Archives for March 2010

From The Seattle Times:

Rep. Adam Smith announced Saturday that he will backthe House’shistoric vote on health reform scheduled for Sunday,leaving Rep. Brian Baird as the sole member of Washington’s congressional delegation who remains undecided.

And there you have it, almost. Lots of moving parts back in the other Washington, but at this point reliable sources on the Tubes seem to suggest there will be three straight-forward votes in the House, rather than “deem and pass” and all that stuff, and that Rep. Bart Stupak, R-Sepsis, has been told to go infect himself. And as for Baird, I have nothing left to say about him at this point. Call him, don’t call him, it doesn’t matter.

So if this thing passes, it’s either the final communo-nazi-islamic takeover, or it’s a baby step towards getting fair treatment for millions of more Americans when it comes to health care. It depends on which version of reality you choose to live in. For those who choose the Fox Noise version of reality, it must be nearly unbearable.

One thing is certain, right wing hyperbole is expected to reach a crest of 6.9 meters sometime early tomorrow afternoon. Hyperbole sirens are sounding every half hour in the nation’s capital, and the Atlantic Histrionics Warning Center in Palm Beach, Fla., has issued an Exploding Head Watch, effective until 10 pm EDT Sunday.

You might think that the execution-style murder of a young American couple by drug lords in Mexico would be a significant tragedy and another piece of evidence of our massive failure in how we deal with drug use in this country. But as Paul Armentano explains, if you’re the deranged individual who President Obama just nominated to run the DEA, the killings are a clear sign of success.

The Seattle Times editorial board has, of course, come out in favor of handing over a couple acres of the Seattle Center to a wealthy local family to build a for profit museum. Much more on this editorial later, but…

Seattle Center officials should have opened to all comers the possibility of siting a project on the south side of the Fun Forest. That would have made Chihuly’s glass house a cleaner proposition.

The way forward now is to seek proposals for other privately funded ideas. Exhaust the possibilities, sate the process hounds, then proceed with this promising upgrade.

Honestly, how fucking condescending can they get?

The same ed board that pees its pants over sunshine and open government advises to simply make a charade of it when it comes to a private deal with one of Frank Blethen’s Rainier Club drinking partners.

I think with these two paragraphs the Times has pretty much written itself off as a serious contributor to this particular conversation.

(And there are plenty more media clips from the past week in politics at Hominid Views.)

From The Columbian’s political blog, concerning the vague, say-nothing-meaningful approach taken by one candidate seeking to succeed him, Democrat Denny Heck, on health care reform:

Baird, who has endorsed Heck, told us he agrees with Heck’s broad-brush stance on the issue, saying, “It’s not his job to take a position on this bill.”

Thus far it apparently hasn’t been Baird’s job either.

Another day, another intentionally misleading, anti-labor editorial from the Seattle Times:

LAST year organized labor pushed a bill to restrict a company’s ability to talk to its employees. It was marketed as the Worker Privacy Act, and its aim was to shut up managers during the organizing of a union, so that only the union organizer would be heard.

That, of course, is a load of crap. The Worker Privacy Act would have done nothing to restrict a company’s ability to talk to its employees, it didn’t “shut up managers,” and would not have assured that only union organizers would be heard. Employers would have been just as free to oppose unionization as they are now, even to hold meetings expressly for that purpose. The only difference under WPA would be that employees would be equally free, if they so chose, not to participate in such non-work related meetings (regarding unions, religion, politics, etc.) without fear of retaliation.

As it stands now, your employer  can call a meeting for the sole purpose of proselytizing and converting non-Christian workers, and then fire your ass if you walk out or choose not to attend. They can force you to attend a companywide Tea Party. Or they can crowd you into a room without a union representative, and cajole/harangue/threaten as much as they want in their effort prevent unionization. That’s the inequity the WPA sought to address.

No law like it existed in any other state.

You know, except for neighboring Oregon, and I’m guessing a few other states. But regardless, that’s an incredibly stupid argument prima facie. No other nation guaranteed freedom of religion, freedom of the press and freedom of speech at the time our First Amendment was adopted, so would that have been a reasonable argument to reject it? According to the Times, yes.

Business hated it, and Democratic leaders, elected with union support, found an excuse to kill it.

In a hyperbolic charade intended to provide political cover for scuttling the bill, Democratic leaders literally called the cops on labor over an internal email that state troopers and other watchdogs ultimately laughed off. And the Times presents this as a good thing?

The spirit of this bill resurfaced deep in the 292-page budget measure, ESSB 6444, moving through the Legislature. Certain employers receiving state funds would be forbidden “to use these funds to assist, promote, or deter union organization.” The “or deter” is what this is about.

This restriction is not for all employers. It is only on those providing long-term care or services to people with disabilities. But the principle is the same: The state would use its spending power to favor unions.

You gotta be kidding. The 30-word provision in question has absolutely nothing to do with the WPA. The WPA would have protected workers from retaliation when choosing not to participate in workplace communications related to issues of conscience. On the other hand, here is the specific language to which the Times objects:

“No employer, provider, or entity receiving state funds to provide long-term care services or services to the developmentally disabled may use these funds to assist, promote, or deter union organization.”

Would the Times object to the provision had the word “deter” been deleted? No, of course not. Indeed, the Times wouldn’t even have been aware of the provision had it not been brought to their attention by the Association of Washington Businesses. (You don’t think the Times’ editors are actually in the habit of reading 292-page bills, do you?)

In fact, the provision is actually quite evenhanded, as it prohibits an “employer, provider, or entity” from using state funds to “assist” or “promote” union organization, as well as to “deter” it — specifically and only within the context of providing long-term care to the developmentally disabled. And yes, there are union “entities” that receive state funds for the purpose of providing training to long-term care workers, that would fall under this provision, so it does impact employers and unions alike.

Oh, and it’s not like this provision was added without provocation. Long-term care employers have used state funds to hold mandatory “training” meetings for the purpose of deterring union activities… and they’ve been caught on video. The Times is all gung ho about reducing the footprint of state government while protecting seniors from shoddy long-term care, yet apparently the editors believe mandatory anti-union meetings to be an appropriate use of taxpayer funded training dollars. Go figure.

Here, not coincidentally, the benefit would go the state’s most politically aggressive union, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

And here, not coincidentally, is the crux of this issue. The Times just hates SEIU, and thus anything SEIU supports, the Times opposes. SEIU = evil incarnate.

Compared to the whole economy, long-term-care homes are not large. But if this provision goes through once, it will be used again. “We view this provision as a crossing of the Rubicon,” said Kris Tefft, counsel to the Association of Washington Business.

AWB = second coming of Christ on Earth.

Oh… and I’m sure SEIU and the provision’s sponsor were asked to provide a comment too, but just never got around to it.

Let us be clear: Under federal labor law, unions can speak to workers. So can employers. A state cannot abridge the rights of either side. The U.S. Supreme Court said so recently in Chamber of Commerce v. Brown (2007). There the Court threw out a California law that forbade any employer receiving $10,000 in state money from using it “to assist, promote or deter union organizing.”

Let us be clear: the Seattle Times editorial board has the legal acumen of a walnut, and is no more in the habit of reading (let alone understanding) obscure court opinions than it is of spelunking through the details of 292-page legislative bills. Like the provision in question, the Times was only made aware of this court case through the tireless PR efforts of the water-walking, loaves-and-fishes-multiplying AWB, and you can be pretty damn sure that the Times’ interpretation of Chamber of Commerce v. Brown came straight from the mouth of AWB. So forgive me if I don’t take it at face value.

In fact, Chamber of Commerce v. Brown appears to very narrowly focus on whether or not the National Labor Relations Act preempts state restrictions that attempt to regulate employer speech about union organizing under circumstances where Congress intended free debate. A quick reading of both the decision and the dissent makes it clear that the entire case rests on interpreting Congressional intent.

But while the California statute rejected under Chamber of Commerce v. Brown was broad, the particular provision to which the Times objects (at the apparent behest of AWB), merely seeks to reiterate a policy that is already in federal Medicare and Medicaid law, and thus unambiguously sanctioned by Congress. The Medicare provider manual states that “Costs incurred for activities directly related to influencing employees respecting unionization or related to attempts to coerce employees or otherwise interfere with or restrain the exercise of employee rights under the NLRA are not allowable costs for program purposes,” and a few minutes of Googling reveals that this language is duplicated in state Medicaid regulations throughout the nation. (Minnesota, North Dakota and Alabama, for example.)

The ruling was 7-2, with the Court’s senior liberal, Justice John Paul Stevens, laying down the law.

Well, as long as the Times is lauding a liberal justice — you know, when it believes it suits its purpose — let’s take a look at what Justice Stevens actually wrote:

[T]he mere fact that Congress has imposed targeted federal restrictions on union-related advocacy in certain limited contexts does not invite the States to override federal labor policy in other settings.

That is the heart of the majority opinion, and since ESSB 6444 imposes targeted advocacy restrictions within the exact same limited context and setting as that already provided under federal law, it is clearly permissible, and the Times application of Chamber of Commerce v. Brown to ESSB 6444 is clearly wrong. Ignorant, misinformed, boneheaded wrong.

The same language Justice Stevens struck down has been in and out of the budget bill in Olympia. It is a bad provision and has to stay out.

Like I said… the legal acumen of a walnut.

But then, that’s the kind of foolishness that comes from letting your hatred of organized labor get in the way of the facts.

The Seattle Times and the national press need to stop with the endless health care articles about WA-08. Sure, it’s a swing district, and yes, the incumbent, Rep. Dave Reichert, R-Wash., is searching his soul over health care reform. And if he votes “not moderate” he will risk losing, because the 8th is nothing but moderate. I mean, it was The Seattle Times who insisted that only Dave is “moderate” enough to represent those fine folks.

The thousands of phone calls from around the country, the audience in the Oval, the casual debates late at night with colleagues. I mean, we GET IT. The 8th is a swing district, we know, and moderates like Reichert have to weigh these decisions carefully! The citizens are likely closely divided, as in other key swing districts, but that’s why we have elections, so that when the tough issues get decided, legislators must vote on behalf of their constituents, and not just a party line. It would be terrible if that were not the case.

But enough! He’s only human!

Really, I can’t take all the attention this key swing district is receiving.

The Seattle Times editorial board is starting to sound like a broken record:

There is still time to make structural spending changes and reduce the footprint of government, but the moment is passing.

And that is a lost opportunity.

Yeah, maybe, but the point the Times’ editors seem to miss is that voters didn’t elect Democrats to “reduce the footprint of government.” That’s the Republican platform, one which voters consistently reject. So, um, why exactly should the Democrats use this economic crisis as an opportunity to enact the Republican agenda when the majority of voters clearly prefer the Democratic platform?

Now if the Times wanted to dis Dems for failing to take the opportunity to enact structural revenue changes, that might be more in line with the will of the people, instead of just the will of the people who own newspapers.

Oy…

From McGinn’s perspective, Chihuly’s “glass house” spells revenue. He says that the $500,000 in annual lease payments could be enough to operate the city’s libraries for a week, or to hire five police officers or seven crime-victim advocates.

Well, by that measure, why not just sell off the real estate entirely? If leasing the Fun Forest property to a for-profit, pay-per-view museum can raise enough money to hire five police officers, just think how many police officers we could hire if started selling off chunks of the Seattle Center to developers of high-priced condos?

And years from now, when there’s no more money from the sale to subsidize basic public services, and there’s no more Seattle Center land to sell off, well, that’s future generations’ problem.

Easter, 1916
by William Butler Yeats

I

I have met them at close of day
Coming with vivid faces
From counter or desk among grey
Eighteenth-century houses.
I have passed with a nod of the head
Or polite meaningless words,
Or have lingered awhile and said
Polite meaningless words,
And thought before I had done
Of a mocking tale or a gibe
To please a companion
Around the fire at the club,
Being certain that they and I
But lived where motley is worn:
All changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

II

That woman’s days were spent
In ignorant good-will,
Her nights in argument
Until her voice grew shrill.
What voice more sweet than hers
When, young and beautiful,
She rode to harriers?
This man had kept a school
And rode our winged horse;
This other his helper and friend
Was coming into his force;
He might have won fame in the end,
So sensitive his nature seemed,
So daring and sweet his thought.
This other man I had dreamed
A drunken, vainglorious lout.
He had done most bitter wrong
To some who are near my heart,
Yet I number him in the song;
He, too, has resigned his part
In the casual comedy;
He, too, has been changed in his turn,
Transformed utterly:
A terribly beauty is born.

III

Hearts with one purpose alone
Through summer and winter seem
Enchanted to a stone
To trouble the living stream.
The horse that comes from the road,
The rider, the birds that range
From cloud to tumbling cloud,
Minute by minute they change;
A shadow of cloud on the stream
Changes minute by minute;
A horse-hoof slides on the brim,
And a horse plashed within it;
The long-legged moor-hens dive,
And hens to moor-cocks call;
Minute by minute they live:
The stone’s in the midst of all.

IV

Too long a sacrifice
Can make a stone of the heart.
O when may it suffice?
That is Heaven’s part, our part
To murmur name upon name,
As a mother names her child
When sleep at last has come
On limbs that had run wild.
What is it but nightfall?
No, no, not night but death;
Was it needless death after all?
For England may keep faith
For all that is done and said.
We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died?
I write it out in a verse –
MacDonagh and MacBride
And Connolly and Pearse
Now and in time to be,
Wherever green is worn,
Are changed, changed utterly:
A terrible beauty is born.

Here are a few thoughts/reactions to the recent violence in the medical marijuana community:

– The major tragedy of the week wasn’t just the murder of Mike Howard, but the lingering questions about why this terrifying act of violence took nearly a week to be reported in the media. It’s hard to believe that an individual who was beaten to within an inch of his life with a crowbar while trying to defend his property wasn’t the top story that evening on Seattle news stations. The answer may lie in the actions of Pierce County Sheriff’s deputies, who – if this account is accurate – didn’t seem very motivated to help the gravely wounded Howard, but instead were more concerned with finding his plants.

– Steve Sarich, the homeowner in Monday morning’s incident, is a bit off. When I first starting following the story of the legislature’s attempts to revamp the medical marijuana law, I had a long, rambling phone conversation with him that lasted about an hour. He was angry, but I couldn’t pin down any specifics on what he was angry about. When it was all said and done, very little of what he said was backed up by anything I could find in the bills online. There were leaps of logic being made that didn’t quite match up with what I was able to find out on my own. Since that time, I’ve kept him at arm’s length, and take the things he says with a grain of salt.

Sarich is definitely the most controversial and polarizing figure in the medical marijuana community. People generally see him as either a hero or a villain. He’s often accused of working with the police to spur raids on other medical marijuana patients who cross him, but he’s also one of the most outspoken critics of law enforcement as well. As curious as I’ve been to know what the reality of that dude is, he’s still mostly an enigma to me.

– I wasn’t too surprised that police found as many plants as they did in Sarich’s house, but I would definitely be surprised if they were all full-grown plants. My understanding of what his CannaCare operation does is that it creates starter plants for other patients to take home and finish growing themselves. That may or may not still be true, but that’s what I’ve been told by several folks who are familiar with it. Is it illegal according to the state law? Probably. Should it be? Absolutely not. This was a profound failure by our legislature not to allow for operations like this to exist openly. By refusing to allow dispensaries, the legislature created this problem. To the extent that Sarich’s neighbors were upset about having this kind of an operation happening on a residential street, they can blame both Frank Chopp and Governor Gregoire, neither of whom took this issue seriously back in 2007 and 2008 when the law was being revised.

– Despite the accusations being thrown at the Pierce County deputies for how they treated a seriously wounded Mike Howard, and at the King County deputies who apparently ransacked Sarich’s residence after the shooting, the statements of both King County Sheriff Sgt. John Urquhart and King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg show that some folks in law enforcement do get it that Sarich and Howard are treated as criminals only because the laws are inadequate.

“By forcing this production to remain underground,” Mr. Satterberg said, “you increase the risk of violence for everybody and you disburse that violence to residential neighborhoods and put everybody at risk.”

This is a lesson that we need the legislature to learn – and learn quickly.

Yet again the Seattle Times editorial board has strongly urged Congress and/or the President to drop health care reform, focus on other issues, and start over from scratch. And yet again the Times has attempted to cover their motives with the following caveat:

For years, this newspaper has favored health care reform. We still favor it, done at the right time and in the right way.

Yeah, well, forgive my cynicism, but I’m not so sure.

As compromised as the current bill is, if history is any guide, this is our last, best chance to pass health care reform for at least a generation. Surely, the Times editors don’t believe that given such a disastrous political failure, Congress or the President would be willing to buck history and touch this rail again anytime soon? Certainly the Times isn’t suggesting that smaller Democratic majorities in both houses, or even a Republican majority in one or the other, would be more likely to pass health care reform than the relatively large Democratic majorities we hold at the moment? The Republicans are clearly invested in blocking reform at any cost, and view this obstructionist strategy as absolutely critical to their long term political survival.

So I can only assume that the Times is being either naive or disingenuous when they repeatedly and aggressively urge Democrats to abandon health care reform at the same time they claim to support it.

Here’s my theory. The Times used to support health care reform, as like most businesses, they saw rising employee health insurance costs as threatening their economic survival. But with the collapse of the newspaper industry, and the large number of journalists and other related professionals now out of work, supply and  demand has shifted so far in favor of the publisher that health care costs have ceased to be much of an issue. Newspaper employees are just thankful to have a job, and have repeatedly granted wage and benefit concessions to the Times and other papers nationwide.

If health insurance costs continue to rise, the Times will simply demand even more concessions, with the implied threat that recalcitrant employees can always be replaced by those hungry enough to do the job for less.

Health care crisis solved.

Yeah, I know, that’s an awfully cynical theory. But the only reasonable alternative would be to assume that the Times editors are a bunch of blithering idiots who genuinely and inexplicably believe that defeating health care reform is the surest path toward achieving it… and such a brutally harsh assessment just wouldn’t be polite.

If you’re wondering why I’ve sat back and allowed Jon DeVore to use HA as a forum for promoting the candidacy of State Sen. Craig Pridemore to succeed U.S. Rep. Brian Baird in WA-03, well, this video should tell you everything you need to know.

Of course, with a controversial and uncertain House vote nearly upon us, the politically prudent thing to do would be to keep quiet until the outcome is determined. No need to expend political capital in a losing cause, and all that. And that’s exactly the path that Pridemore’s main Democratic opponent, Denny Heck has chosen.

But not Pridemore. This is a guy who clearly wants to go to the other Washington not just to be a representative, but to represent the people back home. There’s an authenticity in this video that one doesn’t often see from politicians these days, and I sure hope Pridemore’s consultants don’t attempt to polish it out of him.

Yeah sure, Pridemore is the more progressive of the two candidates, and of course that helps earn my support, but I’m also a pragmatist who fully understands that WA-03 is a swing district in which sometimes the less progressive Democrat is the better choice in August if that’s the only Democrat who can win in November. But I simply don’t believe that Heck’s more “moderate” tack gives him that advantage… not in this race, and not in this election cycle.

Heck comes off as just another politician, and maybe that’s good enough in some years, but not in 2010 when there’s a backlash brewing against politics as usual. Pridemore on the other hand is a guy who I believe can genuinely connect with voters, given the resources and opportunity to do so. And that’s why I’m convinced that Pridemore represents the Democrats’ best shot at holding WA-03 in November.

But don’t take my word for it. Check out Pridemore’s website for yourself. And if you come away as impressed as I have, you might want to consider throwing him a few bucks.

For the first time since I learned about the King County Conservation District elections a few years back, the King County Conservation Voters endorsed candidate has finally won one of these bizarre, nearly secret elections. So congratulations to Max Prinsen, who topped runner-up Mara Heiman, 1,772 to 1,488.

So now that we’ve proven that pro-conservation forces can win an election that in recent years had proven the only race that KC Republicans could reliably count on, I’d like to take the opportunity to publicly suggest that we scrap this election entirely.

4,232 conscientious citizens cast ballots in yesterday’s election, better than 50% more than the 2,757 ballots cast in 2009… which in itself was a huge increase over previous years, when a mere few hundred votes was sometimes all that was needed to assure victory. But that’s still a tiny fraction of the roughly one million registered voters in King County.

So if we really can’t afford to piggyback the KCCD election onto a primary or general election ballot — when, you know, people actually vote — why even bother holding it? Two of the board’s five seats are already appointed by the three elected members, so why not just appoint them all? Maybe distribute the appointments geographically amongst the nine County Council members, so as to assure that rural voters receive adequate representation?

I know, I know… nobody votes for less democracy, but a countywide election with less than 1% turnout is a farce. It’s past time we admitted it, and eliminated the KCCD election all together.