Archives for April 2012

Look, the Ron Paul dead-enders are super annoying. I have a cousin whose goal seems to make Facebook unreadable by linking to every bit of Ron Paul nonsense ever written on the entire Internet. So I understand the urge to try to push them out of your Legislative District Caucus. But seriously this is the second most pathetic thing Lori Sotelo has done as KC GOP Chair.*

Over the weekend, Republicans in the 37th Legislative District gathered to choose delegates to the state convention.

The caucus started out Saturday morning inside Dimmitt Middle School. But it didn’t end inside the building.

After supporters of Texas Congressman Ron Paul elected one of their own to chair of the meeting, the gathering was booted to an outside basketball court by King County Republican Party Chairwoman Lori Sotelo.

The move came after attendees irritated Sotelo by rejecting her choice to run the caucus – former King County Councilman David Irons.

Instead, the group voted for Tamara Smilanich, a Paul supporter.

That prompted Sotelo to declare the meeting was no longer a Republican Party event – but a Ron Paul campaign event.

Seriously, if you can’t control your caucus even after you basically have a nominee, it isn’t the Paul people who are the problem. The GOP are poised to nominate someone nobody is excited about. And they have seemingly no core values except whatever Obama does, do the opposite. And so someone who has values (often terrible ones, but that’s not the point here) came in and got more delegates in this district. And rather than say fine, whatever they said go outside? Pathetic.

And look, I’ve been to precinct caucuses where LaRouchies showed up. I can’t imagine what would happen if they’d won enough votes to have a serious impact on the next level.** But the best way to prevent that is bringing out enough people to vote for someone else.

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It’s Tuesday and there are five G.O.P. primary contests a happenin’ tonight–Connecticut, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. We are going to treat them with all the dignity and respect they command.

Yawwwwwn!

Okay…now that that’s finished, please join us for an evening of conversation over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking liberally.

Seattle DL meets every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. We begin at 8:00pm, but some folks show up earlier for dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? There are also meetings of the Tri-Cities and Bellingham chapters this evening. The Burien chapter meets on Wednesday, and the Woodinville chapter meets on Thursday.

With 233 chapters of Living Liberally, including twelve in Washington state and six more in Oregon, chances are excellent there’s a chapter near you.

– Well here’s a bulletin on this dog and pony show. Window dressing isn’t going to hack it. Women, the ones to hold families and communities together, are major casualties in the ongoing economic crisis. They and people of color have lost the most jobs, homes, savings and social services.

– Seattle is the coolest city ever, you guys.

– I’m glad to see what they’re doing to improve One Bus Away. And I appreciate the digitizing analog music metaphor.

– The EEOC says you can’t discriminate based on gender identity.

– Baseball in Portland

– Norse faith: 1 Atheists: 0

Reading and watching much of the 2 year anniversary coverage of the BP spill in the Gulf, I’m left with the grating feeling that we don’t know what we’re doing as a society when it comes to big problems that we make. I don’t mean to suggest that these problems are inherently unsolvable, only that we don’t have the solutions going in. We have plans* for what to do when the deep water spills leak, but we don’t have a good job of figuring out what to do when those plans fail.

It isn’t just the oil spills. We’re more than a year into a slow motion disaster in Fukushima. And while these are, of course, a failure of regulation, they’re also a failure of corporate power. I don’t know what the solution is short of shutting down corporations that behave as badly as BP.

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– I’m already excited for Atlas Shrugged VIII the interminable nonsenseing.

– First class of female combat Marines

– It’s hard to feel sorry for the GOP when the Tea Party they nurtured turns against them.

– Map of the day

– Narwhals

– It’s lucky your kids don’t have oil under their skin

Ava Emeline Rosenberg – born April 19 at 6:51pm – 6lbs 3oz. Now go back outside and enjoy the sun.

1 Samuel 20:30
“You stupid son of a whore!”

Discuss.

Thom: Catholics to Rep. Ryan, “Hands off our religion”.

Maddow: Debunktion Junction.

An obituary for facts.

Greenman: Weird winter, mad March (part I) :

ALEC:

• Jen Granholm: ALEC as matchmaker.
• Young Turks: ALEC begs right-wing blogs for help.
• Pap: The ALEC exodus.

Thom: Some Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

Maddow: Rob McKenna denying he is Scott Walker.

Stephen spars with Cornel West, Tavis Smiley over poverty.

Sam Seder: 30-year old climate changes predictions prove accurate.

Maddow: Democracy under threat in Michigan.

Thom: The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.

The G.O.P. Primary Reality Show:

• Young Turks: Michele Bachmann on “Obama waiving a ‘tar baby’ around”.
• Ann Telnaes: Rick Santorum gets the perfect gift for a 3-year-old—A lifetime membership to the NRA.
• Maddow: Romney before he shakes the etch-a-sketch
• Romney’s world view.
• Jon on Mitt.
• Stephen: Romney searches for “Mr. Right”
• Maddow: Romney begins reinvention without pause
• John McCain on Mitt Romney.
• Thom: Voter fraud finally found! Guess who?
• Mitt Romney: “It’s been fun getting to know Ted Nugent”
• Ted Nugent stumps for Mitt Romney.
• Young Turks: DNC’s Ted Nugent Mitt Romney attack ad.
• Susie Sampson: Romney versus Obama.
• Young Turks: Romneys’ dancing horse.
• Bill Maher: Mitt Romney—the least interesting man in the world.
• Sportsman protest Romney’s flip floppery.
• Sam Seder: Ann Romney claims dog loved the ride on the roof.
• Stephen Colbert on Mitt’s humor events
• Young Turks: Is Romeny’s ‘Obama isn’t Working’ banner racist?
• What else is Mitt Romney hiding?

Alyona’s Tool Time Award: Rep. Fox on intolerance of student loans.

Thom: the slanted Sunday morning talking head shows.

T-Mobile rally in Bellevue WA.

Laura Ruderman supports Obama and the Buffett Rule.

Jon on the Buffett Rule.

Stephen: Mexican bologna.

The Republican War on Women™:

• It’s yer Right!
• Actual Audio: What Mitt will do for women.
• Ann Romney’s fishy explanation.
• Mitt Romney and Mitch Daniels: Where will women go?
• Sam Seder with Digby: War on Moms, John Derbyshire, and Commies in Congress
• Jon on Colombian prostitutes and stay-at-home moms.
• Mitt Romeny and Tom Corbett: Too extreme for Women.

Thom: The Dem Party doesn’t need phony Dems.

Jimmy Kimmel’s week in unnecessary censorship.

Joe Biden on why you should get involved.

Ann Telnaes: Killing hearts and minds.

I Made America: HAPPY 4-20 from Washington, Jefferson & Gingrich.

Mark Fiore: The Jesus budget.

Alyona’s Tool Time Award: Rep. Paul Ryan accuses bishops of lying.

Young Turks: The Catholic Church decides to crucify a Jew:

Thom with more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.

Social Security Works Washington coalition: Save Social Security by scrapping the cap.

ONN: Eric Cantor tossed by bucking Mitch McConnell and other news of the week.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Just in case you’re looking for things to do this weekend.

This is usually Lee’s beat, but I’m at Seattle City Hall and I’ll be live blogging a debate between John Toker of Sensible Washington and Alison Holcomb of New Approach Washington. They’ll be debating if I-502 is the right way to legalize marijuana. Also, a quick note about the link: it says to come in at 4th Ave, but the only entrance that was open was 5th; come on down if you’re interested.

6:58 We’re a few minutes away, and the room has a couple dozen people. More empty chairs than people. I don’t see Licata (who is moderating). Toker isn’t sitting at the table up front, but I wouldn’t recognize him if he is in the room.

7:01 Licata is here, and someone has come up to the podium and said we’ll be 10 to 15 minutes late for “hippie time.” Good to get the nonsense stoner jokes out of the way before the debate starts.

7:10 Looks like 40 or so people now and the room is fairly full in front. We’re going to start soon.

7:16 Each side will do opening arguments and then a response. Licata will then ask questions of the presenters that came from people and then audience questions.

7:25 Holcomb is first: Could be an incredibly historic moment. The debate isn’t about how we’re going to legalize marijuana. We only get the choice of yes or no on I-502. There is always a process and evolution, and we’re at a moment in time where we can sling a sledgehammer at the wall of marijuana prohibition and crack it open. The discussion of how do we legalize is academic until one state actually passes one. We can continue talking about it or we can continue talking about it. We can debate the specific compromises and provisions, but it is important that we not lose sight of the forest while we’re examining the trees. We’ve had an explosion of incarceration in the war on drugs in the country. Washington has moved in the right direction: Hempfest, the King County Bar, Sensible Seattle have pushed toward legalization. There will not be a marijuana legalization initiative in California, so it isn’t going to be an option this year. It did better than Meg Whitman at the ballot. Exit surveys discovered that had it been on the ballot this year, it would have been statistically tied. We have to think about why that is and we need to vote yes on 502 to take a step forward.

7:34 John Toker: yes that’s my name. I really wanted to support I-502. How can you come out against legalization? The simple answer is that it doesn’t legalize [corrected later, the original said legalizes, Carl] cannabis in Washington state. When you legalize, you can have as much as you want, you can share it, you can plant it. But I-502 decriminalizes without penalty. If you pass a joint to a friend, it’s still a class C felony. Pseudo legalization is better than what we have, but it’s not a good foundation. We’re not going to have storefronts. The federal government is going to come in and make storefronts stop. I don’t anticipate a single license being issued or see a dime. DUI provision is a problem. There isn’t a clear connection between THC in the blood and impairment, so we don’t want to put that into law. Your crash risk at 5 nanograms is the same as 0. This is bad for patients, but also for heavy users. You’re not going to get an impairment standard off the books once it’s on the books.

7:37 Holcomb’s rebuttal: If you have a proposal where I as an adult will be able to use, and buy that’s legalization. We can talk about Gregoire and we can talk about Arizona where the federal government has never said they’d arrest state workers. On the DUI issue, when you get to 5 nanograms or higher, you are at a higher risk to crash, and the reality is nobody wants impaired drivers on the road, and the voters are not going to ignore that.

7:40 Toker: please read up on the science. Alcohol effects the body in clear ways, and with marijuana we don’t know. Until we know how to measure that, we shouldn’t be going to courts. I’m not going to vote for 502 because I can’t look at patients and take away their driving privileges so I can feel safe with my ounce at home. I would love to come to a store and buy a tin of doobies, but we have attorneys from the US Government who say it isn’t going to happen. Let’s not tell the rest of the nation this is how you get it done.

7:42 Licata is asking questions on the DUI. New Approach WA fact sheet says there’s no impairment at 5 nanograms. Holcomb says it’s more to do with the way the graph looks like, but less than 5 nanograms is the same crash risk, and it goes up at 5 nanograms. This is better than 0 tolerance laws. Toker says evidence is not as good for a numerical limit as for alcohol.

7:48 There was a question about informed consent of a blood or breath test and if that’s going to change under the law. Holcomb says now if officers think impairment is alcohol they can’t do a blood test. We’ll probably move from blood tests to saliva swabs either way as they’re doing in other countries.

Toker says field sobriety test is still the best way to measure impairment. But this is problematic because it assumes you can see impairment from the blood.

8:00 Another question on DUI: Why not include an exclusion for patients. Holcomb: The science doesn’t support that distinction. Not all patients use cannabis the same way, and since not every patient is a heavy user. The political reality is The Seattle Times, The Tacoma News Tribune will say it’s a get out of jail free card for DUI.

Toker: The reason you see the inclusion is in the aftermath of prop 19 where the fear mongering around drug driving sunk it. It’s a political appeal to the middle. This is polls trumping policy. As patients, and as advocates when we’re explaining, we’re winning.

8:03 There are access questions, and Holcomb is making the point that the law doesn’t change medical marijuana, just people selling to adults. Toker says it doesn’t matter because licensing won’t happen. Holcomb says we will have dispensaries at the state, and even if Gregoire could do away with them, we’ll have licensing at the local level even if the state doesn’t.

8:12 We’re having audience questions. Wouldn’t repeal be better? This is a narrow decriminalization. Why cling to the idea that misinformation is the best way to write the law. Holcomb: The short answer is you have identified the problem: we have a culture that has been misinformed for decades, and that’s the population we have to ask to do something new. Most voters in 2006 didn’t realize we had a medical marijuana law and they didn’t know we had misdemeanor laws on the books. We did education all up until this year, and voters have moved a great deal, but where we are right now 55% support ballot title for 502. That’s not 70%, and the voters aren’t ready for full repeal. That’s how we did alcohol, but that’s not the culture. We’re not in the same place as we were with alcohol.

8:21 Chuck from Cannabis Defense Coalition. Asking about taxes. With the tax structure that 502 builds, the state will collect twice as much as the grower, and there will be a raise in price. You’re going to have 2 price points for medical and recreational marijuana. Holcomb: the tax structure is by percentage. The cost is high because there’s a risk cost so the prices will come down. You’ll see growers adjust their prices down because we’re in a capitalist society. Toker: I don’t think this means prohibition goes away, so prices won’t go down.

8:32 Mimi asked about patients who wants to drive. I am not impaired. I will be over the limit, but I am not impaired. A lot of patients don’t have bus service, and can’t walk. What’s the plan for people who aren’t allowed to drive? Holcomb: There have been marijuana users for a very long time. The law is that you can’t be pulled over if you’re not exhibiting impairment, and that won’t change with 502. A police officer can’t look at you to see your THC count. They’ll still have to have reasonable suspicion. People are in prison for less than 5 nanogram per millimeter. We have had 0 tolerance THC laws in this country. If we could expect a rash of people for cannabis DUI, we would have seen that by now.

8:42 Why is it a felony for two adults to pass a joint if it’s legalization? Holcomb: when is the last time you heard of someone arrested for passing a joint in Washington? The delivery offense is already on the books because people are selling marijuana. No police officer is going to waste time on people passing a joint.

8:47 A patient who was raided in 2010. The laws are not applied in the same manner in East and West in this state. Why should we believe it will be any different? Holcomb: Right now medical marijuana doesn’t make it legal to poses. After you’ve spent a night in jail, you can present an affirmative defense. It doesn’t play that way in Seattle, but it does in Okanogan County. The code needs to change, so people can posses anywhere in the state.

8:51 Closing arguments. Holcomb: These issues are going to be continued to be debated up to and after November 6. But ask yourself will you be in a better position to advocate your point of view if Washington State has said yes to legalization or not. There isn’t another option after 502.

Toker: It’s pretty clear we’ve already lost if you vote yes or no with the DUI clause. We’re not going to get the chance to really change things. It’s prohibition 2.0. You’re going to have to say to patients you’re going to have to sacrifice your driving rights for me to have an ounce. Alison has put out a good faith effort: There are good steps forward, but there is a step backward.

9:02 Hopefully I did a good job conveying this. I’m glad we’ve been able to have the conversation. A quick reading back over this, I think I gave Holcomb more time than she took, and that’s not me editorializing but the fact that she often spoke first, and I can’t type as fast as they spoke. I came in leaning toward the initiative, and I’m still there.

Another advantage of mass transit.

Since the opening of Beacon Hill Station, many people who ride bikes have figured out that for a couple bucks, Link Light Rail will make one of Seattle’s mightiest hills disappear. Just hop on at Pioneer Square Station and two stops and an elevator later you are at the top of the hill.

Michael van Baker at the SunBreak asks: Will University Link do the same to Capitol Hill?

It is another thing that makes bike riding easier. I’m more a tootle around town person than a go for a 40 mile ride person. So I can usually get up the hills. But it is another nice option to have. Also, if you get caught in a storm, you have aren’t stuck in the middle of the rain.

I get why The Seattle Times Editorial Board wrote this piece. And I tend to agree: get rid of the Secret Service members who frequented prostitutes. Still, they seem far too excited about firing people.

THE 11 Secret Service agents who were part of the president’s advance security detail were hired, trained, armed and paid well for their judgment. They failed miserably. Fire them.

Take a couple of their supervisors off the payroll as well. The numbers involved in this scandal suggest a failure of command and control in a go-along, get-along culture without any professional oversight.

Well it’s probably a good idea to have an investigation first. We have a right to know what happened. Anyway, as bad as it was, you can count on The Seattle Times taking their metaphor too far.

In fact, the behavior is closer to the Army’s Abu Ghraib debacle or the Navy’s Tailhook scandal, where no rules applied and no one was apparently in charge. The heady arrogance exposed is as intoxicating for participants as the vast quantities of alcohol consumed.

Well no. Sexual assault and torture aren’t the same as members of the Secret Service visiting prostitutes. It’s illegal and they should be fired. There should be an investigation to make sure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again. If it impeded their ability to do their job perhaps there should be harsher sanctions. But honestly, Tailhook and Abu Ghraib are much, much worse. Why include them at all?

– Jonah Goldberg is super smart, and knowledgeable, you guys.

– Permanent Defense has a tool to report on signature gathering for Eyman initiatives.

– Maybe Mitt Romney has something to hide?

– Seamus didn’t enjoy being on the top of the car. I don’t understand why the Romneys keep bringing it up.

– A UFO in Seattle Center.

– I don’t follow hockey at all, but fans making fun of Tim Thomas is pretty funny.

– Seahawk’s Schedule

But it looks like there are several Catholic parishes that won’t collect signatures for R-74.

The congregation at Seattle’s Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church gave the Rev. Tim Clark a standing ovation Sunday when he announced that the parish would not gather signatures for a referendum to repeal same-sex marriage.

The parish became the sixth in Seattle to opt out of the petition drive for Referendum 74 that has been endorsed and foisted on parishes by Archbishop J. Peter Sartain.

“I am happy to report that Our Lady of the Lake parishoners have been overwhelmingly and, thus far, unanimously supportive of the decision I made NOT to gather signatures in support of this Referendum,” Clark wrote in response to an e-mail.

“The standing ovation experienced during one of the Masses says less about me and much more about the health of this parish. I only wished the archbishop could have experienced the sustained applause — the ‘sensus fidelium’ — of the people. He needs to listen to this ‘voice.’ That is my prayer.”

Other parishes to shun the signature drive have includes St. James Cathedral, St. Joseph Church, St. Mary’s Church, St. Patrick Church and Christ Our Hope Catholic Church.

Obviously, the Church collecting signatures at all for this referendum is a problem. There were exemptions carved out for them, and other religious organizations that didn’t want to perform same sex ceremonies. And yet, they can’t just live and let live with the law. Still, the parishes not participating is a great (even if small, and possibly overrepresented as a story) part of the story.

I don’t want to overstate this, because the Roman Catholic church remains very much a not-democracy, and the Archbishop Peter J. Sartrain, who has been foisting this petition drive on his parishes, sounds like a real not-peach. He’s been trying to muster Catholics in favor of Referendum 74, which would block Washington’s new same-sex marriage law.

But this outright refusal to accede to the Archbishop’s wishes touches on a post I made back in February arguing that the Conference of Catholic Bishops’ attempts to mobilize a “Catholic voting bloc” a la the conservative evangelical Protestant vote, would backfire badly. Yes, on paper the Church is very hierarchical; in practice, Catholic voters are much more diverse than the Bishops would like to admit

Rob McKenna wants you to know that he isn’t Scott Walker. Via Politico (audio link added):

Rob McKenna…told a gathering of Puget Sound Carpenters last week that he’ll strive for a “positive relationship between labor and management,” even lamenting the agenda pursued by Walker.
“We need to have a good strong relationship between labor and management in this state,” McKenna said at the April 11 meeting, according to the audio that was secretly recorded. “Now unfortunately because of a couple of governors — particularly Scott Walker — everyone thinks that someone who’s going to be a Republican governor, they’re going to be Scott Walker. I’m not Scott Walker. This is not Wisconsin. This is Washington state.”

You know who else isn’t Scott Walker? Gov. John Kasich (R) of Ohio, also elected in 2010 who, a year later, signed Senate Bill 5 that limited collective bargaining for public employee unions.

And who else isn’t Scott Walker? Two-term Governor Mitch Daniels (R) of Indiana who, on day one of his first term used executive orders to decimate public employee unions.

Who are other not-Scott Walkers, that have waged war on collective bargaining, public employee unions, and labor in general? Govs. Rick Scott (R-FL), Jan Brewer (R-AZ), Rick Snyder (R-MI), Bobby Jindal (R-LA), and Chris Christie (R-NJ).

Who else isn’t Scott Walker? Scott Fucking Walker, that’s who.

Here he is, just a week before the 2010 election, being interviewed by the Oshkosh Northwestern‘s editorial board (video here):

Editorial Board Member: Before, we were talking about state employees contributing to their plan, paying their share of the pension plan. Collective bargaining come into that?

Walker: Yep (nodding yes)

Editorial Board Member: How do you get that negotiated and accepted by the state employee unions?

Walker: You still have to negotiate it. I did that at the county as well.

McKenna is asking us to trust that he will not engage in the same ALEC-fueled agenda we’ve seen coming from his fellow Republicans in Ohio, Indiana, Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Louisiana, Maine, and New Jersey. Really, Rob? After claiming to be the co-creator of the Teabaggy lawsuit to overturn the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act? After refusing to represent state Commissioner of Public Lands Peter Goldmark in a lawsuit to protect public lands? After making a closed-door campaign promise before an anti-light rail group that he would work to find ways to kill light rail to the East Side?

Get real.