Archives for June 2009

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5-mX1OLdOs[/youtube]

I’ll just watch the river flow.

Lots of medical marijuana news recently. Here’s a recap:

– Andy Hobbs writes in the Federal Way Mirror about the shortcomings of our state’s medical marijuana law along with the situation that patients and providers find themselves in as a result. There will be a part 2 posted later. UDPATE: Here’s part 2.

– The Tri-Cities Herald printed an interesting editorial suggesting that the way to solve Washington’s medical marijuana supply problems is to have the police supply patients with marijuana confiscated through drug raids. As Russ Belville points out, this is not a new idea, and it’s one that has been rejected by police agencies. It’s also not a very good idea in the first place. Medical marijuana patients should be getting marijuana that’s being grown by people who know what they’re doing, not from the police evidence locker where they can’t verify the age, purity, strain, etc.

The main obstacle to states establishing these kinds of distribution systems has been the federal government. That’s the reason why California’s loosely regulated system of dispensaries had been so loosely regulated. If a city or county documented a bunch of information about their operations, the DEA would simply obtain those records and shut down the operation. Any state that tried too hard to set up their own system put themselves in a position where the DEA and DOJ could quickly dismantle it.

But the entire dynamic may be changing. Attorney General Holder reiterated that the Obama Administration intends to respect state laws on medical marijuana, meaning that states should be free to establish their own systems for growing and distributing marijuana to patients without federal interference. New Mexico has been at the forefront of this, trying since 2007 to establish state authorized providers. Even with those reassurances from the Obama Administration, the initial state-authorized dispensary in Santa Fe was nervous about being named in news reports for fear that the DEA will move to shut them down.

– In Rhode Island this week, their state Senate voted 30-2 to legalize medical marijuana dispensaries. The answer to the dilemma raised in the Herald editorial is to move in the same direction as Rhode Island and New Mexico and establish more secure avenues for allowing medical marijuana patients to obtain their medicine from state-approved growers who grow specifically for patients. That the Rhode Island legislature can vote nearly unanimously to move in this direction while the Washington legislature is doing absolutely nothing about our clearly broken system just re-emphasizes the fact that we have a testicular deficiency in Olympia.

– UCLA-based anti-drug researcher Dr. Donald Tashkin now supports the legalization of marijuana. Tashkin is most well-known for conducting a study funded by the National Institute of Health, where he hypothesized that there’d be a definitive link between marijuana smoking and lung cancer, but discovered that there was “no association and even a suggestion of some protective effect”. Caren Woodson from Americans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana advocacy group in California, writes about some recent studies done on the use of marijuana for alleviating the pain associated with HIV/AIDS.

– Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty vetoed what would have been the most restrictive state medical marijuana law in the country. The legislature approved the bill after hearing some compelling testimony from patients and relatives. It’s been speculated that Pawlenty’s decision was made with an eye for a Presidential run in 2012, but it’s not entirely clear that vetoing the bill was the smarter move when nearly 3/4 of the American public supports medical marijuana laws. Instead, it may be a good indication of how detached the groupthink of the Republican leadership is from the reality of what the average American cares about.

– California dispensary operator Charles Lynch was sentenced to a year in prison. Many had hoped that since dispensary owners like Lynch are no longer being targeted under the Obama Administration that they’d support Judge George Wu’s request for leniency from the mandatory minimum sentencing restrictions.

As Publicola reported yesterday, Dow Constantine went on the offensive in the King County Executive race (or at least as offensive as the mild-mannered councilman can get), insisting that the politically reclusive Susan Hutchison has “an obligation to voters” to explain her positions to voters.

Calling her “pleasant” but “far to the right of the electorate of King County,” Constantine said, “that’s fine, everybody has a right to their political opinions, but if you’re holding yourself out as a candidate for the highest office in King County, you have an obligation to voters to tell them where you stand.”

Constantine wanted to know where Hutchison stood on a women’s right to choose—which he said was a relevant issue for King County Executive because King County Health runs health clinics, like one in White Center, that counsel low-income women on pregnancy issues.

Not surprisingly, Hutchison took umbrage at Constantine citing her many conservative Republican bona fides, loudly complaining to the Seattle P-I’s Chris Grygiel:

“This is inexcusable. In sum total he’s accused me of being an extremist and I’m a moderate.”

But when asked what she would say to voters to demonstrate her self-proclaimed moderation, Hutchison demurred:

“I don’t have to say anything to the voters,” said Hutchison, a long-time local television personality. “They’ve known me for 20 years on the air. They’ve known me for another seven years as someone who has served in the community.”

Really, Susan? You’re running for countywide office… essentially the equivalent of being the governor of a small state… and you honestly believe that you don’t have to say anything to the voters? That’s your final answer?

On second thought, perhaps holing Hutchison up in an undisclosed location is in fact the best political strategy her Republican handlers can reasonably devise, considering the arrogant, haughty and uninformed candidate they’re working with.

The bidness guys ‘n gals are truly excited about potentially reducing health care costs that affect their bottom line. Well, not really.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it will spend $100 million in an effort to stem the “rapidly growing influence of government over private-sector activity,” in a major new move by the powerful business group to counter the Obama administration’s regulatory agenda.

Because regulation would lead to horrible things like rationing, high overhead costs and bureaucracy, none of which exist in the current system. Most private insurance plans are simple, comprehensive and cover pre-existing conditions and specialist visits with little or no hassle.

Obama could come up with a proposal that costs them each one cent per year, drops manna from the skies and gives them eternal youth and three hour and fifty nine minute erections, and they would still hate him because manna represents “socialism.”

Tribes must stick together, no matter the little kiddies with teeth rotting out and old folks losing their houses after illnesses. Neo-liberalism may be dead as a doornail, but until the very serious people who destroyed the economy actually understand what has happened, which will be never, moving forward will be a slow slog.

You wouldn’t want to wind up with a crazy-quilt, nonsensical insurance system that places arbitrary hurdles in front of people, that would be terrible.

The World Health Organization declared a swine flu pandemic today, raising the global H1N1 alert level to six, on a six-point scale. It’s been 41 years since the last pandemic, the Hong Kong flu, killed about a million people worldwide.

While WHO is urging people not to panic, emphasizing that the declaration represents the virus’s global spread, not it’s severity, DemFromCT (in a lengthy post on Daily Kos that is really worth the read) argues that we should take full advantage of this teaching moment:

While the media includes “don’t panic’ overtly or subtly in every message they put out, complacency is a bigger danger than panic, and the right thing to do is to keep talking about it and bore the hell out of everyone until it’s routine to wash your hands, cover your cough and stay home for seven days from onset (or 24 hours of no fever if longer than seven days) before you go back to work or send your kids out to infect everyone else. And if you think ahead, you’ll stock up on what you need to stay in the house for a week (or two) in case you’re too sick to go out.

Even if, as it appears at the moment, H1N1 proves no more severe than the typical seasonal flu, its novel make up gives it the potential to infect many more people. Seasonal flu typically kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people worldwide; if the number of flu cases were to double or triple, the number of fatalities would rise proportionately.

Wash your hands.

I upgraded to Safari 4 last night, and at least on my MacBook, it’s like getting a whole new computer for free. Really.  It’s that much faster.

I don’t normally write about tech stuff here on HA, but I mean, wow.

A while back, Will set up a Facebook group for Friends of the King County Fairy District, motto: “Making King County FIRST in mythical sprite-based transportation solutions.” Silly, but kinda funny.

Well today he gets an email from King County asking him to remove the county logo, as it’s for “official county use only.” Sheesh.

Will’s planning to comply, though personally I’d be more afraid of a midnight visit from Disney stormtroopers; the Mouse doesn’t take too kindly to folks tinkering with Tinker. But, well, whatever.

Last November we were told that changing to nonpartisan races in King County would be good for Democracy. So the filing deadline passed last week, and for the executive race there’s going to be some heated competition. But look at the situation in the rest of the King County races:

Sheriff Sue Rahr and County Councilmembers Bob Ferguson, Kathy Lambert, Julia Patterson and Pete von Reichbauer will be unopposed. Councilmember Reagan Dunn will face Party of Commons candidate Mark Greene and financial-services trainer Beverly Harison Tonda.

Woo, feel the white hot heat of competition. 1 race where there’s any contest at all, and I’ve never heard of Greene or Tonda (not saying they aren’t pillars of their community, but as a Seattle boy with North King County and Vashon roots, I don’t know anything about either of them). Now, in a year when none of the incumbents left, there wasn’t going to be a bumper crop of candidates. Still I think there are a few recent developments that heighten the power of incumbency:

We’re a 1 paper town now. As much as the blogs and weeklies and the online Pig’s Eye are picking up some slack, in many ways if the Times doesn’t cover a story, that story doesn’t happen. If you’re an aspiring candidate trying to break news that a lot of people are going to see, you have the TV, or the Times, and neither is probably going to be particularly good at in depth coverage of County Council races.

But more interesting to me, as a partisan hack is that the parties have less of a dog in these fights. Oh sure, we all know whose the Democrat in nonpartisan races and whose the Republican, and will long after the people elected with letters after their names have left office. Still, there’s less institutional incentive for the Republicans to find some suburban business person to take on Ferguson or for the Democrats to find someone to fight the good fight on the Eastside. For all the bashing of parties that we do here in Washington and in the West, they play a vital role in recruiting and supporting candidates, and I wish in King County we hadn’t decided to pretend otherwise.

Following up on yesterday’s post comparing the cojones of Oregon Democrats to the relative lack thereof in their Washington counterparts (“Oregon Dems play ball; Washington Dems lack ‘em“), the Oregon House passed two bills yesterday raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. The two tax increases would bring in a combined $733 million over the 2009-2011 biennium, softening cuts to education by filling in a sizeable chunk of Oregon’s estimated $4 billion revenue shortfall.

The bills have already passed out of committee in the Senate, where they are widely expected to pass. And…

Pleased by the votes, Gov. Ted Kulongoski said the measures “will not solve our budget shortfalls, but they will help thousands of Oregonians during this very trying economic period. … I look forward to signing these measures into law.”

It is interesting to note that by raising income taxes from the current top rate of 9 percent to 10.8 percent on household incomes over $250,000 a year, and 11 percent on household incomes over $500,000, Oregon’s HB 2649 will have a similar impact on the wealthy as would have the high-earners income tax pushed by advocates like me during Washington’s previous session, which in most iterations would have imposed a 2 to 3 percent tax on household incomes over $250,000 a year.  Likewise, Oregon and Washington both have super-majority requirements for passing tax increases, both have an initiative and referendum process that would likely subject any tax increase to a vote of the people, and both faced similar sized deficits as a percentage of their overall budgets.

Yet Oregon Democrats chose to raise taxes to help soften devastating budget cuts—never a popular thing to do—while Washington Democrats refused to even seriously debate the option.  Huh.

I’m not sure how to explain the cultural differences between the Democratic caucuses in these two neighboring Northwest states, that leads one to legislate boldly in the interests of their constituents while the other remains timidly enthralled to the status quo. But I am increasingly becoming convinced that there is only one option available to Washington progressives who seek accountability and responsiveness from the Democratic legislators we work so hard to elect. And it’s a lesson, ironically, we may need to learn from Oregon’s Republicans.

The Oregon tax bills passed by 37-23 margin, just barely within the three-fifths majority necessary. But with one Dem voting nay, the measure would have failed without the support of two Republicans who crossed over to approve the measures.  And as Carla reports on Blue Oregon, such breaks in party discipline don’t sit well with Oregon Republicans who are now on the warpath against their two traitorous colleagues.

“I think they’ve left the team and it wouldn’t surprise me if they have strong opponents in the primary” next year, said Oregon Republican Chairman Bob Tiernan.

On top of that, Tiernan said it was “probably likely” that the state GOP would actually wind up helping defeat Smith and Jenson in next year’s party primary.

Tax activist Russ Walker, who heads the Oregon chapter of FreedomWorks and is vice chairman of the state GOP, has helped take out two Republican incumbents in past years who voted with Democrats in primary. Rep. Vic Backlund, R-Keizer, was beat in 2004 and Sen. Charles Starr, R-Hillsboro, lost in 2006.

“I swear to God they will not come back to this building,” said Walker. “Those guys are not reflecting the values of those who put them in those seats.”

Not that moving the state party even further to the right is the best electoral prescription for what ails Oregon Republicans, but from a Machiavellian perspective you gotta at least admire the GOP’s traditional enforcement of party discipline. Perhaps Greg Smith (R-Heppner) and Bob Jenson (R-Pendleton) believe their party is too weak at the moment to extract its usual revenge, or perhaps they truly care enough about education to risk the inevitable, but there’s a reason so few Republicans tend to cross the aisle on contentious votes, particularly those involving tax increases.

Democrats, on the other hand, we’re all over the place, which is partially due to the fact that we really are a big tent party (herding cats and all that), and partially due to the fact that progressives tend to be, by nature, substantially less vindictive than our counterparts on the right. Organized labor got absolutely screwed by Dems during Washington’s recent legislative session, but talk to them about their threats to withhold money from caucus committees and it’s like… you know… we’ll see how the 2010 session goes.

Way to hold their feet to the fire, guys.

The fact is, Democratic legislators, at least here in Washington state, simply aren’t afraid of disappointing the progressive base of the party because they know that there aren’t any consequences. Serious, well-financed Democratic primary challenges come less often than Seattle snowstorms, and they are never backed by the Party itself. Hell, we can’t even take out Sen. Tim Sheldon. So what does a Democratic incumbent have to fear?

I heard plenty of grumbling during the past session about conservative stances from swing district, suburban Democrats, or about the BIAW-toadying leadership of House Speaker Frank Chopp, but honestly, they’re not the main problem. Swing district Dems come from swing districts, and when averaged together, broadly tend to represent the often conflicting interests of their broad constituencies. And as Speaker, Chopp’s job is in fact to build and maintain a strong Democratic majority, a job he’s admittedly done efficiently, even if progressives like me have legitimate complaints about his failure to use it.

No, the legislators who have most let down the progressive base are generally those who hail from safe, Democratic and overwhelmingly progressive districts. You know, mostly Seattle and other largely urban strongholds. Whatever their values or their votes, as a block, they simply aren’t delivering, either within caucus deliberations or on the floor. And whether this failure is due to caution, competence or ideology, this block will continue to disappoint until we either replace them with legislators who are willing and able to effectively represent our interests, or the fear of such replacements forces them to step up their game to the next level.

Of course, our main focus should be on recruiting and supporting strong candidates in races for open seats—not the annointed or the same-old, same-old party faithful who would only deliver more of the same, and not the politics as usual kinda  single-issue advocates who so often fail to be effective on the broader progressive agenda. (One can’t help but admire Chopp’s passionate advocacy on behalf of affordable housing, but… well… you know.) No, what we need are smart, passionate, creative, fearlessly independent progressives, unbeholden to the party or any particular faction thereof, who are eager to use the safety their districts provide to pursue a broad and boldly progressive agenda.

You know, the kinda legislators who aren’t afraid to talk taxes regardless of how loudly the leadership yells “Shhhhhh!”

But… seats don’t open up all that often, so if we progressives really want our Democrats to be responsive to our needs, we need to primary a few of our own, and we need to do so with such an overwhelming show of force that future primary threats are taken damn seriously. When safe Democrats understand that they’re only safe from Republicans, perhaps they’ll start paying more than just lip service to our concerns.

This isn’t a tactic to which I’ve come lightly, and I fully understand the logistical and electoral challenge it represents. Way back in 2004 I ridiculed SEIU for failing to take out a little old lady in what I thought at the time was a misguided effort to primary Rep. Helen Sommers.  (But then, I also described Joni Balter as “one of Seattle’s more thoughtful and evenhanded political commentators,” so what did I know?) But a lot of things have changed since then, not the least of which being the near super-majorities Democrats have since won in both the House and the Senate.

With plenty of cushion and few opportunities for expansion, spending electoral resources primarying Dems in safe districts does not represent the same sort of politically self-destructive in-fighting it might during leaner times. Indeed, without a viable Republican opposition to pick off the weak links and keep Democrats on their toes, one can reasonably argue that we’re in desperate need of a little intramural competition to keep our party lean and fit. In politics as in other pursuits, combatants tend to rise to the level of the competition; the Republican caucus is currently in a woeful state, and the Democratic majority has arguably responded accordingly.

So while I know Frank, Lisa and others might not like my harsh prescription, they’ve done little to convince me it isn’t needed nonetheless.

The Washington Post reports that three people have been shot at the National Holocaust Museum.

A security guard and two other people were shot today inside the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in downtown Washington, authorities said.

U.S. Park Police said a gunman armed with a shotgun opened fire on the security guard and that other security guards returned fire. The gunman was reported wounded.

The shooting was reported to police at 12:52 p.m., and officers rushed to the scene just south of Independence Ave. bordering the Mall.

Details are still sketchy, and we have no idea what was behind this incident, but it’s certainly troubling.

UPDATE 11:07 AM PDT– NBC’s Pete Williams has reported on-air that authorities are identifying the suspected assailant as one James W. von Brunn, whose apparent web site at first glance seems to be um, rather sick. So if you don’t like Jewish-conspiracy right wing nutball supremacist crap, don’t go there.

NBC also reported that von Brunn is believed to have been born in 1920.

UPDATE 1:15 PM PDT–Both MSNBC and CNN have reported on air that one museum security officer has died of his injuries. What a sad and tragic event.

It’s Tuesday evening, which means that the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets for an evening of politics under the influence. The festivities take place at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at 8:00 pm. Or stop by early for some dinner.

For tonight’s post-partisan moment, we’ll join Newt Gingirch in channeling Ali G.:


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI-uOiO2_v4[/youtube]

Not in Seattle? The Drinking Liberally web site has dates and times for 332 chapters of Drinking Liberally sprinkled liberally across the globe.

The Oregon Senate passed SB 519 yesterday, by a 16-14 margin, a bill that prohibits employers from holding mandatory meetings to discuss religion, politics or union organizing. Sound familiar? It was a similar bill that got Washington Democratic leaders so flustered last session that they actually called the cops on the unions in the cynical, insulting and cowardly ploy they used to justify tabling the controversial measure.

It’s not clear what prospects the bill faces in the Oregon House; more than a few Democratic senators only voted for it reluctantly, and Oregon Democrats don’t hold nearly the majority their counterparts enjoy in the Washington legislature. But at least they let it come to the floor for a vote instead of fucking over one of their core constituencies.

Over the past few weeks one house or the other of the Oregon legislature has voted to increase taxes, close corporate tax loopholes, and protect worker privacy… all agenda items that were strictly off the table in Olympia during our recently ended session? Why? Well, I can only assume that, metaphorically speaking, Oregon’s Democratic leadership has balls, and ours doesn’t?

Or perhaps Frank is waiting for Gov. Rob McKenna before attempting to enact a progressive agenda?

In teasing the Seattle Times about its recent spate of noncontroversial and/or opinion-free editorials, I jokingly asked:

What’s next? A bold, sharply worded editorial arguing that puppies are cute?

Well today, in a rare signed editorial, Lynne Varner comes pretty damn close, pushing the edge of civil discourse by editorializing in favor of Camp Fire Girls. I’m almost tempted to write a scathing, profanity-laced attack on the entire Camp Fire movement, just out of sheer boredom.

Jesus Christ folks, throw me a bone here, before I’m reduced to reading (shudder) Crosscut.

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I occasionally meet with foreign journalists through a program with the World Affairs Council, and near the end of a recent meeting, German TV and radio journalist Richard Gutjahr interviewed me on camera for a minutes on the craft of blogging. You can watch the results above.

Gutjahr interviewed activists, bloggers and legacy journalists at the New York Times, Washington Post, Seattle P-I, Des Moines Register and elsewhere, producing a series of brief videos on The Future of Newspapers , Better Blogging and Understanding New Media . In addition to me, other Seattleites interviewed include Jonathan Lawson of Reclaim the Media, Robert Jeffrey of Colors NW, SoundPolitic’s Jim Miller and the Seattle P-I’s Mark Trahant, who, right around the time of the paper’s final print edition, gives this spot on answer to the question of what he would have done differently:

“I would experiment like crazy. My frustration being in legacy media the last two years is that we didn’t fail enough. We kept trying to do things the way we’d always done them, and we should have been out there on the edge, just, what’s the wildest thing we can think of and try it, and we didn’t do a lot of that. I think if I had to do it all over again I’d argue more for total experimentation, because if you’re going to go down, at least go down and make it interesting.”

Hear that Ryan Blethen? Wouldn’t it be “wild” to put me on your editorial board? I mean, if you’re going to go down….

It’s an interesting series of interviews, and worth a look.

I have an admirer.

State and local bloggers usually don’t get the kind of wingnut honors reserved for big time folks like Kos and Atrios, I’m on cloud nine. That is actually me in the photo, BTW.