Washblog

Senator McCaslin's joke of the day

Interesting exchange during today's Senate opening ceremonies - LT. Gov Brad Owen read a letter from Senator Alex Deccio (R-Yakima) to Senator Bob Oke announcing that he has prostate cancer and will be undergoing treatment (Oke is dealing with cancer as well) and an admonishment to his colleagues to "keep Senator McCaslin in line" in his absence.

In response (at the 33:50 mark), McCaslin stood up and said "I want to let the body know that I have no responsibility for giving that to Alex (Senator Deccio)", and started laughing.....

Uh, not funny Senator.

Being anonymously annoying now illegal?!?

[Cross-posted at my blog]

According to this story , the Prezdent just signed the "Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act" - which sounds like a good thing on the surface - but attached to the bill is a law making it illegal to post, email, or send "annoying" messages if you do so without disclosing your off-line identity.

Will this bring about the end of comment threads at Horsesass, or will this go largely ignored and unenforced - or could it be insidiously and selectively enforced?  Does this make this discussion at WA State Political Report completely moot?

This also brings up another annoyance of mine - in Washington State, our State Constitution requires that all laws stick to one subject - and we've had many laws tossed out by our Supreme Court because of this.  As I see it, a lot of the problems, and a lot of the shenanigans we have to put up with (especially in the Senate), have to do with unrelated riders attached to bills that are politically dangerous to vote against.  I could be wrong, but I believe the only way to fix this would be through an amendment to the Constitution - but I doubt that Congress would allow the easiest way they have to bring pork home to go away so easily.

Full disclosure, I use a screenname like many of you do.  What do you think about this law?  Will N in Seattle get 2 years in jail for occasionally "annoying" the readers at Soundpolitics?  Will the ACLU manage to get this tossed out?  Will this at all affect how you post comments or blog in the future?

Chris Vance stepping down as GOP Chair

From the Seattle Times:

State Republican Party Chairman Chris Vance is apparently leaving his post to get a real job for a real company!  I wonder which lobbyist is hiring him?  Preston Gates Ellis?  Who knows; Chris won't say.

Chris says he needs to make money to pay for his children's college, which may actually be true, since he hasn't held a real job before, and there's been no real movement in the GOP to remove him.   

So the GOP can now hire themselves a new attack dog for us to kick around.  I wonder if the new guy will continue with the felonious bogus voter registration challenges?  Who will run for this prestigious post?

• Reed Davis, opponent of George Nethercutt last year and noted GOP gadfly?

• Brad Klippert, the Benton County deputy sheriff who also ran against Vance's anointed future lobbyist?  Unlikely, as he's currently engaged in a primary against anointed GOP candidate Mike (38%) McGavick.

• Perhaps Susan Hutchison will be offered a plum to keep her from challenging Mike (38%) McGavick?

Or, to REALLY throw things in a tizzy...how about noted failed gubernatorial candidate, low-selling author and pretend real-estate broker Dino Rossi?

In any event, the transition will be congruent with the Dem's transition, as both parties will elect their new Chair on January 28th.  Here's to new times! 

In session

Governor Gregiore did a great job in TVW's inagural Olympia-On-Call segment with David Postman of the Seattle Times, John Hughes of the Aberdeen Daily World, and one from the Yakima and Vancouver, WA dailys. They tried to go down the list of the State Repubs contract on Washington, and she had her goalie pads on and blocked every cheap shot.

It's now opening ceremonies in the House, and getting back to doing the people's work on some great legislation this session.

On the move to scoop front - I'm working with the developers on some last minute tweaks and am hoping to switch over to the new site some time today. Most everything is done, just need to do some back-end work to fix a problem that cropped up after the developers let me have admin access.

No Transmitters, Great Audience

As a scooter riding, gun loving, media pushing, computer geeking, rottweiler owning Democrat from the dry side of the state, I get asked questions about why I think we are not doing well with some groups of people.  So for my first post here, I will talk about two groups we need to do better with-the young and geeks.

Please take time to watch the following video from Sky TV (UK) George Bush uses his iPod first. (Windows Media player Required)

Part of the reason that we are losing the younger generation and the tech savvy members of other generations is the fact that the Republicans are completely outpacing us technologically.  George Bush has an Ipod and so does Dick Cheney. They show people they know how to use them in folksy manner which the average joe relates to and makes the people who work in tech know they at least have clue about what techies do for a living.

During the '04 cycle Reggie The Registration Rig gave the Republicans a big foothold with the under 25 generation, and the Democrats did little to counter it.   Here was the basic pitch:  Just come in for a few minutes to play some Halo on our X-boxes with these nice large Plasma TVs.  You can win some prizes.  Would you also like a free Slurpee?  May I have your e-mail for you to see a video about what the GOP does for you? Want a GOP T-shirt?

As someone said to me this week, "Why should I support a party that does not understand what I do, what my business model is about, and does not communicate with me in the ways that I like to be communicated with?"  I wish that I had a good answer for that question. 

The GOP still uses the Regan era fax system, because that is the way some people like to get their information.  They add new tools to communicate with more people as they go on.  This could be another sign of the religious right's influence.  The one thing that the religious right and the porn industry have in common is their history of quickly adopting new technologies and bringing them into the mainstream.  The largest group of podcasters is still the "godcasters" and the faster growing category is "podnography."

Right now the GOP is hiring people to train people at all levels to use the web and tools like podcasting to get their message out.  Their marketing teams come from big business which may explain why they understand the value of being able to get your message directly to the people, when you get to control it the whole way.  No reporters, no 30 second spots, no one to intervene or frame the message.  It is total control at a low cost. 

They also spot trends and growth.  Back in April of 2005, Pew Internet and American Life Project reported the following: 

More than 22 million American adults own iPods or MP3 players and 29% [HALF of 18-28 year-olds] of them have downloaded podcasts from the Web so that they could listen to audio files at a time of their choosing. That amounts to more than 6 million adults who have tried this new feature that allows internet “broadcasts” to be downloaded onto their portable listening device.

See the full study here.  Those numbers are way outdated now too!

While Edwards and Obama are using podcasting and vblogging (video) to reach out to people, we need to have the farm team (lower offices) doing it too. 

The Washington State Senate Republicans are podcasting (even though they don't get the search, browse and subscribe model).  The Washington State Senate Democrats do have the great tag line of A look back, a look ahead - but no podcast sharing that message. 

There is a bit of hope since some the allied groups are taking advantage of new technology.  Organizations like Betterdonkey.org are trying to make politics more appealing to the average young person by playing up the social aspects. 

Then again we may let podcasting and vblogging go the way of talk radio and text blogging.  Those are spaces where the GOP reigns supreme.

My Two Cents on WA's Progressive Blogosphere

As always, great post Noemie.

There is so much here to respond to and I haven't fully synthesized everything that you talk about.  I'd just like to throw my two cents in for anyone doing serious thinking on where to take the Washington progressive blogosphere.  I think that as much as possible we need to focus on creating an online-offline bridge. 

I always fear that blogs and their readers, while an amazing resource for news and analysis, don't do enough to advocate for change in the "real world."  It's all well and good to be ridiculously well-informed about all these issues, but it's all for naught if we don't do anything with that knowledge. 

I know the little "calls to action" that I tend to put in my posts seem cheesy at times, but it is vitally important that as educated and politicized citizens we keep on our legislators about the issues that are important to us.  For instance handwritten letters were instrumental in getting Republican support to pass the patients bill of rights. 

With that in mind, the Family Leave coalition is looking for anyone who has had a compelling experience with Family Leave to share their stories.  Whether it be a story of how leave time allowed you to spend the last few weeks with a dying relative, or if you had problems getting leave from work, that sort of thing.  They are looking for people to testify to the Legislature as well as providing real examples for media outreach.  If you know anyone like this, have them contact the Family Leave coalition coordinator Marilyn Watkins of the Economic Opportunity Institute at Marilyn@eoionline.org or (206) 529-6370.  As an aside, the EOI is another example of a great progressive think-tank in Washington State.

And as a final aside, I'd like to thank Brian again for giving me the opportunity to join this great community.

PortDork

Washington's Progressive Blogosphere and the "Emerging Progressive Infrastructure"

We find ourselves in a time when democratic institutions are under coordinated siege -- and injustice and unreason are publicly celebrated as right in line with American values. In the words of Gara LaMarche of the Open Society Institute, these threats to open society call for "a serious and coordinated response."

I've been wondering about the role of progressive bloggers in that response in Washington State -- particularly in relation to that emerging phenomenon so engagingly known as the progressive infrastructure. The idea of a consciously devised architecture that is making a place not just for progressive policies, but also for progressivism as a whole, that is designed to help us transcend our current dynamic of continual reaction to assaults on sustainable society from the right, is attractive indeed. It does seem past time to get better grounded in some strategic meta-collaboration.

Looking at what has been happening in Washington State – with victories for the public good won against great odds -- and then continually challenged or even overturned over the past several decades – it's evident that, to the extent that we may be working at cross purposes, duplicating effort, or are not strategically communicating, progressive organizations are dissipating their energies and resources and failing to take the best advantage of natural connections and synergies.

Washington and the northwestern region have a rich network of organizations with progressive missions, some explicitly devoted to strengthening progressivism. For example, Institute for Washington's Future, founded in the early 1990s, is devoted to renewing the progressive movement in Washington and has produced important analysis and completed numerous projects, recently focusing on sustainable development in rural areas and bridging Washington's rural to urban divide. Despite our progressive resources, however, our state is considered to be missing key elements of the architecture of a coordinated movement. As far as I know, we don't have a multi-issue think tank with adequate funding, or organizations producing model legislation across the progressive spectrum, or devoted to progressive messaging

Electronic Recycling, good for business and our environment

Sustainable business practices like recycling old electronic equipment can provide a dual benefit for the citizens of Washington - keep toxins from getting into our ground water, and provide jobs in a burgeoning industry.

In Washington state alone, about 1.7 million computers, monitors and televisions are taken out of service each year, a number that could grow to 5 million by 2010, according to a 2004 state Department of Ecology study.

In the upcoming legislative session a bill will be introduced that will require manufacturers to include the cost of recycling used computers and televisions at the time of purchase, rather than having consumers pay disposal fees when the equipment is discarded.

This approach can help provide a market for recyclers to become fully green. Currently many local e-waste disposal companies just ship their trash to China or some other low-cost landfill, thus defeating the good intentions of someone bringing in a dead monitor. By internalizing the cost, recyclers will be able to efficiently break down monitors, circuit boards, etc and completely recycle each component of any electronic device.

I have worked with PC Salvage on computer disposals in the past, a local e-cycler that recycles every component of a computer, microwave, TV, you name it. Their owner showed me how they break down a monitor and recycle the entire unit, every part. He has about fifteen employees, and through all the corporate 'out-of-compliance' machinery he gets, is able to refurbish and re-sell lots of computers from disposal. One man's trash is another man's treasure.

WA-08; Randy Gordon drops out

Goldy is reporting that Randy Gordon has decided not to continue his bid for Congress, but will consider other electoral races. The 41st needs you, Randy!

George Bush is a pitiful leader...

A Republican President with a Republican controlled Senate and House; A President whose fans claim he is a natural born leader of men and women; a President who was going to bring honesty and principles to the White House.

And what does this President do when he needs to make some political appointments?

George Bush appoints 17 people while Congress is not in session because he is too cowardly to face his own political party to get these appointments approved in the regular fashion.

But maybe it's not as bad as I'm imagining. Perhaps it's merely that he and his staff are too INCOMPETENT to select the correct nominees and prepare them for confirmation hearings. Maybe Bush is not too COWARDLY to face the political appointment process, but is instead NOT A GOOD ENOUGH LEADER to make the process work even with his own party in control of all the steps.

A sad day in the annals of "leadership"...

Big Time Patriot