Rush Limbaugh says the Gulf oil spill is the fault of the Sierra Club and other environmental groups who, by their protests and lawsuits, forced the oil companies to drill off shore. Every time you hear a friend or acquaintance repeat this crap, make it a point to tell them that Rush is full of crap and, by association, they are, too. Don't be nice about it. They don't deserve nice.

On the campus of the Washington State Capitol, I have come to expect the cavalcade of lobbyists with gold name tags working hard to promote their agendas. But when United Health Care showed up yesterday with their lobbying wagon of doom, I had to speak up.

How many millions of dollars went into this and other mobile lobbying factories around the country? This happened two days before a new report showed the top five health insurance companies made $12.2 billion in profits last year, and increase of 56 percent! (1) I think I know where some of that money is going.

We hear a lot about the health insurance lobby at the federal level, but I was shocked to see this behemoth in Olympia trying to convince me that there is nothing wrong with our healthcare system. Its very presence assures me that things are terribly, terribly wrong.

How many people could have had life-saving procedures if we as a nation had decided to spend money on reducing premiums and improving care, rather than on health insurance lobby wagons like this one?

It boggles my mind how people can believe that allowing for-profit insurance companies to spend our money on lobbying battleships is the best way to provide healthcare to Americans. If we really want to solve some of the structural problems with our healthcare system, we have to start by speaking out against lavish excess like I saw yesterday. How can we expect real change when our opposition has such deep pockets with which to influence our decision makers?

President Obama’s health reform plan is not perfect. However, it will go a long way towards restraining our insurance companies and start us on the road of getting these for-profit lobbyists out of the healthcare debate. If we really want to improve our system we have to get rid of the people who stand to profit from the inefficiencies and inequalities this lobbying wagon is working so hard to protect.

(1)http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2011050573_healthprofits12.html

Like many a news junky, I spent much of last week eagerly awaiting the media reaction to President Obama’s first State of the Union.  I wondered, would Paul Krugman pronounce that the speech saved or buried any hope for Main Street?  I confess a morbid fascination for the spectacle of all the little heads in their little boxes frothing at each other over whether Obama dug the Democrats out from the Massachusetts “debacle.” Even more morbidly, I hoped for some Joe-Wilson-esque bad behavior from the extreme crazies, just because it proves what everyone already knows about them. I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning again waiting for Jon Stewart’s take. The anticipatory tizzy was almost as good as waiting for the next season of Dexter (Will Dexter without Trinity be like Air America without Bush?)

And then I came to my senses.

Talk is cheaper than oil these days and it’s unfortunately nearly as profitable. I think we all need to keep that in mind as we stand ‘round our real or virtual water coolers this morning, listening to that coworker who doesn’t even bother to vote but once every four years. Network nabobs get paid to tell us what we already think we know. And what does contemplating the meaning of the President’s every word, pause and gesture, scoring his eloquence, obsessing over the Republican reaction, and wringing our hands over how it played to the electorate in Nevada, really do to help? Nothing.

And it risks drawing us into a cynical trap. Here’s some data worth keeping in mind as the SOTU post mortem proceeds: in a post-election poll in Massachusetts, by a margin of 47% to 32%, AFL-CIO voters, (who actually helped elect Beauhunk Brown!) felt the Democrats had accomplished too little.  ACCOMPLISHED too little. Everyone is griping that Obama hasn’t done enough. That’s, um, a sign. I believe our goal as good progressives for the next three years should be to get our president and his party in trouble for doing too much.

How? The best I can come up with is that we keep doing what we have been, just more of it.  Read all your emails from Fuse, MoveOn and Save Darfur and 1Sky and send those letters and sign the petitions and forward them.  Don’t unsubscribe Organizing for America. Get out to a rally or two . Make another donation to a progressive group that’s working on the ground in your community to organize people around their best intentions and altruistic impulses. Broke because you’re out of work? Spend a chunk of your unenjoyment volunteering for one or more of those groups – they need all kinds of help (including blogging).

And since it’s fair to assume that many of you reading this do all the above and more, maybe it’s time to put some extra work into getting a multiplier effect for our efforts. Let’s hold those watercooler pundits’ feet to the fire.  Let’s get them on our lists, at our rallies, dialing for our phonebanks, donating to our organizations, becoming fans of our Facebook pages, haranguing our electeds every chance they get. And not just them, but anyone we know who talks a good talk, but perhaps needs a little encouragement, enticement, inducement, or guilt tripping to walk the walk. You know you know someone who means well, but just needs a little push: the “Sure I voted for him, but you know, it’s just biz as usual in DC” types. We elected the guy. Now more than ever he needs our help (I just got the email two minutes ago: “Dear Darrin… I cannot do it alone…  Thank you for making it possible, President Barack Obama.” C’mon folks, he’s begging us!)  

So, while Glenn Beck keeps busy comparing the first-ever State of the Union address by an African American to one of Castro’s four-hour lectures, and Rachel Maddow poo-poos it for lip servicing the middle class, and NPR presents a thoughtful analysis of what it means for the future of pea-patches, the rest of us can congratulate and thank the president for another fine speech, and then get on with the important work: making sure he knows that while we still like his rhetorical flare, we’ll all be a lot happier when the Democrats get busy and give us a reason to regain our hope. 

In the first week of the 2010 legislative session, one of the few points of bipartisan agreement has been the importance of creating jobs. Well for all the folks in Olympia, here’s an idea: don’t cut another $2.6 billion in state programs.

A new report released by the Economic Opportunity Institute in Seattle shows that an all-cuts budget would result in a loss of 33,600 more public and private sector jobs in Washington State. For those of you following along at home, that’s a lot.

But don’t despair: they also found that using a combination of new revenue and federal aid to fill the state’s budget gap would preserve most or all of these jobs.

Yesterday Governor Gregoire gave her annual State of the State Address and the message was clear: it’s not good. She also presented some reasonable ways to raise revenue, including closing tax loopholes and dipping into the rainy day fund. I appreciate the Governor taking our budget deficit seriously and realizing we can’t solve this crisis with only cuts.



On the other side, the Republican response was straight out of Herbert Hoover’s playbook - more privatization and deeper cuts to our essential state services. Given how well this turned out last time we faced a major recession, I’m not very excited about seeing the 21st century version.

Meanwhile, your friend and mine, Tim Eyman, kept talking about upholding will of the voters when it comes to government. I couldn’t agree more. Someone needs to remind Tim that just two months ago voters soundly rejected Initiative 1033 that would have done exactly what he is proposing now.


Senator Parlette yesterday reminded me of Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life who idealized a “thrifty working class.” She told a story of how her grandfather would come home during the great depression and ask her grandmother “what’s for dinner?” and she would always answer “potato soup!” This story was supposed to inspire optimism about the economic crisis because her grandfather would always respond, “I love potato soup!”



Well I for one don’t love potato soup.

We don’t have to accept another great depression and vastly diminished state services. There are better ways out of this budget crisis that don’t leave members of community out in the cold. We need to convince our leaders to have the political courage to stand up to the obstructionist minority in Olympia and support a balanced approach the budget. Repeating “no new taxes” and “cut government spending” over and over again is easy; finding real solutions to solve the budget deficit takes real leadership.

The latest twist on the long road to healthcare reform has me wondering how those people who don’t like the thought of Washington bureaucrats dictating our health care choices feel about a cabal of Washington religious fanatics doing it instead?

With the insertion of the Stupak Amendment, and it’s radical restrictions of the right for millions of women to choose an abortion, into the House version of the health care bill last weekend, we may soon have an answer. To avert that catastrophe, it’s now up to the Obama administration and majority of Democrats who don’t want healthcare reform held hostage by ideology to stick to their guns and make sure the Stupak Amendment, the worst back door assault on Roe v Wade in decades, does not make it into the final version of the bill. (For a full description of the amendment and what it will mean for women’s right to choose an abortion, I’ll defer to the experts: Planned Parenthood.)

Putting the abortion debate into the middle of healthcare reform could prove to be one the biggest bumps in the road to insuring millions of people who currently go without healthcare. The blame rests on the C Street Group of legislators – including the likes of famously philandering politicos Mark Sanford and John Ensign – of which Democrat Bart Stupak is a member. The gang gets this moniker because they all bunk at a house at 133 C Street, Washington, DC, owned by a conservative religious organization that many have labeled a cult. The location of the C Street house, right next door to the Capitol, embodies in a frighteningly literal way this group’s agenda of eliminating any and all space separating church and state. The house is owned by a cabal known as The Family, a shadowy religious organization founded by an evangelist determined to establish Washington DC as the capitol of God’s kingdom on earth – with members of his organization calling the shots from behind the scenes.

After the millions of women who will lose abortion coverage if they already have it, or those who will be denied it once they sign up for a plan subsidized by federal funds (a plan they will be obligated to join), the next victims of the Stupak Amendment are members of more rational, less Knights-of-the-Templar-esque, faith communities. I’m referring to the majority of Christians, of all stripes, who understand the pragmatic healthcare needs of the many outweigh the ideological fervor of the few. Stupak has left them scrambling to distance themselves from their anti-woman, anti-choice brethren. Here's a statement from Christian leaders who are standing up for health care reform and against the Stupak Amendment.

These are the people, many of whom belong to pro-life institutions like the Catholic Church, who recognize that the emotional depth charge of the abortion debate will only sink the effort to provide the basic right of healthcare to the 50 million of their fellow citizens who currently go without. They made a choice to put the health care first, and it’s a shame that a fringe claiming to speak for them should overshadow reason.

The long and short of it is this. The Obama administration has said it will fight to keep Stupak out of the health care bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid need to hear that the forty-odd Dems who voted with the Republicans (all of them except Ohio rep Mary Jo Kilroy, who deserves some sort of award for standing up to fundamentalist ideology) can’t hold their party, and America’s health, hostage to their pre-1972 belief system. Here’s a link to a petition aimed at them. Sign it, let them know how you feel, then pass it on to everyone else you know.

fusewashington.org/page/s/stupak

Those four words have come to epitomize compromise in our society. "Hey," these words say. "Quit whining. You're just lucky to get anything at all." It's the pathetic lament of the defeated. And lately I’ve been coming across this lament more and more often in the various online discussions and news stories analyzing the health care reform bills coming out of Congress.

Wait a minute. Weren’t we going to get real reform this time? Wasn’t President Obama going to ride the wave of his big electoral victory and fix this country’s health care crisis? Surely this was one thing that we could all agree on—that when it came to our broken health insurance system, it was clearly time for Change We Can Believe In. Right?

Maybe not.

The grand rhetoric of Obama’s campaign speeches and the euphoria of his victory (was it really only a year ago?) are fading memories now. With congressional Republicans screaming like two-year-olds every time Obama opens his mouth, it’s been a rough road for the new guy in Washington. His appeals for bipartisanship have gone unanswered, his proposals met with skepticism. His public support has ebbed as the months have gone by without much in the way of significant accomplishments (something “Saturday Night Live” had great fun with in this skit).

Nowhere is this situation more apparent than with the ongoing cage match over fixing our broken health care system. It seems like Obama and the Dems have been playing defense since this battle broke out, whether it’s about the so-called death panels, illegal immigrants accessing health care, federal funding of abortion, or the “socialist” boogeyman. With every step backward, the chances for meaningful reform just got smaller. Right now they’re about as miniscule as the likelihood that Obama will be attending the Limbaugh family’s annual Christmas party.

After months of wrangling, Democrats are currently celebrating their big win in getting a bill passed in the House over the weekend. After some major last-minute concessions on abortion, the measure finally passed by five votes. Five. In a chamber where Democrats outnumber Republicans, 258-177.

The bill itself is no prize. Desperate to get something passed, the Democrats watered down the public option, which was the big symbol of reform that Obama had been trumpeting. And with an even tougher battle looming in the Senate, the final bill might not even contain that.

However, the thinking goes, as long as something is eventually signed into law on health care, Obama can claim a symbolic (Pyrrhic?) victory. This will theoretically boost his approval numbers and help the Dems who are up for re-election in 2010.

Which brings us back to the original question, is something really better than nothing? Since this is about health care, let’s ask a doctor to weigh in. In this article from Huffington Post, Dr. Marcia Angell is unequivocal. “Is the House bill better than nothing? I don't think so," she writes. "It simply throws more money into a dysfunctional and unsustainable system.”

Something to think about, isn’t it?

I didn’t want to even think about it before yesterday, but now I can face the truth: I don’t know if I would want to live in a county and state that would elect Susan Hutchison and overturn domestic partnership rights. Shudder.

I’m glad I-1033 went down hard too, of course, but I just couldn’t manage to get excited about budget issues. I know it was a really important vote, but it kind of put me to sleep. I need some red meat, so to speak, something juicy to chew on.

The Constantine-Hutchison race was certainly that. I had a great time reading all the gossip over on The Stranger’s The Slog (which I think is a horrible name for a blog, but that’s a different subject). The story itself is pretty much fluff about how dumb Hutchison is, but the comments are a lot of fun. Then there was the whole religion/Discover Institute angle to the election. When I heard this morning that Hutchison had refused to concede, I wasn’t surprised—if you can deny evolution, you must be able to live in an alternate reality without trouble. Ultimately, I guess God, in His infinite wisdom, didn’t want her to win this election.

I have to share a snippet from the Times article linked above. It’s simply too good not to reprint here:

"Later, as a dark techno tune began to play, one worker dove into the DJ's chair, declaring the music "too ominous!" It was replaced with the ever-bubbly "Celebrate" by KC and the Sunshine Band. [Actually, the song is called “Celebration,” but we’ll let that go.] A troupe of red-shirted King County Young Republicans got into the spirit of the song, hopping on stage for a group photo. "Party Right!" their shirts read on their fronts, as some bobbed in time to the tune. They were giving celebration a good try, victory or not."

Oh, those crazy Young Republicans, bobbing in time to a song that was huge in 1980. Man, I miss disco.

Speaking of the Bee Gees, Mike McGinn and Joe Mallahan are both “Stayin’ Alive” in the mayor’s race. I’m still not even sure who to root for on this one. I predicted that Mallahan would win in our Fuse election pool—the kiss of death, as I suck at pools—but McGinn is from my neighborhood (Greenwood), so I’ve got to root for the local boy. Maybe the viaduct will crumble before they announce a winner, so we don’t have to argue about it for another five years. I’m so sick of the viaduct issue that I could punch an unstable support column.

(By the way, if you haven’t seen the viaduct disaster video that WSDOT coincidentally released just before the election, you gotta check it out. It will freak the hell out of you. Someone send it to the Obama administration and FEMA—that should free up some federal money right quick.)

I hear there was quite an election-party-hopping scene last night in Seattle. Wish I could have been there, but I’m too old for that stuff. True story: On Election Night last fall (exactly one year ago!) I wound up at a quiet bar in Greenwood, nodding off after a long day of phone-banking at the campaign headquarters. I am very bitter that I missed the rockin’ outdoor party on Broadway. Sigh.

Well, I have to go shoo some kids off my lawn. When time does the World Series game start tonight?

Always vulnerable to the usual public outcry about anything they do, district officials once again reveal how confused they are about how to fix a broken system. I’m not here to pile on, though. I think the Seattle Schools are really in a no-win situation: Lower the traditional passing grade, leaving it open to charges of low standards and poor quality of education; or keep things the same and watch as dropout rates remain unacceptably high.

As the former spouse of a veteran Seattle public school teacher and the parent of one current and one former student in the district, I’ve seen some of these challenges play out firsthand (or, I suppose, secondhand). And I don’t envy the challenges that the SSD faces.

The numbers are daunting. Seattle is the largest school district in the state—more than 45,000 students in 88 schools. And many of those kids aren’t coming from the tidy English-speaking-two-parents-in-a-tidy-house-located-in-a-safe-neighborhood situation, which is more common in the suburban districts. No, the district must deal with poverty, homelessness, unstable home life, racial imbalance and de facto segregation (their race-based assignment plan was struck down by the Supreme Court), and more than 90 (!) different languages spoken in their schools.

I bet some SSD teachers and administrators feel more like security personnel, mental health counselors and cultural studies experts than educators in dealing with some of their students these days.

But in the end, dropping the passing grade to a D is a really a horrible symbol. It basically says, “We have so many students who can’t maintain a C average that we have to lower our standards.” This surrender also suggests the district is in serious trouble. If it is failing its students, maybe it’s the Seattle School District that needs to get a D—and that’s not acceptable.

Friday the Times endorsed Susan Hutchison over Dow Constantine for King County Executive. I read the endorsement they published. I read it again. I couldn’t believe how empty it was of any kind of analysis or good reasons for the recommendation. You can read the endorsement here, but I’ll save you the time and pain by summing it up: “This election is about change, and Susan Hutchison represents change.”

That’s pretty much it. The piece runs more than 550 words—using the word “change” five times—and that’s the best they can do? It’s full of platitudes, such as Hutchison is a “political outsider” who brings “a host of fresh ideas” to the table. What are these fresh ideas? The Times doesn’t tell us, which, to be fair, is possibly because Hutchison herself won’t reveal what they are, just like she refuses to discuss her political party affiliation or her positions on many issues.

She’s the stealth candidate—we don’t know what we’re getting if Hutchison is elected. Except, I guess, that she’s all about change. She’s not Constantine—apparently that’s good enough for the Blethens (the family that owns the Times).

Heck, I’m as much of political outsider as Hutchison is—I could certainly promise bring fresh ideas without saying what they are. Like Hutchison, I’m a former journalist who has never run for, let alone served in, any public office. Sure, I’ve never had the experience of fundraising for the Seattle Symphony or giving away money provided by Microsoft billionaire Charles Simonyi, but I wouldn’t consider those stellar qualifications for running the state’s biggest county.

The Times says Hutchison will sit down with unions right away, whereas Constantine will “revisit concessions only once they expire.” Yeah, it’s called a contract. Since the employees of the Times are unionized, just like King County workers, the Blethens know a little bit about union contracts. And I’m thinking they are not a big fan. How can they cut salaries and benefits if those damn unions won’t go along with it? Maybe Hutchison can break the county's employees union, which will certainly solve all the budget problems, right?

The editorial also mentions that Hutchison really cares about the potential flooding in the Green River Valley this winter. The Times says that their preferred candidate has been “focused on helping South King County residents before and after flooding.” Gee, that’s really nice. I suppose Constantine doesn’t give a poop about those folks. Let ‘em drown, I’m sure he’s thinking.

What is Hutchison going to do—go down there and help fill sandbags? Send them a check? The Times doesn’t say.

In yesterday’s paper (the big, ad-filled Sunday edition—and yes, I do still get the paper), the Times profiled both candidates side by side on the front page. The Constantine article (“Constantine Trimmed Budgets, Yet Some Blame Him for Rise in Spending”) basically implicates him in creating the County’s budget woes. The Hutchison article is 1,700 words about how she did a really great job of turning around the financial problems at the Seattle Symphony in her 30 months as chair of the board. (By the by, she got the position the old-fashioned way: She gave the symphony $10 million of Simonyi’s money.)

The article does note that the symphony still faces a dire financial picture, which a spokesperson blamed on the economic downturn—I’m sure the recession didn’t affect the County budget, though!

The article quotes Hutchison as saying her work at the symphony (138 employees) has trained her to take the reigns of King County (14,000 employees). Sure, sounds plausible to me. The article also quotes the paper’s music writer, Melissa Bargreen, offering this analysis of Hutchison’s work at the symphony: “Susan's success entailed persuading people to part with large amounts of money.” That skill should definitely translate to the King County budget issues—she’ll just get rich people to make up the large debt she will inherit if she wins.

With coverage like this, it’s no wonder that newspapers are bleeding money and that a recent study show that a majority of people don’t trust the mainstream media. But maybe it’s just because people want change, and newspapers are so last century.

Anyway, for a decent analysis of the race, see the endorsement published today at the blog Publicola. I’d also recommend a column by Joel Connelly of the PI Web site: “Election Is Mired in Trivialities, Missing the Bus."