I've been offered the chance to pay the $$ and keep the blog up and running, but since the deadline on that decision was so last-minute, I've decided against it. So, this will be my last post on EP as well.
The past two years have given me a clean, well-lighted place to come to [...]
Evergreen Politics is shuttering its doors, as of today. Jon and Jeff have written very little in the last few years. I was able to pick up the slack for several years but have been erratic in the last 18 months since I've switched over to more active grassroots organizing. [...]
King 5 News did a piece tonight on the freaking nutcase beyotch who owns the Pizza Time in a Lacey, WA strip mall. This piss-poor excuse for a human being has permanently shut off all the heat in the store because one night employees forgot to turn the furnace off when they [...]
Hard-bop trumpeter Freddie Hubbard died earlier today, one month after suffering a heart attack. Like my favorite guitarist, Wes Montgomery, Freddie was born and raised in Indianapolis. He even played with the Montgomery Brothers while still in his teens. But it was his stint with Art Blakey's [...]
Andrew at NPI has featured a blog post by Port Commissioner Gael Tarleton. The subject of the post is port reform, the bugaboo ever since former CEO Mic Dinsmore started treating the agency's intake of public tax dollars like his very own piggy bank. Tarleton outlines what is being done now to institute reforms [...]
This economic "downturn" did not need to happen. I haven't followed the markets and financial news all that carefully, unlike political news. I don't have the background to read the entrails of this current mess quickly. But I know it did not need to happen. It's been nagging at me [...]
Watching McCain on "This Week" this morning, I'm reminded of what we might be dealing with had McCain or Clinton been elected. I doubt that any other President-elect would be getting such high marks for the transition preparation. As the Wall Street Journal says, "the nation is rooting for [...]
The latest P.I. article on fraud at the Port of Seattle focuses on what the CEO and the commissioners think the word "fraud" means and what punishments should be meted out. It is stunning that, when faced with the results of their own investigation, port leadership implies that their past [...]
Letter writer to the New York Times forgets to put brain in head before typing:
To the Editor:
For some people, abortion is a nonnegotiable issue. A nation that runs out of people cannot perform the activities of a sophisticated society.
We have a shortage of primary care doctors. There are other [...]
Kristin Millares Bolt reports that the Port of Seattle's investigation of itself (overseen by commissioners Bryant and Tarleton) shows the Port committed fraud while under the leadership of former CEO Mic Dinsmore. Not much of a surprise.
Among other things, port employees steer[ed] contracts to favored contractors for work that [...]
Before toddling off into the sunset as a sexually harassing, corporate lackey has-been, Doug Sutherland signed off on the deal to transform the waters off Maury Island into a huge, polluting gravel mine. Environmental groups promise to file a lawsuit to stop the action. Hopefully, a judge will approve their claims against Sutherland's work [...]
I almost wrote President Obama. It seems like we have a split presidency right now. Obama is doing the real leading - like dealing with the economic collapse and bolstering our confidence; Bush is attending to the ceremonial functions like talking to the APEC leaders in Peru and pardoning the [...]
DarkSyde, a leader in the DailyKos community who specializes in science and global climate issues, posted a piece today at DailyKos, with the title I am also using. Darksyde shares a NYT opinion piece written by Alan Stern, a NASA upper echelon scientist. Stern wrote about the ineptitude [...]
Joe Lieberman appeared on Meet the Press this morning in an effort save his reputation, but he's still the Democrats' number one traitor. He lied and played the refusenik whenever Brokaw pressed him on why he hasn't apologized for campaigning for the Republican presidential candidate and for supporting Palin's most offensive statements about [...]
There have been so many items I've seen over the last two weeks that have touched my heart about why Obama and the Democrat's win is going to make a difference. Here are two:
Desmond Tutu
Let's begin with Desmond Tutu's take, as he considers the impact on the world, in an [...]
The Municipal League has a message for the commisioners at the Port of Seattle:
The Port of Seattle has not been transparent about what particular economic development the additional taxes will purchase or the necessity to spend the money in 2009.
(snip)
We were quite disappointed by the Port's misleading attempt to portray the agency's [...]
I feel like I'm at a workshop that is being very well run. I don't have to try to help the process. They've got it handled. Or riding in a car with an excellent driver.
When the folks in charge do a good job of "process", it allows us the [...]
Over at the Institute for Washington's Future website, I wrote last week about the Draft Action Agenda that the Washington State government-led Puget Sound Partnership developed as a last reasonable plan to save the Puget Sound as we know it. This week, a private nonprofit organization, People for Puget Sound [...]
Live in Snohomish County? Care to help create a citizen-led Human Rights Commission that “has the authority, and the resources, to provide equal opportunity and safety for all of the residents and visitors to Snohomish County.” A citizens group, which has been meeting for a year, proposed an ordinance that [...]
Ever since election night and the focus on the historical nature of Obama's win, I've wondered about that. From the perspective of the huge range of people I've talked with over the last year about this election, Obama's race has seemed like such a small part of why his candidacy [...]
Cesar Chavez and the farmworkers movement came up with the blueprint for taking the idea of community organizing into the political realm. So says Randy Shaw, the writer of the new book, "Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century". In [...]
The Port of Seattle needs an intervention -- toute suite -- because, left to its own devices, it will only sink further into its debilitating disease of Taxoholism:
The Port of Seattle Commission voted Tuesday to increase the taxes it collects from King County property owners to $84 million in 2009, an 11 [...]
The last few days, while bringing some heartbreak, have brought validation of the hard work that so many put in. I am grateful for all the campaign workers, paid and volunteer who made all this happen. We won a resounding victory.
The best part of the entire election has been seeing [...]
This has been quite a week. It was a delight to come out of the crowded Westin in Seattle on Tuesday night and hear the sounds of people celebrating a hard-fought win for our nation in the street. It was a relief to know that Gregoire had won a resounding [...]
I am struck by the rawness of people's feeling these post-election days, of how friends are sending along poems and notes and photos. It began right after the final news when people spontaneously gathered together on the streets to cheer and celebrate. We hear story after story about how the [...]
I've had a glimpse in a few quiet moments to consider what a Obama-led Democratic-controlled national government might talk about and then do. It's been like breathing again after 8 long years. I'm starting to get hopeful. Here's a few, almost random, reasons:
Provide Relief for State Governments. In hearings on [...]
As I've been out working in the more rural areas I've run into a number of people who see themselves as Obama-Rossi voters. I also have a few friends who seem to think it would be okay to vote for Rossi over Gregoire. It baffles me. We need Gregoire to [...]
The Economist is usually considered somewhat conservative and very business oriented so this is big news. Here's what they say:
The Economist does not have a vote, but if it did, it would cast it for Mr Obama. We do so wholeheartedly: the Democratic candidate has clearly shown that he [...]Sometimes I think we have had our senses severely dulled in the last many years of corportatist, war-mongering, science-denying, pandering Republicanism. We barely blinked as Jack Abramoff and Tom DeLay and Ted Stevens and company robbed the treasury for personal gain, stepping on worker's rights and Indian tribes in the [...]
At bottom, Darcy is a highly logical, technically savvy, networks and grassroots believing sweetie. Here is a post she wrote over at OpenLeft which just reflects why she is running and what she wants. It's very sweet.
We're in the very last stretch of a marathon. The finish line is [...]We are hearing that George Fearing's campaign in Washington's 4th CD (central Washington) has some internal polling which puts them within the error of margin in his race against one of the worst Congresscritters anywhere, Doc Hastings.
I'm sure you all are pretty close to tapped out, as am I. [...]
The highly predictive Weekly Reader Presidential Election Poll of students from kindergarten through 12th grade has Obama at 54.7% and McCain at 42.9% with "other" getting 2.5%. Over 125,000 students from all over the country cast their votes in their classrooms and gave the Democrat 33 states and the [...]
The AP is reporting that the Boeing machinists' strike may be over. Here's the nub of it:
The main stumbling block had been job security and other top issues included wages, retirement benefits and medical coverage.Here's Obama's closing argument in this campaign. It's the last few minutes of a talk he gave today in Canton, Ohio. The transcript is written out in full below and here is a link to the YouTube.
Then Wednesday we get to hear Obama for half an hour [...]
Do keep working, of course. The desperate measures that the Republican campaigns are taking may well work downticket if we let go now. And this would be a good time to crush the modern-day Republicans. They deserve to be driven out of office for a generation.
But the smell of change [...]
I'm not solely fixated on whether someone has a (D) or an (R) next to their name on the ballot, but c'mon, I've pretty much always voted for the (D) ever since I was eligible to vote in 1978. I think my only digression was when I pulled the proverbial [...]
It's downright disturbing to witness the latest tactics of the McCain-Palin Pro-American Disaster Campaign alongside the rantings of their cohorts in the GOP. It seems all they really have to offer at this point is smears and fears. "Terrorist", "socialist", "be afraid, be very afraid!"
In endorsing Barack Obama this morning, Colin Powell described Obama as a transformational figure. Powell went on to praise "Obama's response to the economic meltdown, Obama's ability to reach all classes, races, and parties, and Obama's rhetorical ability and his substance". He added, "I think we need a generation [...]
One of the most heartening things I've seen in this very heartening election season occurred yesterday.
The ultra-right Republican Michele Bachman, first term Congresswoman from Minnesota, tried to take the country back to the red-baiting days of the fifties on Chris Matthews' program on MSNBC Friday afternoon. Her tirade, [...]
Darcy Burner's numbers are looking good, both her poll numbers and the money.
The last two polls have Darcy up 47/40 and 49/44 over Reichert amongst Likely Voters.
Here's the poll numbers:
Lake Research (D-Burner) 10/11-14/08 500 LV 40 R, 47 D +7 Dem
BPN (D-CCC) [...]
This is no year year for splitting the ticket. This election is likely going to be a change election, like 1932 was, or 1964 or 1992. A change election can occur if two things occur: 1) the Democratic candidate wins big and 2) Democrats don't squander the opportunity [...]
You've gotta love the creativity of the folks on the Democratic side of the aisle. The ads that our folks come up with are funny, touching and effective. Here are a few from the last couple days:
SEIU has a great ad comparing McCain with Bush.
Last night I blogged about the phoniness of the whole "Joe the Plumber" ruse being put on by the McCain campaign. The story just got more interesting and, dare I say it, more embarrassing for McCain.
The New York Times reports that Joe Wurzelbacher (any relation to Richard [...]
Dave Neiwert, national blogger who lives in Seattle, was on CNN, commenting on the article that he and Max Blumenthal wrote at Salon about the Alaska Independence Party and the Palins. Take a look.
[...]People generally think that this debate won't influence poll numbers, especially because the national sense of these two people is firming up. Obama - knows a lot, cares, doesn't get ruffled. McCain - arrogant, a bit panicked and with moments where the funny, straight-forward McCain comes through. That might well [...]
We heard a lot about "Joe the Plumber" (Joe Wurzelbacher) in tonight's debate. He was presented as Mr. Middle Class Hard Working Guy Just Trying to Rub Two Nickels Together. It's now clear that "Joe the Plumber" Wurzelbacher is not an independent or undecided voter at all. He is a [...]
The 4th Congressional District in Central Washington has historically been a Democratic district and George Fearing has a good chance of taking it back for the Democrats on November 4th. Since the mid-50's, the district has had two moderate Republicans, Catherine May and Sid Morrison, and two Democrats, Mike McCormack [...]
MoveOn has teamed up with two of the stars of Gossip Girl and other young actors to produce a hilarious pro-Obama ad that parodies drug prevention ads. Take a look.
There is also a new Partnership for a McCain-Free America website that [...]
The DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee) has a great YouTube on Dave Reichert. It is not in the least disrespectful; it simply says that Reichert is the wrong person for the job. And it's pretty funny.
Another great ad from across the country. This one is very hard hitting [...]
Garrison Keillor has a column up entitled "Americans' B.S. detectors off charts with Palin". Here's an exerpt from the St. Petersburg Times, which is the regional news source for a crucial area in the crucial state of Florida.
Low dishonesty and craven cynicism sometimes win the day but [...]
As James Fallows reminds us, today, October 11, is the seventh anniversary of U.S. Attorney Tom Wales' murder.
I used to live on Queen Anne, a few blocks from Tom Wales' house. I didn't know him personally, though I do remember his passion about Initiative 676 (safety lock [...]
Darcy Burner and Dave Reichert's debate will be televised this evening at 7:00 on KCTS. If you get a chance, check it out.
We have very few opportunities to see them together on the same stage and it is very instructive.
[...]My nightmare right now is that Obama will win handily but Gov. Gregoire will lose and we will be stuck with Dino Rossi as governor in a time of huge difficulties when very important decisions will be made.
I watched most of the debate in Spokane on TV last night and [...]
Sarah Palin really has weird and dangerous supporters who helped get her into office, starting when she was mayor. Seattle's own David Neiwert, who has worked for years documenting the dangerously radical right for years, went to Wasilla with journalist Max Blumenthal and wrote a long article for Salon [...]
My friend, Ahmed, lives in London but is Egyptian by birth. He writes about his life in a great blog, "Ahmed's Chunks". He talks about what he's learning about himself as he considers what to get rid of when he's moving across town. He talks about something they've done [...]
That's what Joe Biden said this election was about. It's not about Biden or Palin. It's not about Obama or McCain. It's about us! It's about how to reclaim the greatness of this country.
He gave a great speech today in Tampa, FL. I listened to the first half of [...]
Lynn has given her take on last night's debate (see post below). I agree with her as far as the main result -- Obama came out ahead by looking and sounding more presidential, and McCain... well, he is a nasty S.O.B. and there is no way around that. In particular, [...]
As I listen to this Town Hall style debate, I am pleased with our opportunity to see these two men. McCain is pretty good (if not particularly believable) about half the time, when he is talking about issues he seems to know something about or connecting personally with the former [...]
A group of people from Sarah Palin's home town are talking thoughtfully about that "Rape Kits" story. They, along with some state officials, talk about the policy that the Palin-hired Wasilla police chief instituted - to charge rape victims for the collection of evidence after a rape occurs. Take [...]
This has to be one of the most cynical, heartless, fascistic and STUPID policies to ever come out of any presidential campaign. You know it's bad news for the Republican candidate when the story is published in the Wall Street Journal:
John McCain would pay for his health plan with [...]
We are literally making a revolution right now. It's nice to step back for a moment and notice the force of the changes occurring all around us - in the culture, the conversations, the working out a national consensus. It is watching people of all stripes use whatever platform they [...]
The Obama campaign has been planning for contingencies! Here's a preview of an upcoming 13-minute Internet documentary the Obama campaign will have out tomorrow. It's about McCain's role in the Keating scandal. Delicious.
This campaign is being run very very well.
UPDATE: And here is the link to [...]
The election certainly brings out the core of who people are. I find it a particularly interesting time to pay attention to politics. Here are a few of the most interesting things we are finding out at the national level:
John McCain never was a Maverick; it's all make believe. [...]
The Economist magazine has a worldwide poll up for our presidential race. They've apportioned a total of 8205 votes amongst all the world's countries, I'm guessing by population. China has 1900 votes to 432 for the US and 49 for Canada.
Our of that 8205, 3 are for McCain/Palin, apparently [...]
Need a boost this morning?
McCain's got problems when Indiana, Missouri and North Carolina are considered the toss-up states, because Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada and New Mexico all have Obama leading. And he's already got all the Kerry states in the bag.
Nate Silver over at my favorite polling [...]
On CNN last night, Wolf Blitzer asked Zakaria about his article in the Washington Post the day before. Zakaria says that the scary part about Palin is not that she doesn't know how to respond but that she doesn't understand the questions.
My favorite of Zakaria's responses to Blitzer's [...]
Sean Quinn at the excellent polling blog, fivethirtyeight, says that Joe Biden doesn't need to talk much on Friday. His job is to stand back and let her hang herself. What Sean says about Biden:
Everyone, Republicans included, knows the guy knows policy detail and foreign relations cold. He really doesn't [...]
Fareed Zakaria used his column in Newsweek this week to say that Sarah Palin is not ready to be on the ticket. Furthermore, putting Palin on the ticket indicates that McCain was not putting “Country First”. Zakaria is very clear:
Will someone please put Sarah Palin out of her agony? [...]
Undecided American voters preferred Obama over McCain after Friday evening’s debate. Apparently they didn’t like McCain’s bullying and they liked the respect Obama showed for McCain and for us.
The CNN snap poll of debate-watchers had Obama winning overall by a margin of 51-38. However, his margin with women [...]
Darcy is raising money on DailyKos this evening. She is one of a dozen or so Orange to Blue candidates and the one to "win" the opportunity to have her case made this evening. This is called the "Hell to Pay" program and is meant to help candidates, [...]
In yesterday's second gubernatorial debate, before the Association of Washington Business at the Semiahmoo Resort in Blaine, Rossi said he would support rewriting the state's minimum wage law.
The people of Washington State approved today's minimum wage law when we passed Initiative 688 with 66% of the voters in favor [...]
James Galbraith, son of the famous economist and a respected academic economist himself, suggests that the Paulson plan is no longer necessary. Given that the five big investment banks - Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley -- have disappeared or morphed into regular banks, [...]
Funny how election season exposes people for who they really are -- especially if a candidate's poll numbers are suddenly tanking. Case in point, one John Sidney McCain:
Let's see. After days of hard work without McCain's mug anywhere in sight, a Congressional version of the $700 billion bailout plan was [...]
What a bummer for McCain. A bipartisan effort which began earlier this week appears to be bearing fruit, in the form of an economic bailout package that may well be hammered out in full by tomorrow. The project needed no assistance whatsoever from the cowardly, conniving Senator from Arizona. [...]
We may just have seen the "Walter Cronkite" moment when Cronkite said he thought the Vietnam War was unwinnable and President Johnson reportedly said "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost America."
Devastating video of Dave Letterman commenting on McCain's blowing off the show scheduled for tonight with Letterman. Three minutes of [...]
Straight-talking maverick? Not by a long shot. McCain is a chicken shit, desperately clinging to any phony tactics he can in order to avoid debating Obama this Friday night.
It shouldn't really come as much of a surprise. McCain's poll numbers are starting to tank, in spite of, or [...]
The media is starting to notice the difference in the way McCain performs under pressure vs. the way Obama does. I talked about this last week, as did a couple national bloggers. Now, the traditional media is catching on, including at least one consistent conservative, George Will. Some of [...]
Campbell Brown is exasperated with the McCain campaign again. Shortly after Palin's selection as VP nominee, she lit into Tucker Bounds, a McCain staffer, about the nonsense the McCain camp was spouting about Palin's foreign policy experience. It was pretty astounding.
This time, she's calling McCain's camp out for [...]
Washington’s new Top Two Primary has created a difficult choice for many Democrats in the 36th Legislative District, which covers much of Ballard, Magnolia, Queen Anne and Belltown. It’s a well-organized, strongly Democratic district, which of course is why we are in this predicament – we have two excellent Democrats [...]
It's hard not to get involved in the many distracting Palin stories, from today's Anchorage Daily News story saying that Gov. Palin has surrendered important gubernatorial duties to the McCain campaign to Palin's lies about imposing fees on rape victims while she was mayor of Wassila. They just [...]
Nationally known freeway blogger, the Scarlet Pimpernel, has been visiting Seattle recently. He puts up simple signs with the word “Peace” or “The War is a Lie” on it. That's what he does, goes up and down the west coast, visiting towns and cities and putting up signs at good [...]
Head over to DailyKos and vote to make Darcy the top contender for a chunk of support from the Orange to Blue campaign at DailyKos.
[...]Years ago I used to have a wonderful fiction writing teacher (in Berkeley), Leonard Bishop, who talked to us about the importance of putting our characters under pressure. That's how you really understand their character.
Yo! That's what we're seeing right now with Barack Obama and John McCain. Crisis. Check. Pressure. [...]
Watching those nasty anti-Gregoire ads is getting annoying. I find the ads that claim that there was some quid pro quo between Chris Gregoire and the Spokane tribe just plain stupid and mean-spirited. A person doesn't have to go far to read about the truth. But we're not talking about [...]
Palin said today that she was going to be the designated energy person in a McCain Administration. I guess if McCain thinks she is the smartest person on the planet on energy (step aside, Al Gore, T. Boone Pickens, RFK, Jr., and the rest of the pretenders) that would be [...]
Oct. 4th. That's the deadline for doing it the easy way - either online or by mail. Getting as many people as possible out to vote is critical in this election. The easy way is online - and works both for new registrations and change of address.
If [...]
Keith Olbermann nails why we have mixed feelings about this date; it's been taken over as a TradeMark of the Republican Party. Yep! That is it. It's become a political tool.
1. The chasm between the Democrats and the Republicans is deeper and/or clearer than it's been in my lifetime. Hillary Clinton says it best:
The two party conventions showcased vastly different directions for our country. Senator Obama and Senator Biden offered the new ideas and positive change America needs [...]
I can't stand to watch the Republican convention. I know I should but it has no draw for me at all. But I do like to hear or read about what is happening. That's as much as I can handle. This is just the opposite of what happened for me [...]
