Eye on Congress

The Seattle Medium, which purports to be the paper of Seattle's "African-American" (a term never used by the Party of Commons; see this link on "Ancestry and Politics") community, has never once invited me to a boardroom for an interview, or even called me on the telephone, during my eight years in politics in Washington, and yet they pronounce endorsements of candidates for various races without so much as a one sentence explanation for their choices.  When I ran for King County Council in 2009, they chose Republican Reagan Dunn instead of me and another candidate, but in this year's endorsements for state attorney general they said, in so many words, that Dunn showed no interest in the community that they mostly address (ditto for Dunn's main rival according to the Medium).  Now, in another of their endorsements this year, they are endorsing Brad Owen for Lt. Governor (they can't even spell his name correctly) without an iota of a reas...

Anybody who reads the Party of Commons' blogs knows that we're not big fans of the Barack Obama administration, so now that we have that qualifier out of the way, the propaganda about the so-called "Fast and Furious" case that the Republicans and FOX News are trying to make a scandal out of is little more than ridiculous.  They're saying that Attorney General Eric Holder was trying to use the "Fast and Furious" operation as some kind of grand scheme to implement gun control, presumably of the sort that was in place during the Clinton administration, as if this nation didn't need some common sense checks-and-balances on certain types of guns and the current gun policy.  Of course, we don't think that the Republicans really believe any of this, so we believe this is real propaganda.  Moreover, there are two problems with trying to create an election year scandal out of this case:  Number 1:  going by their record, the Obama ...

Since we last wrote, the one major colossus party, i.e., Democrats & Republicans, played musical chairs again for control of the national House of Representatives, with the Republican side now in predominance and officially taking control in early January, 2011. Interestingly, the American people chose the side that would most severely harm the interests of the masses, the Republicans, with a good number of their members more than willing to dismantle the long established New Deal & Great Society programs, namely, social security, unemployment insurance compensation, medicare, educational aid for college students, food support and what's left of federal support for impoverished dependent children (effectively demolished during Clinton's time except for grants to be administered by the states, thus poor children were left to the mercy of the various states), among others. Amazingly, in this New Gilded Age, where the top 1% in assets and income control a quarter of th...

Mark, besides running for King Co. Director of Elections for the 2011 election, is simultaneously running as a write-in candidate for state representative in District 41, Position 2. This write-in campaign is essentially a protest campaign that, among other things, is challenging the practices in the current King Co. Elections office which declared Mark's recent petition for state representative as ineffective. Unlike the Secretary of State's Office in Olympia in a prior election, this office effectively did not allow, among other dubious practices, a count of signatures several days before the time limit expired. The following paragraphs are issues related to the representative campaign. The funding of the state treasury to levels that would sustain the budget calls for the state to no longer be in the business of giving tax shelters and breaks to big business. This would save millions of dollars, and possibly billions. These affluent corporations could get along just f...

Mark Greene has decided to stay in the state representative race beyond the primary, whether he makes it on the ballot in November or he stays in as a write-in. Naturally, we support Mark Greene as a write-in for state representative, position no. 2, in the primary and, if necessary, as a write-in in the general. Please, contribute to Mark's write-in State Representative campaign (Aug. 17, 2010 Primary - 41st District) by sending check or money order to P.O. Box 612, Bellevue, WA 98009. Thank you! The Party of Commons does not sponsor or produce advertising. Copyright 2009 - 2010, Party of Commons TM

Party of Commons' chairman, Mark Greene, has been active in both local and national affairs. In 2007, he ran for City Council in Newcastle, and proposed that the city try to attract sustainable energy businesses to locate inside it, among other campaign ideas. Please, see the Seattle Times article in the comments section about the primary that year. The Party of Commons does not sponsor or produce advertising. Copyright 2009 - 2010, Party of Commons TM

In the wake of tragedy, some legislators in Washington are about to come up with a package of what to seems to be, at first glance, authoritarian and draconian criminal justice legislation. These bills may have been thought out in some form long ago by these legislators, and now they think 2010 is the right year to come out with their authoritarian ideas. "Commons" hasn't read any of the pre-session bills (just read previews of them), and not every bill in the hopper today or being considered is necessarily authoritarian (some may actually be sensible and needed), but along with the American Civil Liberties Union, we will be keeping a close watch on what's going on in Olympia. [revised on 12/27/09] The Party of Commons does not sponsor or produce advertising. Copyright 2009, Party of Commons TM