The Other Side Online

Fourth gang murder in Yakima for 2010

mainstreeter — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 03:45:42 +0000

While the city mulls over barista’s and red light cameras, the fourth person to die in Yakima gang violence this year, the second in the past 8 days, has occurred. Depending on your source of media, its just another murder in Yakima, or tv news such as KNDO which has done a fair job, regardless of the “if it bleeds, it leads” type of reporting. If you ask what the city council is doing, lets go back to 2009.

Back then, Sonia Rodriquez asked for and got additional monies for police overtime in spite of her opponent calling it a ‘cheap shot’. Even Micah Cawley said back in August, ” we’re dealing with a crisis situation with gang violence”. Rick Ensey wasn’t as concerned, “I think we have to be careful about overreacting here”. Cawley however had no plan, opposing ‘throwing more money” at the problem. Candidate and retired RN, Mary Place had an idea to use cell phones, anonymously to report to police gang activity. Back when Place served as Mayor, she saw neighborhood development money used to clean up graffiti and run down houses.

Cawley conceded last summer in an interview with the Herald Republic, that Place had more experience, “But I didn’t think that’s what Yakima was looking for when I was (first) elected, I think the people weren’t happy with the way Yakima was heading.”

Where are you headed Micah, and the rest of the council?

At what point is one too many? More than last year, which is where Yakima and the rest of the valley is heading. Until it spills over to Yakima Avenue when patrons of the hotels and conventions no longer feel secure as it’s not happening on “the wrong side” of town anymore? Cities like Stockton, Compton, Baltimore have long had the stigma of communities with gang violence that has forever tarnished what was considered manageable a couple of decades ago. Does a city of 90,000 have to wait to become an urban icon of someones song or documentary before it’s decided it’s too small to fail?

The momentum towards positive change is building.

Drew — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 02:13:16 +0000

We are getting closer every minute towards having real quality health care service in America, as more Democrats make the pledge to support reform if it contains the public option.

Senators Bennet, Brown, Merkley, Gillibrand, Kerry, Leahy, Franken, Whitehouse, Burris, Sanders, Feinstein, Reed, Boxer, Udall (NM), Mikulski, Lautenberg, Schumer, Shaheen, Specter, Menendez, Inouye, Johnson, Stabenow, Levin, Durbin, Murray, Bingaman, Cardin, Klobuchar, Casey, Udall (CO), Wyden, and Kaufman have all made it clear they know it’s the type of change the people want, and our economy needs. And tonight, Patty Murray has added her name to the list of senators that know the only way for this country to truly have the best health care in the world is to first make sure every body has access to it. Reconciliation is the scariest word in the cons nomenclature right now, but it’s the price they have to pay if they would rather be partisan obstructionists while insurance premiums skyrocket in the midst of a recession.
We still have some work to do: Maria Cantwell hasn’t yet made her stand for the public option, so we need to call her office. Do it today. When you call, ask to speak to the aide taking citizen input regarding health care reform. We want Cantwell to support the public option, and to make her position known. It’s our time to send a message, loud and clear, to our citizens as well as the obstructionist GOP, that we know that health care should be a right of every citizen, and never a privilege based on economic means.

Maria Cantwell’s office number is (202) 224-3441.

Sen. Entitlement feels the rest of us are not entitled

mainstreeter — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 23:06:59 +0000

Today, in an hoped for interview with ABC news, Sen. Jim Bunning R (KY), rejected a question from a reporter when asked why he opposed extending unemployment benefits, including those in his home state.

Bunning, who is not running for reelection and apparently without the blessing of the GOP , who along with Mitch McConnell are holding up the vote by procedure unless their buddy, Sen.Northrop Grumman-Shelby and Alabama receives an entitlement of the Air Force tanker deal involving Northrop-Grumman, a subsidiary of French manufacturer, AirBus. Since then, this foriegn outsourcing has sent lawmakers scrambling for cover. Boeing lost the bid last year and has since appealed and for now, the contract to construct the new generation of Air Force tankers is still being negotiated. They are also holding up the appointment of top intelligence members since December, by blocking their votes on the floor.

Senate Majority leader, Harry Reid asked for unanimous consent to move forward with the bill on Monday.

“Six times last week, Democrats asked to extend their unemployment benefits for a short time while they work on a longer extension,” Reid said. “Six times, Republicans said no. They didn’t just say no to us, that is members of the Senate. They said no to their families in their own states and all our states count on us to act when we need action. They count on us to respond in the event of an emergency. This is an emergency. The Republicans in the Senate are standing between these families and the help they need while these benefits expire and expired.”

After Reid spoke, Bunning raised his objection and blamed the Democrats for failing to extend benefits with an earlier bill that Reid scrapped. He repeated his insistence that the Senate not add an additional $10 billion to the deficit.

“Just a brief explanation of why we are where we’re at with this extension bill, the brief extension of 30 days,” said Bunning, who is not running for reelection and apparently not acting with the blessing of GOP leadership. “There was an agreement between the majority leader of the Finance Committee and the minority leader in the Finance Committee, Sens. Baucus and Grassley, on a three-month extension of these very same provisions. There were more provisions in the bill also. It cost a little more than the the $10 billion that is asked for because it was a three-month extension. Senator Reid pulled that bill from the floor of the U.S. Senate. He did it. The leader of the Democrats pulled that bill from the floor. I support extending unemployment benefits, COBRA benefits, flood insurance, highway bill fix, doc fix, small business loans, distant network television for satellite viewers. If we can’t find $10 billion to pay for something that we all support, we will never pay for anything on the floor of this U.S. Senate.”

“Excuse me, this is a Senate-only elevator,” he said. “Excuse me!” as the reporter asked him why he objected to the unemployment extension.

An ABC producer said the senator flipped him off as the elevator door was closing.

Earlier, Sen Jeff Merkley from Oregon asked Bunning to drop the objection to which Bunning replied, “tough shit”.

Today, 400,000 people lost their extension for unemployment benefits, rural satellite television was lost to 1 million people whose subsidy was available to areas that have no, over the air tv or cable service. (including Kentucky) 2,000 highway construction workers whose jobs were depending on the extension of stimulus dollars are not working. Cobra insurance benefits are being held up as well. Doctors who depend on Medicare reimbursement, just saw a 21% drop in payments as well with these extensions held up.

You stay classy GOP.

Wow, the President’s a liberal again!

Drew — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 16:28:20 +0000

OK, maybe just a little bit. But it was refreshing to see him school the obstructionists that want to see the health insurance industry protected while millions of Americans continue to suffer. I was only able to catch the audio clips, but it was good to hear our President calmly and professionally set the cons back on their heels. They came talking compromise, and came away dazed and confused. Lamar Alexander tried the talking point of how premiums would go up, and Obama told him he was wrong, and McCain whined about how we finally had a televised discussion on healthcare- Obama told him the campaign had ended some time ago (actually, 92% of the Congressional debates were televised on C-Span, which would make John Boehner’s comments about how “this has all been done in total secrecy”, and “all of it was behind closed doors”, well, lies).
Now, everyone knows these republicons had no intention of “compromise”, even sticking to their scripted talking points religiously: “step-by-step”, “clean sheet of paper”, “start over from scratch”, and other phrases were the same exact ones heard by every conservative, assuring us that the Republican Congressional leadership still receives faxes from Fixed News, Wellpoint, and Glaxo. Something else that the republicans showed that was very revealing: they’re scared. The quietly mentioned several times that implementing reconciliation to stop a filibuster would not be nice, and the cons are really hoping that we don’t do it. One even said it had never been done before on big, important legislation such as this. Where were these cons during the Bush years, when tax breaks for the wealthiest 1% were done via reconciliation. In fact, when they were in the majority, they gleefully used reconciliation numerous times to push unpopular agendas.
So where do we go from here? Is there any sense in hoping that the republicans will ever bring a spirit of cooperation to the table? And can America wait any longer, or are we willing to let the ultra-right continue to drag this out? Clearly Mitch McConnel and others WANT this to go on, at least until 2010. Millions continue to suffer and even die, while he suggests we “need to start over from scratch, with a clean sheet of paper”. Thankfully, we have a President who exhibited leadership, and he stood up to them. They heard him say that we have wasted enough time on this, and the public wants reform now.
I say, go with our 51. Press on for reform, for a public option that doesn’t protect the insurance industry, but gives affordable coverage to millions of Americans who DO want it, and need it now. Why wait for the obstructionist republicans who do not have our best interests at heart? The democratic process allows for reconciliation, and it is playing fair- republicans have used it before, and need to be reminded of that fact. They also need to be schooled on the fact that this is NOT a “government takeover” of healthcare- it IS a return to affordable access to medical care and treatment for every citizen. Obama hinted that he is willing to take the gloves off when dealing with the obstructionists, and now Pelosi and Reid could take a lesson on how to play the game. The time is now.

He got it right

Whoopeedo — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:37:22 +0000

Bonlender has it right, the very ignoble thing for Teabaggers is an education. They definitely don’t want anybody thinking. Winkenwerder and Bonlender give nice balance to what democrats think and want for the people. You can see them on Channel 21. Find the schedule there or call YPAC.

Having slipped into one of the teabaggers meetings at the Convention Center, I was alarmed at the war-worshipping themes…the America right-or-wrong themes. I liken this to “my mother, drunk or sober.”

Special Comment from Keith Olbermann’s father

mainstreeter — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 17:51:37 +0000

“Last Friday night, my father asked me to kill him.”

Keith Olbermann opened his emotional Special Comment on health care Wednesday with the story of his father’s six-month-long hospitalization suffering through a colon removal, pneumonia, kidney failure, liver failure, and many infections.

After a particularly difficult week, Olbermann said he went into his father’s hospital room to find him “thrashing his head back and forth” and mouthing the word “Help.”

“It was just too much for my father,” Olbermann said. “‘Stop this,’ he mouths. ‘Stop, stop, stop.’”

Olbermann said he resorted to gallows humor, asking his father, “What, you want me to smother you with a pillow?” And his father responded, mouthing, “Yes, kill me.”

“And as I left the hospital that night, the full impact of the last six months washed over me,” Olbermann said. “That conversation, that one, was what these ghouls who are walking into Blair House tomorrow morning called death panels. Your right to have that conversation with a doctor. Not the government, but a doctor. And your right to have insurance pay for his expertise on what your options are when dad says ‘Kill me’ or what your options are when dad is in a coma and can’t tell you a damn thing.”

Olbermann then laid into those who spread fear about death panels.

“That, right now, is the legacy of the protests of these subhumans who get paid by the insurance companies, who say these things for their own political gain, or like that one fiend, for money,” Olbermann said. “Betsy McCaughey told people tht this conversation about life and death and relief and release…she told people that’s a death panel and she did that for money! It’s a life panel. A life panel. It can save the pain of the patient and the family. It’s the difference between you guessing what happens next and you being informed about what probably will. And that’s the difference between you sleeping at night or second-guessing and third-guessing and thirtieth-guessing yourself.”

“It’s a life panel, and damn those who call it otherwise to hell!” he said.

Olbermann closed the comment with news that his father has not awoken since Friday, and that it’s now possible he never recovers.

“So considering that if he does not recover you will not see me here for a while, I have some requests,” he said. “Please, have this conversation with your loved ones. Don’t wait. Do it now. It’s tough. It acknowledges death, and it also narrows the gray area you and they will face from infinity to a foot wide. It is my greatest comfort right now and I want it to be yours. And to the politicians who go into Blair House tomorrow, for that summit, I have some requests as well. Leave your egos at the door. I want, I demand that you give everybody in this country a chance at the care my father has gotten. And I demand that you enact this most generous and kind aspect of the reform proposed, the right to bill the damned insurance company for the conversation about what to do when the time comes. The life panel.”

A bit more about Michell Bachmann and her Republican mind

Whoopeedo — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:01:13 +0000

Bachmann introduced the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act, to repeal the ban on conventional light bulbs in favor of compact fluorescent light bulbs. She argued that the government has no business telling consumers what kind of light bulbs they can buy: ”By 2012, incandescent light bulbs will be no more,” Bachmann said. “Fluorescent bulbs are more polluting because of their mercury content. We are working on a light bulb bill. If the Democrats can hose up a light bulb, don’t trust them with the country.”

On October 17, 2008, Bachmann gave an interview on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews in support of the presidential campaign of Senator John McCain that brought the Minnesota 6th Congressional District race national attention. During the interview she criticized Barack Obama for his association with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, saying “…usually we associate with people who have similar ideas to us, and it seems that it calls into questions what Barack Obama’s true beliefs, and values, and thoughts are…I am very concerned that he [Barack Obama] may have anti-American views.” When asked by Matthews “How many people in the Congress of the United States do you suspect as being anti-American?” she replied “What I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look. I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think people would love to see an expose like that”.

In regards to the issue of climate change, Bachmann has taken to the floor to assert that since carbon dioxide is “a natural byproduct of nature”, it is actually a beneficial gas required by plant life. She stated that because life requires CO₂ and it is part of the life cycle on Earth it cannot be harmful. In a statement she made on the House floor on Earth Day, April 22, 2009, Bachmann stated she was against the cap and trade carbon tax because “Carbon dioxide is not a harmful gas, it is a harmless gas. Carbon dioxide is natural; it is not harmful…. We’re being told we have to reduce this natural substance to create an arbitrary reduction in something that is naturally occurring in the earth.”

In a June 17, 2009, interview with The Washington Times, Bachmann expressed concern that the questions on the 2010 United States Census had become “very intricate, very personal” and that ACORN, a community organizing group that had come under fire the previous year, might be part of the Census Bureau’s door-to-door information collection efforts. She stated, “I know for my family the only question we will be answering is how many people are in our home, we won’t be answering any information beyond that, because the Constitution doesn’t require any information beyond that.” Fellow Republican Congressman Patrick McHenry (N.C.), Lynn Westmoreland (Ga.) and John Mica (Fla.), members of the Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Information Policy, Census and National Archives, which oversees the census, subsequently asked Bachmann not to boycott the population count.

PDC levies fines against Ettl, Lover & Rodriguez

Ron Bonlender — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:08:35 +0000

Yakima City Council member Dave Ettl was fined $500 by the Public Disclosure Commission. $400 was suspended provided he has no further violations for the next 4 years, leaving $100 to be paid in 60 days. You may remember this blog commented last November about Ettl’s lack of transparency on his PDC filings. 6 weeks before the election he asked for and received approval from the PDC to switch to full reporting, but, failed to do so until a couple of days before the November election. The Homebuilders, Realtors and Mike Olson Dodge all had kicked in $2,000 to $2,500 each in September prompting Ettl to ask for the change in reporting. Problem was he didn’t report it till a couple of days before the election. Conveniently bypassing public scrutiny until the day before the election.
Sonia Rodriguez and Bill Lover were also fined for late filing. Rodriguez fine was $250 with $150 suspended and Lover’s was $250 with $200 suspended pending no further violations.

The public has a right to know in a timely manner all contributions and expenditures. There are NO excuses for these violations. All the other candidates had to follow the same rules. Ettl’s violations were the most serious resulting in the bigger fine. There is no doubt that it is a pain in the ass to file these reports but it’s one of those irritating things candidates for public office must adhere to.

Tea Party candidates for the U.S. Senate- an angry group of incompetents

Ron Bonlender — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 04:55:34 +0000

Leave it to Washington State Republicans to botch yet another golden opportuntiy to attract moderate and independent voters with a message of fiscal responsibility and strong values by trying to shove another round of super-cons down the throat of the conservative base, alienating everyone in the middle of the spectrum.
At the Tea-Party candidates forum in Yakima on 2/10/10, Senate Challengers Clint Didier and Sean Salazar (among others) demonstrated their lack of desire to court middle-of-the-road voters by drawing a comically unrealistic “with us or against us” line in the sand. Trouble is, when these guys finally look behind them in November, they’re only going see the same old faces that keep making a joke out of republican candidates across this state. All the potential swing voters that could have been easily won with a common sense, centerist tone have sprinted so far from that line in the sand, it’ll be years before they come back.

Check out video of Clint Didier’s plan to abolish education and deprive Washington of all federal projects

Check out video of Sean Salazar’s plan to make sure we don’t “lose” our history prior to 1887 and his fight against science

The definition is pretty clear

Drew — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:50:04 +0000

Yesterday, a man in Austin sets his home on fire, reportedly while his wife and step-daughter were still inside. He then proceeds to his local airport, where he steals a private plane, and sets out to fly that plane into the office building where the local IRS office is located. As of press time, in addition to the pilot, Joseph Stack, one person inside the building was killed, and one is missing. 11 persons were injured, some in serious condition. Luckily, his neighbors rescued the wife and girl from the burning home before firefighters arrived. Also fortunate is the fact that more weren’t killed in the government building.
In a multi-page screed, Stack wrote about how, over the years, he just couldn’t win any battles with the IRS. Claiming pianos as business expenses when you are not actually a musician didn’t work for him at tax time. He also didn’t understand that his wife’s income was reportable, something else the IRS pointed out to him. Over the years, he had vested in and spent several different retirement accounts, and found the accountants that he had been paying small fortunes to to keep all of this straightened out were idiots when they told him how unsustainable all of this was.
So he writes a suicide note to explain his deadly choices, steals a plane, and flies it into a building shortly after 9 in the morning because he had nothing but pure hatred for those inside. Americans. Over 200 Americans, who just happened to work for the government that Joseph Stack held responsible for his own failures.
It was an act of terrorism, and don’t let anyone try and spin it any other way. Those were innocents, and they were us. They had no choice when that plane bore down on them, and Joe Stack didn’t care. He wanted to send a message, and innocent Americans had to die for him to make it. Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, and Sean Hannity, among others, are responsible. They are promoting this type of fringe behavior, as some of their listeners are actually calling Stack an American hero. They have been very critical of President Obama for not using the word “terrorism” (another con lie: Obama has, on several occasions, used the term), but they are not about to label this domestic terrorist in the same way.
Already, the right-wingnuts are quick to parrot the words of Austin’s Police Chief, who said this was the act of a lone individual, and therefore not a terrorist act, even though Stack planned it, and had focused intent to do great harm and violence upon unsuspecting persons who could not in any way defend themselves from him, all to make an anti-government point laid out in his suicide note.
Maybe he should have wore a turban, or a fez. Perhaps his skin wasn’t the right shade of olive or brown, or he wasn’t named Ahmed. For the above mentioned spewers of hatred on con radio and tv, that’s the first thing we should be looking for.
Whoopeedo just did a great post on the relaxation of concealed weapons regulations, and with all of the anti-government hypocritical rhetoric being thrown down by these folks, this type of violence is being promoted, not discouraged. Michelle Bachmann says we should all refuse to cooperate with the Census Bureau, because the information they gather is used against us- LIE. Palin tells us that any health care reform will result in “death panels” that will meet in committee to decide who lives or dies- LIE (yes, we’d hate to take that exclusive right away from the insurance companies, not while they’re making record profits while doing it). Beck advocated the murder of Michael Moore on his show on a couple of occasions, and Jim Demint says that all republicans should vote against every democratic measure, initiative, and nomination, because it will result in the failure of our President. And teabaggers in a rally yesterday were calling for the public hanging of our Patty Murray. This is not patriotism, but a call to violent anarchism by the extreme right, and has no good end for America or our democracy.
Ann Coulter likes to label liberals as treasonous for, as she puts it, we continually speak out against America, but she is silent, along with Hannity, Beck, and Limbaugh, when Sarah Palin goes to China and tells businessmen there to not trust our President or our government.
No one has come out and actually said it yet (that I have heard of so far), so I will: the comparison to this and 9/11 is obvious. Planned and calculated multiple homicide, with a written political manifesto, and a long history of hatred for our government. He wasn’t a Muslim extremist from a central Asian country, who watched al Queda videos in his spare time. But he did plan to kill a lot of government employees because he hated the IRS. Let’s see how Palin and Beck and all of the other worthless shills want to spin that.