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From an Editor and Publisher article about how traditional journalists may be alienating younger readers with outdated pop culture references.

The Times is a citadel of retrotalk, on its Op-Ed page especially. Columnist Frank Rich once commented that George W. Bush had “a slight, almost Chauncey Gardiner quality,” referring to Peter Sellers’ simple-minded character in the 1979 movie “Being There.”

The Queen of Retrotalk is Times columnist Maureen Dowd. Dozens of examples I’ve harvested from her columns include “Nosey Parker,” “Ma Barker,” “Norma Desmond,” “Palin’s Imelda Marcos moment” and “Hillary’s inner Eve Harrington.” To describe how it felt to drive through Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and see no women on the streets, Dowd invoked a “Rod Serling–type feeling.”

I’m not sure this is the media’s biggest problem. I find familiarity with American’s TV history to be quite valuable when considering politics.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-yLYz6ejqw[/youtube]

As first reported on Seattle Transit Blog, the state House passed a $4.9 billion two-year transportation budget on Friday that restored funding for moving I-90’s HOV lanes (work necessary to keep the voter-approved East Link light rail project on schedule) and which removed language that would have barred the state Department of Transportation from negotiating air rights with Sound Transit for access to I-90.

This blog has long made the case that Rep. Clibborn has long been opposed to Link crossing I-90, so we hope that this is the first sign of a House that is friendlier toward transit — perhaps due to advocacy pressure. One legislator described our outreach campaign as “a deluge of emails set off by bloggers,” but we think it’s important that transit advocates let the state know how important voter-approved light rail projects are to the region.

It is difficult to accurately gauge the impact of citizen advocacy, but the folks at STB deserve a ton of credit for taking the lead on covering this issue, and pushing awareness amongst both rail supporters and legislators alike.  If I were them, I’d quietly put another notch in my belt.

But after talking to a number of reliable sources both in and outside Olympia, I’m not so sure it was Rep. Clibborn’s opposition to Link crossing I-90 that was the real motivation behind the anti-Link nature of the original bill.  Clibborn and others, I’m told, weren’t really hoping to scuttle East Link, which is pretty much accepted in Olympia as a done deal.  No, this was more of a shakedown… part of a calculated effort to extort a billion dollars or more from Sound Transit for access rights to I-90… money House Speaker Frank Chopp hopes to target to his preferred, but monstrously expensive, “Option K” Montlake tunnel alternative for the Western approach to the new 520 floating bridge.

At least a billion dollars, possibly two, that’s what Chopp has privately told lawmakers and lobbyists he wants for access to I-90 (a bridge, by the way, built 90% with federal dollars), and that’s why, I’m told, he had his lieutenants throw roadblocks into DOT’s negotiations with Sound Transit.  That’s potentially enough money to fund all of the controversial Option K tunnel.

Now, as House Speaker, I kinda expect Chopp to play games like this.  That’s politics.  It’s part of his job description.

But Chopp also represents the voters of Seattle’s 43rd Legislative District… voters who overwhelmingly voted last November to tax themselves to build light rail across Lake Washington, not a highway tunnel under Montlake.  We tried to pass a roads and transit measure back in 2007—I aggressively supported it—and it failed.  The successful 2008 ballot measure, on the other hand, was explicitly transit only.

The Speaker’s efforts to steal money from East Link to help pay for Option K, may be a clever political maneuver, but it clearly ignores the will of the voters, and threatens the ability of Sound Transit to complete a project that, due to the Great Recession, is already seeing lower than projected tax revenues, and for which ST had never factored in the cost of tunneling under Montlake.

And it’s not at all that clear that this effort is dead, even with passage of a relatively ST-friendly transportation bill.

Dean Becker of the Drug Truth Network interviewed State Representative Roger Goodman (Kirkland).

Dean Becker: It wasn’t that long ago that there were just a handful of elected officials, willing to even talk about this drug war; to talk about regulation control or legalization. But I think, if I dare say, there are several score, perhaps even a hundred now, nationwide that are like you, willing to address this issue and if I remember right, your opponent, in this last election cycle, had a lot of similar thoughts. It’s not that rare anymore, is it?

Rep. Roger Goodman: Yeah. Let me tell you the timeline here. OK. So, three years ago I ran for office. I was the sort of renegade, grenade thrower, unpredictable, radical guy. Because if you ’Google’ Roger Goodman or Roger Goodman drugs, you’ll find all the things I talk about. ‘The fact that prohibition doesn’t work.’ ‘We need to assert regulatory control.’ People were sort of translating it to like… we’re going to legalize drugs and hand it out to kids in school yard or something.

But anyway, when my opponent, in my first election, hit me on that, my poll numbers went up. I got more votes after people found out what I’m working on to find this exit strategy for the war on drugs and so that backfired, for sure. The people get it, you know?

Now, just last year, I had an opponent who agrees with me that the war on drugs is a failure. He’s on the republican side but he’s also strongly libertarian and so he actually criticized me, in public, for not being aggressive enough… {laughter} … on drug policy reform.

So in a two year period, we had a switch all the way from one side to the other, where first of all I’m going to end civilization as we know it and then on the other side, I’m not doing enough. So again, the people get, the politicians are a little bit less afraid.

We still have a long way to go inside of the chambers of the legislature, but to a person, when I talk to them confidentially, my colleague’s in the legislature and other public officials all agree, that the policy’s broken and we need to change it.

I’ve talked to Roger about this same thing myself and I still have trouble understanding why this has so long to go inside the legislature. If being in favor of legalizing marijuana helped Roger get votes in a suburban area like Kirkland, what exactly is the political risk any more? Why is the legislature still dragging its feet on this? Don’t we have a “progressive” in the Governor’s mansion? Don’t we have “progressive majorities” in the Senate and House? Don’t we have massive budget problems that can be partially ameliorated by having a system of regulation and taxation for marijuana?

UPDATE: In the comments, Mark1 provides an excellent link demonstrating the kind of violence and gang activity that would disappear if the legislature removed its collective head from its ass and set up a legal system for producing and selling marijuana. Thanks Mark!

State budgets have come out in the House and Senate, and the word “brutal” comes to mind. Goldy wants an income tax. Does that make him crazy? Are there good alternatives in the face of a state revenue collapse? Will someone show leadership on the issue? And how long will it take voters to warm-up to the idea?

Wait…wasn’t that Mike!™ McGavick’s shtick? Senators Murray and Cantwell vote to slash the estate tax. What the hell were they thinking? Same-sex marriage Marriage equality gets a huge boost with a ruling in Iowa, and votes in Vermont and Washington D.C. How long will it take here in Washington state? Finally, the panel peeks at the rave reviews from the Barack Obama World Tour.

Goldy was joined by Seattlepi.com’s Joel Connelly, Peace Tree Farm’s N in Seattle, Effin’ Unsound’s & Horsesass’s Carl Ballard, and Executive Director of the Northwest Progressive Institute Andrew Villeneuve

The show is 42:19, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_apr_7_2009.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the Podcasting Liberally site.]

Over on their editorial board blog, the Seattle Times’ Bruce Ramsey calls me out for calling out Susan Hutchison for her connections to the Discovery Institute and their Christianist, anti-science campaign to foist so-called Intelligent Design theory on unsuspecting school children.

Oh, come on. I don’t buy the argument from design, and once compared it to the fabulist Erich von Daniken. But Discovery does lots of things, from stuff on Russia to passenger trains. Discovery was the initial backer of the bored tunnel to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct—an idea now endorsed by Ron Sims, Greg Nickels and Christine Gregoire. Funny how our progressive pundits missed the chance to make fun of that idea by talking about Intelligent Design.

Oh Bruce… why are you always picking on me?  When have I ever said an unkind word about your publication?

But if you’re gonna pick on me, the least you could do is pick your spots a little more carefully, for I’m pretty sure I’ve never missed a chance to make fun of Discovery by talking about Intelligent Design.  Indeed back in December of 2007, when the deep bored tunnel idea was first raised, I ridiculed Discovery in a post titled “Intelligent Transportation Design,” writing:

[T]he folks at the Discovery Institute are a bunch of fanaticist nutcases “visionaries”… you know, if by “visionary” you mean promoting Intelligent Design, seeking to overthrow the scientific method and “replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions,” …

And then again a year later, in a similarly named post, I once again honed in on the cavemen riding dinosaurs meme, musing:

Yeah, but then again, these are folks who don’t believe in evolution, so forgive me for taking their claimed scientific and technical expertise with a grain of salt.

There are a lotta things you can tar me with Bruce, but being inconsistent ain’t one of ’em.

And as for your main premise:

There are two obvious questions that matter about Susan Hutchison as King County Executive. One is whether her career as a TV news anchor and in arts fundraising qualifies her to be CEO of the largest county government in Washington, which is involved in police, courts, jails, land-use control, public health and elections. The other is how Hutchison would use the power the county executive actually has. Focus on these, and give us all a rest regarding the Discovery Institute.

Well, forgive the over-the-top forced metaphor, but I’d say that arguing that Hutchison’s association with Intelligent Design has no bearing on her fitness for office is kinda like considering Mussolini to head Sound Transit, and insisting the only thing that really matters is whether he has the proven ability to make the trains run on time.

Of course Discovery is a valid issue in this campaign, as are Hutchison’s self-identification as a conservative Republican.  These are issues and labels which help inform us about Hutchison’s values, and whether she shares those of the majority of King County voters.  Given her background, Hutchison should be forced to answer whether she accepts evolution as valid science, and whether she believes Intelligent Design or other “alternative theories” should be taught in the schools.  Surely, Bruce, you’re not arguing that voters would be better served by having less information about their candidates?

As I stated yesterday, the bulk of the invitations for Hutchison to sit on boards came from her role controlling Charles Simonyi’s vast checkbook, but her position at Discovery, and the conservative Christian organization Young Life were different.  These were board positions Hutchison sought out, presumably because their agendas were consistent with her own personal beliefs.  Good for her.  People should act on their principles.

And people’s principles should be issues in political campaigns.

I’ve been admittedly obsessed over the past couple weeks with making the argument for a high-earner’s income tax, but the other policy issue I’ve been advocating this session also appears to be gaining a little traction: a move toward a high tuition/high financial aid model that could raise additional funds for higher education, while increasing access and decreasing costs to students from lower and middle income families.

A few weeks ago Rep. Reuven Carlyle (D-36) staked his own credibility to the concept in a guest column in the Seattle Times, and just last week, the even the Times editorial board wrote in favor of raising tuition and financial aid.  And today, coming on the heels of Gov. Gregoire’s proposal to let tuition rise 28% over two years, none other than University of Washington President Mark Emmert, writing in his own guest column in the Times, argues that if we are going to keep the “higher” in higher education, colleges and universities need more “flexibility on tuition.”

The leaders of our four-year colleges and universities understand that our schools must take cuts. But we also know that we can keep students coming to school and graduating on time if we are simply given more flexibility on tuition. We can help our students and our state without new state money. Moreover, we can fix much of this problem without denying access to students because of their income or family background.

The UW has the lowest tuition of any of its peers and is one of the best bargains in the country. With increased financial aid and the expanded federal tax credit, we can remain an excellent value for our families, maintain our world-class quality, and not slash the number of students we admit.

To give higher education the opportunity to resolve this crisis without requiring more state money is the only responsible thing to do. To do otherwise is to deny thousands of our citizens a chance to succeed in the knowledge economy.

Huh.  Guess the idea doesn’t sound so wing-nutty after all, when it’s coming from the mouth of Emmert.

So how does it work?  How can we possibly raise tuition while maintaining access and affordability to lower and middle income students?  Well, as I’ve explained before, it’s simple math:

Let’s say you’re a low to middle income student currently receiving financial aid in the form of $3,000 in grants, and the UW suddenly jacks up its $6,800/year in tuition and fees to $17,800.  Now let’s say the UW (ie, the state) increases your grant by another $11,000 to offset the hike.  How much extra money did this cost the state?  Zilch.  You were paying $3,800/year and you’re still paying $3,800.  It’s a zero sum game.

But if you’re a student from a wealthy family, who does not need financial aid, and thus does not qualify for it, you’re suddenly paying an extra $11,000 into the system… money that can be spent to increase the quality of education at the UW, or expand the number of seats, or even lower the costs for truly needy students.

The key of course is to increase financial aid commensurate to the needs of the students, both the dollar amount, and the upper range of incomes that qualify for aid.  The goal should be to accept students based solely on merit, and to charge them for their education according to their ability to pay.  That, in my opinion, is the best way to extend opportunity to all of our state’s young people.

Or, you know, we could continue with what we do now, where wealthy families who have easily afforded years of $23,420 annual tuition at Seattle’s exclusive Bush School, send their kids on to the UW at the same $6,800 bargain rate as everybody else, at the same time the university is being forced to slash classes and slots. Does that really make sense?

Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell, two of only nine Democrats to vote in favor of raising the federal estate tax exemption from $7 million to $10 million, and lowering the top rate from 45% to 35%, apparently both told Publicola’s Chris Kissel that they did so to reduce the financial strain on “small businesses.”

“Small businesses are hurting and we need to make sure they’re protected,” said Murray spokeswoman Alex Glass.

Um… define “small,” but… whatever.

Kissel goes on to suggest the real motivation behind our senators’ vote:

The measure will have the greatest impact on wealthy folks like Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen, who unsuccessfully lobbied both Murray and Cantwell to vote for a repeal of the estate tax in 2006. That same year, voters here rejected a measure that would have repealed Washington State’s estate tax.

Gee, I dunno.  With McClatchy essentially writing off its 49.5% stake in the Times, I’m not so sure that lowering the estate tax’s top rate helps Blethen and his heirs all that much.  I mean, 35% of zero is still zero, isn’t it?

Talk about a clever estate planning strategy.

I guess some folks just aren’t willing to share pain:

Both the House and Senate budget proposals this week would take a chunk out of the State Auditor’s Office performance audits, which measure the bang-for-the-buck worth of government programs.

“To take more than half of the revenue that voters permanently designated for performance audits and use it to fund other programs undercuts the performance audit authority that citizens directly gave to their independent state auditor,” Brian Sonntag, that auditor, told senators this afternoon. “That change . . .and the precedent it sets is absolutely unacceptable.”

He said the plan to move $15 million in performance audit money from his office to auditing programs in the Legislature and the governor’s office as “nothing short of an assault on what citizens expect the state to do.”

Oh boo-hoo.  Where or where will he find the money for yet another Sound Transit audit?

I didn’t hear Brian crying about the Legislature defunding voter approved initiatives to decrease class size and increase teacher pay, or about gutting I-937’s widely popular renewable energy targets.  But God forbid he temporarily lose half his performance audit budget, and it’s “absolutely unacceptable.”  I guess in Brian’s world, Eyman initiatives should be unassailable, whereas those other initiatives… well.. citizens didn’t really “expect the state to do” what those initiatives told the state to do.

If you don’t like your budget cuts Brian, either suck it up, or join me in fighting for some responsible revenue increases.

It was B-day in the Washington State legislature, and a “mostly-cuts” budget emerged from its mean, selfish, elderly-hating, antisocial hole. Goldy wonders if Rep. Frank Chopp really represents his constituents in the 43rd, and further wonders if Chopp is trying to extort a billion dollars from Sound Transit. Will the state Democrats’ failure to lead, rather than just grow their coalition, give us a Governor named Rob McKenna?

It was Election Day in NY-20, traditionally a Republican stronghold, yet the Democratic candidate came from behind to take a small lead as the polls closed. Time to call the lawyers! On that topic, a three-judge panel has ruled in the Minnesota Senate race lawsuit, and the ruling strongly favors Senator Elect Al Franken. How much longer will Norm Coleman be able to obstruct the seating of a junior Senator from Minnesota? Lastly the panel chats about sex…laws.

Goldy was joined by Seattlepi.com’s Joel Connelly, Group News Blog publisher Jesse Wendel, Effin’ Unsound’s & Horsesass’s Carl Ballard, and Drinking Liberally Seattle co-host Chris Mitchell.

The show is 37:01, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_mar_31_2009.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting the site.]

State Senate Dems have been blogging the current session, and Majority Leader Lisa Brown has a new post up talking about, yes, taxes.

There’s been a lot of talk in Olympia recently about a sales tax increase, but we need a revenue proposal that makes things better and fairer for regular families in our state — not worse.

We need to keep in mind that, in Washington, individuals in the lowest 20 percent of the tax bracket pay 17 percent of their annual income in state taxes, and individuals in the top 20 percent of the tax bracket pay less than 3 percent.  For a sales tax to be fair, any increase would have to include a full working families tax credit to offset the unfair impact on those who are hardest hit by our tax structure.

I also worry that a sales tax increase would make us even more dependent on an extremely volatile revenue stream. Consider recent evidence: state revenue, more than half of which comes from the sales tax, has taken a nosedive in the current recession. The total downward adjustment of state revenues since the last legislative session is $4.9 billion – $2.3 billion in the past two months alone.

The New York Legislature is considering what I think is a fair and stable way of addressing their revenue challenges.

Should we do something similar in Washington?

Yes, yes, we should do something similar here in Washington, and the first step toward achieving this something similar is to actually mention it by name:  a high-earners income tax.

It is encouraging to see Sen. Brown publicly consider such a proposal, but also quite telling that she obviously felt the need to obliquely link to the NY State variant, rather than speaking its details openly, without hesitation.  The income tax—any income tax—has long been considered the third rail of WA politics, but we’re not talking about forcing anything down taxpayers’ throats here:  we’re talking about talking about holding a public debate over whether to put a high-earners income tax on the ballot where voters could approve or reject it for themselves.  Why should that be so hard?

Still, Sen. Brown appears to be taking the initiative where other Democratic leaders have failed to tread, and she deserves kudos for that.  What she needs now is unqualified public support from her caucus members who privately acknowledge that a high-earners income tax should be a responsible part of any proposal to close our current budget gap… politics permitting.  It is high time to speak truth from power.

I don’t normally reprint emails without the authors’ express permission, but since this exchange seems to be making the rounds, and since it constitutes official correspondence with an elected official, thus making it a public record, I feel comfortable making an exception.

This afternoon Barbara from Sammamish mass emailed state legislators, citing a number of Biblical passages, and urging them to “Say NO to same sex marriage” or “be judged for all eternity.  And to his credit, Rep. Geoff Simpson (D-Covington) was quick to offer the following courteous and thorough reply:

From: Simpson, Rep. Geoff 
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 5:11 PM
To: [redacted]
Subject: RE: Say NO to same sex marriage SB5688

Barbara –

What is it in the bible that leads you to believe stopping gay marriage should top your political priority list? Was there some extra-special **emphasis**, italics, bold or bold italics in your bible that called your attention to one aspect of god’s law to be the thing you should contact your elected representative about? Or did God himself point you to gay marriage as the issue that should be your tip-top, number one political concern?

Jesus opposed the death penalty, saying “He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her” – yet George W. Bush set an execution record when he was governor of Texas, and boasted of it. I don’t recall ever getting a message from you opposing the death penalty as Christ did.

Why is your “Christian” political activism concentrated against gay marriage instead of against the death penalty?

In the interest enforcing the laws of the bible with regard to marriage, let’s not forget that; 

• It’s ok for marriage to consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3: 2-5)
• Marriage does not impede a man’s right to take concubines in addition to his wife or wives.(11Sam 5:13; 1Kings 11:3; 11Chron 11:21)
• A marriage is considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut. 22: 13-21)
• Marriage between a believer and a non-believer is forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25: 1-9; Ezra 9:12, Neh 10:30)
• Since marriage is for life, nothing in the scriptures permits divorce.( Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)
• If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother’s widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe and by otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10) 

Finally, I need some advice from you regarding some of the specific laws contained in the bible and how to best follow them.

When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. How should I deal with this?

I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as it suggests in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?

I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.

Lev. 25:44 states that I may buy slaves from the nations that are around us. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans but not Canadians. Can you clarify?

I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 11:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this?

Lev. 21:17-21 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?

I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Geoff

Huh.  I wonder if Barbara will respond, and if so, how?  (In case you’re interested, I’ve included the content of her email below the fold.)

Personally, I think Geoff replied with all the respect the initial email deserved, and I’m particularly impressed considering he doesn’t even represent a safe Democratic district.  Bravo.

[Read more…]

The podcast opens with Joel Connelly discussing his new job at the region’s newest media venture called Seattlepi.com.

Seattle has an upcoming mayoral race, and the big news is that Mayor Greg Nickels will actually have some opponents. Michael McGinn announced his candidacy earlier in the day, and then there’s The Stranger’s Dan Savage with his own announcement, and, maybe, Former City Councilman Peter Steinbrueck will do so. Nickels’ insta-spokesperson, Sandeep Kaushik, helps the panel sort through the candidates’ strengths and weaknesses.

In what may be the wonkiest half-hour in all of podcasting history, the panel kicks around the problems with and solutions to the $9 billion revenue shortfall in the State budget. Will Goldy save Washington State? Listen and find out.

Goldy was joined by Aisling Kerins of fuse, PubliCola contributor and political spokes-mercenary Sandeep Kaushik, The Other Side’s John Wyble, and Seattlepi.com’s Joel Connelly.

The show is 54:56, and is available here as an MP3:

[audio:http://www.podcastingliberally.com/podcasts/podcasting_liberally_mar_24_2009.mp3]

[Recorded live at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. Special thanks to Confab creators Gavin and Richard for hosting podcastingliberally.com.]

Oy.

It sounds like a proposed union organizing bill was in trouble even before a controversial e-mail killed its chances at the Legislature.

Gov. Chris Gregoire said Monday that she would have vetoed the so-called “Worker Privacy Act” anyway, because of its effect on Boeing.

So why did she, House Majority Leader Frank Chopp and Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown refer the email to the state patrol if she was going to veto it? Good lord.

Gregoire had an entirely different take on things when she spoke to the state labor convention in the midst of her re-election campaign:

Gov. Chris Gregoire, speaking at the WSLC 2008 political endorsement convention in May at the Machinists 751 Hall, says: ““Like you, I believe that employees ought to be able to know they can go to work every single day, they’re not going to be intimidated, they’re not going to be coerced, they’re not going to be shoved around about whether their political rights are intruded, whether their religious rights are intruded, or their right to organize is curtailed. We’re going to make that happen in Washington State. We’re going to lead the nation in that regard.”

Yeah, okay, I get it. Politicians have to be er, flexible. But come on. Regular people call that “lying.” Sure, the economy tanked big time last fall, so if Gregoire thinks a change in circumstances justifies killing the bill, she should just say so.

To make things even more fun, the governor had the following comment at a press conference this morning. From a partial transcription by Kathy Cummings, communications director for the Washington State Labor Council:

One thing is clear, this is not Chicago this is Washington state. I don’t impugn the integrity of the authors of it at all. I simply say that it was an unfortunate email, I don’t regret my actions, Washington state is transparent and clean.

Sigh.

We seem to have a generation of Democratic politicians who have so internalized right wing frames that sometimes they can’t help themselves. I mean, I guess we all do it at times, and maybe the governor was trying to quash the entirely predictable “unions are all criminal” crap the right inevitably resorts to.

Like all human-created institutions, unions had and likely still have their share of problems, but they not only have a legal and moral right to exist, they are also a key part of our coalition, and why any Democrat would bring up “Chicago” like that is beyond me. That is definitely doing the GOP’s work for them.

People didn’t vote for more Third Way neo-liberal triangulation anyhow, they voted to change the goddamn crooked system that favors big business, the wealthy and powerful, over ordinary citizens. The abuse of concentrated economic power is the very reason why we are in a Great Recession right now.

And by clumsily calling off a vote on the Worker Privacy Act, the leaders of the Democratic Party in this state exposed themselves to quite justifiable accusations that they are kow-towing to a large corporation in a way that would make some Republicans blush. It would have been better if they had just killed the bill without the state patrol drama; at least we would know for sure where they stand.

This sorry episode is potentially quite damaging to the Democratic Party in Washington state. Right after the election you heard a lot of concern trolling from traditional media types and Republicans about how “overreaching” cost the Democrats big time in 1994. But what I distinctly remember from that terrible year was a lot of outrage from staunch Democrats, especially labor folks, about NAFTA and other trade deals killing jobs here.

As we’ve seen, the destruction over the last 14 years has been massive. That’s not an argument for protectionism, it’s an argument for making sure trade deals have certain base-line standards on the environment and labor, a demand that was virtually ignored by far too many Democrats for far too many years.

As one long-time organizer I knew put it at the time, the rank and file was just going to sit on their hands. And that’s exactly what they did, as David Sirota pointed out in a column at HuffPo in 2007.

Another troubling aspect is that a vote on the labor bill this year was stopped because it was probably going to pass. I’ll say that again. It was killed because politicians knew they should vote for it, because it’s the right thing to do for workers.

Think about that sad fact for a moment. Your votes, your volunteer time and your small donations don’t mean jack if a corporate lobbyists makes the call, because the bill won’t even see the light of day. Hell of a way to run a democracy.

Charlie Bermant writes in the Port Orchard Independent about the Bruce Olson trial and the attention it’s finally drawing to what’s been happening in Kitsap County. Olson is an authorized medical marijuana patient who was raided by the WestNET drug task force in 2007. Prosecutors claim that Olson and his wife were selling marijuana as well as using it medicinally, but the prosecution’s only witness is a longtime drug addict who they flew up from Oklahoma for the trial who claims he bought marijuana from the Olsons. The Olsons, and others who know them, maintain that they were not growing plants to sell on the black market.

I’ve written about this case a couple of times already, but Bermant’s article illustrates why this case has elicited so much anger from the medical marijuana community:

Both Olson and his wife are medical marijuana patients, but have faced the same distribution charge. The law about acceptable quantities of medical marijuana has been more strictly defined since Pamela Olson’s trial.

Pamela Olson is now serving probation, having pleaded out to avoid jail time. As part of her sentence, she is not using the medical marijuana that she claims is necessary to ease her pain.

The case has become a flashpoint for medical marijuana advocates, or what Kitsap County Prosecutor Russ Hauge characterizes as “a well-organized lobby whose purpose is to see the laws changed.”

Hauge is a major focus of the anger in this case. A lot of us who are trying to call more media attention to the Olson trial certainly want more changes to our current drug laws. No argument there. But the problem with what Russ Hauge is doing is that he’s openly trying to undermine the current medical marijuana law in the state of Washington.

The original medical marijuana law that was passed by voters in 1998 contained only an affirmative defense for authorized patients. What that meant was that law enforcement officials were still able to arrest patients, who were then faced with the burden of proving their innocence in court. More progressive prosecutors like King County’s Dan Satterberg recognized that hauling patients into court like that was a waste of both time and taxpayer money as well as being immoral and didn’t do it. But not Russ Hauge.

Even worse, the usual tactic from Hauge’s office has been to arrest patients, then threaten them with long prison terms into taking plea deals. This is what happened to Pamela Olson. And because of Department of Correction rules that don’t recognize medical marijuana, she’s not allowed to take medicine that her doctor has authorized for her while she’s home on probation. A second patient from Kitsap County named Jason Norbut has also found himself in this same situation. According to Norbut, the judge even promised him when he was offered the plea deal that he’d still be able to use his medicine while on probation, but was later told after he was sentenced that it was not allowed by the DOC.

Access to medical marijuana is rarely, if ever, a matter of life and death to patients. For most, it’s a quality of life issue (pain management, stimulating hunger during chemotherapy, etc), but that still doesn’t give any law enforcement official the right to overrule the judgment of doctors. Despite what Russ Hauge may believe he’s doing, what he’s really doing is undermining an existing voter-approved law and violating the human rights of the citizens of Kitsap County.

As medical marijuana supporters have been congregating in Port Orchard to oversee this trial, they’re slowly finding more and more victims of Russ Hauge’s crusade, including a quadriplegic by the name of Glenn Musgrove, who was recently wheeled into court on a gurney. Musgrove has a hearing scheduled for next Friday, March 27th. If anyone is curious about why Kitsap County is spending taxpayer money to prosecute a quadriplegic, the case number is 08-1-00937-6.