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Seattle’s new 20-cent plastic bag fee is clearly the most important issue facing America today. It was so important that Glenn Beck had Seattle City Councilwoman Jan Drago on his show to discuss how Seattle residents are ready to overthrow the oppressive nanny state that is Seattle city government. If Nickels, Conlin, and the others aren’t stopped, it’s a certainty that this will be copied across the country and we’ll all soon be knitting our own cloth bags out of our children’s clothes.

Of course, I’m being silly here. While I’m not wild about the fee, it’s really not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. And I’m curious whether or not either Beck or Drago figured out that the interview they did made both of them look ridiculous, primarily because Beck had Drago on to complain about arriving at an “oppressive” solution to this problem, while Drago would have been fine with a total ban, something which likely would have caused Beck and his 7 viewers to have a seizure.

There are a couple of things that I’ve found frustrating in trying to evaluate this issue, which certainly pulls at the cracks in that intersection between liberalism and libertarianism that I inhabit. The main source of frustration is that I find it very difficult to quantify the goals of the policy or the expected results. While my wife and I personally recycle our bags or use them as either trash-can liners or for discarding of the waste produced by our feline masters, I obviously know that not everyone disposes of these bags properly. How serious of a problem is that?

Both Mayor Nickels and Richard Conlin see this as being part of their effort to be as environmentally conscious as possible:

“It’s about the use of scarce resources, about pollution of our environment, about litter in our streets and parks and the costs, both economically and environmentally, of throwing away a piece of Earth we have an opportunity to protect and preserve,” Conlin said at the news conference, which Councilmembers Tim Burgess and Sally Clark also attended.

Playing Devil’s Advocate to the Council, Danny Westneat references a local expert on ocean-based pollution, who says that plastic grocery bags are a miniscule part of the overall pollution problem. Is that missing the point? Is there another area where improperly disposed plastic bags require the city to spend extra money to clean it up?

If you follow the logic being presented in order to justify the fee, there must be. But it’s not clear from anything I’ve read. From Kathy Mulady in the PI:

The 20-cent-per-bag “green fee” is expected to raise about $3.5 million each year. Seattle Public Utilities needs about $500,000 to run the program. The remainder will be used to offset expected increases in the city’s solid-waste rates.

Are the increases in the city’s solid-waste rates coming from problems with plastic bags? Somehow, I doubt it. But that’s where the money will come from. It’s like tolling to offset the costs of a new 520 bridge, except that you’re only tolling the single occupancy lanes.

In the end, all of this is moot if it’s completely painless and inexpensive for everyone to just start using the reusable bags. Richard Conlin continues to insist that no one will have to pay the fee because they can use the reusable bags. This is something I just can’t quantify right now. How much groceries can they hold? How convenient are they when getting large amounts of groceries? How easy are they to clean? And while many may attempt to look at the reduction in plastic bag use within Seattle grocery stores, will we know how many people are going to do what my wife plans to do (do her grocery shopping in the suburbs where she works instead of coming home to Seattle first)? As long as we continue to reuse our bags for our normal trash, we know we’re not contributing to the garbage problem. Will there be a way to measure not just plastic bag usage, but also the level of improper disposal?

And that leads to me to my last point. Is this policy really nanny-statism? I continually hear this over and over again that the bag fee is a blatant example of Seattle’s out of control nanny-statism. Nanny-statism is when government tries to protect people from their own decisions – because they see people as children incapable of caring from themselves. Once you start defining it more broadly than that, the term loses its meaning. Jaywalking, the 4 foot rule in strip clubs, drug laws, helmet laws – those are all examples of nanny-statism because those laws are attempting to protect people from their own moral or public health choices. The bag fee isn’t about making people’s moral or public health choices for them. It’s about a way to reduce the amount of plastic bags in circulation.

I sympathize with Drago that maybe the policy should have been implemented first without the fee, as I wonder if it will end up putting the burden for offsetting the city’s increased solid waste expenses on the people who can least afford to give up the extra cash, but it’s sure as hell not some slippery slope to oppressive government. Calling this fee nanny-statism is no different than saying that tolls to pay for the 520 bridge is nanny-statism. I’m often wary of Nickels and his belief that part of his role as mayor is to come up with ways that cities across the world can save the planet, but this issue has caused that wariness to really send some folks flying off the deep end here. Hopefully, by next summer, we’ll have a better idea whether or not this was good policy or not.

You win some and you lose some I guess, as the Seattle Times balances out an endorsement for Democratic Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler with an endorsement for the deceptive and undemocratic King County Initiative 26. Using our NHL-style scoreboard (two points for a victory, one point for a tie), that brings our current standings to Republicans 11, Democrats 7.

Sure, Bruce Ramsey may find it annoying, my arbitrary declaration of I-26 as a Republican initiative, but it really isn’t all that arbitrary. I-26 would turn the county council, executive and auditor into “nonpartisan” positions, essentially allowing Republicans to hide their party affiliation, thus becoming more competitive in races they’d otherwise never have a snowball’s chance in because, you know… they’re Republicans. As I’ve said before, nonpartisanship is the last refuge of Republicans in a region where Republicanism has become a dirty word, and in that context I-26 is most definitely a Republican initiative.

It is also a small “d” undemocratic initiative because it gives voters less information about the candidates and thus leaves them less able to choose those candidates who best reflect their own political leanings. That, after all, is what party labels are about… a political shorthand by which we compare one candidate to another. I wish every voter was as engaged in politics as me and Ramsey, but they’re not, and so party identification is a useful tool for those who don’t embrace politics as a vocation or a hobby.

And finally, I-26 is a bad initiative because nonpartisanship is essentially a lie… a mythical ideal just as fictional as the objectivity and impartiality for which Ramsey’s newspaper supposedly strives. Stripping the “R” off Pete von Reichbauer won’t make him any less of a Republican, but it will make him more electable in a district that is steadily trending Democratic. And that’s exactly I-26’s point.

Seattle Times Endorsements	GP	W	L		T	Pts
Republicans	9	4	2		3	11
Democrats	9	2	4		3	7
Third Parties	9	0	9		0	0

For the record, I love Jim McDermott, and am going to vote for him in the general election. He’s been the conscience of the House on important issues like the war and universal health care. He’s been a leader on things like eliminating poverty around the world, and here at home. He’s had the trust of his colleagues to earn an important spot in the Ways and Means committee, and chair of its Income and Family Support subcommittee. His push on the extension of unemployment benefits alone is worthy of reelecting him.

But since it’s a given that he’s getting to the general election with the crazy top-two, McDermott’s supporters can chose his opponent. So, I’m hoping you’ll join me in casting a ballot for perpetual candidate, and harmless crazy Goodspaceguy Nelson, because unlike the Republican in the race, he’s probably aware that Saddam Hussein is dead.

Seattle Times editorial columnist Bruce Ramsey takes issue with my running scoreboard of his ed board’s candidate endorsements (Republicans 9, Democrats 5 at last count… 11-5 if you count the Times’ endorsement of I-26), and since nobody has bothered to post a comment in his thread, I thought I’d add my own comment here:

Oh… boo-hoo.

Of course, my scoreboard is tongue-in-cheek, and my determination of who is and who is not a real Democrat somewhat arbitrary, but however you score it there’s a larger point to made about the Times’ tendency to be out of step with their own readers, a tendency not easily explained away by Ramsey:

Is the Times Editorial Board Republican? In 2000 we endorsed George Bush—and Gary Locke. In 2004 we endorsed Dino Rossi—and John Kerry. Maybe we are conflicted, but party-line we are not.

Conflicted, no doubt, and I’ve never implied that the Times endorsements are party-line Republican, but I think that an ed board that inexplicably endorsed Mike McGavick’s self-immolating campaign while agreeing with Maria Cantwell on every issue but one, and that viciously smeared Darcy Burner in lieu of any reasonable defense of her mediocre opponent… well, I think they have a bit of ‘splainin’ to do. I suppose Ramsey might consider a Rossi/Kerry endorsement split a proud sign of bipartisanship or nonpartisanship, but to me this bi/non crap is just the last refuge of Republicanism in a region where the Republican brand isn’t worth the bumper sticker it’s printed on.

Oh… and as for Ramsey’s description of HA as “howling-left”… as long as he’s railing against labels, I’d love for him to give me a definition of exactly what that means. On which issues exactly are we so extreme? Unless, of course, he’s merely referring to our rhetorical style, in which we promote rather center-left policies but in an occasionally “howling” manner.

No doubt HA’s choice of language isn’t you’re average “family newspaper” fare, so I was curious to see a reference on Slog to a Blog Readability Test, which rates Slog’s prose at a “High School” level. Unscientific as it may be, HA scores at a “College (Postgrad)” level, while Postman on Politics and Ramsey’s own Ed cetera blog join Slog at the “High School” level, and the tediously non-profane scribes at (un)Sound Politics are apparently writing toward a “Junior High School” audience. Figures.

As a post-grad level blogger, I think I can eloquently say: nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah-nyah.

A new Rassmussen poll of the Washington state gubernatorial race shows Gov. Christine Gregoire (D) leading challenger Dino Rossi (“G.O.P. Party”) 50% to 46%, with 5% “undecided”. The poll had 500 respondents and was taken on August 6th. The margin of error is 4.5%

This race is a rematch of the 2004 closest gubernatorial race in history that Gregoire won by 133 votes after a count, a mandatory recount, one recount requested by the Democrats, and a failed Republican lawsuit challenging the election. (Rossi ran as a Republican in 2004. This year he is running under the “G.O.P. Party” label.)

The close 2004 election led to extraordinarily early polling for the 2008 race. In the first 15 polls conducted from August 2005 until November 2006, Rossi led Gregoire, and always with over 50%. But with this current Rasmussen poll, Rossi has not held the lead for 16 consecutive polls—going back to February 2008:

Also, Gregoire has now polled at 50% or better in the raw percentages for the last two polls (the graph shows the normalized percentages).

My usual analysis, a simulation of a million elections of 500 people each, shows Gregoire winning 735,981 times and Rossi winning 253,856 times. This suggests that, if an election were held today, Gregoire would have a 74.4% chance of winning and Rossi would have a 25.6% change.

The simulation yields a distribution of votes that looks like this:

Rasmussen also polled for the Obama–McCain race in Washington state. Obama leads McCain 54% to 42%. Obama’s +12% advantage matches the +12% in the previous poll, an Elway poll from late July, and the +11% of a Strategic Vision poll taken just before that. In fact, this race has largely stabilized in Obama’s favor after a weak spell in March:

(Cross posted at Hominid Views)

Today is the Accountability Now money bomb, a one-day fundraising drive led by a coalition of both left and right bloggers who are angry about the passage of the FISA legislation and the slow erosion of our civil liberties.

Paul Krugman is too classy to say it, but what he’s describing here is what defined the fascist movements in Europe after World War I.

The FBI is now looking into the drug raid in Maryland where police shot and killed the two black Labradors of the mayor of Berwyn Heights (who was completely innocent).

After reading this, then this, I get the sense that the Bush Administration really wants Douglas Feith to be their Wee-Bey, but that Feith isn’t willing to be such a good soldier.

I’m involved in a new group called the Cannabis Defense Coalition that will be tracking information on the arrests of valid medical marijuana patients across the state and will be working to improve the draft rules devised by the State Department of Health, starting at the meeting in Tumwater on August 25.

Here are some amazing pictures of the Olympic Opening Ceremonies.

UPDATE: And one more item, a video that follows up on the Charlie Lynch verdict from Southern California that I wrote about the other day.

The Stranger’s Dan Savage finds some not-so-hidden meaning in “G.O.P. party” candidate Dino Rossi’s “too big, too hard” ad.

So he asks The Stranger’s Kelly O for something of a “truth in advertising” make-over:

Join me, Matt Stoller, and Joan “McJoan” McCarter, on Meet the Bloggers with host Cenk Uygur and special guest Darcy Burner today at 10 AM Pacific time, where we’ll be discussing the Responsible Plan to end the war in Iraq.  

Watch the live stream in the embedded player above (I think) or go to the meetthebloggers.org where you can join the conversation in the comment thread.

Score one for the good guys today as the Seattle Times editorial board endorses incumbent Judge Robin Hunt for Court of Appeals, Division II, over BIAW shill and former (un)Sound Politics contributor Tim Ford:

Hunt’s challenger is Tim Ford, the open-government ombudsman for Attorney General Rob McKenna and was deputy state solicitor. Before working for McKenna, he was the in-house counsel for the Building Industry Association of Washington, which paid for some of the nastiest ads in previous judicial races.

We have seen no such ads in Ford’s race, and don’t expect any.

We like Ford’s emphasis on protecting the individual citizen and his enthusiastic support of public disclosure, but he has no judicial record and no jury-trial experience.

Legal know-it-alls tell me that Judge Hunt isn’t all that, but Ford isn’t much of anything. Ask Ford’s “fellow lawyers” in the AG’s office about their “colleague’s” legal qualifications (and I use those terms loosely) and the best he can hope for is a nervous laugh or a dismissive eye roll. Then again, while actually seeing the inside of courtroom (in person, as opposed to, say, on TV) is usually a prerequisite for a position like deputy state solicitor let alone the Court of Appeals, the lack thereof didn’t seem to hold Attorney General Rob McKenna back any, so I guess you can’t blame Ford for trying.

Anyway, I’ve got no idea if Judge Hunt is much of a liberal, or even a Democrat, but Ford is certainly as Republican as they come, so following our NHL-style scorecard we award two points to the Democrats, and zero to the Republicans, tightening up the overall standings for statewide and other prominent races.

Seattle Times Endorsements	GP	W	L		T	Pts
Republicans	7	3	1		3	9
Democrats	7	1	3		3	5
Third Parties	7	0	6		0	0

PROGRAMMING NOTE:
Stay tuned for Meet the Bloggers at 10 AM.

Darcy Burner and Dave Reichert released their July fundraising totals today in advance of WA’s August 19 primary, and as reported by Postman (or maybe Emily Heffter, I’m kinda confused) it wasn’t even close.

Rep. Dave Reichert, the two-term Republican incumbent, raised $115,474 during July, compiling $929,113 in cash on hand.

Democratic challenger Darcy Burner raised more — $350,837– during July, and reported having almost $1.5 million in the bank. […] Burner has been outpacing Reichert in fundraising throughout the campaign, but she’s also been spending more.

“Burner raised more” …?  Talk about an understatement.  She raised over three times more.  And while yeah, sure, Burner’s numbers were pumped up by the incredible outpouring of affection and support in the wake of the fire that claimed her home, her cat and all her belongings, Reichert’s numbers are truly pathetic, barely covering his $100K in expenses for the month.

And as to Postman’s (Heffter’s?) assertion that Burner’s “also spending more,” um… no she hasn’t.  So far both campaigns have spent about a million dollars over the cycle, with Reichert actually outspending Burner by a few thousand dollars.

Running for office is hard work, and it’s beginning to look like Reichert just isn’t up to the task.  For example, Reichert relied on PAC money to make up over 55% of his anemic July total, whereas Burner only raised 5% from PACs.  That kind of disparity tells you a lot about both candidates’ work ethic, and their allegiances.

As if McCain’s recent series of petty attacks on Obama aren’t enough to paint the old fart as pathetic. Now the McCain campaign is paying people to troll for him:

People who sign up for McCain’s program receive reward points each time they place a favorable comment on one of the listed Web sites (subject to verification by McCain’s webmasters). The points can be traded for prizes, such as books autographed by McCain, preferred seating at campaign events, even a ride with the candidate on his bus, known as the Straight Talk Express, according to campaign spokesman Brian Rogers.

The sign-up page, complete with talking points du jour and a report form, is located here.

I hope it works! I mean, nothing says “credible candidate” like the same talking point being dumped over and over again in every comment thread that even peripherally mentions McCain. I mean…it worked for Ron Paul didn’t it? (And those lovable whack-jobs weren’t even getting paid for their robo-commenting.)

I’m encouraging everyone (yes…even you) to get a piece of the action. I mean, the McCain paraphernalia memorabilia will be highly prized some day. Besides, how many of McCain’s supporters actually know about The Internets AND know that it’s a Google in order to find the “Spread The Word” page?

Therefore, by joining in the fun, you not only spread your own philosophy of McCain and his talking points, but you earn cool stuff and help the economy by enticing the McCain staff to hire additional webmasters to wade through thousands and thousands of comment reports.

The easiest way to comment is to simply copy the talking points verbatim. But my own recommendation is this:

John McCain is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life.

What could be more positive then that? Hundreds of thousands of times in blog comment threads across the land. Day after day.

Got another idea? Leave your suggested message in the comment thread. And then sign-up, get busy, and start earning cool stuff!

[via Juan Cole]

I’ll be joining Joan McCarter of Daily Kos, Matt Stoller of Open Left and host Cenk Uygur on Meet the Bloggers this Friday at 10 AM Pacific. Darcy Burner will be Cenk’s guest this week, and our topic will be her Responsible Plan to end the war in Iraq. You can stream the show live (I’ll embed a player here on HA) and participate through the comment thread, or you can view an archive after it’s posted.

In the months since Darcy introduced the Responsible Plan and fifty-some House and Senate challengers signed on to it, many of the plan’s major talking points have been quietly adopted by Democratic leaders including Barack Obama. Of course, this really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, considering that one of the most powerful lessons I learned from Darcy’s effort is that bringing our troops home from Iraq really isn’t rocket science. We all know the way… what’s been missing thus far has been the will.

Indeed, one of the most common criticisms of the Plan was that much of it wasn’t all that original, merely drawing from existing legislation and the proposals of the Baker/Hamilton Commission. But that’s also the Plan’s greatest strength, as much of its proposals are both uncontroversial and eminently doable.

What Darcy produced was a comprehensive legislative agenda… a roadmap for what she and her fellow congress members can do to end this war responsibly, and prevent the same sort of mistakes from happening again. Of course, it will take leaders like Darcy to see this Plan through to fruition.

Covering items related to the drug war here at HA, I’ve focused mostly on local happenings, but the drug war continues to destroy lives all over. Here are four recent cases from across the United States:

California

In California, where medical marijuana has been legal for 12 years now, a dispensary owner in Morro Bay named Charlie Lynch was convicted yesterday in a federal court and faces a minimum of five years in jail, and a maximum of 85.

During the trial, the jury was not allowed to know that Lynch was providing marijuana to people who were ill and authorized by doctors under state law to use marijuana. The judge even went so far as to try to keep registered patients out of the courtroom in order to deceive the jury as to the true nature of Lynch’s business. As far as they knew, he was just some guy selling drugs to people, and not a legitimate business owner who was warmly welcomed by the mayor of Morro Bay. He had no criminal record but could now receive a longer sentence than if he’d murdered someone.

Reason.tv has covered this case extensively. Drew Carey produced a great video on Lynch and one of his customers, a young man who got bone cancer in high school, lost his leg, and discovered that marijuana was the most effective medicine for the phantom pain that many amputees experience. Nick Gillespie has more here, as does Radley Balko.

Maryland

Cheye Calvo, the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, was raided by a Prince George County SWAT team on the evening of July 29th. After storming into the house, according to Calvo, the officers shot one of his two black Labrador retrievers immediately and shot the second one as it ran away. The reason for the raid was that police intercepted a large package of marijuana addressed to Calvo’s wife.

After first claiming that Calvo, his wife, and his mother-in-law were “persons-of-interest,” the police later figured out that it was a scheme to mail a package to a random person and intercept it. The police also claim that the dogs were threatening them, a claim that Calvo strongly disputes. In addition, the officers didn’t even have a no-knock warrant, so the entire raid was illegal anyway.

Ohio

This January in Lima, Ohio, a SWAT team raided a house occupied by Tarika Wilson and her 6 children. The police were looking for her boyfriend, Anthony Terry, who was suspected of dealing drugs. Wilson was shot and killed by Officer Joe Chavalia as she was on her knees trying to protect her 1-year-old son. The toddler was shot twice but managed to only lose a finger. Terry was arrested during the raid and is now serving a 7-year jail sentence for selling crack and marijuana to police informants. Wilson was never a suspect.

Chavalia was charged with negligent homicide, but at the trial, claimed that he thought he was under attack when he heard his fellow officers shooting Wilson’s two pit bulls during the raid. He was acquitted this week by an all-white jury. Both Wilson and Terry are black.

Black residents of Lima are furious as this is just another in a long line of questionable incidents by local police towards their community. The U.S. Department of Justice is considering civil rights charges. The Lima police department has yet to apologize or even admit that a mistake was made. Anthony Terry was certainly breaking the law (although he was no more than a low-level dealer), and there may even have been reason to think he was potentially dangerous, but raiding a house where six kids are living and shooting wildly is never acceptable in any circumstance.

Florida

Arguably the most moronic story comes from Tallahassee. A 23-year-old graduate of Florida State University named Rachel Hoffman was arrested by police in possession of 5 ounces of marijuana and 6 ecstasy pills. It was her second arrest after being forced into drug treatment once after police had pulled her over with marijuana in her car a year before. According to her friends, she was a bit of a hippie who just supplied her college friends with recreational drugs.

At this point, she was potentially facing some real prison time, so she decided (without the knowledge of her attorney) to become an informant and help Tallahassee police bust some suspected gang members in order to avoid going to jail. The police set Hoffman up on a sting to try to purchase a large amount of drugs and a gun from Deneilo Bradshaw and Andrea Green. The two men, likely smelling the idiotic sting attempt from a mile away, lured Hoffman to a different location and killed her. Bradshaw and Green have been arrested and face murder charges.

This case has gotten the most media attention so far, including a report on ABC’s 20/20 which contains a long interview with the unbelievably clueless Tallahassee Police Chief. Hoffman’s parents are angry as hell and are now worried that the judge in Bradshaw and Green’s murder case is trying to keep them from criticizing local officials over what happened.