EFFin’ Unsound

Sort of. I mean I still can’t see any instance where I’d vote for him in a primary. And his tenure has been marked more by him talking about how rad he thinks he is than any actual accomplishments. Still, let it never be said that Sharkansky is anything other than stupid.

King County Executive D Primary 2009

We’re already past the President? I know there isn’t much the SPers can talk about policy wise for a while, but 2009? Really?

Someone called “Bob Ferguson Democrat” created an “Our Campaigns” page for the 2009 King County Executive Democrat Primary. The page lists potential contenders: Ron Sims (reportedly uninterested in another term, but registered as a candidate with the PDC), Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, County Council Chairman Larry Phillips, State Rep. Sharon Tomiko Santos, former Supreme Court Justice Phil Talmadge and… County Councilman Bob Ferguson.

Gag me if those are the choices. Sims aside, I’d really like to have a totally different slate. I guess I’d be for Hizzhonor at that point, not that I think he’s running, or couldn’t be convinced to change my mind for some of the others. Whatever, it’s 2006 right now. Maybe some dark horse suburban mayor can pull ahead. Maybe it’s some business person or someone else entirely.

Anyway, then he writes a paragraph as long as something Cervantes or Cortazar might write. But instead of enjoying the journey, you’re subjected to a trail of bullshit. So I’m breaking it up.

Not clear whether “Bob Ferguson Democrat” is actually the Councilman.

You couldn’t ask?

It’s been rumored that Ferguson intends to run for Executive.

Man, these are dull sentences.

He’s a guy to watch, or used to be, anyway.

Dan Savage once told me, unironically, that Sharkansky was a good writer.

In his two primary races for Council he knocked off machine Democrats Cynthia Sullivan and Carolyn Edmonds by positioning himself as an independent Democrat with crossover appeal to moderates and Republicans.

Yes, in a sense he is the Joe Lieberman of the King County Council. Also, I find it amusing that Edmonds is a machine Democrat.

But he may have blown his wad.

I would like to point out that ick. And yes, I realize that I suggested the other day that Rosenberg give Sharkansky a hand job. Still, ick.

In his 2003 campaign against Sullivan, he campaigned as a Sound Transit watchdog, but once in office he’s done absolutely nothing to impose discipline on the runaway train agency.

Train agency? My favorite thing Carolyn Edmonds ever did was make sure the ST 522 got going. Seriously, for someone who claims to want ST to use more buses this is pretty fucked up.

In 2005 he won support in his close primary from this blog and others partly because of his representations as an “election reform advocate”.

And reform has only one meaning: Pretend that Democrats lost the election they won and yell at Ron Sims.

But as soon as he was re-elected he helped Sims steamroll in the irresponsible partisan scheme to impose mail-only voting.

Partisan: Not letting Republicans keep an unfair advantage. The Republican counties all have vote by mail only that means a somewhat higher turnout for Republicans. Correcting that in the most Democratic county is how Sharkansky defines partisanship.

Then he caved to party pressure and reneged on his support for making the county elections director an elected position (had he kept his word, that initiative would have been on the ballot this election and would have been expected to pass).

Would that it were so. Unfortunately, he only pushed it back. Also, you shouldn’t be so sure about the King County Katherine Harris bill passing because (a) you don’t know what the language of it would have been and (b) last year wasn’t exactly the year to put something on the ballot to try throw sand in Democrats’ eyes. Especially in King County.

Now that Ferguson has established himself as just another self-serving politician who doesn’t keep his word and can be counted on to fall in line with the Democrat machine on the big issues, he’s converted his credibility advantage with many Republicans into a deficit.

Well, unless he’d come out in favor of stoning Ron Sims, most Republicans would feel betrayed.

And he’s alienated enough Democrats that he needs all the help he can get from outside the party.

Well, maybe. But on the other hand he’s won some back with finally realizing that being as close to a Republican as you can in Seattle and the North End ring cities may be a mistake. Still, this is like three years out and a lot can happen.

So it’s hard to see how he’ll be competitive in future Democrat primaries.

Dear Ass Face,

It’s called the Democratic Party, and you sound like an asshole.

Hugs!

Carl

On the other hand, he has more personal appeal than most of the local Democrats and he’s smart enough that he might figure out how to win some of his erstwhile credibility back, but he has a lot of work to do.

Well he’s won some credibility back with me by pissing you off. That’s worth something. And, I can’t stress this enough, but we’re like 3 years away from that election.

In the meantime, he has to hope that Joni Balter has long coattails.

The meantime: 3 mothefucking years!

Sharkansky has a piece up saying that a drastically different climate at SeaTac than there’s ever been proves that global warming is a myth. It’s kind of bizarre, but that’s what happens when you hate science:

Record low temperatures set

The P-I’s weather blog reports that record low temperatures were set today:

Sea-Tac Airport hit 18 degrees around 4 a.m., breaking the record of 22 degrees. That was set in 1975.

It’s tempting to use this opportunity to make fun of the global warming scaremongers, but that would be premature. Maybe Ron Sims’ initiative to reverse global warming is already working!

It’s tempting to use this opportunity to make fun of the ring leader of the Evil Braintrust, and that’s just what I’m doing. I guess Sharkansky’s initiative to be so retarded it’s a wonder he can feed himself, much less type actual words is already working!

He seems to think that SeaTac is the entire planet. I didn’t realize that it being cold in a specific place means that the oceans warming up, for example, doesn’t count. Who needs fish, when the supply of dumb fuck is nearly inexhaustible? The ephemeral temperature last night is a far greater piece of evidence than the motherfucking scientific consensus.

Also, right wingers’ advancement of straw theory that I like to call uniform global warming strikes me funny. No scientist has ever said that everywhere all at once the planet is getting warmer. In fact, there are many gradations and localities, and some places may even get cooler depending on air and water currents, and some days will be cold, but in general carbon trapping heat causes the planet to get hotter and a cold day or week or season in one specific airport doesn’t change shit.

What if you could give up your house if it meant you could become a unicorn? And what if you could stop paying taxes, but also lose the vote? And what if you had magic powers, but could only use them for evil? Sadly, Andrew’s Dad decides to answer one of these questions. The others are still in the House of too Stupid a Debate for Stoned College Freshmen.

Today on the Bryan Suits show, a potential topic is would you give up your right to vote if by doing so you did not have to pay any federal tax?

That’s actually a statement, so it doesn’t need a question mark?

I have already submitted my answer:

Oh boy!

This is as big of a no brainer as they come. I live inside the Seattle city limits, see here:
http://andrews-dad.blogspot.com/2006/11/frustration-of-voting-in-seattle-i.html
my vote is “counted” by King County elections. It is not like I am paying many many tens of thousands of dollars in federal taxes… yet, but it is not like my vote is really worth all that much. What potential competitive races am I voting on? Initiatives and the President once every 4 years. What are the odds that one of those races would have been decided by my vote? Let me rephrase that, what are the odds my vote is going to decide a race while Ron Sims, or another partisan Democrat, is King County Executive? Somewhere between none and none.

I do have to say that it is fun to see the insane my vote doesn’t count so I’m going home coming from the right. But it shows that he’s not willing to support the troops, or the care of the elderly and infirm, or transit, or anything else that tax money supports. And I’m amused that he thinks that he’s likely to pay “many many tens of thousands” of dollars in federal taxes at some point.

This pretty much sums up the problems with Republicans: they don’t want to pay their fair share. They think that everybody is out to get them. And they can’t possibly see that things might change in the future, and maybe one day, someone will run for something in Seattle.

Does this make me non patriotic? I do not see it that way, but then I am not one of those let’s all get out and vote kind of people. There are plenty of people, including many of my own family members, and most of my elected representatives, whom I would prefer would not vote.

Tax cheats are generally unpatriotic.

Update:

It appears Bryan Suits does not agree with me. I am going to guess he does not get a ballot with the candidate, singular, for the 36th district.

I’m not particularly thrilled with Sommers, but on the other hand, she did face a primary 2 years ago, and depending on how she acts in the next two sessions may face another one. I mean you have to be pretty daft to think that there’s a conspiracy to keep her in office. It’s not Sims’ fault that the Republicans didn’t bother to run someone.

– posted by thehim 

This is only a coincidental followup to the previous post, Carl.  I see that Sound Politics’ resident Sheila Broflovski, Matt Rosenberg, has his panties in a bunch over an article in The Stranger which (gasp!) jokes about abortions and vasectomies!  He then questions the moral judgement of the people who brought one Dan Savage into this world:

Birth control is of course quite legitimate, and one perhaps wishes it had been practiced on certain current denizens of Greater Seattle, though I suspect they might not agree.

But this presents Matt with a sad dilemma:

And personally, unlike many Sound Politics readers, I am reluctantly pro-choice, believing abortion is a weighty, often wrenching decision, but ultimately none of the government’s business.

Poor guy.  I can’t imagine the pain that Matt suffers for having a particular political conviction that makes it impossible for him to tell people with purple hair and pierced tongues how to live their life.  Moral superiority is not easy, folks. 

I think many Americans are sick and tired of a president who puts his own brand of God above America. And I think Mormons have something special to prove, given how one of their profits, um, rebelled against America. But I don’t think that any religion has a monopoly on crazy. So, yeah, I kind of agree with Washingtonians for Romney that a Mormon can become president. It might be a handicap, though.

A few recent news articles and a poll are asking the question, “Can a Mormon be elected president?”

Well, one was just elected Senate Majority Leader, and that’s pretty rad. When you tear down any wall to entry in a group, it tends to be good in and of itself. Still, there are hurdles; The ones mentioned above are a tough row to hoe, and the fact that a significant amount of the evangelical community won’t vote for someone they don’t consider to be a Christian, oh and the Kolob thing.

The answer is yes.

I love one sentence paragraphs.

The real question is, are the American people (in spite of all the biased information they hear from the media) able to determine who is the best presidential candidate?

I also love one question paragraphs. And it’s kind of a non sequitur, so you get bonus points.

Yes again.

Ooh, a sentence fragment paragraph. Rad!

I personally have faith that a Mormon can be an excellent President of the United States. More importantly, I have faith that the American people have the ability to choose the best presidential candidate in 2008. Especially when one of the candidate’s skills and abilities put him so far ahead of the rest of the pack.

Isn’t being “an excellent President” the most important thing in selecting a president? I mean I guess getting them there is important. And “vote for my guy, he can’t win an election” isn’t exactly an inspiring campaign slogan. But neither is “vote for my guy, he can win an election.”

(Also posted at http://mymanmitt.com/mittblog/)

(I’m totally going to read it again)

–posted by thehim

What’s up Effin Unsound readers! Lee Rosenberg (aka thehim) here. The venerable Mr. Ballard has invited me to join this snark-fest, and as a connoisseur of the finest assortment of mass stupidity the internets can muster, I jumped at the chance. The first blog I started reading was Sadly No!, and it inspired my initial blogging for a while before I decided to get all preachy and shit about why we need to get the fuck out of Iraq and why we need to end the drug war. But in all that time, the folks at Sound Politics haven’t gotten any smarter, so I feel like occasionally taking some time to unravel some of the idiocy that’s spun on those pages every day.

Today is a very special day at Sound Politics, especially for their new eager-beaver contributor Eric Earling, who re-front-paged a post he put up over the holiday on an exchange between Andy McCarthy and Jon Podhoretz at the Corner over whether Tom Tancredo is “Lyndon LaRouche” crazy or just regular crazy for saying that George Bush is trying to undermine the sovereignty of the United States by forming a North American Union with Mexico and Canada. The accusation by Podhoretz is based on this Tancredo quote:

I know this is dramatic – or maybe somebody would say overly dramatic – but I’m telling you, that everything I see leads me to believe that this whole idea of the North American Union, it’s not something that just is written about by right-wing fringe kooks. It is something in the head of the president of the United States, the president of Mexico, I think the prime minister of Canada buys into it.

(more…)

Matt Rosenberg finally gives me the recrimination post I had been waiting for fo’ so long. It’s not as much as I’d hoped for, but still, pretty rad. Thank you Matt!

Make Or Break Time For The Washington GOP

Break!

Hitting bottom affords a certain sparkling opportunity for the Washington GOP to regain relevance. (About which, more below the fold). First, the backdrop. The Seattle Times today documents with a sobering legislative district map and an equally sobering majority/minority chart appended to this story, just how vast now will be Democratic control of the state legislature, and how central are Puget Sound’s suburbs to political fortunes of both parties. It is easy enough to predict that unleashed Democrats could dig their own hole, as evidenced by comments from Seattle Democratic State Senator-elect Ed Murray in the Times piece. Murray says: expect more spending on education, transportation, and environment. That spending could (and in the case of education certainly will) be ineffective and wasteful.

If there’s one thing the voters showed by voting so overwhelmingly Democratic was that they don’t want spending on education, transit or the environment. (I don’t want to tell you how to write, or shit, but “more below the fold” would probably work out OK. People would assume you were writing about what you were writing about) And most voters probably agree with Rosenberg that reduction of class size and teacher pay are waste. Please keep writing that for 2 years, we could still use the extra seats. (Two parenthetical asides in one paragraph? Lame!) Also, Murray just got elected, so I don’t know how much power he actually has.

Personally, I’d like the state to get into the sidewalk business. Maybe spend less on roads to nowhere in Eastern Washington and put that money in grants for sidewalks. Build up North of 85th in Seattle and in the suburbs of Tacoma, Everett, and Spokane. Part of the urbanization of the suburbs. It gets people out of their cars, and into the communities.

So perhaps it’s comforting for some Rs to continue assuming that the key Central Puget Sound suburban electorate is a fickle, impatient beast, and Ds could be on the outs soon if they don’t deliver. That’s not a smart approach. State Republicans likely now stand at a precipice.

Fair enough. Give up the suburbs.

If they are unable to inspire suburbanites who are far, far closer to the political center than most Sound Politics readers - the party will fall into the hands of blindered zealots fixed on banning abortion, insisting on deportation of 12 million illegal U.S. immigrants, and reviewing school fiction picks for suitability.

Rossi was one of those, another one has nothing to do with state issues, but is actually less far than the state party platform that says the 14th ammendment doesn’t count, and the third is already happening on the local level.

Lacking a fresh, responsive and inspiring agenda significantly decoupled from the political hackery and boilerplate of the official party “platform” process, the state GOP will fare quite poorly; and their expected ‘08 gubernatorial challenger Dino Rossi will fall far short compared to his highly-contested loss in ‘04.

Sounds about right, for a Republican, although, I would hasten to add that what the Democrats do will have more of an impact on the next election, at least on the state level. President Bush will still determine what goes on at the federal level, but the Democrats can start by accomplishing things there too.

Put briefly, the state GOP agenda must embrace, with substantial particulars:

Ooh, an agenda.

a Central Puget Sound transportation plan which yields real congestion relief and future capacity expansion, via major spending on roads and transit;

Dear Matt Rosenberg;

You’re writing on one of the most anti-transit spending blogs I know of. It opposed 912, it mocks LINK and right here in this very post, you said that you thought Democrats spending on transportation was going to be wasteful.

Kisses!

Carl Ballard

prioritized coalition-building with Seattle minority commmunities and suburban parents around real school choice, starting with charter schools and leading over time to the likely state-level changes needed to enable vouchers;

Didn’t the voters reject that shit once? I mean I know it’s been like a decade since we kicked I-173’s ass, but you should totally try that shit again. And you should totally tell the minority communities that defunding public education is good for their children.

Commmunities?

a tenable, sincere, yet authentically GOP environmental agenda which is about much more than land-use and business regulation gripes;

Ha!

a high-profile push for state performance audits of the billions currently granted in special corporate tax breaks by Olympia, to see whether quantifiable economic benefits to the state actually exceed the value of the favors granted;

Didn’t the Democrats already pass that? Way to get on board the Democratic Party train.

a new “tough on crime” agenda - including funds for more prisons, fixing loopholes in “Three Strikes,” a critical review and likely excission of the much-abused Drug Offender Sentencing Alternative (DOSA) program, and tougher sentences sooner for auto theft and drunk driving;

So lock up more people because of drug and property crimes and lock them up for longer. I thought you were trying to build a libertarian wing of the party.

Sorry to step out and address you, dear readers, but I couldn’t think of anything that the extra “s” in “excission” should stand for. The best I could come up with was “shitty spelling is just starting” but it had too much non-”s” words. So I’m sorry.

publicly-funded online databases showing the key decisions by county judges (i.e. sentences dispensed to first-time and repeat offenders versus established sentencing mimimums and maximums, DOSA dispensations granted to repeat offenders, alleged murderers declared “mentally incompetent” to stand trial).

That sounds like a waste of taxpayer money for a list of shit that people will never use. But it’d be another thing for Sharkansky to jack off to while writing stupid posts. I think you could save the taxpayers a significant amount of money if you just gave Sharkansky the occasional hand job.

Mimimums?

As for macro-level factors, state legislative candidate recruitment for the Washington GOP remains as challenging as ever, as the jobs are part-time, the pay modest, and many of the top potential GOP recruits busy and satisfied in the private sector. Nationally, Democrats swept to power, with long coattails here in Washington state, based on a generalized and well-deserved dissatisfaction with the GOP. It was borne not only of doubts on Iraq, but also profligate spending, a discordantly conservative social agenda, and especially, corruption.

It also had to do with local Republicans opposing transit, and gay rights, and education funding. Oh and so blatantly using sex offender legislation as a cudgel instead of trying to help children.

A prime case in point was the spectacular drubbing given to the eminently qualified and capable GOP U.S. Senate challenger Mike McGavick, despite the weak record and ineffectual verbosity of Democratic incumbent Maria Cantwell.

Shit, being on the forefront of the environment in the Senate, saving ANWR, keeping Megatankers out of the Puget Sound, taking on Enron, leading the way on making sure that there aren’t permanent bases in Iraq, all while in the minority party, does’t count as a record. And did you just say that Cantwell was an example of Democrats’ coat tails? Because as the only partisan running statewide, the Democrats were riding her coat tails.

So despite the pitfalls facing any majority party, it’s unwise to assume the Ds will move into ‘08 with negatives anywhere near as high as those which burdened GOP challengers and incumbents nationally and statewide earlier this month.

Well it depends on what we do. But you should totally try some more stupid tricks instead of trying to help shape legislation what little you can.

For these reasons, the state GOP’s new playbook needs to start with the conviction that a strong, suburban-oriented crossover platform will not be allowed to merely gather dust on a shelf, but will help breathe life and purpose into future state legislative candidacies. Accordingly, the party’s leadership at the state and suburban county level, plus its communications appartatus and key donors will be challenged to do more, and to do it more smartly.

Look, the suburbs and the rural areas don’t have much in common. So you’ll probably lose one or the other in the long term. Personally, while I think you can recapture the further out suburbs, maybe, focusing your time on wooing back Bellevue is just going to upset your base.

But keep building the appartatus.

Platforms are a tricky business. Something like the political agenda the party really needs to regain influence in Seattle’s suburbs (see above for my stab at that) would never, ever result from the wearisome sausage-grinding of the annual state GOP platform process, or even those of the more suburb-attuned King, Pierce and Snohomish County GOP organizations.

Part of that is because it’s a mix of bullshit and unpopular things. And to the extent that it isn’t, it’s what the Democrats already did.

So, what to do? First, realize that those platform exercises are already largely symbolic, a necessary sop to loyalists who often care more about “being heard” than formulating a workable GOP political agenda for high impact districts. The latter can be partially informed by the official state party platform and the King, Pierce and Snohomish GOP platforms, but it must not be mainly defined by any of those.

Way to respect your party.

The relevance of hidebound party loyalists is eroding. This trend will intensify as today’s 18-34 cohort - so attuned to picking and choosing from among myriad entertainment and news sources - grows older and votes more frequently, while still applying the same a la carte approach to political engagement and voting. Revulsion with the GOP indeed led to more straight-party ballots being cast last month, nationally and in many Washington state districts. But ticket-splitting by independent-leaning voters is the future. As indicated by the narrow escape of U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert (R-8th) from the anti-GOP tsunami in Washington state.

I’m not sure what the point of that paragraph was.

Finally, although Washington state legislative candidates must always exhibit fundraising prowess of their own, it’s supposed to be a team effort. Funding of viable campaigns by the state Republican party and county GOP organizations is another concern, which certainly deserves corrective emphasis.

I don’t know what you’re saying here either. Are the parties not spending their money on candidates? Would you like to have them stop spending money on candidates? I’ve read that paragraph 3 times, and I still don’t know.

So. It’s all fairly straightforward, really, if nonetheless daunting.

So. Step one: propose a bunch of unpopular things that have no chance of getting into the platform, much less actual law. Step two: ??? Step three: majority!

Will the leaders step up?

No, but I think you have a good shot at recruiting underpants gnomes.

Sorry, my interweb is all gummed up by this storm.

When you find out that Iran has been suspended by FIFA, not for its nuclear ambitions, or for its lack of democracy, but because the government is interfering with their soccer program, do you think to yourself, “vindication for McGavick!”? Me either, but we aren’t short bus window lickers like Don.

Mike! the Pyschic

Pyschic?

Mike McGavick might have been blown out by the largest margin in a Washington Senate race since “Scoop” Jackson was drawing breath. But despite his losing performance, two of the ideas which the former Safeco CEO espoused during his ill-fated campaign have come to pass.

Well, I hope they were unique and important things, not soccer and something even Lieberman was basically doing.

In October, McGavick began officially calling for former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to step down. With Democrats soon to be controlling the House and Senate, “Rummy” headed off two years of testifying in front of congressional committees by tendering his resignation to the White House.

Ironically, if he’d been successful, and the Senate hadn’t flipped, there’s a good chance Rummy would have stayed on. So sometimes you win by losing, and good job Mike!

Earlier this year McGavick’s campaign website began sporting a blog where the candidate opined on different issues. In what was definitely one of the “SayWA” moments of the election season chose as one of his first blog entries to call for the expulsion of Iran’s national soccer team from the 2006 World Cup. McGavick penned an article for the Weekly Standard along a similar vein. Iran played in the World Cup this summer but two days ago FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) announced that it had suspended the Iranian team from participating in any further international competitions.

OK, but according to the FIFA press release, they were banned for, “not adhering to the principles of the FIFA Statutes regarding the independence of member associations, the independence of the decision-making process of the football governing body in each country and the way in which changes in the leadership of associations are brought about.” Not because of anything Mike! said. I mean shit, FIFA recognizes nuclear exporter/dictatorship Pakistan.

Political prognostications like this would make Edgar Cayce jealous and should earn McGavick a spot as an expert on one of our cable news networks. Or at least a Capitol Hill-based psychic helpline.

If he was psychic, he probably wouldn’t have left his job for a failed Senate run. On the other hand, maybe he knew that was the only to get Safeco to give him all that scratch.

With this type of predictive success perhaps McGavick should next call for a six-lane bridge with a shoulder to replace the Evergreen Point floating bridge. Or at least for Kim Jon Il, Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be locked in a room full of feral jackals…

Do the SPers get together? And why would they invite those people, other than their profound hatred of democracy, I mean?

There was some way for the courts to figure out if cases had merit.

A verdict was issued today for the sex bias case in Thurston’s prosecutors office. The county plans to appeal of course.

The first sentence made my head hurt.

Naturally feminist lawyers believe this to be a huge victory. A lot of women who are sick of other women abusing their victim status would tend to disagree.

Stupid broads. Don’t they know that they should just put up with, “lewd language - such as references to the size of some women’s breasts - … off-color jokes and … sexual bias in giving out plum assignments or pay.”

If “[a] lot of women” feel a certain way in Andy’s mind then it must be true. But two can play at this game because a lot of women find Andy repulsive. Probably because of that time he was caught having sex with a watermelon.

Shame on Holm- he created an environment where snakes like these could exploit and abuse the system. No matter how merit-less this case was, Holm and every other manager working in government should know better.

Not shame on Holm: He should have fired that guy or at least got him to knock it off. And then shouldn’t have tried to intimidate the women who complained. Fired two of them and made work hell on the other one. No, shame on him for the fact that his actions allowed some women to go to court. I mean holy fuck on toast. So remember, the “snakes” aren’t the people harassing women, they are the women who go to court for redress.

And, we can have some idea of how much merit the case had based on the fact that a jury unanimously said that it had merit. But obviously, they don’t know what they’re talking about. They need some learning like Andy and his imaginary girlfriends.