A lot more programs are proposed for cuts than the ones I wrote about here. Here are several that people spoke out for at yesterday's public hearing--the last public hearing the council will hold before approving the proposed King County budget.

The King County Agricultural Program. The county's agricultural program works to preserve farmland and protect farms from development pressure in rural King County. One of its best-known programs is Puget Sound Fresh, which supports local farmers, promotes community-supported agriculture, and supports farmers markets around the region. Wade Bennett, owner of Rockridge Orchards in Enumclaw, told the council that the agricultural program had helped transform local farms from "an endangered species.. to merely a threatened species," helping 4,000 King County farmers feed 100,000 people a year. The agricultural program, which costs $120,000 a year, could be eliminated.

The King County Crisis Clinic. The Crisis Clinic runs a suicide prevention program, helps people who are caregivers to the sick and disabled, directs people to emergency shelters, and helps people navigate the social justice system. Last year, Committee to End Homelessness Program Director Bill Block told the council, the clinic took 50 percent more calls seeking rental assistance and 21 percent more calls seeking help with heating and lighting bills. Services like the Crisis Clinic "keep our residents' lives intact," Block said.

New Futures. New Futures operates on-site in low-income apartment complexes in South King County, where the county's poverty and school failure rates are highest. They run after-school programs, mentor teens, provide community development services, and help kids and adults learn English. According to New Futures director Karma Kreizenbeck, who implored the council to preserve the program's county funding, 92 percent of the agency's clients are recent immigrants.

Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. Sims's proposed budget would completely eliminate funding for the NWIRP's domestic-violence investigation unit, which investigates immigrants' allegations of domestic violence; according to an NWIRP representative who spoke at this week's meeting, the group currently has 82 people on its waiting list.

Eastside Domestic Violence. This program, which serves north and east King County, provides crisis counseling, shelter, transitional housing, and support groups for victims of domestic violence, as well as community education and training. Several former domestic violence victims told the council that without ESDV, they would have been on the streets. "I felt trapped and didn’t know who to turn to or where to go since I had kept my situation a secret from my family and friends," said one young woman who had been a victim of domestic violence for five years. "Eastside Domestic Violence was a way out… Please do not take this way out away from women like me."

That's actually only the tiniest sampling of the worthy programs that are facing cuts. County residents can also say farewell to treatment, pre-release education and training for inmates to keep them from committing crimes again; the downtown emergency winter shelter; health care and assistance for poor women and children with HIV and AIDS; several county-run family planning clinics that provide birth control and routine PAP smears to poor women; rodent control; case management for people with tuberculosis; services for drug-addicted pregnant women and families; a program that monitors infectious diseases, like hanta virus and avian flu, spread by animals; and school-based dental care programs for children, among many other vital programs.) I've tried to come up with a bright side to all these cuts, and I can't. It's wholesale slaughter at King County. All I can say is, I'm glad I don't have their job.

PACs also spent a surprising amount on down-ticket state and legislative races. Republican attorney general Rob McKenna, who won reelection easily, received a $449,000 expenditure from the state Republican Party, as well as about $29,000 from a PAC representing Realtors. Republican incumbent land commissioner Doug Sutherland got a similar amount from the Realtors, plus nearly $600,000 from a timber and mining-funded PAC called the Committee for Balanced Stewardship. (He was defeated by Democrat Peter Goldmark).

In the race for schools superintendent, a group called Citizens for Washington, funded by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), poured $200,000 into Randy Dorn’s successful bid to defeat incumbent Terry Bergeson. In legislative races, victorious 36th District House candidate Reuven Carlyle received nearly $44,000 in independent expenditures, much of it from the Realtors, a PAC representing dentists, and a group called Responsible Leadership for Washington funded primarily by the restaurant and beverage industries. Those groups also all gave to 11th District state Senator Margarita Prentice.

The biggest recipients of PAC largesse, however, were two Republicans: Kevin Parker, who defeated Spokane legislator Don Barlow in the 6th District with nearly $173,000 in help from PACs including Enterprise Washington—a business group that also spent money on Carlyle—and Jan Angel, who defeated Democrat Kim Abel with the help of nearly $150,000 in PAC money, much of it from Enterprise Washington and It’s Time for a Change, a group best known for spending millions on Dino Rossi’s failed gubernatorial bid.

The competition to fill the vacuum left by Senator John McCain’s defeat—and by the unpopularity of President Bush as he prepares to leave office—will be on full display at a Republican Governors Association meeting beginning Wednesday in Miami.

The session will showcase a roster of governors positioning themselves as leaders or future presidential candidates, including Sarah Palin of Alaska, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, Charlie Crist of Florida, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, Haley Barbour of Mississippi and Mark Sanford of South Carolina.

Meanwhile, one of Obama's public health advisors told Bloomberg she expects the president-elect will reverse US policies that emphasize abstinence and monogamy within marriage in poor countries such as Rwanda and Uganda--policies that don't work in places where infidelity by men is nearly universal and where basic information about safe sex is in short supply.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your Gods and you.

Lieberman not happy with Reid's offer, flirting with Republicans

An aide to Sen. Joe Lieberman tells CNN that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told Lieberman he wanted him to give up his position as Chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, and instead take the helm of a lower profile full committee....

Nothing was resolved in the meeting, and the Lieberman aide tells CNN that although he still wants to caucus with the Democrats, Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell has contacted Lieberman about formally aligning with Republicans, and that Lieberman is “keeping all of his options open.”

An aide to McConnell confirms to CNN that the two men “have been talking.”

Dump Joe, Harry, before he dumps you. You'll be glad you did.

Shit. Bye, George.

Unfortunately, the same can't be said for some other reported short-listers for key positions in the Obama administration: Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar, reportedly under consideration for Secretary of State, and Larry Summers, reportedly on the short list to head the Treasury Department.

Let's start with Hagel. Over his career in the US Senate, he's received a zero-percent rating from NARAL, reflecting the fact that he has consistently voted against abortion rights, birth control, and embryonic stem-cell research, as well as supporting failed abstinence-only education programs. (As long I'm talking about "interest groups" like women, I should note that Hagel opposes gay marriage, too.)

Lugar, too, received a 0 percent rating from NARAL for his rabidly anti-choice record. Along with Biden, he supported Bush's proposal to deny African agencies US AIDS funding if they so much as refer clients to family planning and birth control services. On issues that matter to women, these guys are both Republican throwbacks, not the change we need.

A brief note about Summers. In addition to his famous statement that women are underrepresented in math and science professions because the ladies just aren't good at math and science, Summers has expressed the opinion that "Africa is underpolluted" (a statement he made in advocating for dumping toxic waste in developing countries); has said that children choose to work in sweatshops in Asia; and does not believe in the wage gap between men and women.

According to Women's Voices Women Vote, women overwhelmingly supported Obama--particularly unmarried women like me, who went for Obama by a 70 to 29 percent margin. (Married women supported Obama 50 to 47 percent; unmarried women with kids supported Obama 74 to 25 percent.) The strong pro-Obama turnout among women demonstrates two things: 1) The hysteria that Hillary Clinton was going to "destroy the Democratic Party" as silly women voted with their vaginas, not their brains, was dead wrong (as Melissa McEwan notes here); and 2) The new administration needs to pay attention to us. Surely there are candidates for these important positions that take women's rights--our right to birth control, our right to medically accurate sex education, our right to equal pay for equal work, and our right to choose--more seriously than these three.

"I think they're going to really try to crack down on guns and make it harder for people to try to purchase them," said Smith, 32, who taught all five of her children—ages 4 to 10—to shoot because the family relies on game for food.

Last month, as an Obama win looked increasingly inevitable, there were 62,000 more background checks for gun purchases than in October 2007, a 25 percent increase. And they were up about 8 percent for the year as of Oct. 26, according to the FBI.

It makes a kind of sense—Obama supports the assault weapons ban, voted for the Illinois handgun ban, voted to leave gun manufacturers open to lawsuits, and so on. All of which is fine. But if gun sales keep up this way, it might not matter.

Anybody holding stock in Smith and Wesson? Don't sell it for a couple of months.

I know it's crazy to highlight any of the dumbasses at the Free Republic, but in these first few days, I'm amazed by what they object to. In response to this part of the incoming administration's agenda, which calls for...

...a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start...

The Freepers are posting images from Nazi Germany and getting outraged on behalf of their children. Most insist their children will never do community service as long as they draw breath:

There is the little matter of the 13th Amendment, which bars compulsory servitude (otherwise known as “slavery”).

Pretty soon it’ll be time to change my name to Prisoner 668.

One more reason not to enroll our children in the pagan academies AKA socialist government schools.

Our first black President is mandating slavery for everyone.

My children will never comply, bring it on.

welcome to the new reich

We Jews are not so easily rounded up after The Holocaust. Pound sand, you totalitarian slavers.

Weirdly for Freepers, a few posters actually think this is a good idea, although they try to ease their neocon friends into the idea by saying that "a stopped clock is right twice a day" and talking about some Republicans who are in favor of the idea. These posters are, of course, immediately called trolls and socialists. If we can keep the far right protesting things like community service, there's a good chance the Republican Party will eventually become more moderate. And that's good news for all of us.

Listed as the government's agenda.

As Republicans survey the smoldering wreckage of the party of Lincoln and the inevitable reassessment occurs, here’s some free advice for them: stop lying about everything.

I don’t mean spinning and fudging and trying to put a good face on your policy positions. I mean stop lying as a first, middle and last resort about every last damn thing under the sun. If you think a specific tax proposal is a bad idea, just explain why, don’t paint anyone and everything who might think it is a good idea as a communist. Don’t call birth control abortion. Don’t paint opponents as lovers of sex offenders. If your opposition is pointing out that the Constitution needs to be upheld, don’t call them terrorist sympathizers. If Americans are concerned about the economy, don’t try to blame people who were in office 30 years ago.

Stop lying. If you can.

At the Westin Hotel, a crowd overflowed from the grand ballroom. As Obama spoke, people hollered, shrieked, and sobbed. "I can't recall anything like this," says Council Member Nick Licata. "Before, at events like this, it has always been old politicians, but look at this. This is a whole new generation."

Indeed, on the other side of the ballroom while Obama addressed the country, Angela Boone punctuated every break in Obama's cadence with a "Yes we can!"

"This is Martin Luther King's Dream," says Boone, who is African American. "Not just because he is African American, but because he is bi-racial. It is amazing to see a a room of people of different ethnicities," she says waving her hand over a sea of people. "I am so thankful to be alive to see this," she says.

Outside, thousands of revelers poured down Pike Street, hollering for Obama. The police stayed back.

"This is our generation's candidate," says Jeff Wood, 27. He did a flip and the crowd cheered. Thousands of people hit drums and danced in the brick paved streets under the Pike Place Market sign. "Every one of us is involved in this change."

"This is the first election I've felt like there was a candidate I could stand behind," says 23-year-old Lauren Fellows. "He stands for everything I stand for."

But enough of this. Today's theme is Hope and Change.

The polling site is in the basement of the church, well-lit and decorated with laughing toddlers spilling out of an adjacent daycare. At first we got lost, confused by green signs labeled "vote" pointing in two different locations. It turns out that one is pointing towards an elevator and another towards a flight of stairs. Democracy is for everyone.

Except our dipshit roommate, apparently.

Even though we’re an auto blog, we think that a vote in favor of light rain is not a vote against cars, but a vote to build much needed infrastructure. [...]

Nobody loves a 500 hp Viper that can tear across 520 in under 20 seconds as much as we do, but we also love the environment and our city even more. That’s why we’re supporting Prop 1.