Search Results for: 10,000

– I can’t fathom how a middle class white guy thinks it’s OK to write this piece.

– While we cannot officially speak for every worker who shares our occupation, we can use this opportunity to reveal what it’s like to walk a day in our shoes for the 110,000 of us in America whose job it is to be a port truck driver. It may be tempting for media to ask questions about whether we support a shutdown, but there are no easy answers. Instead, we ask you, are you willing to listen and learn why a one-word response is impossible? (h/t)

– Film The Police

– I’m no fan of Michell Bachmann, but the Washington Post is a disgrace.

– That Made in America label

– Newt Gingrich is no Reagan, and he’s also no Howard Dean.

– That’s probably the best Rick Perry 3 things joke.

– Newt is a scary, scary guy.

The Republican presidential candidates had another debate. For some reason (exhaustion perhaps, maybe common sense kicked in?) Darryl decided not to live blog that one. I listened to a bit and, you’ll never believe this but, Newt Gingrich is still really annoying. The bit that people who watched the whole thing thought was most newsworthy was how Mittens thought to casually bet $10,000.

Now, despite what that link says, the odd thing about the number is that it’s neither a reasonable amount like $1, $5, or $10 that people actually make on these sort of things, but nor is it so exorbitant that it necessarily calls out as a joke bet. If I said to you, “I’ll bet you a billion dollars” then you know no matter who wins the bet that we’re not actually paying up because neither of us has a billion dollars. But $10,000 is both way too much, and just enough that you aren’t quite sure what would happen if you lost.

And any way why make a personal bet? Why not say for charity? Presumably the whole bet thing was because someone in his campaign suggested it knowing this had come up before, and hoping to defuse it in the future. He could easily say something like, “I’ll bet $500 that that isn’t true. If I win, give it to children’s hospital in Boston, if you win, I’ll give it to any charity of your choosing in Texas.” Then the worst thing that happens is he has to give $500 to a charity in Texas, and that doesn’t seem awful.

Once again, Republicans demonstrate that they are The Party of Fiscal Responsibility (via Publicola):

The State elections commission has fined the Washington State Republican Party $6,700 for campaign violations during the 2010 state senate elections.

…Republicans were late to report a $60,000 contribution to state senate candidate Sen. Steve Litzow (R-41, Mercer Island) […] and late to report a nearly $10,000 contribution to state senate Republican candidate Marty McClendon.

The GOP also was late to report a batch of contributions it received from its campaign committees totaling $378,000 as well as contributions from companies including Microsoft and Premera Blue Cross totaling over $100,000.

Frankly, I’m happy Republicans have a reputation for something positive. I mean, if they lost that cred, today’s Republicans would just look like a pitchfork- and torch-wielding angry mob on some kind of teabag-infused witch hunt for Jebus.

During his campaign announcement speech, gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna (R) was all about education. The only problem is…he has no way to fund the pricey stuff he proposed:

“Rob McKenna’s $5.76 billion education plan flunks basic math,” said Aaron Ostrom, Executive Director of Fuse Washington, the state’s largest progressive organization. “He’s trying to fool voters with a smoke and mirrors plan that even he himself has labeled ‘hard to fathom.'”

McKenna made two specific and ambitious spending proposals:

• Doubling higher education spending from 8 percent ($2.56 billion) to 16 percent ($5.12 billion) of the state’s $32 billion budget, an increase of $2.56 billion.
• Growing public education’s share of the budget from 41 percent ($13.12 billion) to 51 percent ($16.32 billion), an additional increase of $3.2 billion.

In total, Rob McKenna proposed $5.76 billion in new spending in just one hour – $600 million more than the budget deficit the Legislature spent nearly five months working to close.

To pay for it, McKenna has two modest proposals…. Regardless of the merits or feasibility of either proposal, combined they would pay for just 13 percent of McKenna’s new spending.

McKenna is also relying on revenue assumptions that don’t pass muster, even with himself. When pushed by several reporters after his speech, McKenna admitted he was also relying on the estimated 13 percent growth in government revenue (approximately $4 billion) for the next biennium.

Big talk…zero chance of realizing it—the math just doesn’t pan out. Man…that McKenna sure has difficulties when it comes to mathematics!

But who do educators actually support? Well, it is a little early to say for sure, but Publicola’s Josh Feit made an interesting observation:

Inslee raised nearly $10,000 from teachers and educators—not the union, just individual teachers, about 30 of them. McKenna has raised just $850 from teachers, a low number for a candidate who’s stumping on education issues.

Two hypotheses:

1. Educators find Jay Inslee to be the more appealing candidate, and we might expect a roughly similar 10:1 ratio of donations from educators to Inslee:McKenna in the future.
2. It’s a one-time anomaly. Inslee’s just received a transient surge of donations from appalled math teachers.

Which one is right? Beats the hell out of me. I report, you decide.

The 4:00 pm closing deadline is here, and the bottom two floors of the capitol building in Madison is still filled with protesters. Will the police take action to clear the building? If so, some resistance is expected. Watch it live…

Update: The world is watching! At 4:30 pm CDT (2:30 pm here on the left coast), there are over 10,000 people watching this live stream.

Update: The feed went dead around 4:32 CDT/2:32 PDT. Huh…imagine that.

Update: Mother Jones reports via Twitter that the internet has been cut off. Nobody is sure why.

Update (2:50 PDT): For now, you can follow the live stream at FOX News. Hold you nose, if you must, but it is just a feed…no commentary from the FAUX News entertainment gallery.

Update (3:15 pm): FOX News pulls the plug on their live stream.

Update (3:55 pm): Eric Kleefeld files this report from inside the capitol building.

Update (4:10 pm): Back to live (not–see below)…found a new video feed. (This one contains commentary.)

Update (4:18 pm): Fugitive Senators in Illinois have no plans to return to Wisconsin.

Update (4:30 pm): Okay…so the embedded “live stream” is not live. Here is a stream from someone’s iPhone that is, supposedly, live.

Update (4:59 pm): There are unconfirmed reports flying around the Tweetosphere that “Republican Sen. Dale Schultz will vote no on Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill”. This was just mentioned on the iPhone live feed too. “This is the crack in the armor!”

Update (5:00 pm): Apparently…capitol police are allowing protesters to spend the night. This is an impressive symbolic victory for the protesters.

Update (5:15 pm): Yep…the announcement has come that the protesters can stay for the night. And pizza will be delivered.

Update (5:32 pm): Ok…the current iPhone live feed from brandzel here.

Update (5:38 pm): Just heard on NPR bottom-o-the-hour newscast that Walker was “clearing the Wisconsin capitol building.” Someone needs to have a little talk with NPR’s news department about Twitter….

Update (6:01 pm): Rachael Maddow looks into Scott Walker’s disastrous attempt at busting unions while Milwaukee County Executive:

Finale (7:47 pm): Well…that was exciting.

Here is, I think, the take-home from this little episode of Walker’s War on Workers. First, tonight could have been just another evening of protesters in the Wisconsin capitol…a protest sleep-over like those of the preceding fortnight. But with the announcement that the protesters would be evicted from the capitol building on Sunday at 4:00 pm, the State Department of Administration created a huge confrontation. And both the old media and new media took a keen interest in the outcome. I didn’t really plan to live-blog this event. But with the live video feeds and instant reporting available through Twitter, the confrontation came alive–an epic battle was about to unfold between Walker and the protesters.

And the protesters won–big time. Tonight was a PR disaster for Walker.

The protesters won because the Administration had no choice but to back down. With a heavy media (old and new) presence, images of handcuffed teachers, students, firefighters, construction workers, etc. being dragged from the building would have been a disaster an order of magnitude larger that what we saw.

The protesters won because Walker’s cocksure posture has now been shown to be a façade, and one that is cracked. Walker is vulnerable.

The protesters won because the media saw police and firefighters, uniformed and off duty, stand with and even join in with the protesters. It does raise the question of whether the State Department of Administration made the decision to back down or whether the capitol police simply refused to clear the protesters out of the capitol.

The protesters won because, apparently, Republican Sen. Dale Schultz has decided to vote “no” on the bill. Yeah…it could be a trick. And, yeah, the Democrats need at least two more Republicans to kill the bill. But a Republican Senator rejecting the bill is huge (if actually true—I remain cautious). A week ago, I did not expect anything but the usual monolithic Republican support for the bill. If one Senator can bail, so can others. And now that the people of Wisconsin see that they can have a voice in the process, many more citizens will feel it worthwhile to write or call their elected leaders.

The protesters won through their longevity. A week ago, I could not imagine that the protests would be sustained through the week. Hell…a week ago I though it was unlikely that the bill would be killed. Now I’m not so sure. Tonight may be a defining moment—a turnaround—in Gov. Walker’s War on Workers.

Stay tuned!

While the rest of the media focuses on the allegedly close race between incumbent Supreme Court Justice Richard Sanders and sane challenger Charlie Wiggins (as predicted, Wiggins took his first lead today, on his way to a 10,000-plus vote victory), there really is only one true tossup race listed on the Secretary of State’s website: the 61-vote spread between Democratic incumbent State Rep. Dawn Morrell, and girl-scout-hating challenger Hans Zeiger in LD-25. And while returns have trended Democratic throughout much of the state this past week, Zeiger has closed the gap for the second day in a row.

There’s maybe about 550 ballots left to count in LD-25, and Zeiger would have to win 55.5% of that to pull into the lead, which shouldn’t be likely. But it’s such a small sample of votes left that anything can happen. Either way, this one is almost certainly heading into hand recount territory.

Fortunately, Democrats tend to pick up votes in hand recounts due to the demographic extremes we represent: the poorest, the oldest, the newest, the least educated and the best educated voters… four out of five of which tend to have more problems filling out ballots than your average voter. But, I’d rather not have to put that thesis to the test.

As we approach the vote on California’s Proposition 19, I’ve been seeing variations of this assertion in a number of places. Here’s David Sirota:

Here’s a fact that even drug policy reform advocates can acknowledge: California’s 2010 ballot initiative to legalize marijuana does, indeed, pose a real threat, as conservative culture warriors insist. But not to public health, as those conservatives claim.

According to most physicians, pot is less toxic — and has more medicinal applications — than a legal and more pervasive drug like alcohol. Whereas alcohol causes hundreds of annual overdose deaths, contributes to untold numbers of illnesses and is a major factor in violent crime, marijuana has never resulted in a fatal overdose and has not been systemically linked to major illness or violent crime.

So this ballot measure is no public health threat. If anything, it would give the millions of citizens who want to use inebriating substances a safer alternative to alcohol. Which, of course, gets to what this ballot initiative really endangers: alcohol industry profits.

Beer distributors believe this to be the case as well. The California Beer and Beverage Distributors, has given $10,000 to defeat the measure. But is it true? Gus Lubin at the Business Insider writes:

Would marijuana legalization really cut into alcohol consumption?

Probably so. The interest group also includes Heineken, which knows from Amsterdam how legalization affects the market.

But the numbers don’t back this up. The WHO statistics on alcohol consumption across European countries don’t show any difference between the Netherlands and other European countries when it comes to alcohol consumption. Nor does it show any marked decrease in alcohol consumption since the Dutch started tolerating marijuana sales in the 1970s. In fact, while alcohol consumption across the entire EU dropped from 1980 to 2003 by 27%, it only dropped by 18% for the same time period in the Netherlands.

Marijuana and alcohol are often compared to each other in order to drive home the parallels between our historical attempts to prohibit each drug. And those comparisons are valid and illuminating. But the drugs themselves aren’t so similar in their effects on users. Marijuana is far more psychoactive than alcohol, but also more safe to consume. Alcohol tends to make people more aggressive and more social, while marijuana tends to make people more passive and less social. As a result, each drug caters to different personalities and different situations. And since marijuana is already widely available to whoever wants it, that segregation of use occurs already. As with the Netherlands, I’d expect that the eventual end of marijuana prohibition won’t have any noticeable effect on the current rates of alcohol consumption.

What it would have an effect on, however, is our prison overcrowding problems.

When I wrote a post back in March, laying out Dino Rossi’s shady business dealings with accused swindler Michael Mastro, Rossi’s defenders depicted the maybe-senatorial candidate as one of Mastro’s victims. When a real estate investment firm Rossi co-owns was found to owe over $20,000 in unpaid property taxes, Rossi’s business partners downplayed his culpability, saying “It definitely is nothing Dino is involved in.”

And Monday, when Politico reported that a failing bank Rossi co-founded and co-owns runs the risk of being shut down by the feds at taxpayer expense, a Washington State Republican Party spokesperson laughed off Rossi’s involvement, repeating the Rossi-as-victim meme by saying of his investment, “It’s not worth as much as it used to be.”

All of which raises a question: If Rossi — who frequently touts his business acumen and experience as one of his prime qualifications for higher office — is so hands off his investments, so easily swindled by his associates and so frequently on the wrong end of a deal gone bad, can we taxpayers really afford to have Rossi run government like he runs his business?

Or, is Rossi really much more involved with his business dealings than he lets on?

He’s allegedly a millionaire after all, so it’s hard to believe that Rossi is as clueless and detached as his surrogates consistently make him out be. Take, for example, the foundering Eastside Commercial Bank at the center of the latest expose. Rossi was one of 35 founding stakeholders who put in a minimum of $10,000 each to start up the venture, and it was Rossi who recruited Dick Ducharme, “a friend, lobbyist and business partner” to both invest in the bank and serve as its CEO.

So, when the federal Comptroller of the Currency declares that Eastside has “engaged in unsafe and unsound banking practices relating to its strategic and capital planning, credit underwriting, credit administration, concentration risk management, and liquidity management,” doesn’t that even somewhat reflect on Rossi’s judgement, if not his business ethics and management skills?

Rossi’s defenders insist “no,” dismissing this latest revelation as just another skid-mark in a Democratic smear campaign, but one can’t help but wonder if Rossi’s refusal to take any personal responsibility for the negative consequences of his own business ventures might have contributed to their failure? No doubt Rossi helped start the Eastside Commercial Bank with the intent of getting in on the huge profits that were being made during the recent real estate bubble, but now that it is collapsing under the weight of the same kind of “unsafe and unsound banking practices” that were widespread in the industry at the time, Rossi expects to be held blameless for his own co-creation.

This is exactly the sort of moral hazard that led to the Wall Street disaster and subsequent bailout, for when there are no consequences for one’s actions, or when the consequences are always the responsibility, perceived or otherwise, of some third party, then there is little disincentive to reckless behavior or benign neglect. And while the term has most recently been applied to the machinations of Wall Street, it is just as applicable to the way Rossi routinely leverages his political capital for both political and personal gain, apparently without fear of ever being held publicly responsible for his actions.

Rossi could have accepted at least a little responsibility for the unsound practices of the bank he co-founded, just like he could have accepted responsibility for not seeing through the fraudulent practices of his mentor Mel Heide or his investment partner Michael Mastro. He could have accepted responsibility for being a partner in a business that failed to pay its taxes, or for his gubernatorial campaign’s misuse of the Everett AquaSox mailing list, a team he part-owned. But in all these situations he allowed the blame to fall on others, painting himself the innocent victim of a Democratic smear campaign.

The thing is, it’s not a smear when it’s the truth. Rossi’s mentor was convicted of fraud, and Mastro is accused likewise. Rossi did misuse the AquaSox mailing list, his business did fail to pay its taxes, and his bank is on the verge of collapse. I suppose you could argue that it is unfair of me to imply guilt by association, but it is not unreasonable to attempt to infer a pattern by connecting the dots.

More troubling though for Rossi and his boosters at the NRSC is that the dots keep coming, and it is important to note that despite the vetting he received during his two gubernatorial runs, these latest revelations involve post-2008 timelines. This is the way Rossi conducts his business, and if he truly is as hands-off a manager as his defenders insist, or as morally hazardous as critics like me suspect, then dollars to donuts there are plenty more dots to come.

The invisible libertardian hand has its finger up your ass again. And you thought you could send your kids to college on that money. Sucker.

It’ll be that bankster’s kid going to the Ivy League school, not your kid, who will be lucky to pay $10,000 per to attend a de-funded land grant school.

So who’s waging class warfare in this country anyhow? And why are we supporting a party that is in on it?

Speaking backstage at the 10,000-strong pro-immigration reform rally in Seattle today, Rep. Jim McDermott puts aside the moral argument for reform, and presents it as a straight-up pocketbook issue:

“People have to understand there is a direct connection between cheap food in this country, and the fact that we have this workers who are coming from other countries.”

Americans spend a smaller percentage of their income on food now than they have at any time in our history, steadily falling from 24.2% of income in 1930 to  9.6% in 2008, and part of what makes our food so cheap is all that cheap immigrant labor. So while I suppose we could, with great effort and expense, seal off our borders and deport millions of immigrant laborers, we all better be ready to give up those 99-cent value menus in return.

On the same day that real estate salesman Dino Rossi teases the NRSC with word that he’s seriously considering a run for the U.S. Senate, the 18,000-strong Washington Association of Realtors announce their enthusiastic endorsement of Democratic incumbent Sen. Patty Murray:

“Realtors are proud to endorse Sen. Murray as she has been a tireless advocate for housing affordability and the American dream of home ownership,” said Bill Riley, Washington Realtor president. “She has also been keenly aware of the state of the housing market and its importance to our economic recovery.”

With the Realtors’ endorsement comes the financial support of the RPAC, the state’s largest political action committee, with as many as 10,000 annual contributors. RPAC endorses Democrats and Republicans who share the organization’s concerns for the housing industry, home buyers, and homeownership in Washington state. In 2008, Realtors invested more than $750,000 to support political races around the state; about 93 percent of Realtor-endorsed candidates were elected to office.

Oh man, that’s gotta sting, doesn’t it, when the folks who know you best endorse your opponent? Kinda like David Irons losing the endorsement of his own mother.

Tomorrow at noon, pro-health care reform protestors will gather at the Tivoli Fountain on the Capitol campus in Olympia, and then march to the Attorney General’s office at 1125 Washington Street SE to deliver over 10,000 petitions demanding that AG Rob McKenna drop his lawsuit to block implementation of the Affordable Health Insurance Act.

No doubt the protestors will be polite, disciplined and well mannered. But I sure as hell hope not.

One of the reasons the Teabaggers have received attention far in excess of their actual numbers, is the presumably genuine anger they’re not afraid to express. They openly carry guns, or carry signs promising to use them. They mob congressmen, calling them “niggers” and “faggots”, fax nooses to their offices, and cut the gas lines of congressional relatives. They yell and they scream and they threaten and they disrupt… and they’ve been well rewarded for their efforts.

See, angry outbursts make for a good story, and thus emotion trumps policy almost every time. And that’s why it’s past time for some of us progressives to break with character and show a little genuine anger of our own.

Tomorrow at the AG’s office, let the polite petitioners do their thing, but if you’re pissed off at Rob McKenna for pandering to Teabaggers and threatening health care reform with his cheap political ploy, I encourage you to show up at his office and make a ruckus. Get loud, get angry, get threatening. I don’t particularly want to see any actual violence or property damage, but I’d love to see the genuine fear of it. Let McKenna and the media know that we may be peaceniks, but that doesn’t mean we’re not mad. Let them know that if they don’t start taking our side seriously… well… it’s not our fault if some people get out of hand.

Oh… and if any Teabaggers show up trying to grab the spotlight for themselves, don’t be afraid to get right in their face. Bullies are cowards by nature, and you’ll be surprised how quickly most of them sit down once we start standing up.

Another day, another intentionally misleading, anti-labor editorial from the Seattle Times:

LAST year organized labor pushed a bill to restrict a company’s ability to talk to its employees. It was marketed as the Worker Privacy Act, and its aim was to shut up managers during the organizing of a union, so that only the union organizer would be heard.

That, of course, is a load of crap. The Worker Privacy Act would have done nothing to restrict a company’s ability to talk to its employees, it didn’t “shut up managers,” and would not have assured that only union organizers would be heard. Employers would have been just as free to oppose unionization as they are now, even to hold meetings expressly for that purpose. The only difference under WPA would be that employees would be equally free, if they so chose, not to participate in such non-work related meetings (regarding unions, religion, politics, etc.) without fear of retaliation.

As it stands now, your employer  can call a meeting for the sole purpose of proselytizing and converting non-Christian workers, and then fire your ass if you walk out or choose not to attend. They can force you to attend a companywide Tea Party. Or they can crowd you into a room without a union representative, and cajole/harangue/threaten as much as they want in their effort prevent unionization. That’s the inequity the WPA sought to address.

No law like it existed in any other state.

You know, except for neighboring Oregon, and I’m guessing a few other states. But regardless, that’s an incredibly stupid argument prima facie. No other nation guaranteed freedom of religion, freedom of the press and freedom of speech at the time our First Amendment was adopted, so would that have been a reasonable argument to reject it? According to the Times, yes.

Business hated it, and Democratic leaders, elected with union support, found an excuse to kill it.

In a hyperbolic charade intended to provide political cover for scuttling the bill, Democratic leaders literally called the cops on labor over an internal email that state troopers and other watchdogs ultimately laughed off. And the Times presents this as a good thing?

The spirit of this bill resurfaced deep in the 292-page budget measure, ESSB 6444, moving through the Legislature. Certain employers receiving state funds would be forbidden “to use these funds to assist, promote, or deter union organization.” The “or deter” is what this is about.

This restriction is not for all employers. It is only on those providing long-term care or services to people with disabilities. But the principle is the same: The state would use its spending power to favor unions.

You gotta be kidding. The 30-word provision in question has absolutely nothing to do with the WPA. The WPA would have protected workers from retaliation when choosing not to participate in workplace communications related to issues of conscience. On the other hand, here is the specific language to which the Times objects:

“No employer, provider, or entity receiving state funds to provide long-term care services or services to the developmentally disabled may use these funds to assist, promote, or deter union organization.”

Would the Times object to the provision had the word “deter” been deleted? No, of course not. Indeed, the Times wouldn’t even have been aware of the provision had it not been brought to their attention by the Association of Washington Businesses. (You don’t think the Times’ editors are actually in the habit of reading 292-page bills, do you?)

In fact, the provision is actually quite evenhanded, as it prohibits an “employer, provider, or entity” from using state funds to “assist” or “promote” union organization, as well as to “deter” it — specifically and only within the context of providing long-term care to the developmentally disabled. And yes, there are union “entities” that receive state funds for the purpose of providing training to long-term care workers, that would fall under this provision, so it does impact employers and unions alike.

Oh, and it’s not like this provision was added without provocation. Long-term care employers have used state funds to hold mandatory “training” meetings for the purpose of deterring union activities… and they’ve been caught on video. The Times is all gung ho about reducing the footprint of state government while protecting seniors from shoddy long-term care, yet apparently the editors believe mandatory anti-union meetings to be an appropriate use of taxpayer funded training dollars. Go figure.

Here, not coincidentally, the benefit would go the state’s most politically aggressive union, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

And here, not coincidentally, is the crux of this issue. The Times just hates SEIU, and thus anything SEIU supports, the Times opposes. SEIU = evil incarnate.

Compared to the whole economy, long-term-care homes are not large. But if this provision goes through once, it will be used again. “We view this provision as a crossing of the Rubicon,” said Kris Tefft, counsel to the Association of Washington Business.

AWB = second coming of Christ on Earth.

Oh… and I’m sure SEIU and the provision’s sponsor were asked to provide a comment too, but just never got around to it.

Let us be clear: Under federal labor law, unions can speak to workers. So can employers. A state cannot abridge the rights of either side. The U.S. Supreme Court said so recently in Chamber of Commerce v. Brown (2007). There the Court threw out a California law that forbade any employer receiving $10,000 in state money from using it “to assist, promote or deter union organizing.”

Let us be clear: the Seattle Times editorial board has the legal acumen of a walnut, and is no more in the habit of reading (let alone understanding) obscure court opinions than it is of spelunking through the details of 292-page legislative bills. Like the provision in question, the Times was only made aware of this court case through the tireless PR efforts of the water-walking, loaves-and-fishes-multiplying AWB, and you can be pretty damn sure that the Times’ interpretation of Chamber of Commerce v. Brown came straight from the mouth of AWB. So forgive me if I don’t take it at face value.

In fact, Chamber of Commerce v. Brown appears to very narrowly focus on whether or not the National Labor Relations Act preempts state restrictions that attempt to regulate employer speech about union organizing under circumstances where Congress intended free debate. A quick reading of both the decision and the dissent makes it clear that the entire case rests on interpreting Congressional intent.

But while the California statute rejected under Chamber of Commerce v. Brown was broad, the particular provision to which the Times objects (at the apparent behest of AWB), merely seeks to reiterate a policy that is already in federal Medicare and Medicaid law, and thus unambiguously sanctioned by Congress. The Medicare provider manual states that “Costs incurred for activities directly related to influencing employees respecting unionization or related to attempts to coerce employees or otherwise interfere with or restrain the exercise of employee rights under the NLRA are not allowable costs for program purposes,” and a few minutes of Googling reveals that this language is duplicated in state Medicaid regulations throughout the nation. (Minnesota, North Dakota and Alabama, for example.)

The ruling was 7-2, with the Court’s senior liberal, Justice John Paul Stevens, laying down the law.

Well, as long as the Times is lauding a liberal justice — you know, when it believes it suits its purpose — let’s take a look at what Justice Stevens actually wrote:

[T]he mere fact that Congress has imposed targeted federal restrictions on union-related advocacy in certain limited contexts does not invite the States to override federal labor policy in other settings.

That is the heart of the majority opinion, and since ESSB 6444 imposes targeted advocacy restrictions within the exact same limited context and setting as that already provided under federal law, it is clearly permissible, and the Times application of Chamber of Commerce v. Brown to ESSB 6444 is clearly wrong. Ignorant, misinformed, boneheaded wrong.

The same language Justice Stevens struck down has been in and out of the budget bill in Olympia. It is a bad provision and has to stay out.

Like I said… the legal acumen of a walnut.

But then, that’s the kind of foolishness that comes from letting your hatred of organized labor get in the way of the facts.

When Henry Wooten was arrested in Tyler Texas for smoking a joint, police found a couple baggies with 4.6 ounces of marijuana on him. And because he was caught within 1000 feet of a day care center, that landed Wooten a 35-year prison sentence.

A post at Dallas/Ft. Worth NORML explains:

This is, more or less, a warning for those who would openly defy Marijuana Laws in Texas. The Texas Justice system is a series of policies designed to incarcerate people, not rehabilitate or help them in anyway. Henry’s case is unique because his possession limit was on the cusp of being a misdemeanor. In Texas, it is a misdemeanor to possess four ounces or less. One to two ounces is a class B, and three to four is a class A misdemeanor. Henry was found guilty of possessing four ounces to one pound, a felony which could be 2 years in jail and a $10,000 fine. However, since Henry was in a “drug free zone”, Smith County Assistant District Attorney Richard Vance had asked for the jury to give Wooten a sentence of 99 years. Do you think he got off easy?

Or perhaps we should phrase that question from a different perspective: do you think Texas taxpayers got off easy? Will society benefit from the hundreds of thousands of dollars that will be spent to imprison Wooten for the next three and a half decades, for the simple charge of possessing a substance we could all easily grow in our backyards?

Yeah, this is one of those extreme, hyperbolic examples, but our prisons are filled with these extreme, hyperbolic examples, in Washington state and throughout the nation. Why? Because our drug laws simply don’t make any sense. And that’s why we need a more Sensible Washington.