A sign of trouble in the effort to re-elect Supreme Court Justice Richard B. Sanders? From an e-mail sent just an hour ago:

Dear Friends:

The campaign has been hit by an outrageous “October surprise” and we need your help to fight back.

As you may know, the Seattle Times ran a front page article accusing Richard of racism because he said in a meeting about prison populations that blacks commit more crimes than whites, disproportionate to their population.

It’s a simple truth and everyone, African-American or white, knows that it is true. But it is politically incorrect to say so.

The Seattle Times was outraged and withdrew their endorsement of Richard Sanders.

Recently, Justice Richard Sanders’ opponent has tried to make political hay out of it, sending out e-mails castigating Sanders.

This is just another example of how Justice Sanders is being persecuted for not being politically correct and going along with the status quo.

Justice Sanders has always been an independent thinker who believes that no one should be unfairly prosecuted or imprisoned. Justice is color blind.

The Times delivered $50,000 of bad publicity to Justice Sanders only days after the ballots were mailed. We have to fight back as quickly as we can. With less than a week left, we’re turning to you for your help.

Please make a contribution now of $500, $1,000 or whatever you can afford—$100. Right now, online

A statement from the esteemed King County Bar Association:

The King County Bar Association has found that statements made by Seattle Municipal Court Judge Edsonya Charles in her campaign for re-election violate the bar association's rules for fair campaign practices.

"Judge Charles' media publications and public statements give misleading impressions about her opponent that are in violation of the bar's rules for judicial campaign conduct, " said Andrew Prazuch, KCBA Executive Director. "We believe Judge Charles' statements, including statements by her campaign organization, that her opponent is improperly affiliated with, and if elected, would be beholden to, the DUI defense bar and related organizations, inappropriately create the impression that justice can be bought and call into question the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary. We also concluded that her statement that she is a better candidate due to her tough stance on drunk driving is improper."

Some of the mud that's been tossed around in this campaign is described here. More from the KCBA after the jump.

Recently, city officials in Seattle and Bellevue shot off angry letters to King County Councilmember Julia Patterson, objecting to a plan to use taxpayer money slated for flood-preventing projects to instead fund fire department services in several cities. Seattle officials are specifically hot under the collar because legitimate flood projects—like replacing the seawall—aren't even on the county radar, and are planning to lobby county officials to include $30 million for seawall construction costs at an upcoming November 1 meeting (more on that later).

To fully understand this issue of fire departments versus seawalls, I need to type three words that never fail to excite policy freaks and government fetishists: Flood Control District. Now, two more: property taxes. Hot yet? Gently aroused? Still dry as a desert dune? (Me, too.)

But, actually, you should be hot about this one (or gently aroused. Whatever). Here's why: King County taxpayers are being asked to help foot the bill for fire department services in eight towns across King County—including Redmond, Auburn, and Maple Valley. The money will come out of funds from the Flood Control District, which collects roughly $35 million annually in property taxes to protect residents from flooding rivers, dams, and other acts of God (the funds also go to stupid things, like buying houses that should've never been built in flood plains next to rivers).

Officials here are pissed because even though these funds are largely paid by Seattle taxpayers, the funds are routinely spent on river and floodplain infrastructure—and now fire services—instead of on projects like repairing the crumbling infrastructure of Seattle's aging seawall.

"Replacing the seawall is easily one of the region's most important infrastructure projects—it's a public safety project and it helps generate billions of dollars in economic activity," says Rob Gala, a spokesman for the Seattle Office of Intergovernmental Relations. Seattle wants $30 million from the Flood Control District to help cover seawall construction costs in 2013 and 2014. And yet while the Flood Control District finalizes drafts its budget for the next six years, "the seawall isn't currently on their to-do list."

Seattle doesn't sit in the Green River flood plain or the shadow of the Howard Hansen dam, like some other cities that pay into the Flood Control District fund, but property taxes generated by Seattle residents contribute roughly $12 million to the fund. "Meanwhile, we're getting back 16 cents on the dollar," explains Aaron Pickus, spokesman for the mayor. "The committee is using our taxpayer money to fund fire services for other municipalities while we're facing drastic cuts to services ourselves. We're bailing them out."

And fire services are not sandbags. They're fire-control measures. Not flood-control measures. But Patterson, who oversees the advisory committee in charge of the funds, says that without the bailout, the $35 million could disappear altogether.

More exhaustive coverage of sandbags, seawalls, and flooding after the jump.

• Mark Kaufman

Everyone's obsessing about the House and Senate, House and Senate, House and Senate. All well and good—control of Congress matters quite a bit in D.C.—but what about that little house and senate down in Olympia? Who will control its chambers after November 2? And: What will it all mean?

Get the answers HERE.

The always high-minded commenters over at Fox Nation are extremely sympathetic to the plight of the Kentucky woman who was protesting the Rand Paul pep rally for MoveOn.org, and was viciously attacked. Wait a second... actually they're not sympathetic at all.

Hat tips to Buzzfeed!