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The Obama Administration has put down in writing their official policy on medical marijuana. They will no longer interfere with state medical marijuana laws. The most important benefit of this policy is that it opens the door for states to implement much more robust systems of production and distribution without interference from the DEA. Previously, states faced a dilemma in that the more regulation of a medical marijuana system that they created, the more paper trails there were for the DEA to take the whole thing down. That’s a big reason why California’s system ended up being such an unregulated mess. With this new policy, it will be easier for states to set it up the right way.

All of this may soon become moot because the tide is quickly turning towards allowing regulated sales to recreational users as well.

There isn’t a state-by-state breakdown, but this poll shows the same result seen in previous polls, that a majority of people on the west coast support full legalization. Of course, as we’ve learned with the public option, you need about 70-75% support for something before Democrats find the testicular fortitude to implement it.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgj0FbPxSiY&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

Anybody who has followed my coverage of the Seattle mayor’s race may be surprised to learn that I’m voting for Mike McGinn.

I haven’t been particularly kind to McGinn over the past six months or so, and apart from what I admit to be a surprisingly successful grassroots campaign, he hasn’t done much to change my opinion of him as a politician. But then, neither has Joe Mallahan, and given the choice between grassroots and no roots, I’m going with the former.

While it is far from a perfect test, how one runs a political campaign is somewhat of an indicator of how one might run the office being sought. It’s not supposed to be easy, and how one gets through the daily grind of fundraising and organizing and debates and interviews and all that, both says a lot about the candidate, and helps prepare him or her for the daily grind of office.

In that sense, the quarter of a million dollars or so that Mallahan has pumped into his own campaign has proven to be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing, because without it, he never would have been taken a seriously as a candidate. A curse, because his lazy reliance on his own money appears to have short-circuited his development as a politician.

There are few politicians who truly enjoy “call time” or relish the thought of knocking on thousands upon thousands of doors, but nearly all will tell you that these activities make you a better candidate, because when you spend hours a day talking to voters and/or (gasp) asking for money, you also spend hours a day listening to voters’ concerns. Read all the position papers you want, hire the best consultants to draft your talking points, but nobody can educate you better about the issues than the voters themselves.

But with his own money to backstop his campaign, Mallahan never had to do the kind of call time typical of a citywide race, and it shows. He didn’t appear well-informed about city issues back when he declared, and he doesn’t appear much better informed now. He simply hasn’t grown as a candidate, and that doesn’t bode well for a novice politician seeking the mayor’s office.

As for McGinn, well, I don’t take back anything I haven’t already taken back about what I’ve previously written, and I still sincerely question his ability to work and play well with others. But as impolitic as he’s sometimes been (I still think his unwavering opposition to the tunnel loses him more votes than it wins him), he’s also proven to be thoughtful and at times even flexible. But mostly, like I said, you’ve just got to give him credit for running such a successful, largely grassroots campaign.

That shows political skill, and an enormous amount of hard work, something Mallahan has failed to demonstrate. And while McGinn remains a risky choice, he shows a much greater degree of political upside. No, he hasn’t come anywhere close to throwing a knockout punch, but if this race were a boxing match, McGinn would clearly be winning on points.

So for what it’s worth I’m voting for Mike McGinn, which considering my level of skepticism entering the race, says as much about his opponent as it does of him.

The Transit Riders Union invited all candidates running for Seattle City Council, Mayor and King Executive offices to respond to a questionnaire regarding the concerns of transit riders. All but Susan Hutchison and Joe Mallahan responded.

While Mallahan has generally been pretty good about filling out these sort of questionnaires, Hutchison has typically failed to respond when her honest answers might hurt her with voters. Hence her refusal to comply with similar requests from NARAL, the Women’s Political Caucus, even the Downtown Seattle Association (she has repeatedly accused county government of being too Seattle-centric).

So while Hutchison vaguely denies that she opposes rail, her gushing praise for the Washington Policy Center’s anti-rail prescriptions (they call it “socialist”) and her refusal to answer basic questions from the Transit Riders Union indicates otherwise. Not to mention her tens of thousands of dollars of financial support from Kemper Freeman, who is suing to stop light rail from crossing I-90.

But then, that’s the sort of lack of transparency we’ve come to expect from Hutchison.

I gave myself the weekend to sleep on it, during which I didn’t load a Seattle Times web page once. I thought I might, with a little distance, eventually fisk the paper’s execrable editorial endorsement of Susan Hutchison, but I can’t really bring myself to read it again, let alone read it closely. And honestly… why bother?

For the core of my critique of the Times as both an opinion leader, and as a news organization doesn’t require line-by-line mockery to explicate: quite simply, they are a bunch of fucking hypocrites, a thesis that is perhaps best illustrated by contrasting their treatment of Susan Hutchison with that of Darcy Burner.

As we all know, the Times’ editors dismissed Darcy as an inexperienced lightweight, out of touch with the mainstream values of her district, who should have been advised to work her way up to a congressional challenge… a particularly galling critique considering the quality of her opponent. But perhaps the most misogynistic and mean-spirited attack was the accusation that she “lacked authenticity,” a theme picked up by their news department to devastating effect in an eleventh hour front page smear piece accusing Darcy of lying about her Harvard degree.

Compare that to the Times’ treatment of Suzie, a woman who has never held political office, never ran a business, and never even managed a staff, running for what amounts to the governorship of a small state. What political and administrative qualifications does Suzie bring to office? None. Yet in Suzie’s evolution-denying, abortion-opposing, union-busting hands, inexperience suddenly becomes a positive, enabling her to bring a “fresh” perspective to the problems facing King County government. Yay!

I mean… what the fuck?

And I haven’t even gotten to the issue of authenticity yet.

For let’s be honest, Susan Hutchison has run perhaps one of the least authentic political campaigns since George Wallace ran for governor of Alabama in 1982 on a civil rights platform. On more than one occasion I’ve had local journalists defend her, saying that she’s not as right-wing as I make her out to be, but that’s not the point: Hutchison is not nearly as moderate or as nonpartisan as she makes herself out to be, which makes her entire campaign a lie to which the Times has been complicit.

Furthermore, in recent weeks, Hutchison has repeatedly lied about incontrovertible facts. She claims she never gave money to the BIAW, when in fact she did. She claims her unreported campaign headquarters is merely the residence of her campaign manager, when it isn’t. And she claims the PDC has already dismissed 79 of the 82 allegations in the PDC complaint filed against her, which the PDC firmly denies.

And, of course, Hutchison laughably denies that she is a partisan Republican

Yet where is the front page article taking Suzie to task for her lies?

There is no editorial attacking Suzie’s lack of experience or her extremist values, nor front page article attacking her relentless lack of truthfulness, because unlike with Darcy, the Times wants Suzie to win. And, because as an institution, they are a bunch of fucking hypocrites.

Now I know there are those who will come back at me in the comment thread, accusing me of being just as ideological as the Times, and at least as hypocritical, but let me remind you that I’m just some foul-mouthed, partisan blogger who post photos of dog turds to his front page, and accuses a sitting state senator of fucking pigs, while they are our state’s paper of record.  I’m not supposed to be better than the Times. They’re supposed to be better than me.

But they’re not.

And as can clearly be seen in their hypocritical treatment of Darcy vs. Suzie, the Times’ alleged credibility is just as fictitious as Hutchison’s alleged nonpartisanship.

Over the weekend, the NYT had an article featuring Rep. Earl Blumenauer, the Portland congressman they hold up as a spokesman for the “Frustrated Left.”

Instead of forging ahead, Mr. Blumenauer, 61, finds himself fighting to retain one of the touchstones for liberals this year, a public insurance option in the health care overhaul, and is watching his hopes of curbing global warming grow cold in the Senate. Mr. Blumenauer, a seven-term congressman, is bracing for a tough vote on sending more troops to Afghanistan while he frets about the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay remaining open.

“It has been a hard landing for a lot of the people that I represent,” Mr. Blumenauer, referring to his largely liberal constituency, said as he assessed the first months of the Obama administration.

While Blumenauer is fairly diplomatic towards the administration, blaming circumstances rather than the president, it’s kind of hard to avoid coming to the obvious conclusion: this president is likely looking at one term only, and it ain’t because he’s “Jimmy Carter,” it’s because he’s Herbert Hoover. America didn’t elect a president of Goldmann Sachs, but that’s what we got. And when the next foreclosure crisis hits, and it’s coming, all hell is going to break lose.

The batshit insane right demands purity of their officials, who scramble over each other to genuflect in the directon of Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck on a daily basis. It doesn’t matter how insane their base gets, they at least get that the base needs attention.

OTOH, we demand little to nothing of Democrats, being all pragmatic and stuff, and nothing is what we get, over and over and over and over. This administration thinks nothing of screwing over key constituent groups, it’s ready to expand a land war in Asia, and it just generally has its head up its ass. I guess tearing off people’s heads and shitting down their necks only works on HBO comedy shows, or when you shit down the necks of your enemies. What we didn’t grok is that in Rahm-world, we are the enemy.

Fuck, the administration should actually hire Jeremy Piven, at least he’s funny.

I guess I don’t know how to spell this out more clearly for the Democratic Party: stop fucking the regular people over, or you’re done. And don’t tell us you “don’t have the votes;” you had the votes for all sorts of dumb-ass shit like condemning Move On and declaring a brain dead woman alive, so I’m not buying it any more.

If you’re looking in the mirror and thinking about your next contributions from the financial “services” industry and the “health care” industry, I’m talking to you. Fight the stupid Blue Dogs and show the people you have a spine for once, on health care, on gay rights, on Afghanistan, on everything.

Or. You. Will. Lose. Big. And you can blame “liberal purists,” all you want, but the people who will be voting you out will be all the regular Americans who are fed up with weak-willed, sell-out shitheads who send their kids off to die and steal their tax money to give it banksters, health insurance executives and defense contractors.

In their endorsement of Susan Hutchison, the Seattle Times told us that it was important for the county to, “act more like private-sector businesses.” Now, ignore that the county and businesses have fundamentally different jobs, so they should be run differently. Also, ignore the fact that the Times’ advice – hire someone with no experience, don’t look at new ways of finding revenue, and don’t even consider running a deficit – would be terrible advice for a business during a recession.

No, what I’m more concerned about is: who the fuck is the Seattle Times to tell anyone how to run a business? The Seattle Times that’s mired in debt? The Seattle Times that in recent years has lost most of its value. The Seattle Times who rumors are always circulating about their bankruptcy? They’re the ones who want to tell the county how to be more like a business?

I mean shit, if King County was run like The Seattle Times’ business, they’d buy worthless county property in Maine. Maybe hire Kurt Triplett’s kid to head up a major department even if he wasn’t really competent.

Now, you may think this is unfair. After all, there’s a line between the content and business sides of the paper. Normally, I’d think that was a reasonable point, if not necessarily a convincing one. But when the publisher is dictating content, it’s fair to ask how that content lines up with what that publisher does.

Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. The location was Burlington, NJ.

Here’s this week’s, good luck!

If you are dissatisfied with the editorial content here on HA… if you find it offensive, insulting, narrow-minded, blindly partisan, dishonest or just plain poorly written… please, please cancel your subscription.

Every page you view earns me a little money. More importantly, I take pride in maintaining such a relatively large and engaged audience. So the best way for you to send me message is to simply stop reading my blog.

I mean it. Leave. Go away. Erase the bookmark. And don’t come back. That’ll teach me a lesson.

Otherwise, I’ll just take your continued readership and active participation in the comment threads as an indication that I’m doing something right.

– Radley Balko and Publius from Obsidian Wings have been following the scandal involving Texas Governor Rick Perry’s attempts to cover up the fact that an innocent man was likely executed on his watch.

– It never ceases to amaze me how often people who rant about taxes and socialism try to invoke Thomas Paine. I think they just assume that because the American revolution was partly about taxes that Paine must think like tea-baggers do today, rather than as someone who used to loudly advocate for re-distributing wealth through progressive taxation.

– Bruce Mirken asks why Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley is doing so much to help out Mexican drug cartels? Law enforcement officials may be uncomfortable with those comparisons, but they’re undeniably true. Card carrying medical marijuana users in that county of over 10 million people are either going to obtain pot from local growers and local businessmen, or obtain it from gangs who are currently fighting the Mexican government. When you attack the local growers and local business, you automatically boost the profits of the gangs.

– I just very happily marked my ballot for Pete Holmes. The Stranger conducted a series of interviews with Holmes and his opponent, Tom Carr. The last one concerned marijuana arrests, which was somewhat funny because it consisted of Tom Carr spinning for several minutes about why his office is still pursuing marijuana cases, following by Pete Holmes making this very simple statement:

Whether standing alone or in conjunction with other charges, I will not charge another simple marijuana possession case. Period.

It’s that simple, Tom. And that’s why we want you out.

– Here’s a fascinating account from a mother who – after discussing it with her doctor – decided to treat her severely autistic son with medical marijuana. I’ve generally been averse to the idea of giving marijuana to children that age, but if it helps a child stop eating his own shirts, I think I’m ok with it.

American Violet is now available on DVD. I still haven’t seen it, but I’m hoping to check it out very soon.

That fresh pile of poop on your front lawn, near the walkway? It wasn’t a dog. It was me.

Last night I was visiting friends on the Island, and I had a little too much to drink. So I drove over to your house, scaled the security gate, dropped my pants, and took a dump.

It felt good. (You know, the way you must feel every time your paper shits all over the citizens of Seattle.)

Now I know in a region with a functional, well-funded government, this is the sort of disgusting, uncivil behavior the authorities might investigate and prosecute, but since you clearly hate government (or at least, hate paying for it, and see absolutely no need to leave it in the hands of a qualified executive) I’m guessing you wouldn’t bother to waste precious tax dollars by calling the police over something petty like this.

Oh, and when you have one of your servants clean it up, tell them to double-glove and wear a face mask. I was eating beans.

Check out Joe Copeland at the Post Globe.

But the council endorsements underline the odd disconnect between a very progressive city population and how its only remaining daily paper’s editorial page, at least on – one guesses – issues in which the Blethen family ownership makes its views known. The council editorial started by almost holding the editorial board’s collective nose to support the re-election of Richard Conlin, who is quietly brilliant on environmental issues. “It’s not that we agree with Conlin often; we don’t,” the editorial proclaims. They go on to cite his reversal of position on an employee head tax, something the chamber is dying to end and Conlin now thinks was a bad idea.

More confusingly, The Times writes, “His challenger, David Ginsberg, shares many of the same values. The key difference is who is more enthusiastic about environmental sustainability — not much of a differentiation at all. Ginsberg is in more of a hurry, which comes off as naive.” Maybe that means The Times doesn’t like the green Conlin, but at least he is in less of a rush about sustainability? But does The Times really have a problem with Conlin’s environmental positions? This summer, the editorial board had the good sense to endorse – unsuccessfully – the grocery store bag tax this summer.

I was going to post this as an update to my previous post, but the point is too important to leave as an afterthought.

I’m hearing that the Seattle Times endorsement of Susan Hutchison came directly from publisher Frank Blethen himself. This is his right, of course, not because he is particularly wise or well-informed or civic minded, but because he owns the newspaper. He signs their paychecks, so he gets to tell the editorial board to endorse whoever he wants, no matter how unqualified she is, or how out of step with the values of a majority of King County voters.

But… if in fact this blatantly irresponsible endorsement came at Blethen’s directive, then the Times arguably has an ethical obligation to reveal it as such.

One of the monotonously familiar knocks against bloggers like me is that we are just partisan shills, but if and when we are, at least we’re honest about it. So when an editorial board like the Times’ pretends that its endorsements come through candidate interviews and informed discourse, when in fact they merely reflect the anti-labor, anti-tax, pro-Republican views of their boss… well then… the entire endorsement process becomes just as much a lie as those of Hutchison which their paper has chosen to cover up.

Old media journalists love to attack the blogosphere for its supposedly destructive and uncivil anonymity, but it should be duly noted that I proudly hang my name on every stance I take and every word I write, rather than cowardly hiding behind the anonymity of an unsigned editorial. And if Frank Blethen has any sense of civic obligation, he will do the same.

I actually thought the Seattle Times wouldn’t endorse Susan Hutchison because whatever the ideological affinity, even they couldn’t bring themselves to endorse a candidate who is so spectacularly unprepared and unqualified to serve in such an important office.

I was wrong.

I often speak of the Times ed board as a single entity, but I know this decision wasn’t unanimous, so if those ed board members who opposed Hutchison’s endorsement retain at least a shred of self-respect, they will make public who voted for whom, or whether the decision ultimately came mandated from union-busting publisher Frank Blethen himself.

But institutionally, they should be ashamed of themselves.