Last night in Detroit, a blown call from a first-base umpire robbed Tigers’ pitcher Armando Galarraga of a perfect game on what should have been the very last out. I first saw what happened right after the Flyers won Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals last night. The Flyers were able to take that game into overtime and win partially because an official replay showed that their second goal just barely crossed the line (after it was initially not counted as a goal). Currently, baseball only has replay for disputes over whether a home run is really a home run. Is it time for baseball to implement instant replay for out/safe calls on the basepaths?

UPDATE (Goldy):
It should be noted that the Flyers needed to score twice in overtime to win the game, the first goal being disallowed when the referee blew a clearly early whistle, just before the Flyers swatted a loose puck into the net. So replay is no panacea.

Jim Kenny, one of the two Democrats running to be the Snohomish County Prosecutor, has endorsed I-1068 to make marijuana legal in Washington. In his press release, he touches on the key reason why our budget-conscious politicians should be joining him:

There are also many cost savings which can be realized if the voters pass I-1068, especially at the cash-strapped county level of government. Kenny points to the 16,000 marijuana criminal cases per year that would be removed from our state and local court systems, saving tens of millions of dollars in police, prosecutorial, and judicial resources. “I can point to two medical marijuana cases in the last year on which the Snohomish County Prosecutor spent valuable taxpayer resources, neither of which led to conviction. If juries are throwing out cases like that, clearly we need to move on.”

“We are looking at a crisis in public safety with declining revenue for local government. I think it’s time to prioritize and really focus our criminal justice resources on violent criminals,” said Kenny. “Given the state of our economy and the projected financial situation facing government at every level, we need to get down to the fundamentals and prioritize.”

There was a time when politicians (let alone prosecutors) didn’t dare talk about reducing law enforcement budgets or cutting back on waging the drug war. But two things have changed since then – a bad economy forcing even police budgets to be slashed, and a growing awareness that marijuana prohibition causes far more crime in our communities than would occur if we treated it the same as alcohol. Being smarter about how we reduce crime in our neighborhoods – rather than doing things that appear tough – is one of the most effective ways that we can introduce more fiscal sanity to our bloated budgets.

The Israeli Army has killed at least nine people and arrested dozens more after attacking a flotilla trying to bring aid to Gaza. Andrew Sullivan discusses it here. Juan Cole has some additional information, including an email from someone on one of the ships. Glenn Greenwald calls out the glaring contradictions between how we treat Israel and how we treat other countries and groups who do similarly appalling things. Paul Reynolds at BBC News reports on the fallout, including the cancellation of an expected meeting between Netanyahu and Obama originally scheduled for tomorrow.

UPDATE: ThinkProgress has some more links here which do a good job debunking some myths about the effects of the Gaza blockade. What I find most horrific about this action – and the Israeli policy on Gaza – is that it’s a rationalization of the necessity of punishing civilians in order to achieve political outcomes. Normally, we refer to people who think like that as terrorists.

UPDATE 2: TPM has a running timeline of reports.

UPDATE 3: George Friedman at Stratfor has a very sharp piece explaining how Israel is losing the edge in public perception and continues to risk further isolation.

I spent about three hours this afternoon at Folklife collecting signatures for I-1068. As expected, it was a friendly crowd and my biggest obstacle to getting signers was that many people had already signed. Still, there were too many young people who wanted to sign, but haven’t registered to vote yet.

Also in Seattle Center today were a number of paid gatherers for I-1098 (the Income Tax initiative), I-1100 (privatization of liquor sales), and some revival of the 2/3 vote for tax increases (don’t remember the number, don’t give a fuck).

One of the paid gatherers was clearly out of her element and I chatted with her for a bit. She said she’d been paid $100 to collect signatures, but knew nothing about the state (she was from California) or the history of our recent initiatives. She was confused as to why a lot of people were refusing to sign the 2/3 vote petition and I had to explain the history. She was far too shy to be doing that kind of work and eventually just started approaching the people who had already stopped to sign my I-1068 petitions.

On top of that, one lady who signed my petition said that one of the paid gatherers told her that the 2/3 majority vote petition was not a Tim Eyman initiative (it is). It sounds like the folks from California have learned what they need to say to get people to sign.

And the highlight of my day was when I asked a short black man with dreadlocks to sign – and he politely said “thanks, I’ve signed” and showed me the baseball-sized bud he was carrying in his hand.

Last week’s contest was a challenge, but after a clue was given, it was solved by Don Joe. It was the Yester Years Pub and Grill in West Allis, Wisconsin, where the bar owner was videotaped burning a statue of Obama last week.

Here’s this week’s, good luck!

– Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske made a very odd claim to an Irish newspaper that we’ve “ended [our] war on drugs”. I think some folks in Jamaica might disagree. And Mexico. And Canada. And Afghanistan. And not to mention right here at home. For even more on the ongoing disaster in Mexico, click here.

– Teachers in Virginia were suspended for showing students a video explaining what rights they have during a police encounter. Next door in Maryland, people who legally videotape police officers in public are still being prosecuted.

– The truth on pot and schizophrenia.

– I’ll be out at Folklife tomorrow gathering signatures for I-1068. We have one month left to get on the ballot. If you have some free time in June, please consider volunteering.

In a column accusing liberals of “nonsensical delight” over the downfall of Mark Souder, S.E. Cupp writes the following:

Fallen Rep. Mark Souder, a Republican from Indiana, is just the latest excuse to throw poor abstinence under a bus full of condoms. Salon.com’s Alex Pareene wrote about Souder’s unseemly tryst with a female staffer – who was not his wife – under the headline, “Abstinence Proselytizer Mark Souder Regrets Nothing.” For Pareene, the fact that Souder supported abstinence education is apparently an important thread of the story line.

But why? Granted, the promotional video of Souder and his mistress advocating abstinence is a delightfully vivid and embarrassing twist of irony. But Souder’s infidelity, and his inability to abstain from having extramarital sex, has nothing at all to do with abstinence education.

Zero. Abstinence education is a policy issue that we should discuss on the basis of its merits, without leaning on irrelevant, tawdry tabloid stories to prop up a position. Kids deserve better than that.

And everyone in the world deserves better than this embarrassing opinion column. There’s not much of an argument any more about the merits of abstinence-only education. Federal studies on the subject have been quite clear: that they don’t work, and that they might even increase the risk that teens will engage in unsafe sex.

What Cupp doesn’t understand is that the reasons for the failure of abstinence-only education are very much parallel to Souder’s inability to abstain from his own extramarital affair. Those of us who delighted in the hypocrisy of Mark Souder’s transgression are certainly able to connect the dots. If you understand why abstinence-only education doesn’t work, you’re not too surprised to see the reasons for that failure manifesting itself in ways that embarrass its strongest proponents.

But Souder wasn’t just a moral scold about sex. He was also the most fervent drug warrior in Congress. His infamous provision to the Higher Education Act in 1998 has cost hundreds of thousands of (disproportionately minority) students educational opportunities over the past decade. One can only imagine that Souder believed that such harsh measures would discourage drug use, but it clearly had no such effect. All it did was reduce opportunities for those who got caught and couldn’t subsequently rely on their family to continue to pay for their education.

There are strong parallels between abstinence-only education and programs like D.A.R.E. They both put a great amount of faith in the ability to use fear to keep teenagers from engaging in certain behaviors. And they both don’t work. At least with drugs, an effective regulatory scheme that keeps them out of the hands of young people could make it easier for kids to be drug-free, but we don’t have that right now. For both drugs and sex, we have very little ability to force young people to control their urges. The smartest thing has always been to provide them with accurate information and teach them how to be safe.

The reason that Mark Souder’s downfall has everything to do with abstinence-only education is because if even the biggest nanny in Congress doesn’t have the ability to abstain from sex that he knows could have serious consequences, very few teenagers out there do either. That’s the basis for why comprehensive sex-education is more realistic and more effective than trying to scare teens into keeping their pants on.

[via Sadly No – who hilariously refers to Cupp as “Sipp E. Cupp”]

If we actually had a functioning media in this country, this story would be the top story on every evening news broadcast and be on the front page of every major newspaper. But we don’t, so the fact that the vast majority (72%) of Guantanamo detainees who’ve gone in front of a judge for habeas hearings have been found to be wrongfully detained remains largely unknown to most Americans. And the politicians (both Republicans and Democrats) who’ve attempted to block the ability of detainees to go in front of a judge in the first place will continue to escape the scrutiny they deserve.

UPDATE: In related news, Conor Friedersdorf and Adam Serwer throw down on Andy McCarthy’s latest attempt to legitimize tyranny.

Arizona Governor Jan Brewer suggests to Obama that he should send aerial drones and helicopters to fight the drug war at the border because of “how effective these assets have become in Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom”. Since her letter doesn’t say so either way, I’m hoping Brewer only wants these aircraft for surveillance purposes and not to rain down bombs on Arizona towns.

UPDATE: Artfart in the comments:

When Obama was heard to say “Plug the damn hole!” was he referring to the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico or Jan Brewer’s mouth?

Recently, I had the chance to see a sneak preview of the new documentary about Jack Abramoff called “Casino Jack and the United States of Money“. Directed by Alex Gibney, it profiles the man whose corruption now defines the pinnacle of Newt Gingrich’s “Contact With America“.

Rising through the ranks of the College Republicans in the 1980s, Abramoff believed in the evils of government regulation and the power of capitalism. After the 1994 election brought Republicans to power in Congress, he became a lobbyist (for Preston, Gates, & Ellis) and the journey began. The Republicans who were elected that year quickly forgot about the promises they made to eliminate corruption and instead used their new-found power as a mechanism to enrich themselves.

The documentary details how Abramoff helped businesses in the Northern Marianas Islands (CNMI) run sweatshops with captive labor. The CNMI became a strategic locale for American businesses because – as a U.S. territory – clothes made there could have a “Made in the U.S.A.” label. Abramoff was successful at directing money made from these sweatshops towards Tom DeLay and others in Congress in order to keep the CNMI from falling under the same labor regulations as the rest of the United States. The result was that large numbers of imported workers came to the CNMI and were forced into indentured servitude. The film includes California Congressman George Miller describing how one laborer offered to sell him his kidney in an attempt to pay his way back home.

I also recently saw the HBO docudrama “You Don’t Know Jack“, the story of Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the Michigan doctor who assisted terminally ill and severally disabled individuals who wished to end their lives on their own terms. It retold his story from when he first started helping out patients in the early 1990s to his quixotic attempt to challenge the assisted suicide law at the national level, which ended with him being sent to jail for 8 years.

As a student at the University of Michigan in the mid-90s, I attended a speech on campus with both Dr. Kevorkian and his attorney Geoffrey Fieger. This was at a time when they’d already won several legal victories and it didn’t seem that any prosecutor would be able to stop Kevorkian from continuing to assist new patients who wanted his services. After both men spoke, they opened up the floor for questions. Following a few uneventful questions, a man in a wheelchair approached the mike and launched into a fearful tirade against both men. He was furious that Dr. Kevorkian wanted to end the lives of disabled people. Kevorkian tried – unsuccessfully – to explain to the poor man that he was grossly misinformed about his work. By this point in my life, I was already familiar with how religion can exploit fear to deceive people, but it was still jarring to see this poor man railing so furiously against an imaginary demon.

Kevorkian was hounded by the religious right throughout the 90s. In the minds of the self-proclaimed “pro-life” movement, he was interfering with God’s will. In reality, those who believe that an individual should suffer for the sake of another person’s religious convictions are the farthest in the world from having any claim to moral superiority. This should be obvious even without historical comparisons, but highlighting the contrast between Jack Abramoff and Jack Kevorkian provides an even clearer view of the moral bankruptcy of the religious right and the detrimental effect that it’s had on American society.

One of the most interesting chapters in the Jack Abramoff story involved his dealings with various Indian tribes. His bilking of millions of dollars from native Americans is what led to his eventual downfall, but it was an earlier scam with his old College Republican colleague Ralph Reed that I found more fascinating:

Abramoff’s work for the tribes included rubbing out competition to their casinos from neighboring tribes or other forms of gambling. It was for this service that Abramoff hired Reed’s Century Strategies. Reed’s job, as Abramoff’s partner Michael Scanlon put it, was to “bring out the wackos” – to create the appearance of overwhelming popular opposition to rival casinos or other forms of gaming.

This dynamic was always at the heart of why the Republican Party built up the religious right. They knew that the fearful and gullible could be manipulated in order to discredit more moderate politicians. The folks who were whipped up in opposition to gambling had no idea that their opposition was being used merely to protect the market share of a different tribe’s casino.

By the time Abramoff was indicted, he was just skipping the middleman and manipulating the fears of Indian tribes directly. He was taking millions of dollars from several tribes, promising access to powerful people in Congress, but often delivering nothing.

This legacy continues today with the Tea Party movement, which is just an updated version of that dynamic adjusted for today’s politics. The teabaggers have absolutely no idea what they actually believe – other than that Democrats and progressives are evil and need to be stopped. And because of this, they can be easily duped at every turn.

This isn’t an indictment of all conservatives or all religious people, it’s just a realization that our collective moral compass has been thoroughly out of whack for a long time. Most people who have rallied to the cause of the religious right are genuinely good people who’ve been exploited. But the success of this exploitation has turned unfettered capitalism into a religion and actual Christianity into a quaint anachronism.

In the end, Kevorkian spent more time in prison than Abramoff will. The man who was never a threat to anyone was locked up longer than the man whose entire career was about exploiting the powerless for money. And during the 1990s, while Jack Abramoff was enabling an entire U.S. territory to become a haven for slave labor, the folks who called themselves “pro-life” and claimed to have moral superiority over us heathens were far more concerned about an old doctor who was merely allowing people to have greater control over their own life and death.

It’s easy to be overly cynical about what the religious right has done, and how gullible its members were (and still are), but this movement has certainly had a profound affect on the health of our nation. At the heart of the religious right is control. And the strong desire of many religions to exercise greater control over our moral choices has long been exploited by those who want greater freedom in making economic choices. The end result is a society where those of us who advocate for greater control of our moral choices are punished more than those of us who make economic choices that result in the lack of freedom for many.

Last week, Josh Farley at the Kitsap Sun reported that WestNET, the drug task force that raided several locations recently in an investigation of medical marijuana dispensary North End Club 420, would return a number of I-1068 petitions that they took during the raid.

It turns out that this isn’t quite over yet. Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake has sent out an action item to pressure WestNET to return the stolen petitions. Philip Dawdy has now posted on the latest developments.

UPDATE: In other wasted taxpayer money news, Marc Emery just plead guilty in a Seattle courtroom as per his previous plea agreement and will be incarcerated for the next five years on our dime (maybe we can ask the Canadian government – who collected hundreds of thousands in dollars in taxes from Emery before turning him over to the U.S. – to pitch in for the prosecution and incarceration costs). I guess we can all breathe easier knowing that our lives can no longer be threatened by marijuana seeds.

Last week’s contest was won by uptown. It was Love’s Travel Stop along I-40 east of Oklahoma City, which was destroyed in last week’s tornadoes. Here’s a page showing what’s left of it.

If you haven’t been by for the contest in a few weeks, each contest picture is now related to something in the news, and the image might not be at the default orientation (facing north). As always, you can click the picture to go straight to the Bing mapping site. Here’s this week’s, good luck!

Glenn Beck claims that Civil Rights marchers in the 1960s weren’t demanding social justice. His complete mental breakdown continues.

Last week, an investigation into a Tacoma medical marijuana dispensary (which is still illegal in this state) led to three raids by the West End Narcotics Enforcement Team – also known as WestNET. Two of the raids were in Tacoma, while a third was in Olalla, just west of Vashon Island. The Seattle Weekly reports on the Olalla raid:

Christine Casey, patient coordinator of North End Club 420, tells the Weekly that the detectives from the West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team (WestNet) who came to her house in Olalla (west of Vashon Island) handcuffed her 14-year-old son for two hours and put a gun to his head. They also told the kid to say good-bye to his dad, Guy Casey, because the dispensary owner was going to prison.

And as the detectives looked for cash to prove that the dispensary was illegally profiting from pot sales, Casey says, they confiscated $80 that her 9-year-old daughter had received from her family for a straight-A report card. Where did they find it?

In the girl’s Mickey Mouse wallet, according to Casey. She also claims that the cops dumped out all her silverware, busted a hole in the wall, and broke appliances. She alleges too that the cops finger-wrote “I sell pot” in the dust covering the family’s Hummer, which the cops then seized. (WestNet did not return repeated calls seeking comment.)

It’s worth keeping in mind that WestNET is the same agency that allegedly tried to poison Bruce and Pamela Olson’s dogs before raiding their home in 2007. The dogs required $2,000 in vet bills. Bruce Olson, also of Olalla, was eventually acquitted of all charges against him after the police informant who claimed to have bought marijuana from Olson was deemed by the jury to have zero credibility.

Once again, WestNET is claiming that a “police operative” repeatedly bought marijuana from the Caseys without showing a medical marijuana authorization. The Caseys deny it. If the Caseys are telling the truth, it’s just another reason to put pressure on our state’s Congressional delegation to eliminate WestNET’s federal funding.

But that’s not the only wrongdoing being alleged here. Sensible Washington, the group running the I-1068 campaign, says that WestNET also seized a number of signed I-1068 petitions:

Sensible Washington has learned that one dozen signed copies of I-1068, the marijuana legalization initiative for Washington State of which Sensible Washington is the sponsor, were seized last week by the federally-funded WestNet drug task force. Our estimate is that 200 signatures are sitting in WestNet’s offices in Port Orchard, apparently seized as evidence during a series of raids against the North End Club 420 in Tacoma. The club is operating as a medical marijuana dispensary.

We have made repeated calls to WestNet’s office, but have yet to receive any assurance that the task force’s personnel have secured the signed petitions and that they plan to promptly return them to Sensible Washington.

I’m trying to determine if WestNET would be violating any specific laws by refusing to turn over signed petitions. I’ll update this post if I get an answer.

UPDATE: Josh Farley is reporting that WestNET will return the petitions.

UPDATE 2: The Port Orchard Independent still has its head in the sand.

– This post from Nate Silver was from before Tuesday’s primaries, but it’s worth re-posting up now that the primaries showed anti-establishment candidates winning all over. What Silver finds is that polling is showing that the Democratic anti-establishment candidates are giving Democrats a better chance to win in November, while the Republican anti-establishment candidates have worse chances to win in November. In other words, Rand Paul may have won big in his primary, but Trey Grayson was likely the better candidate to win the general election. But the opposite was true for Joe Sestak, who polled better against Toomey in the days and weeks leading up to Tuesday.

– There’s a rally to protest the extradition and trial of Marc Emery – this Saturday from 2-4 at the Henry M. Jackson Federal Building in downtown Seattle.

– Mexican President Felipe Calderon addresses Congress this morning, where they will greet him warmly and then completely ignore everything he has to say and continue to not care about what’s happening in Mexico or how to fix it.