HorsesAss.Org

A representative from MAPS, an organization devoted to studying the effects of psychedelics, recently sent me a press release about upcoming research being done in Vancouver to study the use of MDMA (more commonly known as ecstasy) to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. While a lot of people will snicker at the idea of using what’s more commonly known as a recreational drug for rave attendees to treat people who suffer trauma from serving in war, previous research has shown some serious promise.

MAPS’ goal is to demonstrate that MDMA has valid medical use so that the FDA and other international health agencies will allow it to be prescribed by doctors. Currently, MDMA is illegal in the United States, but has rather unsurprisingly seen a large spike in use since its distribution was handed to criminal organizations back in the 1980s. Internationally, MDMA is illegal in most countries, but researchers in Israel and Switzerland are also studying the effects of the drug.

One aspect of this story that caught my attention is the fact that this latest study in Vancouver, which could potentially benefit hundreds of thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans who have been diagnosed with PTSD, is being funded entirely by charitable donations. You’d think that a treatment that has shown such serious potential and has such a large potential base of customers would be something that American pharmaceutical companies would be interested in. Unfortunately, MDMA is off-patent and the drug itself doesn’t need to be taken every day for the overall treatment to be effective. As a result, there isn’t much money to be made when compared to giving old people boners.

Via TPM:

Two men were arrested when police found a pipe bomb, two shotguns, bomb-making materials, ammunition, a can of propane and SWAT costumes in their car Tuesday night in New Haven, Conn.

So far the police don’t have a clear sense of what the pair were planning to do, New Haven Police spokesman Officer Joe Avery told TPM.

Nope… no idea at all of what the pair were planning to do.

So let’s be clear. Brown-skinned guys with backpacks and cell phones… obvious terrorist bombing plot. White-skinned guys with actual bomb… um… gee… who the hell knows?

I’ll get to the real video later, you know the stuff with teachers talking about the real life impact of the budget cuts that would be coming under Initiative 1033, but first I thought I’d just post this clip showing what a real life asshole Tim Eyman can be.

Understand that Tim shows up, uninvited, at somebody else’s press conference, and yet despite his trespassing, is courteously allowed to stay and talk to the press. Because, you know, that’s just the way our side is… we welcome a public debate, because we’re confident we’ll win it.

But when I attempt to ask him a serious question, he won’t even look me in the eyes, let alone give me the courtesy of a response, instead dismissing me as “not the media.”

“This is a press conference,” Tim emphasizes in snubbing me.  Yeah… a press conference at which I was personally invited, and he was not. He also twice belittles the Seattle P-I’s Joel Connelly, perhaps the senior member of our state’s political press corps, saying he’s only “kinda sorta still the media.”

I mean, really… who the hell is Tim to decide who is and who is not the media?

The truth is, Tim won’t answer my questions because he knows that he can’t, for in repeatedly claiming that local school districts can simply go to voters to raise their local levies to make up for lost state revenues, he’s both lying to voters, and showing his own totally lack of understanding of how his own initiative works.

As I attempted to explain to Tim, there is a statutory lid on the amount of revenue districts can raise from local levies — 24% of combined state and federal funding for most districts, and grandfathered in as high as 33% for a handful of districts like Seattle, Bellevue and Mercer Island. And since many districts are already at or near their lid, if state funding goes down (and it absolutely will in real dollars should I-1033 pass), so would the amount of money districts would be allowed to raise via local levies.

This is a fact. And it’s simple math… math Eyman is either unwilling or unable to do. So any “real” journalist who allows Eyman to repeat his claim that districts can just go to voters for more money, is allowing Eyman to repeat a deliberate misstatement of act. (You know… a lie.)

Of course, the legislature could always lift the lid, and surely voters in wealthy districts could be persuaded to raise significantly more revenue for their local schools than they currently receive. But this shift in funding from state to local would only exacerbate the existing inequities between school districts, disadvantaging the children in the poorer and more rural areas that ironically will vote for I-1033 in the largest numbers.

But then, isn’t that the norm for Eyman initiatives: always hurting most those Tim claims he’s trying to help.

UPDATE:
Will speculates on Tim’s refusal to even make eye contact with me: “Perhaps he’s afraid he’ll fall in love? Either that, or he’s afraid he’ll turn to stone?”

A teacher from Colorado joined local teachers at press conference this morning to explain how Initiative 1033 would harm education in Washington state, and guess who showed up to crash the party?

I’m editing video now of some of the highlights of the press conference, plus some very rude treatment of me and Joel Connelly when we attempted to ask Tim Eyman serious questions. I mean, really… what a horse’s ass.

Long time political observers will notice a curious twist to the No on I-1033 campaign; for the first time ever, a campaign is overtly branding a Tim Eyman initiative as an actual “Tim Eyman initiative.”

Why? Well, I talked to folks from the campaign and they say that their research is absolutely conclusive. Voters don’t like him, voters don’t trust him, and they’re much less likely to vote for an initiative if they know it is sponsored by Tim Eyman.

Understandably, I take some pleasure in that, for while Tim deserves most of the credit for his negative rebranding, it is fair for me to claim to have played a not insubstantial part. At the time of my horse’s ass initiative, Tim was still widely referred to in the press as “initiative guru” or “initiative kingpin” Tim Eyman… adjectives I worked hard to undermine. Nowadays he’s almost always identified as a “professional initiative sponsor,” reinforcing the truthful perception that he’s mostly in this for the money.

So now that the voting public no longer takes Tim seriously, it’s time for the press to follow suit. Yeah, I know he gives good quote, and a horse’s ass always makes for good headlines. But as a writer of public policy the man is entirely unserious, and let’s be honest, without the financial support of one man, Michael Dunmire, Tim would have ceased qualifying initiatives for the ballot years ago.

Looks like the gloves are coming off in the race for mayor of America’s Vancouver, which pits city council member Tim Leavitt against veteran incumbent Royce Pollard.

From The Columbian:

Vancouver mayoral candidate Tim Leavitt has missed “an outrageous” 16 elections over the past 10 years, including primary elections in 2008 and 2006 and general elections in 2002, 2000, 1999 and 1998, according to a review of voting records by the Vancouver Firefighters Union. Leavitt doesn’t dispute missing the votes, but says it has nothing to do with his ability to serve as mayor.

And an IBEW political action committee, PAC 48, has put up a little web site in honor of Leavitt called “Stop Lying Tim Leavitt.” Nothing subtle about that.

Jeff Mapes at The Oregonian had an interesting little post today concerning a $15,000 donation made to an Oregon IBEW committee from wealthy Clark County resident David Nierenberg, who has given mightily to all sorts of Democrats, philanthropic causes and his former boss Mitt Romney. From Jeff Mapes on Politics:

As it happens, though, the PAC operated by Local 48 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers on the same day – Sept. 23 – gave $30,000 to PAC 48 of Washington. That PAC is also operated by the union, but it operates across the river where many of the union’s members are located.

So it appears Nierenberg is coming in big in support of long-time incumbent Royce Pollard. Well, $15,000 isn’t really big money for a guy like Nierenberg, but in a Vancouver mayor’s race it’s still a decent chunk of change. (Full blogger ethics panel disclosure: I knew Nierenberg from a campaign group called Evergreen Citizens for Schools from roughly 1998-2002. While he would probably take a phone call from me, I haven’t spoken to him for several years.)

Chris at Politics is a Blood Sport has a pretty straight-forward take on Nierenberg’s involvement:

David Nierenberg contributes to causes and candidates that he believes will benefit the region. While there’s little agreement from this little blog about the benefits of a Mitt Romney, there’s a wide range of agreement on other candidates Nierenberg has backed over the years.

Pollard is truly in the fight of his political life, and he’ll need all the help he can get from IBEW Local 48 and others if he is to succeed. What may have started as a simple off-year mayoral race is turning into a referendum on the new bridge, light rail, and the overall direction of Vancouver for years to come.

Leavitt has mounted a serious challenge to Pollard, that’s for sure, but he’s done it by exploiting economic uncertainty and trying to have it both ways on tolling when it comes to the CRC project that would build a new bridge on I-5 between Vancouver and Portland. A lot of Leavitt’s rhetoric is that same old “waste fraud abuse” stuff, burbbling about government being run like a business, etc. You know the type.

There isn’t going to be a new bridge without tolls; the Congressional delegations know it, Oregon officials remind us of it repeatedly, and at least Royce Pollard faced up to this basic fact a long time ago. Leavitt can try to finesse the issue all he wants, but he’s built a campaign by capitalizing on the issue and if elected mayor, it would seem to be difficult, if not impossible, for him to endorse tolling. In essence, the bridge project would most likely be doomed.

There’s a great irony in all this. Leavitt is the preferred candidate of the local BIAW chapter, whose members presumably would benefit from improvements in transportation between Clark County and Portland. In a conventional political world like the ones in political science textbooks, the bidness guys and gals from the BIAW would get behind the moderately conservative, pro-business incumbent who wants to make it easier for people to live and shop in their city. But the conventional, tidy views of politics that still find voice in newspapers and on NPR exist only in some imaginary pony land. In the real world, conservatives pull out all the stops, on every issue, from the top to the bottom, and with control of both Clark County and the City of Vancouver within their reach, they’re not bloody likely to let up now, and they’re not at all sentimental about all the good things Royce Pollard has done over the years, either for them or the community at large.

I don’t know who the BIAW thinks buys their warranty-free houses, or rather will buy them again if the economy recovers from the international financial larceny made possible by the same neo-liberal ideology that informs every action of the right, and a fair portion of the “left.”

The BIAW long ago gave up any pretense of being interested in anything other than ultra-conservative ideology and gutting government for the sheer hell of it. It’s not a bug, it’s a design feature. If Leavitt becomes mayor, Vancouver might as well change its name to “Vista, Washington.”

Please join us tonight for some politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. The festivities take place at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at 8:00 pm.

Go ahead…put your evening on hold to help fight the fascists….

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMRK2oSo82Y[/youtube]

Not in Seattle? The Drinking Liberally web site has dates and times for 340 other chapters of Drinking Liberally for you to shoot for.

The state Senate Health and Long-Term Care Committee held a work session last Thursday to discuss national health care reform, and how the various proposals might impact our state-administered Medicaid program. Testifying was DSHS staffer Roger Gantz, and almost from the start, Sen. Cheryl Pflug (R-Obstructionville) attempted to disrupt the discussion by threatening him with an ethics complaint.

Her beef? DSHS and the committee were using state resources to research and discuss pending federal legislation, an action she equated with illegal lobbying and campaigning.

What a load of shit.

As Sen. Ed Murray (D-Reality) helpfully pointed out, it is not an unusual practice for committees to have briefings on the scenarios the federal government may act on, and goes on to suggest that Pflug’s own efforts to threaten and intimidate Gantz, may in fact violate Senate rules on how they treat people coming before their committees.

But Pflug’s lack of etiquette aside, what this exchange really demonstrates is how incredibly frightened Republicans are to have a debate about healthcare reform at all, and how eager they are to shut it down. I mean, honestly, apart from the senators and the two people testifying, what are there, six other people in the hearing room, and maybe another couple dozen watching on TVW? And for this she’s willing to make herself look like an idiot by suggesting the Health and Long-Term Care Committee is ethically bound to avoid any long-term planning?

Coward.

Or if you hate children, and don’t want to properly educate them, I guess you’d want to vote Yes on I-1033.

Former state Republican Party Chair Chris Vance, has a somewhat startling admission to make:

I have spent the bulk of my career opposing higher taxes and increased spending. In the Legislature I voted against Governor Mike Lowry’s 1993 budget and tax increases. On the King County Council I voted against two budgets because they increased spending and raised property taxes — budgets written by my fellow Republicans while we were in the majority. During all of my 11 years in elected office I served on the budget writing committee, and every year I listened to Democratic governors and county executives talk about tight budgets, while revenues and spending went up and up.

As a fiscal conservative, therefore, I hope I can say this with some credibility: King County really does have a revenue problem. In fact, it is closer to a revenue crisis.

See, when I lay out the facts behind the counties’ structural revenue deficit (and it’s not just King County, but all counties), there are those who dismiss me as just the Horses’s Ass guy. But here’s Vance, a lifelong Republican and self-described fiscal conservative, pretty much making the same exact case.

Huh.

This is kind of nice for SW Washington.

The Democratic Party announced Monday that it will hold its state convention in Clark County on June 25 and 26. The event, which is expected to draw as many as 2,100, will begin with caucus meetings and a banquet Friday evening at the Hilton Vancouver Washington. It will continue Saturday with a congressional breakfast and the convention itself at the Clark County Event Center at the Fairgrounds.

The Repubs are doing their convention in Vancouver earlier in June, with their entire event at the Hilton.

One logistical planning note for folks who usually go to the Democratic convention: the Hilton is in downtown Vancouver, while the fairgrounds is about 8 miles north on I-5, closer to Ridgefield. Hopefully there will be some kind of shuttle service for those who may choose to take Amtrak to Vancouver. Plenty of time before next June of course.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSL3dFcTfXY[/youtube]

Not exactly sure why, but I haven’t laughed this hard in a long time. Guess I’ve always had a thing for escalation of the absurd.

Those of you who have been missing Will Kelly-Kamp’s posts here on HA (and there certainly must be at least a few of you) will be pleased to know that he just landed a paying gig as a freelancer at The Stranger, where his posts on city issues, transportation and politics in general will appear on Slog on a daily basis.  Starting… well… now.

I first gave Will posting privileges, not because we agree on everything (we don’t), but because I saw him as a natural (if at times raw) writing talent whose snark, wit and irreverence meshed well with the attitude I had cultivated here on HA. It’s great to see him rewarded for his efforts, and I’m confident he’ll only become a better writer under The Stranger’s editorial guidance.

Congrats Will.

One more quick comment about the Seattle School District’s new assignment plan, to note that with the majority of students already attending neighborhood schools, much of the impact of the plan will depend on how thoughtfully the district redraws the new reference maps. For example, take my daughter’s old school, Graham Hill Elementary. Living on the same block as the school, we couldn’t get much closer, so no amount of gerrymandering would have impacted us. But the same wouldn’t be true for some of her friends who lived only a few blocks away.

The problem with the current map for the Graham Hill community is that the school lies near the northern end of a stretched out reference area that extends southward along Lake Washington before jutting west past Rainier AVE, just south of Othello ST. Indeed, back during the 2006 closure process, one of the arguments the district used to justify closing the school was that so few of its students lived within its boundaries; not surprising considering that the bulk of its potential families actually live closer to one of three other other schools — Brighton, Wing Luke and Dunlop — and in many cases, closer to all three schools than to Graham Hill.

On the other hand, when looking at the percentage of students who actually lived within a one-mile radius, Graham Hill had one of the highest walkability scores in the district, drawing many of its students from the Whitworth reference area just to the north. Down in our area of the city, most families already are choosing their neighborhood elementary school… they’re just not doing so along the artificial boundary lines the district has drawn.

So if the district were to adopt a neighborhood assignment plan while leaving the current boundaries unchanged, it could fracture the communities at four neighborhood schools, while ironically increasing transportation costs. Surely an unintended consequence, but a very possible one nonetheless.

My concern, coming off my unhappy experience with the school closure process, is whether the district is pursuing this strategy for the sake of efficiency, with too little empathy for how disruptive this policy change could be for the current generation of students, and without nearly enough input from the neighborhood schools themselves.

I guess we’ll soon find out.

A lot of families are awfully anxious as they await tomorrow’s release of the Seattle School District’s new assignment plan, one which intends to assign the majority of students to their neighborhood schools, with fewer options and less flexibility than we currently enjoy.

Will many of my friends here in SE Seattle, whose children are comfortably on an academic track they thought would guarantee them a slot at Garfield, happily accept an assignment to Rainier Beach? I don’t think so. Likewise, on the even more contentious issue of middle schools, an assignment to Aki Kurose in its present form would be the equivalent of a one-way ticket out of the district.

Criticize me all you want for stating the obvious, but that’s just the way it is.

I’m on the record as a passionate proponent of neighborhood schools, but I’ve been equally vocal in criticizing the lack of equity within the district. And with schools increasingly relying on PTSA money to fund things that used to be considered part of basic education (tutors, teaching assistants, art, music, physical education, books, equipment, field trips, etc.), the disparity between the educational haves and have nots can only grow wider.

At some schools in more affluent neighborhoods, PTSA’s raise more than $1,000 per student a year to pay for services the district and state can no longer afford to provide, while some schools in poorer and working class neighborhoods have no PTSA at all. This unofficial and unspoken “PTSA Levy” amounts to a not-so-secret tuition system that only exacerbates the inherent demographic disparity.

A few years back when we toured the TOPS K-8 program in the hopes of securing our daughter a desirable academic home for middle school (she got in for 4th grade, but we ultimately declined), the PTSA representative wasn’t shy about making his expectations clear. TOPS would give our children the equivalent of a private school education we were told (and in my opinion, oversold), and those of us who could afford that type of tuition were expected to pony up accordingly. Of course, there’s no enforcement mechanism, but there are parents at some schools who routinely write four and even five figure checks, while during our seven years at Graham Hill we where happy if we raised better than $50 a student.

No doubt Seattle would be better off with a neighborhood school system that would be more convenient to parents, provide much greater continuity to students, and save the district millions of dollars in transportation and other costs. But attempting to address the assignment issue before meaningfully addressing the equity issue, virtually assures that the current level of disparity between schools will only grow worse, while the district’s seemingly inexorable march toward resegregation will continue apace.

So here’s hoping the new assignment plan is about much more than just saving money.