Hey, remember back in December when I said I’d be switching to Monday-Tuesday-Thursday open threads in the new year? OK, me either, but that’s how it’s going to be for a while.

– Problems with the tunnel machine.

– Thank you not just for your work, but for your service to all women and families. You’re making the world a better place. Perhaps you already knew that. But I think it’s worth saying.

– Only one side hates science.

– Build better bike infrastructure for the SoDo arena.

– It doesn’t even rhyme.

– Some modest goals for a 2nd term.

Oh God.

Three veteran King County Sheriff’s detectives have filed a lawsuit against the county, alleging years of sexual harassment from two supervisors in the department’s Special Assault Unit.

…

Among the allegations, statements from other detectives accuse Provenzo and Mahlum of making repeated comments about the size of female detectives’ body parts and that Provenzo “regularly talks about the size of his penis” in front of co-workers: “On more than one occasion, Provenzo took a plastic penis and hung it out of the bottom of his pants.”

The complaint also alleges the sergeants made light of sex abuse victims, instructing the female detectives to “say it slower, so I can close my eyes” when they were discussing the facts of a case. Provenzo regularly told one of the plaintiffs not to investigate rapes on the Mukleshoot Indian Reservation because such crimes take place there “all the time.”

I don’t even know how someone with that attitude becomes a police officer. If there’s a lot of a type of crime, that’s a reason to step up enforcement, not to ignore it. I don’t even know what to say except if the allegations are true, I’m sorry my tax dollars were poorly spent hiring, training, and paying him.

(see also)

I meant to get around to this Joel Connelly piece earlier. I had earlier accused him of being unhelpful in a writing a piece about states seceding that, whoops, he didn’t write. This one about Texas though is all him. I’ve double checked the byline.

So no, Texas shouldn’t leave. Those of us who aren’t from Texas and are less than thrilled with the politics and politicians coming out of Texas should figure out ways to empower the more than 3 Million Obama voters, and engage the countless Texans who didn’t vote at all. That doesn’t mean that we should ignore our values to court Texans, it means there’s a large base of support there (and in every state) that already supports Democratic values.

Goldy reports on Rodney Tom’s (among others) attempts to kill the state’s GET program.

“We don’t need to be in that business,” state senator Rodney Tom (R-Medina) insisted about the program while speaking at a January 10 Associated Press forum in Olympia. It was a sentiment with which Senator Steve Litzow (R-Mercer Island) and Representative Ross Hunter (D-Medina) later agreed. That’s three lawmakers from two of the wealthiest zip codes in the state dissing a program that has been a boon for the real middle-class families statewide.

Talk about being out of touch.

Lawmakers instead appear eager to implement “differential tuition” pricing, permitting universities to charge more for certain majors, like engineering and business management.

If you’d like to contact Rodney Tom and let him know that you don’t think the state legislature should be dismantling public education, or middle class access to public education, you can do so here. If you want to let the members of the House and Senate Higher Ed committees know you want to preserve access to higher ed, you can let them know at the links. If you’d like to find your own legislator and let them know, that’s great too.

My own plan to save GET is here.

It looks like Seattle will get NBA basketball again.

We are happy to announce that we have entered into a binding agreement with the Maloofs to purchase a controlling interest in the Sacramento Kings NBA franchise. The sale is obviously subject to approval by the NBA Board of Governors, and we look forward to working with the League in the coming months to consummate the transaction.

I’m glad for the city, and will probably go to a few games. And while I appreciate the potential problems with the location, there’s something magical about it being in walking distance of Downtown. I absolutely love walking or biking to Mariners games, and while the Sonics will play when it’s colder, it’s still a good brisk walk. The arena deal is about as good as we’re likely to get. So yes, it’s lovely that this happened.

But it’s also tough for Kings fans. We all know it’s tough to have your team taken away. So when you’re celebrating this, just remember the people who had to lose for us to gain.

– Happy MLK Day. Here are some events.

– Who could have predicted that the numbers wouldn’t work out for tolling the 99 tunnel?

– I don’t know why columnists go for snark. If you ignore the not helpful stuff, this list of Olympia terms is fine.

– I really like Jay Inslee, but I hate the way money works in Olympia.

– Voter suppression didn’t win the presidential race for Mitt Romney, so now Republicans are trying to find another way to steal the next election and make Democratic votes count less—change state laws so electoral votes are divided proportionally, by congressional district.

I’m a bit worried that Senator Ericksen thinks he invented the aspirational goal of cheap electricity. Not that he invented some way made electricity cheaper — that would be awesome — but just talking about cheaper energy. Like he thinks he invented talking. About cheaper energy. How else do you explain titling his press release “Ericksen pleased to hear Inslee echo his energy goals“?

Yes, the governor. Who wrote a book about energy. Is echoing some state senator. The governor. Whose signature issue has been energy for over a decade. Is echoling some state senator.

Obviously, what laws pass matters most. And if they see eye to eye, that’s probably a good thing.

Seattle teachers who decided not to administer the MAP test here are there reasons:

Seattle’s ninth- and 10th-grade students already take five state-required standardized tests, with 11th- and 12th-graders taking three. Seattle Public Schools staff admitted to a Garfield teacher the MAP test is not valid at the high-school level, because the margin of error is greater than expected gains.

In addition, teachers are forbidden to see contents of the MAP test so they can’t prepare students. Teachers who have looked over the shoulders of students taking the test can tell you that it asks questions students are not expected by state standards to learn until later grades.

This test especially hurts students receiving extra academic support — English-language learners and those enrolled in special education. These are the kids who lose the most each time they waste five hours on the test. Our computer labs are commandeered for weeks when the MAP is on, so students working on research projects can’t get near them. The students without home computers are hurt the most.

Students don’t take the MAP seriously because they know their scores don’t factor into their grades or graduation status. They approach it less seriously each time they take it, so their scores decline. Our district uses MAP scores in teacher evaluations, even though the MAP company recommends against using it to evaluate teacher effectiveness and it’s not mandated in our union contract.

I’m not sure if it spreads, or where it goes from here. But I’m glad the teachers at these schools are standing up for education.

– Picking a favorite part of this Pam Roach presser is damn near impossible. But I think “not even arguably” she cares more about people than anyone else in the Senate is probably it.

– Jonah Goldberg’s opposition to hucksters in movement conservatism is only hostility to the competition.

– Assholes gonna asshole.

– Mayhap they’ll start including a list of each athletes favorite performance enhancing drugs on their collectable cards!

– This Brandon McCarthy Twitter battle encapsulates everything right and wrong with sports people on social media.

If Washington NARAL are pushing the Reproductive Parity Act again this session then that’s good enough for me.

Washington voters have a long history of ensuring a woman’s ability to make the decision to have an abortion. As Washington proceeds with the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Washington women could face increased barriers in their ability to access reproductive health care, including abortion services. Anti-choice politicians in Congress tried to undermine the ACA by inserting a provision to roll back reproductive healthcare. This legislation addresses that problem and guarantees access to a full range of reproductive healthcare including abortion.

The link is a petition, and if that’s your thing, I’d encourage you to add your name. If writing your legislator directly is more your thing, you can find them here. Presumably it’ll be able to pass the State House again. But even before the GOP coup, this was going to be tougher in the State Senate. I assume it’ll go to the Health Care Committee where Senator Becker will kill it. But if you’re represented by someone on the committee, you might want to let them know how you feel.

Looking at the House vote for Sandy relief, I noticed that Doc Hastings and Cathy McMorris Rodgers voted against it. It’s morally abhorrent to see another part of the country devastated, and first to take this amount of time to help, and then to vote against it. It also seems pretty short sighted.

I can’t imagine any Northeast politician giving them help the next time there’s a wildland fire in Eastern Washington. For that matter, I can’t imagine any Northeastern politician giving them any help on anything they want to do. “Oh, you voted against relief for people who are still homeless in my community months after Sandy, here let me help you secure funding for a road” seems like something said by nobody ever.

Evening edition (AKA, having been out for a few days kind of screwed me up).

– Any bill that doesn’t allow me to buy the rights to the Rodney Tom Can Go Fuck Himself Overpass still needs some work.

– We should take a moment and remind ourselves who are the people of the state and who are we

– I keep forgetting to post this anti-Sully piece.

– We’ve got ourselves a brand-new governor.

– The sincere answers to asshole petitions manager would be a fun job at the White House.

– Vote’s in Five Minutes!

– A Message to Guys Who Comment on Internet Videos (video)

I’m slowly making my way through this biography of William Seward. There’s an interesting story I wasn’t aware of from his days as a Senator. By 1858, he was a leading opponent of slavery in the Senate. Still he was cordial with many Southern Senators. One story in particular: “In early 1858, when Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi was suffering from a sever eye illness and confined to his darkened room for seven weeks, Seward visited him every day and spent an hour amusing the invalid with stories.”

If we didn’t all know what was coming, that would be the type of how-DC-Used-To-Be stories that the beltway press like to tell themselves. If we didn’t know that in 3 years they’ll stand on opposite sides, as over half a million people die in the Civil War, it might be a lovely story of the bipartisan niceness of a bygone era. Viewing it as that also obscures that one side was right on one of the least morally ambiguous issues of our history: slavery was wrong.

So that’s what I was thinking about when I read at Balloon Juice that reporters are using their question at a press conference to ask Obama why he and his staff don’t socialize more.

I’d like to ask you, now that you’ve reached the end of your first term, starting your second, about a couple of criticisms — one that’s longstanding, another more recent. The longstanding one seems to have become a truism of sorts that you’re — you and your staff are too insular, that you don’t socialize enough.

DC is a place with strange values.

– Our Times Will Get More Interesting

– You know how your conservative friends are saying Hitler banned guns? Turns out, that’s the exact opposite of true.

– The dreamers are pretty amazing.

– As organizations like Planned Parenthood back away from the “pro-choice” label, what is next?

– No pants day on LINK Light Rail is still a story.

– The White House response to the Death Star petition.

A blogging note: I’ve still got a bit of the yucks (to use the technical term) so this is the only post from me today, and possibly tomorrow.

– I like Wyble, but I think he’s wrong about still supporting Rodney Tom

– Christians are not supposed to take the side of wage-deniers against wage-earners. Christians are not supposed to take the side of slut-shamers against women. Christians are not supposed to take the side of ignorance against truth. Christians are not supposed to take the side of indulgent pride against love.

– Transportation Advocacy Day is coming up.

– It’s not far to caricature people. Except liberals, obvs.

– There might be several little ants in that acorn.