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Seattle Bike Blog is reporting that Seattle will spend its school zone speeding camera money on school safety improvements.

The city installed a couple cameras last year, and the revenue generated far exceeded expectations (bad and good news). But there are also signs that the cameras themselves are changing behavior. Citations have fallen 16 percent since cameras were installed, and nearly every person who has received one ticket has not received a second.

So generating the money makes streets safer, and investing the money makes streets safer. Perfect.

The end game for the cameras would be zero speeding in school zones. People in Seattle will know that school zone speeding is taken extremely seriously. Of course, this would theoretically dry up the millions the cameras generate for school safety, but that would be a beautiful problem to have.

As long as the money comes from and goes to reducing those violations, it seems like a pretty good thing. I wouldn’t want the city to become dependent on that money for social services or whatever, vital as that is.

– Scientists warn that climate change is causing oceans to warm and expand, triggering sea level rise. New models estimate seas could climb from 18 inches to well over 50 inches by the turn of the century, a level that would inundate downtown Olympia. (h/t)

– Since this is a Northwest blog, I don’t know how much in the open threads to mention other states. But ugh Texas, and ugh Texas.

– The GOP plan on health care seems to be to make as many people suffer as possible in the hope that people blame Obama for their suffering.

– Back to school, everybody.

– Are 21 stores going to be enough for your marijuana needs, Seattle?

– The Seattle City Council unanimously approved a couple bills to help make bike share a reality in the city.

– I just know we’ll get it right this time.

Lee and Darryl posted on the Federal government’s backing off of our and Colorado’s marijuana laws. It means that at least for a while things can proceed. So it got me thinking, now that the lowest of the low hanging fruit has been plucked, what’s the next step for Washington voters/activists to push for in ending the drug war? If I do the rest of this as a series of questions, it hopefully encourages discussion, and means I don’t have to do any actual research.

In an open thread the other day, I noted the proposal to make it not a felony to have larger quantities of drugs provided there wasn’t an intent to distribute. Is that a good next step? Are there questions about the ways to make sure that the marijuana legalization is implemented in a proper manner that we can best serve as a model for the rest of the country? Is there money in the budget for rehab and other programs that would be better than prison?

Anyway, have at it, in the comments.

Goldy reports on a press conference on the possibility of getting a transit package in a special session.

Both Inslee and Constantine spoke about the importance of including additional tax authority for King County in the package to stave off a projected 17 percent cut in Metro bus service. But it’s not clear that even a November special session can come soon enough to prevent some cutbacks. The transportation package that passed the House—the one Inslee said he was ready to press the “go” button on if the Senate passed it—would give King County the authority to raise up to a 1.5 percent Motor Vehicle Excise Tax (MVET), but only on approval of voters. A special election would take months to mount, and implementation would take months more. But Metro will run through its reservers by the end of June, 2014.

I hope we can get a transit package that gives King County a chance to tax ourselves as we want. I’m not thrilled with tying that to spending money on roads, but fine, whatever. And I hope it actually saves Metro from serious cuts. But if Metro is cut, I hope it’s disproportionately from Rodney Tom’s district. I want people to be in this together, but Rodney Tom has personally made the Senate an unworkable pile of bullshit. So yeah, the cuts should hurt his district more than the rest of us. As long as he has no incentive to be decent, he won’t be.

Please join us for a late summer evening of political conversation over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet tonight and every Tuesday evening at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier than that for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out another DL meeting over the next week. The Tri-Cities chapter also meets tonight. And for Thursday, the Spokane, Lakewood, and Tacoma chapters meet. On Friday, the Enumclaw chapter meets.

With 207 chapters of Living Liberally, including eighteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and three more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter meeting near you.

– I hope you had a lovely Labor Day weekend. As a downtown resident, I spent most of the weekend avoiding the Bumbershoot and PAX crowds.

– I’m glad Obama is asking Congress for permission on Syria, but other than that, it seems problematic.

– Sometimes our trolls will link to some story ostensibly about a White Trayvon Martin. Oliver Willis provides a handy flow chart for them to see if it holds up.

– Dear WSU fans, you have a problem (h/t to Nick on Facebook).

– Still glad that Mike Kreidler is insurance commissioner.

– Under this new proposal, the possession of any drug, when not intended for distribution, would be reduced from a felony charge, to a misdemeanor, reducing the maximum sentence from 5 years, to 90 days. This would explicitly apply to cannabis, given that – despite the possession of 28 grams or less not being a crime (thanks to Initiative 502) – the possession of over 40 grams is an automatic felony, which is something that not many in Washington State understand.

– That Lt. Governor of Texas seems super nice.

Yes, HA was down most of yesterday, and no, I don’t know exactly what the problem was or why it took so long to fix. Something to do with a problem with our hosting company’s “main upstream internet provider” or something. In any case, you shouldn’t have spent such a lovely day indoors commenting on some local political blog anyway, so consider it a gift.

Last week’s contest was still unsolved as of Thursday night. It was the store in Zurich where Oprah Winfrey was told she couldn’t afford a handbag that costs more than my car.

This week’s is a random location somewhere on earth, good luck!

1 Samuel 5:6
But the hand of the LORD was heavy upon those of Ashdod, and He destroyed them and smote them with hemorrhoids.

Discuss.

ONN: Week in Review.

Young Turks: DOJ okays pot legalization in states.

How Grover Cleveland Invented Labor Day:

Liberal Viewer: FAUX News “Worst Interview” defense misses fact/value distinction.

This Week in the Republican War on Voters™:

• Ann Telnaes: The March Backward.
• Voter ID law: DOJ vs. Texas

Red State Update: Podcast Episode 41.

Pat Robertson Bizarre Conspiracy Theory:

• Anderson Cooper rips Pat Robertson a new asshole (via Political Wire).
• Young Turks: Pat Robertson on his statement about gays and rings.

White House: West Wing Week.

Ed: Rep. Steve King (R-IA) compares un-employed to ‘unruly children’.

Ken Cuccinelli: Another day, another scandal.

Matt Binder: Republican lawmaker complains he saw a “physically fit” couple use food stamps.

Syria’s Consideration:

• Obama makes a statement on Syria
• Ann Telnaes: Familiar Drum Beat.
• Mark Fiore: Fireagra…for foreign policy impotence.
• Pap and Laura Flanders: Obama’s choice is peace or war.

Jonathan Mann: Fukushima, Syria and Miley Cyrus’ Tongue.

Sam Seder: Gun instructor accidentally shoots student.

Young Turks: IRS recognizes same sex marriages.

Mental Floss: 26 unfortunate celebrity arrests.

Mike Yard: I never thought I’d live to see a black president.

Fifty Years Ago, A Man Had A Dream:

• Why the “Dream” speech was copyrighted.
• Young Turks: Wingnuts falsely claim MLK Jr. was a Republican.
• Sharpton: The right-wing’s lying, hateful reactions to MLK commemoration
• Top Republicans‘abscond’ from ‘march to Washington’ celebration
• Sharpton:
• Breaking down Obama”s speech
• Maddow: Republicans reject invite to March anniversary.
• Young Turks: Bill-O the Clown has to apologize for false claim over March on Washington event

Maddow: Feds cede ground on pot.

Matt Binder: In Portland, hate flyers are targeting the disabled for receiving disability.

Pap: Political poison from the pulpit.

What flows below Washington D.C..

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

This is my second post this week on Syria. There are two problems with me doing that. (1) It’s not Pacific Northwest related, so outside of the scope of what I generally try to write on this blog. (2) It’s not something I have any particular knowledge of. Still, here I am writing it and here you are reading it. I guess the fact that we may momentarily commit ourselves to another Middle East war deserves two posts, even if they’re outside my wheelhouse.

If the case that Syria used Chemical weapons is as strong as Secretary Kerry claims it is, it seems to me there ought to be a diplomatic case or a legal one against the members of the regime that ordered it, not missiles fired from ships. Syria is not a party to the International Criminal Court (and neither is the US), so the best way to punish the regime seems off the table. But I wonder if there might be a way to bring Assad and the generals who carried it out to justice in a country with universal jurisdiction.

It seems to me that something like a case in Canada or Belgium for war crimes could act as a real punishment for the regime without the cost, collateral damage, and blow back that you get from actual acts of war. It would be tricky for the US to do legally, outside of US courts, of course. But so is getting ourselves involved in a war, or at least it ought to be tough to do also.

As I said the other day, I agree with the administration that the use of chemical weapons needs a response. I’m just not sure it needs a military response.

Goldy has a piece on Slog about the IRS recognizing same gender marriages as long as they were preformed in states where it’s legal. It’s an important step. If you look at the map of where marriage equality is legal, it’s a few islands in a sea of discrimination. The Northeast, a few Midwest and Southwest states, and 2 West Coast states.

That’s it. The whole Southeast and other large swaths of the rest of the country are without any states with full marriage equality. But now people living in the rest of the country can come to a state where it’s legal, get married and bring some of the rights of marriage back with them.

That means you can be gay married in Washington but live in Alabama, and still be treated as a legally married couple by the IRS. Though why you want to live in Alabama, I’ve know idea.

Ugh. And not just the typo. I don’t know why anyone would want to live outside a few Northern metro areas. But the fact that they do is good enough for me. The fight for equality is necessarily the fight for equality everywhere. And people wanting to be treated equal in the town where they grew up, or where their family lives, where they love the climate, where they could find a job, or whatever other reason doesn’t deserve our sneering. We should stay focused on the governments that don’t allow full rights not the people who have their rights denied.

The importance of today’s DOJ policy announcement on Washington and Colorado’s marijuana regulations is hard to measure. On one hand, much of what is now stated policy is what we already assumed the DOJ position to be as they remained silent on the topic for so long. If they were planning to sue, they’d have done it already and certainly not given Washington and Colorado to green light to start spending money implementing it.

On the other hand, as Mike Riggs pointed out here, the language about not targeting operations solely because they are large in size is a welcome departure from how US Attorney’s have operated in recent years regarding medical marijuana businesses.

What remains to be seen is whether marijuana businesses in Washington and Colorado will have access to banking services. Inslee indicated that he’d gotten assurances from Holder that the problem will be addressed, but the policy memo was silent on it.

On a larger scale, this announcement makes it very clear to other states and other countries that the U.S. government is not interested in fully backing the federal and international prohibitions on marijuana. It’s a clear signal that the option of moving away from prohibition to a smarter model is a political reality now. And the Obama Administration deserves credit for recognizing the pragmatic response, even though they needed a lot of pushing to get there (that seems to be how they operate on these issues).

Also check out Mark Kleiman’s post here with a roundup of good points.

UPDATE: Looks like the banking services issue is being addressed. That’s a very positive development.

I’m in the middle of a rainy commute, but I’m recommending that y’all check out Goldy‘s and Kshama Sawant‘s Twitter feeds for the latest on the rally and strike for a decent wage in Seattle. Nationally, you can follow the #829strike hashtag. Godspeed everyone.

Finally. From a joint statement from AG Bob Ferguson and Gov. Jay Inslee:

Today we received confirmation Washington’s voter-approved marijuana law will be implemented. We received good news this morning when Attorney General Eric Holder told the governor the federal government would not pre-empt Washington and Colorado as the states implement a highly regulated legalized market for marijuana. Attorney General Holder made it clear the federal government will continue to enforce the federal Controlled Substance Act by focusing its enforcement on eight specific concerns, including the prevention of distribution to minors and the importance of keeping Washington-grown marijuana within our state’s borders. We share those concerns and are confident our state initiative will be implemented as planned.

[…]

The memo from the Department of Justice spells out the terms (informally):

Today, the U.S. Department of Justice announced an update to its federal marijuana enforcement policy in light of recent state ballot initiatives that legalize, under state law, the possession of small amounts of marijuana and provide for the regulation of marijuana production, processing, and sale.

In a new memorandum outlining the policy, the Department makes clear that marijuana remains an illegal drug under the Controlled Substances Act and that federal prosecutors will continue to aggressively enforce this statute. To this end, the Department identifies eight (8) enforcement areas that federal prosecutors should prioritize. These are the same enforcement priorities that have traditionally driven the Department’s efforts in this area.

Outside of these enforcement priorities, however, the federal government has traditionally relied on state and local authorizes to address marijuana activity through enforcement of their own narcotics laws. This guidance continues that policy.

For states such as Colorado and Washington that have enacted laws to authorize the production, distribution and possession of marijuana, the Department expects these states to establish strict regulatory schemes that protect the eight federal interests identified in the Department’s guidance. These schemes must be tough in practice, not just on paper, and include strong, state-based enforcement efforts, backed by adequate funding. Based on assurances that those states will impose an appropriately strict regulatory system, the Department has informed the governors of both states that it is deferring its right to challenge their legalization laws at this time. But if any of the stated harms do materialize—either despite a strict regulatory scheme or because of the lack of one—federal prosecutors will act aggressively to bring individual prosecutions focused on federal enforcement priorities and the Department may challenge the regulatory scheme themselves in these states.