Dan Savage and his partner Terry Miller were among the first couples in King County, Washington to get a marriage license.

I love weddings, and I can't imagine a world where you weren't allowed to marry the person you loved. Thanks to the states that set that straight this year:

Hundreds of King County residents made history early Thursday by getting some of the state's first-ever marriage licenses for same-sex couples.

Lined around the county's downtown Seattle administration building, snaked through a winding queue and, finally, crammed into a processing room, the couples cried, shared love stories and passed around flowers.

Just after midnight, they rejoiced.

"I am so glad this night has finally arrived," County Executive Dow Constantine said of Washington's official recognition of same-sex marriages. "This has been a long struggle nationally and in our state."

Constantine, a longtime gay-marriage supporter, signed the first license at 12:01 a.m., when the voter-approved Referendum 74 formally took effect around the state. Recorder's Office staffers planned to stay open throughout the night and until 6:30 p.m. Thursday to accommodate as many gay and lesbian couples as possible.

More than 200 couples were in line to get licenses at midnight.

The first to actually receive them was a group of community leaders, including the acknowledged matriarchs of the movement in the state, West Seattle residents Pete-e Petersen and Jane Abbott Lighty.

"It's very humbling to be chosen first. We feel like we're representing a lot of people in the state who have wanted this for a long time," said Petersen, 85, who has been with Lighty for 35 years. "It's hard to explain the thrill that we are really going to get married."

Our "liberal media" here in Seattle is something else -- particularly the Republican-owned Seattle Times, which is astute enough to include a few liberal voices on its editorial page and among its columnists. Our TV stations are pure mush. And don't get me started on the subject of local talk radio.

The worst, though, has to be the Times. Because, those handful of liberals notwithstanding, its editorial content (especially its editorials) is relentlessly right-wing. This was embodied in their endorsement yesterday of Republican John Koster in Washington's new 1st Congressional District.

Indeed, their rationale was enough to make you laugh out loud:

We disagree with Koster on social issues, but in Congress right now, his fiscal viewpoint and elected experience are what’s needed.

Koster’s reputation and performance as the practical conservative who can articulate and act on those views and find common ground is needed and welcome.

Actually, Koster's "reputation and performance" make irrevocably clear that he is a Tea Party fanatic, a fiscal extremist who, in his six years in the state's Legislature, voted against five of six budgets. It's entirely predictable what he'll do if elected to the House: Sign up with the Tea Party caucus and immediately link arms with the bloc that has refused to pass any kind of jobs bill or face up to the problem of unemployment, simply because doing so would ensure a difficult re-election for President Obama, and who already tried to drive the American economy over the cliff with their brinkmanship on the debt ceiling.

And that's just on the fiscal side of things. Koster is so extreme on so many other issues -- particularly on abortion and education -- that the notion of him "finding common ground" with Democrats on anything is endlessly risible.

What the Times didn't tell its readers, though, is that Koster has a long history of far-right extremism -- not merely with the Tea Party, but back in the 1990s, with the far-right Patriot/militia movement.

The Times' softball profile of Koster made an oblique mention of this fact -- so we know that they have to be perfectly aware of all this:

His record also shows a steady streak of conservatism: He voted against five of six budgets and introduced legislation to allow a group of people in northern Snohomish County to secede and form a new county, "Freedom County."

Actually, it runs much, much deeper than that.

John Koster played a significant role in helping promote far-right "Patriot" movement property-rights organizing in the Puget Sound region in the 1990s – organizing that in many cases involved recruiting militias, extremist "sovereign citizen" schemes, and efforts at secession. Koster's role was important: As a state legislator, he introduced bills that promoted and legitimized the far-right agenda of these groups, particularly their efforts at forming new counties, carved out by "secession" from larger urban counties in western Washington.

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Most folks think of Washington as a solidly "blue" state full of Seattle-esque progressives, but unfortunately, that's really not the case. It's largely (though not entirely) true of the western side of the state, which is geographically and culturally divided by the Cascade Range. On the eastern side of the divide, as we saw during the outbreak of right-wing ugliness during the 2010 elections, things are decidedly very different.
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The Tea Party rules there. Most of the radios, it seems, are tuned to Rush Limbaugh, and Fox News plays in all the public spaces.

And it's white. Very, very white. It's that way throughout the interior Northwest. This whiteness was one of the reasons the Aryan Nations chose northern Idaho -- and by extension, eastern Washington -- for relocation from southern California in the 1970s.

Of course, eastern Washingtonians heatedly deny that there is any racism inherent in their cultural conservatism, that the violent activities and the ongoing presence of white racists in the region is purely accidental.

Now, the evidence provided by the results from the August 7 primary election in Washington have established, definitively, that anti-Latino racism is rampant in central and eastern Washington.

The evidence is apparent in a single peculiar race, that for the state's Supreme Court, Position 8. The only serious candidate, a fellow named Steve Gonzalez, wound up winning because he easily took the massive vote of western Washingtonians. His opponent, a fellow named Bruce Danielson, had not campaigned at all, had raised exactly $0 for his election, and was described as having "zero qualifications to be on the bench" by the head of his local bar association.

But in eastern Washington, Danielson won handily in every county, taking 29 in all. The obvious answer lay in the two men's names.

And it wasn't an ideological, Republican thing, either. A couple of University of Washington researchers delved the actual numbers from the election and reached the clear conclusion that race played a significant role in the voting patterns.

Paul Wissell at KPLU reports:

Racial bias did play a role in the primary election battle between Washington State Supreme Court Justice Steve Gonzalez and his challenger Bruce Danielson.

That’s the conclusion of research conducted by Matt Barreto, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington.

In the August primary, Justice Gonzalez was re-elected to the court by an overwhelming margin. But in some areas of the state, Danielson, who didn’t even campaign, drew a surprisingly high number of votes.

The suspicion has been that race played a factor, that many voters passed over the Hispanic name of Gonzalez to choose Danielson because he was white.

Barreto, who reviewed voting patterns in every precinct in the state, says the evidence proves that was true.

“What we found was that in central and eastern Washington, in particularly in Yakima and Grant counties, that there was a very high degree of racial bloc voting. That meant that in very heavily white precincts Danielson did exceptionally well winning as much as 75 percent of the vote," Barreto said.

And Barreto says it wasn’t just whites who voted in a bloc. In heavily Hispanic precincts in Yakima, Gonzalez garnered as much as 70 percent of the vote.

Eli Sanders at The Stranger has more:

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Following a tip, I began looking around recently for the federal Financial Disclosure Statements for the Democratic candidates involved in Washington's 1st Congressional District primary race, the election for which will be next week (but for which mail-in voting is currently under way).

But when I contacted the office the Clerk of the U.S. House, where these statements are filed, I was told that DelBene had not filed any Financial Disclosure Statement for 2011.

This is most peculiar. These statements are in fact required by law -- the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, which clearly states:

Title I of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978, as amended (5 U.S.C. app. 4 §§ 101-111) (EIGA) requires Members, officers, certain employees of the U.S. House of Representatives and related offices, and candidates for the House of Representatives to file Financial Disclosure Statements with the Clerk of the House of Representatives.

…

Individuals are required to file a Financial Disclosure Statement once they qualify as a candidate by raising or spending more than $5,000 in a campaign for election to the House of Representatives.

It is, in fact, a federal felony to fail to meet these requirements, punishable by heavy fines of up to $50,000 and, in the case of falsification, jail time. (See Page 9.)

Yet we know, from the forms that she filed with the Federal Elections Commission, that Suzan DelBene spent well over $5,000 in 2011 on her campaign for Congress in 2012.

We also know, from looking at the first quarter 2011 report, that she was designating these expenditures as going toward the 2012 primary (see the check boxes on the individual listings beginning on Page 6), as they were indeed for all the subsequent FEC filings for 2011.

We also know that, beginning in the fall of 2011, she began paying a salary to her campaign's finance chief (see Page 6).

It was kind of a startling and disturbing discovery. Why would a major candidate for federal office even run the risk of being investigated for this?

So I wrote to the DelBene campaign last Thursday and asked them to explain it. Here's my letter:

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Hey, remember Matt Shea?

Sure you do. He’s the Spokane legislator who appeared at a 2009 Idaho “Freedom Festival” with a clutch of antigovernment fanatics that included Schaeffer Cox, the militia leader who last month was found guilty of heading a conspiracy to kill, kidnap, and terrorize Alaska law enforcement officials.

Well, Shea’s still in office, and these days he’s gunning for a third term in Washington’s legislature.

That’s not all he’s gunning for. According to documents recently unearthed by the Spokesman-Review, the bellicose Tea Party darling last November pulled a gun on another motorist during a “road rage” confrontation in Spokane.

Apparently, Shea was among several drivers to call 911 to report “erratic” and aggressive driving by a Chevy Lumina in Spokane on Nov. 23. Meanwhile,

Leroy Norris, the driver of the Lumina, called police to report he had been driving on Monroe when a pickup truck cut him off and he had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision. He honked his horn, made some “aggressive lane changes” with the pickup, and the driver of that vehicle “flipped him off.” The driver of the pickup pulled a handgun from the passenger side of the car and pointed it at him, he said. He “freaked out” and drove away “crazy” because he thought his life was in danger, he added.

Norris called the police at Monroe and Fourth Avenue and said he lost the pickup at about 14th Avenue.

Shea also called police to report the driver of the Lumina, and the investigating officer contacted him several hours later. Shea said he “may or may not have cut someone off” but said the driver of the Lumina at one point made a beeline for the front of his vehicle. He gave the officer the same license plate number for the Lumina as Jasper did.

Shea “thought he was being targeted due to his work,” the officer wrote in his report, and admitted pulling a handgun out of the glove box, which the other driver could have seen.

The officer asked to see the gun. “During our conversation, the defendant admitted to letting his concealed weapons permit expire several years ago,” the officer wrote. Shea asked about the law on carrying concealed weapons and the officer produced a copy for him to read, then told him it was illegal to have a loaded gun in his vehicle with no permit.

“His mouth became very dry (Cotton Mouth) as we continued to discuss the violation,” the officer wrote. “It was obvious to me he was extremely nervous …”.

The gun was seized, the article says, and at the time Shea was cited for two violations: “having a loaded gun in his vehicle without a valid permit and drawing a firearm ‘under circumstances and at a time and place that warrants alarm for the safety of other persons,’” both misdemeanors in Washington.

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Congratulations, Washington State! On Monday, Governor Christine Gregoire signed legislation legalizing same sex marriage between couples in the state.

Via SeattlePI:

Gregoire's voice broke as she descrbed conversations with her two daughters, who told her that marriage equality was "the civil rights issue of their generation . . . Thank you to that younger generation and my two daughters."

The governor presided at a ceremony in Olympia, joined by legislative leaders and the longtime same-sex partners of such lawmakers as Sen. Ed Murray and Reps. Jamie Pedersen and Laurie Jinkins.

The law goes into effect on June 7, unless opponents succeed in gathering 120,577 valid voter signatures to force a referendum in November. If so, marriage equality would be held up pending a decision by Washington voters.

She's right. In a few more years, people will wonder what the big deal is. My 17-year old daughter does not understand why people want to bar committed same-sex couples from affirming their commitment legally and publicly. The difference? She understands because she has long-term friendships with gay friends. The ignorance factor just doesn't exist.

Of course, this will not stop the haters from trying as hard as they can to pull a Proposition 8 move in Washington State. They're already launching their campaign, and I'm sure they've got plenty of help from the Mormon and Catholic church members in that state.

Ex-Sen. Rick Santorum, a scathing critic of marriage equality, will meet this afternoon in Olympia with opponents of the bill Gregoire signed into law. The Republican presidential candidate holds a rally with supporters tonight at the Washington State History Museum in Tacoma.

The Family Policy Institute and the Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle had asked followers to call on Gregoire to veto the marriage equality bill. A statement by diocesan bishops, critical of the law, was included Sunday in Catholic parish bulletins.

The Family Policy Institute is one of NOM's front groups and regularly emits fits of hysteria over same sex marriage. They also really like using culture war issues like this to try and get out the vote for conservative candidates. It's a common tactic of theirs.

Stand firm, Washington State, and in the meantime, congratulations to all of the couples waiting to get married. I look forward to seeing wedding albums.

The labor movement is alive and growing in Washington State, as thousands slept over for a third night to protest proposed budget cuts:

OLYMPIA, Wash. - Thousands of union members from all over Washington poured into the state Capitol Friday, calling on lawmakers to "put people first" by ending corporate tax breaks and painful cuts to public programs.

The protest was by far the largest of four days of boisterous demonstrations in Olympia over spending cuts legislators are considering in order to help close a looming $5 billion budget deficit for the next two-year cycle.

Buses began arriving at the Capitol hours before the noon rally, carrying musicians, iron workers, firefighters and others concerned about the scarcity of jobs, the rising cost of college and the security of their pensions. The Washington State Patrol estimated 7,000 people gathered outside the main legislative building, while labor group leaders put the figure closer to 12,000.

Protesters said they hoped the demonstration would serve as a powerful reminder to lawmakers of who their decisions are affecting as they work to craft the state's next two-year budget. The House plans to vote Friday or Saturday on a budget plan that includes $4.4 billion in cuts, while the Senate will introduce its own proposal next week.

"We need to remind them that we need changes right now, not later," said Tim Haslett, an electrical worker and father of five from Seattle who has been unemployed for most of the past two years. "I'm trying to do everything I can to pay for my youngest daughter to go to college next year, but I don't know how I'm going to be able to do that if there are no jobs."

"We do not have a budget deficit," Jeff Johnson, president of the Washington State Labor Council, one of the rally's main organizers, told the crowd. "We have a social services deficit, we have a jobs deficit, we have a revenue deficit, and we have a deficit of leadership."

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Whew! Our friend Sen. Patty Murray has managed to pull out her re-election:

Murray's win over Republican Dino Rossi was confirmed Thursday as tallies pushed her lead to about 46,000 votes out of more than 1.8 million counted, or about 51 percent to 49 percent. About three-quarters of the expected ballots had been counted in unofficial returns.

Though many ballots still await processing, but an Associated Press analysis determined Murray's lead would be insurmountable.

"Now we have to get to work," Murray said Thursday night. "I want to make sure Washington state has what it needs to get its economy back on its feet." Rossi conceded defeat.

Of course, it's tempting to simply gloat over Rossi's loss, which is now his third straight narrow defeat for statewide office. Considering what a slimy git he is, one can't help being relieved that he is finally probably all done, washed up in politics after striking out a third time. But hey -- considering his record, maybe we shouldn't be so eager. After all, he could become Washington's own mini-version of Harold Stassen and run again in two years for Maria Cantwell's seat. Go for the Golden Sombrero, dude!

But there are more important lessons to be drawn from this. The first and most important: Murray won not by running away from progressive Democratic values -- unlike the Blue Dogs and other Democrats who got wiped out Tuesday night by trying to proffer up Republican Lite agendas -- but by avidly embracing them.

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This week's head-stomping of a liberal protester by a Rand Paul campaign official in Kentucky, as we noted at the time, really brought into sharp focus a gathering trend toward violence, threats and intimidation by right-wing activists toward their opponents that we've seen reach new depths these past few weeks:

-- Mentally unstable nutcases threatening liberal campaigners in Washington state, Illinois and Vermont.

-- A swastika-laden white-powder-terrorism attack on a Democratic congressman's offices.

-- Thugs hired by the Republican candidate in Alaska roughing up and handcuffing a reporter for asking questions at a public event.

-- Violent gunmen targeting liberal organizations after being inspired by right-wing talk-show hosts.

-- Republican congressional candidates who insist that a violent overthrow of the government is "on the table" if the 2010 Election fails to produce the desired right-wing takeover of Congress.

But of course, these are all "isolated incidents" that have nothing to do with each other, right?

Adam H. Shah at Media Matters compiled an even more exhaustive list from the past couple of years (though even it omits some incidents). Likewise, here's a helpful-if-not-100%-complete Google map of right-wing violent incidents of the past six months.

Amanda Terkel has noticed, too:

"It's been quite amazing over the last couple months, but really over the last two years," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups and extremism. "I'd date this, in many ways, to the rise to power of Obama. Many people we saw coming with AR-15s to town halls and so on, and all of that. But I do think that it's gotten even hotter out there. I think the reaction to the stomping of that woman's head has been quite amazing. The idea that the guy could say that he needed an apology and that he's not being condemned by the political class from sea to shining sea is astounding."

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We're going to have to start calling it a "Hannity Job": If you're a Republican candidate, you can go on TV, get free airtime, and get stroked by Sean Hannity! All thanks to Fox News, the Republican propaganda network that puts it money where its mouths are.

Last night it was Dino Rossi's turn. Rossi is the Establishment Republican who actually managed to defeat the Tea Party candidate in Washington state, and he's giving Sen. Patty Murray -- a steady progressive vote from the Northwest, and a player on the Appropriations Committee -- a run for her money. A few things went unmentioned, as usual, including the fact that the state's Tea Party candidate, Clint Didier, refused to endorse Rossi. (Rossi declined when Didier demanded he pay obeisance to the Tea Party agenda.) And then there's Rossi's millions made from foreclosures after the housing bubble burst.

You see, there's a reason Dino Rossi wasn't a favorite of the Tea Party crowd: He ain't no populist.

As TPM reported last summer:

Rossi's day job entails very publicly helping rich people profit off the misfortune of those unlucky enough to have obtained a mortgage in the last four years or so. And that's leaving some in Washington a little confused about his priorities.

Rossi is a former gubernatorial nominee, and national Republicans are stoked about him now that he's decided to run for Senate against incumbent Sen. Patty Murray (D). Sticking with the job he had before he announced his candidacy, Rossi has decided stay on as the headline speaker for a series of seminars advising real estate speculators on how to profit off the collapsed mortgage market. Today, his spokeperson told Salon that he plans do more before he's done.

The Democrats are reminding voters, too:

We'll be hosting Senator Murray here for a live chat Thursday the 7th from 5 to 6 p.m. Be sure to tune in. And be prepared to help out if you can. Her seat is one of the important ones.