Recently if there’s Missing Link news, my reaction is something between “what a good plan to never be implemented” or just ignoring it. But this seems like it might actually come to pass.

East Link tunneling has got underway. It looks great. I’m excited about not having to take the bus or a car to Bellevue. I’d guess it gets used less than the Seattle stations but more than the buses.

The no on I-1552 people are having a rally to oppose the administration’s repeal of the protections for transgender students. The link is to a page where they’ll get your name and email address. And if it gets on the ballot, presumably ask you for money. But the rally in Tacoma at noon on Saturday is a worthwhile thing to go to on its own.

Not content to lose statewide running against Seattle, Senator Miloscia is now opposing safe injection sites. Here’s a press release about it. This is a month old, but I haven’t done a metacommentary piece in a while. Since it just passed out of committee (third item), now is as good a time as any to get back to it.

Sen. Mark Miloscia introduced legislation Monday that would ban the creation of heroin-injection sites in Washington cities and counties. King County has proposed creating two county-operated locations where heroin and other illegal narcotics may be consumed “legally” under medical supervision.

I’m pretty sure it’s not actually legal, since that’s not something a county can do. As such, I’m not sure why it’s in quotes. Who you quoting? There must be a better way to say that. Here are a few off the top of my head:

– without fear of arrest
– quasi-legally
– it’s-really-not-legal,-y’all
– the-legal-status-of-the-drug-use-isn’t-actually-the-issue
– illegally

In any case there will be doctors around in case they have overdoses. They’ll probably refer them to treatment if they think they can, like they do in Vancouver:

Through Insite, clients develop trusting relationships with our health care and social workers, making them more likely to pursue withdrawal management (detox), addiction counselling and other addiction treatment services.

Anyway, back to Senator Miloscia’s month old press release. I don’t know what I’m doing either.

“We must stop the push for decriminalization of drugs,” said Miloscia, R-Federal Way. “Standing idly by while addicts abuse illegal drugs is not compassionate, and it does not solve the problem.”

That’s the fucking plan: To stand idly by. To just hire people to fuck around on their phones while people shoot up. They’ll whistle a tune that they half remember from their youth. Maybe look up passively from time to time and give a thumbs up in the direction of the addicts before turning back to Instagram.

It won’t be harm reduction and redirection of people to treatment where possible. It won’t be making sure that people don’t pass around dirty needles. It’s just sitting idly.

His legislation is a direct response to a report issued by the Heroin and Prescription Opiate Addiction Task Force established by King County and the city of Seattle. The task force recommended two locations within King County where drug users can use illegal narcotics under medical supervision. The county recently approved funding for two injection sites in its 2017-2018 budget.

The people King County put in charge of this unanimously said it’s a piece of how we deal with the problem. But what if a grandstanding state senator decided his plan of do fuck all* was better?

Last year Miloscia toured Insite Coastal Health in Vancouver, Canada, the first supervised drug-consumption site in North America, to study the issue further.

He will proceed to say nothing about what he learned there for the rest of the press release. Instead he’ll take us home with a misleading statistic.

“Canada’s safe-injection site has completely failed and overdoses have skyrocketed,” Miloscia added. “We must focus our time, money and resources on treatment options that get people off illegal drugs, not encourage drug abuse.”

Overdoses are up in Vancouver, it’s true, and it’s tragic. They’re also up in lots of places where there aren’t safe injection sites. The reason seems to be fentanyl and other agents cut into heroin.

The Globe and Mail reports that overdose deaths rose to 914 during 2016. In contrast, there were 510 overdose deaths in 2015. It’s the province’s worst overdose rate in the 30 years it’s been keeping records.

In Seattle, KIRO 7 reports that the Seattle Fire Department has responded to 2,677 overdoses since 2014.

Canadian officials are blaming much of the rise on the inclusion of fentanyl, which is a synthetic opiate that can be cut into heroin. It is cheaper than heroin, yet much more potent, and can lead to overdoses. Fentanyl is suspected to be a factor in the recent surge in overdose deaths in Seattle, as well. What’s worse, is that another synthetic drug, carfentanil, has been found to have been mixed into B.C.’s heroin last fall. It is used as a large animal tranquilizer, and is cut into heroin for the same reasons as fentanyl. Though, it is even more potent.

Call me a dirty hippie if you want, but it seems like safe injection sites would be better places to test for fentanyl than in a hotel room. Or an abandoned lot near your dealer’s house. Or on your bathroom floor while your kids are playing in the next room.

[Read more…]

The library is not really designed to be a place for homeless people to hang out. It has become that de facto as the city’s homeless population increases. I don’t know what’s right on the no sleeping rule. Other than, obviously, enough places designed for homeless people to sleep.

I put this out on Twitter, but nobody responded. Rather than take the hint, I’m going to burn an Open Thread talking about a non-Washingotn thing for longer than I’d like. And it’s almost certainly nonsense. You’re welcome and sorry and you’re welcome.

At what point do we cross the 14th Amendment threshold for denying people office?

After the Civil War, Congress passed the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery. It also passed the 14th and 15th Amendments to try to make sure that it wasn’t just slavery, and that the slave population was integrated into society. So the 15th Amendment is an attempt to make sure you couldn’t stop people from voting based on race.

The 14th Amendment was a bit of a grab bag. People think of it as making sure that equal protection and rights apply to states. And maybe they know that’s where the if you’re born in the US you’re automatically a citizen bit of the Constitution comes from. It certainly has that. But, it also has some other stuff: We’re not going to honor confederate money or debts, and since slaves are free we’re not paying to free them.

For my question, I’m referring specifically to section 3:

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Obviously, they meant the Civil War, but it has been used to block people from taking office since then. It doesn’t say how or when we should determine if people “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” and doesn’t offer any burden of proof.

Have people in the Trump administration, or who might join it, passed that bar? It wouldn’t apply to Trump, since January 20 was the first time he took an oath to support the Constitution. On the other hand, it’s looking more and more like Flynn was working with Russia to fuck up a US election. We aren’t at war with Russia, but then again, we weren’t technically at war in Korea or Viet Nam, but surely it would have counted then. If there are other officials who subverted American democracy, do they need 2/3 of both houses before they can serve again, and what happens if they’re already serving when we get proof but they don’t resign?

Don’t sign the anti-trans garbage initiative. Come on. You’re better than that. You’re better than some of Washington’s worst people trying to push a bathroom bill the state again. You’re better than even if we’ll probably win, we don’t need a months long campaign demeaning trans people. Don’t sign their bullshit hateful initiative.

*Thread is open to all legal posters. Some restrictions apply.

I’ve been looking to see if a Washington State GOP Congressperson would actually have a town hall for a while. And the answer is sort of? Dave Reichert is going to have a virtual town hall through Facebook Live.

I mean, I guess. Great. It’s going to be hosted by KCTS, so it’s not a total run away half measure. But there still won’t be an audience for that incredulous laughter or booing at his bullshit answers. But still, if you’re a constituent, and you’re free at 1:00 on Thursday the 23rd, you might want to ask a question.

I wrote this this morning, but forgot to actually hit publish. Sorry.

When the recreational marijuana initiative passed, I was a bit worried that Governor Inslee would sort of let it go by the wayside if challenged by Federal authorities. But I’m glad to see he’s going to defend it fully. Hopefully the Trump administration will have worse garbage to deal with and not want to prioritize this.

So proud of Seattle for divesting from Wells Fargo. If you do enough crap for long enough, you start to make enemies. For the foreseeable future banking is probably going to be ugly and harmful (it doesn’t have to be that way, but it does need to be regulated better). But at least the city can collectively stop spending its money on the worst of banks.

I was going to write about how you should contact Council Member Sawant if you were harassed by SPD at the airport demonstration, and obviously, please do that.

But instead: Snow. It’s snowing, y’all. Snnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnoooooooooooooooooowwwwwww.

Between Reuven Carlyle opposing light rail to Ballard last year and now Sharon Tomiko Santos wanting to restructure Sound Transit, there really should be some primary elections. You can’t keep opposing this vital institution in the Puget Sound and expect no consequences. I don’t know if they have an eye toward statewide office and think pissing on Sound Transit is the way to go, or if they genuinely think it’s a problem. But either way, they’re wrong.

I couldn’t be prouder of the fact that Washington State is leading the legal fight against Trump’s immigration order. I’ve been saying on this blog since Trump won the presidency that much of the resistance will be local. Our local officials are doing great work.

Another weekend another massive protest against the horror of the Trump administration. The SeaTac and Westlake protests against the anti-refugee, anti-immigrant garbage. It’s going to be tough to maintain it throughout 4 years. But for now it is very heartening to see, and to be a part of these.

There will be more loses than victories for liberals over the next few years. And the victories will often times be things like people who shouldn’t have been detained at all are allowed to go about their lives.

While I’ve had problems with Mayor Murray before, I have to say, his stance on keeping Seattle a sanctuary city has been pretty great. The federal money could be a hit in places. But it’s not even near as bad as turning the city into an arm of Trump’s anti-immigrant goon squad.

I was also heartened to read the outlines of a legal strategy. I’m not a lawyer, but Trump’s usual strategy of bullying people with an incentive to settle probably won’t work as well in this case. Our elected officials have a much greater incentive to fight him.

In the mean time, I’m all for creative ways to make up the money.