wage workers in the county must work 90 hours per week to afford a two-bedroom unit, the report says, while statewide, minimum-wage earners are shut out of fair-market rent for even a one-bedroom unit. ...

Rising housing costs, particularly in the greater Puget Sound area, combined with low-paying jobs have forced many workers to pay half or more of their income to afford a roof over their heads, local and national housing experts said. Ideally, workers should not have to pay more than 30 percent of their income for rent, leaving money left over for health care, food, child care, transportation, savings and other living or emergency expenses, experts say.

Yet in Washington, the report says, a minimum-wage worker must work 80 hours per week to afford a two-bedroom unit at the fair-market rent. ...

...Bill Apgar, senior scholar at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, said while there "remains a broadly held perception that folks who can't afford rent are somehow deadbeats," the report is a stark reminder "that you can work full time and have a reasonable income and not even come close to an adequate home." ...

A Daily Kos diarist dealt with the same issue the other day. Though they were talking specifically about the cost of living in other states, the story is a familiar one all across the country:

...I am mainly looking at things over the last three decades (I was born in 1973). As an example, just before I was born, my father had gotten his masters degree in electrical engineering from Penn State University (a good school). He then moved to California and secured a job with a large firm out there with a starting salary of $18,000. In that same year he bought a house in Lomita, California for $30,000 and a used Porsche 911 Carrera (1 year old) for $6,000. In other words, for his one year worth of labor (ignoring taxes for the moment) he was able to purchase 60% of a house in a nice neighborhood in California or 3 Porsche 911's. Fast forward to today, and I have a friend that graduated with a master's degree in engineering from Princeton University (an even better school) in 2002. He was getting offers for starting salaries for around $60,000 or 3.3 x what my dad started out at. Here is a link showing starting salaries for electrical engineers in Los Angeles, CA. from monster.com...

As you can see, it is right around the $60,000 mark. However, based on today's prices, the SAME house in Lomita, CA. is selling for over $400,000 (and the neighborhood has declined) and a used Porsche 911 sells for around $60,000 (the lowest price I could find on autotrader.com for a 3 year old 911 was 56,000). So while salaries for the same professional job have risen by 3.3x, prices for comparable homes and cars in the same area have risen by factors of 13x and 10x, respectively. This means that for the same year of labor that my father had to give up, my friend could only purchase 15% of the same house (in a declining neighborhood) or only 1 Porsche 911 (as opposed to 3). Similar ratios apply to non-luxury cars as well. You could buy a new car from GM or Ford in 1973 for a couple thousand dollars and today you are lucky if you can find a new GM or Ford for under $20,000. The biggest family expenditures are housing, transportation, education and healthcare and all of the big four have been compounding at higher rates than the general level of wages for decades. In the case of education and healthcare, the rate of increase has actually been ACCELERATING over the last four or five years with no end in sight.

Another way to look at wages is to look at the minimum wage. The national minimum wage in 1973 was $1.90 and today in 2004 it is $5.15. That is an increase of 2.7 x over the last 31 years. ...

But the national average median sales price for an existing single family home in 1973 was $28,900 and the national average median price as of the third quarter of 2002 was $218,000. So while minimum wage levels have increased by a factor of 2.7x, the average median home price has grown by a factor of 7.5 x OVER THE SAME TIME PERIOD. ...

Here is another story. My grandparents bought their home in 1955 in a nice neighborhood in a Philadelphia suburb for $14,000. The home was brand new construction. My grandfather was a bus driver his entire life and retired with a pension. My grandmother did not work full time, but did work as a cashier a few hours a week for some extra spending money. They did not live large, but they had enough (on a bus drivers salary) to pay off their home comfortably within ten years (not thirty), take month long summer vacations most years, raise two kids and put their kids through college AND STILL SAVE REGULARLY. Fast forward to today, and they have recently sold their home for $290,000 despite the fact that: (1) the house is now 50 years old, (2) the neighborhood has declined, and (3) they have not made any additions or major renovations since they bought it other than to enclose a small back porch. Based on that price, a bus driver today could not even afford to LOOK at the house, much less pay it off comfortably in ten years!! So my grandfather was a bus driver and it bought him a certain quality of life that today's bus drivers cannot have. I am not begrudging him, just pointing out the reality of the situation.

So we have wage factors for the average family growing at rate X and cost factors (for the major expenditures) growing at multiples of X. This has been happening over decades and it is analogous to putting a frog in a pot of water and slowly turning up the heat. If you picture a V turned on its side, that is what the chart looks like as there is an ever widening gap between wages and costs. The American family has responded to this growing gap by eliminating savings, taking on more debt to support consumption and swelling the ranks of two income households. The housing bubble has pushed the day of reckoning forward as home equity has been tapped to support consumption / pay bills over the last few years like never before.

Where is all this leading?

Well, if the now established trend lines continue, with costs compounding a couple of percentage points faster than wages for another 20 or 30 years, then something has to give. The average family has gone from living comfortably on one blue collar wage to just getting by with two non-blue collar wages. There is no more room to run. ...

We have troubling issues to face as a nation, but with the current administration in power, the states are going to be very much on their own. I hope our next governor is up to the task of working on these issues with us, because no matter who it is, there will be no free pass on coming up with creative solutions to these problems.

Inauguration day is January 12th. January 13th, we start holding feet to the fire, metaphorically speaking. We'll give the poor blighter a few years before we come with the pitchforks ;)

Recount Process - Almost, But Not Quite Over

2004-12-23T01:38:00.000-08:00

Danny Westneat, a Seattle Times columnist signed up to work for a day as a ballot counter, and he found the process to be both scrupulous and exacting. He also found human vote counting to be far superior, easily spotting intent in cases where an optical scanner might be confused.

The Kos diary of Switzerblog reported similar experiences, and quashes an urban legend that escaped into the wild about a vote for Christine Rossi (thanks to a commenter for pointing this diary out). But after some time spent in the recount process, the Switzerati wants to end electronic voting, unless the vote machines are used to more precisely print out voter choices so that intent is clear.

But Seattle Times editorialist Joni Balter uses the recount to point out the divide in our state between King County and everywhere else. She notes correctly that the harsh and heated rhetoric over the recount only makes things worse, even though other county auditors would (and in some cases did) generally handle a recount just as King County is doing now. But she brings up some broader issues about the Seattle area's relationship with the rest of the state that should be addressed.

I'll give the last word to Christine Gregoire, who correctly speaks from an understanding that nobody really knows what's in those sealed ballot envelopes, except the final word on the will of our state's voters:

..."It is too early to declare victory," she said. "I hope tomorrow night we'll have the next governor of the great state of Washington."

Gregoire did not urge Rossi to concede. "I leave the decision about conceding to Mr. Rossi," she said. "I've been called on many times to concede. I've said when the manual recount is done, I will stand by the results." ...

Good News

2004-12-22T13:58:00.000-08:00

Unconfirmed reports have Gregoire leading Rossi by 8 votes, even without adding the disputed King County ballots that the state Supreme Court has said can be counted.

Secretary's Office on the Recount

2004-12-20T14:45:00.000-08:00

Just talked with a communications staffer in Secretary of State Sam Reed's office regarding the contentious recount appeal currently on the docket of the State Supreme court.

She said that the Secretary of State's current position under CW 29A60210 was "basically requesting that the Supreme Court make it clear that canvassing boards have discretion to correct errors or fix discrepancies in the count." Speaking for the SoS, she said it was their belief that "there is a safety valve", and that a previous Supreme Court ruling didn't say the ballots now in question shouldn't be counted.

To distinguish this motion to clarify from other battles fought over the recount, she said that in the previous State Supreme Court case the Democrats had insisted that all rejected ballots be recanvassed. This case, however, regards only correcting errors or inconsistencies in canvassing.

Fighting For Social Security

2004-12-20T13:29:00.000-08:00

The Alliance for Retired Americans thinks that Florida Congressman Allen Boyd's endorsement of social security privatization is wildly irresponsible. I'd agree with that assessment, but how to back it up?

Social Security isn't the most interesting topic to anyone who isn't on it (amazing how much more fascinating it becomes when people retire), but Americans have grown up for a long time now to expect it to be there for them when the day comes. I remember the first time I got a Social Security statement outlining my expected benefits at some point in the distant future based on my payroll taxes to date. I thought, 'cool, I've got a pension.' A little bit extra to make sure my family would never end up footing the whole bill for my advanced old age, even if everything goes wrong between now and retirement. It was comforting.

That little bit of comfort, however, is about to be wiped away if the Republican leadership gets to add private accounts to the system. I also remember being glad after my California dotcom employer went belly-up that I'd put my savings in my savings account instead of following my friends onto one the ubiquitous e-trading services. Several of them ended up completely wiped out, most of them lost their proverbial shirts compared to their original investments, while I walked away with a savings account that saw me through a very lean couple of years. I attribute this not to savvy on my part, but to a healthy respect for my own ignorance.

I knew I didn't know enough about investing to get into the game, and at the time, I was too busy to spend enough time learning about it properly. In terms of outcome, I didn't end up wildly well off which I might have done if I were a very smart investor, but neither did I end up destitute which I might have done if I were the type of investor that the vast majority of people seem to be. For me, with my lack of stockmarket know-how, not being destitute is a reasonable outcome. Considering that the most likely outcome for retirees anywhere in the world without a social safety net is, in fact, destitution, the guarantee of a minimum standard that mostly keeps retirees warm, dry, and fed is a better outcome than the majority of people would be able to get on their own.

Or to sum up: Social Security is a tax we pay to keep our collective grandparents from starving in the streets.

But getting back to backing up support for Social Security, different arguments work better for different situations. I have the luxury of an easily persuadable audience here, but that isn't always the case when we go talk to people out in the Big Room. So to help me help you to make this argument, I yield the floor:

As to the importance of making our case, Digby explains how the parties developed their 'hard' and 'soft' images, and then outlines exactly how to fight for what you want when you're out of power. He then reminds us that people have been hearing that Republicans want to destroy Social Security for far longer than they've been hearing about any so-called crisis.

Nathan Newman explains that future wage increases would offset future benefit increases, particularly if they were accompanied by raising the $87K cutoff on the payroll tax. Speaking of which, remind people loudly and often that payroll tax only applies to income below that ceiling, while at the same time applying to incomes that fall below the minimum threshold for federal income tax.

Max Sawicky says that buying into the argument of permanent shortfall is a loser from the get go, why it doesn't make sense to borrow now to cover possible expenses 40 years from now, and how Clinton era congressional Democrats held the line against benefit cuts by leveraging Republicans' fear of standing for re-election against people who had opposed benefit cuts.

The DCCC blog seems to get it, pointing out an article on a stalwart longtime defender of Social Security, and that Democrats are starting to get with the message that there is no crisis. They also note that Democratic goodwill is running low for talks with the White House on Social security, but I have to wonder what exactly Bush has to do before elected Democrats realize that the goodwill in question is entirely unrequited?

Seeing the Forest on how sloppy journalism perpetuates the myth that Social Security is in crisis.

ThreeHegemons describes what privatizing their national pension plan did to Argentina. The NY Times' economist Paul Krugman elaborates further on where the money goes when you privatize, also going back to the Argentine example. From Krugman:

...Once you realize that privatization really means government borrowing to speculate on stocks, it doesn't sound too responsible, does it? But the details make it considerably worse.

First, financial markets would, correctly, treat the reality of huge deficits today as a much more important indicator of the government's fiscal health than the mere promise that government could save money by cutting benefits in the distant future.

After all, a government bond is a legally binding promise to pay, while a benefits formula that supposedly cuts costs 40 years from now is nothing more than a suggestion to future Congresses. Social Security rules aren't immutable: in the past, Congress has changed things like the retirement age and the tax treatment of benefits. If a privatization plan passed in 2005 called for steep benefit cuts in 2045, what are the odds that those cuts would really happen?

Second, a system of personal accounts, even though it would mainly be an indirect way for the government to speculate in the stock market, would pay huge brokerage fees. Of course, from Wall Street's point of view that's a benefit, not a cost. ...

Kevin Drum echoes Matt Yglesias in explaining how vitally important it is to make it clear that there is no Social Security crisis, something you probably didn't realize that you already know. President Bush, meanwhile, doesn't want to talk about it.

Matt's argument:

...I'm not sure the older liberals who run the show quite understand how overwhelmingly important it is to keep the "there is no crisis" message front and center in the Social Security debate. Most of the young people I know -- including myself until very recently -- have been taken in by a decades-long effort on behalf of privatizers into believing that Social Security is in "crisis," and that if we do nothing the system will "go bankrupt" before we retire, meaning that the system will somehow collapse and we won't get any benefits.

If you approach the issue from inside that frame, then no amount of cavailing about benefit cuts or "risky" stock market transactions is going to get you anywhere. A smaller benefits package and a stock portfolio that may or may not pay off looks like a really good deal compared to a bankrupt pension plan that gives you nothing. Once you understand that even if we do nothing whatsoever to fix Social Security and the Trustees' overly pessimistic predictions come true, the system will still have enough money to pay my generation more in real terms then current retirees get, everything looks different. Bush is offering us a guarantee of lower benefits and $2 trillion in debt to forestall the possibility that benefits will need to be lowered sometime in the 2040s. That's a terrible deal in a straightforward way. But only if you try and see the truth: There is no crisis. If you can't make people see that, everything else becomes pretty irrelevant.

Have you ever believed that Social Security was already in such a crisis that you'd never get anything from it anyway? I know I used to. Realizing that makes it easy to understand how important it is to counter this, though maybe you still need convincing that you aren't alone in having fallen prey to disinformation.

From the article above that the DCCC blog pointed to:

The result: Polls show that huge majorities of Americans lack confidence that Social Security will meet their needs in retirement. An often-cited 1994 survey found that more people between the ages of 18 and 34 believed in UFOs than believed Social Security would exist by the time they retired. ...

If you're feeling sufficiently motivated by now, contact Allen Boyd, and maybe explain to his staff why you wish he wouldn't go along with selling out our future retirement safety net. (D-FL) DC: (202) 225-5235, Tallahassee (850) 561-3979, Panama City: (850) 785-0812 (Thanks to Atrios for highlighting Boyd's role in whitewashing this.)

Recount Rally

2004-12-20T02:56:00.000-08:00

Several dozen demonstrators lined opposite corners in front of Dino Rossi’s Bellevue campaign headquarters Sunday. From a block away, the blue and yellow Rossi signs on one side clearly distinguished his supporters from the diverse and mostly handmade signs urging a full count that includes improperly set aside ballots in King County. I talked to several Rossi supporters, and then moved over to the other side to talk with recount supporters, including some of those whose ballots were in dispute.

At issue, primarily, are 573 absentee ballots which were turned in properly and whose authenticity is not generally in dispute. They were wrongfully set aside because though signatures were on file for the voters in question, those signatures were not in the county’s electronic file. The ballots in question are still sealed in their signed absentee voting envelopes. It wasn’t until King County Councilman Larry Phillips discovered his own name on the list of rejected ballots that the mistake was discovered.

On Rossi’s side, two of the five demonstrators I interviewed stated that Rossi had “won twice.” Another, Michael D. went one farther, saying that it “seems like Republicans have to win three times.” Of the disputed ballots, Michael said “that’s what happens… [it] occurs in every election.” A number of them brought up an issue of military ballots that were mailed back late and weren’t counted, suggesting that if those weren’t counted, these other ballots shouldn’t be counted either.

Rossi’s supporters were led in chants by several campaign volunteers wearing sweatshirts whose fronts said “Rossi Recount 2004” and whose backs said “Re-Git R Dun.” The sleeves were printed with the number “261,” the number of votes separating Rossi and Gregoire after the first count.

Rossi supporter Marilyn T. told me that “[she goes] by the law regarding voting,” explaining that the State Supreme Court had said it was a retabulation, and it was important to follow the law to avoid confusion. She said a vote was from a citizen who followed instructions and turned in their ballot at the proper time and place, while a “ballot is merely a form.” About the 573 ballots in question she said that the county was accountable for them, but they were “not included before the election was certified,” and that the late military ballots should be counted if they were included. She said the “court ruled there was not a statewide standard,” but that the canvassing boards set the standards.

Maria Webster said of the 573 ballots, “I don’t believe in them. …They are not legal right now. It’s a recount of the votes that have already been counted.”

Paul Morris of Kirkland came up to talk to me when he saw that I’d taken an interest in his sign, and brought it over to make it easier for me to see his message: “Dems – Vote Late – Vote Often” Explaining his sign, he said that “if the majority of those [ballots] that are found are Democrats, they must have voted late.” About the 573 ballots, he said that “every vote should have been counted before midnight on the 2nd,” and that it was the King County Election Board’s problem. He said that they didn’t do anything wrong, but that they should “go over to King County and raise the roof.” *

Morris went on to say of the recount supporters that “just like any liberal would, they think they’re forgiven for everything they do wrong.” He said that the “liberal left” of Seattle was asking for late ballots to be counted, and that “they’re counting dead people’s ballots.” He said the demonstrators were probably mostly from Seattle because people on the Eastside were more conservative.

I went looking for a recount supporter from Seattle, and was able to find one. Martha J. pointed out to me that there were “no Christine Gregoire signs on [the demonstrators’] side of the road.” She said she was “making a statement that there’s a principle here that’s more important than who gets to be governor… Democracy is more important than who gets elected at any given moment.” Pointing to a sign held by a young teenage girl in pink sweat pants, she said that if a police officer was present they might ask about the sign saying “Dead people don’t vote,” which “could very easily be interpreted as a threat.” She said the Rossi supporters “act like they’re still campaigning.”

Martha J. was standing right next to Heinz Hecht of Bellevue, whose sign read “Count every vote.” He said that according to the signs and chants, Dino Rossi won twice, but “last time I looked, the Secretary of State had yet to certify anything but a recount.” He said you couldn’t win anything until the election was certified. Of the people standing across the road, he said “apparently their candidate is more important than counting all the votes. I find that objectionable.”

Jack and Diane Oxford of Enumclaw were demonstrating because their ballots hadn’t been counted. Diane Oxford explained that this election was the first time they’d voted absentee, and that they had walked their ballots to the precinct they’ve voted at for around 20 years. Their son, who also voted absentee that day, had wanted to hand in his ballot in person so they all decided to go. His vote was counted, but theirs weren’t. She said their votes were questioned because there was no electronic record, even though they’d registered quite some time ago. She said that it “really doesn’t have anything to do with party lines, it has to do with the right to vote. At least for me.”

Eileen Dunihoo of Shoreline was there because her son, Daniel Mair, had one of the 573 uncounted ballots. She said that he’d voted absentee since at least 2000 with no previous problems from his current home in the Czech Republic. On the 15th of November, Dunihoo said a letter was received asking for signature confirmation that had to be back the next day. Then a week ago, the said the election officials said they never received the ballot, even though the family had seen Mair’s name in the online list. Dunihoo said that her son voted on time via registered mail.

Greg Ellis of Bellevue carried a sign that said “Count All Our Votes.” He said he was “one of the 573 that supposedly they did not have a signature on file [for].” He’d been a registered voter for three years, and had voted at a polling place before. This election was the first time he voted absentee, saying that he’d been travelling a lot for work and hadn’t even got back to town until the day before. Ellis said he’d requested an absentee ballot, but because it had never arrived, he filled out and turned in an absentee ballot in person at the King County elections office in Seattle the Saturday before the election. He added that “they say they don’t have a signature on file, but I had to show them my drivers license to get the ballot,” so election officials must have known who he was.

At about 4pm, the recount demonstrators decided they’d made their point and packed it in. The Rossi supporters sent a contingent over to the newly vacant corner and cheered like they’d just successfully stormed a hill. The street was empty of passersby, traffic at the intersection was nearly nonexistant, and the only people within earshot were a few reporters and the last of the demonstrators heading home.

* King County's ballots weren't counted the first time until several days after the election because 83% of the county's million plus voters cast a ballot. Further, considering that this county is a deep blue dot in the middle of a lot of red, the odds of a majority of the 573 ballots being anything other than Democratic could charitably be described as slim. There are at present no credible reports of dead people attempting to vote in King County.

Count Every Vote - Rally Today

2004-12-19T13:25:00.000-08:00

The King County Democratic party didn't organize the following event, but I thought I'd pass it along in case anyone was interested. The rally is expected and intended to be quite orderly and very peaceful:

Rally at Rossi HQ

3:00 Sunday

330 112th Ave NE, Bellevue

A brief speaking program will include some of the 735 voters who were wrongly disenfranchised.

What Are You Doing? Tell us!

2004-12-17T02:32:00.000-08:00

What's going on in your neck of the woods? If you're affiliated with your district Party, with a local grassroots effort, or anything at all that could be considered a Democratic Party related program activity, please write me so I can let everybody know.

Are you canvassing, planning a get-together, raising money for something, trying to organize around a local issue? Tell us. Please. You are the party, and without either your input or a bustling full-time staff of dedicated reporters, the activities of Democrats in King County are going to go underreported. More importantly, other King County Democrats looking for ways to help build the Party might be looking for something to do, and you, yes YOU, might know about the perfect thing for them to get involved in.

Send all submissions to natasha.the[at]gmail[dot]com.* Please include your phone number, and if relevant, the contact information for any organization involved so we can check the details. Not keen on posting any prank announcements for obvious reasons.

We'll retain editorial discretion about what to run, but in general I expect that King County Democrats have pretty good judgement about what announcements should make the cut.

Thanks in advance.

* Email address modified with [at] replacing the '@' symbol, and [dot] replacing the '.' in the actual address. Unaltered email addresses put out on the web can get flooded with inbox spam, and the little monsters don't seem to have gotten hold of this one yet.

Governor's Race

2004-12-17T02:17:00.000-08:00

While I've been trying to force myself to remember what happens to alcohols in the presence of aqueous sulfuric acid, Kos diarist N in Seattle has been paying attention to the WA Governor's race. Here's his summary of the race as of Tuesday, with 32 of 39 counties reporting:

...The composite story through Tuesday is that, even with over four-fifths of all counties reporting, only about 32% of Washington's gubernatorial ballots have been recounted. A mere 13% of the recounted ballots were cast in counties where Christine Gregoire outpolled Dino Rossi. Some 439 new for-a-candidate votes have been tallied -- 184 for Gregoire, 248 for Rossi, 7 for Bennett. If we accept all numbers shown on the Secretary of State website, including the clearly-erroneous ballot count from Cowlitz County, the new-found vote rate is now 4.8/10000 ballots. From that value, we can estimate that the total number of new-found votes for a candidate might be 1375. That's down quite a bit from Monday (5.8/10000, 1687) and the weekend (7.1/10000, 2058). However, this estimate doesn't take into account the several hundred improperly-invalidated ballots from King County.

Wait-and-see remains the only rational outlook on the Washington gubernatorial race.

Here's his summary of Thursday's results, with Skagit, Thurston, and Whatcom Counties reporting in. Which is to say that only 40% of the states votes have been officially recounted to date. So waiting (patiently or not) remains the only option.

News & Comment

2004-12-17T01:59:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the very light posting lately, but fall quarter finals have been eating my life. Without further adieu, I offer the following for your reading entertainment:

This is the result of our Iraq policy. Was it really worth it?

Digby looks at a timeline of how Republicans killed Clinton's healthcare plan when the Democrats controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress. Read. Learn. Take heart.

Middle Earth Journal agrees with Bob Herbert, and goes one farther to say that the administration has passed from denial to delusion. Ron, in case you hadn't noticed, it was a short trip ;)

Boffoblog talks a bit about selecting children by gender, touching on the problem this has become in some Asian societies who value boys far more than girls and now have a shortage of girls as a result of being able to sex screen pregnancies. And that's just going to be entertaining as all heck when it plays out in the world's biggest population centers as they grow into bona fide economic powerhouses. That is, it will be if you're very, very far away.

A Star From Mosul has action movies in her street that Jerry Bruckheimer had nothing to do with. Here, Najma posts a series of correspondences with another Iraqi talking about the Iraqis being killed or kidnapped by the resistance, and I would guess, a not insignificant number of opportunistic criminals.

Jesse at Pandagon takes on the conservative tactic of explaining why liberals should love their ideas because they *really* represent progressivism, in this case, regarding Social Security privatization. It's funny, but I seem to remember that just before the election (oh, so many weeks ago...) it was considered the height of paranoia by some to suggest that the president might be thinking about privatizing Social Security.

Scott at Poetic Leanings talks about the bounty of cancer, after having recovered from it in 1999.

Michael Berube on helping fellow Democrats through the next four years, and he talks about how what hard work it is to keep conservatives out of arts and humanities posts which involve low pay and intense scrutinization of mountains of literature that predates their culture war.

DunneIV speaks out in praise of idleness, meditates on the sin of bearing false witness, and worries about another world war. He's not the only one who's worried, though here I guess I should say something stupidly reassuring, like that I'm sure cooler heads will prevail. I guess I just did, but my heart isn't in it. Also, he put up a link a bit ago to a Jared Diamond essay on the worst mistake ever made by humans, which is a debatable but interesting perspective.

Guestblogger Ralph Taylor over at Nathan Newman talks about the death of environmentalism, which is to say the need for it to go the way of the dodo as a powerless single-issue lobby trivializing itself into irrelevance to the great detriment of everyone. He quotes from Adam Werbach of the Apollo Alliance, a group that's working very hard to frame energy independence as a jobs and national security issue.

12thHarmonic: A quarter of bird species endangered, while one in 10 will likely be gone by the end of the century. Just in terms of one of the effects this will have on our world, do you have any idea how many more insects we'll have to contend with if that many birds disappear? The cost in terms of disease epidemics and crop destruction would be epic and staggering. Let me repeat that; Epic and Staggering. And let's not even go into all the plant species that will disappear without birds to spread their seeds around. I just can't believe people don't get what a big deal this is, but it's true, they don't care and no one seems to be able to make them care. But Werbach is right, we simply can't rely on people caring about these things as a point of leverage towards fixing them.

Nothing Wrong With The Party

2004-12-09T01:36:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone that helped with the recount. Senator Kerry, MoveOn.org, the DNC, Democracy for America, and many individual donors helped pay to ensure that every vote for governor is counted here in Washington State.

Yet no matter how the recount goes, many Democrats are wondering where the party goes from here. We did pretty well here in Washington, keeping our House and Senate seats and winning back the state legislature. It was a good showing, but it's hard not to notice the siege mentality that seems to be springing up in the ranks.

There are as many ideas about where the party needs to go, and what it needs to fix as there are people to voice them. After reading through a lot of soul-searching and navel-gazing (and writing some) about The Direction, it was a pleasure today to read this:

There is a Party of fiscal responsibility... economic responsibility.... social responsibility... civic responsibility... personal responsibility... and moral responsibility.

It's the Democratic Party. ...

That's the stuff. Click over for more.

Help The Recount

2004-12-01T22:14:00.000-08:00

If you can believe it, I haven't really had much time for news lately besides checking the blog headlines. My newspapers for the past week are in an unsightly stack by the front door, and that's the very least of the things I've let slip lately. The reason would probably bore you, but I feel guilty about overlooking an important local issue: Paying for the recount in the governor's race.

The last news I heard about it, the money to pay for the recount was well in hand. As it turns out, not so much.

But Howard Dean's Blog for America has been watching Washington closely, and they've asked their supporters to chip in to the state party to cover the costs of a full hand recount. One that would have happened automatically if the first machine count had matched the second.

The deadline is Thursday. Tomorrow as of the time of this post, today as of the time you're probably first reading it. Please contribute to the WA State Democratic Party today if you can, so we can count every vote.

News & Comment

2004-11-30T21:48:00.000-08:00

Brad DeLong: China's money game, or, Yet Another Kind of International Chicken. The Iraqization of the occupation isn't going so well, clearly we should redouble our efforts. The shock and horror of indecency in America. The possibly disastrous 'reform' of Social Security.

Kevin at the American Street brings us some lessons from evangelicals, and also shared a link to an interesting election analysis.

Wired: The rocket fuel in our food.

DailyKos: The unnaccountable Congress. Dueling perspectives on the decision to allow universities to continue receiving federal funding even if they bar military recruitment. Latest noises from the DNC Chair race.

How to Save the World: Urban development warfare in Ontario. The problem with reporting the Gross Domestic Product.

Suburban Guerrilla: More Texas energy company misdeeds, and again, only the ones we know about. Whoever ends up in control of Iraq, they will eventually have to deal with the tiny problem of all that depleted uranium laying around, either having to clean it up or handling the resulting health problems.

Wampum: The Bureau of Labor Statistics will no longer collect gender data from its institutional survey. Temporary workers have now entirely lost collective bargaining rights. A liberal argument in favor of tort reform. If Democrats and liberals make assumptions based on a cartoon image of the South, they're bound to go wrong.

BBC: German multiculturalism hits a snag. Iran is pleased with the present nuclear agreement reached with the UN and EU. Iraq is currently experiencing a serious healthcare crisis. The international landmine conference opens with a request for a global ban. African Nobel Prize winner says it's time for Africa to stop making excuses over global warming. Locals express concern over possible opium spraying in Afghanistan.

News & Comment

2004-11-29T22:01:00.000-08:00

Veiled4Allah: The UAE hosts a conference of moderate Muslims with the goal of taking the public discourse of the Islamic faith away from more radical elements. Saudi Arabia gets its first female pilot. Shirin Ebadi, the first Muslim woman to win a Nobel Prize, talks about hijab and other issues of personal choice. The Pentagon gets a clue. An article on moving past a view of Arabic populations as inscrutable Orientals who've always been the way they are today. Terrorism as human sacrifice.

A guest poster at Matt Gross' blog tells Democrats and liberals to snap out of the abused spouse syndrome.

BOPnews' Ellen Dana Nagler shares a moving post about recovering from addiction. This was graciously shared with us as a Thanksgiving message.

DailyKos: Meteor Blades writes about the energy policy and protecting the environment under the Bush administration. Dday writes about military recruiting tactics, with excerpts from an article describing the 'hard sell' technique they employ and the NCLB rule that mandates it. Larryrant shares a sermon for American Christians. Poeschek wonders if there's common ground to be found with Republicans via cherry-picking Pat Buchanan's words. Dashbro picks up the eternal question of the real problem with the media, which I venture to predict will be far from the last word, but shares some good insights.

I hadn't stopped by Tristero's blog for a while, and when I do, I find that he's hung up his keyboard. But not before leaving the Democratic party leadership with a post-election farewell. He echoes my own sentiment when he says, "The guys in charge right now are hopeless and they have to go. All of them. Right now." Amen.

As always, Avedon Carol has packed the Sideshow with great links. She starts with continuing voting irregularity coverage, scroll down for more on the topic, the mismanagement of the media and copyright laws, all the way to the revelation of the real reason marijuana is illegal. And she's right, the government now feels sufficiently emboldened that they no longer think it's even necessary to lie about selling out the public to the corporations.

Patrick at STCF makes the case for acting on global warming now, and points to an article about new research on Arctic warming.

Pandagon shares a priceless quote from the Rev. Jerry Falwell as spoken on this past Sunday's Meet The Press, the Religion Edition. It was actually an interesting roundtable, so if you have any interest in the intersection of faith and politics, read the full transcript. The skinny is, the wingnuts are coming close to dropping all pretense of rationality, and the press may have finally discovered the moderate and liberal strains of American Christianity. Update: Media Matters points out that Falwell lied on-air about past remarks blaming 9-11 on gays, feminists, the ACLU, and others Falwell finds distasteful.

Digby marvels at the widening parallels between commies and patriots.

MyDD: It's time for Newer Democrats. The declining numbers of foreign students applying to study in the U.S., and what this means to our long-term global power curve. The religious left gets organized.

BBC: The government of Spain, member of the 'Coalition of the Willing', stands accused of backing a coup in E. Guinea. Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has her house arrest extended. An ongoing log of daily life in Iraq. Human skin has a natural mechanism for killing E. coli. It should surprise no one that the current administration, in the absence of any imminent threat, has preemptively declared a willingness to take unilateral action against Iran.

UK Guardian: The debate on introducing national ID cards for UK citizens rages on. Some perspectives on the interaction between the state and the family. British liberals are left wondering where the Labour left has gone, as they watch a rightward march paralleling what we've seen here in the U.S.

Asia Times: The growing partnership between China and Iran undercuts U.S. leverage with Iran, and we can all thank China's growing energy addiction, as they learn to be just like us. The teetering American economy. How are we doing at caring for injured soldiers and the families of the deceased? The U.S. military and intelligence services rely heavily on high tech solutions, which may leave us vulnerable to low tech countermeasures. Where policy is unpopular, propaganda fails.

Northwest Nibbles

2004-11-28T01:04:00.000-08:00

Fred Meyer sued for rigging meat prices to include the weight of the packaging. Happens to be illegal, hope they learn not to do it again.

The Puyallup Tribal Health Authority looks at cutbacks to keep up with decreased federal funding in the face of rising need.

Mt. St. Helens keeps shaking, and Mt. Rainier seems to be waking up.

A test program aims to test introducing road tolls to the Puget Sound area.

Does the difficulty of a short transition outweigh the importance of an accurate vote count? Dino Rossi's staff certainly seems to think so, but then, that's hardly surprising.

Democratic Values, v 2.4.0

2004-11-27T14:26:00.000-08:00

Partial quote from Tom Vilsack's radio address today:

...At these holiday meals, you enjoy the company you have, but you can't help but think of those not present or no longer here. How many families with young men and women in the service of our country and those in harm's way experienced similar thoughts?

As we think about all of our blessings, we should always stop and say thank you for all those who have served to make America strong and secure. Our prayers should include those who have lost their lives and the families left behind and those who have been injured and the difficult times that lie ahead for them as they rehabilitate their lives.

With these thoughts and prayers, we should rededicate ourselves to ensuring that all who served our country receive the health and income benefits they've earned by their service.

The men and women serving in our armed forces, in our police and sheriff departments, in our fire stations, represent what is best in all of us: the willingness to serve in sacrifice for a better America. Their example calls all of us to a similar duty.

My parents used to remind me and now I remind my sons, To whom much is given, much is expected. As we count our blessings, may each of us reach out to those in need. As we give thanks for those who have served in sacrifice, may we also look for how we too may serve in sacrifice for our country. In doing so, we keep alive America's promise and give full meaning to Thanksgiving. ...

Democratic values on display. I'm glad Vilsack pulled out of the DNC Chair contest, but this is exactly what Democrats need to be saying. Not just until we win back control of a branch of government, but as a permanent center for our message.

Steve Gilliard wrote a great essay the other day about positive purchasing habits and engaging in community service that builds on the theme:

...2) Give positively

Supporting the USO and injured soldiers is a positive activity. One which celebrates the season and makes a point about the war. We haven't forgotten the wounded and damaged. Volunteering at the local VA or homeless shelter does the same thing. Support the poor and desperate in a meaningful, generous way. You can get a dig in, if you need to, but help people first. Hard hearts help no one. Toys for Tots is another positive act.

3) Do charity work

If you're a member of a meetup or Democracy for America chapter, do something positive. Hold a party for foster kids or pregnant teens. Do an event at an elder center. The idea is not to push politics, but to be seen as active members of the community. Be public minded citizens, and make it clear that you're doing your civic duty. Of course, shirts with donkeys on them wouldn't kill. I remember reading about a Dean for America chapter which cleaned up a park. That's the kind of thing people need to carry forward.

My point is that we need to start demonstrating our beliefs. If we want a better America, one where cruelty isn't in fashion, we need to do things which represent our values. Positive, helpful things which make us look like civic minded citizens who care about their community. I've seen how negative talk paralyzes a community, and fossilizes discussion. It eventually makes those people irrelevant as well. We need to represent a positive face to the community. Get positive stories out there about groups of Democrats helping people who need it.

...Politics is public service. You can't change minds when all people see are sterotypes. Sure, some people may refuse. And some people may be too pissed to do this. But when was the last time political people helped anyone but themselves? If you help people's kids, they may actually listen to you when other things come up.

...If you've never been poor and alone, you have no idea what a single act of kindness can mean to a desperate mom and her kids. Christmas is a hard time for them in this society, seeing things they can't afford. An act of kindness is not only a good thing, it also says they're not alone, that more than the church cares for them. ...

During the primaries, one of the ideas that I thought was most worthy of being carried on past the election and adopted by the party at large was DeanCorps. Democratic values could best be summed up by the themes of charity and good works, and conservatives have relentlessly worked to make liberal ideas about helping others sound like an inherently false ploy worthy only of contempt.

Wouldn't it be great if contempt was reserved for those who sneer at the very idea of public service? Take the first step, support the troops with things they really need this holiday season.

News & Comment

2004-11-26T23:55:00.000-08:00

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, & many blessings to count. And now, for the universal antidote to those warm and fuzzy post-food coma feelings: The News.

The Yellow Doggerel Democrat would like to alert you to the fact that Selective Service and the Department of Education have begun comparing databases. Link thanks to Eschaton.

Speaking of Eschaton: In honor of the holiday we just had, we are pointed to some Native American bloggers. Will a Texas election be overturned by legislative fiat? Finally, don't fall for the red-blue trap.

Making Light tells us that the troops need calling cards. Seriously. A note on emergency preparedness, and in a delightful tribute to creative theology, we are pointed to the Night of the Antinomian.

MyDD: More on the issue of issues. A post on the media framing of the DNC Chair race with a Brand Democrat ad supporting Howard Dean as chair, and also, a scorecard for the kerfuffle thus far. We haven't heard the last from Move America Forward, a front group run by a Republican PR firm that proudly lists the Nicaraguan Contras as former clients. Major companies to avoid if you're a Democrat or progressive. A discussion on the role of the political party.

Juan Cole more background on MEMRI, the organization that threatened to sue him, and on the blog response to the threat. Also, fallout from Fallujah just keeps coming, and we get more casualty reports.

DailyKos: National Guard soldiers preparing for deployment go on record saying that their training is inadequate, and so is the equipment they're likely to have on arriving in Iraq. Numerous studies over many years indicate that everyone is a potential torturer. Apparently, running a one-party state is harder than they thought. An orthopaedic trauma surgeon compares healthcare services in the US vs. the UK. Why ignoring voter suppression is a betrayal of minority voters.

Prometheus 6 shares some of the better excerpts from Bill Maher's New Rules, some alarming info on Asia's demographic time bomb, notes from the tanking of the dollar, and the planned new US passports that has the ACLU concerned about data privacy.

Digby makes a case for lawsuit reform and separation of church and state, explains the relationship between freedom and community, or how the Puritans became Yankees, and shares the history of the long-standing, bipartisan, popular sentiment in support of abolishing the electoral college.

This Western Democrat wrote before it was announced that our squeaker of a governor's race in Washington State would be recounted again, but makes some interesting points on bridging the urban-rural divide.

Feministing: Louisiana's public disservice announcements. A positive protest against violence in Afghanistan. What may be the first gay movie hero, even though they've gone to great pains to downplay it in the promo. The ongoing fight for the right to breastfeed.

How to Save the World on taking action vs. taking responsibility, and how the two concepts are at war with each other in US politics.

A glimpse into the freakish mind of G. Gordon Liddy, Nixon's Watergate thug.

TalkLeft: Racial sentencing disparities have only grown over the years. The general in charge of Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib for the torture has been promoted.

Electrolite shares ten things the Chinese do better.

Ukraine talks about an East-West split, and a Guardian columnist declares western coverage to be hopelessly biased. But while I don't know very much about Ukrainian politics myself, any left of center afficionado of US politics could easily find Colin Powell's pronouncements on the sanctity of the Ukrainian vote count simply hilarious:

..."If the Ukrainian government does not act immediately and responsibly there will be consequences for our relationship, for Ukraine's hopes for a Euro-Atlantic integration and for individuals responsible for perpetrating fraud," Powell said in a briefing at the State Department.

"We have been following developments very closely and are deeply disturbed by the extensive and credible reports of fraud in the election," he added. "We call for a full review of the conduct of the election and the tallying of election results." ...

That's the Republicans for you. Charitably declaring that the citizens of other countries should have it better than we do here at home.

Help The Recount

2004-11-20T13:05:00.000-08:00

As we get set for a machine recount of the votes for the governor's race, the Washington State Democratic Party sent out a message to supporters:

...With only 261 votes separating Chris Gregoire and Dino Rossi out of 2.9 million cast, our race is at a tie. For that reason, every action we take is of vital importance.

...Many of you reported problems with voting machines in your precinct on Election Day. In a few instances we have received reports of ballot counting machines breaking down. We must make sure that these votes are accurately recorded.

We have reports of precincts that have reported more votes than the precinct has registered voters.

In King County, three precincts checked their machine counts against manual counts. Where voters had checked their candidate instead of filling out the oval, the machine count failed to count their vote.

The data we are collecting from auditors includes typos, and other incorrect or missing information. In each instance we need to track down the source of the problem. They could represent simple mistakes in reporting or worse, they could represent uncounted votes.

With problems such as these, the likelihood that we will need a manual recount is growing.

You have been very generous already, but we still need your help. In order to request a manual recount, counties must be paid up front...

Click here to contribute towards a hand recount, and email jaxon@wa-democrats.org to report any concerns or problems.

Morality and Values

2004-11-16T22:50:00.000-08:00

Today's outrages included the revelation that along with sending the occasional deportee to Syria, it's become a routine practice to send detainees to Egypt, Syria, and Uzbekistan for interrogation. As if Egyptian and Syrian torture practices weren't bad enough, we now subcontract to Uzbekistan, where people can be boiled alive and their grieving mothers sentenced to hard labor for protesting it. They boil people alive, for gods' sake, and that's who the Bush administration funds and befriends.

Then there was the unprovoked shooting of a wounded and abandoned man in a mosque in Fallujah. After Abu Ghraib, it's hard not to respond with the weary thought that well, this was just the one they caught on film.

Speaking of Abu Ghraib, I thought it was bad enough that several former Iran-Contra felons had been rehired into government by the Bush administration, The Sequel. And I thought I was outraged when they got tripped up in lunacy like the attempted coup in Venezuela and the (hopefully) abortive Total Information Awareness project, though relieved that incompetence seemed to have trumped bad intent. Now we hear that the guy who drafted the memo purporting to lay out the legal underpinnings for torturing detainees in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, possibly the worst human relations disaster in my lifetime, will be the new Attorney General. You just had to know they were capable of finding someone more infuriating than John Ashcroft, and true to form, Team Bush didn't disappoint in Alberto Gonzales.

Even worse, only in today's America could the man who drafted that now infamous torture memo be seriously referred to as a moderate in an article calling the legal fiasco 'controversial.'

These are the values and morality of the Bush administration on full display. Kind of makes a person sentimental for the old-fashioned values of charity, humility, justice, loving your neighbor, and blessing the peacemakers.

News & Comment

2004-11-15T22:06:00.000-08:00

David Sirota says that the GOP is playing with fire on public lands issues, and points up the opportunity available for Democrats to strongly ally themselves with the majority of the public on land preservation. It won us the governorship in the very red state of Montana, after all, which should demonstrate that there's nothing wrong with the Democratic party platform given a good candidate and sound strategy to advance it.

DailyKos: On orders from the White House, the CIA will be purged of 'disloyal' employees and 'liberal Democrats.' The military is calling up former servicemembers who've fulfilled their obligations to come back to active duty, in many cases, disregarding health concerns that would rule out regular enlistment. The Democratic party establishment wants to keep doing what it's always done, presumably on the basis that it's worked so well up until now. Meanwhile, Republicans tell moderates they're not wanted.

Asia Times: A book review of The Empire Has No Clothes, written by a former Cato fellow on the subject of American imperialism. This article starts of with a quote from the Iraqi blogger Riverbend and asks whether America will be any better off after smashing Fallujah than the Russians have been after leveling Grozny in Chechnya.

Ampersand explores the dishonesty of the anti-same sex marriage arguments before taking on the idea that elitist judges are responsible for the successes of the same sex marriage movement.

MyDD: How modern conservatism is damaging corporate profitability. Why the decision to focus the Democrats' efforts in swing states and to ignore safe states likely cost Kerry the popular vote. Finally, some more background on the struggle for the DNC chairmanship, and who to write to if this is an issue you care about. [Note, Howard Dean is currently a candidate vying for the DNC chairmanship.]

Go over to the Sideshow and read until you come to something you've seen before.

And ending the evening on an up note [knock on wood], Gregoire has gained a slight lead in the count.

News & Comment

2004-11-14T01:46:00.000-08:00

Laura Rozen finds an article discussing the connection between Al Qaida and the gem trade, a link that's been all but completely ignored by the Bush administration. Also, she points out that China is getting involved in Africa, and likely the Sudanese genocide, in a bid to secure its energy future. Now, if only there were a powerful country who was respected around the world as a fair and honest broker that could step in and try to negotiate a reasonable solution...

From Crooked Timber, Texas is working to strike mentions of evolution, pollution, contraception, global warming, and overpopulation from its school textbooks. If this is true, medical and science students can heave an enormous sigh of relief in coming years, because they will stop having to compete for space with applicants from Texas. Another post talks about how the costs of global warming will be inflicted on the global underclass, which may be the reason why Luddites like Bjorn Lomborg continue to insist that it won't cost enough to bother fixing it.

Dave Neiwert speaks about the Right's determination to eliminate the enemy, which is to say, liberals. Considering that the more radical among them consider Republican Senator Arlen Specter unacceptably liberal, that doesn't leave much hope for vast swathes of the populace.

This article about the censor wars whose most recent target was the airing of "Saving Private Ryan", brings up a couple other points of interest.

...Robert Knight, of the curiously named Concerned Women for America, told Associated Press recently that [Professor Alfred Kinsey] was akin to the notorious Nazi pseudo- scientist Dr Josef Mengele.

...The American Family Association also calls for a general boycott of Disney, because the company has encouraged gays to visit its theme parks, and of food giant Procter & Gamble for hiring gays. ...

BOPNews: The electoral map of 1896 will look curiously familiar to anyone who saw the map of the 2004 election, except that the parties are reversed. An article every Democrat and activist should read about how to be an opposition party, especially the part where it's explained that "If you didn't oppose [the party in power], then you can't later hold them responsible."

A Daily Kos diarist infiltrated the local Evangelical groups, the better to report back to the rest of us. Brings back a lot of memories. Thanks to Michael Berube.

Feministing on the bad science being passed on to women seeking abortions in some states, also resources that explain why gender inequality has become the prime mover in spreading the AIDS epidemic around the globe.

Juan Cole shares a guest article suggesting that Arafat's death won't solve much. In Iraq Ayatollah Sistani calls for a peaceful solution in Fallujah, and a plan to split Iraq into larger ethnic provinces is examined.

MyDD on the House races of 2006. It's never too early to start planning ahead.

Here in Washington, the governor's race is still too close too call, with around a quarter of the outstanding ballots here in King County. For any other races you might have been interested in, go to the Secretary of State site and browse to your heart's content.

Mary Cheney

2004-11-12T22:57:00.000-08:00

The Cheney family didn't blink when Alan Keyes (R-Carpetbagger) specifically included Mary Cheney when referring to all gay people as "selfish hedonists." Then they famously freaked out when in the third presidential debate, John Kerry had the unmitigated gall to point out that she is in fact a lesbian whose family happens to care for her a great deal. So what treatment will this comment get:

...A Virginia pro-family advocate says the people who helped re-elect President Bush don't support homosexual relationships -- the administration apparently does. Joe Glover, president of the Family Policy Network, has worked tirelessly for family values, including the fight against legalized homosexual "marriage." He says it was conservative Christians who put the president back in office and who held to the belief that the president shared their views. But Glover says the day after the election, that all seemed to go out the window. "The day after George Bush was elected president again, because of this morals revolution taking place in our country, he allows his vice president to not only put his lesbian daughter on the platform, but to bring her lesbian 'partner' up on the stage with him," Glover says. "It almost seems to be a slap in the face from the get-go against the very conservatives that re-elected the president at a time when he ought to paying them some homage and respect." Glover says the Cheney daughter's open flaunting of her homosexuality is the antithesis of what the administration claims to stand for -- and that the post-election display sends a mixed message to Bush supporters. ...

A conservative is saying publicly that the mere public presence of Mary Cheney and her partner are "a slap in the face." Will the Cheneys ignore this insult to their beloved daughter, or will they get indignant?

If anyone were silly enough to take me up on it, I'll bet $100 that they don't make a peep.

News & Comment

2004-11-11T01:18:00.000-08:00

Kevin Drum takes a look at inevitability of Congressional incumbency and proposed an end to gerrymandering.

Digby has two must-read posts on the nature of the culture wars.

In case you've been hesitant to follow the Fallujah story that closely, Body and Soul brings us the unpleasant details. Matt Yglesias brings us a summary of the fight in Fallujah: "Boy -- guerilla force flees rather than stand and be slaughtered by better-armed foe. Who could have predicted that except every goddamn person on the face of the earth."

At Daily Kos, Pericles gives us all a Terrorist 101 quiz. It doesn't hurt to be reminded that triangulation is the policy of the establishment, whereas to a radical, the obvious enemy does double duty as best friend. Also, Kos shares a briefing on the diverse Latino voting picture, and they give the 2004 Democratic coordinated campaign poor marks for complacency.

The Left Coaster on the sad state of journalism, and the problem that poses for democracy.

Liberal Oasis talks about obstructionism and fighting back in a post that highlights the absurdity of Democrats reflexively taking advice from conservatives on how they should conduct themselves. Also, tax simplification

MB at Wampum suggests making the environment a prominent issue, both for coalition building and future campaigns.

The Sideshow talks spiritual strategy, and she has a whole bunch of other good finds that you should scroll down to read.

Dave Pollard talks about why intelligence gathering isn't enough.

In case you've been preoccupied with US and Iraq-related news, the BBC covers the exodus of foreign nationals from the Ivory Coast after the renewed violence. There are links in the sidebars to timelines, more pictures, and other coverage of the developing story.

News & Comment

2004-11-09T08:53:00.000-08:00

MyDD: Real conservative values, as practiced, not preached. Why it's more important to reach the rural vote than the southern vote. How the House Republicans waged war and the House Democrats, not so much.

Also from MyDD, to create a better party, first fire all the consultants. Anyone remember what a good communicator Wesley Clark was before the ~~brainwashing team~~ consultants got hold of him?

Sisyphus shares some demographics to think about, and reminds Democrats that it's time to fight, anyway. A Democrat she quotes who thinks it's time to give up? One of the strategists involved with the Clark campaign, possibly the very guy who turned Clark from dynamic general to mealy-mouthed campaigner.

The Village Voice on the anti-choice agenda, courtesy of First Draft.

Digby talks about a below the radar effort to recruit Republicans on the job, and he finds the review I wish I'd written of Andrew Sullivan's bizarre behavior when he showed up on Real Time with Bill Maher last Friday. I watched the appearance, and found it curious that Sullivan talked about the electoral college having been instituted for the sake of the 'middle of the country'. But at the time of the founding of the republic, the middle of the country was somewhere around Pennsylvania.

What Steve Gilliard really thinks. Chris Bowers responds.

DailyKos: The backdoor draft is now catching people who already completed their inactive duty. Iraq is just a mess, and people expect that we'll be able to recruit thousands of Iraqis to work for police and army duty, which has become synonymous with painting a target on your back before leaving the house. A little bit of election hype debunked, and a few more bogus lessons of the election. Why Democrats should stop playing nice, aside from the fact that we're the only side to whom anyone would seriously make an appeal for 'peace, love, and understanding.' Why supporter email lists shouldn't be treated like a cash machine, but rather, an information distribution medium. The politics of crying vote fraud, and necessary voting system reform, something that Democrats should get motivated to work hard at for the next four years.

Finally, consider the possibility that Seattle may be under water by the end of the century if global warming causes sea level to rise by a meter.

Thinking Ahead

2004-11-07T11:11:00.000-08:00

Well, the national election results were... disappointing. But here in Washington, we held on to our Democratic Senator, and kept all our House seats. We've got both houses of the state legislature, which is good even if we don't know who the governor is just yet.

But though I'm sure I wasn't the only one who took the days after the election to regroup a little and get back to all the teings I'd put off until 'after the election', it's time to look ahead to the next one. So I'm sharing the following message with you in hopes that it gets to the right people:

Dear friends,

Due to the increased interest in the 2005 elections, and the large number of extensions that have been requested, we are reopening the IDF admissions process for the class of 2005 for everyone. Please postmark your application by November 9th to be considered.

The Institute for a Democratic Future, trains women and men ages 21-36 in political and public policy issues, the legislative process, campaigns and elections and how to prepare to run for office. Each year, the program accepts 25 emerging leaders in Washington state.

More information is available at www.democraticfuture.org

Dean Nielsen
Co-Founder, IDF

PLEASE NOTE NEW ADDRESS

Dean M. Nielsen

Washington State Director
Progressive Majority
615 2nd Avenue #500
Seattle, WA 98104

(206) 443-5566
(206) 443-5599 fax

dnielsen@progressivemajority.org
Washington site: www.progressivemajoritywashington.org
National site: www.progressivemajority.org

Voting So Far

2004-11-02T15:11:00.000-08:00

First of all, if you have questions about voting here in Washington, go to the voter information website run by the Secretary of State.

Second, you'll be glad to know that virtually nothing newsworthy is happening during our election here so far. At least, nothing confirmable. The Secretary of State's office, as well as the state Republican and Democratic Parties all agree that things are going well. The worst thing so far is minor complaints called in to Republican party headquarters about poor lighting or difficulty reading ballots.

The press contact for the Secretary of State's office said that the election was in fact "running like clockwork," and that they've been getting compliments on how smoothly things are going.

Participation

It's been cold today, and periodically rainy, but that hasn't stopped high turnout with lines at polling places all over the state. This is Washington, after all, we don't shut down for rain. The Secretary of State is predicting an 84% turnout, a level of participation not seen since World War II. We've got over 400,000 new voters since 2000, a slight surge over the new registration numbers in that election year.

Over a third of Washington State's 3.5 million registered voters had already cast a ballot as of this morning. By yesterday 1.3 million absentee ballots had been received by election officials, out of 2.3 million issued this year. That number is already higher than the approximately 1.2 million absentee votes cast in 2000. According to any political party official you can get hold of, absentee voters tend to have a 70% turnout rate, so around 400,000 more should still be coming in.

If anyone's dreading the prospect of standing in line, check out this inspiring Guardian article about the observations of Florida's international election monitors.

Volunteer Efforts

According to the Democratic Coordinated Campaign figures, where efforts for all the campaigns are being handled jointly, there are around 10,000 volunteers working for the Democratic Party throughout the state. Around 4,000 of them are estimated to be in the Seattle area. Their press contact said that party offices are crowded throughout the state.

The Washington State Republican Party didn't have any figures available on how many volunteers they had out today. I was referred to the King County (Seattle area, if you're an out-of-state reader) Party, and was given an estimate of over 200 volunteers doing doorbelling and poll watching. Many of those volunteers have been participating in a 72-hour task force performing various GOTV efforts in coordination with the Bush campaign.

I had better luck with the campaigns. The Rossi campaign didn't have ready numbers, but estimated that 5,000 people were signed up in their volunteer database.

The state Bush campaign, who claimed 30,000 volunteers statewide. Their press contact described an unprecedented effort put into Washington State, saying that the party was within striking distance in what's considered a Democratic state. Even in King County, they said their numbers were way up over 2000. They said that 300,000 calls had been made over the weekend, 110,000 just yesterday. And apparently sixty thousand doors have been knocked on in the last few days.

Hmmm.

When asked if there were any problems with the voting, the Bush campaign representative I spoke to said she was "not at liberty to comment right now." Apparently, some challenges are heading to court, and she clarified when asked that she was talking about Washington State, but she couldn't tell me anything about their nature. As of the time of this posting, the Secretary of State's office hasn't heard anything about any court challenges to the voting process in Washington state.

Vote Today, Bring Friends

2004-11-02T09:08:00.000-08:00

Go vote, and when you do, bring someone with you. Take a family member, a friend, a co-worker, that cynic you know who's registered but doesn't think their vote counts, bring them all.

Today is expected to be a record turnout election, and you may have to stand in line at the polling place. Bring rain gear, and a snack or chair if you think you might need them. A roll of garbage bags can act as emergency rain ponchos for anyone standing in line with you who forgot their own rain gear.

Absentee ballots must be postmarked today (be sure there's still a pickup time left at any mailbox you use), or they can be turned in at a polling place.

Finally, be glad you don't live in Ohio, where Republicans will have thousands of challengers at the polls slowing up the voting lines even more. Orcinus notes that 45% of the electorate doesn't believe Bush really won in 2000, a number that's unchanged over the last four years, and if you read farther down, you'll find the list of Republican attempts to make sure it goes the same way again.

So remember: Today, we aren't consumers, we're citizens. Let's step out and blow some minds.

8th Congressional District Debate

2004-11-01T20:46:00.000-08:00

After talking to them last spring, I got to hear 8th Congressional District candidates Dave Reichert and Dave Ross debate each other earlier this month. To my disappointment, Dave Reichert had started peppering his speech with enough Republican talking points that he now sounded like his robotic primary opponents. The spontaneity and rambling stories were really the only thing that took the edge off his hard right stances. Dave Ross seemed to have tightened up his speaking style, and was more engaged with the audience, but was recognizably the same Ross.

Not long in, the candidates were asked why someone from their party should be sent to Congress.

Reichert thinks the district should vote Republican because it's better for small business, and for him specifically because he's in touch with the community on things like the methamphetamine and handgun problems, and because he thinks marriage is between a man and a woman. He said that he differed from the president because he was concerned with the budget deficit, and that he would cut spending.

Ross said the district should vote Democratic because the "Republicans have had their chance" with their control of Congress, while failing to get a transportation bill to add a lane to I-405, and losing close to a million jobs. He said he differed from his party in favoring results based social programs that include faith-based initiatives, which should be supported only if proved to work.

The debate turned quickly to security issues with a question about the PATRIOT Act. Ross said it was important for law enforcement to be able to follow a person, instead of just a phone number, citing an example of a part of the law he supported. But he followed by saying that people were spooked by provisions allowing sneak-and-peek searches and searches of library records, causing him to support efforts to amend it. Reichert said that "since September 11th, this world has changed forever." He compared 9-11 to Columbine, offering the Colorado school shooting as another example of an event that changed the approach of law enforcement. He said the Act would evolve over time.

On Iraq, Reichert said he agreet that "we should fight terrorists where the terrorists are." He said it was premature to set a date for withdrawal, and that even if there was disagreement about getting to Iraq, the country should be made free and safe. Ross said that having been in Baghdad last summer, he thought the problem was the American face on the war, something it might be 19 months too late to correct. He said that "the best way, ultimately, to spread democracy is by example, not by force."

In responding to a question on the war on terror, Reichert said that we can't give up, even though 9-11 set the stage for a long war. He repeated the tagline that it was important to fight the terrorists where they are, not here. Ross had reported from Ground Zero, and said that of course we needed to fight terrorists. But he said that we also needed to fight for hearts and minds, that we couldn't win if we were seen as bullies. Ross said that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was right to ask if the U.S. was killing more terrorists than it was creating.

On transportation, Reichert said that he already had a record of bringing $28 million to the Sheriff's office, and would try to get on the congressional committee. He said he'd get money to expand the state road infrastructure. Ross said that it was important for the state delegation to work to develop a regional consensus, and find some middle ground between liberals who want to only add bike paths, and conservatives who only wanted to add roads. He said it was important to fund whatever moved the most people for the least amount of money, and to look at improving roads outside the major King County metropolitan area in places like Woodinville.

Reichert's healthcare plan is tort reform, medical savings accounts, medical associations to bring down insurance costs, and letting doctors make medical decisions instead of insurance companies. Ross said that Reichert's plan was mostly the Bush plan, costing more without helping those without coverage, didn't treat illness early, and pointing out that tort reform has a spotty record of results. He proposed the reimportation of discount prescription drugs and extending Medicare for all uncovered children.

On dealing with the deficit, Ross said he favored of rescinding the top bracket of tax cuts, saying that interest on it was $390 billion a year. He also said that there would be significant savings in getting people early healthcare when they first needed it, and that we couldn't afford not to try it. Reichert pointed to a history of cost cutting in his department, even to trimming costs from the purchase of patrol cars.

Reichert said that he "[didn't] really see a conflict there" between balancing the budget and cutting taxes. He said that spending cuts would fix things. Ross suggested cutting the $100 billion for the missile defense system that scientists say doesn't work. He didn't see why tax cuts for the top 1% should be kept with the costs of Iraq, healthcare, and transportation needs.

On outsourcing, Ross suggested reversing tax incentives to encourage companies to bring profits back home, as well as funding research and bringing new products to market. He said that the local Redhook brewery was started with a Small Business Administration loan, a program he says the Bush administration cut, and that he supported. Reichert said it was important to keep taxes low, world tariffs low, and to do away with bureaucratic rules and regulations.

Ross' education plan includes supplementing retraining, funding primary research at the University of Washington, and fully supporting special education. He said that the "best way to stop outsourcing, in the long run, is to be better than those countries" where the jobs are going to. Reichert said that he mostly agreed with Ross' education platform, saying that businesses supported these programs because they benefit from well-trained workers.

Ross said that the country couldn't afford to waste talent in a global economy. When it came to helping college students, he said that "talent is sprinkled everywhere, [but money and income] are only sprinkled some places." Reichert said that business partnerships should be encouraged to help college attendees, because they were the ultimate beneficiaries.

On the question of whether or not there should be federal parity legislation requiring companies that offered Viagra to offer birth control, Reichert said that he'd never been asked the question and would consider it. Ross said that "if [a plan] covers Viagra, it can sure as heck cover birth control."

Reichert said that federal money should not be spent on sex education "at all," favoring only abstinence education. Ross said that federal money should not be spent by ideology, and that results shouldn't be predetermined. He said that with abstinence and sex education, professionals should be entrusted with running these programs, and that funding should be cut off if they didn't work.

Reichert said that as a male, he couldn't understand the decision involved in abortion. But going to personal experience, he cited the Green River case, and a daughter who couldn't have children deciding to adopt. He said he would only support abortion in the case of incest, rape, or a threat to the mother's life. Ross said that being pro-choice didn't mean being pro abortion. He said that decisions need to be left in the hands of families, and that Congress was ill-equipped to make the decision for them.

As priorities, both candidates cited jobs, healthcare, and transportation. Ross said it was important to support both roads and transit, support research and small businesses, educate the workforce, and fix a healthcare system which left some families afraid to go to a doctor. Reichert briefly mentioned the issues, but as an afterthought to again solemnly proclaiming that the nation had changed after 9-11, and that soccer moms were now security moms.

In closing, Reichert said Congress needed someone who was a doer. He said he'd seen the chaos caused by lack of education and unemployment in the poorest homes, and the problems created when government bureaucracy got in the way of child protective and DSHS services.

Ross said that he felt the nation had taken a wrong turn in the last four years. He said the election was between ratifying those choices, or deciding to change direction. He said that national security wasn't only about terrorism, but also about having jobs and healthcare.

Believe

2004-11-01T09:17:00.000-08:00

William Rivers Pitt:

...In George W. Bush's America, being even moderately liberal these days is like being a Red Sox fan. You know what needs to happen, you know what is right, and yet some cosmic force akin to the lingering shade of Babe Ruth always manages to ascend from purgatory and batter you into dust right at the moment when something good and great is within your grasp. If you do manage to get your lineup together - home run issues, grand slam arguments, All Star players - you will get completely outspent by the damned Yankees who are sitting in your division with more money than God and the will to use it. Baseball, like politics, has no spending limits.

...You have to capture the mentality of the Red Sox fan, as I have. You start every season and every game almost completely sure that you will be beaten soundly. You lick your wounds and dust yourself off and maybe cry a little into your pillow. But you always, always think to yourself, 'This could be it. This could be the year.' You do it because you want to be there at the turning of the tide. When that day does dawn, when some October night in a time to come absorbs the victory roar of people who have watched great-grandfathers and grandfathers and fathers live entire lives and die unfulfilled, when the Boston Red Sox finally win that championship, it will have been worth every moment of pain and disappointment. ...

GOTV.

Richard Holbrooke

2004-10-30T13:36:00.000-07:00

Kerry advisor and former U.N. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer yesterday, and it went a little something like this, emphasis mine:

BLITZER: Because the sense is -- and it could be totally misguided -- that before the elections in Spain, as you know, there was a huge terrorist attack to try to affect the political situation in Spain.

HOLBROOKE: What happened in Spain was unique, because the Spanish government blamed it on Basque separatists and it wasn't. And that's what blew up in their face.

The United States is not Spain. We're united in the war against al Qaeda. We're united against this murderer who you've just shown on television. And John Kerry has sworn and pledged it will be his top priority to pursue him and hunt him down. ...

BLITZER: Are you concerned, though, that when Americans see this videotape -- it will be all over the news media, as you can imagine, not only today, but in the days to come -- they will be reminded of what happened on 9/11 and they will say, you know what, I better vote for Bush, because he is tougher in dealing with al Qaeda than Kerry?

HOLBROOKE: I don't think so.

I think it also raises a much deeper question. How can this grotesque mass murderer be out there on worldwide television more than three years after 9/11? Why haven't we captured him, if the Bush administration was going to be so effective in the war on terror? President Bush said in the debates that he has rolled up 75 percent of al Qaeda. Well, it sure doesn't sound like it now. And, in Iraq, we have created a new terrorist center in places like Fallujah. And now it turns out that we also have some very serious missing high explosives. ...

HOLBROOKE: And as Secretary Rumsfeld himself said in the famous leaked memo, aren't we creating more terrorists than we're killing?

BLITZER: Briefly, while I have you, these missing explosives in Iraq that's causing quite a bit of a controversy, the Pentagon came out today. They brought a major who was there. He said he destroyed a lot. He wasn't sure, could have been from the IAEA-inspected cache of weapons. It might not have been. He didn't know for sure.

The information is still being assembled. The criticism of John Kerry is that, he has rushed to make this an issue when he doesn't have all the facts.

HOLBROOKE: I think this is just astonishing, Wolf. The administration doesn't know what happened in Al-Qaqaa, a well-known weapons dump, which you just showed in an earlier part of your program, that the IAEA had described in detail with Secretary Powell sitting in the room at the U.N. Security Council two years ago?

You're saying that now the administration should figure out? The truth is simple. The details are murky, but the truth is simple. The ammunition went missing. It includes the most dangerous high explosives, things that are used to create nuclear bombs, not nuclear weapons, but the implosionary device. Americans may have been killed because of this. The administration lost track of it, until journalists found discovered it.

Then they admitted it. Then they denied it. Then they recalibrated it. That's all silly details. The truth is simple. Tons of the most dangerous weaponry are missing. ...

It's nice to see regurgitated Republican talking points get so completely refuted. Holbrooke even took the time to explode the old chestnut about the elections in Spain, which were lost because the government were liars, and not as conventional wisdom would have it that it was because of the attack.

This coming Tuesday, please help get out the vote for Kerry, so we can have a president who isn't afraid to pick a smart, direct person as an advisor. And if you can, give a little extra push to help get other Democrats elected to office. Think of it as a housewarming present for the next occupant of the White House.

News & Comment

2004-10-29T09:15:00.000-07:00

AmericaBlog points to a story on the other enemies of America that endorsed Bush.

TalkLeft: Relevant info on the two big scandals breaking now against the Bush administration. They try to deny, but there's that darned videotape. Now the IRS is threatening the NAACP with the loss of tax exempt status for criticisms of Bush administration policies last year. Also, a group called Catholics for Political Responsibility belts out a hard left hook at the president's alleged moral foundations.

See The Forest has a truly impressive crowd photo of a Kerry rally. Then, if you haven't caught it yet, Dave Johnson explains Social Security, aka the tax we pay to keep seniors from starving in the street.

See The Forest also shared a link to Draft 101, an FAQ for people curious about the powers of the draft board should one be reinstated. Apparently, being female or an only child, going to Canada, or even being over 25 won't keep you off the list.

The Sideshow does a wonderful job of collecting news you need to know, but in particular, make sure and catch the RudePundit's explanation of why Kerry is a superhero.

DailyKos: An op-ed find on the new and improved fully functional Left. The DNC has made a last minute decision to contest Arkansas, where polls show a very close race. An impressive collection of even more pictures of the Kerry rally where The Boss made his cameo. Good news on Ohio voter registration, and better news from the latest Florida polls. Bad news comes in the form of a flier designed to supress the black vote in Milwaukee. Finally, Meteor Blades discusses the situation the Palestinians face with Arafat, which can be summed up as damned if he goes, damned if he doesn't.

It Gets Worse

2004-10-26T01:12:00.000-07:00

When I heard about this on the half hour BBC broadcast this evening, I couldn't believe my ears. But a Google turned up the fact that the Bush administration has indeed threatened to shoot down a European GPS system if they were allowing unfriendly parties to use it. They didn't seem in the slightest bit polite about it, either:

...According to a leaked US Air Force document written in August and obtained by The Business, Peter Teets, under-secretary of the US Air Force wrote: "What will we do 10 years from now when American lives are put at risk because an adversary chooses to leverage the global positioning system of perhaps the Galileo constellation to attack American forces with precision?"

The paper [The Business weekly] also reported a disagreement between EU and US officials this month over Galileo at a London conference which led to the threat to blow up the future satellites.

The European delegates reportedly said they would not turn off or jam signals from their satellites, even if they were used in a war with the United States.

A senior European delegate at the London conference said his US counterparts reacted to the EU position "calmly".

"They made it clear that they would attempt what they called reversible action, but, if necessary, they would use irreversible action," the official was quoted as saying. ...

It isn't that concerns about hostile groups or nations wanting to use a powerful satellite positioning system shouldn't be raised. It's in every way legitimate to bargain on the issue. But the nations of Europe are among the few countries left who are still willing to engage with us in good faith. In the dangerous position we're in, perhaps you leave the 'we will bomb you' option in a drawer until some time in the future when other negotiations fail. Because these are after all, still our friends, and they have as yet done nothing to indicate otherwise.

The BBC guest commentator, whose name I didn't catch, drew a comparison between the space plans of Bush and Kerry. He stated that Kerry had committed to opposing the weaponization of space, while the Bush administration wanted to dominate it like 'the British Navy dominated the seas' at the height of its empire.

So we have again, another clear choice. To me, this brings up the point that Bush seems to believe that future wars are so inevitable that we might as well treat other countries as if they're about to happen any day now. Given the opportunity, the belief could go down as the classic example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If anyone's left to say so. Kerry seems to believe that wars can be prevented, and anyone glad that the Cold War never turned hot can well appreciate that.

Just when I thought that this latest bit of revealed hubris was about as bad as it could be, Juan Cole reminds us how much worse off we are compared to four years ago. Speaking of the looting of Iraq's weapons facilities, he says [thanks to Body and Soul, emphasis mine]:

Muhammad al-Baradei said that some of the nuclear material stolen from facilities in Iraq has already begun showing up in other countries. But the dual-use equipment, which has applications in nuclear weapons construction, has disappeared. (Hmm. I wonder which neighbor of Iraq might be desperately at work on a nuclear bomb and might be willing to pay top dollar for such equipment?) How bad a job Bush is doing is clear when we consider that we might well be relieved to know that this equipment went to Iran, since that means Bin Laden doesn't have it.

We're in a situation this bad, this far out of Bush's depth, and his administration is threatening the satellites of the few people left who are still willing to speak with us. People whose cooperation we need for securing intelligence, funding reconstruction of the messes we've made, and acting as go-betweens with countries to whose leaders the U.S. has become radioactive. Oh yeah, also trade and foreign investment.

It's a low set of expectations, to stop digging when you're in a hole. The Bush administration seems to have it's heart set on lowering those expectations on a weekly, sometimes daily basis. They've been at it so long that it would be a public relations coup for them to go a whole month without doing something so incompetent and damaging that even much better people will have a hard time filling that hole.

Virtual Muscle Relaxant

2004-10-23T22:51:00.000-07:00

Go here, watch this.

If you're watching this election as closely as I am, biting your nails, yelling at the TV, just go over to the nice link and visualize a Kerry win. It works right away to soothe election related anxiety.

Bush's Popularity Explained

2004-10-22T01:20:00.000-07:00

According to a new PIPA survey, Bush's real popularity lies in the fact that Bush supporters don't know what he stands for. Supporters of Bush and Kerry were quizzed about their candidates' positions on 8 issues, and a majority of Bush supporters were wrong about his stand on 6 of them. Sizable majorities of Kerry supporters were right about his stand on 7 of the 8 issues.

It seems like the public hasn't really gotten to know this George W. Bush character as well as they might. That works to his advantage. Supporters who incorrectly guessed Bush's positions often simply assumed that he agreed with them.

The issue that the largest number of Bush supporters mistook his stance on was the inclusion of labor and environmental standards in trade laws. Only 13% of his supporters correctly identified Bush as opposing them.

Volunteering

2004-10-21T01:29:00.000-07:00

We're down to the final days of the election, and there's plenty to do in Washington State. Showing up is key, and even with record state turnout predicted, it's important to make sure that no Democrat gets the idea that they can sit this one out because some poll says that Washington is in the bag. We have a Senator to support, some chances to affect the balance of the House, and great pick for Governor, and some fine down-ticket candidates that need every vote they can get.

If you have the werewithal, considering donating via one of the links on the sidebar. I strongly recommend the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) as a group that can effectively spend money where it's needed the most. However, other types of contributions can be just as decisive.

If you have very little time in the coming two weeks, at least remind friends and acquaintances to vote. Try to get at least one person to the polls who might not otherwise have gone.

If you can squeeze in a good few hours, or maybe even a weekend, Democracy for Washington has some ideas:

Get on the bus for Don Barbieri!

We need 12 seats to win a majority in the U.S. House. We need Don Barbieri to be one of them! Democracy for Washington invites you to join us, Congressman Jay Inslee, and Congressman Jim McDermott as we bus to Spokane next Saturday and Sunday, the 23rd and 24th!

We will meet Jim McDermott at 8:00am at Jay Inslee’s campaign HQ to kick off our trip to Spokane. We will volunteer with the Barbieri campaign Saturday afternoon and have some fun in the evening. We will volunteer again on Sunday morning, before coming home Sunday evening. This is a very close race, and they need all the help we can bring!

CALL 206-533-0575 TO GET YOUR SEAT ON THE BUS!

The Inslee campaign has taken care of transportation, food and housing – you bring yourself, your dedication and comfy shoes!

Meet at Inslee campaign HQ at 15021 Aurora Avenue No., in Shoreline to catch the bus.

Democracy for Washington is committed to helping Don Barbieri win this seat and ensure George Nethercutt is not replaced with another right wing radical! We need Don Barbieri to put this seat back in Democratic hands! If you live in a safe Legislative District, GET ON THE BUS FOR BARBIERI!

Teachers in the 24th District: Help Kevin Van De Wege!

Kevin Van De Wege is a great young candidate in the 24th district. Next Saturday, the 23rd of October, teachers will be doorbelling all over the district to help him out. He is running against a very conservative opponent, and needs our help! If you can’t join the bus to Spokane, consider helping Kevin on Saturday. E-mail electkevinvandewege@hotmail.com or call (360) 477-0548 to volunteer!

Volunteer for the coordinated campaign – help on Election Day!

If you haven’t already signed up to work on Election Day, you can call:

1-866-ELECTJK (353-2855)

You can also visit www.volunteer.johnkerry.com. Volunteer today!

News & Comment

2004-10-21T01:23:00.000-07:00

Digby does a good job of explaining why the Bush administration shouldn't be trusted on the flu vaccine issue, reminding fellow citizens that back in the day, Cheney advocated universal anthrax innoculations but was stopped by the outcry from the healthcare community.

Body and Soul talking about the looting of Iraqi nuclear facilities, theft that goes far beyond the theft of barrels full of yellowcake. Entire buildings have vanished over the course of the occupation, and no one who knows where they've gone has stepped forward to reassure the public. The lack of ongoing inspections or site monitoring puts lives at risk around the world from better equipped terrorists, and lives at risk in Iraq from possible nuclear contamination.

Bush gets endorsed by Iran.

DailyKos notes that Bush has picked a fight with Pat Robertson, a man whose recent statements could seriously damage the image of the Iraq war in the minds of a key Bush constituency. Oh, the irony.

The Sideshow has great stuff, so read as far down as you can. She also points to something I'd been planning to look for, but now don't need to: Al Gore's recent remarks at Georgetown. Some fine words from the people's choice for president in 2000, go read.

The American Street: Bush turns down Muslim peacekeepers offering to serve in Iraq because... well, damn, I can't even think of a good snarky reason to do a fool thing like that. A report on a Michael Moore rally in Eugene, OR. Our attention is drawn to the online diary of a soldier abroad, as it were, in Iraq. A substantive definition of obscenity. David Neiwert continues with a series on the rise of pseudo fascism.

Prometheus 6 with the very alarming economic news that foreign investors are backing off U.S. bonds, particularly bad since about half of the total bonds outstanding are foreign-held.

MaxSpeak: A collection of letters to the editor in Detroit on the subject of anger in America. How the tax burden gets shared.

Orcinus with a clarification, after the president's debate mention, on the history and nature of the Dred Scott decision.

If you haven't caught it yet, NBC's Meet The Press had a debate this past Sunday between DeMint (R) and Tenenbaum (D), the Senate candidates for South Carolina. There's a good discussion buried in there about DeMint's idea for a national sales tax.

BOPnews: Some quick hits for political junkies. In censorship news today, Walmart has censored The Daily Show book. A very sound and intelligent foreign policy speech by Wes Clark.

Wampum: A shameless promotion of Going Upriver, a movie about John Kerry. A big step up in the jurisdiction of Federal Indian Law. Bush's job approval numbers are anemic, and spell trouble for him, as well as the possibility of a brighter future for the rest of us.

Left Coaster: Democrats are better for the economy. The old guard of the Republican party are lining up against Bush. The results of the latest Gallup polls have been very favorable for Bush, but an examination of the samples they use shows a model that doesn't reflect the voting public.

Shrill Commentary

2004-10-18T13:15:00.000-07:00

If you haven't been regularly visiting the Shrillblog*, consider adding it to your bookmarks. The Shrillblog chronicles the swelling ranks of the Order Of The Shrill, explained as follows:

The Order of the Shrill is limited to those who were once sane, fair, and balanced, but who have been driven into shrill unholy madness by one or more of the mendacity, malevolence, incompetence, or simple disconnection from reality of the George W. Bush administration.

Paul Krugman was driven into shrill, unholy madness quite early on, but this is because he had the distinction among his media 'peers' of being an honest economist. Yet now, as the Shrillblog documents, it's seldom possible to go a single day without finding another convert to the Order among the media, military, corporate, or public service sectors of our society.

But as a note of advice, most members of the public have not spent much time contemplating the mendacity, malevolence, incompetence, or simple disconnection from reality of the Bush administration. They may therefore be alarmed by extreme shrillness, and members of the Order are advised to play it cool and stick to the facts, ma'am.

And the facts include a Knight-Ridder report on the to-be-provided post-war plan that never materialized.

Also, a New York Times Magazine article by Ron Suskind about Bush's distaste for the "reality-based" community, and his creation of the first "faith based presidency." And not the good kind of faith, but the stubborn refusal to ever entertain the slightest doubt in the rightness of one's actions. This article is long and in-depth, and holds the attention all the way through. It covers incidents throughout the Bush presidency, talks to people on both sides of the aisle, and includes multiply sourced references to Bush's recent comments at a private fundraiser about what a second term would look like.

Suskind closes the article with some words by evangelical Pastor Jim Wallis, a man Bush called on just before taking office to organize an ecumenical meeting of diverse clergy to talk about issues of poverty and faith:

..."Faith can cut in so many ways," he said. "If you're penitent and not triumphal, it can move us to repentance and accountability and help us reach for something higher than ourselves. That can be a powerful thing, a thing that moves us beyond politics as usual, like Martin Luther King did. But when it's designed to certify our righteousness -- that can be a dangerous thing. Then it pushes self-criticism aside. There's no reflection.

"Where people often get lost is on this very point," he said after a moment of thought. "Real faith, you see, leads us to deeper reflection and not -- not ever -- to the thing we as humans so very much want."

And what is that?

"Easy certainty."

The president no longer consults with Wallis, considering that the gentleman once suggested that terrorism would continue to be a problem as long as no major action was taken to reduce injustice. The president appeared confused by this, and that was the last they saw of each other.

* Also, the Shrillblog is very fond of H.P. Lovecraft, a classic writer of short and very odd horror stories. Any inexplicable words or phrases are unapolagetic lifts from Lovecraft's Cthulhu tales. If that doesn't ring a bell, don't worry about it, the blog is still entertaining and informative.

Vote Supression

2004-10-15T22:30:00.000-07:00

The City of Milwaukee may be short of ballots because a Republican county executive has provided them with a couple hundred thousand fewer ballots than they received in 2000, and far less than they asked for considering the expected voter turnout.

A Republican consulting firm, funded by RNC money, has been running 'voter registration drives' which they are suspected of using as cover to tear up Democratic registration forms. DNC Chair Terry McAuliffe writes a letter to the RNC about it.

Pandagon points to a recent Krugman editorial on the subject of voter supression along with the following comments:

Does it strike anyone else that the role of Democrats is to register additional voters and get accused of fraud, and the role of Republicans is to try everything possible, legal and extralegal, to make sure those voters don't get to the polls?

The "L" Word

2004-10-15T22:17:00.000-07:00

Well, instead of talking about policy or fixing on Bush's outright lie regarding his past comments on Osama Bin Laden, the media is talking about Kerry's mention of the Cheney's lesbian daughter. Dave Cullen writes a piece in Salon saying virtually everything that needs to be said about it (subscription or free day pass required for article):

Mary Cheney has been happily out of the closet for at least a decade, so John Kerry was hardly dragging her out against her will.
She spent the late '90s working as a veritable professional lesbian, as gay and lesbian corporate relations manager for Coors Brewing Co.
Dick Cheney himself has been using her sexuality on the campaign trail. Click here to watch a Human Rights Campaign ad with him on the stump on Aug. 24, 2004: "Lynne and I have a gay daughter ... "
The Bush-Cheney administration has shamelessly used homosexuality as a wedge issue, never hesitating to play the sodomite card when it serves their political ends.
John Edwards brought up Mary Cheney in response to a similar gay-rights question just eight days earlier in the veep debate. Dick Cheney responded by thanking him for his kind remarks.

...Let's get one thing straight. It is not an insult to call a proudly public lesbian a lesbian. It's an insult to gasp when someone calls her a lesbian. That's how all the gays I have spoken to the past 24 hours perceived the press response. You're embarrassed for us. And it's infuriating. ...

Cullen closes the article saying that the worst thing about coming out to his parents was that at first, they were embarassed about what other people would think of them. He said that it took years for them to get to the point where they didn't care who knew, or what anyone else thought about it.

The Cheneys either aren't there yet, or they're using this to obscure the fact that Bush came out 0 for 3 in the debates. Either way, it's Dick and Lynne Cheney whose behavior is an embarassment. And the Log Cabin Republicans seem to agree on that point.

Of Course

2004-10-11T19:59:00.000-07:00

Someone theorized that everything Bush said in the last debate that began with "Of course..." would end up being a whopper.

Someone went and checked up on that.

Comeback

2004-10-10T23:27:00.000-07:00

The New Yorker covers Kerry's campaign comeback moves, which have helpfully coincided with the wheels coming off the Bush campaign.

Enjoy.

Bush Whoppers and Other Travesties

2004-10-09T10:39:00.000-07:00

In case anyone was wondering, Bush does have part ownership of a timber company. As the previous link notes, MSNBC caught it. CNN's fact check hits a number of other Bush mishaps, but misses the timber company point, the sort of 'easy and fun' thing most the media was all over Gore for in 2000. FOX News' fact check was briefer than CNN's, and did catch the timber company point, reviewing it in surprising detail. The Knight Ridder fact check covered another set of points, but also failed to pick up the timber company exchange.

One of Bush's other answers last night blames the military for his decision to invade Iraq with too few troops.

Several pundits and journalists have noticed that even if he was more controlled than at the last debate, Bush still has anger management issues.

And in an example that proves we don't have a liberal media, Sinclair Broadcasting has ordered all its affiliates to run an anti-Kerry movie just before the election. If you're concerned about this, letters to Sinclair, newspaper editors, and news stations will help raise awareness of this and hopefully pressure Sinclair to pull back.

Now if you need your own blood pressure lowered after wading through all that, a regular Kos diarist has a solid, but sunny, post-debate scorecard. Another draws our attention to a good article on Kerry's international policy positions.

News & Comment

2004-10-08T15:21:00.000-07:00

Hey there, long-suffering readers. I'm pleased to bring you a collection of fine links rounded up over the week. This weekend, I'll be putting up my take on the 8th Congressional District candidate's debate held this past Tuesday. Also, next week will probably have a more regular posting schedule, so stop by and say hello.

Jack Pine Savage tells us what to listen for when we're watching the debate tonight.

Wampum looks at the dismal job numbers, noting that discouraged workers are up, manufacturing jobs are down, and the government payroll has increased. Exactly the kind of result Republicans always predict Democratic economic policies will lead to.

Atrios points out that polls now have voters finding Kerry more likeable by a double-digit lead.

Charles Kuffner rounds up all the latest news about the DeLay ethics investigation. The charges that have been leveled at his top level aides and corporate donors could spell the Majority Leader's downfall, and the Congressional Ethics Committee has decided to defer a finding until they hear from the Texas prosecutor conducting the investigation.

Digby says that Dick Cheney is now implicating himself in Hussein's schemes without realizing it. I disagree though, I think they're just so used to no one noticing their contradictions and cover-ups that they think they can say anything. And pretty much, that's the case.

War and Piece tells us that a Wall Street Journal Iraq correspondent has been suspended until after the elections for writing a letter about the conditions in Baghdad.

Warblogging reminds readers that after Bush told everyone that they shouldn't forget Poland when speaking about Iraq, Poland now wants out.

Daily Kos: Cheney's attack on Edwards revealed to be wholly without merit. For those keeping score at home, the women of Afghanistan are far from free, and they aren't getting any help from the White House.

George W. Bush has been a secretive president, reluctant to hold press conferences, and shielded from townhall questions by non-supporters. It may cost him the election, as his debate performance of last week indicated.

Feministing writes that 30 states can make abortion illegal within a year of a Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Also, a profile of the African environmentalist who won the Nobel Peace Prize.

News & Comment

2004-10-04T01:46:00.000-07:00

Bumper Sticker - John Kerry for President: These Colors Don't Run.

Atrios: FOX News falls for a Republican satire group called Communists for Kerry, including their comments in a news story as though they were a legitimate Democratic citizen group. We also get a link to a Talking Points Memo story about a fake FOX News story with made up Kerry quotes that was written by FOX Kerry campaign correspondent Carl Cameron and posted to their website 'accidentally.' If it was any other news organization, half the media would be calling for heads to roll by now, but I guess no one expects any better of the station that hired Geraldo Rivera as a war correspondent.

BusyBusyBusy has made an art out of the 'shorter' format. Go here for summaries like the shorter version of Max Boot: "Kerry would negotiate with Iran and North Korea - which is tantamount to appeasement - abandoning Bush's highly effective policy of sporadic verbal bellicosity."

BoingBoing points to the corrected version of the story where ultra-conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia takes a surprising stand on orgies. I don't know about you, but the very thought gives me chills.

No one would ever guess it, but when Cheney was at the helm of Halliburton, the company paid bribes to get Nigerian oil contracts. Also, if Cheney had his way during the 1990's, he would have lifted sanctions on rogue regimes. A case could be made that we should negotiate with some of these countries, but it's more interesting for the hypocritical contrast with his current positions.

Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting writes about another gaping Diebold security hole in their paperless voting machines.

George Bush's resignation from the National Guard.

Porter Goss was recently confirmed as the new head of the CIA, and promised to be the very soul on nonpartisanship. Then for his first appointments, he hires a former oil executive to join him at the CIA, and the rest of his first picks are Republican Hill staffers.

Vladimir Putin has signed the Kyoto Protocol, bringing the treaty into full force around the world. America and Australia will be excluded from the global market on emissions tradings and ensuing negotiations unless the two countries become signatories.

Get educated about poll results, and read why the media may be underestimating Kerry's performance.

Tom Paine has some policy wonks sit down and give us an educated post-debate wrap up.

The New York Times has a lengthy expose on how the How The White House Embraced Disputed Arms Intelligence. I guess it's better that they start doing their job late rather than never, but this is the kind of thing they should have thought about running before we started dropping bombs.

Liberal Oasis reviews the Sunday talk shows, noting that the New York Times piece linked above completely derailed the Bush campaign's attempts to spin Kerry's debate performance into anything other than a win.

War and Piece: Bob Novak leaks the name of yet another intelligence community member.

Debate Review

2004-10-01T01:53:00.000-07:00

Bush

Shorter Bush: I know we should mean what we say about committing troops and not sending mixed messages. So there.

Bush said that the "A.Q. Khan network has been brought to justice." A.Q. Khan himself is living comfortably in Pakistan, his government having promised that he won't sell nuclear secrets abroad ever again. I guess we'll have to take their word on that.

Even the networks couldn't ignore that Bush claimed 100,000 trained Iraqi security personnel. The number is double the (likely exaggeration) claimed by Iyad Allawi in his recent visit to Washington D.C.

Bush said that he knows how other world leaders think, and that they won't follow Kerry because he says that the Iraq war was the "the wrong war at the wrong place at the wrong time." So, for those of us following at home, Bush believes that the rest of the world won't follow someone whose position the majority of them agree with.

Bush also stated that, "It‘s hard work to go from a place where people get ... executed, to a place where people are free." Clearly, Texas has a lot of hard work ahead of it.

And memorably, Bush thinks that missile defense is the way to protect America from long run threats in the 21st century. This from the president whose campaign is based on accusing those who disagree with him of having a September 10th mindset.

If I remember correctly, Condoleezza Rice was scheduled to give a speech on September 11th on the need for missile defense. It was shelved and brushed under the rug, in the face of overwhelming evidence that missiles weren't the biggest threat to America. Note to Bush: Stop trying to fight the Cold War.

Kerry

Kerry's underlying theme was that the president needs to be trusted, and that Bush can't be. He stated it most bluntly when recounting the story of President Kennedy's Secretary of State going to France during the Cuban missile crisis, and being told by Charles DeGaulle that he didn't need to show any evidence, that the word of the president was enough. Kerry asked how many world leaders would respond that way now, a question that no one needs to answer out loud.

Kerry spoke clearly about the situation in Afghanistan, where Bush's war has made that country safe for drug dealers with private armies. He said that American casualties were going up, that elections had been postponed three times, and that they produce 75% of the world's opium. So when heroin is cheaper than it was a couple years ago, junkies around the world have Bush to thank.

Kerry drew a sharp distinction between Saddam Hussein and bin Laden's al Qaeda network after Bush defended going to war in Iraq saying that the "enemy attacked us." He reminded listeners twice that the job of catching bin Laden had been "outsourced" to Afghan warlords, who then failed. Kerry further compared troop levels in Afghanistan and Iraq, asking if Bush thought that Iraq was so much more of a threat.

Kerry talked about Iraq in similarly plain terms. Families who find themselves "going out on the Internet to get the state-of-the-art body gear to send to their kids," the vast majority of military Humvees without armor, and casualty rates that go up month after month.

Kerry also described the state of allied help. "You can't tell me that when the most troops any other country has on the ground is Great Britain, with 8,300, and below that the four others are below 4,000, and below that, there isn't anybody out of the hundreds, that we have a genuine coalition to get this job done."

Though he's been much criticized for lack of clarity on Iraq, Kerry summed up his stand by way of the Powell doctrine. "Secretary of State Colin Powell told this president the Pottery Barn rule: If you break it, you fix it. Now, if you break it, you made a mistake. It‘s the wrong thing to do. But you own it. And then you‘ve got to fix it and do something with it." He said that an important part of succeeding in Iraq would be convincing people in the region that the U.S. doesn't have "long-term designs" on Iraq, suggesting that miscalculations made by the Bush administration gave the wrong impression that the war was about oil.

Kerry didn't hesitate to name nuclear proliferation as the most pressing threat facing the country. Proliferation was a recurring theme in his remarks, and was connected to North Korea's development of nuclear weapons on Bush's watch, Russia's still unsecured stores of nuclear material, and the example set by "spending hundreds of millions of dollars to research bunker-busting nuclear weapons" while telling other countries not to develop such weapons.

What would he do about proliferation? Kerry discussed the recent history of the North Korean situation in as much detail as the format allowed, and called for a renewal of the bilateral talks that led to the inspection regime agreed on under the Clinton administration. He said that he'd invest in securing Russia's nuclear material in the next four years, instead of the 13 he claimed it would take at the current pace. And he said unequivocally that the bunker-buster nuclear program would be completely shut down in a Kerry administration.

At home, Kerry pointed out that air cargo isn't X-rayed, that only 5% of containers shipped in through U.S. ports are inspected, and nuclear and chemical plants needed better protection. He touched on cuts to first responder funding for police and fire departments, saying that these services need to "fully staffed."

Finally, before it becomes the broken record tagline for Kerry's statements, the $200 billion figure for the Iraq war is based on estimates of costs through 2005. Even USA Today used the $200 billion figure this May, describing it as the likely price tag for Iraq operations through fiscal 2005.

Some network anchors stated that the total amount spent presently was closer to $120 billion. But the costs of policies are commonly discussed in terms of their lifetime total cost, just as the cost of Bush's tax cuts are estimated based on likely cost from inception to their sunset date. Such cost estimates can span an entire decade, or more when the subject turns to Medicare and Social Security. Further, much of the budget for 2005 will have already been determined this year, with every budget appropriation and ongoing policy decision being the equivalent of a postdated check written by the U.S. government.

Why is someone as liberal as I am having to point out the way policy costs are usually discussed? Or that money you know you have to spend over the next year affects spending right now, even if the bills haven't come due yet? I don't know. It's like saying shortly after you buy a house that it only really costs the amount of the down payment and the mortgage payments to date. Frankly, it's depressing.

Full transcript, and quote source, via MSNBC.

Gregoire Campaign

2004-09-29T22:36:00.000-07:00

From email, the Gregoire campaign on stimulating the life sciences industry and other businesses in Washington State:

...Gregoire discussed Putting Washington Back to Work, her detailed and comprehensive plan to create 250,000 new jobs. Chris’ plan will create jobs by creating a new life sciences fund to put Washington state at the forefront of revolutionary new technology, and nurture thousands of high-waged highly skilled blue-collar and white-collar jobs throughout Spokane, the Tri-Cities and the I-5 corridor.

Gregoire also explained her plans to reform the B&O tax, streamline small business permits and offer a tax incentive to reward industries that use our state’s research labs.

“Dino Rossi says that all the Governor can do is ‘stifle growth and kill jobs,’” Gregoire said [Wednesday in Vancouver.] “I believe we need a governor who’s ready to get out there and fight to turn our economy around in every part of the state.”

Gregoire also discussed her plans to create a stem cell research institute in Washington so the state can lead the nation in potentially life-saving research for people with a range of diseases from diabetes to Parkinson’s to Alzheimer’s. At their first debate, Dino Rossi said that there was no point in competing with California for stem cell research or the jobs it creates. ...

She's got their endorsement:

...Chris Gregoire has been endorsed by Washington Council of Police and Sheriffs, Washington State Council of Firefighters, Washington State Patrol Troopers’ Association and Fraternal Order of Police. Together, these groups represent over 10,000 police officers and firefighters throughout Washington state.

Chris spoke [Wednesday in Spokane] about the impact of September 11 on our state’s thinking about public safety. She also addressed ways to strengthen partnerships between federal, state, tribal and local public safety agencies and the importance of maintaining the Washington State Patrol’s position as one of the nation’s premiere state law enforcement agencies. ...

The campaign has a blog, with fairly frequent updates, pictures of supporters on the campaign trail, and profiles of campaign volunteers. If you can join them in these last, critical days of campaigning, I'm sure they'd appreciate it.

News & Comment

2004-09-28T22:08:00.000-07:00

Just started back to school this week, and If I study as much as it says I should on the label, I'm looking at 54 hours per week of school related program activities. So please pardon the light posting, & enjoy the following:

Bush's hometown paper endorses Kerry. A Kos diarist picked this up, and if you go down through the comments, you can read the story of the mayor of Crawford, TX, having also endorsed Kerry.

George Soros spoke at the National Press Club, and said in two sentences what many people have found themselves unable to say with long essays, emphasis mine: "The destruction of the twin towers of the World Trade Center was such a horrendous event that it required a strong response. But the President committed a fundamental error in thinking: the fact that the terrorists are manifestly evil does not make whatever counter-actions we take automatically good."

Another link from Atrios, Media Matters has an open letter from David Brock concerning the Republican ties of MSNBC commentator Frank Luntz.

Steve Gilliard talks about how bad things really are in Iraq, and how far from reality Bush's press conference with Allawi was.

Avedon at the Sideshow has an excellent collection of other things you should read, either because they will inform, enrage, or entertain you.

Obsidian Wings posts about the impending possibility that Congress will vote to legalize torture. Not actually allowing U.S. government personnel to perform torture, but allowing them to send suspects to countries that practice torture for the specific purpose of having them tortured. How this is morally different escapes me, but it does add a layer of deniability for P.R. purposes. Write your representatives in the House and Senate opposing this measure.

In closing, this is the last week for mail-in voter registration, so go out there and get people signed up. And if you can help out at all, please contact your local district party representatives, coordinated campaign headquarters, or favorite candidate headquarters to offer what help you can provide in turning out the vote. Thank you in advance.

Kerry's Terrorism Record

2004-09-24T10:56:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Atrios for the link, a Washington Monthly article recounts the story of Kerry's fight against international terrorism in the Senate. Excerpt:

Two decades ago, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a highly respected financial titan. In 1987, when its subsidiary helped finance a deal involving Texas oilman George W. Bush, the bank appeared to be a reputable institution, with attractive branch offices, a traveler's check business, and a solid reputation for financing international trade. It had high-powered allies in Washington and boasted relationships with respected figures around the world.
All that changed in early 1988, when John Kerry, then a young senator from Massachusetts, decided to probe the finances of Latin American drug cartels. Over the next three years, Kerry fought against intense opposition from vested interests at home and abroad, from senior members of his own party; and from the Reagan and Bush administrations, none of whom were eager to see him succeed.

By the end, Kerry had helped dismantle a massive criminal enterprise and exposed the infrastructure of BCCI and its affiliated institutions, a web that law enforcement officials today acknowledge would become a model for international terrorist financing. As Kerry's investigation revealed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, BCCI was interested in more than just enriching its clients--it had a fundamentally anti-Western mission. Among the stated goals of its Pakistani founder were to "fight the evil influence of the West," and finance Muslim terrorist organizations. In retrospect, Kerry's investigation had uncovered an institution at the fulcrum of America's first great post-Cold War security challenge. ...

While George Bush was busy trading Sammy Sosa away from the Texas Rangers in 1989, John Kerry was already working hard in the Senate to make sure terrorists would have a harder time laundering money and financing their operations. So tell me, who do you feel safer with?

News & Comment

2004-09-24T03:12:00.000-07:00

First Draft on the Bush administration's EPA, and also with a post on how economic indicators fell for the 3rd straight month.

Go to Off The Kuff to find out everything you wanted to know about the DeLay fundraising investigation and local reaction to it. Kuffner has a thorough review of Texas media coverage, as well as a closing summary of the charges and timeline.

Iranian bloggers protest government news crackdowns. Now there's a group of people fighting the good fight.

From Talk Left, Alabama's attorney general convinced the parole board to reverse a parole grant for a prisoner whose prison record is clean, and is in jail for killing the husband who beat her and regularly sodomized her children.

Left Coaster: Parallels between Brazil and Iran regarding nuclear inspections, though no one is darkly hinting that Brazil should now be invaded. Contrary to what you might have been drilled on in government class, there is a fourth branch of Constitutional government.

Also thanks to the Left Coaster, a link to a post by Tristero on how closely (and I'm turning into a nutbar conspiracy theorist as I type this) the recent Republican agenda matches that of the John Birch society on five major points.

Highest icefields will not last 100 years, study finds. This Chinese study finds that the icefields in that country, approximately 15% of global ice pack, are fast disappearing. The likely consequences are initial flooding, followed by drought and desertification.

Millions Blocked From Voting In U.S. Elections:

..."There are individuals and officials who are actively trying to stop people from voting who they think will vote against their party and that nearly always means stopping black people from voting Democratic," said Mary Frances Berry, head of the U.S. Commission on Human Rights.

Vicky Beasley, a field officer for People for the American Way, listed some of the ways voters have been "discouraged" from voting.

"In elections in Baltimore in 2002 and in Georgia last year, black voters were sent fliers saying anyone who hadn't paid utility bills or had outstanding parking tickets or were behind on their rent would be arrested at polling stations. It happens in every election cycle," she said. ...

Finally, go read today's Sideshow and keep reading down the archive until you come to a post you recognize. Avedon has great media deconstruction stories in her link collections as recently posted.

Help Patty Murray!

2004-09-23T01:20:00.000-07:00

Democracy for America is holding a vote for which Senators and Senate candidates will receive DFA funding before the election. This is a crucial time for fundraising, when the ads, doorbelling, phonebanking and all those other wonderful activities have to be cranked up to a fever pitch.

Senate races are some of the toughest, because the amounts of money required are so large. Small individual contributions may do a lot more in statehouse races this close in, but the concentrated investment possible through an organization like Democracy For America could really help.

So please go and vote for Patty Murray at the DFA site. Our Senator needs your help.

An interview with Barb de Michele (D-5th District)

2004-09-18T14:11:00.000-07:00

This interview was recorded on September 15th, with Barbara de Michele.
Kayne: Good evening, this is the third in a three-part series of interviews with the Democratic candidates in the Fifth Legislative District. Tonight, I'll be speaking with Barbara de Michele who is running for the House of Representatives. Good evening, Barbara.

Barb: Hi, how are you?

Kayne: I'm doing really well. How are you feeling the day after the primary?

Barb: I'm very excited of course by the returns, and by the fact that more people in the Fifth District chose to take a Democratic ballot then chose to take a Republican ballot, and I think that it shows exactly what we've been saying since well over a year ago, when we first decided to look into running and that is that the Fifth District is definitely trending Democratic and in fact may be Democratic based on these returns. So we're really excited.

Kayne: The latest returns as of 4 p.m this afternoon put you 382 votes ahead of the incumbent, Glenn Anderson. Do you think that's going to the margin that will carry through to the general election, or would you expect it to change a lot?

Barb: A lot of people who I think are going to vote for me, probably chose to take a Republican ballot. So very frankly, I think I am going to do better than that.

Kayne: So you think there was some strategic voting?

Barb: Well, I think that my issues are schools and transportation, and in many ways those are bipartisan issues, and after eight years on the Issaquah school board, I know people who are Republicans but know that I did an excellent job on the school board. I have a number of supporters who know that I have a really good strong background in transportation and I know that they are Republicans. So I think that I am going to have some crossover voters in the general election that I didn't get this time. So I actually think it's going to improve the next time around.

Kayne: I did a little looking for your biography on the new web site, and that's definitely improved - and it says that you were in the Issaquah school district. You were on the school board right?

Barb: Right.

Kayne: Now you served on there during one of the most contentious strikes in recent history, and my first question to you is, what are you going to take away from that experience, now that you've sat through something that's just that bitter?

Continue reading "An interview with Barb de Michele (D-5th District)"

News & Comment

2004-09-17T06:11:00.000-07:00

The Carlyle Group takes over U.S. nuclear program, sets sights on the weaponization of space.

Digby says stop the public handwringing over the Kerry campaign. We have the paid media to do that for us, and surely none of us will outwhinge them.

TalkLeft says a Republican convention-goer who kicked a protestor on video when she was on the ground seems to have been identified.

Daily Caucus on Arab family values, a court decision finding that the South Dakota legislature violated Native American voting rights by packing them all into a single voting district, and an example of how Republicans talk when it's just them:

Elephant brothers and sisters,

Larry Diedrich (R-Congressman hopeful) will be on campus [today] in front of the CSC from 3:30 to 4:30 PM. He will be shaking hands and answering questions that anyone might have about his campaign. Please show Larry your support and make an effort to stop by and introduce yourself. Politicians have to be great with names so make an impression on him and it might help you out in the future. If anyone wants to chat privately in a group-let me know-I will set up a time and email you all back. Help Larry defeat "Washington Witch" Stephanie Herseth by showing your support. What you do will be seen and followed by those who do not take initiative. So, stop by and simply say hi!

Thanks everyone,

Andrew Brown
Chair-USD Republicans

Kerry says Bush is "living in a fantasy world of spin". That's the spirit.

The Kofi Annan interview where he state that the invasion of Iraq was illegal in his opinion. Apparently Australia's PM, John Howard, is worried that it will hurt his party's chances in upcoming elections. If so, good. Bush was wrong to go in, but his major enablers provided a necessary fig leaf, and every one of them deserves to get booted from office. When a man is intent on hanging himself, some moral culpability can be assigned for handing him a noose.

What Dick Cheney used to think about sanctions on countries with unfriendly regimes.

How to Save the World has a fitting entry on things people would rather not think about, but probably should.

The Stakeholder has more detail on the DeLay ethics investigation.

Pinko Feminist Hellcat noted that a Maryland Senator decided to back voting paper trail legislation after an electronic voting machine misrecorded her vote in a demonstration. I'm glad, but you have to feel for whoever got chewed up for that public relations disaster. Or maybe, considering that they were trying to sell paperless electronic voting machines to the government, you don't.

Ampersand talks about what it would really mean to reduce the number of abortions, the various components of male privilege checklist, and why there aren't more women in politics.

MyDD exposes the first post-RNC convention poll as an outlier that substantially misrepresented the makeup of the voting public. Also, another sad milestone noted in Iraq; 2,000 coalition fatalities including contractors, official military personnel, and Iraqi security forces.

Seeing the Forest on right wing witness intimidation.

Feministing found a story on youth participation rates in politics, bringing the good news that they're way up.

The Left Coaster: The Wurlitzer is training its sigts on Iran. Some previews of the Kitty Kelley book.

Grover Norquist, a leading Republican strategist, had some harsh words for Ohio's Republican governor. Some scorching stuff, right there.

If you're going to go ahead an canvass a neighborhood or participate in a voter registration drive, Liberal Oasis has a handy cribsheet for when people have questions about John Kerry.

Primary Results

2004-09-16T13:26:00.000-07:00

The primaries have come and gone, and we'd like to thank everyone who had the courage to run for office, as well as everyone who participated. There was a lively and spirited debate this year over many issues that are important to our state, and this primary should not be the end of that discussion.

Here are the official state election results. They're not certified as of this posting, but are unlikely to show any reversals at this point. Congratulations to our Democratic candidates, we expect you to make us proud.

If you supported a candidate whose issues you really believed in, but didn't win their primary, please continue to raise that issue during and after the general election. There are too many important concerns on the table to wait around hoping that someone else will address them. Write your representatives, send letters to the editor, make calls, talk to your friends and listen to their concerns, register voters, walk your precinct, anything. If you're unsure where to start, the main King County Democrats page can hook you up with your local party chair or you could offer to help a campaign, and I guarantee they'll be happy to hear from a willing volunteer.

Of course, if you're able, please contribute to our Democratic candidates for Congress. But even a $2000 check can't man a phone or knock on a door, so whatever you can do, remember that your time is extremely valuable to our get out the vote efforts.

This is an important election year, and every effort counts.

DeLay To Get Away With Fundraising Shenanigans

2004-09-16T13:25:00.000-07:00

According to a story from The Hill, courtesy of DailyKos, Washington State Congressman Doc Hastings (R-WA 4th) will be part of burying an ethics investigation into Tom Delay's (R-TX) fundraising tactics. To its credit, the Seattle P-I ran a brief AP story on the investigation, but failed to mention that a Washington State representative would be involved in the decision to let Delay off the hook.

Kos listed the members of the committee and their D.C. office numbers. If you live in Hastings' district, give him a call.

Doc Hastings (WA-4)
202.225.5816

If you live in another state, head over to Kos and see if there's a representative serving on the committee you can talk to in your area. If you live in the same state, but not the same district, call your own representative and ask them to please raise a fuss about it.

Wherever you live, check your local paper and see if they mentioned this conflict of interest in any stories they may have written. If they haven't, consider sending a polite letter with links to these stories, and be sure to mention the involvement of any representatives in your state who might be involved. Ideally, we can get a few members of the press to start calling their offices for statements.

This Working For Change article lists the donation amounts made by DeLay's tainted PAC to four of the Republicans supposed to be sitting in judgement on him. Hastings, for example, received $1,410 from ARMPAC in what the FEC report declared to be in-kind contributions. None have recused themselves. This should matter to everyone, if only because DeLay is one of the most powerful men in Washington, and his legislative agenda is what our representatives get to vote on.

So please, do something about it today. Even if you only make two phone calls or send out a couple of emails, it counts.

Patty Murray: Supporting Port Security

2004-09-14T04:45:00.000-07:00

According to Roll Call as reported in the Seattle P-I, the Senate voted last Thursday against increasing the funding for port security. HR 4567 lost 45-49. $450 million doesn't seem like a lot of money to spend compared with the damage that one attack on a major U.S. port could do, and according to Senator Murray, the program received $1 billion in grant requests last year. Murray's office cited another figure as well:

The Commandant of the Coast Guard has testified that it will take more than $7 billion, including $1.5 billion this year, to implement the port security plans which were mandated by the Maritime Transportation Security Act.

The same day, Roll Call reports that another amendment to that same bill would have shifted $70 million from consultants to first responders. The money would have upgraded emergency services communication gear so that the different services could all talk to each other during a crisis.

Both of our Washington Senators voted to increase funding for port security and first responders, but they were overruled by the Republican majority.

Senator Murray is a strong voice in the Senate for keeping us safe here at home. She supports using our money effectively in the war on terror, and protecting our state's vital economic interests. So, make sure and send her back to the Senate this year, she's doing a fine job.

Primary Today

2004-09-14T04:03:00.000-07:00

If you're reading this page, the announcement that today is the WA State primary is unlikely to come as news to you. So I'd like to take a moment out of the widespread complaint about our new primary system to talk about the New Hampshire primary system.

I went to New Hampshire to volunteer with the Dean campaign, and one of the things I ended up doing (besides visibility event and political tourism), was acting as a poll watcher on primary day. The Granite State doesn't have caucuses, instead you have to show up at the polls as though it were a regular election. And one of the more noticable features of that day was the number of people I saw and heard complaining about their ballots.

In New Hampshire, you have to register by party or as an independent. If you're registered as either a Republican or Democrat, that's the ballot you get, end of story. If you're registered as an independent, you may choose the ballot of either party, but there's a catch. Choosing that ballot automatically registers you with that party, unless you specify to the poll worker that you would like to be switched back to independent.

There were a number of people who showed up asking for the ballot of one party, only to be told that they had to take the ballot of the party they'd voted with last time. With the small compensation that they could switch back to independent after casting the day's (frustrating for them) primary vote.

So if you hear people unhappy about the new primary system, or if you're unhappy with it yourself, realize that people in the rest of the country probably have little sympathy. It's comparatively rare not to have to register by party, though I realize that some might consider it a small favor.

Other primary news:

The attack ads we've all been seeing run against Deborah Senn were entirely funded by the national Chamber of Commerce. See the P-I & Times' stories. The Chamber of Commerce will be running hit pieces against John Edwards later in the election cycle, according to some reports, so keep an eye out.

The PI's voters' guide, election headlines and endorsements.

The Times's election headlines and endorsements.

Kayne McGladrey brings us a local Legislative District news aggregator, for more on local races.

News & Comment

2004-09-14T03:44:00.000-07:00

This past Saturday, Kerry gave the Democrats' radio address, on the anniversary of 9-11.

Paul Krugman's Tuesday op-ed talks about how the situation on the ground in Iraq is putting the country in danger, and why Kerry should say so, loudly and often.

Over at Seeing the Forest, there's a post on what 'character' means in political terms, the story of how rightwing rumors become news (also mentioned in this LA Times forgery claim timeline), and a pointer to excerpts of a prescient story written in 1935.

In a long overdue development, Talk Left informs us that U.S. prison inmates can sue prison officials over rape in cases where there's evidence that officials allowed abuse or refused to investigate complaints.

The Stakeholder says that even moderate Republicans are impatient with the administration's refusal to implement the 9-11 commission's recommendations, but wonders if that's the only thing that's tickled their consciences.

Pandagon: The truth about trial lawyers. If this story is correct, then the man who pulled strings to get Bush into the guard was later able to blackmail him into granting a government contract to a company he represented in exchange for his silence.

The Sideshow with a meaty entry on what compassionate conservatism means in practice.

Ms. Musings on the current face of feminism.

Under the Same Sun on how marketing turns kids into users.

In case you didn't hear on the Daily Show, Robert Novak now believes that reporters should reveal their sources. Unless, I'm guessing, that reporter is him, and the source in question is a highly placed member of the Bush administration who publicly revealed the name of CIA agent along with a CIA front company for good measure.

MyDD notes that IBM confirms Bush documents could have been produced on their typewriters.

Matt Yglesias shares a Libertarian's case against Bush, and his security issues reading list.

Yglesias also pointed to a Talking Points Memo post on Bush's jump in the polls that, as Matt says, is almost certainly right.

Atrios notes that Bush has been lying about his service record for years, links to an op-ed in PC Magazine where a typography geek explains patiently that being able to imitate a document in MSWord doesn't mean that only MSWord could have produced it, and points to someone who knows what they're talking about when they speak of Bush administration incompetence. Of the many stunning notes in that last article, this one made me jump in my seat:

...Astonishingly, according to information the commission received between the writing of the staff reports and the final report, the secretary of defense, upon learning of the two attacks in New York, simply returned to the work he had already been doing in his Pentagon office. ...

I think we'd all be happy if the comments of this Kos diarist made it into the Kerry campaign's talking points:

"Mr. president, Colin Powell told you about this war that 'if you break it, you own it.' And now you're going around talking about an 'ownership society.' Well, Mr. President, let me tell you what you own. A million jobs lost. You own that. A thousand soldiers lost. You own that. 1.4 million new people living below the poverty line. You own that. 1.2 million less people covered by health insurance. You own that. A seventeen percent medicare increase. You own that. Health care costs skyrocketing. You own that. The tax burden increasing amongst the middle class. You own that. Mr. President, if you want to talk about an ownership society, let's talk about what you own."

Just about sums it up.

An Important Contribution

2004-09-13T13:57:00.000-07:00

Voting is a wonderful thing, and the ultimate currency of elections. But to get those votes, money has to be raised, forces have to be marshalled, ads have to be run, and it makes my head spin to think how many phone calls need to be made.

To do my bit in supporting this, I urge visitors of this site to contribute to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, so they can help narrow the gap in the House. I've suggested donations go to Washington State races, to help maintain a strong Democratic party presence in our slate of federal candidates. The fact is, though, that as much as political parties (including the King County Democrats) and candidates need money, they usually need volunteers even more.

Meteor Blades over at dKos talks eloquently about why one of the biggest contributions you can make is walking your local precinct. The Bush campaign is not entirely wrong about how much this election might hinge on turning out the base vote. And your local party would undoubtedly tell you that Republican majorities in statehouses and governor's mansions make a big dent in how things run. If you live in a safely Democratic area, your efforts could be a huge windfall for statewide candidates. Even if you live in a red area, don't let the Republicans take it without a fight, make them spend money where they think they're 'safe.'

To steal a line from Howard Dean, you do have the power to take this country back. So please, do what you can, because every bit helps.

Dave Ross (D WA-8th CD)

2004-09-10T03:11:00.000-07:00

Radio talk show host Dave Ross thinks that he’d do a good job in the 8th district’s open Congressional seat. He decided to join the already crowded race after a poll initiated by the State Democratic Party indicated that Ross had 80% name recognition in the district, and some chance at winning the seat given enough effort. He believes that he’d be able to reach across both sides of the aisle, and points to long experience as both a journalist and talk radio host as an indicator of his ability to talk with people, and not just past them.

As a foreign policy priority, Ross says that the U.S. should make sure that we’re marketing our culture as effectively as Islamists are spreading theirs. He says that foreign aid is too low, and that the U.S. isn’t competing with other country’s cultural centers. From some perspectives, he says that the U.S. “looks to many countries like a money-grubbing, materialistic culture with no morals,” even though allowing people to be free isn’t the same as sanctioning their lifestyles. He says the U.S. should be reminding people that it doesn’t have territorial ambitions.

Ross cites the State Department as saying that the way to win in the Middle East is to tell them that policy is changing, and that the U.S. won’t support despots anymore. He says there are some improvements in smaller countries in the region that have the beginnings of democracy, and are moving towards more freedom and equal rights. Yet he says they see the U.S. supporting Cold War allies with little regard for human rights, and they blame the U.S. for bad conditions.

Ross now says that Iraq didn’t pose a sufficient threat; that the U.S. should not have gone without more solid financial support, and should have waited until Saddam got impatient and created an excuse. He says he doesn’t know how he would have handled it if he were in Congress. Ross believed that the evidence looked solid before the war, and he thought the administration wouldn’t dare get the intelligence wrong. At the time, he says the president implied that the resolution would garner international support, giving him a strong hand at the U.N. Now he says that Senator Patty Murray’s speech against the war “sounds better and better the more you play it,” and he says he wished that he’d given it.

Currently, Ross says that Iraq and the war on terror have become the same, with the war in Iraq becoming a rallying cry for terrorist recruitment. He says the war “made [the terrorists’] commute shorter.” Ross says he doesn’t think Saddam was the kind of person who would share power or weapons, and that it’s probably more important to prevent the abandoned Russian nuclear arsenal from falling into the wrong hands. Another consequence he says came from the Iraq war in that North Korea seems to have learned the lesson that the way to keep the U.S. from attacking you is to have nuclear weapons.
Domestically, Ross’ positions are similarly wide-ranging.

For healthcare reform, Ross says that a “critical mass of frustration” is necessary before reform is possible. He says that right now, many people think they won’t get sick and don’t want insurance. He proposes that doctors should accept credit card payments that would be tagged as a medical expenses, and at the end of the year, government should reimburse those expenses on a sliding scale.

Ross opposes what he says seems to be the position of some unions that laws should be made to stop outsourcing. He says that corporations always get around laws preventing the export of jobs, and what’s important is to create new industries and repurpose the existing workforce. As an example, he says that Boeing employees could be put to work building rapid transit. Going forward though, he says it’s important to educate people better, that you can’t tell people a high school education is enough anymore. Yet Ross expects increases in college tuition to continue. He says the United States is the envy of the world in higher education, and the government can’t guarantee the money for everyone to go.

Along those lines, Ross says, “Everybody’s in favor of [education], but nobody wants to pay for it.” He says it’s necessary to fund good schools in order to face increasing global competition. He opposes federal legislation that imposes costs on schools without providing the funding to pay for them, and also believes that education should be managed as close to the classroom as possible. He opposes the way standardized testing is being used in the state as more of a penalty than an educational tool.

Ross offers charter schools and greater flexibility as solutions to current problems in K-12 education, especially the care of disabled students. He says that schools should be able to pull disruptive or disabled children out of mainstream classrooms where they can jeopardize the learning process. Ross suggests that the funding for special needs education should be a national responsibility, instead of telling school districts whose students have extremely expensive cases, “too bad.” He says that charter schools could also be set up with teachers who specialized in care for disabled students, and that a charter school system wouldn’t end up leaving them out.

Environmental protection is another issue Ross says everybody is in favor of, but doesn’t want to pay for. He says the “burden of proof should be on people who want to pump bad stuff into the air, not those of us who don’t want to breathe it.” Yet he also believes that consumer responsibility is an important component of environmental protection, as reflected in choices about things like fertilizing lawns, buying highly packaged food, and car choices. He says that if dealerships were mobbed for hybrids like the Toyota Prius he drives, every manufacturer would have hybrid cars.

On affirmative action, Ross says that everybody should get their chance. He suggested that instead of changing standards, recruiters should look farther afield, and make a deliberate effort to recruit anyone who might have talent. He says that race is still a qualification for minority community policing, sting operations, and is sometimes used by schools looking for a certain mix. Ross noted that the successful 1998 Washington State ballot initiative opposing affirmative action had made an exception for law enforcement purposes, and said he thought it was odd that it was okay to use affirmative action to entrap someone, but not to help them.

Ross speaks about social issues like faith-based social funding, gay rights and abortion in terms of faith, but says that “nothing destroys a church like giving it state power.”

Ross says that he sees no problem with faith-based programs, that no one is compelled to use them if they don’t want to, and that they might have some good ideas. He says that money would be going to organizations responsible for showing results, not to churches, and that these organizations need to keep records and be evaluated. He says “you have to decide if you want to help people or make a political point.”

Ross described a Constitutional amendment to prohibit gay marriage as “a ridiculous idea.” He compared it to endorsing gay promiscuity, and said he thought that religious people opposed promiscuity. Ross believes there’s no need for the government to either insist churches accept them, or take away people’s rights to enter a “solid, monogamous relationship.”

Ross, a Catholic, says he understands the concern religious people have about abortion. He says they think “God will punish America with fire because of the large number of abortions. And what I ask them is, ‘are you sure that outlawing it will reduce the number of abortions? Because if it doesn’t, God will still punish us with fire. …If you cover up the problem, he’ll still see it.’ …They think passing a law will avoid God’s wrath.”

Ross doesn’t think the anti-choice side is being upfront. He says that if they’re talking about giving full rights at the moment of conception, they should demand that conception certificates are issued. That if there’s no birth after nine months, a missing person investigation should begin, and without a satisfactory the mother be arrested and tried for murder. He says the problem is that laws against abortion probably won’t work and that they only affect half the population. Ross says that he doesn’t personally support abortion, wryly declaring that he “would never have one.”

As to making adherence to Catholic doctrine on abortion a political issue, Ross says that God is also against murder. He said, “the Pope spoke out against the Iraq war. Perhaps we should deny communion to every politician who supported that.”

To find out more, visit his website.

Unintentional Hiatus

2004-09-10T03:08:00.000-07:00

Sorry about the dearth of posting. Last week there was a dental emergency with attitude, and this week, Blogger hasn't been working. Both situations seem reasonably well resolved, and God knows there could be worse problems to have.

Without further delay, the 8th Congressional District candidate interview series will conclude with Dave Ross.

1000 Dead In Iraq

2004-09-07T18:35:00.000-07:00

Washington State Congressman Jim McDermott on the floor of the House today:

It would be nice if we could give each of the dead a minute of silence... But we can't. Because we would be standing here for sixteen and a half hours.

Congressman McDermott proceeded to read the names, ages, and ranks of the dead from Washington State. He asked other members of the House to do the same for the fallen from their states.

Update: This post did not go up on the day it was entered because of a Blogger malfunction.

Post RNC Reflections

2004-09-03T03:22:00.000-07:00

Well, the Republicans had their convention, and they must be relieved beyond belief that Bush didn't flub his lines. I have to give it to him that when he was talking about having met with injured soldiers, he convinced me for the first time in the last four years that he was displaying a genuine emotion besides spite, confusion, or glee. I'm glad we've all been privileged to go through this process of helping him develop emotional depth. Was it good for you?

A short way into his speech, Bush said of Kerry, "To pay for that spending, he is running on a platform of increasing taxes-and that's the kind of promise a politician usually keeps." That would be a 180 roll from Bush himself, who prefers to spend limitlessly without paying for it at all. But I digress. It reminds me once again that Bush should know what kinds of promises are usually kept. Indeed, his campaign promises regarding taxes are the only ones he seems to have bothered remembering once he got into office.

First it was because the economy was going great, and would go on being great as far as the eye could see, and the government was getting too much extra money. Then it was because we were in a recession, and the tax cuts would help pull us out. Now it's being argued that making them permanent will help push us over the top, at the same time that they say the economy they inherited was doing badly before they even got there. Oh, the flip-flopping.

It's one thing to get new evidence and change your mind. Not to do so would be considered plain stubborness; of the kind that some people call 'steadiness', and that others call 'boneheadedness.' It's another to radically change your explanation of an action or event based not on new information, but to manipulate the opinions of others. But now that we're all participating in the live action version of short attention span theater, it hardly matters:

..."Let me tell you what I think makes someone unfit for duty," Kerry said, turning his aim to Bush. "Misleading our nation into war in Iraq makes you unfit to lead this nation. Doing nothing while this nation loses millions of jobs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Letting 45 million Americans go without health care makes you unfit to lead this nation.

"Letting the Saudi royal family control our energy costs makes you unfit to lead this nation. Handing out billions of government contracts to Halliburton while you're still on their payroll makes you unfit.

"That, my friends, is the record of George Bush and Dick Cheney -- and that only begins to scratch the surface."

Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for the Bush campaign, called the speech "another example of John Kerry trying to divide America over the past." ...

Ah yes, the past. Which, according to Schmidt, should apparently be reckoned in terms of mere hours. It could once be said by William Faulkner that "The dead past isn't dead -- it isn't even past." If only that were true in this country today beyond the small handful of people who watch politics as though it were a sport, endlessly reliving Nixon-McGovern and Bush-Dukakis.

Of course, the media is the ultimate in aiding the loss of attention span, watching politics as though it were a fashion show. But as Richard at Seeing the Forest reminds us, they're just doing their jobs. So maybe the Bush campaign will get away with trying to suggest that the last four years should be put behind us, spilled milk. Maybe they've taken this as their motto:

"Nobody with a good car needs to be justified. ...Where you come from, is gone. Where you thought you were going to, weren't never there. And where you are, ain't no good unless you can get away from it." - Ministry Jesus Built My Hotrod, extended version

So let's go with something that's in progress, and see if the administration can get away from it. The September edition of the Harper's Index reports that over $85 million set aside for water programs in Iraq will be diverted to the operating costs of the U.S. embassy in that country. That's some brass. Apparently no one has explained to Ambassador Negroponte the nontrivial chance that if the water doesn't get going again, that embassy may end up acting as the last staging area for an ignominious retreat.

Here's what other people had to say about the proceedings:

John McCain suggests that Zell might not play right with swing voters. And if McCain says it, we all have to sit up and take notice. For some reason. But let's hope he's right.

MyDD inspires some discussion about how to talk like a Republican while making use of the gift of the Bush record.

Political Animal: Kevin Drum has his own Zell roundup, and points to a debunking of the claim that Kerry voted against all modern military equipment. Ezra Klein talks about the unexpected play to the base, when everyone expected the convention to be geared to the swing vote.

American Prospect Online: Robert Reich talks about what an ownership society really means. Mark Goldberg on the Kerry haters.

DailyKos is apparently swamped in traffic, so clicking through is dicey, but Kos relates that the letter Bush read that was supposedly from a soldier was indeed too good to be true. Kos pointed to Oliver Willis, who finds that it was written by someone who also happens to be a fellow at a conservative think tank.

An interview with Kathy Huckabay (D-WA 5th LD)

2004-09-02T23:04:00.000-07:00

Kayne: Good evening, this is Kayne McGladrey of Pleasing to Remember. This is our second in a three part series on the contenders in the Fifth Legislative District. Tonight, I'm speaking with Kathy Huckabay, who's running for the Washington State Senate. Good evening, Kathy.

Kathy: Hello Kayne.

Kayne: Hi.

Kathy: I'm delighted to talk with you again.

Kayne: Good to see you again - it's been a couple of weeks. I know most of your background, so this interview is mostly for other folks. You were the Mayor of Sammamish, right?

Kathy: Yes.

Kayne: How many terms?

Kathy: One term. We have a city manager form of government, so we have a professional city manager and we have 7 council members and each year the council members elect a mayor and a deputy mayor. So this is my first year as Mayor, and that term will end on December 31st.

Kayne: So you've been elected before.

Kathy: Yes. I've been elected to the city council for two terms. I was one of the founding members of the city of Sammamish. After working very hard to create the city, I decided to run for election, was elected in 1999 to an interim city council, which lasted for 18 months, ran again and was elected to a four year term. I was the highest vote getter out of the seven people who ran.

Kayne: All right. Name something specific that you did as Mayor of Sammamish which you're really proud of, and will endure beyond your term as Mayor.

Kathy: I think what I'm most proud of is the fact that we had a long and arduous relationship with the county council, particularly on the Sammamish trail issue. Coming into office I've been able to change that relationship and we're moving forward as rapidly as we can to allow the trail to go to the city. That is a legacy that we're going to leave for our children. We're also working with the King County Council on obtaining some of the property in Soaring Eagles Park, which is a 640 acre parcel just to the northeast of the city for ball fields. Again, it would be a true legacy. I guess the other thing I'm truly proud of is we were able to bring Beaver Lake park into the community as well and to provide that for our citizens.

Kayne: Good, so you've done a lot of things involving parks and trails out there, and Sammamish is a beautiful city.

Kathy: Thank you.

Kayne: That's great to see. And now you're moving onto bigger and better things, running for the Senate. How long have you been campaigning for?

Kathy: Well, I started talking with people a year ago now. So I began laying the groundwork for that campaign by going out and speaking to people. I spoke to Loren Skaggs, who had run for the State House prior to this, with Judy Clibborn, I met with Ross Hunter, and Paul Berendt, to get an idea on whether it was even a viable possibility of winning this position. And at that time, we were talking about a House position. We did not know that Dino Rossi would be stepping aside to run for Governor, so we were considering a House position. Everything was very encouraging, I heard a great deal about the changing demographics of the Fifth District which would tend to indicate that our district would be more Democratic leaning. Certainly the issues that everyone laid out were the education issue, and the health care issue; two leading Democratic issues which are big concerns for a candidate. So, I formally decided to start running and have been running now for four months.

Kayne: So you're keeping busy. Let's talk about a current issue and then we'll talk about some policy things. Yesterday, I was a guest on the Robin and Maynard show - it's a radio call in show - a guest with Secretary of State Sam Reed. It was a conversation about Washington's new Primary election system. Secretary Reed said that he fully expected that I-872, which is put out by the Grange to rescind the new Primary and give us a top-two vote getter primary would go ahead. What would you do if you were elected in the Senate and the will of the people was to go ahead with a top two? Would you support a challenge to it or would you go with the Initiative?

Continue reading "An interview with Kathy Huckabay (D-WA 5th LD)"

An interview with Jeff Griffin (D-WA 5th LD)

2004-08-31T22:36:00.000-07:00

Kayne: Good evening. This is Kayne McGladrey of Pleasing to Remember. This is our first of a three part series of interviews with the Democratic candidates in the Fifth District. Next week, we'll hopefully be getting the GOP candidates to weigh in. I'm also an irregular contributor to the King County Democrats blog if you're reading this there. With me tonight is Jeff Griffin, a candidate in the Fifth District for the Washington State House of Representatives. It's good to see you tonight, Jeff.

Jeff: It's great to be here. Thanks for the invite.

Kayne: It seems like just yesterday we were talking about politics as well.

Jeff: I think it really was just yesterday.

Kayne: It might be that way. It's been quite a busy campaign season thus far, hasn't it?

Jeff: It's been a lot of fun, there's a lot going on.

Kayne: I'm pretty familiar with your background, so this is largely for the benefit of folks who don't know you. I've went through your bio materials, just trying to pick out things that would be interesting for folks, I hope. You helped to set up Eastside Fire and Rescue, and you also were elected as the a fire commissioner. What I'd like to know, first question, is how those experiences prepared you for campaigning.

Jeff: Well, my first time I ran for Fire Commissioner, I ran against a 23 year incumbent and unseated him by doorbelling a whole lot of houses, so I learned a lot about doorbelling. I've been active in politics in other peoples campaigns for years, but the reason I ran for Fire Commissioner in the first place was because I saw a system that had a whole bunch of little fire departments that were feudal in nature - each had their own administration, their own public education, their own training divisions and they had hard borders they weren't allowed to respond across, so we weren't getting the closest fire vehicle and crew, so I thought that made no sense and ran for Fire Commissioner. In fact it was only a couple, short years after I was elected, we were able to create Eastside Fire and Rescue, put more firefighters on the street for less money, response times were down across the board, and in fact call volume is up because the population has changed so that's a pretty good combination, and I'm pretty proud of it.

Kayne: Eastside Fire and Rescue has "Rescue" in the title - do they do anything beyond fires?

Jeff: They do quite a bit of technical rescue. High angle rescue, trench rescue, and swift water rescue. They're also famous for their participation in wildfire fighting. Mobilizations... they have some of the biggest experts and some of the instructors who teach all over the State and are mobilized all over the nation for major wildfires.

Kayne: So actually they do some of the instruction at Eastside Fire for the firefighters who are over in Eastern Washington?

Jeff: Yeah, we're real fortunate in this area to have some real top-notch experts working in the field, particularly trench rescue, high angle rescue, and swift water rescue. They're also participants in the eastside hazardous materials program, so they're real well-trained.

Kayne: Ok. Right now, when you're not out doorbelling, you're a fire captain, right.

Jeff: Yep. I'm a fire captain for the Port of Seattle Fire Department, at SeaTac airport.

Kayne: This past couple years, we've seen President Bush speak quite a lot about homeland security, and we've seen Patty Murray speak about improving port security. I'd like you to name some specific improvements that you could see to improve port security while you're in office.

Jeff: Some things I'd like to see happen, as opposed to what I've seen happen, working at the airport. I think we've more than doubled the amount of money we're spending on airport security but I don't think we've even come close to doubling the amount of actual security. There's some things that need to happen at the airport and one of those is baggage screening. There has to be 100% baggage screening for every bag that goes onto an airplane. Right now, it's very rare for a bag to actually get screened and you can put anything in the belly of an airplane that you want, and that scares the heck out of me. We've been challenged with all the new threats like anthrax, SARS, and all these new threats since 9-11 that are terrorism related. We were told that "help was on the way," and that we'd be getting additional dollars for training, and specialized tools. Some of the testing equipment even to identify if a powder is anthrax... the tool itself costs about $20,000.00. Well, I'll tell you what. The people that have carried the burden of that expensive equipment is the local fire departments, and they've had to do that by laying people off, or reducing other programs, and yet we still have to respond to those emergencies, and I expect that there is a place in government - State government and Federal government - to help every fire department be able to respond to these new threats.

Continue reading "An interview with Jeff Griffin (D-WA 5th LD)"

Heidi Behrens-Benedict (D WA-8th CD)

2004-08-27T14:02:00.000-07:00

“I would recommend running for Congress to anyone. It is a profound and wonderful thing,” says Heidi Behrens-Benedict.

The Bellevue-based interior designer enjoys connecting with voters, and believes that representatives should come from the ranks of their communities. Behrens-Benedict started one of three previous campaigns by estimating the smallest possible budget needed to get a message out. No other Democrat wanted to run against an incumbent with a leadership role on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Behrens-Benedict says that she’s come to understand the needs of the 8th Congressional District very well. She doesn’t hesitate to list an unemployment rate that’s third or fourth in the nation as the district’s top priority.

Economy

“Taxes,” Behrens-Benedict says, “are the price of civilization.” They provide funding for services people want, such as roads, hospitals, schools, libraries, and the protection of public lands. She says the current administration and key Republicans appear to be “starving the federal government as it relates to human services.” Even though government is bigger than ever, and overall spending has increased, she says funding for these services falls short of the need for them.

If interest in education were more than lip service, Behrens-Benedict says, it would be better funded. She brings up the example of teacher pay, saying that master’s graduates are faced with taking a starting salary as a teacher for around $30,000, or a job in industry at around $80,000. Students, she says, should have access to smaller classes, better Pell grants, and forgiveness of student loans for key areas.

Behrens-Benedict also doesn’t believe that protecting the environment comes at the expense of the economy. She says that national parks and areas with great natural beauty generate a lot of money from tourism, adding to the economic benefits of clean air and water. Even Republicans, she says, value having fish in their rivers.

War and Terrorism

Coming from a military family, Behrens-Benedict says she is “resolute in [her] support of veterans.” But she says that we aren’t taking care of soldiers when VA hospitals are closing and around 40% of working age National Guard troops don’t have health insurance.

Behrens-Benedict says that when it comes to Iraq, the U.S. needs an exit strategy, and a true international coalition. She says the current administration has been arrogant towards long-term allies and friends such as France and Germany, and points out that the U.S. has now had to go back and ask them for help.

In the short term, she believes it’s important to be vigilant in tracking down terrorist cells. However, she says that the PATRIOT act needs to be thrown out, and that there are ways to fight terrorism without creating secret police.

Additionally, Behrens-Benedict criticized what she considers the under funding of port security, fire departments, police, and first response agencies.
In the long run, Behrens-Benedict wants government and the public to start thinking about taking steps to achieve peace. Saying that terrorism is much bigger than any one person, she believes terror cells will keep springing up if fundamental policy changes aren’t made.

Behrens-Benedict sees a solution in a generous foreign policy similar to the U.S. Marshall Plan, which rebuilt Japan and Germany after the two countries were nearly leveled in WWII.

Family Values

“I can’t tell you,” Behrens-Benedict said, “how much I loathe …those little sound bite[s].” She says the term family values has been used to vilify half the country as though they had no values, or don’t love their children. What does she believe are Democratic values?

Behrens-Benedict says that families should be trusted to decide when to have children, and government should focus more on what happens to them after they’re born. It’s cheaper, she says, to make sure children get a good start than to build a prison.

She does understand why some people are opposed to abortion. In that case, Behrens-Benedict says the goal should be to see that abortion isn’t necessary. She believes birth control should be readily available, including the morning after pill.

Behrens-Benedict’s idea of family includes the right of gay couples to form civil unions. She says civil unions are the future, and that she opposes a Constitutional ban on gay marriage.

Remembering the Community

Behrens-Benedict says she’s looking forward to remembering the needs of the people she’s talked to once she’s in congress. She says that every time someone in congress goes to vote, they have to pass through a gauntlet of lobbyists that “are not working for us. They’re working for corporations and other special interests.”

It’s important, Behrens-Benedict says, that people are “represented as ably and well as Weyerhauser, Boeing, and Microsoft.” Everyone will prosper, she says, if leaders in business and government keep in mind Henry Ford’s belief that you can’t lay off your customers.

Heidi Behrens-Benedict is running as a Democrat for election in the 8th Congressional District of Washington state. To find out more, visit her website.

Alex Alben (D WA-8th CD)

2004-08-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

Alex Alben believes that he can “hit the ground running” in Congress. The former RealNetworks executive interned with the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations Committees before graduating from Stanford Law School. He’s testified before Congress, and worked with policymakers on issues of consumer protection and copyright law.

Alben says that during elections, most of the discussion is about popular topics like healthcare, war, and Social Security. Then when you get to Congress, the actual job ends up being about issues like taxation, intellectual property law, and media policy. With a career spanning the software industry and more types of media than most members of Congress, as well as a long history of experience in government policy, Alben is confident that he can handle the everyday work.

Alben is concerned about the health of the economy, and describes a global economic picture of dislocation that is frightening and painful to people losing their jobs. He says it’s a time when people see jobs that used to be done in the U.S. moving overseas, and “don’t see where their future is.” He points to the adoption of English as the main language of the business world, and the availability of English speaking workers in other countries as a reason companies in places like India can directly interact and compete with U.S. firms. He says combining the reduced language barrier with new communication technologies has made the world much smaller, harder to compete in.

Alben says it’s important to have a stronger safety net, but also to have leaders who “understand what these trends are, and get ahead of the curve instead of just reacting.” He says that in every normal year, tens of millions of jobs are created and lost, that the workforce is very fluid. Further, he says that it misses the point to focus on the jobs lost. It’s also important in his opinion to look for the opportunities to create new ones, and he says that if the U.S. leads in education, it can create more good paying jobs than it loses.

“I understand that having an educated work force allows us to create great products,” says Alben. He says there should be more investment in education at every level. Not only in college, but in making sure that all primary school children have access to something as basic as breakfast. It’s very important, he says, that the U.S. keep its reasearch lead so it can build new businesses and industries to replace those that are lost.

Alben says the 8th Congressional District has a world class work force and local businesses, and that the area is positioned to become a leader in fields like life sciences and renewable energy. He says that he “would like to see a research triangle on the Eastside.” If they have one in North Carolina, he sees no reason why there shouldn’t be one here. He says his experience in technology and the law can help advance that goal.

Alben’s position on fighting terrorism at home is that “we still haven’t made the right investments in Homeland Security.” He cited the Port of Seattle as an example of where more security infrastructure is needed, saying that currently, only 4% of incoming cargo containers can be inspected.

When fighting terrorism abroad, Alben believes the U.S. can and should do more to reduce nuclear proliferation. It’s everyone’s nightmare scenario for a terrorist to get hold of nuclear weapons or material, and says it’s important to make sure that it never happens. He says the country needs to take advantage of every opportunity to control nuclear materials and knowledge, especially working to prevent proliferation from Russia and Pakistan.

Investing in human development is a third avenue that Alben believes could be added to current steps to make the country safer. He says, “We’re really fooling ourselves if we think we’re more secure when 2 billion people in the world live on less than $2 a day,” and have little access to even primary education. Not only does he believe it’s the right thing to do, he says that the increasing perception around the world that the U.S. doesn’t care will work against American security over time. He says that bringing better economic conditions, education, and health care to other countries will not only create stable trading partners but be an investment in peace.

It takes money to invest in education and healthcare, a social safety net for displaced workers, better security at home, technology research, and good will abroad. Alben says Congress and the rest of the government should re-examine some subsidies, encourage other nations to participate in promoting human development around the world, and adopt better economic policies. He says that better fiscal policy would do something about a federal debt that costs the country $180 billion dollars a year in interest payments, and that promoting new industries will create a larger revenue base.

“We have a federal budget of $2.4 trillion, so I would hope in that budget we can find money for healthcare,” for the 40 million people Alben says have no access to coverage. He says these goals can be achieved by reallocating existing government revenue.

When it comes to social issues, Alben believes that the current leadership in Congress is out of step with the district and its values. He says that a majority in the district support protection of women’s rights and health choices. He would like to see Congress stay on the right side of the pro-choice debate.

Alben says gay marriage is something that needs to be left to individual states to work out, and that the Constitution has survived 200 years without a specific definition of marriage. Under the federal system, he says people will be able to decide for themselves when they see whether or not chaos results from Massachussets’ new law recognizing the commitment of gay couples. He also believes these are the wrong issues for Congress to spend so mich time on, saying that it would be more appropriate for the legislature to focus on jobs, education, and healthcare.

In a recent speech before the 48th Legislative District Democrats’ caucus, Alben questioned the seriousness with which the current leadership in Washington takes a variety of threats to the country. He said that while the U.S. has a color code for terrorism warning levels, maybe the country needs alerts for the environment, education, healthcare, and the increasing numbers of war dead.

Alben says that it’s important to work towards a good outcome in Iraq, but that “we deceived ourselves about how hard this was going to be.”

For more information, visit his website.

News & Comment

2004-08-26T10:41:00.000-07:00

RozK has a long post, spurred by running into someone she hadn't seen for years, about irreconcilable political differences.

Crooked Timber with a post on the US' trade deficit.

Jake at 8 Bit Joystick talks about participating in a voter registration drive.

Atrios with two posts on the lies of John O'Neill, one of the chief proponents of the Swift Boat liars, and a partial transcript of the Daily Show Monday where Stewart and Corddry call the media out for falling asleep at the switch.

House Democrats' forum on rural and agricultural issues.

Ampersand talks about the growing Palestinian non-violence movement, which sounds like a promising development.

Guardian: Iraqi police detain journalists in Najaf. The Grand Ayatollah Sistani showed up to try and negotiate a cease fire. Sidney Blumenthal says Iraq has never been more dangerous to the US. Margaret Thatcher's son was planning to move to Texas when he was arrested in South Africa on charges of plotting to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea.

Diane Tebelius (R WA-8th CD)

2004-08-25T11:20:00.000-07:00

Diane Tebelius wants to continue retiring Republican Congresswoman Jennifer Dunn’s legacy, saying that Dunn gave the 8th Congressional District great leadership. The current Washington State Republican Party’s National Committeewoman says the most important undiscussed issue in the race is that a Congressional seat is not a local or state office, but a federal job. She believes that her experience as an Assistant U.S. Attorney and as a U.S. Trustee watching for abuse in bankruptcy courts gives her a good background for working in Congress.

Tebelius also points out that she’s the only former teacher running for the seat. The job of teacher is, she says, the most difficult job. She says education is one of the most important issues in her platform, and that succeeding in today’s world requires a good education. But she says that improving education isn’t about money, it’s mostly about good teachers and parental involvement. Tebelius maintains that the No Child Left Behind Act is not only well funded, but has plenty of money, saying that it’s easy to throw the criticism that it’s an unfunded federal mandate.

Tebelius believes that the economy, far from being a problem, is improving. She says statistics show clearly that new jobs are being created every month. In focusing on small businesses as a way to drive the economy, she says it’s important to make sure they can operate. She says that women run many small businesses, and they provide a tremendous opportunity to ensure economic security. She sees excessive regulation of small business as an obstacle, as well as high taxes which she says would go back into further building small enterprises. In her two years as a U.S. Trustee, a position she retired from this year, it was her job to review the financial documents of numerous distressed businesses. She says the experience gives her an understanding of the problems facing today’s business owners.

Tebelius thinks the country needs to ensure that businesses have a reliable, viable energy supply, and that getting there will be complicated. She believes that it’s a multifaceted issue needing study in order to balance the Bonneville Power Administration, dams, salmon needs, and the gas supply. She sees a need for additional oil refineries in the U.S., saying that there aren’t enough to supply the fuel we need. She says that everybody recognizes that alternative energy is important, but also maintains that there is evidence on both sides of the global warming debate. She adds that President Bush has already been working on the issue of alternative energy.

Tebelius suggests that frivolous litigation is another barrier to small business success, saying that businesses shouldn’t be threatened with lawsuits. She says it’s important to do something about class action lawsuits, such as the legislation that recently passed the House of Representatives allowing federal courts to hear class action suits with over 100 plaintiffs from different states and involving sums greater than $5 million.

She sees similar needs in the healthcare field, suggesting that punitive damages in malpractice cases should be capped, and that mediation should be used to reduce the number of lawsuits that make it to court. She does not believe that medical damages such as hospital charges or lifetime care costs should be capped.

When it comes to making healthcare more available, Tebelius believes that small business is the place to start because they’re the source of most uninsured. She suggests allowing them to bundle insurance purchases together to take advantage of bulk buying, and avoiding the high costs of insuring only a handful of people, as many small business owners are now forced to do. She says that people should be allowed to put money away in health savings accounts for catastrophic end-of-life care, which she describes as the largest medical expense that most people will face.

On social issues, Tebelius doesn’t support a Constitutional amendment prohibiting gay marriage, believing that it’s an inappropriate tool. She believes that the Defense of Marriage laws now in effect are sufficient to define marriage, and that beyond that, the states should decide for themselves. If those laws were successfully challenged under the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit clause, which would require all states to recognize gay marriages sanctioned in any other state, she says she would have to evaluate what steps to take at that point.

Tebelius would like to reduce the need for abortion by focusing on lowering the teen pregnancy rate, and allowing easy adoption. She also supports the over the counter availability of the morning-after pill, a stand at odds with the FDA who recently decided not to approve it for over the counter sales.

In her view, abortion restrictions should have exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the mother. She supports the 2003 legislation that bans what the bill calls partial birth abortion, and what Tebelius calls late-term abortion. The bill is being challenged in federal court because it does not provide an exception for the health of the mother, and because the medical professionals bringing the suit believe the non-medical term partial birth abortion has been poorly defined. They say the definition as written would outlaw an abortion procedure used in the second trimester of pregnancy, as well.

Tebelius wants to let the courts decide the matter, and says that some experts disagree that the wording of the bill would prohibit any specific procedure. She says “absolutely not” when it comes to health exceptions for abortion in the third term of pregnancy. “I believe in the sanctity of life,” she said.

Tebelius also supports the death penalty as it’s currently implemented, and is confident in the way capital punishment is used. She does not believe that a recent spate of overturned death row convictions represents a systemic problem.

In terms of protecting our borders from terrorism, Tebelius praised the efforts of the Bush administration. She said that Congress and the administration had taken great steps to transfer 180,000 employees in 22 federal agencies under the umbrella of the new Homeland Security Department, a proposal that originated with Senate Democrats.

Looking abroad, Tebelius said the country needed to be focused on Iraq and Afghanistan. She said the country can’t allow troops to be put in harm’s way, and that it’s necessary to find Osama Bin Laden. She believes that the Bush administration is working both diplomatically and appropriately to resolve the hostile situation existing with the North Koreans.

“There are enough people who think they know better than the administration,” said Tebelius. She suggested that it was inappropriate to second-guess the president when it came to decisions like breaking off negotiations with North Korea when he took office in 2001.

Find out more at her website.

Sign Wars

2004-08-25T00:02:00.000-07:00

Ross Hunter is running for re-election to the state legislature in the 48th District. In a recent newsletter, he urged supporters to stay out of the increasingly nasty sign war happening on the Eastside. Hunter is running unopposed in his primary, but circumstantial evidence would indicate that median strips throughout the 8th Congressional District have been the site of a proxy war between candidates in contested primaries. He gives good advice when he says:

Please, please, please do not get into a sign war with my opponents. Everyone has the right to put signs up (as long as they take them down afterwards.) The signs cost about $2.50 each, and take hours of volunteer time to assemble and distribute. Taking down my opponent's signs is illegal and undemocratic regardless of how you feel. Please don't do it.

News & Comment

2004-08-24T13:18:00.000-07:00

Christopher Albritton reports from the ground in Najaf on a visit to the Imam Ali mosque. He shares his encounters and discussions with locals, and pictures from inside.

Corrente informs us that John Kerry will appear on The Daily Show tonight, and puts up two posts detailing what Bush was up to while John Kerry was volunteering to get shot at.

The American Prospect on the cowardice of the media in covering Swift Boat smears.

Wampum: A Bush policy that needs to be undone immediately. A serviceman who made it back from Iraq only to take his own life. Also, a pointer to an article by Kathryn Cramer on military privatization.

Left Coaster: Five more soldiers dead over the weekend. Is the standoff at the Imam Ali mosque, the most revered site in Shia Islam, turning into an Iraqi Alamo? Have the Swifties really done any damage? More about what happened thirty years ago. The Republican squad of whack-a-mole recycled hatchet men.

Al-Muhajabah highlights nonviolent activists in Syria, many of whom have now been imprisoned for years because of peaceful protest actions.

Talk Left: An Oregon prosecutor is being asked to resign because it's now been shown that he lied in a signed affidavit used by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. America has never been so unpopular in the Arab world as it is now after four years of Bush. Two intelligence officers to be charged in connection with abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib.

Prometheus 6 highlights the trial in Afghanistan of three Americans accused of running a vigilante private jail, and a discrimination suit against the RNC.

World O' Crap finds a desperate Neil Boortz column suggesting that Democrats should vote for Bush to avoid two terms of Kerry followed by candidate Edwards. Neil, you can throw us in that briar patch any day.

DailyKos: Bush's medals, what there are of them. Latest Florida polls. It looks like the investigation into the leak of the name of an active CIA agent is narrowing in on Lewis 'Scooter' Libby. Finally, few choice quotes from Adlai Stevenson matched up with current political figures they resemble. My favorite - "An Independent is someone who wants to take the politics out of politics."

SEIU Group Health Strike

2004-08-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

Why they're striking.

Congressman McDermott joined strikers yesterday.

Local news coverage of the strike, interviews and stories.

Bush: Campaign Finance Flip-Flop

2004-08-23T22:14:00.000-07:00

From the uniter who wanted us to be a humble nation, we now hear the ridiculous notion that Bush is disappointed that campaign finance reform didn't go far enough. This could be construed as the high humor mark of the campaign, so let's review. Bush today, at a press conference [emphasis mine]:

August 23, 2004

THE PRESIDENT: I'm denouncing all the stuff being on TV of the 527s. That's what I've said. I said this kind of unregulated soft money is wrong for the process. And I asked Senator Kerry to join me in getting rid of all that kind of soft money, not only on TV, but used for other purposes, as well. I, frankly, thought we'd gotten rid of that when I signed the McCain-Feingold bill. I thought we were going to, once and for all, get rid of a system where people could just pour tons of money in and not be held to account for the advertising. And so I'm disappointed with all those kinds of ads. ...

THE PRESIDENT: That means that ad, every other ad.

Q Would you encourage Republicans not to give to --

THE PRESIDENT: Absolutely. I don't think we ought to have 527s. I can't be more plain about it. And I wish -- I hope my opponent joins me in saying, condemning these activities of the 527s. It's the -- I think they're bad for the system. That's why I signed the bill, McCain-Feingold. I've been disappointed that for the first six months of this year, 527s were just pouring tons of money, billionaires writing checks. And I spoke out against them early. I tried to get others to speak out against them, as well. And I just don't -- I think they're bad for the system. ...

Well, that's pretty clear. Bush signed McCain-Feingold specifically to get rid of people's ability to start groups like 527s. Which would be a great defense. If it were true. Here's Bush on the day he signed McCain-Feingold into law. First, his statements in support of the bill as they relate to contributions not made directly to candidates and parties, followed by his concerns about the legislation's shortcomings [emphasis mine]:

March 27, 2002

[FOR]...The bill reforms our system of financing campaigns in several important ways. First, it will prevent unions and corporations from making unregulated, "soft" money contri-butions -- a legislative step for which I repeatedly have called.

Often, these groups take political action without the consent of their members or shareholders, so that the influence of these groups on elections does not necessarily comport with the actual views of the individuals who comprise these organizations. This prohibition will help to right that imbalance.

...Third, this legislation creates new disclosure requirements and compels speedier compliance with existing ones, which will promote the free and swift flow of information to the public regarding the activities of groups and individuals in the political process.

[AGAINST]...However, the bill does have flaws. Certain provisions present serious constitutional concerns. In particular, H.R. 2356 goes farther than I originally proposed by preventing all individuals, not just unions and corporations, from making donations to political parties in connection with Federal elections.

I believe individual freedom to participate in elections should be expanded, not diminished; and when individual freedoms are restricted, questions arise under the First Amendment.

I also have reservations about the constitutionality of the broad ban on issue advertising, which restrains the speech of a wide variety of groups on issues of public import in the months closest to an election. I expect that the courts will resolve these legitimate legal questions as appropriate under the law.

As a policy matter, I would have preferred a bill that included a provision to protect union members and shareholders from involuntary political activities undertaken by their leadership. ...

Bush's statements do not call for stopping independent groups making issue ads, in fact that would be against the tone of his whole argument. His only expressed positions regarding contributions to groups operating independent of campaigns was that they should a) not support political actions that did not reflect the views of their members, and b) disclose their contributions with all possible speed. He unambiguously questions whether it's in keeping with the First Amendment to restrict groups and individuals from running issue ads near election time.

Not one single word supports the idea that he opposed 527s in principle at the time, and it would be very hard to argue that today's 527s don't reflect the views of their members and contributors. But this is an even larger step removed from candidate Bush's stand on campaign finance reform, as noted and quoted by none other than Rich Lowry in the very conservative National Review. This is candidate Bush talking with George Will during an appearance on ABC News' This Week [emphasis mine]:

January 23, 2000

GEORGE F. WILL: I want to see if you agree with those who say it would be bad for the First Amendment? I know you're not a lawyer, you say that with some pride, but do you think a president, and we've got a lot of non-lawyer presidents, has a duty to make an independent judgment of what is and is not constitutional, and veto bills that, in his judgment, he thinks are unconstitutional?

GOV. BUSH: I do.

WILL: In which case, would you veto the McCain-Feingold bill, or the Shays-Meehan bill?

BUSH: That's an interesting question. I — I — yes I would. The reason why is two — for one, I think it does respe — res — restrict free speech for individuals. As I understand how the bill was written, I — I - I think there's been two versions of it, but as I understand the first version restricted individuals and/or groups from being able to express their opinion. . . .

Usually, when the right debates itself in news articles as though they provided some kind of balance, they fail utterly. In this case, it's hard to think of a position on this issue that Bush hasn't taken in the last four years.

Also, I found this campaign finance classroom module on PBS. It's an educational supplement on the funding of political campaigns that looks interesting, and which I hope I'll have time to review in more detail.

Dave Reichert (R WA-8th CD)

2004-08-23T11:55:00.000-07:00

When asked why he’s running for congress, King County Sheriff Dave Reichert will say he’s interested in having a “broader impact beyond public safety.” This is his 33rd year in the Sheriff’s office, and to him, “it seems like a natural progression.” He says he likes to turn the question back around, asking audiences why they’d give up their time to hear him speak.

Reichert says his three decades in the Sheriff’s office have shown a history of leadership, and given him a special insight into the needs of the community. He’s seen the problems of every type of neighborhood in the county up close, from the wealthiest to the poorest.

Reichert’s ongoing work coordinating local and federal law enforcement priorities will give him an advantage when it comes to homeland security policy, he says. He also believes that he’ll be able to make policy decisions without the “baggage” of wealthy special interests.

Education

Reichert says education is important for promoting employment and keeping people out of crime and poverty. He said it’s important to address these problems “at the front end, rather than the back end,” by decreasing the need for rehabilitation in the first place.

Education funding, says Reichert, should mostly be the concern of the state governments, and he’s a supporter of charter schools. He opposes unfunded federal mandates, having seen the problems they create for local governments.

Economy

To help the economy, Sheriff Reichert believes in decreasing regulations on business and increasing efficiency in government.

He proposed putting services like public transportation and law enforcement into regional administration. He believes that it would be a good way to save on administration costs, eliminating redundancies. The main obstacle to such a plan, as he said, would be turf war controversies in local government.

He stated that some cities might be able to save between 30-50% on law enforcement costs by centralizing services. The King County Sheriff’s department, for example, saves money by allowing reports to be collected by phone when there’s no evidence to collect. Such a service could be shared over a larger region.

Church and State

Dave Reichert’s positions on abortion and gay rights would be at home in the most conservative religious circles. But they aren’t as rigidly ideological as that suggests.

He says his opposition to abortion stems from retrieving around 200 dead bodies in his career. When it comes to pregnancy prevention, he favors abstinence only education. Reichert believes he has an answer for unwanted children. His family adopted, and his daughter continued the tradition.

He doesn’t believe in formal recognition of any kind for gay relationships. To correct some of the legal hurdles this can create for gay couples, he favors changing the law so that “everyone has the same rights.”

When Sheriff Reichert visits his grandchildren’s preschool, he sees a community with a more diverse and multicultural future. He says that while he lives his own Christian beliefs, everyone has a right to free choice in religion, and that it’s very important to keep government and religion separate.

Freedom of Expression

When the World Trade Organization came to town in , Reichert was worried about the possibility of trouble. Sheriff’s department intelligence units had infiltrated “anarchist training grounds” where some groups were preparing for the planned mass demonstrations. He had units standing by to help, even though city leaders said that they would be unnecessary.

As it turned out, the ensuing riots started by a few of the participants badly stretched the county’s police forces. While riding with County Executive Ron Sims during the riots, he ended up being the only officer available to respond to an opportunistic break-in at a Radio Shack, chasing the would-be robbers away on foot.

It isn’t surprising to hear that a long-time sheriff strongly favors law and order. He publicly disagreed with Mayor Nickels’ criticism of police behavior during the protests, but at the same time, he took a harsh stand against an officer that he felt crossed the line.

A volunteer medic with one of the protest groups was filmed being kicked by a policeman from behind while kneeling on the ground. Reichert fired the offender immediately. The officer was reinstated by court order, but Reichert said that firing him was the right thing to do. He says that while it’s important to make sure that one person’s freedom of expression doesn’t interfere with the freedoms of others, you don’t end up with a police state.

When it comes to the PATRIOT act, he supports it, for now. The bill included communication reforms between federal law enforcement agencies, but other provisions are more controversial. Parts of the law that granted federal law enforcement officials the authority to inspect library and financial records without notice, or a court order, have some people worried.

Sheriff Reichert says that while we’re at war, he supports whatever measures can help keep us safer. He also believes that these types of laws should be allowed to expire.

The Outside Perspective

Karen Marchioro, a Democrat, ran Reichert’s campaign for King County Sheriff. She said that he was the clear choice in the race for Sheriff, where he ran as an independent, but also that it could be hard for him to manage running for congress while holding that job.

Ms. Marchioro admired what she called a responsible position on gun control. She said that as a Republican, his law enforcement background helps him in a party that traditionally takes an undiluted pro-gun position. “He knows,” she said, “what it’s like to respond to a domestic violence call when there’s a gun involved.”

Sheriff Dave Reichert is running as a Republican for election in Washington State's 8th Congressional District. To find out more, visit his campaign website.

Keep Washington Blue

2004-08-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

You'll notice a new sidebar section entitled Contribute. There's a link to a page where you can donate to any or all of the state Congressional and Senate races, as well as links to the state legislature committees, the county and state parties, and the national campaign committees.

It's crunch time. There are less than 3 months to go before the election. Send $5, send $20, send whatever you can. It counts. Even when you can't give much, you send a message of support to the party or candidate.

Most importantly, though, you take another step towards taking politics back. To paraphrase Howard Dean, real campaign finance reform comes in the shape of a lot of small donations. It means that the public is taking its government in its own hands, demanding to be heard.

If you can't give cash, look into volunteering with a local campaign. Walk precincts for a congressional or state legislature race, phone bank for the Murray campaign, stuff envelopes, or put up signs. Don't neglect volunteering with the downticket races, because a vote for a Democrat in a local office has a decent chance of turning into a vote for John Kerry. Plus, to have good national candidates tomorrow we have to support local officeholders today.

If you can't do that, talk to that friend of yours who never thought it was worth it to vote and tell them why it matters. You don't need to push, just get them hooked on paying attention to the funky soap opera that is US politics. It's the best show out there, even if the cast is a bit large.

If none of that appeals, find your own way to contribute, and remember to vote come election time.

Update: In the comments, Mark reminds me that another great way to get involved is to become a precinct committee officer (PCO) for your precinct. Even if your precinct already has one, you might look into being an acting PCO for a neighboring precinct that's going without.

Conrad Lee (R WA-8th CD)

2004-08-20T12:16:00.000-07:00

Conrad Lee believes politicians should “remember that they’re fallible.” The Bellevue City Councilmember emigrated with his mother from China when he was 10 years old to avoid the communist government takeover. He’s worked as an engineer at Boeing, as a stockbroker, and as an employee of the City of Seattle working on waste management policy. Lee has been a member of the Bellevue City Council for 10 years, and only recently resigned from a Bush administration appointment as Regional Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration in order to run for Congress. “I’m a workhorse, not a showhorse,” said the candidate.

Lee is pleased with the progress Bellevue has made over the years he’s been on the City Council. The city has a AA bond rating, the second best credit rating available, and the lowest property taxes in Washington State. He has voted against every property tax increase, saying that the city doesn’t need them, and provides good services with the revenue they have. But he said that some tax is necessary to serve the public and build up infrastructure. He compares reasonable levels of taxation to the practice of tithing in Christianity, where everyone chips in to help, and that it should be considered a cost of doing business.

According to Lee, Bellevue gets most of its revenue from sales taxes, due in large part to the retail center that’s grown up downtown around the Bellevue Square Mall. He said that the city is fortunate to have such a good business climate, but that it wasn’t always this way. Lee described the relationship between the business community and Bellevue neighborhoods as hostile as recently as 12 years ago, saying that he worked with other council members to turn things around.

Lee believes that government should take in only as much money as necessary based on needs determined ahead of time. He criticized the tendency of government to add new programs without considering whether old, unneeded programs could be gotten rid of to save money. When asked about specific tax changes, Lee said that any tax policy needs to respond to economic circumstances, suggesting that they be evaluated on their results. He said that in bad economic times, such as now, taxes need to be kept low. Lee said concern should focus on maintaining economic and technological superiority, as well as boosting the availability of jobs.

“Education is a tool for us to become prosperous, because it makes us more competitive,” said Lee. While he said that most school funding comes from state and local governments, the federal government should take its share of education funding seriously, and sees a role in Congress as an education advocate. He said that the United States already attracts top talent from around the world, issuing more PhD’s than any other country, and that it’s important to maintain that lead. “You’ve got to have a very good K-12 education” as a foundation for that, he said.

Though the federal government doesn’t provide the bulk of education funding, they can pass regulations that require states to spend money without attaching the money to pay for them. Lee said that as a local official, he always stood up against onerous unfunded mandates. As a City Council member, he said he always made sure that any measure was fully funded before passing because it’s important to know the consequences of any legislation. He said he would vote against legislation in Congress that didn’t include the money to pay for its provisions. He said that education is a local issue where the federal government should only intervene if they need to.

However, Lee does say that he favors the federal government passing a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. “I believe in traditional marriage because of my values. I’m a Christian,” he said. Lee said that the subject is an issue that he would rather the government wasn’t involved in, but that people have forced it. He said that he doesn’t see any particular legal benefits he and his wife get by being married.

About abortion, Lee said it isn’t an option to him, though he doesn’t believe government should either make a law forbidding it or fund it with federal money. He said that he supports exception for rape, incest, and the health or life of the mother. Regarding sex education, he said that any education should be complete, laying out all the choices and consequences. Though he favors encouraging abstinence, he said that condom use and birth control should be discussed as well, because teaching people partial information distorts knowledge.

Lee said that he’s very interested in international politics, and that it’s important to be sensitive to world events. Even as a superpower, he said that the U.S. is linked to the global economy for both resources and markets, and needs to have good relationships with other countries. While he said it’s important to maintain policy independence, the U.S. shouldn’t act unilaterally, and should continuously engage with other countries when it comes to security issues.

Lee said that when it comes to allocating money to support security efforts at home, local governments should have significant say in how to spend it. He said that counties usually have their own established ways of coordinating, and may already own a lot of resources that local officials will know best how to use.

Regarding the PATRIOT Act surveillance provisions, Lee said that the unusual situation that exists after 9-11 requires some sacrifices, which he said amount to inconveniences. In his view, as long as the press and public are actively questioning the uses of government power, there's no need to worry. He also said that as a member of Congress, he’d ask tough questions about how law enforcement powers were implemented.

Lee is glad to be in a country where people have the opportunity to be free and to experiment. He said that “democracy can only succeed when everybody is involved and participating,” saying that because it isn’t a natural state, it has to be fought for. He considers democratic government and political freedom to be a form of protection for economic and religious freedom. He said that not enough people vote, and it’s important to encourage them to do so. “People need to feel that their vote can make a difference,” he said.

Find out more by emailing clee@ci.bellevue.wa.us. (No website yet)

News & Comment

2004-08-19T14:19:00.000-07:00

Juan Cole reviews the outing of an Al Qaeda mole in some detail.

MaxSpeak watched the 1971 Kerry vs. O'Neill debate and shares his impressions, as well as a link to where you can find it on the net. Next, he takes one, two, three swipes at unspinning the official line on the tax cuts.

Atrios points out a Gadflyer account of an evening in the 'No Spin Zone' with angry conservative Brent Bozell, and a Kerry-Edwards press release asking which campaign is in touch with 21st century threats?

Warblogging discusses FBI surveillance of protestors.

Daily Howler takes down the media frenzy over the sensitivity debate.

DailyKos answers the question of just how negative the Bush campaign really is.

Suburban Guerrilla shares the comments of a journalist on the Valerie Plame leak.

Electrolite finds a letter indicating that Kerry may have won the anarchist vote, and points to a Guardian article surveying the British public's attitudes about family leave policies.

If you love to despise Ann Coulter, World O'Crap explores her latest wingnuttery.

BOPnews: It's apparently being reported in the Arabic language press that Pakistani authorities are close to capturing Osama bin Laden. The income gap is steadily rising, and it isn't helped by the fact that the few new jobs being created tend to pay less than the jobs they're replacing. Another reason oil prices are so high - demand is rising fast as economies like China's rev up.

Josh Marshall talks about the implications of the Swift Boat attack ads.

Luke Esser (R WA-8th CD)

2004-08-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

State Senator Luke Esser has served in the Washington State Legislature for six years, and enjoys representing the 48th Legislative District in Olympia. The Bellevue native feels that his experience as a legislator will be helpful in his run for Congress, and in dealing with taking steps to improve the economy for the region. He cites his nomination as Majority Floor Leader after only 11 months in the State Senate, the seven bills he worked to get enacted into law last year, and his willingness to work across the aisle.

Esser said that jobs and the economy are the top focus in this election, at a time when he said that so many are out of work or underemployed. Esser worked as part of the team that encouraged Boeing to assemble the 7E7 here in Washington State, participating in the effort to craft a package of legislation that would make the state appear more competitive. He said the project will create new jobs, and stabilize existing ones, serving as a powerful symbol of the state’s manufacturing jobs. He said he’s concerned by the fact that Washington State seems to be fighting two other states for the worst unemployment rate in the country.

Regarding ethical investigations into Boeing’s dealings on a military contract, Esser said it was an instance of one individual misbehaving. Esser said it’s appropriate to have rules regarding conflicts of interest, and a lot of scrutiny in public dealings where lobbyists are involved. Yet he also said that it’s inappropriate to question policies based on the suspected motives or industry ties of the person proposing the policy. He believes lobbyists for Washington State labor unions have made the state uncompetitive, and wonders if state employees should be the ones performing services like landscaping and food service at universities. He wants to open more state jobs to competitive bidding, and would like to expand the use of performance audits for state employees.

Esser said that it’s more important to look at getting more for the money the state does spend, especially in education. Though educators at local colleges have raised concerns about the way the number of students is calculated, he said that per student funding hasn’t changed much over the last few years when adjusted for inflation. He wants to see a more performance oriented way of looking at education based on the outputs of test scores and college acceptance rates, saying that money spent on education doesn’t always produce as much value as expected.

A specific funding problem for education that he said he’s concerned about is the way the primary education system pays its employees. He said that because a statewide payscale and per student funding standard is used, the school system ends up underpaying for teachers and students in urban areas, and overpaying in rural areas. It’s because of this that Esser said schools in rural areas of Washington state do better than those in other parts of the country. He said that private industry and the military deal with the issue by using cost allowances adjusted for the local cost of living. He said that only Hawaii, with a single school district for the whole state, has a more centralized education system than Washington State.

Esser said that he’d like to see the nation’s deficit drop, saying that the “key is to not let spending get out of control.” He said that military spending is at appropriate levels, but that domestic spending is exploding. He said that the economy is bouncing back, and the tax cuts are working, but it’s important to keep spending down. As an example, he said that the state budget grew more slowly last year than it ever has, but that he thinks they did a good job of funding necessary agencies with what they had.

Esser said it’s important to maintain vigilance here at home, and said that the country’s commitment to security shouldn’t be measured only in dollars. Though he said that federal funding for law enforcement and port security has improved. He said it would be a good idea to take advantage of technology like cargo containers that can be electronically sealed at their point of origin, as well as looking for better technology to use for border security.

On recent allegations of torture and prisoner abuse in Iraq, Esser said, “I haven’t heard anybody defend what went on. I think it’s important to us as a country and our credibility in the world to make certain that those responsible are held accountable.” But he said it’s important not to change our direction in Iraq, and to continue to track down terrorists wherever they are. He said our troops will probably be there for a while, and showing signs of weakness would just embolden terrorists in the area and here in the U.S.

Talking about his legislative record, Esser believes he probably does better than the average Republican in the eyes of the environmental community, and that he’s somewhat independent of his party on the issue. He said that he recognized the need to respect the will of the voters on the issue of a voter initiative to restrict bear and cougar hunting, even though he disagreed with the bill. He’s concerned that hatchery salmon might not be counted when fish stocks are measured to determine if stocks are endangered, and that they should be included if there are no meaningful differences.

Esser expressed interest in technology and intellectual property issues. He gave the example of a bill he sponsored making it a crime to take a hand held video camera into a movie theatre and make a recording, saying that there were huge problems with intellectual property involved. He said it’s “hard to believe that wasn’t specifically a crime in the state of Washington beforehand.”

Another issue that came before the state legislature during this last session was a bill that would have extended the state’s anti-discrimination laws to gay citizens. Esser said the bill was not good policy, citing concerns brought up by the Catholic Church that it would have put them in a position of having to hire people they disagreed with into their parochial school system. He said that his background as a Catholic is as much a part of what he brings to the legislature as his law degree. Esser said he would vote for any of the proposed federal Constitutional amendments banning gay marriage, but would prefer a version that simply prevents states from having to recognize gay marriages performed in other states.

Regarding abortion, which is mostly a federal issue, Esser supports the usual exceptions including permitting the procedure in case of significant health risk to the mother. He said we approved of the partial-birth abortion ban passed recently by Congress, and said he knows of experts who don’t think it’s the case that its language would also restrict procedures used earlier in pregnancy than the last trimester. The law does not include a health exception.

While Esser feels there may be a lot of issues that the public should consider more often, he said, “People are busy. And that’s one thing I think we all need to keep in mind if we lament the fact that pople don’t spend enough time thinking about particular political issues.”

Find out more at his website.

Back Again

2004-08-19T14:12:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the hiatus, it was unavoidable. Starting today, we'll be counting down through the seven candidates for the 8th Congressional District. First the Republicans, then the Democrats, each group in alphabetical order.

I conducted the interviews this spring, and they've previously appeared on my other blog and in my school paper. Now they're appearing here for the reading enjoyment of visitors to the King County Democrats blog. So enjoy.

Bush on Antidepressants

2004-08-10T17:51:00.000-07:00

Via Skimble, Capitol Hill Blue brings us the news:

...Tubb prescribed the anti-depressants after a clearly-upset Bush stormed off stage on July 8, refusing to answer reporters' questions about his relationship with indicted Enron executive Kenneth J. Lay.

“Keep those [ed. deleted] away from me,” he screamed at an aide backstage. “If you can’t, I’ll find someone who can.”

...One long-time GOP political consultant who – for obvious reasons – asked not to be identified said he is advising his Republican Congressional candidates to keep their distance from Bush.

“We have to face the very real possibility that the President of the United States is loony tunes,” he says sadly. “That’s not good for my candidates, it’s not good for the party and it’s certainly not good for the country.”

Well, that explains a lot.

News & Comment

2004-08-10T16:04:00.000-07:00

First Draft notes that Kerry intends to revise the 1872 mining law that requires the government to sell public lands with valuable resources on them for the price of $5.00 an acre.

The Sideshow highlights another dirty trick to remove liberal voters from the rolls, which is probably the best argument I've ever heard for not registering by party, and shares some interesting links on everything from prison privatization to Alan Keyes.

The editor of a Lebanese paper decries the attitude of helplessness that he sees as a contributing factor in the Middle East's ongoing silence in the face of the Sudanese genocide.

A Middle Eastern paper alleges that the president of Iran has received a letter from the US discussing the possibility of cooperation.

King County's excellent financial management is reflected in a recent bond sale based on an AA+ credit rating, which along with the cities of Bellevue and Seattle is higher than the credit rating of other Washington State governments.

This Modern World takes another look at the influence of Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

DailyKos: Louisiana Rep. Rodney Alexander's entire DC staff resigned in protest over his last minute switch to the Republican party, which occurred too late for Democrats to field a candidate in his district. It comes to our attention that a standard line in Bush's stump speech declares that there's no point taxing the rich very much because they dodge taxes anyway.

Alas, A Blog brings us a bunch of links discussing same-sex marriage, points to commentary on the subject of what some call judicial tyranny, a case of legal action against a man who ran a sham abortion clinic, and how the Catholic vote breaks down.

Mikhaela Reid talks about how Bush's AIDS prevention policy is held hostage to a minority of religious opinion. And I think I'm in fairly stable territory claiming that only a minority of people of faith think it's a good idea to withhold condom education from regions where millions of people are dying from the fast-spreading plague of HIV.

Daily Howler gives us the rundown of an O'Reilly vs. Krugman episode of Meet the Press where the 'tough' Tim Russert sat idly by as O'Reilly name-called, lied, and dodged questions.

Body and Soul on the upcoming Afghan elections, pointing out the new face of torture in Iraq, and suggests that in regards to his environmental record, Obama is as good as his reputation.

Digby talks about how a conservative columnist has essentially called the military liars by calling into question Kerry's entire public record and receipt of prestigious medals, also, how seriously Porter Goss takes the investigative work of the CIA.

Pandagon on the contradiction in Republican arguments that stem cell research is bad, but IVF discards are fine.

Atrios finds a link explaining why a national sales tax is a very, very bad idea.

Adam Smith (WA 9th CD)

2004-08-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

Congressman Adam Smith (Congressional Site, Election blog) represents Washington's 9th Congressional District, and he served as chair of the state delegation in Boston. I caught up with Congressman Smith for a couple questions after the state caucus on Monday, and heard his remarks at a forum called 'Technology, Politics, and Economy.'

The 9th Congressional District is a swing district that sent both Democrats and Republicans to Congress in the 1990's. It's generally more conservative leaning than, say, Seattle's Democrat-friendly 7th District. I asked Smith what it was about the Democratic party's message that he thought was most effective in reaching out to his mixed audience.

Smith said that what worked was the party's "opportunity agenda." He said that by supporting stronger public schools, higher education, and the right to organize, Democrats provide working class Americans with a chance to get ahead. He said that healthcare "transcends right, left, and center," but President Bush is doing nothing to fix it, while Kerry has a plan.

Smith also cited responsibility as an important issue, saying that "George Bush won't take responsibility for a single thing he's done." He said that his constituents are concerned about what distrust of the United States in the world means for their security.

Some members of the Washington State delegation wondered why Smith voted against what's come to be known as the Sanders Amendment, a bill which would have repealed a portion of the PATRIOT Act that would allow searches of library and bookstore records. Smith said he was concerned that the amendment was an "all or nothing" repeal of the contested portion of the law. He said that he would have preferred amending it to add further judicial oversight, but that wasn't an option.

Smith said that before the law passed, there were certain types of information that law enforcement didn't have access to, though parts of it went too far. He says that considering what he's discovered since the vote about what probable cause means when used in the PATRIOT Act, he would now vote differently.

Building on a theme he touched on in his Monday interview, Smith talked more about promoting opportunity at the Tuesday Democratic Technologist's forum, along with representatives from the information and biotech industries, as well as other elected officials with an interest in technology policy. He was introduced as an expert on telecommunications and digital signature issues.

Smith said that what was really important about the technological issues discussed at the forum was the economic growth potential they represented. He said it was important to convince the country that Democrats will foster economic growth, and to put together policy initiatives that will help the public cope with the rapid pace of changes in technology and the economic picture that have made them nervous.

Highlighting a specific issue, he cited the current battle over export controls on certain types of information technology as something that puts the United States at a competitive disadvantage. Speaking about a current regulatory climate where certain types of encryption and computer technology can't be sold overseas, he said that the situation would result in the United States falling behind, and potentially hurting our national security by losing access to the latest technology.

Summing up, he said, "Economic growth is what it's about, and technology is the key."

Update: This post was accidentally first published when it was meant to have been saved as a draft.

Murray Campaign Kickoff

2004-08-05T22:08:00.000-07:00

And now a word from Scott Hechinger, a press assistant working with the Patty Murray campaign. She held her kickoff breakfast Thursday, August 5th, and Hechinger sent over this account of the event:

I was there this morning, bright and early, along with over 1100 other supporters as Senator Patty Murray officially kicked off her 2004 Senate reelection campaign at Quest Field. As the event started at 7 AM, I expected to see a weary and sluggish crowd trudge into the rally, but instead I saw people eager and ready to celebrate the Senator’s announcement that she would fight to regain her seat in the Senate.

There were entire families, firefighters, and veterans; teachers, the disabled, and grandparents; the old and young. A boy held a sign that read, “Thank you Patty for keeping my classroom size small.” Everybody was eager to see the Senator, hear her speak, and help get her campaign started on the right foot. And when we greeted the Senator with a thunderous, enthusiastic applause, it only emphasized what we all already knew: Washington state is behind Patty.

While we all ate breakfast and drank our OJ, the Senator reminded us why she has been such a strong voice and advocate for our interests, for our state. She told us that she has always put Washington first, no matter what, every chance she gets and she will continue to do so. “Some people criticize me for telling the White House ‘no’ when they push policies that would hurt our state,” she said. “But that’s what you elected me to do; to stand up for our values and to fight for our state.”

And it’s not only the White House that Patty Murray stands up to: “when it comes to helping our state,” she told the crowd, “I’ll take on anyone—the special interests, foreign governments, even my own party.”

She’s not kidding either.

She fought against the Clinton Administration when they went after Microsoft, a vital part of Washington’s economy and won for her state. When Chinese producers were unfairly dumping their apple products and hurting Washington’s farmers and their families, Patty fought back successfully to protect Washington’s apple producers. And as the first woman ever to serve on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, she fought against the Bush Administration’s efforts to close three VA hospitals and today, they are still in use and taking in patients every day.

Her talk focused primarily on the importance of taking care of our own here at home. “To be strong abroad,” she explained, “we also need to be strong at home.” From fighting for our environment, bolstering the safety of our ports, creating jobs while helping to stop the flow of our jobs overseas, and working to ensure that everyone has access to quality education, Senator Murray is already working her heart out to make sure our state’s goals become reality.

But it doesn’t stop there. Not by a long shot. This is all just a microscopic sneak peak of Patty’s effectiveness in the Senate over the last two-terms and her promise for the next six years. Yet each example is evidence of her resolve and confidence to do what’s right for the state and for her country.

Now the campaign is on the move and with much momentum, thanks to all of her dedicated supporters willing to sacrifice a bit of sleep to offer their support this morning. After she finished her speech, she flew to Vancouver and from there she’ll head off to Spokane, the Tri-Cities, and finally end up in Yakima on Friday afternoon. This morning’s kick-off was the first of several events going on all across the state in the next two days, announcing her intention to return to the Senate for a third term. Over the next month, she will be traveling all over Washington State talking to everyday people, hearing their concerns, what they have to say, and spreading her message of optimism for our future.

Fifth Column

2004-08-05T10:47:00.000-07:00

Republicans have long been charging that those of us whose political leanings are left of center form a treacherous fifth column in the heart of America. The book titles favored by conservative pundits have generally leaned towards comparing liberalism with dictatorship, if not outright treason. How curious then that a preponderance of recent security snafus are so closely linked with the Republican party that it almost seems unkind to bring it up. Almost.

-- Going to the most recently uncovered travesty, Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) is currently under investigation for revealing classified information to a FOX News anchor.

-- As previously mentioned here, a long-time conservative crony has facilitated North Korea's purchase of a dozen subs from Russia with their underwater launch capabilities intact. The fixer? The Reverend Sun Myung Moon, owner of the conservative Washington Times and friend of Bush. Apparently the Japanese media has been all over this, but our press corps has been missing in action, as usual.

-- Katrina Leung was a Republican party activist and fundraiser in California who used a relationship with an FBI agent to pass secrets to the Chinese government.

-- Ahmed Chalabi was formerly Bush's man in Baghdad, and the above link has a nice picture of him sitting just behind the First Lady during this year's State of the Union address. A "drunk" neoconservative revealed to Chalabi that the U.S. had broken the codes used by the Iranian government. Chalabi told the Iranians, who at first considered him an untrustworthy source, and the breach was revealed when they used the same compromised codes to report on Chalabi's information. It would be hard to think of a more strategically valuable thing to know about a country than their intelligence communication codes, and Chalabi erased that advantage with one stroke. The irony is that the Iranians, probably knowing of his felonious past in Jordan, were less trusting of him than the Bush administration.

-- Someone as yet unknown among senior White House staff revealed the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame to conservative commentator Robert Novak. Apparently, the same source shopped the leak around to several people in the Washington punditry class, but Novak was the only taker. Now that Novak has completely blown her cover, along with the name of a CIA front company, it's been learned that Plame had specialized for a long time in tracking weapons of mass destruction. Though she hasn't been out of the country in a while, she did formerly travel abroad during her missions. This leak has compromised everyone who's ever been in contact with her overseas in one of the most sensitive and crucial areas of investigation. It happened after her husband, one Ambassador Joseph Wilson, revealed that claims about Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger were false and shouldn't have been included in the 2003 State of the Union.

These five incidents have all occurred or been uncovered within the span of the Bush administration alone. Five incidents that we know of. Can someone explain to me why the Republican party is considered strong on the defense of this country?

News & Comment

2004-08-05T00:13:00.000-07:00

Atrios: This one deserves an entire post of it's own. North Korea now has 12 Russian submarines, missile launch capabilities intact, courtesy of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. When it comes to Moon, most people vaguely remember something about a cult that held group weddings. But Moon has been busy acquiring businesses in America, including ownership of the Washington Times, getting crowned twice with attendant congressmen in a Senate office building (I did not, could not, make that up), hanging around with the Bush administration, and apparently getting friendly with Kim Jong Il. Noted for anti-semitism, homophobia, ardent support for conservative causes, and the belief that he's the "True Father" of mankind, Moon announced not too long ago that he would be leaving the U.S. for good. How about an all expenses paid trip to Guantanamo Bay, pal?

Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing reviews 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised', a new book by Joe Trippi about political organizing via the internet.

DailyKos: The rundown of Donna Brazille's excellent performance on Crossfire Wednesday where she gave the best answer ever to the question of Kerry's Senate accomplishments.

Body and Soul: How bad Abu Ghraib got and who was involved (some links in the posts on Abu Ghraib contain graphic descriptions of abuse), Bush's crusade for votes, and the increasing disappearance of Iraq war coverage.

The Seattle PI runs several articles on Wednesday's decision by the King County Superior Court to rule gay marriage constitutional. The articles cover public reaction, how the gubernatorial candidates come down on the issue, and what the judge had to say.

The PI also covers gubernatorial candidate Ron Sims' state tax overhaul proposal, which would be a radical departure from the current system. The plan would remove the highly unpopular Business & Operations tax as well as the state portion of the sales tax, and replace them with a steeply graduated income tax. The plan does not include any type of general business tax, and Sims says the plan would lower taxes for 80% of state residents.

Guardian: Concern grows that oil prices could derail the world economy. Sidney Blumenthal talks about Bush's empty policies. Fellow Coalition of the Willing partner Italy provides a cautionary tale for America as its debt skyrockets.

The Navy Times discusses the ongoing problems with military absentee voting.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)

2004-08-04T21:43:00.000-07:00

Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Conneticut was among the first speakers to greet the Washington State caucus at the convention. Representative DeLauro chaired the platform committee, and came to talk about the party's vision going forward.

"Something has gone fundamentally wrong in Washington [D.C.]," she said. Then she asked the audience to consider "What values guide the people in power today?"

DeLauro wondered whose values gave tax cuts to the wealthiest, while leaving the nation in debt. She said that over half of Washington State taxpayers got less than a $100 tax cut, when some individual taxpayers got as much as $93 million in tax reduction. She said that people all over the country are tired of debt and lost jobs. In her own state, she said that around 40,000 had lost jobs, and that the figure was around 67,000.

DeLauro said there was a desire not only for fiscal responsibility, but for services that can only come with responsible fiscal policy. She mentioned environmental stewardship, making healthcare a right for everyone, and real respect for the troops.

She said that starving the government of resources only cut its obligations to the public. DeLauro said Kerry and Edwards won't be listening to Bush confidante Grover Norquist who famously said, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

DeLauro said that the country shouldn't be run on the principle of everyone for themselves, because we're all in it together.

Convention Lag

2004-08-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

Hello, King County Democrats. I didn't end up writing as much about the convention as I thought I'd get a chance to. But I did wind up with a fair number of notes, as well as interviews with our delegation. It takes a good bit longer to write about information than to gather it, and you never know when you'll have a chance to gather that much information again.

So, having missed a week's worth of a math class which is holding the final this coming Wednesday, I thought I'd ask your forbearance in sharing everything over the blog. Starting Thursday, I'll be posting from short Q&As with Congressmen Baird, Dicks, Inslee, and Smith. There are a couple good interviews with members of the state Hispanic caucus, and I'm planning on doing more followups with members of some of the other caucuses in our delegation. Convention delegates are generally community activists, so if you want to know what people are working on in the grassroots of the party, they're the ones to talk to.

Also, Congressmen Inslee and Smith both spoke at panels dedicated to technological issues, and I'm really looking forward to writing about the sessions. Congressman Inslee has been involved with the Apollo Energy Alliance for some time now, a group whose intention is to get our country started on a path towards energy independence within 10 years. Senator Cantwell also spoke at the Apollo event, and I'll be sharing her remarks as well. The panelists expected a full commitment to energy independence to yield around 3 million new jobs, in both research and manufacturing. Congressman Smith spoke at a Democratic Technologists' forum entitled 'Technology, Politics, and Economy.' The forum, many of whose attendees were from major software and cutting edge science industries, advanced the point of view that Democratic policies were more beneficial to the technology sector.

In a state like ours, without conventional energy resources and with a sizable technical and manufacturing workforce, reaching out to these sectors is crucial to bringing jobs and money into our state. Our policymakers get it.

Overall, it was a wonderful convention. It was great to be among so many proud Democrats, to get to hear their stories, and see their determination. The only apathetic people there were among the media, and I guess we're all used to that. The important thing is that 5,000 delegates and 15,000 guests are settling back in all across the country, reinvigorated for the fight ahead, and determined to take responsibility for the course of their country in their own hands.

And now, if you'll pardon me for a couple days, I have to take responsibility for the course of my trigonometry class.

Firefighter For Kerry

2004-07-27T15:42:00.000-07:00

Craig Soucy is a Kerry alternate from the 46th Legislative District, 7th Congressional District. He's president of IAFF Local 864 Renton Firefighters. He spoke with me on Sunday at the Washington State delegation party.

One thing that concerned Soucy before the convention was the firefighter's union strike in Boston, in the midst of an ongoing contract negotiation. Soucy noted that John Kerry had refused to speak at a recent mayoral convention held in Boston because he wouldn't cross their picket line. To Soucy's knowledge, Kerry has never crossed a picket line. He said that the city was encouraged to negotiate a contract so that the candidate and sympathetic Democratic delegations wouldn't have to avoid the convention.

Soucy's main concern is working families and their access to healthcare. He thinks it's a disgrace to outsource American jobs, when families here are losing theirs. At the same time, those who have jobs may be adversely affected if Bush's new overtime laws take effect. He's concerned that people could get asked to work extra hours without additional pay, or be arbitrarily asked to work weekends. He also says that Bush isn't health care, and that the cost of it has become the "biggest issue in contract negotiation ...for at least 3 years."

Another issue that's important to him is Homeland Security, and says that Bush has cut support for the Fire Act, cutting funding from 500 million to 200 million. Soucy says local governments are having to take up the slack. He says that firefighters are the first line of defense, showing up first in the case of a major event. That extra money would have bought more detection, containment, and mitigation equipment in case of a chemical or biological attack, along with more firefighters to operate them.

Firefighters are also serving in Iraq in National Guard and Reserve units that have been called to active duty. Soucy says that in his local, one member is serving on active duty with the Reserve, one has returned home, and another has lost a family member. He says it's hard on families because when someone is called up, they lose the difference between their civilian and military pay.

Providing event security has become more of a budget strain recently, as well. Before 9-11, Soucy says that people just didn't request as much security. Now, events like the DNC activate FEMA teams who are mostly made up of people who normally work at some local first response office which may be in another part of the country. They might include search & rescue teams, like the ones that responded to the Oklahoma City bombing. Some local jurisdiction has to pick up the cost of travel, lodging, and transporting equipment.

Having worked to help organize firefighters for Kerry, and hold Kerry fundraisers, he's also gotten a chance to get informed about other people's concerns. To Soucy, the convention is to get the message of John Kerry, John Edwards, and the party out to the public, but also to continue to get more educated about the issues.

Hey Kucinich Supporters!

2004-07-26T14:12:00.000-07:00

Monday at the Washington State delegation breakfast, Dennis Kucinich showed up to kickstart our stay at the convention. He was full of energy, greeting us with the question, "Are you ready to join the effort to elect John Kerry as the next President of the United States?"

He said that the press kept asking, 'But don't you disagree about the war?' He responds that, "If we didn't disagree, we wouldn't be Democrats." He said that the media wants to split Democrats up in this election, but that we were of one opinion on electing John Kerry. In this election, he said that Democrats would demonstrate the first motto of the United States, 'Out of many, one.'

At the state party Sunday, I talked with one of the Kucinich delegates to get an idea what it meant to them to be here participating in the process. Chris Karnes, from the 6th Congressional and 27th Legislative Districts shared his views. Karnes is a 2nd year physics student attending Tacoma Community College.

Karnes learned about Kucinich from the MoveOn primary last year, which was the first time he'd taken a serious look at any of the candidates. He liked Kucinich's positions, and started attending Meetups. When he started working with the Pierce County coordinator, they weren't all sure what to do at first but "it all coalesced."

Karnes said that 75 people attended their precinct caucus, an unusually high number, and he served as chair for his precinct. He went further, and worked on the Pierce County platform committee, where he says that a resolution against the PATRIOT act passed unanimously. Wording opposing key provisions of the PATRIOT act is in the final platform document, similar planks must have been passed all around the country, though some provisions are also supported as necessary to national security. Another resolution that passed concerned cutting wasteful military spending, including new nuclear weapons development and Star Wars type programs. He says similar planks were passed in Thurston, Skagit, and King Counties, among others.

Karnes then served on the state platform subcommittee on government and political reform. They dealt with issues like electronic voting, voting systems, corporate power, and media reform. On a statewide level, he said, "People are aware that corporations have considerable undue influence." There were minor disagreements about the wording of the final version at the state convention, but the premise was well accepted. He said that Dean & Kucinich delegates stayed late at the state convention to help pass an additional resolution to oppose any draft for the Iraq war.

At every caucus level where they were represented, as many caucus attendees probably remember from their own caucuses, Kucinich delegates started with just under 15%. In most cases, they were successfully able to fight their way up to 15%, but it took a lot of work. Since Kerry had already secured the nomination, they lobbied Kerry and Dean delegates by phone and at the caucuses to switch over. Of those who switched over, Karnes says, "I am very grateful for that. I wouldn't be here without the support of Dean and Kerry people who wanted to make sure everyone had a seat at the table."

Karnes expects everyone to pull together to work for Kerry's election, but says "we're not going away." He would like to see more progressive changes in politics, but he'll stick with the Democratic party. An important priority for him is working to get the troops out of Iraq, saying that the situation will continue to overshadow domestic priorities.

Jay Inslee's Campaign Kick-off

2004-07-24T17:56:00.000-07:00

Today I attended Jay Inslee's campaign kickoff in Edmonds, WA. Today also marks the beginning of a 100-day countdown to the general election.

"Today, July 24th, 2004 in Edmonds, Washington is the beginning of the decline and the fall of the Bush empire"
-- Jay Inslee, First Congressional District

In his twenty-minute speech, Rep. Inslee went on the attack against President Bush's policies and the war in Iraq. He cited numerous failed policies, calling this "the most imporant election since the civil war." Rep. Inslee then motivated the crowd to spend the next hundred days supporting local candidates, going doorbelling, and working to defeat President Bush in November. Rep. Inslee is going to spend his next hundred days helping other Democratic candidates getting elected, as he is running unopposed in the First.

Rep. Inslee touched on his New Apollo Energy Project, to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. He also briefly spoke about foreign policy, the environment, and civil liberties, but motivating the crowd to volunteer was really the central theme of the event. Rep. Inslee then introduced Joe Wilson, the former ambassador to Africa who came to prominence last year.

"Her and I have been subjected to the worst possible attacks... and I will not stand by while my wife is sacrificed on the altar of 16 words that the President should have never, ever uttered."
-- Joe Wilson, Ambassador

Joe Wilson spoke extensively on how his life has changed after his wife was exposed as a CIA operative. The right-wing smear campaign against Joe Wilson is continuing, despite an ongoing criminal investigation. He believes that this is in an attempt to surpress free speech. "Who will stand up to the government, and who will stand up to the government if they can crush Joe Wilson?" Mr. Wilson's appears undaunted in the face of the opposition, and he's continuing with courage.

Mr. Wilson also recounted the events leading up to the famed 16 words in the State of the Union address. Three months before Mr. Wilson spoke to the media, the CIA was actively working to prevent the President from including the British intelligence on African uranium in the speech. As Mr. Wilson put it, "they'd probably like to blame the entire war on me."

Mr. Wilson also endorsed Jay Inslee, and encouraged the audience to get out and to encourage others to vote in November.

Voters I spoke with in the crowd said they were attending to show their support for Jay Inslee. When asked what their main concerns were, many responded with education, the environment, and employment. Selected voter interviews with photos are available here.

News & Comment

2004-07-24T01:13:00.000-07:00

Well, it's almost time to go catch my plane for Boston. I'm done packing, but I can take my pick of being a) too hot to sleep, or b) too wound up to sleep. Thought I'd leave you with a few last minute links to stories that you may want to read if they hadn't come to your attention already:

The situation in Iraq is completely under control. Look, here's a Constitutional amendment on gay marriage! Pay no attention to that kidnapped Egyptian diplomat. If there's a bright side to this mess, and it's very hard to find one, it's this:

...The beheading of hostages has stirred opposition in Iraq, with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who led a two-month uprising against U.S. forces beginning in April, joining the criticism.

"We condemn what some people are doing regarding the beheading of prisoners, and it is illegal according to Islamic law," al-Sadr said at the Kufa mosque south of Baghdad, where he led Friday prayers. "Anybody doing this is a criminal, and we will punish him according to Islamic law."...

An older article about WA 8th Congressional candidate Dave Reichert's campaign stance that there should be budget cuts to a program that helped catch the Green River Killer.

The politics of Costco and Walmart. You've heard the stories about how each company treats its workers, based on that, take a guess which respective political parties they contribute to.

Compassionate conservatism in action: 145,000 children lose healthcare due to cuts in federal programs designed to help low-income families. The programs are administered by the states, but federally funded, and we all know how well the federal government has been doing lately in keeping up its end of the funding bargain. The state of Texas is noted for both a large share of the cuts, and significant reductions in service to children still covered.

Whiskey Bar: Americans have taken a pay cut since 1972. With the aid of the Wall Street Journal and an economist from J.P. Morgan Chase, Billmon makes the case that not only does John Edwards' two Americas theme hold water, but that Republican policy is undoing a century of progress that made a middle class possible. It's very easy to forget that the existence of a middle class is a fairly new invention.

George Paine talks about the level of political discourse.

Avedon Carol has some things liberals should read, notably a pointer to a story where a Republican was caught in public talking about the need to supress voting.

Daily Kos: How mercenaries hurt the military and the war effort. Claims of mass graves in Iraq were highly exaggerated, not that it makes it any better for those who lost their lives. Why Democrats in safely 'blue' states shouldn't be surprised when elected Democrats in more conservative parts of the country don't toe the line on every vote, which seems only reasonable.

Body and Soul chronicles Bush's history of offending the religious.

Atrios: Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz didn't believe Bin Laden was a threat before 9-11.

Have a good weekend & I'll see you Monday, live from Boston!

MSNBC Thursday

2004-07-24T00:51:00.000-07:00

Don't want to forget to highlight some reason and sense coming from the nation's press corp. The Abrams Report [full transcript] opened with three guests discussing the just released 9-11 report. He started the segment praising the 9-11 commissioners for coming up with a unanimous report that partisans from either side would deal with on merits, and he politely enforced that sentiment when he cut off (the transcript doesn't indicate, but he did cut Pipes short):

DANIEL PIPES, DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST FORUM: I agree with Steve and Coleen that it‘s a good report but I‘ve got two other issues on my mind, not so much the technicalities of it but two other things. One is the fact that in the political environment, we see that there is a real move now to go back to the way things were pre-9/11. The Democratic Party in general is against fighting a war and instead of looking at this as a police action.

ABRAMS: But I don‘t want to get into the politics of this. I only just focus on the 9 -- let me take a quick break here. I‘m going to ask you all to stick around. The reason I chose these three people is for a reason and that‘s because when we come back, I‘m going to talk to them about what it was like at times for all of them, to be ignored before 9/11, when each one of them in their own way were warning about the danger of al Qaeda. ...

The discussion that followed, and I recommend reading it, actually managed to be informative. He closed the show with a fact that's become a major political football:

ABRAMS: ...The one I‘ve talked about is the nonsense about—quote—“long-established ties between al Qaeda and Iraq” and I think misleading statements from the vice president, who continues to perpetuate a myth about some longstanding relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda that helped somehow justify the war. As I have said before, there were other good-faith reasons to believe Iraq was a real threat, but this supposed relationship with al Qaeda, never one of them.

The commission found, while there were some—quote—“friendly contacts” between Iraq and al Qaeda, none of them ever—quote—“developed into a collaborative relationship.” And so the issue should now become moot, but, of course, it will not, because a few hard-core partisans will continue to ignore the evidence. Some have already chimed in, offering Clintonesque legalistic defenses.

For Cheney, the issue is not, were there any contacts between the two? It is, was their relationship significant enough that one justification for war against Iraq is the extent of that relationship? Of course not. Bottom line, the U.S. had—quote—“friendly contacts” with Iraq before the 1991 war. In fact, you could easily argue we had a collaborative relationship.

It is not a justification for anything. Hopefully, this report will focus everyone back on the real issues, how to make things better now rather than trying to justifying old mistakes. The fact that five distinguished Democrats, five distinguished Republicans were able to unanimously agree on everything in this report means that we should listen, we should act, we should regain focus on al Qaeda and the immediate danger we face. ...

This is what the media should do, in my opinion. Facilitate reasoned discussion, get your own facts straight, don't be afraid to say that someone is wrong when they are blatantly in contradiction of well known facts. It's a high bar, I know. But Abrams, at least, gets a high mark for Thursday's show.