Ridenbaugh Press/publishing

Adding to the growing list of quotables from new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele - quotables especially by Democrats - comes this one at his fundraising stopover in Portland today:

"At this moment, we have to acknowledge that their team has a better game plan, their team has the better players and their team has the winning way. What is important for us to do as a party is to adapt to the new realities that the Democrats have created very successfully."

That's the ra-ra spirit! You can just see those devoted Republicans pulling out the checkbooks after hearing that message . . .

Not that there isn't some truth to it. But then there was some truth in what he said about Rush Limbaugh too. At first: Before backing off and apologizing. Brace yourself for something similar, on this latest one, soon.

When it comes to voting in Washington state, the peculiar county is not oft-maligned King, but rather Pierce County - the only one of 39 where voting at physical polls can still be done. (Mail voting is optional.) All others vote, as Oregon does, by mail.

The Washington House has now passed - on a close vote, 54-43 - House Bill 1572, which would convert Washington to an all-mail-vote state, and do two other things: "Changes precinct sizes to not more than 2,000 active registered voters effective 2012. Allows the appointment of four precinct committee officers in precincts that have 2,000 or more active registered voters."

The Pierce County delegation was split, by the way. And the Tacoma News Tribune has an amusing sidelight: "George Walk, Pierce County lobbyist, told me that earlier this session he had to testify both for and against the bill when it was in committee. County Executive Pat McCarthy was in favor of all-mail voting (she’s the former election chief for the county) but the County Council was against it."

It's in the Senate Government Operations & Elections Committee now, awaiting action there.

Statement

“the freedom of Speech may be taken away — and, dumb & silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.” George Washington, 1783

“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” Louis D. Brandeis

Losing a shared vocabulary for the world’s problems, for the way we relate to one another and for current events may be the greatest threat to American society. Aaron Hanlon, 2018

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. F. Scott Fitzgerald

Gandhi’s Seven Sins: Wealth without work; Pleasure without conscience; Knowledge without character; Commerce without morality; Science without humanity; Worship without sacrifice; Politics without principle

if you can create an honorable livelihood, where you take your skills and use them and you earn a living from it, it gives you a sense of freedom and allows you to balance your life the way you want.“ Anita Roddick

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Mark 8:36 KJB

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Posts published in “Day: March 12, 2009”

Steele’s rousing . . . uh . . .

The outlier