Comments on Abortion, the PATRIOT Act, and Your City Council

Bruce Harrill is down with the Patriot act? Put a fork in him.

I would have to agree with Harrill. The PATRIOT act is not all bad. Sharing intelligence is a good thing, so is the stuff about modernizing the way government works.

True dat, SeMe.

But the funny thing is I'm pretty sure a lot of candidates who were against Surface/Transit (and actively or behind the scenes worked to kill it) are now suddenly for it ...

My.

Port Commission candidate Gael Tarleton also gave a qualified answer to the Patriot Act...

The correct answer to that question is "The Patriot Act doesn't have anything to do with running the City of Seattle, and I'm not going to answer any more questions from YOU, nitwit. Next?"

But Fnarf, how else will they pass meaningless resolutions.

"[Harrelll] would work to improve the lives of the economically disadvantaged, Harrell suggests that it’s mostly a matter of improving their self-esteem"

so he's saying no, it's a good thing to have poor people that can barely afford to eat - shit, if they would only appreciate being poor, then it wouldn't really matter...

is dicktard a republican in sheep's clothing or just an asshole?

someone needs to kneecap that mother fucker, and check his self esteem into the boards.

@5 - um, did you read the prior post, Fnarf? Gael's running for Port. Not city.

Speaking of the PATRIOT act, anyone catch Harrell at the Hate Free Zone forum last night? He almost started screaming when asked if he supported Nick Licata's proposal to reconfirm police and fire chiefs. I was scurred. His response, accompanied by a lot of hand gestures, finger pointing to his brain, and bulging biceps, was, "In case you didn't know, we have an affordable housing crisis, people. I want the council to muscle up and focus on big vision ideas, not this kind of thing. This will get handled." If the "put your head in the sand" strategy doesn't particularly reassure you, you can get a good night's sleep knowing that he and Gil are best buds. As he said, "I have lunch with Chief Gerlikowski."

Open to surface/transit now... ahhhh the Council voted for the stupid tunnel as 1st choice and nothing as their backup position and in the meantime the Gov is building the ends of a new viaduct - but what I'm dying to know is what the candidates say about that other disaster waiting to happen - the seawall. Haven't heard a gribble stir since the vote. Whazzup?

Viaduct, 520 and this roads'n'transit deal are 3 big issues but hard to find out where our city council candidates and incumbents stand!

One council member told me before the viaduct vote it would be illegal for him to tell me his stand!

So today....what exactly are the candidates' positions on all 3?

Saw one current challenger who said more indecision on viaduct is good, hiring mediator for 520 is good and he didn't know whether he favored 4 lanes or 6, and he never got around to roads'n' ttransit (guess package hadn't been put together yet).

Stranger: can you make a scorecard? Maybe with a helpful "undecided" line as a catchall residual category (incl. undecided, "we need more process," refuse to say, "prefer mediator to tell me what to do").

That Harrell is a screamer...does it a lot. Almost as annoying as referring to himself in the 3rd person.

Giffy @2 - it's Burgess who thinks sharing intelligence is a good thing, not Harrell. Suspect it's about which of the two of them have any to share.

The Patriot Act does have some seriously fucked up provisions, and I suspect even violates the Constitution in a number of ways. Having said that, it isn't 100% bad. The notion of doing more to protect ports, modernizing communications between different parts of law enforcement, things like that.

So I don't have a problem with a "qualified no" answer. It actually gives some indication that the candidate has given more thorough thought to it. It is a vast complex Act. Simply saying fuck it and tossing it out entirely is a knee jerk reaction. I'd be just as happy if they removed the more egregious gestapo aspects, and left the milder helpful aspects alone.

That said, I agree with Fnarf. Who the hell cares what city council members think of a Federal program which they have no say in? How about asking them stuff about, oh, maybe city government.

This is surprising?
This is a guy who's running, with part of his platform to make Seattle Public Schools better, but in his personal life opts out and sends his kids to perhaps the most expensive private schools around!
And he likes to talk about his discrimination lawsuit against Boeing that he won. But he doesn't say that once he won for the plaintiffs, and Boeing and he (and the other attorneys) reached a settlement, that the judge threw out the planned settlement because the attorney's share was "too excessive." When was the last time you heard a judge toss out a class-action settlement because attorney fees were too high?

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@ 4.

I don't think you're correct on Gael. Here's her King Co Questionnaire:

http://www.kcdems.net/temp/Candidates2007/questionnaires/gael1.pdf

She says NO on the question on the Patriot Act.