Shit sandwich, cooked in the world’s most exclusive club, by the most exclusive shit chefs in the world.
Whatever. We’re likely all teabaggers in the end. Viva la shit. Be careful and don’t get hurt or sick.
[...]Shit sandwich, cooked in the world’s most exclusive club, by the most exclusive shit chefs in the world.
Whatever. We’re likely all teabaggers in the end. Viva la shit. Be careful and don’t get hurt or sick.
[...]“And I think if you’re going to get on your feet and debate, and make assertions, you should really be familiar with the content of the bill”
- Minnesota Senator Al Franken, while handing South Dakota Senator John Thune his own ass.
A few links to share while I root for Chad Ochocinco and Vernon Davis to keep my fantasy season going.
- Pete Guither catches the New York Times sanitizing a story on Mexico’s violent drug war. This comes while the Washington Post and reporter Ashley Halsey III are [...]
Last week’s contest was won by wes.in.wa. It was Indian Harbor Beach, Florida.
Here’s this week’s, good luck!
[...]
Forgive a proud father for kvelling, but congratulations to the Mount Baker/Lakewood Supremes for their dominating performance in the SYSA city tournament this year, where they outscored opponents 19 to 1 over five games in the Girls U13 division. Yesterday’s championship game was a tough physical match, [...]
Seattle’s mayor-elect supports House Bill 2401:
“I actually took this position during the campaign and nobody noticed. It was an answer to the question in the Stranger’s election land,” McGinn said. “If every elected official who ever smoked marijuana voted to legalize it would probably be legalized in an [...]
For quite some time, Darryl has been urging me to do something about longtime troll Marvin Stamn, who appeared to be spamming the open threads with links to right-wing sites. Well, today was the final straw, as Stamn essentially admitted to such:
34. Politically Incorrect spews:
Marvin,
Give it a [...]
I think Jane Hamsher has been pretty insightful when reading between the lines on the health care reform battle, but I’m not sure I get this part (via John Cole):
The sight of pundits yucking it up about the “Democratic circular firing squad” have become as tedious and [...]
Get ready for the newest trend in police profiling, driving while erotic.
[...]From Roll Call:
The Office of Congressional Ethics has closed its investigation into Reps. John Murtha (D-Pa.), Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) and Jim Moran (D-Va.) and their relationships to the lobbying firm PMA Group, and the OCE advised against a formal House ethics investigation, the lawmakers’ offices said Friday.
George Behan, Dicks’ [...]
So, is Washington a high tax state, as folks like Tim Eyman so often imply? Well it all depends on who you are.
The Ten States with the
Highest Taxes on the Poor
The table above represents the effective rate of state and local taxes on the bottom twenty percent of [...]
I’ve written quite a bit about an income tax recently, prompting several readers to point out that such a measure would be unconstitutional, a standard rebuttal I routinely get from state lawmakers whenever I directly raise the issue with them.
The Washington Supreme Court has already ruled an income tax unconstitutional, [...]
A couple weeks ago Lee put up a post attempting to extrapolate data on how Washington State might feel about reforming our marijuana laws from a national survey. As it turns out, I was at a meet and greet with the 36th legislative district legislators, and during Q&A someone [...]
At first, I thought Natasha Chart’s post at Open Left was about the health care “reform” debacle. Perhaps she intended that, or perhaps it is a sad coincidence that her open letter to activists entitled “What Makes Someone a Dirty F*ing Hippie” features a photo of a UN delegate [...]
Brad Shannon has an article focusing on Denny Heck, the former legislator and founder of TVW. Heck is giving serious consideration to running for the seat to be vacated by Rep. Brian Baird, D- Wash. (WA-03), at the end of the term.
“I am doing a bunch to get myself [...]
I couldn’t help but be amused by the headline of this morning’s Seattle Times editorial: “Crushing the illusion of nonpartisan King County Council.”
IN an election overshadowed by gubernatorial and presidential contests, voters last year opted to change the Metropolitan King County Council from a partisan to a nonpartisan office. [...]
- As the health care bill gets sliced and diced into a much more corporate-friendly and ineffective skeleton of its previous self in the Senate, I’m struck by how the arguments for still passing it sound like the arguments that were made (by myself and others) to pass [...]
One of my biggest complaints with Washington legislators, even those who have long recognized the need for substantial tax restructuring, is their general lack of creativity in approaching the issue, both on the political level of how one might pass an income tax, and on the practical level of what [...]
Join us tonight for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Festivities take place at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning about 8:00 pm. Or stop by earlier for dinner.
Tonight we’ll raise a toast [...]
As has been widely reported at Publicola, the P-I and elsewhere, the putatively nonpartisan King County Council deadlocked last night along partisan lines as they struggled to name a replacement to fill Dow Constantine’s vacated seat through the end of 2010.
Which raises a question. Were the Municipal League, [...]
“I’ve never been so fired up for a campaign in my life,” said Pridemore, D-Vancouver, who is serving his second term in the state Senate. “It’s 320 days to Election Day, and the clock has started.”
Pridemore said he has assembled a strong campaign team and will begin [...]
I hadn’t realized it until I saw a link in the comment threads, but the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy recently updated its comprehensive survey, “Who Pays? A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States,” and Washington once again tops [...]
Jon was too shy to name names, but the “well-known Republican personality” rumored to be weighing a run to replace Rep. Brian Baird in WA-03 is none other than crazy-conservative talk host Lars Larson.
That would certainly make the race, um, interesting.
UPDATE:
Did Larson just deny the rumor in the [...]
Who the hell goes to party meetings in December?
For the first time in a long, long time, I did Monday night, here in Vancouver.
Ken at NPI Advocate notes that activist Maria Rodriguez-Salazar has announced she is running for what will be an open seat in WA-03.
Rodriguez-Salazar came to [...]
Earlier today I argued that Democrats need to take advantage of our current short-term revenue crisis to fix our long-term revenue deficit, by taking the budget crisis as an opportunity to win voter approval of a high-earners income tax. But how do we do this at the same time [...]
State Sen. Craig Pridemore, D-Vancouver(49th LD,) will announce his candidacy for Congress in WA-03 within the next 24 hours, sources close to Pridemore tell me.
The other announced Democrat is state Rep. Deb Wallace, D-Vancouver (17th LD,) who entered the race last week, after the decision by incumbent U.S. Rep. [...]
Much attention was paid to the Nov. 5th shooting rampage at Fort Hood, and rightly so. It was a terrible tragedy in which 13 were killed and 30 others wounded by a deeply disturbed U.S. Army psychiatrist.
Yet news today that 12 more Army soldiers committed suicide in November, bringing the [...]
I agree wholeheartedly with the headline, if not the text of a recent Seattle Times editorial: “Washington state’s finances require long-term solutions.”
Of course, the one long-term solution the Times doesn’t mention is tax restructuring… you know, reforming our tax system so that revenues actually keep pace with growth in [...]
Cherisse Luxa has passed away. I didn’t know Cherisse, but others did. Condolences to her family.
This morning, Washington’s netroots community lost one of its most wonderful and spirited activists when Cherisse Luxa, the founder of Burien Drinking Liberally, succumbed to stomach cancer. Cherisse was sixty two. She [...]
Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. It was Kansas City, MO.
Here’s this week’s, good luck!
[...]- This looks like a potentially interesting discovery that could assist in combating climate change.
- Maricopa County, Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio is a menace to society.
- U.S. Attorney Tanya Treadway isn’t much better.
- Speaking of unhinged U.S. Attorneys, I neglected to say farewell to a true [...]
With Sarah Palin arguing that a handful of 13-year-old emails are enough to discredit and refute the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change, U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee (WA-01) hits back with perhaps the best quote of the day:
“Before Sarah Palin writes a book, she should try reading a few,” [...]
Here’s a free tip to those Seattle-haters in the rest of the state who just love to screw us big city folks: pass a high-earners income tax.
Really. Pass it. I mean, honestly, let’s say we levy an income tax on household earnings in excess of $500,000 a year… who do [...]
I hate to make it “Dump on Joel Week,” and I’ve got no big quibbles with the rest of his column, but this is the sort of conventional wisdom that really ticks me off:
A tireless practitioner of town meetings, Baird had a grip on his southwest Washington district, which [...]
Barbara Coombs Lee has a follow-up diary at Daily Kos on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ directive that mandates that Catholic health care facilities employ feeding tubes and other life-prolonging measures even when an individual’s living will specifically prohibits it. When I last posted on this, [...]
There is one cut in Gov. Gregoire’s preliminary all-cuts budget proposal that the Seattle Times opposes:
The proposed cut the governor would buy back, and that we would, too, is in levy-equalization money for public schools. This is money that keeps a minimum level of schooling in property-poor districts. This [...]
The Seattle Times editorial board likes Gov. Gregoire’s initial all-cuts budget so much, they wish many of the cuts would go even further.
THOUGH Gov. Chris Gregoire does not like her no-new-taxes state budget, and would buy back some of the cuts with taxes, the budget has a good deal [...]
I just received a news release announcing that state Rep. Deb Wallace, D-Vancouver (17th LD,) is definitely running for Congress for the third district seat that will be vacated at the end of the term by U.S. Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash. Here’s a sample quote.
“From day one, I’ve been committed [...]
Goldy broke the news earlier this week that 6 co-sponsors in the State House are introducing a bill that will legalize marijuana for adults over the age of 21. The bill will also utilize the existing mechanisms in place for regulating wine and hard liquor to establish a distribution [...]
In a predictable move, state Rep. Jaime Herrera, R-18th LD, announced she is running for Congress in WA-03 within hours of incumbent Brian Baird’s announcement that he will not run again.
Herrera took office in the 18th after former Rep. Richard Curtis stepped down in the wake of an unseemly [...]
U.S. Congressman Brian Baird (WA-03), who has recently become a favorite punching bag of local progressives (you know who I’m talking about, Jon), just announced that he will not seek reelection in 2010.
The time has now come to pursue other options, other ways of serving. Hence, I am announcing [...]
News-Tribune has brief story and Baird’s statement.
A mixture of relief and some wistful thoughts for me, for certain. I wish him the very best.
[...]As legislators struggle to close a 2.6 billion hole in this year’s budget, perhaps part of the solution might be to close loopholes like the billion dollar tax dodge Microsoft has been exploiting. More information at MicrosoftTaxDodge.com.
[...]Columbian editor emeritus Tom Koenninger serves up a stinking dung bowl of war on Christmas bullshit in an opinion articled headlined, “Despite PC Crowd, Merry Christmas!”
If you want to view a school Christmas program this year, you may have to go to the Inchelium School District on the Colville [...]
A few years back, in covering the school closure controversy, I once quipped to a local elected official that the real problem with the city’s middle schools was all those damn middle school aged kids. If we could only get rid of all the students, I joked, the schools themselves [...]
Join us tonight for some heated debate over a hot beverage at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Festivities take place in the warm sanctuary of the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning about 8:00 pm. Or stop by earlier for dinner.
Yesterday, I once again made the argument for legalizing marijuana and taxing the hell out of it. Today, Publicola reports that Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson is collecting co-sponsors on a bill that would do exactly that.
How’s this for a magical pot of revenue to help fix the state’s [...]
I’m in a meeting all day (and I mean all day… I hope my dog’s bladder is big enough), so it’s unlikely I’ll be doing much if any posting today.
Talk amongst yourselves.
[...]In the comments of this EffU post, our friend Pudge is insisting that AirTran is lying about the Tedd Petruna email. This is an open thread.
[...]The Washington State Bar Association has endorsed a bill that would decriminalize simple marijuana possession, reducing the maximum punishment from the current $1000 fine and 90 days in jail, to a $100 ticket.
Well… um… yawn.
It’s not that I don’t support the WSBA’s resolution, it’s just that it’s hard to [...]
I guess as a Republican member of our “nonpartisan” King County Council, Jane Hague has an obligation to help out the King County Republican Party. But considering her own DUI problems, you gotta wonder if she was drunk at the time she contributed the following item to the KCGOP’s [...]
The estate tax is in the news again, and (surprise!) the Seattle Times is editorializing against it:
The supporters of this tax, which we call the death tax, like to talk about rich bankers, entertainers and other upper crustaceans who die with a moraine of stocks, bonds, cash and title [...]
Last week’s contest was a tough one, but it was eventually won by Cascadian. The correct location was in Manchester, England.
Here’s this week’s, good luck!
[...]Last week, Jeremy Scahill had a huge story detailing the secret operations being conducted in Pakistan by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) and the private military outfit formerly known as Blackwater. The operations are primarily assassinations and kidnappings (”snatch and grabs”) of high-value targets. The agreement with Pakistan [...]
Over at Publicola, Erica documents Rep. Dave Reichert’s many public statements in opposition to President Obama’s economic stimulus package, which, drawing upon his vast expertise as an economist sheriff, Reichert has repeatedly predicted would fail at its primary goal: creating jobs.
This week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a [...]
Two weeks ago, I posted about the directive given by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops that requires hospitals and hospices to override the end-of-life wishes of patients in certain circumstances.
In the comments, Joel Connelly crawled up my ass, telling me that I needed to contact [...]
Dr. Rachel Maddow with an academic treatise on the origins of “teabaggers”:
(There are some fifty more clips from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)
[...]It seems that the “Congressman from the Lars Larson show” is being noticed by others, this time for his vote against extending the estate tax.
Let’s review: Heath Shuler, Congress-critter from deepest North Carolina, Yea. Congressman “Lieberman of Vancouver,” Nay. I feel a surge of deeply alienated base coming [...]
Last year, when university presidents lobbied for, the legislature passed, and the governor signed a 30% increase in college tuition over two years, promises were made that this would help keep higher education more affordable, not less. How? By increasing the total amount of financial aid dollars available, and by [...]
The Seattle P-I’s Chris Grygiel tells it like it is:
How did Dow Constantine beat Susan Hutchison so handily in last month’s King County executive’s race? As a Seattle Times map shows, he won Seattle handily and got more votes in the Eastside suburbs. Constantine’s strong showing in what, until [...]
Republicans rooting for the failure of the Obama administration will be disappointed by today’s unexpected jobs report that showed unemployment falling from 10.2% to 10%, while the U.S. economy lost only 11,000 jobs in November.
Not a stellar day for Mark Griswold.
Update [Darryl]: From the Bureau of Labor Statistics [...]
And of course, the best way to prove you are not a “sleazeball” is to try to get your son’s teacher fired for allegedly calling you one:
Hugh “Skip” McGee, one of Wall Street’s best-paid bankers, has launched an extraordinary attack on staff at his son’s exclusive private school after [...]
Here is the photo the media wants you to know about, but not see. I’ve cropped out just a small section, but click on the image above to view the whole thing. Or not. It’s your choice.
We’ve all seen a lot of dead bodies [...]
This is one of those bizarre journalism ethics things I just don’t understand. All over the local media this morning is news of a leaked photo of Maurice Clemmons dead body (here, here and here, for example). Yet nobody’s willing to actually show the controversial image. ([...]
Frank Chopp may be getting the message that his opposition to the marijuana decriminalization bill introduced last year wasn’t just misguided and backwards, but also bad politics. There will be a lot of people watching what he does in 2010 to push that bill – and drug law [...]
6:41 I’m in a mostly empty auditorium as people filter into McGinn’s last (?) town hall of the transition. There are a few kids hula hooping on stage, and people gossiping a 5 rows in front of me. I guess the event starts in 20 minutes or so, and I’ll [...]
Eight more deaths in British Columbia from H1N1. Not a stellar day for Mark Griswold.
[...]Carl has already thoroughly fisked it over at EFFin’ Unsound (yes, I know Carl, you hate the etymology of the term, but find me a better word that describes what you do), still, I just couldn’t let this Seattle Times editorial pass without comment.
METROPOLITAN King County Council members [...]
I know a lot of my fellow Dems are disappointed in President Barack Obama’s decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan. Not me. For unlike a lot of my fellow Dems, I’ve always held my expectations of Obama in check.
I can’t even remember what Obama promised on the campaign [...]
Join us tonight at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. Festivities take place at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning about 8:00 pm.
The doors open at 5:00 p.m., so some of us will [...]
The folks at Seattle Weekly were doing some dangerous, investigative research, when they came upon this:
According to a “Safe Browsing” advisory from the search giant, Eyman’s site, www.permanent-offense.org [don't click, for the love of humanity!], is “listed as suspicious” and “may harm your computer.”
It seems that' [...]
Mark Griswold may not have much talent as a writer, journalist or rhetorician; in fact, he may not have much talent at all. But in his new role as (un)Sound Politics’ most prolific contributor, Griswold has certainly been an upgrade in the crazy department… and that’s saying something considering the proud legacy [...]
For all the drama of yesterday’s manhunt, in the end, suspected cop-killer Maurice Clemmons was shot and killed by a lone police officer on routine patrol in South Seattle.
Assistant Chief Jim Pugel said a Seattle police officer “was patrolling this area when he came across an unoccupied stolen vehicle. [...]
Officers on the police scanner say that a would-be vigilante flagged down a cop near Cowen Park. The man was carrying a handgun and wearing body armor. He apparently wanted help flush out the suspect from the park.
There’s a part of me that wishes the police had put his [...]
Since I spend an awful lot of time critiquing the press, I think it only fair to point out that the coverage thus far of the tragic murder of four Lakewood police officers, and the ensuing manhunt for the suspect has been pretty damn good. Both the Tacoma News Tribune [...]
Hey Erica… I have it from a very reliable source that you can add the name of my ex-wife, Maureen Judge, to the list of candidates jockeying to replace state Sen. Fred Jarrett in the 41st Legislative District after he steps down to take the number two position in [...]
Maurice Clemmons, the 37-year-old Tacoma man being sought for questioning in the killing this morning of four Lakewood police officers, has a long criminal record punctuated by violence, erratic behavior and concerns about his mental health.
Nine years ago, then-Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee granted clemency to Clemmons, commuting his lengthy [...]
Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. The correct answer was St. Paul, MN. As always, you can click the picture to go directly to the Bing maps site. They’ve hidden the Bird’s Eye View link a bit, but you can get to it by clicking the [...]
A question for the several disgruntled HA subjects and their attorneys who have threatened me with defamation suits over the past year alone… is this the sort of shameless, disregard for free speech you’d prefer become the norm here in the United States?
Italian authorities have served the parents of [...]
UPDATE [Lee]: Bumping up to the top.
4 Pierce County police officers shot dead outside Parkland:
The officers were sitting in the coffee shop with their computers out when the shooter came in. The officers were targeted, and it was not a robbery, investigators believe.
[...]
“It looks like a flat-out ambush,” Troyer [...]
I guess value can be rather subjective, but if Mike McGinn’s recent mayoral campaign is any indication, it looks like Seattle may have snagged itself a deal that would put any Black Friday shopper to shame.
McGinn spent only $224,241 to win 105,492 votes in this year’s general election, about $2.13 [...]
Gov. Chris Gregoire is “seriously considering” legislation that would allow four-minute Keno games as a way to help deal with a projected $2.6 billion budget shortfall.
The games could bring in an estimated $30 million a year. That’s not much money compared with the budget gap, but lawmakers are [...]
This won’t be as polished a response as I’d like, because, frankly, it’s a holiday, I’ve got better things to do, and Joel Connelly’s column yesterday — Seattle’s WTO riots were loud — and ineffective — is so inaccurate, idiotic, and simply factually wrong that it demands some sort [...]
The Seattle Times’ Bruce Ramsey is thankful that he doesn’t have to suffer through that damned, Canadian socialized health care system.
An American friend lives in British Columbia with his wife, who just had hip-replacement surgery, paid by the Canadian taxpayer.
My mother just had hip-replacement surgery, paid by the U.S. [...]
Few would dispute that one of the keys to the Seattle Times’ Darwinian triumph over the rival P-I was its success in altering the terms of their Joint Operating Agreement to allow the Blethens to shift publication from the afternoon to the morning. Afternoon papers had been declining for decades, [...]
The recent execution-style murder of Officer Timothy Brenton has justifiably shaken the residents of Seattle. The suspect, Christopher Monfort, is most certainly the culprit. His car was seen at the crime scene, and when discovered at his apartment a few days later, police claim to have found [...]
It is a special pre-Thanksgiving edition of Drinking Liberally for the Seattle chapter tonight. Festivities take place at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning about 8:00 pm. A few of us will show up earlier than that for dinner.
As you might imagine…we’ll [...]
When did liberals become such prudes? Isn’t it odd that Seattle, unquestionably a liberal city, had an 18 year moratorium on strip clubs that was only recently lifted? And that lap dance proximity became a ballot measure just a few years ago?
Now it seems some of Seattle’s priggishness has [...]
Goldy, Darryl, Carl, Lee, Jon DeVore, Will, Geov
