Washblog

For those who have claimed the mantle of "family values"--I hereby question and scoff at your support of Sarah Palin. - Carla Axtman

McCain and his spinners apparently thought they could call forth the 2004 Evangelical Gullible Base back from wherever it faded. I doubt they can ... but they are again trying to poison the country with a fake piety that belittles every parent in the country.

Family values are not tools of the opportunistic - to summoned when needed and hiden in the closet when expedient.

One of the Pac Northwest's  premier bloggers gives us a truth some do not dare bring up.

Carla Axtman at BlueOregon.com

Excerpt after the fold

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Imagine that you're a Presidential candidate running for office in today's electoral environment. Now imagine if you came before the American public and informed them that you were aware of an event that would kill as many Americans as died on 9/11...and that you had the knowledge in hand to stop it in its tracks.

And that you could do it again - six times a year- year after year after year.

And to make the story better...you could save the taxpayer money doing it.

You think the voters would be in favor of that?

Well, voters, get ready to be in favor of that; because today I bring to you a relatively cheap, relatively easy plan that will save more than 18,000 American lives a year.

How do we do it?
By making MRSA in the healthcare system a virtual thing of the past.

Follow along and you'll leave with useful facts, solid answers ...and examples of how the plan is already working.

Cross posted atThe Left Shue

Imagine that you are a young woman; married, with five children. You are a staunch conservative with strong family values. One of your children has Down syndrome and another is 17, unmarried, and pregnant. Imagine also that you are the governor of a sparsely populated northern state which already requires a certain level of family disruption. Add to your plate the fact that you are being investigated for ethics violations and possible abuse of power (which could lead to your impeachment from office). Now imagine that your party's candidate for POTUS asks you to be his running mate and, if elected, serve just one heartbeat away from the most stress filled and demanding job in the world. What do you say? Hmmmm.

Candidate Rossi has been running ads in the Pacific County papers declaring himself to be "A fresh voice for Pacific County."

That "fresh voice" deception is easy to see through even out here in the boondocks since there is nothing new in the current state Republican or Rossi's proposals that differs from what they've been offering for the last 20 years.

The transparency in the Rossi ad is its insulting assumption that voters this year are paying little attention to the economy and its financial impact in their individual lives. It also insults us in the same way Republicans ignored our inadequate health coverage two years ago and instead preferred to create a fairy tale about "frivolous lawsuits."

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The Media will be abuzz today with the surprise of John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his Vice Cheney candidate.

But there’s some dirt hiding under the rug...       

What is the history...who does she support...and when she talks about “open and transparent” government, what does that mean?

Put your snow boots on, people...and let’s have a look...

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So John McCain has been claiming Barack Obama is too young and inexperienced to be president.

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This is the 7th story in a series on Washington State's 3-Strikers that shows by example why the law is unjust and ineffective. The life paths described in the stories all include one or more factors of poverty, addiction, abuse, or mental illness. Cherease's story has all these elements.  Programs addressing these factors have been shown to reduce crime at much less cost than incarceration alone.    This story was written by Shirley White, mother of a current 3-Striker, in collaboration with a friend of Cherease's.  JOIN RAPID RESPONSE

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Back in March, 2000, a young woman named  Cherease Cross was convicted of her third offense.  She was the third woman to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole under Washington's  3-Strikes law.  She did not deserve to receive a sentence of life in prison.

Mental illness and drug addiction had plagued Cherease's young life. She was a single-mom,  a crack addict and a sexual abuse victim.  She had committed three low-level second degree robberies to support an expensive drug habit.

Let's hear it for or against.

I don't claim to know the absolutes as to what's best for the country so it ain't my place to say Biden is the perfect choice  -  or the wrong choice.

I do know that it was Obama's call and if that's who he wants and he's the guy we trust then what the hell?

Someone is quoted as saying Biden is a pit-bull with partisan politics. That means we may see less sissy responses to Republican distract and stampede tactics. And that would be good for the country.

What's your take?

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I'm supposed to be finishing another story tonight, but I've just come from Darcy Burner's primary night party and I have in front of me the results of the important races tonight in Washington's newfangled "top two" primary.

It is unfair to extrapolate the results of elections in the "People's Republic of Washington" directly onto a national map, but as I look as these results it seems fair to say that if any Republican strategists aren't sweating bullets this morning it's because they'll be hustling for votes in towns like Maggie Valley, North Carolina (don't forget to stop by Saratoga's for the Wednesday night jazz or, perhaps, Bessemer Bend, Wyoming.

For the rest of the Republican community, tonight's events are not good news.

We have a fair amount to cover, so let's get to it.

Read two stories this morning that prompt me to post to Washblog.  One story is titled 'New York State Senators Call For Defederalizing The National Guard' (link) and (link).  The other story, more local, Centralia, Lewis County, WA is titled 'Heading Out'(link) citing account at Centralia Armory of Washington state National Guard heading out for Iraq.  

Other states that are moving to defederalize National Guard troops include New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Wisconsin, CA, MD, ME, MI, MN, NH.  

Did you notice that Washington is not on that list?   Perhaps you'll agree that the 2002 authorization that allowed state national guards to be federalized has expired? So why is Washington state National Guard shipping out to Iraq?  
 ... read on ....

well ... at least until the babies he saves grow  old enough to join up. Then all pro-life bets are off. John McCain has also declared that he will be a pro-death guy with a pro-death presidency in mind. His presiding premise is that war is the only foreign policy useful for spreading America's corporate-driven globalization. It's a premise of economic and imperial design masquerading as the perfect form of democracy and democratic freedoms.

Senator John McCain told the conservative evangelical audience Saturday night that if elected, he would be a "pro-life President and have pro-life policies"

Really?

That wasn't religious fervor in his eyes last night. That was religious hypocrisy.

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[Front paged: NM. Editorial comment: 1.) See Jason Osgood's 5/12/07 story specifically congratulating Councilmember Constantine for protecting our secret ballot: KING COUNTY PROTECTS OUR SECRET BALLOT. 2.) Councilmember Constantine knows that King County Elections has not used unique identifiers on ballots. Having been told, erroneously, by the King County Director of Elections that Jason Osgood was misinforming people that King County had used these unique identifiers, I understand why he recommended against contributing to Osgood's cammpaign. Therefore, I don't agree with the characterization of his comments that appears here as "trashing" the candidate. It is unfortunate, to say the least, that Sherril Huff appears to have not verified the information in her email before she sent it out and that, therefore, she spread misinformation that makes it more difficult for voters to make an informed choice in this election. I'm front-paging this story despite my disagreement with the author's characterization of Councilmember Constantine's comments, as it is reporting important information.]

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Wednesday night I attended the regular membership meeting of the 34th District Democrats.  Part of the night's agenda included approval of proposals to donate money to Democratic candidates for statewide office.

Following decisions to make donations to Christine Gregoire, Jim McIntire, Peter Goldmark and John Ladenberg, I stood and introduced a motion to contribute to Democratic Secretary of State candidate Jason Osgood.  I expected little or no opposition, as Osgood enjoys the strong support of a large number of 34th LD activists. However, to my surprise, King County Council Member Dow Constantine stood to speak in opposition.  Constantine was clearly upset with Osgood, and proceeded to trash him before the group.  His anger was focused on public statements he claimed Osgood has recently been making to the effect that King County uses bar-codes on ballots which allow votes to be tracked back to voters.  King County uses no such system - and therefore Constantine was upset that County officials have allegedly been forced to deal with confused, angry and misinformed citizens. Following his talk the motion to contribute to Osgood (who was endorsed by the 34th last month) was easily defeated.

Many Democrats in the room were shocked that the Osgood campaign would spread such false information and agreed with Constantine's assertion that the group should postpone any contribution until the candidate "gets his act straight."

This would all be perfectly sensible, except for the fact that Constantine's accusations were entirely false and that Jason Osgood has never said any of the things about King County ballots that he was accused of saying.  In fact, Osgood has consistently and publicly said the exact opposite - that King County does not use bar-codes and that this is a good thing.

So where did Councilmember Constantine come by this false and defamatory information about a Democratic candidate for statewide office?  Well, that's where it gets interesting.

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Across my desk recently came the news that the Republicans have chosen the members of their Party’s Platform Committee.

The Party Platform being an aspirational document that represents the hopes and dreams of a Party; we should be able to look to the framers of that Platform for an idea of who the Republicans think are the hopers, the dreamers...the aspire-ers, if you will, of a Bright and Shiny Republican future.

So who are these leaders that RNC Chairman “Mike” Duncan says “will be integral to ensuring that our Party creates a forward-looking platform that is rooted in our core values and principles”?

Follow along and we’ll find out.

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Peak Oil - A Woefully Inadequate Intro

A quick search for stories on Washblog containing the words peak oil turned up six hits dating back to May of 2006, only one of which was dated 2008.  Clearly not a hot topic.

Peak Oil is of particular interest to me, along with its equally threatening sibling, global climate change.  I believe it is worthy of deliberation by the great minds that inhabit this blog.  If there are those among you who are not familiar with the issue, well, get with it.  We cannot afford to ignore this issue just because our policy-makers and media mouthpieces do.

This far from comprehensive post will attempt to offer something for everyone, whether new to the topic or obsessed with it as I am.  I will include some of the gloomy bits, but make every effort to end on a hopeful note.  Along the way I will detail some of my efforts in Snohomish County, as they are aimed at finding as many "hopeful notes" as possible here locally.

Follow me below the jump to learn more and join in the conversation on peak oil...

A couple of months ago I produced a video at the public access tv station Puget Sound Access of an event organized and moderated by Jason Osgood, current candidate for Washington Secretary of State.  This was a presentation by Timothy White and Allan Rosato, plaintiffs in a suit against the auditor of San Juan Island County. That county, with the blessings of Secretary of State Sam Reed, is using unique identifiers on each voter's ballot.  Amazingly, in direct contradiction of Washington State law, the ballots can be tracked back to the individual voters. King County Elections officials attended the event that Jason organized and, soon after, King County announced that it would not be using unique identifiers on ballots.

The moral of this story: JASON OSGOOD FOR SECRETARY OF STATE

And watch the video: