Q: How many Bush Administration officials does it take to screw in a light bulb?

A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light bulb; its conditions are improving every day. Any reports of its lack of incandescence are a delusional spin from the liberal media. That light bulb has served honorably, and anything you say undermines the lighting effect. Why do you hate freedom?

* * *
(from buzzflash)

Christine Gregoire wants more accountability of state agencies

She has asked the state legislature to become the first state to have a Government Management Accountability and Performance (GMAP) system. Every state department would have to measure how effectively they're performing.

Ted Kennedy Proposes Troop Pull-out

Wonderful speech! Thank you!

Krugman Assails Bush Bigotry

After saying we should pay women less out of Social Security because they live longer, Bush now said that we should privatize Social Security because the system is inherently unfair to blacks. Krugman does a wonderful job killing this argument.

All these new rationales for a set course. Where have we seen this before? Tax cuts. War in Iraq.

The adminstration is trying to find something to play in Peoria. When the liberals laud the Republicans for staying on message they forget this part of the repugnant process -- floating trial balloons and finding wedge issues.

A Moment for Media Reform

In a victory for media reform, the administration has given up on Michael Powell's media monopoly proposals. The Justice Department will not ask the Supreme Court to reconsider a decision by the federal appeals court in Philadelphia which rebuked Michael Powell's proposed deregulation of media. Before Powell one company could own 35% of the national market. That was increased to 39% by Congress in response to Powell's proposals. He wanted to increase it to 45%.

Powell also wanted to let big media own both television and print, but a broad coalition formed against this proposal. The lefties have already seen the loss of independent media. The right-wing felt consolidation would lead to more indecent programming. Republican TV = indecent programming: that was close enough to join ranks.

The networks and media companies argue that the growth of the internet gives enough independent coverage to offset the monopoly they want in print and broadcast media. Were that only so.

I really appreciate Nancy Pelosi's newsletter. You can sign up on her House Minority Leader website. The latest issue has information about the Federal Propaganda Prohibition Act, The Iraq election, the latest Republican attack on Social Security (women live longer so they should get less), the real budget crisis and supporting choice.

On the hopeless/hapless side, I see that the Republicans have completely walked around Brian Baird's commonsense proposal of what to do if members of Congress are eliminated in some disaster -- they're just going to let whoever is left call the shots. Brian has been trying for several years to get a mechanism in place in the case of such a tragedy.

The U.S. House has passed a controversial doomsday provision that would allow a handful of lawmakers to run Congress if a terrorist attack or major disaster killed or incapacitated large numbers of congressmen.
``I think (the new rule) is terrible in a whole host of ways - first, I think it's unconstitutional,'' said Norm Ornstein, a counselor to the independent Continuity of Government Commission, a bipartisan panel created to study the issue. ``It's a very foolish thing to do, I believe, and the way in which it was done was more foolish.''

Viktor Yuschenko is blogging! Here is an English version of his personal web site.

Blair has harsh words for Bush.

"If America wants the rest of the world to be part of the agenda it has set," said Blair, "it must be part of their agenda too."

Too bad the context was environmentalism. It would have had more punch had Blair actually come out against American imperialism.

Tim Eyman in the news again

Tim Eyman is filing an initiative saying that the state legislature can't pass laws restricting initiatives unless they come up for a public vote. Such an initiative won't pass legal muster since the method for passing a bill is in the state constitution. But I don't think Tim Eyman cares about that. After all, most of his previous initiatives have not been legal either.

He also got a couple slaps on the wrist for some PDC filing errors.

I think he's already done enough damage to Washington. His initiative I-695 in 1999 to get rid of the excessive fees on cars was one thing. Years ago Washington had a personal property tax. Taxpayers would inventory everything they owned once a year, have it inspected and pay tax on it. That was too onerous, so it was shifted to taxing a taxpayer's car as a representation of his/her personal property. Over time people forgot that the car was a stand-in for the personal property, and then the car fees seemed exorbitant, especially compared with $30 annual licensing fees across the river in Oregon. The initiative passed, but was legally flawed. The legislature, seeing the overwhelming support for this initiative, cut the rates down to $30 a year per car. Of course our state and local governments had to start scambling for money to replace this revenue.

Eyeman's next initiative, I-722 in 2000, put a cap of 2% on property taxes that public entities could raise. We are fortunate that we are living in the fastest growing part of Washington, because that has saved us from feeling some of the pain from this initiative. That initiative was also flawed, but parts of it were enacted.

More about his history is available here.

It's weird to see political memes sweeping across states. California started the property tax limitation with their Proprosition 13. This spread to Oregon with Bill Pridemore and has resulted in gutting the public schools there. Tim Eyman became the Bill Pridemore of Washington -- making a cottage industry out of awful initiatives. Why does this happen? Are the circumstances just right for these small men to make a difference?

It's uncannily like seeing Bush trying to apply the nationalism lessons from Margaret Thatcher here and then seeing John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, try to use Bush's ploys there.

No more super-majority

The State Senate is holding a public hearing this Wednesday, January 26th, on SB 5144 and SJR 8202 - Amending the Constitution to provide for a simple majority of voters to authorize school district levies and bonds. If passed by the legislature (a 2/3 vote is required), voters would get to decide whether they want to change the vote required to pass local school levies and bonds from the current supermajority of 60% to a simple majority vote of 50%. Just last year our local school district had to go to the voters twice for a technology issue -- they had a majority both times but the first vote didn't have enough voters. That was a lot of extra expense to put on the election again.

Let's give our senator a call or email him and let him know our views on this.

Census Bureau

Our household was selected to take part in a US Census activity. The four of us have been recording every penny we've spent in the last two weeks. This is a very strange activity because there isn't such a thing as a "normal" week. Who would have thought that in these two weeks I would have bought a new car and had an emergency root canal.

For those considering moving abroad: www.expatica.com

The Meme in Right-Wing Governments

We've seen how Bush thought the war in Iraq would be his Falkland Islands War. That was the cakewalk where the occupying force was greeted as liberators. A lot of nationalism at very little cost.

Now we're seeing Bush trying to privatize social security. Well, that didn't turn out so well for Great Britain.

A conservative government sweeps to power for a second term. It views its victory as a mandate to slash the role of the state. In its first term, this policy objective was met by cutting taxes for the wealthy. Its top priority for its second term is tackling what it views as an enduring vestige of socialism: its system of social insurance for the elderly. Declaring the current program unaffordable in 50 years’ time, the administration proposes the privatization of a portion of old-age benefits. In exchange for giving up some future benefits, workers would get a tax rebate to put into an investment account to save for their own retirement.

George W. Bush’s America in 2005? Think again. The year was 1984, the nation was Britain, the government was that of Margaret Thatcher -- and the results have been a disaster that America is about to emulate.

Why We Need Practice Reframing

Many progressives don't talk about politics because it's not considered polite conversation. In addition, right-wing talk show hosts and talking heads have aggravated the incivility of political dialogue to a point where people are afraid to bring anything up.

This is why I think we all need some training in how to speak about our values in many more areas -- how to be progressive ambassadors.

I'm really enjoying http://www.frameshopisopen.com/

NUMBERS DON'T LIE -- UNLESS THEY DON'T EXIST!

The Bush administration has proposed to end the monthly tabulation of gender in America's workforce, part of the payroll survey of current employment statistics. What is this data used for? Keeping employment records by gender allows researchers to track women's participation in all elements of the workforce. The Labor Department argued the tracking by gender is burdensome on respondents, but in the same proposed revisions they recommended expanding reporting requirements in other areas.

The Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues is speaking out -- telling the Bush administration that, "With a gender breakdown, the payroll survey is capable of painting a reliable picture of where women are working across industries and business cycles. Without a gender breakdown, that picture becomes far more difficult to obtain."

Learn more about the issue here:

http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/IWPRStatementonBLS.pdf

Voice your opinion before the rule is finalized.The Department of Labor will be accepting comments on the proposal until February 22, 2005. Send your comments to:

Amy A. Hobby
BLS Clearance Officer
Division of Management Systems
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Room 4080
2 Massachusetts Avenue NE.
Washington, DC 20212

An Open Letter from the Religious Institute about Abortion

This is a really good letter outlining the religious reasons for safe abortions. They include affirming women's moral agency, respect for life (that all children should be wanted), scripture, moral imperative for access and religious pluralism.

Forum at the Library

Last night we went to a forum moderated by Val Ogden. She is an amazing woman and a great Democrat. She was elected as a state representative for the first time when she was 65 and then served for 12 years. She is still active and effective in politics. She drove up to Olympia first thing yesterday morning, met with most of the legislators and got a bipartisan sign-off on some big medical/mental health project. Then she came back down to Vancouver to host this forum. She is going to be 81 on February 11th and really doesn't show signs of slowing down.

There were two people on the panel: Judie Stanton and Don Carlson. Judie Stanton (D) just stepped down as a County Commissioner and Don Carlson (R) was just defeated for state senator. The forum was meant as a candid discussion of why people would run for election by people who have. However, after listening to this panel I still think it's because candidates are masochists.

Don Carlson was a little tiresome. He's a moderate Republican who had this message for teachers: "Manage your money better." That seemed pretty unfeeling. I wonder what message conservative Republicans have?

Val Ogden talked about how discourse had changed and become less civil. She wondered out loud whether it was due to talk shows or to the party system. Don Carlson hadn't really experienced a loss in civility. I think the explanation for that is that Republicans are ruder than Democrats. They try to emulate the talk show hosts. I have three Republican legislators in my district and whenever I communicate with them I get these rude blasts back, justifying their positions. "I'm sure you'll agree with me that..." and then stating something that no self-respecting progressive would agree with. Just incendiary stuff.

The other thing Judie mentioned was that lobbyists and lawyers are around our elected officials full time while there are very few citizens involved in government. This means that the average citizen just doesn't get the representation that business and special interests do. It was a very interesting evening -- especially after our anti-inaugural rally in the morning.

also from SO: Progressive Groups Join in Protesting Bush Inauguration

January 20, 2005 - Eighteenth Legislative District PCO Ann Warren deserves tremendous recognition and thanks from a variety of liberal and progressive groups in southwest Washington. Ann decided only a couple of weeks before the inauguration that she could not allow the date to go unrecognized by the many people who so strongly disagree with the current administrations policies. She organized a sign waving party on the Evergreen overpass over I-5, followed by a march through downtown Vancouver culminating in a rally at Esther Short Park during the time Bush was being inaugurated in Washington, D.C. Ann was instrumental in organizing a presence from several groups including the Clark County Democratic Party, Vancouver for Peace and Democracy for Vancouver. Our own party patriarch and firebrand Dan Ogden was the keynote speaker. Michelle Cotner, Mike Ellison, Patrice Jacob and Ann Warren also addressed the group of approximately 40 people. There was a moment of silence to commemorate the actual swearing in of Bush as the President for the next four years. Representatives from all the Portland television stations and The Oregonian newspaper attended the rally, filming the activities and interviewing the people present. Vancouver's own Columbian newspaper was conspicuous by their absence.

From my SO:
Greg Kimsey Town Hall

Greg Kimsey, Clark Count Auditor and Republican said he tries to hold two or three town meetings every year. He had the first one since the November election on Tuesday evening, January 12. Greg was elected in 2002 and his term runs until 2006. There were approximately 50 people at the meeting and by this observers estimation approximately two-thirds of them were Republican.

Most of the Democrats attending seemed content to let Greg make his presentation and then listen to the questions asked and the answers were provided. The people asking questions were active, vocal, occasionally confrontative and mostly Republican. The main subject of their questions was the recent gubernatorial election in Washington State. For whatever reason, the Republicans did not seem to be aware of much of the information that has been printed over the weeks following the election. Their questions revolved around three issues:

Why were there more votes than voters?
Why were all those ballots that the Democrats discovered allowed to be counted while those presented after-the-fact by the Republicans were rejected?
Why do we not require all those foreign-looking people to show proof of citizenship in order to let them vote?

I was very impressed by Greg's clear and straightforward answers to all those questions. The answers to the first two questions have been pretty well covered in the news reports, but briefly, the elections division is not all that concerned with crediting votes to specific voters during the counting process. They are more focused on verifying votes and counting them. After all the votes are counted, the election workers then go about the process of 'crediting' voters with having voted. They do this for several reasons, but the main one is that if you do not vote in two federal elections and an additional election your name is dropped from the active voter roles. It is typical in every election to not be able to 'credit' every voter to come up with an exact match between voters and ballots. The total mismatch difference in Clark County is currently at around 200, about the same as it was in the 2000 election. In the weeks after the election was certified in 2000 the election workers were able to get the number down to about 86. That is not bad when you start with over 175,000 votes. Greg said he expected the final tally for the 2004 election to be similar.

On the second question he explained that the 723 ballots that were originally rejected because of a mistake by the King County elections board were allowed to be included in the recount because they had not been fully considered. The law states that fully canvassed ballots cannot be re-assessed during a recount, but that ballots mistakenly excluded from the original count could be included. He further explained that other ballots were rejected because they had already been reviewed and rejected for valid reasons and those reasons had not changed and therefore they would still be excluded.

Greg could not really address the situation in King County, except to say that there had been some mistakes by the elections board and he would do everything he could to make sure that those types of mistakes never happened in Clark County. He did say very plainly that the election, initial ballot counting and all three re-counts carried out in Clark County were fair, accurate and according to plan. He also said that the third recount, the manual recount was the most accurate, in his opinion. He did mention one other factor that points out a striking difference between King County and their processes and our own Clark County. In King County, the average precinct size is around 400 voters. In Clark County the average precinct numbers around 1100 voters.

The answer to the third question was the most interesting. The elections division regularly receives complaints and reports of individuals voting who might not be residents of this country or for some other reason not eligible to vote. They investigate every one of these complaints and to date, not one of them has turned out to be valid. Every person who was alleged to be an illegal voter was in fact a legal citizen and just as entitled to vote as the person filing the complaint.

Another point that he took pains to make was the issue of a paper trail and electronic voting machines. He spent quite a bit of time explaining that having a paper trail was no guarantee that the machine was accurately tallying votes. His example was pretty simple. If a voter selects Candidate A and the machine gives the voter a receipt saying that the vote was cast for Candidate A, that really is not any guarantee that the machine did not actually tally a vote for Candidate B. He firmly believes that when Washington state and Clark County go to electronic voting machines, they will provide a paper trail; he just as firmly believes that the paper trail alone is not enough to verify that the machines are accurately counting the votes. It was an interesting note and one he made several times during the evening.

He talked a bit about the Help America to Vote Act (HAVA) which will take effect January 1, 2006. At that time all voting in Clark County will take place with optical scan ballots. The optical scan machines cost about five times as much and count votes about five times slower than the current punch card machines. There will also be one electronic voting machine in each polling place for the use of voters with physical limitations.

He addressed the issue of military voting. He explained the various processes the elections office had in place so that military personnel would receive their ballots in time to vote. He explained that even though the workers sometimes went to extraordinary lengths to assist the military members, it was hard to assure that a soldier in the hills of Afghanistan was going to get his or her ballot in a timely manner when you were sitting at a desk back here in Clark County. Some of the responsibility was on the military postal service and far out of the control of the Clark County elections officials.

Other items discussed were the Rossi lawsuit regarding the governor's race. Greg did make the point that the suit did not allege any voter or elections fraud, the typical reason that an election might be overturned. On a lighter note he did note that there is all elections officials went to bed the night before an election saying the same prayer. They prayed not that their candidates would win, but that whoever won would do so by a landslide.

He also talked about Secretary of State Sam Reed's recommendations for changes to the elections rules and said that he supported all of them with the exception of changing the deadline for mail-in ballots. Currently mail-in ballots only need to be postmarked by Election Day. Under the recommended change the ballot would need to be received by the elections officials by Election Day.

One of the most talked-about issues of the evening was the proposal of a requirement that voters be required to present some type of identification when they voted at a polling place. This issue was most often brought up by the Republicans in attendance who seemed to be fairly certain that some type of election fraud had taken place in the governor's race due to illegal voting. Greg stated on more than one occasion that those types of processes and checks could be implemented; however there would be a cost involved. It was noteworthy that our Republican friends could be so vociferous in their demands for additional services, but ignorant of how those extra services might be funded.

Overall, Mr. Kimsey did a commendable job of explaining the activities of the elections department. His presentation and the answers to the questions were forthright and credible and while it would be nice to see the position of County Auditor held by a Democrat or possibly even better, to become a non-partisan office, Greg's answers certainly reflected an attitude that demonstrated his commitment to a completely fair and open election process.

Blogger Nick Stoller describes the consequences thus:

"I was idly thinking about social security and how the Republicans are going to privatize it and I had the following paranoid thought.

If the Republicans privatize Social Security then every American will have something most currently don't: stocks. Stocks are a stake in the welfare of our corporations... in the short term.

Stockholders tend to want stocks to go up no matter what the cost to society. Which means that all these new American stockholders will be able to be turned against anything or anyone that hurts stocks in the short term.

These things include:
1. Regulation against Corporate Malfeasance.
2. Corporate Taxes
3. Unions
4. Any cost that corporations claim hurt them in the short term which, according to corporations, is everything except ridiculous CEO salaries and option packages.

For example, when someone like Eliot Spitzer uncovers a major corporate scandal, a Republican will be able to say "He's attacking your retirement fund."

When the employees of a company try to unionize, a Republican will be able to say "they're attacking your retirement fund."

When a community refuses to let a Wal-Mart build in their neighborhood, a Republican will be able to say "They're attacking your retirement fund."

I hope I'm being paranoid. But I don't think I am.

No, I don't think he's being paranoid. I think this is what awaits us in the "ownership society."

How to remove FOX from your cable

Comcast: 1-800-266-2278
Adelphia: 1-888-683-1000
Time Warner: 1-800-638-2882

Just call and ask them to remove it. You can also do this with satellite TV.

The Stop Fox movement has already started to have an effect on their
advertising revenues.

FCC launches investigation of Williams' payola

Using taxpayer money for propaganda is illegal and unethical. According to Williams himself, there are many others who have accepted pay-offs.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell today instructed the Enforcement Bureau to launch an investigation into possible payola violations regarding the $240,000 paid by the Bush administration to pundit Armstrong Williams to promote its education policy.

Salon.com News | The scandal sheet

34 scandals from the first four years of Bush's presidency -- every one of them worse than Whitewater.

The Prosperity Project: Corporate Voter Outreach on the Sly | Personal Democracy Forum

Reframing the message, as important as it is, misses the point that the corporate-media are irretrivably Republican. The Democrats think they invented the internet, but the Republicans used the existing means of communication, churches and business intra/internets, to reach out to millions of people. For instance, the Properity Project, which has been around for five years, is unremittingly Republican, and received almost as many net hits as the two presidential campaign sites combined. This is how the business workers across America came to vote Republican.

MSNBC - Bush says election ratified Iraq policy:

"President Bush said the public's decision to reelect him was a ratification of his approach toward Iraq and that there was no reason to hold any administration officials accountable for mistakes or misjudgments in prewar planning or managing the violent aftermath.

'We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections,' Bush said in an interview with The Washington Post. 'The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq, and they looked at the two candidates, and chose me.'"

This is wrong in so many ways. First, 70% of the people voting for Bush thought there were WMD there. Can he truly think that there is no accountability for Iraq?

MSNBC - Social Security, solvency and political spin
Some good Reagan quotes against using Social Security as a political football.

Bill Fromhold, State Representative for Washington, talked about the Fair Share bill last week. It says that businesses with 50 or more employees have to offer some medical insurance to their workers. It's also known as the "Wal-mart" bill. In Washington State, subsidizing health care costs for employees whose employers don't offer health care costs millions of dollars annually. Of those covered in the Washington Basic Health program, more work at Wal-mart than anywhere else.

Republican Pinhead Quote of the Week

"I'm getting a little fed up with hearing about, oh, civilian casualties. I think we ought to nuke North Korea right now just to give the rest of the world a warning."
-- Ann Coulter

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Code Pink, Global Exchange, Black Voices for Peace have a video of one of his speeches with updated pictures.

Republicans talk fraud, but file on basis that race was too close to call. An astute friend passed this on today:

The Republicans, the Building Industry Association of Washington and right-wing talk show hosts are trying to whip Republicans into a lather about fraud for a re-vote, but when they got into court they filed on the basis that the race was too close to call.

"If they had a real smoking gun they would have rolled it out today," state Democratic Party Chairman Paul Berendt said. He accused Republicans of "judge shopping" by filing the action in one of the state's most Republican counties.

The GOP's court allegations fail to list any fraud, a clear indication the GOP lacks the kind of case it once claimed it would pursue, Berendt said.

Soros group raises stakes in battle with US neo-cons

Good news for progressives!

A group of billionaire philanthropists are to donate tens of millions more dollars to develop progressive political ideas in the US in an effort to counter the conservative ascendancy.

At a meeting in San Francisco last month, the left-leaning billionaires agreed to commit an even larger sum over a longer period to building institutions to foster progressive ideas and people.

The intention is to provide the left with organisations in Washington that can match the heft of the rightwing think-tanks such as Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. At a state level, the aim is to build what one person called a “deeper progressive bench”.

Leftwing policy experts have already got wind of the new funds. One former aide to Mr Kerry said there had been talks with the Center for American Progress about making permanent the network of foreign policy experts established by Democrats in the 2004 campaign. He said he had been told: “Money is not a problem.”

Politics Gets a Tune-Up

A new website devoted to helping us frame the issues. Great resource so far on social security.

What is this revote up to?

Clark County Republican Chairman Brent Boger, meanwhile, urged the protesters on.

"Thank you for standing up for democracy," he told the group. "Together, we will have another election in the spring."

re-vote -- what Republicans propose after losing a close gubernatorial election in order to drum up sympathy for their candidate so he can have more name recognition for the upcoming senatorial race. An indication of what the Republicans would have done had Kerry pulled won the presidential election. Why is it that the Democrats didn't have a plan for what to do if Kerry lost?

From a friend -- I couldn't say it any better...

I would not be filling up your email with this if I did not believe that we are facing a crisis. Let me know if you would rather I did not send such things.

It is time to stand up and say "Enough!"

The United States government has been slowly drifting into a totalitarian regime. Several trends are apparent, but one has gone so far now as to place us on the brink of falling into a chasm from which we will be unable to escape through the democratic process. We must stop this process now!

As reported in the Washington Post,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41475-2005Jan1.html
the administration is moving to implement wide spread imprisonment of citizens who will have no recourse to the courts. We have already seen this being done on a large scale with "terrorists" who were supposedly picked up in combat situations. Now it will be enlarged to any person who the government defines as a "terrorist." This is a necessary step that every modern totalitarian regime has taken. It is a total undermining of the Bill of Rights. If we do not say "No" now, we will be seen by history in the same light as those citizens of Russia, Germany, Italy and elsewhere who did not act when the pattern became obvious.

This is not a partisan issue any longer. Congress on both sides of the aisle must act. Every citizen who values democracy and our inalienable rights must stand up to call on Congress and the media to stop this process.

Ballot counter in Seattle tells all

This article talks about the practice and accuracy of the hand recount in Seattle. It mirrors Clark County -- except the rules for turning ballots over to the Canvassing Board and keeping talking to a minimum were in place from the first. In our area the Republican observers came in with printouts of a Power Point presentation. The first day of counting went pretty normally -- and both sides kept track of the totals and any changes. By the second day the Republicans weren't keeping track of the changes, but were now all too concerned with chads. The Republican boss, on first name basis with "Greg," warned her observers over and over again about chads on the floor, pointing out little bits of paper. Each day it was clear that the Republican observers had a message du jour that came down from the top somewhere.

The counters themselves were amenable and most were accurate. The procedure itself kept them accurate. One table with inaccurate counters was split up and then observed closely by election officials. I would guess that most of the votes from that group were recounted.

It was eerily easy to discern the Republicans from the Democrats. The Democrats smiled more easily, the Republicans had tight mouths. My SO explained it to me. If you were a little kid lost in a mall, you would wind up going to a Democrat for help. At one table several Republicans said that they had hoity-toity relatives in Seattle. Lakoff talks about politics based on family structure. Here is another link -- these Republican siblings felt left behind.

Barbara Roberts, former governor of Oregon and an extraordinary woman

There's an article today in the Oregonian about Barbara Roberts and her autistic 48-year-old son written by Karen Briggs. The son, Mike Sanders, lives independently and has a job moving mail around the Mt. Hood Community College.

Barbara Sanders was 19 when he was born and she knew there was something wrong from the start. She could see that he was smart but he had some huge behavioral problems. He was kicked out of first grade for being too disabled. At that time mothers were blamed for autistic kids. She sent as a live-in student to the Parry Center for Children for three years, which he hated. When he was nine his school district got a grant to try to teach more disabled kids and she got him in that program. When the grant ran out she started worked on getting the state legislature to provide funding for educating disabled kids.

That was how she met her future husband, Frank Roberts, a college professor and state legislator. The legislation that they got passed was the first in the nation to put money and regulations in place to educate disabled children.

The last paragraph is particularly good:

When Mike Sanders talks about autism he usually explains how his mother's belief in him -- long before the experts offered hope -- helped him exceed everyone's expecations. "Science," he said, "finally caught up with my mother's intuition."

What a story. What a woman. I heard her talk at the 21st Century Democrats course this summer and was as impressed as always -- but I didn't know this backstory.

A Democratic Legislative District

This morning we went to a neighboring legislative district for their legislative send-off breakfast. Their Democratic state representatives and state senator answered questions about the upcoming session. On a clear day in Washington, on the sixth floor of a public building, we basked in the aura of elected officials talking about education being the first priority for the state. Oh yes, I am such a Democrat.

We haven't had a Democratic legislature here in Washington since 1994, two years before I moved into the state. The last four years have been a tie in the Senate so not much has moved forward. I came from Oregon as another refugee from the dying educational system and our Bill Sizemore's, California Proposition 13th's, induced cry of "no more taxes." Since my son was born, the schools in Oregon have made do with less money each year. They are gutted, dead, buried. Others moved here as well and we had our old Bill Sizemore, named Tim Eyman, whose initiative to cap taxes has now provoked crises in our cities and counties. Eyman has withdrawn in scandal, but his lawyer has just been elected to the state supreme court. Our state legislature provides funds for several counties in Eastern Washington because they can't raise taxes and can't afford to govern themselves. As an additional irony, these are Republican counties that fully support "no new taxes." We're supporting Republican counties instead of higher education for our state.

In the United States the blue states subsidize the red states -- who cry "no new taxes," who are afraid of terrorism that will be happening in the blue states. That's where we are in Washington, too. The Republicans who say they are self-sufficient and fiscally conservative aren't and are subsidized by the rest of us.

Dino Rossi "elected" Buzzflash hypocrite of the week

it's a full vote count that brings us to this week's BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite: the loser of the Washington State Governor's race, Dino Rossi. Mr. Rossi is challenging the winner, Democrat Christine (greg-whar) Gregoire, to hold the election over. Did we forget to mention that the Republican Secretary of State certified Gregoire as the next governor of Washington?

As a columnist for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer observed, "Republican leaders have to know their shifting positions for a new election plays like a klutzy ballerina with vertigo on a newly waxed floor."

You see Gregoire won after a court-ordered hand recount, the kind Al Gore never got in Florida because of the Supreme Court coup. And because she won by only 129 votes, the Republicans are screaming bloody murder.

George W. Bush was only ahead a couple of hundred votes in Florida and falling behind fast when Antonin Scalia pulled the plug on a recount because it appeared almost certain Bush was going to lose Florida in 2000. And remember, Al Gore won the 2000 election by more than a half a million votes nationally.

Yet, in Washington State, the GOP, no doubt prodded on by the White House, is threatening lawsuits and anything they can muster to keep Gregoire, the candidate certified by the GOP Secretary of State, from taking office.

I appreciate the bravery shown by Barbara Boxer and Stephanie Tubb Jones in standing before Congress and insisting that this time, in this election, we will take a look at voter suppression in America. The insults to our voting system in Ohio, which Representative Conyers has documented, need to be rectified. The partisan treatment of elections in Florida in 2000 and Ohio in 2004 need to be remedied. Voting is a public trust and these Congresswomen have stood up for it integrity.

Republican leadership has stood in the way of meaningful election reform for years -- especially for having a paper audit trail on electronic voting machines. Yesterday I saw their ad hominem attacks instead of their consideration of the issues before them. I would like to see Republican representatives stand up and be counted for voting rights the way Democrats were.

But we won't see that because whereas Democrats want to count every vote, Republicans want to suppress votes and look for fraud. They have a win at any cost mentality. Bob Herbert said today that they have Iokiyar -- It's okay if you're a Republican.

Alberto Gonzales is a bad candidate for Attorney General

Choosing Gonzales lets the world know that the United States thinks torture is okay. His interview in Congress was a maze of avoiding questions.

[He] equivocated astonishingly when asked whether American soldiers or intelligence agents could "legally engage in torture under any circumstances."

"I don't believe so, but I'd want to get back to you on that and make sure I don't provide a misleading answer," said Mr. Gonzales, who went through many hours of preparation for these very questions.

Blaming a faulty memory, Mr. Gonzales would not provide anything close to a clear account of his role in the formulation of the policy on the treatment of prisoners. At one point, he said the 2002 memo was just the opinion of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel. Then he called it the "binding interpretation" of anti-torture statutes and treaties. Later, Mr. Gonzales called it "an arguable interpretation of the law."

Lautenberg Announces Measure to Prevent Partisan Activity by Election Officials

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) sponsors a bill that says that Secretaries of State cannot run partisan campaigns. That would take care of Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell.

Salon.com News | Fox News gets blown away:

Fox is shown up when world wide news is needed, such as the tsunami coverage. They are paying their money for Hannity and O'Reilley, not for news reporters -- and it shows.

As the Financial Times noted this week, "While CNN, the only U.S. news network with a strong global presence, was able to mobilize its correspondents in the region and fly in big-name reinforcements, Fox had to rely on untested freelancers, some of whom appeared to have never stood in front of a television camera before."

If the Republican National Committee doesn't have an angle on the story, then neither, apparently, does Fox News. And the last time we checked, there were no GOP talking points on natural disasters of biblical proportions. "

Two things have become obvious to news consumers in the aftermath of the tsunami. The first is that even when faced with covering a global humanitarian crisis, Fox News is incapable of turning off its robotic partisanship, not to mention its ever-present sense of victimization. Secondly, Fox News can barely call itself a serious news-gathering operation.

mandeep.org

We'll match you to a country that better suits you.

Progressive Happy Hour

Gmail - Progress Report: President Shills For Insurance Industry

SOCIAL SECURITY – WHITE HOUSE MEMO DETAILS RESOLVE TO CUT BENEFITS: A private White House memo sent Monday to top conservative allies seeks "to avert a split in Republican ranks" by taking sides in a growing conservative fissure over whether Social Security privatization plans should include drastic cuts in benefits for future retirees. The memo says President Bush will push ahead with his plan to cut benefits, and claims the plan's success would be "one of the most significant conservative governing achievements ever." Still, after Senate Republicans reported being "scared to death" of the political fallout of privatization plans during a private retreat yesterday, the White House responded by "emphasizing the importance of unifying behind whatever plan has the best chance of being signed into law." In other words," American Prospect fellow Matthew Yglesias writes, the White House doesn't mind what passes "as long as they can replace Social Security with something else. Anything else."

Stop Cuts to Social Security Benefits
(Moving Ideas)

If the Bush plan were enacted, spouses, disabled workers, and others would have to rely only on severely cut Social Security benefits. Workers would be expected to make up the difference in cuts through private account earnings which are risky because they are subject to the highs and lows of the stock market. Experts estimate that workers will only be able to recoup part of what they will lose in benefits.

Is CNN having a change of heart? Not emulating FOX?

CNN's U.S. Chief Executive Jonathan Klein did not renew Tucker Carlson's Crossfire contract. Tucker has now been hired by MSNBC to replace Deborah Norville.

Klein responded to this fight between Carlson and Stewart on Crossfire last fall by stating to the Associated Press that he is "firmly in the Jon Stewart camp."

Continuing the argument made by Stewart, Klein said there is too much arguing over political issues on all of the cable networks, including CNN, and that he wants better, more compelling programming to replace what has become the norm for political news.

CNN/U.S. President Jonathan Klein sided yesterday with comedian Jon Stewart, who used a "Crossfire" appearance last fall to rip the program as partisan hackery. "I think he made a good point about the noise level of these types of shows, which does nothing to illuminate the issues of the day," Klein said in an interview. Viewers need "useful" information in a dangerous world, he said, "and a bunch of guys screaming at each other simply doesn't accomplish that."

"I doubt that when the president sits down with his advisers they scream at him to bring him up to date on all of the issues," Klein exclaimed. "I don't know why we don't treat the audience with the same respect."

Are we going to have some news programs that not propaganda? It seemed like CNN was following FOX's lead -- so even though they were not headed by Republicans they were acting like Republicans. Are they going to start practicing responsible journalism again?

In another story I read today that FOX's ratings are sinking, sinking, sinking. What saves their ratings are the sports programs.

You can call your cable provider or satellite company and ask them to specifically block FOX channels from your cable. This is a campaign that will have some effects on their advertising revenues.
Comcast: 1-800-266-2278
Adelphia: 1-888-683-1000
Time Warner: 1-800-638-2882

We Are All Torturers Now

When Alberto Gonzales takes his seat before the Senate Judiciary Committee today for hearings to confirm whether he will become attorney general of the United States, Americans will bid farewell to that comforting story line. The senators are likely to give full legitimacy to a path that the Bush administration set the country on more than three years ago, a path that has transformed the United States from a country that condemned torture and forbade its use to one that practices torture routinely. Through a process of redefinition largely overseen by Mr. Gonzales himself, a practice that was once a clear and abhorrent violation of the law has become in effect the law of the land.

How responsible are we for the actions of our country? I feel the guilt of having my country kill tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis already. How will we feel when we add practicing torture to that?

Paul Krugman writes:

The people who hustled America into a tax cut to eliminate an imaginary budget surplus and a war to eliminate imaginary weapons are now trying another bum's rush. If they succeed, we will do nothing about the real fiscal threat and will instead dismantle Social Security, a program that is in much better financial shape than the rest of the federal government.

I just downloaded Krugman's "Confusions about Social Security." I love Krugman's writing. He is a Professor of Economics and International Affaris at Princeton and got his PhD at MIT in 1977.

We are going to have a hard Republican campaign against social security pushed down our throats. They estimate that they are going to spend $50 to $100 million on propaganda -- and that's not even counting all the time Fox News is going to spend on this.

Molly Ivans has a new opinion piece out about this today. She says:

And for robustly ignoring reality, you can't hardly beat spending $50 million to $100 million on a propaganda campaign to convince America there's something seriously wrong with Social Security while you ignore the collapse of the American health care system. It is common to begin all discussions of American health care with a complete lie, uttered in this example by President Bush: "We live in a great country that has got the best health care system in the world, and we need to keep it that way."

Karl Rove's brother, Oly Rove, works at the Columbian:

So, it's not surprising that they rated a visit from Marc Racicot during the election. The Columbian has its connections...

Local Bush connection: One of presidential candidate George W. Bush's top advisers, often mentioned in places such as Time and Newsweek, is Karl Rove, whose kid brother, Oly, is The Columbian's ungeeklike computer czar.

Oly says his brother got interested in politics as a college student in Utah and has had a political consulting business in Austin, Texas, for years.

The Columbian, our local newspaper, is so bad that the first letter in the letters to the editor section today is entitled "Warning from God," and asserts that the tsunami in Southeast Asia was a message from God saying that he is displeased with the world. Following the same weird logic, I wonder what the four Florida hurricanes were? Remember how they spared the Democratic counties? See the map here.

(BTW, the hurricane thing is not true, but I think it's funny.)

How did Bush win? Organization, smarts and strategy?

This article talks about how the $546,000 ad by the Swift Boat Liars and the Bush campaign's 3.25 million contract with the firm TargetPoint Consulting as stellar investments in the presidential race. The article says that the spending for Democratic and Republican candidates were about the same, it's just that the Republicans were better at strategy.

I think this article is disengenuous in saying the stakes were even. The biggest factor in the election was having a captive media in the United States. Fox is a Republican station with Roger Ailes as chairman. The other big networks are trying to copy Fox to regain market share. This means that some huge percentage of households in America got Republican propaganda all of the time without being counted as being paid from campaign funds.

The second largest factor is that Bush used taxpayer funds to campaign. He did this by doing a legitimate side-trip during a campaign trip so that the transportation expense of Air Force 1 would be accounted for as an official duty instead of a campaign stop. Other incumbents have done this, but Bush took it to a new low. Does anyone else recall the brou-ha-ha when he laid a wreath at MLK's grave in a 15-second appearance before heading off for his two-city fundraising dinner marathon?

The third big factor is that Bush planned his re-election campaign from his inauguration, whereas the Democratic contender has to be chosen first in a primary. This is also part of the incumbent advantage.

Still the article does have some good points. The Democrats need to get better at market targeting. There is no question there. I think Kerry's campaign also relied too much on the 527's to get out the vote. That process should have been more targeted.

Notice that the article also alludes to Republicans coordinating efforts with 527's -- or is it "used them more effectively?" Democrats follow the rules, Republicans don't.

I've started using the Stumble Upon extension in Firefox. My, what a great time I've had surfing with that! Wasted more time than ever. I've found some tremendously funny sites such as MyCatHatesYou.com.

Really nice strategy meeting today: progress for the progressives. We talked about database issues, local issues, education, forming a think tank.

Hobson's Choice

Good essay on problems with fundamentalism.

Yahoo! News - U.S. Businesses Overseas Threatened by Rising Anti-Americanism

Another survey telling US companies that European and Canadian customers are boycotting their products because of US foreign policy. What are corporations supposed to do? Simple -- become less committed to America. Not a hard problem since they don't even pay any taxes here.

Allyson Stewart-Allen, business author:

She argued that the more U.S. companies distance themselves from their U.S. identity, the better they will survive in the international marketplace. "U.S. companies abroad now need to focus on adding yet more value and repositioning their brands to consumers in the intensely competitive global village in which they compete"

The Climate Stewardship Act

The Climate Stewardship Act (S.139), sponsored by Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), was voted on by the U.S. Senate on October 30, 2003. Although the bill did not pass, 44 Senators support the legislation, which would for the first time control U.S. emissions of the heat trapping gases that cause global warming. The sponsors have committed to fight to bring the bill back up for a vote in the Senate in 2004 and as many times as needed until it passes. A companion bill was introduced in the House by Representatives Gilchrest and Olver on March 30, 2004. This website includes links to useful resources about the bill.

Judge won't let woman divorce while she's pregnant

Truly horrifying story from the Seattle PI. The woman has been separated for two years from a man who was jailed for beating her. He was IN JAIL at the time she became pregnant. She told who the new father was. We have the state Uniform Parentage Act that sets the rules for children in case of divorce. Her divorce was granted by a protem judge and then rescinded. Shawnna Hughes statement:

If this court vacates my divorce and requires me to stay married to a man I have no desire to have a relationship with and who has brought significant physical harm to me over the years, I would be emotionally devastated. If the court vacates my divorce and stays it until the birth of my child, it will prevent me from marrying the father of my child prior to her birth.

Spokane County Superior Court Judge Paul Bastine said as he rescinded her divorce:

There's a lot of case law that says it is important in this state that children not be illegitamized.

Of course this woman should have the right to divorce and be free to marry whomever she wants. This is a fundamental right to choose your own life.