Jun 09
McKenna Blames Washington’s Budget Woes on State Workers
From the Slog:
Conveniently ignoring the past two biennial budgets filled with pay cuts, givebacks, layoffs and unpaid furloughs, McKenna caused his audience to literally gasp and groan with horror via his tales of state workers getting five percent annual pay increases year-after-year as the rest of us suffered. It’ll take me some time to fact check all his claims, but I’m pretty damn sure they’re mostly bullshit and/or out of context. McKenna also went on to paint a picture of a government workforce growing out of control, a bullshit datapoint that I do have at my fingertips:
Read the full article here: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/06/09/mckenna-blames-washingtons-budget-woes-on-state-workers
Jun 09
34th LD Democrats Endorsements
Just a FYI, the 34th LD Democrats gave a bunch of endorsements last night: http://westseattleblog.com/2011/06/34th-district-democrats-election-endorsements-the-toplines
Jun 04
Save Our Medicare
The Washington State Democrats just launched a new website:
http://www.saveourmedicare.org/
Republicans are sacrificing Medicare and the middle and lower classes for tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.
That’s why everyday Americans disapprove of the Republican budget plan and its policies that will end Medicare as we know it. Republicans are paying the price for their policies — they’re losing elections and facing the backlash.
We will use this site to keep the momentum going and build grassroots support against the Republican budget plan and its destructive policies.
Jun 02
Elwha River Restoration
Larry Grubb and Jim Flynn took a visit to the Elwha River Dam this week. They made a Youtube video of the experience.
From Jim:
May 26
Judge strikes Wisconsin union-stripping law
From The Maddow Blog:
Dane County Circuit Judge Maryann Sumi ruled Thursday that Republican legislators violated Wisconsin’s open meetings law during the run up to passage. She says that renders the law void.
More details here: http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/05/26/6722983-breaking-judge-strikes-wisconsin-union-stripping-law
May 25
Washington says no thanks to Kucinich
From Public Policy Polling:
There’s been a lot of discussion about the possibility of Dennis Kucinich moving to Washington and running for office there next year but there’s just one little problem- voters there don’t want him to, not even Democrats. Part of that’s because he’s not popular in the state with only 19% of voters rating him favorable to 28% with a negative opinion of him. But the numbers on a potential candidacy for him are worse than the favorability spread- only 12% think he should seek office in the state next year to 39% opposed to the concept.
More here: http://publicpolicypolling.blogspot.com/2011/05/washington-says-no-thanks-to-kucinich.html
May 24
Medical Marijuana Bill is dead
As you may remember, our former-late KCDCC committeeman, Dennis Moyers (2009_06_June newsletter), was an advocate for medical marijuana. He worked hard to try to make progress in this area. It’s sad to see the way things have turned out…
From the Slog:
The sponsor of a second medical-marijuana bill, Sen Jeanne Kohl-Welles, throws in the towel (after years of work, collaboration with the right and left, enough community meetings to make a neighborhood activist hurl, Gregoire’s partial veto of a solid bill last month, a haystack of remaining incongruous laws that now ban medical-marijuana dispensaries as a result of that veto, an attempt to slam a new bill through in a 30 day session, and a stopwatch that counted down too soon), saying, “we cannot continue to ignore this issue—it simply will not solve itself.”
More here: http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/05/24/medical-marijuana-bill-dead
May 16
10 Republican Lies About the Bush Tax Cuts
From Crooks & Liars:
So it’s come down to this. On Saturday, David Stockman, the legendary Reagan budget chief who presided over the Gipper’s supply-side tax cuts, announced that the “debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party’s embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don’t matter if they result from tax cuts.” The next day, the former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, who famously helped sell the 2001 Bush tax cuts to Congress, declared them simply “disastrous.”
Sadly, Stockman and Greenspan are just about the only voices in the Republican Party speaking the truth about the fiscal devastation wrought by the expiring Bush tax cuts. After all, the national debt tripled under Ronald Reagan, only to double again during the tenure of George W. Bush. And as it turns out, the Bush tax cut windfall for the wealthy accounted for almost half the budget deficits during his presidency and, if made permanent, would contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession – combined. Of course, you’d never know it listening to the leaders of GOP.
And that’s just the beginning. Here, then, are 10 Republican Lies about the Bush tax cuts:
- Lie #1: Democrats Plan Across the Board Tax Hikes on January 1st
- Lie #2: Democrats Want a $3.8 Trillion Tax Increase
- Lie #3: Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves
- Lie #4: The Bush Tax Cuts Didn’t Add to the Deficit
- Lie #5: Expiring High Income Tax Cuts Will Hurt Small Business
- Lie #6: The Estate Tax Devastates Small Businesses and Family Farms
- Lie #7: The Bush Tax Cuts Helped All Americans
- Lie #8. Extending Bush Tax Cuts for the Wealthy is the Best Way to Stimulate the Economy
- Lie #9. Bush Tax Cuts Produced 52 Straight Months of Job Growth
- Lie #10: The Rich Pay Too Much in Taxes Already
More here: http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/10-republican-lies-about-bush-tax-cuts#four
May 16
Washington State Redistricting Meetings
Here’s the current schedule. I’ll add Seattle to the calendar when they pick a location:
Scheduled Public Forums and Commissioner Meetings
Details after the cut:
May 12
34th District Democrats host City Council candidates’ forum
From the West Seattle Blog: http://westseattleblog.com/2011/05/video-34th-district-democrats-host-city-council-candidates-forum
Campaign season is under way. Two Seattle City Council candidates were at Tuesday night’sAdmiral Neighborhood Association meeting – Position 1 candidate Michael Taylor-Judd and Position 9 candidate Dian Ferguson – and last night, one dozen candidates appeared before our area’s biggest political organization, the 34th District Democrats.
Our video shows the entire forum, unedited, with these candidates (two more were on the agenda but didn’t show): For Position 1, Councilmember Jean Godden, Michael Taylor-Judd, Bobby Forch, Maurice Classen, David Schraer; for Position 3, CouncilmemberBruce Harrell, Brad Meachum; for Position 5, Councilmember Tom Rasmussen, Sandy Cioffi; for Position 7, Councilmember Tim Burgess (whose lone declared opponent Darryl Carter Metcalf was a no-show); for Position 9, Councilmember Sally Clark, Dian Ferguson(the other declared candidate Fathi Karshie was a no-show). August 16th is the primary, which will narrow to the top two candidates any race that has three or more.
May 12
Dian Ferguson’s website is live!
Dian Ferguson is running for Seattle City Council, position 9. Her campaign website just went live. Check it out here: http://dianferguson.com/
She is running against incumbent Sally Clark (http://electsallyclark.com/)
